ASIA originates from an astonishment and from the questions arising from it.
When I try to fix my mind on what I mean by absolute or ethical value it always happens to me that the idea of a particular experience shows itself and which therefore in a certain sense is my experience par excellence: for this reason now, talking to you, I will use this experience as my first and main example. [...] I think the best way to describe it is to say that when I have this experience I’m astonished about the existence of the world. Then I’m induced to use sentences like “how extraordinary is it that everything exists” or “how extraordinary is it that the world exists”. (1)
The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is. (2)
Why there is something, in general terms, why not nothing? (3)
We think that such moments of supreme perplexity which are awakening in us a question of sense, can express themselves in two different ways: they can throw us in the darkest nihilism but also in a wonder which is touching us.
Because ASIA’s experiences are moving between these two extremes, it is used to confront itself with the different cultures on themes regarding philosophy, education, ethics, art, science and spirituality.
(1) L. Wittgenstein, A Lecture on Ethics, in Lectures and Conversations
(2) L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus
(3) M. Heidegger, What is metaphysics?