In Zen, the task is to find the true Self. But it does not exist, and that is the mystery of our existence. In a world of representations, cognitive dissonances, and alternative facts, it feels good to sink into the essence of existence, into non-dual being. Thinking helps only in a very limited way, because thinking is, in fact, always a thinking-of-something, a thinking-about-something. Thinking is an activity that relates to something, that concerns itself with representations of the world.…
Ever since I first heard of shadow work decades ago, I have wondered what exactly it is. I always thought of deep abysses in the soul, traumas, taboos, secrets one had shared with no one because it was too shameful to speak about them. I thought shadows were what we hide from ourselves and from others. And there is probably something to that idea. But now I have noticed that the shadows first appear elsewhere. They are, in fact, more…
I woke from a nightmare at four in the morning. I was talking with Will in Apt about a strange disturbance in my perception of time. I described how time broke into fragments and some were simply missing. These were seconds or minutes, and while I tried to immerse myself in time to describe it better, everything went black. I cried for help, I was blind, and woke up. It was another of those dreams in which I seemed to…
When the rational mind roams through the worlds of knowledge, rummages through the library or searches for the causal laws of the universe, this is meticulous work building systems of knowledge. At first these systems have little in common with the world of experience, let alone the inner world. Only through contemplation does the mind pause and behold the systematized, abstract representation as an image of the world, as a worldview. It is intuition that anchors this image in a…
Yesterday, during a panel discussion at the India Art Fair, I heard someone quote Plato. She said Plato said art was the reflection of the reflection of the Real. Whether this is correct in such an abbreviated form can remain an open question for now. It is an interesting thought. What is the Real, what is a reflection, what is art? For Plato, there is the world of Ideas, the world of shadows that the ignorant person in the cave…
The series of conversations with AI is unedited; it is the machine (ChatGPT4.0) speaking… Translation by DDeepL Prompt: Please write a conversation between David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Abhinavagupta, Bharata Muni, Zeami Motokiyo, Gilles Deleuze and a Brahmin priest. Begin with the question: What is taste? ChatGPT Setting: A serene garden with a round table in the middle. The philosophers and the Brahmin priest sit there, each representing a different era and culture, yet the timeless question of aesthetics connects them.…
This text is about art theory in classical antiquity, particularly the concepts of Mimesis and Aisthesis and their significance for the representation of works of art. The relationships between subject, object, and language are also discussed.
The fundamental problem of philosophy lies in the perception of the world and the questions that arise from it. The sciences and religions offer different approaches. OM
