NEWS

20.9.17

– Divine creation – software (speech) –> hardware (things)

“In your light, we see light” – it is the Word (divine revelation) that makes all things comprehensible to us.

Light ~ Word ~ Life ~ Image

The Creator is also the Sustainer is also the Lord is also the Redeemer is also the Judge!

Light ~ life ~ truth ~ good ~ order ~ fullness

Darkness ~ death ~ falsehood ~ evil ~ chaos ~ emptiness

The darkness has not/cannot (ultimately/permanently) overcome the light!

Creation (Genesis) ~ Jesus’ story (the Cross) ~ my regeneration!

– Othodox Teaching Sermon The Transfiguration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWqIwGT7rEs&list=WL&index=13

Transfiguration ~ incarnation + crucifixion + resurrection!

“While he was still speaking…” (Matt. 17:5) – for the times you don’t know when to shut up…!

Coming away, without leaving your world – the mountain, the wilderness & the closet!

Law + Prophets = Christ/glory/salvation!

Climbing into one’s own inner aridity/terror, and being transformed, by discovering & embracing the futility within!

Mat. 17:4 – this is what I want, but “if you want”… The temptation of institutionalization – make GOD unambiguous, manageable, accessible, affordable, reproducible, etc.!

Is the shrine built for His honor or for my safety?

The Indwelling ~ Meaning (Law) + purpose (Prophets) + passion (Christ)!

Finding Christ in BOTH the inner sanctum AND the outer storm!

– Sacred Calendars: The Transfiguration of Christ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN87wr0dW3c&list=WL&index=14

Mystery ~ sacrament ~ ordinance ~ feast

Full celebration

Gospel chronology & Church Calendar

The Transfiguration is meant to prepare the disciples & sustain their faith, because they are yet to experience their greatest crisis – witnessing the Crucifixion!

The anonymous site of transformation

The revelation/unveiling of the divinity already inherent in the ordinary/everyday

Saints as contemporary revelations of Christ

Spiritual faculties/senses

Supernatural light

Studying GOD, & saying what it is and what it is not

Felled, by the (encounter/experience of) Majesty!

The Body & all bodies

Jesus as the one who unites Moses & Elijah with Peter, James and John – OT/Israel/Past & NT/Church/Future – the present Kingdom/eschaton!

Scripture ~ icons ~ sermons – products of faith and sources of theology!

Tradition & context, practice and experience

– Christ:

Adam ~ Jesus ~ Church ~ me/you/us/them!

– Life is boring is life is boring is……!

>> Life is boring

>> Boring is life

>> “Life is boring” is life!

>> “Boring is life” is boring!

– Questions about the GST cess

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/questions-about-the-gst-cess/article19710552.ece

Legal validity & legislative competence

Compensation cess

Tax slabs

Policy flip-flop

Cess, tax & fee

Earmarked purpose

Labour welfare

Relatability

surcharge

Fiscal deficit

False returns

Colourable claims

Sin goods

Unfettered discretion

– The Privacy Quandary

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-privacy-quandry/article19715927.ece

Face recognition technology

Privacy

Vs.

Security

Second order fall-outs

Augmented reality, cloud computing & social networking

Autonomous vehicles

Mobile panopticon

– My advice to Christ University:

(Should I email this to the VC?!)

