force vive

My name's Benedikt. This is where I post things that inspire me.

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Wer sagt, es gebe Gott nicht und nicht dazusagen kann, dass Gott fehlt und wie er fehlt, der hat keine Ahnung.
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Marifa (Arabic: المعرفة‎), which literally means knowledge, is the term used by Sufi Muslims to describe mystical intuitive knowledge of spiritual truth reached through ecstatic experiences, rather than revealed or rationally acquired. M. Fethullah Gulen, in his book onSufism, describes Marifa (“knowledge of God”) as special knowledge acquired through reflection, sincere endeavor, using one’s conscience and inquiring into one’s inner world. In this, it is distinct from scientific knowledge, or ilm, which is based on study, investigation, analysis, and synthesis. The opposite of scientific knowledge is ignorance, while the opposite of marifa is denial.
— Wikipedia
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The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. […] The end of the world as we know it is also the end of a way of knowing the world
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There are good stories and mediocre stories and downright bad stories. How are they to be judged? If they do not aim at a static or “literal” reality, how can we discern whether one telling of events is any better or more worthy than another?

The answer is this: a story must be judged according to whether it makes sense. And “making sense” must here be understood in its most direct meaning: to make sense is to enliven the senses. A story that makes sense is one that stirs the senses from their slumber, one that opens the eyes and the ear to their real surroundings, tuning the tongue to the actual tastes in the air and sending chills of recognition along the surface of the skin. To make sense is to release the body from the constraints imposed by outworn ways of speaking, and hence to rejuvenate one’s felt awareness of the world. It is to make the senses wake up to where they are.

— David Abram - The Spell of the Sensuous
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Most of us are accustomed to consider the self, our innermost essence, as someting incorporeal. Yet consider: without this body, without this tongue or these ears, you could neither speak nor hear another’s voice. Nor could you have anything to speak about, or even to reflect on, or to think, since without any contact, any encounter, without any glimmer of sensory experience, there could be nothing to question or to know. The living body is thus the very possibility of contact, not just with others but with oneself - the very possibility of reflection, of thought, of knowledge.
— Merleau-Ponty via David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous
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…[E]ach atom turns out to be nothing but the potentialities in the behavior pattern of others. What we find, therefore, are not elementary space-time realities, bu rather a web of relationships in which no part can stand alone; every part derives its meaning and existence only from its place within the whole.
— Henry P. Stapp
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Our world is threatened by a crisis whose extent appears to escape those who have the power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything—except our way of thinking. Thus we slide toward an unparalleled catastrophe. We need an essentially different way of thinking if humanity wants to survive.
— Albert Einstein
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Freiheit ist immer Freiheit der Andersdenkenden.

Dort, wo andere Freiheit als das Recht des Einzelnen auf Willkür sehen, das nur am Recht der anderen auf gleiche Willkür seine Grenze findet - dort, wo andere Freiheit als natürliches Recht des Einzelnen sehen, das nur durch die gleichen natürlichen Rechte anderer beschränkt wird, - dort erkennt Rosa Luxemburg, dass Freiheit ein gesellschaftliches, ein verpflichtendes Verhältnis von Menschen zueinander ist. Und der Kern dieses Verhältnisses ist ein Verhalten, in dem Menschen die Freiheit anderer Menschen ermöglichen.

Gegen jeden Opportunismus gewandt, forderte Rosa Luxemburg, dass Freiheit, damit sie wirkliche Freiheit ist und nicht der verdeckte Zwang zur Anpassung, die Freiheit der anderen als Andersseiende ermöglichen müsse. Das Verhalten als freier Mensch, so versteht und praktiziert sie es, besteht genau darin, anderen die Möglichkeit zu geben, als Andere frei zu sein. Bevor Freiheit ein Recht ist, ist sie eine Pflicht. Die Gleichheit in der Freiheit ist eine Gleichheit der Verschiedenen.

— Rosa Luxemburg (via Freitag)
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It is important to emphasize that episodes of holotropic states of varying duration can also occur spontaneously, without any specific identifiable cause, and often against the will of the people involved. Since modern psychiatry does not differentiate between mystical or spiritual states and mental diseases, people experiencing these states are often labeled psychotic, are hospitalized, and receive routine suppressive psychopharmacological treatment. My wife and I see these states as psychospiritual crises or “spiritual emergencies.” We believe that, properly supported and treated, they can result in emotional and psychosomatic healing, positive personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.
— Grof & Grof 1990, 1989.
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All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
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