Showing 419 articles
Our Many Different Realities
Author: Sabine LeitnerJune 21, 2020
One thing that never fails to amaze me is how one and the same cause can bring about so many completely different experiences and consequent ‘realities’. The current pandemic is a good example of this. As I look around my wide circle of friends and family (in various different countries), colleagues, neighbours and acquaintances, I [...]
Old Ireland
Author: Gareth KinsellaJune 21, 2020
During the course of the last two millennia, ripple effects from endless waves of invasions and migrations have contributed to the Irish identity of today, although preceding tales of misty legends and epics are still expressed by ancient structures, myths and culture. Ireland’s origins are of vague beginnings, with butchered bear bones carbon dated to [...]
Samkhya Philosophy
Author: Miha KosirJune 21, 2020
Samkhya is regarded as the oldest philosophical system in Hinduism and its teachings can be found in the Bhagavad Gita. Samkhya has a dualistic view based on two main components which constitute the whole of reality, namely, spirit (Purusha) and matter (Prakriti). Everything that exists is the result of the evolution of prakriti, but the first [...]
Fortitude in the Face of Difficulties
Author: Delia Steinberg GuzmánJune 13, 2020
When 2020 began, we did not yet know the extent of the difficult times we would have to face. A short time later came the spread of a pandemic, which affected most – if not all – countries in the world, showing that in such cases what we regard as differences do not exist. We [...]
From Obstacle to Opportunity
Author: Gilad SommerJune 1, 2020
A Story of Exile The year was 65 AD, a little less than a hundred years after the assassination of Julius Caesar and the foundation of the Roman Empire. Musonius Rufus, the foremost Stoic philosopher of his times, known by some as the “Roman Socrates”, was accused by emperor Nero to have participated in a [...]
Altruism Exists, and We Need to Cultivate it
Author: Sabine LeitnerApril 26, 2020
There are two quotes from the book Altruism – the Science and Psychology of Kindness by Matthieu Ricard that sum up what is wrong with our world. “To change what we do because something is going to happen in one hundred years is, I would say, profoundly weird.” This was a comment made by the [...]
Motivations
Author: Delia Steinberg GuzmánApril 25, 2020
This subject can be looked at from two angles: being motivated or being unmotivated. Both are expressions that we hear about every day, on different occasions and in relation to many aspects of life. Motivation or lack of motivation affect everyone, including those who have the teachings of a Philosophical Ideal available to them, but [...]
Stability in Crisis
Author: Delia Steinberg GuzmánApril 25, 2020
It might seem that the crisis which is shaking our present civilization throughout the world and on so many fronts is something typical of our time and of enormous magnitude. However, if we look carefully, we will find crises at any time in history, and we will discover that philosophers have always examined their deeper [...]
Tutankhamun in London
Author: Florimond KrinsApril 17, 2020
Probably the most famous of ancient Egypt’s pharaohs today, Tutankhamun was a small and short-lived king, who reigned for only ten years and died at the age of 18, in marked contrast to the later Ramses the Great, who reigned for 66 years and died in his nineties. Tutankhamun (1342 1325 BC) was one [...]
Plato’s Esoteric Teachings
Author: Julian ScottApril 17, 2020
Plato is typically thought of as a ‘respectable’ Greek philosopher who is widely taught at reputable universities around the world and admired for his original philosophical thinking. However, there is another side to Plato which is only explored by a minority of scholars, starting with Heinrich Gomperz in the 1930s and continuing with the ‘Tübingen [...]
The Spring Equinox
Author: Nataliya PetlevychApril 17, 2020
We all are cheered by days full of the renewing energy of spring – a beautiful time when nature awakens, the days become longer and everything living rejoices. There is a special time in the year when the Sun is exactly above the equator, hence the Earth’s axis neither points toward nor away from the [...]
Standing for True Solidarity
Author: Trishya ScrewvalaApril 17, 2020
In many ways, the last decade can be considered a decade of protests – starting with the Arab Spring in 2010 and the Occupy Wallstreet Movement soon after, to the still ongoing clashes on the streets of Hong Kong, Venezuela’s uprising against its leadership and the widespread protests against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act, to name [...]