Monthly theme - Philosophical nature photography

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Adithya Biloor
Monthly theme - Philosophical nature photography
Philosophical nature photography? - What is philosophy? and what is it's connection to photography? Here is the definition of philosophy from wiki "Philosophy is a way of thinking about the world, the universe, and society. It works by asking very basic questions about the nature of human thought, the nature of the universe, and the connections between them. The ideas in philosophy are often general and abstract." We have seen many photos here on CNP. Ganesh H Shankar has called himself as 'philosophical nature photographer" in an interview. There is a group called Miksang who consider photography as a means of meditation, an approach to see the world in a pure way,without overlays of meaning and value, pleasure, dislike, or disinterest.

Please do share your images under this theme. This month's gonna tough :)
Tue Jan 01, 2019 10:06 am
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Regards,
Adithya Biloor
www.lensandtales.com


Adithya Biloor  Joined CNP On 29 May 2008    Total Image posts 346    -   Total Image Comments 1794    -   Image Post to Comment Ratio 1:5    -   Image Comment Density 32     -     Total Forum Posts 202

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Commentby Keval Vejani on Tue Jan 01, 2019 11:13 am

How do I submit my image for this monthly theme. Seeing no options to upload. Thanks.

Commentby Nevil Zaveri on Tue Jan 01, 2019 12:11 pm

Dear Keval,
You must see 'Upload Image' in upper-left corner, of Monthly Theme Gallery.

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Image
http://www.nevilzaveri.com/

Commentby nirlep on Tue Jan 01, 2019 1:50 pm

Thought provoking theme! Looks like lot of work :)

Commentby Ghanshyam Savani on Wed Jan 02, 2019 12:01 pm

A wonderful theme of the month and I hope much essence will come out of CNP churning as CNP is taking a quantum-leap, a new flight of its creativity in the field of 'art of seeing' in Nature and thereby creating 'visual-literature' to help our photographic journey .

Any form of art has its multiple and compound phases of growth. When art is ‘growing’ it is very subtly translated into next higher stage. For example, CNP in its formative stage was more inclined towards natural history. But CNP grew with the insights and visions of its creative and innovative team under the aegis of a gifted and visionary nature photographer Mr Ganesh H Shankar who gave nature photography altogether a new dimension and new perspective of ‘Fine Art’- ‘Nature as Art’, thus, it grew to a higher phase of perceiving nature in a more refined way to relate it with ‘human emotions’. It grew from ‘physical entity’ to ‘mental entity’; from ‘gross’ to ‘emotions’- the pattern changed, the perception changed and thought process changed- it took a creative turn in the field of nature photography and now we all are what we all are on CNP today. And now again the time has grown to take a next quantum leap from ‘mental entity’ to ‘philosophical entity’- thus envisaged again by the master Mr Ganesh H Shankar who during his visit to Navsari Agricultural University, Navsari (Gujarat) as Inaugurator and Chief Guest of the grand event of Passing out Exhibition and Certificate Conferment Ceremony of One Year Certificate Course in Nature and Wildlife Photography, declared his intent and content of the next phase of the growth of ‘Nature as Art’ to ‘Philosophical Nature Photography’.

Now CNP is going to witness its third and the higher phase of its growth. ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’ is a Sanskrit term that describes the nature of reality as it is conceptualized in Hindu and Yogic philosophy. Sat means ‘truth’, absolute being or existence- that which is enduring and unchanging that we call in nature photography- ‘natural history’. Chit means ‘mind’, consciousness, understanding and comprehension that we call in nature photography- ‘nature as art’ and Ananda means ‘bliss’, a state of pure happiness, and joy that we are now again going to make a pilgrimage into this unknowable realm of the Existence. ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’ is the real journey of CNP. When Sat (nature history) is translated into emotions, it becomes art or poetry- it becomes Chit and when Chit (mind) is translated into joy, it becomes (no-mind), it becomes ‘bliss’- Ananda. In Ananda, in ‘bliss’, we are in the state of ‘music’- we become ‘music’.

Thanks and regards...

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Ghanshyam Savani
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ghanshyam ... ?details=1

Commentby Ghanshyam Savani on Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:02 pm

For more clarity and seeing into the meaning of what exactly Philosophy means and I do believe the following excerpts will be helpful for us to go into the realm of 'Seeing- Darshan' as artists in the field of Photography.




Philosophy & Philosia

Five blind men go to see an elephant. All five are philosophers, Milarepa, and naturally they start touching the elephant. Somebody touches the legs of the elephant and he says, “My god, the elephant is just like the pillars in a temple.”

