January 2015 - The Acropolitan Magazine

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Today the faculty of philosophy is thought to be academic, intellectual, and theoretical, and is often considered boring and irrelevant to daily life. However, a deeper understanding of the word ‘philosophy’ dispels this notion; it loosely translates to a love for wisdom. How can love be theoretical or intellectual? How can wisdom be irrelevant to our lives?

The force of love is a force of attraction, a natural yearning, that binds the lover to an object. It is the same force that drives the dancer to express aesthetic form in her every posture. It is the same force that impels great author-poets like Shakespeare to explore human nature through the wizardry of words. And maybe, it is the same force that caused ancient sculptors to express divine archetypes through their craft.

Perhaps this love for wisdom is the highest form of love that human beings are capable of. Perhaps it is the only true path to wisdom; the only true way to improve our world. This issue traces through a variety of experiments – investigations into the true nature of Philosophy – to discover, awaken, and transform our lives.

ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE

Proposals for a Better World

January 1, 2015

By Georgios Alvarados Planas

No one can ignore the fact that we are living in a world in crisis, a world of great changes on the ecological, social, economic and even cosmic levels.

On the ecological level, this can be seen in the excessive, irrational and selfish exploitation of the natural resources of our planet Earth.

Some of the factors of this ecological crisis are of great importance for our immediate future. For example, the global warming of the planet, due to an uncontrolled industrialization, with its consequences of the melting of the polar icecaps and the progressive and now unstoppable rise in sea levels; pollution by chemical and radioactive waste of land, water and the atmosphere; and genetic transmutations in many plant and animal species, to cope with the need to feed our overpopulated planet.

The Easy and the Difficult

January 1, 2015

By Delia Steinberg Guzman

We speak of difficult jobs, difficult subjects, difficult psychological situations, difficult actions or circumstances, difficult people, difficult times… The list would be endless and we won’t even attempt in such a limited space to complete it or offer a solution for each of these cases. Instead, we would like to focus on the inner attitude of a person who has to face difficulty.

Design of Thought and Movement

January 1, 2015

By Manjula Nanavati

Miti Desai is the founder and creative head of Miti Design Lab. A designer and classical dancer, Miti teaches as a visiting faculty at the Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology (Bengaluru) and at Sophia Polytechnic (Mumbai), and has personally created and executed courses initiating children into Holistic Design, Aesthetics and Culture through the performing arts.

Ankor, The Last Prince of Atlantis By Prof. Jorge Angel Livraga Rizzi – Book Review

January 1, 2015

By Manjula Nanavati

Many ancient traditions tell a story of an immense flood that destroyed a civilization that existed thousands of years ago; one that was perhaps far more technologically and spiritually advanced than we are today. Amongst them, Plato speaks of a vast continent called Atlantis that sank into the ocean. Although modern historians have found meagre evidence to corroborate this, too many traditions around the world explicitly, or obliquely, refer to this cataclysm to ignore it completely.

Rumi : The Mystic

January 1, 2015

By Bhavna Roy

Eight centuries ago a culture of mystical Islam suffused the lands extending from modern day Turkey (Anatolia) to modern day Afghanistan and Iran (Khorasan); it was called Sufi Islam. Etymologically, the word ‘Sufi’ is derived from the Arabic word safa, meaning purity. Mystics of the order created a path towards attaining self-knowledge and god-realisation in their desire to reunite themselves with God. This phenomenon was cradled and nourished by great intellectual, artistic and philosophical icons of the time; foremost among them was Jalaluddin Mohammed Rumi.

City of Purification

January 1, 2015

By Harianto Mehta

Just a few kilometers off the Mumbai Harbor, nestled on an island, amidst basalt rock mounds, lay a mysterious complex of exquisite cave temples that whisper a silent homage to the region’s spiritual past. It’s tune inaudible to the nearby metropolis teeming with ambitious commerce, and ceaseless traffic, here the temple walls echo a stark but graceful embrace, and invite the yearning explorer to re-discover a mystical tradition so vibrant in the distant past.

Shakespeare – Heaven and Hell Within Us

January 1, 2015

By Zahi Glick

When we speak about Shakespeare we can refer to him as the Philosopher-Artist. An artist who succeeds, in his work, in investigating the depth of the human existence and his relationship with the gods and the universe. Shakespeare, a wizard of words, is a symbol of an artist whose work lives forever because it touches the heart of the human experience and asks questions that are and will always be relevant to human beings.