Early morning and we have porridge on the stove, the sun is struggling to come to terms with the clouds and we can sense it’s going to be a wardrobe nightmare of a day. Clothes are still drying from the drenching we received wandering home from our dear friends who are heroes in their own right…but that’s another story. As Days Like This plays on the

“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” Oscar Wilde As every day passes, it is becoming obvious that the world is moving into uncharted territory because of the climate emergency. Can you hear it coming? Because it is. Gandhi wrote in 1908, “A man, whilst

Part One Developing Faith I grew up as a non-believer, an atheist. However, when I started working in the rural area in India, and developed some sort of relationship with the villagers, I began to appreciate their innate goodness, the values that they lived by in their everyday lives, and how easy and natural it was for them to live like that. When I compared myself

In 2018, while working on a writing project, my home for several months was a small cottage on the banks of the Periyar river in rural South India. In the evenings, I would walk along the river to a footbridge that offered a dramatic view of Kerala’s magenta sunsets. Local people would gather there in the coolness of the evening. I soon befriended a group of

It may seem strange to dedicate a blog to the thinking of somebody else, but Daniel Schmachtenberger just might be one of the best and brightest minds around at the moment. So, hopefully by the end of this blog you will have some idea of why I am doing it. Daniel Schmachtenberger is at the forefront of some significant work in examining and dissecting, with simple

To me, being able to exercise real choice or freewill was always tied to a sense of being ‘right’ – of knowing. At a certain point in my life I began to value being awake, more than being right. Countless times when we discover a wrong choice,  one made due to misinformation, unconscious motives, or simply ignorance, there is the opportunity to make a different one,

About six weeks ago, we had three days of very heavy rains and thunderstorms in my region in India which led to trees falling on electric transmission lines, and there was widespread disruption to the power supply. The mobile communication towers stopped working and, being a low priority rural area, no one came with diesel generators to run them on alternative fuel. For a day and

In the face of a lack of existential meaning and coherence, Western civilization is currently struggling to stave off devouring itself through ever deepening fragmentation. Meanwhile, small pockets of Westerners can be found in remote locations around the world, immersed in experiences of existential depth and meaning. Spiritual refugees, they have long fled the existential desert of Western materialism and a culture lost in consumerism. Many

Why are identity politics so dominating the public discourse? They are certainly drowning out not only any attempt at sensemaking as the world grows ever more complex and uncertain, but also other ways of relating to ourselves, each other, and the world at large beyond the merely political, ideological and technological. As Daniel Schmachtenberger comments, we can’t make good choices if we don’t have good sensemaking.

A week before the announcement of the Janata [public] Curfew slated for March 22, 2020, I spoke with a 43-year-old close relative in her village in Leh, Ladakh, by phone from Delhi. Around that time, the news of rising infections from the novel coronavirus coming in from China, Italy and Iran, were ominous. Ladakh had been reporting positive cases since March 6. Speaking authoritatively, a malaise

In eastern and African cultures, the name we are given at birth means a lot. In our names, the hopes, dreams and aspirations of our parents are borne. There are parental hopes for the child to fulfil the meaning of their names, with the family name bearing the legacy of ancestry. Superstition kicks in too, a popular 70s pop group in Hong Kong called The Wynners

Originally published in Shvilim

At 16, I went to India for a visit with my parents and sisters. I was a rebel, wanted to dye my hair purple, wore tight jeans and had no idea about Hinduism, or the desire to find out. As soon as I got off the plane I felt at home. I was happy that I would not experience racism. Growing up in the days of

Senior citizens, OAPs, retirees. Doesn’t sound so inspiring, in the way this vast and growing segment of our population is sometimes referred to, does it? Now of course I know many older people have a very hard time, coping with chronic illness, poverty, disabilities and loneliness, all compounded by years of governmental austerity in Britain. Many need special care and can’t afford it. This needs remedying

J L Mehta, an Indian philosopher and admirer of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger once wrote , “So long as we live encapsulated within one tradition, our own, and in a language that embodies it, we can think and move and have our being only within the horizon of reality opened up by it.” The idea of calling this website 3rd Space came about in response