The other one who is touching the big ears of the elephant. Certainly the story must have been born in India because the African elephant does not have big ears. That’s how you can find from where a story is coming. The Indian elephant has really big ears. The blind man who was touching the ears said, “You idiot! Stop all that nonsense about pillars in a temple. The elephant is like a big fan.” Before electricity came into being, rich people used to have very big fans, and two servants standing by their sides were continuously moving the fans over them. Those fans are almost like the big ears of the elephant.

And so on and so forth; all the five blind philosophers argued and argued. One man was watching. Just a simple and ordinary man, not a philosopher but a man with eyes. He could not believe how these people are going to come to a conclusion. They are fighting, quarreling, arguing. He said to them, “You are all in a tremendously great difficulty. Your arguments are not going to help. What you need are eyes, not arguments. Once you see the elephant, there is no question of thinking about it.”

The word philosophy comes from two words: philo and sophia. Philo means love, and sophia means wisdom or knowledge - love of knowledge. In the East we have nothing parallel to philosophy. In the East we have a totally different approach. It is not the approach of the philosopher; it is the approach of the mystic.

We don’t have any system parallel to philosophy in the East. What we have is totally different. But continuously there has been a misunderstanding between the scholars from the West, from the East. They have all started calling it Eastern philosophy. There is no such thing in existence.

In the East we have a word Darshan, which means seeing not thinking; it means simply seeing. Darshan cannot be translated as philosophy. I have coined a word for it. I don’t care about languages and I don’t care about grammar, and I don’t care about dictionaries and encyclopedias. My concern is existential not linguistic. I have coined my own word and that is philosia: love of Seeing, not love of knowledge.

Milarepa, if you have decided to be something, be a lover of seeing the truth. Be a lover of experiencing the truth. Become part of the vast experience I am calling “philosia.”
Trust more in your eyes than in your mind.

Trust more in your heart than your thoughts. Trust more in your being, because it is the being which is going to experience the very center of the cosmos.

Osho
The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here



Osho,
What is the golden rule in Gautam Buddha’s philosophy?

Once George Bernard Shaw was asked, “Is there a golden rule in life?” He said, “There is only one golden rule: that there are no golden rules.”

Life is not mechanical; that’s why there is a possibility of religion. If life was mechanical, totally rooted in rules, in cause and effect, in causality, then science would have been enough. And science is not enough.
Science only touches the periphery of life; the innermost core remains untouched. Science only knows the rudimentary; it does not know the highest peak. It knows only the bodily part of existence but not its spiritual center. It is concerned with the circumference and utterly unaware of the center.

Hence there are no golden rules. Life is freedom, it is consciousness, it is bliss, it is love - but not law.

That’s why I am very reluctant to translate Buddha’s word Dhamma as the “universal law”; it misses something very significant. Dhamma has freedom in it; freedom is the goal of Dhamma. And law is absolutely without freedom. Law is like a goods train running on tracks, and Dhamma is like a river descending from the peaks of the Himalayas, going zigzag, in absolute freedom, spontaneity, with no fixed routine, unpredictable, towards the ocean.

Life can be lived in rules, but then life becomes superficial. Live life, not according to laws, but according to consciousness, awareness. Don’t live life according to the mind. Mind has rules and regulations, mind has rituals. Live life from the standpoint of no-mind so that you can bloom into unpredictable flowers.

Buddha has no golden rule in his philosophy.

According to Peter’s Principle, the golden rule of life is: whoever has the gold makes the rules.

And Buddha has no gold - he can’t make a golden rule. And secondly, he has no philosophy either. He has a vision, a darshan, a philosia, but not philosophy. A philosia simply means the capacity to see. Philosophy is thinking, philosia is seeing. Buddha is not concerned with thinking at all; his whole emphasis is on seeing. See the truth, don’t believe in it. Don’t think about it. You can go on thinking about it and about it, but you will never arrive at it by thinking about it.

Thinking about godliness has nothing to do with godliness. Thinking about light has nothing to do with light. In fact, only a blind man thinks about light. The man who has eyes enjoys light, he does not think about it. Have you ever thought about light? You enjoy it, you live it. It is dancing everywhere amongst the trees: you feel it, you experience it. Buddha is not a philosopher, in the Western sense of the word. He is a seer who has seen. And because he has seen he has become free: free of mind. The mind is needed only if you are a thinker.

Plato and Kant and Hegel and Marx and Bertrand Russell are philosophers. Lao Tzu, Buddha, Zarathustra, Jesus, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Eckhart are not philosophers; they are seers. These are two totally different currents. Belong to the seers. Be a seer, because without seeing the truth there is no deliverance.

-Osho
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 08

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Ghanshyam Savani
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ghanshyam ... ?details=1



» Last edited by Ghanshyam Savani on Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:16 pm; edited 4 times in total