1. Separate Christ College (UG) from Christ University (higher education/research institution), & develop a distinct culture/ethos for each, according to their respective level/purpose.
2. Make selection of students & faculty more rigorous. Emphasis on quality over quantity. Reduce number of courses & number of students in each class, especially in the Humanities & Social Sciences.
3. Stop using money as a strategy to “hire the best”. Be(come) the best (world-class), then you will also attract the best!
4. Be future-oriented – try out new creative ideas & radical practices, drawn from diverse sources, in both the meaning & execution of education. Emphasize & promote inter-disciplinarity. Do away with long, tedious written exams based on standard question paper.
5. Shift onus for learning from teachers on to students. Make the environment conducive for self-development and provide adequate avenues for equipping those who are passionate & idealistic. E.g. Reduce number of lecture/teaching hours.
6. Reduce extra-curricular (cultural) activities.
7. Introduce proper vocational guidance (based on Psychology), not just the employment counseling given in placement cells, for each & every 1st year student!
8. Start a Centre for Education with people qualified in Pedagogy, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, etc. and passionate about reform/progress, to oversee the functioning of each department and guide the general direction of the institution, in light of the vision/mission/values. Start a Department of Philosophy fully independent from Theology.
9. Introduce mentoring & holistic education (includes the physical & spiritual) through highly motivated & well trained resource persons for the overall health & development of students & faculty. This can be done via small groups with expert facilitation (a la SFG & “How is it with your soul?”). Basic counseling training for all faculty.
10. Make Saturday a holiday.

CU, it’s time for you to move into full adulthood, as an institution!

– Rohingya – Bangladesh’s burden to bear:

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/rohingya-bangladeshs-burden-to-bear/article19694058.ece

Rakhine province

The Rohingya as homo sacer

Short-lived relief

Refugee camps

Advisory commission

Discrimination >> retaliation >> discrimination >>…… Victim >> terrorist >> victim >>……

When the army goes berserk…!

Humanitarian gesture or just political posture?

21.9.17

– hyle

– Movies:

“The Walk”

The closer one is to death, the more alive he/she is! The challenge is to find a way to survive at that place of passion……

True friends/lovers are those who accompany & support you in (your own unique) insanity!

Sexual edging as a spiritual discipline!

– I think I have found the elusive/secret formula for an robust lifestyle…

Alternate day extreme discipline and severe indulgence – I can feel them converging & blending already! 🙂

Always enjoy the ecstasy of intensity

22.9.17

– Maybe my next avatar is sensual crusader/erotic artist!

– troubadour

Strange light

Ravenna

Adriatic Sea

High Middle Ages

Medieval Vs. Renaissance

Anonymous works of lesser lights

ekstasis

The thousand year theory!

The beauty of simplicity

“Saving the appearances” – the major task of science

World-theory

Systemic exceptions

Simpler ~ better

Spirited away

perforce

Summum bonum (the greatest good) – the strong & sweet ruler of the universe

Pagan Christianity

Consolation of Philosophy

Postmortem reparation

“Ashamed to be ashamed”

neophyte

Alternative orthodoxy

Augustine

Vs.

Aquinas

– Distinguish:

Explain

&

Prove

– Distinguish:

Innovation/new

&

Development/better

– “Give me chastity, but not yet!” – St. Augustine

“The son of these tears will not perish.” – Ambrose

“Take (up the book) and read” – GOD?!

Happy to die, with the vision of the beyond, “when we shall all be changed”

23.9.17

– Post-critical philosophy

Non-Christianity

Non-relationality

A new type of inversion

Correct ~ reduce ~ supersede ~ explain ~ dominate

Quantum thoughts

Fractal thinking

Refracting the Real, instead of representing reality

Formal experiment

Strange mediation

The better half of life

Internal critique

A genuinely new mode of thought

Theoretical mutation

A broadened paradigm of (apparently opposed) alternatives

A democratic ecology of thought – pluralistic & equivalent

The practice of abstraction

The conceptual performance of extraction & re-envisioning

Salvation axioms

The Real as the occasional cause of thought

Hypothesis ~ wager

Material ~ lived

Philosophical narcissism/obsession/blindness

User of philosophy

Neither false nor true

Architectonics

The materiality of philosophy!

Techno-scientism, biologism, physicalism, computationalism

Thoughts ~ photos!

