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Relevations!
The word ‘relevant‘ derives from a verb ‘to relevate’, which has dropped out of common usage, whose meaning is ‘to lift’ (as in ‘elevate‘). in essence, ‘to relevate’ means ‘to lift into attention”, so that the content thus lifted stands out ‘in relief’. When a content lifted into attention is coherent or fitting with the…
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Can science account for taste?
I was asked the question “From a scientific point of view, how are our tastes created?” Here’s my answer. “There’s no accounting for taste!” Typically we explain taste — in food, music, movies, art — in terms of culture, upbringing, and sheer chance. In recent years there have been several attempts to explain taste from…
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Man follows the path left by the fire
“In the beginning there was a mute king, Māthava of Videha, who kept in his mouth the fire called Agni Vaiśvānara, Agni-of-all-men, that form of Agni which all living beings keep inside themselves. Next to him, a perennial shadow, a brahmin, Gotama, who provoked him, first with his questions that remained unanswered, then with his…
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A Gateway to the Unseen
If Canterbury, the locus of pilgrimage, is the official capital of the Church of England, Glastonbury has long been its heathen obverse. The enormous Tor, or earthen mound, that dominates its topography, topped with a lonely ruined tower, has exerted a magnetic pull on alternative pilgrims drawn by the local legends of the first English…
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Looking versus Seeing
When we pass from looking to seeing, we do not therefore lose our sight of the objects observed. Seeing, in fact, does not disturb our looking at all. It rather places us in that territory as its genius, aware that our imagination does not create within its outlines but creates the outlines themselves. The physicist…
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Where do thoughts come from?
Here’s my answer to a recent Quora question: Where do our thoughts come from? Thoughts come from nowhere! And from everywhere! I think both answers contain an element of truth. Subjectively, our thoughts come from nowhere: they just pop into our heads, or emerge in the form of words leaving our mouths. Objectively, we can…