I live in a hyper-complex society. I already notice this in political and social issues that no one can really grasp in their complexity anymore. We can cling to principles such as justice, equality, freedom, consideration, sustainability, etc.. But when it comes to the specifics, it becomes difficult. Should I take one side or the other in a conflict, or is there a third option? Which of my own actions should I change, and how radically should I do so, what are the consequences? Or how should I organize my life? What responsibilities do I have, what obligations and expectations, what goals? All of this is interwoven with social and economic conditions that are shaped by political conditions. How are we supposed to make real decisions?

It seems to me that we are often somehow caught in a complex web. If we want to change something, it pulls here and there, and it usually settles down somehow so that we don't want to or can't change too much. Discussing with friends helps, even with specialists, depending on what the issue is.

Listen

I listen a lot, and usually people who talk don't really want an answer, they just want to sort out their thoughts out loud. And that's completely okay. If you listen carefully, the other person will find the answers themselves much more quickly. Listening to your own intuition, exploring your basic feelings, is often the most difficult part. This is where it is most difficult to make compromises. That's why people look there the least often.

I was recently with a group of very different people. In the closing plenary it was said that this group was carried by a feeling. I can't get this phrase out of my head: 'to be carried by a feeling'. This is certainly not an impulse or a spontaneous reaction, nor a deep conflict or pain or trauma, nor a feeling of desire or euphoria... It is something existential.

Heidegger's fear

I read Heidegger during my studies and was seduced by his linguistic mysticism. It was uncanny to me, but also irresistible. He answered the question of what metaphysics is with a feeling, naturally highly reflective. After long explanations, at some point he asks: Where do we experience nothingness? According to Heidegger, we cannot answer that positively in purely logical terms. We can only experience it in a feeling that is not reactive, but existential. Heidegger says: in fear. Why fear? Why nothingness? Why this fixation on death? It took me a long time to forget that again. Forgetting is a difficult art. But what I have kept for myself is the insight that it is okay not to answer certain questions rationally. That was a revelation for me.

Mysticism

Mystical thinking is often very strange to me: the basic assumptions (axiomatic) are often anything but transparent, the form of argumentation irrational or rhetorical, the insights intuitive, the claim to validity expansive. There are, of course, countless types of mystical thinking. At its core, however, it is about transcending the boundaries of knowledge - and they do exist. Theology and mysticism begin where knowledge ends. We are carried by feelings. That is why these systems of thought talk so much about love and death, about borderline experiences. This has become a taboo in the capitalistically influenced 'Western culture'. Or we have simply forgotten how to do it.

Sri Aurobindo's 'Savitri' is an opus magnum that has crossed this boundary. His philosophical work 'The Divine Life' attempts to answer existential questions rationally, in Savitri he answers mystically. Apart from Spinoza perhaps, I know of no other author who attempted to do this so radically in two ways. The writings of his companion Mirra Alfassa complement this.

In Plato's allegory of the cave, people sit in front of a wall on which the shadows of real objects in the world can be seen. As they have only seen the shadows in their entire lives, they think that these are reality. The philosopher's task is to explain to people that they should turn around to see how the apparatus of light, which serves as a projection mechanism, creates an illusion. Once people realized this, they would free themselves from the chains that kept them trapped in the cave and determined their line of sight. They would leave the cave and enter the real world. Plato thought that we are all trapped in this cave and that only very few manage to leave it.

The questions

This image is so complex that it has been thought-provoking for almost 2500 years. We cannot seriously refute this image, nor can we easily leave the metaphorical cave. We are virtually trapped in this image. I have used and analyzed this image in my seminars for many years. The analogy to the cinema is particularly striking and invites us to interpret the flame as a media projection apparatus. From here, it is easy to think about our media. What function do they have, what do they do to us? Do they liberate us, or do they keep us stuck in a consumerist mindset? What are the conditions of the apparatus that creates these illusions? What might the world outside the cave look like? If all the objects around us are only shadows of reality, in what dimension does reality lie? What is it made of? If everything we perceive is only the shadows, does this also apply to our theories, our science and art?

The answers

In what kind of 'view of being' can we grasp reality? The millennia have produced various answers: skepticism (we cannot know anything), idealism (reality is ultimately rational and only in our thoughts), phenomenology (the only thing we can really describe is our consciousness), structuralism (the relation of things to each other, i.e. the structure of the world, is the only thing we can know). Alongside this tendentially materialistic tradition of thought, we have Leibniz's monads (I am my world and other worlds are also self-contained, but they can mirror each other), Spinoza (the world is pure immanence, everything is from one reality and this is anchored in God). And of course the Christian tradition (a creator made all this, his ways are unfathomable).

What do we learn from this?

Of course I don't know either, but from the perspective of spirituality the question may be different. Perhaps we are actually trapped in Plato's image, and perhaps the image itself is not correct? Reality and illusion, true and false - perhaps these are categories of our thinking that represent a mere transitory stage. Perhaps our consciousness is not yet ready for the real question. Isn't it unlikely that the mind, let's say in the 21st century, has reached its evolutionary peak, even on a cosmic level? It seems unlikely to me. It is more likely that thinking is evolving, our consciousness is expanding, our perception and its apparative amplification are becoming more refined. Any philosopher who thinks he or she can free humanity from its chains should first and foremost free themselves from their own hubris. To me, that seems arrogant and presumptuous, know-it-all and contemptuous.

But perhaps Plato's allegory of the cave is just a tool, a key to make us think. If this is the task of the philosopher, then Plato has solved it masterfully.

The forest is a wonderful habitat. I recently heard a little story about a man who whistled a tune whenever he entered the forest. The animals recognized him after a while and accepted his presence. They no longer ran away and sometimes even greeted him. We usually don't see the forest as it is because we often disturb it. Today I was in the forest. Instead of going for a walk as usual, I meditated a little and then took a short nap on the forest floor. It's dry here, so dry that there are hardly any ants, the ground is soft, the air is clear after the brief rain yesterday. It is cool in the shade, the streaks of light pleasant. The trees do not wander, they are rooted in their being. They are not restless. They grow differently in a collective than when they stand alone. As a collective, they take each other into consideration, give each other space, which can be seen in the canopy, the branches and the spacing and in the root kingdom. There is a kind of altruism in the root kingdom. Large trees help small ones to grow, as the small ones do not yet share the light in the crowns. A tree as part of a forest is in communication. Trees seem to communicate with each other through scent messengers. I become calm in the company of trees. Life is possible without running around.

There is something incredibly calming, timeless and connected about sleeping in the forest. In the forest we find rhizomes: similar plants that connect, but also different plants that connect. Gilles Deleuze did not use the rhizome merely as a metaphor for thinking, but thought as part of a rhizome. As a philosopher of immanence, trained by Spinoza, he is an elusive, materialistic, non-reductionist creative mind that I would like to read in India. My suspicion is that his philosophy resonates with the spirituality of India, the Hindu complexity and philosophizing in the forest of the Upanishads.