Life is so complex, and there are so many different ways of living. There is no right or wrong life. Life is a gift. But what do you say about the negative energies, destruction and aggression, greed and resentment? All of that belongs to it. There is only acceptance. But acceptance does not mean approving of everything, nor tolerating everything. If a community decides to establish rules and sanction violations of these rules, that too is a form of acceptance.…
I live in a hypercomplex society. I notice this already in political and social issues, which nobody can really grasp in their complexity anymore. We can hold on to principles, such as justice, equality, freedom, consideration, sustainability, etc. But in concrete terms, things already become difficult. In a conflict, should I take one side or the other, or is there a third possibility? Which of my own ways of acting should I change, and how radically should I do so,…
I am embarking on an experiment. A city is being built in Auroville. It is dedicated to humanity. It is about exploring consciousness, about spirituality and unity. UNESCO supports the project, the state of India, many people around the world. There is a charter, a plan, many plans, many opinions, progress and difficulties. Nobody is perfect… I am going there to help, and so I do not want to comment now, before arriving there. That would be entirely presumptuous. But…
One of the most consequential misunderstandings of recent generations is the confusion of economic and political theory. There seems almost to be a consensus that capitalism is understood as a political theory. There may be many reasons why capitalism must be understood politically. There are certainly also reasons why capitalism is often thought together with democracy. For many people, they are the same thing anyway. Democracy without capitalism or capitalism without democracy seems unimaginable to many. It sounds synonymous. This…
An intense month comes to an end. Moving, physical separation, friends separating, the love of godchildren, new friendships, longings, waiting… I could write a screenplay about the past few weeks in Provence. Every day filled with pain, compassion and love—collectively in different constellations. But I do not want to tell these small stories, although Marcel Pagnol might perhaps have enjoyed them. What occupies me is the question of pain. Life is suffering, Buddhists say—to put it very briefly. Wanting and…
Many partnerships around me are undergoing a stress test at the moment. The word midlife crisis often comes up. A stupid word, I think, since it suggests that life, individual life, has a crisis. This perspective unsettles me. Why should life have a crisis? It seems rather that partnerships are being called into question. A breaking out, a drive for freedom, self-realization, wanting to make up for something. This too is a notion that unsettles. Was the past wrong? That…
It was a feat of strength. Clearing out the apartment, moving with friends, putting things into storage, reorienting myself before a new chapter begins. Leaving the familiar, breaking the status quo, doing what is important and right without making compromises. But that also means suffering and inflicting wounds, breaking things and planting something new. Strange only that some friends are going through something similar. After Covid, the world is different. We no longer want to live as we did before.…
I am undergoing a metamorphosis. Recently, at a gathering, someone said this was a wonderful group of caterpillars. I paused. He said, yes… soon these will be butterflies. A friend once said that metamorphosis was a proof of God’s existence. How else could one explain a butterfly arising from a caterpillar through purely evolutionary steps? Can such a leap in complexity be grasped in evolutionary terms at all? I am not a biologist, and it interested me only as a…
