Architecting the Invisible

Grace has become an old fashioned word, graciousness and courtesy have become old world values, almost valueless in today’s environment. The world has gone über brash. Billboards extoll the ‘virtue’ of Attitude, with a capital A: “Wear your Attitude,” screams one, as though attitude were an aspirational achievement! A young generation has grown up with an exaggerated sense of privilege and entitlement. If you say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’, people look at you as though you were an anachronism. We are encouraged to be ‘go-getters’, to demand, to seize what we consider is ours.

In this article, I seek not to publish a scholastic investigation of Warli Art. Instead, as a philosopher studying symbolism, I humbly share my observations of a few elements from its unique tradition in which the artists seem to have been preoccupied, not with mythology, but with the strong drive to align to Nature’s order, by celebrating life and revering Mother Earth, through a unique sense of aesthetics.

Today, people throughout the world are perturbed by the degradation of the environment and the disastrous consequences of the loss of resources in the hands of an ever growing population. In such times, traditional ethics, which contained nature conservation

This article is based on an event by New Acropolis Culture Circle with Raghu Ananthanarayanan, who spoke on the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali. Raghu is a behavioural scientist, yoga teacher and author. He has dedicated his life to the study and application of yoga and Indic traditions to guide the inner transformation of individuals and shape leadership and culture building of organizations.

Are you familiar with those moments when it seems that life is talking to you, sending you some message, a direction? In the beginning, it might not seem very clear but with some extra observation and deeper investigation you become able to view the connection.

And so, a few weeks ago, the name Ulysses came to my life. It landed on me with no prior announcement, as if it wanted to tell me something, give me some message. I was not aware of this name before, but could guess that it was from Roman or Greek mythology. Indeed, based on some short investigation, I learnt that it is the Roman name of the Greek hero Odysseus, the main character of the famous Odyssey.

Most ancient traditions seem to share a dominant myth that revolves around a long and arduous journey with the hero facing danger or death, overcoming obstacles, before accomplishing his purposeful goal and returning home. Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, among others, viewed some of these heroes even as gods. Hercules and Arjuna are examples of such heroes who, while fighting monumental challenges, grew in stature, and unlocked their true potential. Perhaps like these heroes, we too are on our own journey to discover our own potential. Perhaps in this journey lie the hidden answers to questions about the meaning and purpose of our lives!

It seems to me that the purpose of human life is to grow. When I look back at the moments or the phases through which I have grown, I see them as times that tested me to transcend what I felt were my limitations; be it starting my own business venture with a bagful of doubts about my capabilities, or be it a moment of extreme anger in which I consciously decided not to identify with the anger. These phases had a common factor that we call ‘challenges’. I feel that the universe has it made it so by design!

armonia, in Greek Mythology, is the goddess of Harmony and Concord. She is the daughter of Ares, the God of War; and Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. At first glance, this could seem strange: a force of war, and a force of love coming together to create harmony.

Shabnam Virmani is the founder of the Kabir Project, which consists of a series of ongoing journeys inquiring into the spiritual, cultural, and socio-political resonances of the 15th century mystic and poet Kabir. Housed at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology (Bengaluru),

In recent months I have found myself walking between the light and darkness, on the seam line of the mysteries of life. People, both close and more distant, have passed away in circumstances that for some was a release from great suffering, while others caught me by surprise … And death, as always, is as real as life itself. It is hard to escape or hide from it. It knocks on your door and stands in front of you; steady, terminal and clear. And you can do nothing but deal with it.

As I began to reflect on how our way of living had changed literally overnight when the lockdown was announced in Mumbai, I realised that like most people, I went through various stages of emotions, doubts, and concerns. There were moments of uncertainty, and confusion about the future, the health of loved ones, the suffering around the planet, and concern about the outlook of our family business, our employees… However, early on I was able to distance myself from this constant noise; the diverse opinions and criticism about how the situation should be handled, the influx of information, the endless WhatsApp forwards, and the general sense of panic that I noticed around me.

Despite their universal existence in all civilizations and all times of history, myths have often been scoffed at and regarded as old wives tales. August Comte, the founder of positivism and sociology, relegated myths to the most early and primitive level of intellectual evolution and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, a French philosopher, associated myth with pre-logical mentality common to the most primitive stages of mankind.

Among many other psychological diseases, our time is witness to frequent crises of indecisiveness and confusion in people.  Many are those who let their lives slip by in a constant state of dissatisfaction, produced by not knowing what to do or how to do it in order achieve effective results.

A wise man once said, “One close real friend is better than ten distant and estranged brothers.” Does true and unconditioned comradeship still exists in the 21st century? How different is real friendship from having casual friends or from “Facebook Friends”? Can this kind of lasting and profound friendship be found? How and where?

There are many kinds of friendships, some casual, some romantic, some are pleasant like flowers that bloom for a day or like a summer cloud, but some rare ones are as firm as an oak. These rare relationships do not depend on passing needs or on momentary interests.

There is a relative uncertainty as to when our earliest human ancestors evolved on earth. But it is certain that by that time, a myriad variety of plants and trees had already been thriving on the planet. The very structure of a tree, with its trunk segmenting into branches, twigs and leaves, is a physical manifestation of the philosophical concept characterizing the relationship between the universe and the One; multiplicity from Unity. The tree’s concealed roots further extend the metaphor, of unity springing from a hidden origin or source. Even those of us who do not share this perception cannot help but experience a sense of awe, perhaps even an intuitive reverence, in the presence of a forest of these majestic giants clothed in their silent, steadfast, resilient beauty. Older than man himself, trees have been integral to myths and folklore in almost all cultures as symbols of solace, strength, abundance, and immortality.

In recent years we seem to see an increasing number of people across the world calling to sharpen the fine boundary between technology employed to serve humanity, and that which takes over our freedom. We have smart phones and watches that make our lives easier, or sometimes more complicated… leaving users sometimes lesser and lesser capable, while devices become ever more sophisticated.