Materiality without materialist theses

A (non-reductive) field of infinite materialities

The proxies of philosophy

“Thing-in-itself”

Putative powers

The metaphysics of knowing

Wonder, intuition, induction, deduction, will to power, affective encounter, selfless observation, questioning

The logic of inference

Self-styled philosophies

Totality ~ exclusivity

Partiality ~ plurality

Normative hallucinations

Enlightened humility

Self-simplification

Figure-ground shift in perception

Indifferent ~ undifferentiated

Re-visioning

From absolute perspective (transcendent) to material part (immanent)!

Abstraction

Vs.

Axiomatization

Abstract vision

Dis-analogy

Miming the world

The non-philosopher as ventriloquist/charadist

– Non-solitude:

When you’re surrounded by society, you take refuge in your intimate partnership or inner circle.

When you’re in a coupleship, you withdraw into your truest self.

When you’re all alone, you realize there’s no one there!

It is then that you are fully free……

– What happens when you (try to) blend “high” & “low” culture?

You find that there is no division/opposition!

Animal intellect ~ body spirituality

– Distinguish:

Thinking/feeling

&

Having thoughts/feelings

How are consciousness & intentionality related?

Full awareness is the prerequisite for perfect freedom!

– TV series:

Rectify (Season 1 Episode 1)

“Always There” – remember where this line comes in the episode?

Why do I (feel) like this guy?!

24.9.17

– Home-made intoxicants 😉

https://m.baklol.com/baks/Bizarre/Get-High-Without-Drugs-Or-Weed-_2354/1

http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-shocking/15-of-the-strangest-ways-kids-get-high/

Codeine, dextromethorphan, diphenhydramine, promethazine, caffeine, alcohol, sugar, cocoa, MDMA, phenibut, kava, aromatic oils, ASMR, binaural beats, sleep deprivation, hypnosis, meditation, sex, exercise, psilocybin, prednisolone, nicotine, tobacco, Marijuana, etc.

HACK your body! 👊🏽

– Moth to the flame (ASMR)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1IR1vIamVk&t=15s

– TV series (story-telling – mythology/liturgy >> play/novel >> movies/serials):

“The Sinner”

WOW! It takes more/better/greater to make me say that, nowadays……

“Why did you do/say that?”

“I don’t know!” – that’s the right (first) answer, whatever!

– 3 kinds of days, based on 3 different attitudes/approaches to the body:

1. Rhythm – awareness & flow (mindfulness/moderation/consciousness)

2. Work – discipline & performance (asceticism/right extreme/will)

3. Freak – pamper & indulge (hedonism/left extreme/flesh)

Rhythm-work-freak… REPEAT!

– Which one are you?

1. Me, we or us?

2. Heart, intellect or body?

3. Vision, strategy or execution?

E.g. I am Me-intellect-vision

Do you know HOW to find out the truth(s) about yourself?

– GOD ~ self ~ other ~ real ~ one ~ life ~ being – meaning ~ truth ~ power ~ joy ~ light ~ energy ~ spirit

25.9.17

– I need to try to learn to give some of the allowances & concessions, I usually give myself, to others too. Cut them also a piece of slack, Joey!

– metropolis

Lemon law

Patriarch, metropolitan, archbishop

monoplane

happenstance

Polemical ~ controversial

– “Enthusiasm, n.: A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.” – Ambrose Bierce

Is it possible to overcome naïvety (in outlook), without losing one’s lust (for life)?

Wisdom without disenchantment is what we desperately need!

– Creative + recreational ~ recreative!

– A person plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps.

Proverbs 16:9 NET

http://bible.com/107/pro.16.9.NET

Check out the NET notes.

Contrast:

Plan/course

&

Direct/steps

Is this supposed to teach us humility? Or should I just keep a plan B ready always? 😉

Maybe it’s both!

26.9.17

– “Rescuer (Good News)” by Rend Collective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAg7rn7fH3Q

– Will Hollywood ever use ugly actors?

– Login for daily rewards in Asphalt 8 & Real Racing

27.9.17

– Foo fighter