But already my desire and my will Were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed, By the love which moves the sun and the other stars. – Dante Nietzsche said, “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.” In his reasoning between love, life and madness he finds his resolution : to live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. Simone Weil (1909-1943), the renowned French philosopher and activist with outstanding intellectual gifts describes the essence of love in Gravity and Grace : …
Category: Philosophy
Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us and take with us when we depart. Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross (1926-2004), in her pioneering work with patients nearing the end of their lives in palliative care, interviewed them on their feelings about life and death, and how they measure the life they lived. The results of her work proclaim that the patients unanimously express their emotional state as “yearning for love,” a shield needed against the fear of death, and the measure of the degree of inner peace and contentment they savor at the end of their life …
“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.” The great Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) –timeless artist, engineer, architect, mathematician, and scientist, with profound knowledge in everything from anatomy and optics to physics to light –is commemorated at the Louvre Museum for the fifth centenary of his death. In his quest to understand the relation between the physical and the metaphysical, he spent a lifetime studying the human being and its place in the universe. His brave creativity, endless genius, and artistic talents arching far beyond the perceptual and scientific realities of …
Siri Hustvedt, the prizewinning writer and scholar, describes the meaning of life in her vigor for work, the joy she finds in the creative impulse and the urgency to write driven by it. She recounts her life being a woman writer in men’s world, married to the well-known writer Paul Auster and describes her remedies to overcome the challenges of the “writing self”. Her deep knowledge of psychoanalysis, art and neuroscience is woven in her stories where the human condition is playing up real and tangible. She insightfully draws answers to the question “what are we ?” Here …
Victor Hugo, the irreplaceable writer reflects on his life and works “ For half a century I have been writing thoughts in prose, verse, history, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode and song…but I feel I have not said a thousandth part of that which is within me. “ And that renders the abundant creative power of the writer as reflected in the invaluable and timeless works of Victor Hugo. His insightful saying “ a writer is a world trapped in a person ” is beautifully captured in Auguste Rodin’s sculpture. From writing, sculpture, and painting to the enchantment of …
The impact of our perceptual patterns on the way we navigate the “self” has always been a cornerstone in understanding human behavior. Long before neuroscience started thought experiments on the nature reality, W. James put forward “ our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to perceive ” and that, in effect, shapes the world around us. C. Jung, firmly believing “ unconscious is our great guide ”, he proclaimed that the information stored in the unconscious plays up in decoding the world, and the manifestation of the self out there. It happens in daily …
“ The world is sown with good but unless I turn my glad thoughts into practical living and till my own field, I cannot reap a kernel of the good. The desire and will to work is optimism itself. ” Helen Keller (June 27, 1880–June 1, 1968), the outstanding woman who grew up without sight or hearing, in her quest for knowing she not only became learned in philosophy, history, math, science and world matters, but also became an intellectual activist, a “doer” for the good of humankind, and the society at large. She recounts the transforming experience …
How the Medicinal Herbs Grew in the Temple of Solomon — the Farther Mosque which Solomon visited daily for devotion and to guide the devotees During his prophecy, David received a Divine order which ordained that his son, Solomon should build a temple. Set out to fulfill this order, Solomon began constructing the temple which would be renowned as the Temple of Solomon. Also later known as the Farther Mosque, it would preserve its unprecedented standing in history. Rumi recounts the blissful story of Solomon’s Temple in his Mathnawi, and says that plentiful stones needed in the construction were fetched …
The most acclaimed drawing of the cosmos and how the discovery of the magical Higgs particle – also called the God particle transformed the physicists’ view of the beginning of the universe Musician Pablo Carlos Budassi has decided to make a simple drawing of the cosmos for his son’s birthday. In doing so, he used the logarithmic maps of the physicists, the photographs taken by Nasa and his photoshop application. The contemporary physicists, having acclaimed this picture, marked it as the simplest up-to-date illustration of the cosmos. In the center lies the sun and the solar system surrounded by …
A wonderful story told by Rumi on the art of pure reflection and mystical beauty in the sufi way of being. The Prophet said, “There are some who see me by the same light in which I’m seeing them. Our natures are one. Without reference to any strands of lineage, without reference to text or traditions, we drink the life-water together.” Here’s a story about the hidden mystery : The Chinese and the Greeks were arguing as to who were the better artists. The king said, “We’ll settle the matter with a debate.” The Chinese began talking, but the Greeks …
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