Gilles Grimaître visits Auroville for a few days during his Pro Helvetia artist residency in Bengaluru, Chennai and Pondicherry to engage with Carnatic music. The program he chose for the evening from Dec. 17th, 2022, was a passionate, loving introduction to usually not so accessible Western avant-garde music. Grimaître started off with Johannes Brahms - [...]
Jumping fish
AI started meditating as a teenager or student, and I still vaguely remember my first meditations from that time. Strength and calm, concentration - mostly at night. They were very special moments. I didn't do it often. As a student, I continued to meditate very irregularly. I remember some of these predominantly 1-2 hour meditations, [...]
Labyrinth - process aesthetics
"the eye thinks even more than it listens" (Deleuze) I now remember that before I started reading Deleuze, I had been working on process aesthetics. I made a 100-page manuscript, with notes, quotations, structural sketches. I wanted to get away from the idea that art consists of objects that are perceived in a particular form, because [...]
Diagrams - philosophical
II am slowly approaching Sanskrit. On Thursdays, Nishtha holds a seminar on the Rigveda. The joint recitation in Sanskrit, the detailed analysis of the translation, Nishtha's philological reflections and the explanations on the psychology of the gods open up access to these 'sacred' texts. I remember my Latin studies, the Indo-Germanic roots, the sounds that [...]
What to do?
Dhe last time I seriously asked myself what I should do was during my studies. I studied philosophy and I was often asked what I wanted to do with it. What a stupid question, I always thought. It's an inner urge, almost a compulsion that you can't resist. Every such [...]
Elements - Fire
II remember always staring into the fire since I was a child. I think a lot of people do that. There is something fascinating about fire. In the Vedas, Agni is the god of fire, one of the five elements alongside water, air, earth and ether. The Greeks also have these elements. I didn't realize this for a very long time [...]
Holistic yoga
Sor many years I have known that I would like to practise 'yoga', but I have never done it. Similar to meditation, I didn't feel ready for it, or was put off by Western esoteric forms that ultimately see both meditation and yoga as self-optimization. Meditation and yoga are philosophical, spiritual and ultimately transcending practices, [...]
Dhrupad
Et was a magical four days. The Auroville Film Institute organized a residency with Ustad Bahauddin Dagar from 7 to 10 November 2022. It took place at Bhumika Hall, Bharat Niva's Auroville. Dhrupad - the movie (1983) Ustad Bahauddin Dagar is a Rudraveena player. His family has been playing the instrument for 20 generations! His father and [...]