Commenting Policy

15 comments

• Comment Link Thursday, 08 September 2011 14:35 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  I dig the bald look for the intellectual, and these guys rock it pretty good. I thought Foucault had a particularly intense presence in many photos. But I'm personally a big fan of facial hair for philosophers. The Russian tradition from 19th-20th centuries, has lots of good beards and goatees and various excellent looks. And then there's Karl Marx. I've always appreciated that giant head of hair. According to his biographer it used to grow out of his ears too. Apparently he was quite a site to behold in person. Late Derrida had great hair, a big white top flying into the wind. Not to take it too too seriously, but I think aesthetic counts when it comes to intellectuals. It gets you into the game, gives you a flavor and flair. The disheveled intellectual is a classic look too, but I lean more toward a originally put together look. Dandies are cool too, if you can pull it off, and back it up with your work.
• Comment Link Thursday, 08 September 2011 14:47 posted by Philip Corkill

  Even more so when it comes to spiritual masters. I like the bald head and mustache of Gurdjieff:
  
  http://www.ouspensky.org.uk/gurdjieff1002%20.jpg
  
  What are Dandies trevor?
• Comment Link Friday, 09 September 2011 01:04 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  Br. Phil, a dandy is someone who "affects extreme elegance in clothes and manners". The classic one that comes to mind for me is Oscar Wilde. It seems that poets and novelists get away with this character most often. I can't personally think of one philosopher who truly fits the bill. Sartre and Heidegger dressed pretty sharply, but they weren't dandies in the strict sense (not enough hats and scarfs and canes and stuff!)
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandy
  
  ps. solid stache and gaze on Gurdjieff for sure.
• Comment Link Friday, 09 September 2011 01:23 posted by Philip Corkill

  Ah, I see =)
  
  Well, back to hair style and gazing, here are two more contenders:
  
  http://sanielandlinda.com/masters-of-the-heart/adi-da-samraj2.jpg
  
  http://oshomeditations.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Osho-on-Suppressed-Anger.jpg
• Comment Link Tuesday, 13 September 2011 02:07 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  those are beauties. I couldn't help putting this one of Derrida in, it's too good.
  
  http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/derrida.jpg
• Comment Link Friday, 16 September 2011 00:04 posted by Philip Corkill

  Very stylish. Amazing what eyes can say!
  
  Might these convey the look of Mirdad?:
  
  http://www.satrakshita.be/images/Naimy.jpg
• Comment Link Friday, 16 September 2011 00:18 posted by Bergen Vermette

  these are great, keep 'em coming. and yes, good point on the eyes. There's a lot behind the eyes of those two, it pours though the picture.
• Comment Link Sunday, 18 September 2011 22:49 posted by Philip Corkill

  Which two in particular do that for you Bergen?
  
  Here's another spiritual heavyweight:
  
  http://spiritlive-event.de/files/imagecache/newsbig/pix/news/518/Aurum,-Troll-Pyar.png
• Comment Link Wednesday, 21 September 2011 04:40 posted by Bergen Vermette

  I was thinking of Derrida & Mirdad, in this case. But now that i think of it, just about all realized beings have a vivid brilliance that pours out of their eyes. (not that Derrida was Awake in the enlightened sense, but I'm sure philosophers of his calibre have some degree of awakeness to them. or at least a comparable lucid-intensity.)
  
  There's a pic of Aurobindo about halfway down this page. Click on it to enlarge:
  http://sassingapore.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html
• Comment Link Saturday, 24 September 2011 21:59 posted by Philip Corkill

  Yes Bergen, nice one!
  
  I find that the intellectual giants often have a sharp and cutting quality to their focus. While great realisers generally have something vast, expansive or open to their gaze. Many in our above gallery appear to have both!
  
  Here's Germany's best kept secret on the vast embracing side of brightness:
  
  http://www.artur-sein.de/Bilder/index/index_01.jpg
• Comment Link Wednesday, 19 October 2011 19:21 posted by Philip Corkill

  Before I can let the gallery rest a few more faces:
  
  England's best:
  
  http://www.tonyparsons.de/pics/tony-parsons.jpg
• Comment Link Wednesday, 19 October 2011 19:22 posted by Philip Corkill

  And we can't be doing without one of these:
  
  http://www.arunachala-ramana.org/photos/restored_photos/full/jh_092_bust_high_res.jpg
• Comment Link Wednesday, 19 October 2011 19:39 posted by Philip Corkill

  Finally, the most astonishing human being (beings - there is little one inside:-) I ever had the good fortune to sit with (and it's been a lucky life in that respect):
  
  http://adverstock.photoshelter.com/image?_bqG=22&_bqH=eJxtj1trwzAMhX9N89yxpJSAHxxLDVoTe_WlkCdjRljZBcaW3f79rFC2sE0P9neOdGzUNtMDpP3hqt3gZ4m3p1Qe4Clc7mBbb7Z1ta4v1rlqiuCUcG9pekwFRQfS46pq.n5VgVgYAGwALKwhF5t8Zxt_R_FvFP.PKvLD_JnPbQZlgvZ2iOQMS2MJde6R0SzJRYsdSodwltdL7Yz1wkq9L.blotQgpszBoY0EIvDierxvPl7Lbrx7z60jWR9kF2WLWg08VETVRMoP5.gZwzfa3Q_2jFJ58TKm55tTcZzTLZ9ffBlvNA--
• Comment Link Tuesday, 25 October 2011 19:44 posted by Trevor Malkinson

  Phil, I was saving this one to do a Sacred Sundays feature around, drawing off this thread (still might do it), but after your last rounds of posts I just had to share it now!
  
  It's the song by Van Morrison called The Master's Eyes. Here's the simple lyrics before a video link below:
  
  "How the light shone from the master
  How the light shone from the master
  How the light shone from the master's eyes
  
  Or how the truth shone, from the master
  How the truth shone, from the master
  How the truth shone, from the master's eyes
  
  Why didn't they leave us to wander through battered summers
  Why didn't they leave us to wander when there was no other
  
  And my questions all were answered
  When the light shone from the master
  When the light shone, from the master's eyes
  
  From the master's eyes. Oh how the light shone".
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRzsOlIlgvM
• Comment Link Thursday, 27 October 2011 16:11 posted by Philip Corkill

  Yay!
  
  "The eyes are the doors of human consciousness. They are the most unphysical part of the physical body"
  
  "...there is another maturity where the eyes become fixed. You cannot see any change in Buddha’s eyes: his body will grow old, he will die, but his eyes will continue to be the same. That has been one of the indications. When someone attains nirvana, the eyes are the only door by which outsiders can know whether the man has really attained it. Now the eyes never change. Everything changes, but the eyes remain the same. Eyes are expressive of the inner world."
  
  Osho
  
  Who said a lot on a long day (as they say in Germany:-)
  
  Coincidentally, I was just contemplating how existence (the master in another sense) now has seven billion pairs of human eyes on earth. That's slightly more than one human eye to behold the beauty of every single year of evolution since the birth of the universe (correct my maths if its wrong). Or to weep over what we're doing to that diverse beauty. What a collective act of worship that would be...
  
  One eye laughing one eye crying,
  
  Phil