Wohoo!! What a wonderful coincidence that Iv spent this week slightly sick ‘devouring’ Hareesh and Bernardo’s channels and now my 2 teachers are together for the second time. What a blessed time to be alive!!
Well said! As a kindred spirit, ill mention that throught dr kastrup i discovered swamijiij from new york vedanta society - i bet you will like that guy's talks. Advaita Vedanta is amazing. (But so is the approach this channel is about, so I don't want to distract from the coolness of it.)
@@noahghost4476 I love swamiji! What a nice talk that is. And Bernardo was so respectful and humble almost treating swamiji as a teacher. He even said that he could sit and listen to swamiji for hours.
I seriously want to open an analytical idealism dance club and just play his interviews, flash some wild lights, maybe smoke some weed... and jump up and down while twirling in circles. But my friends insist that this won't be good for sharing/advancing the philosophy, sigh, to each their own I suppose. (Especially since I'm living in a Midwest American college-town.) I'll leave this sorta activity to my own apartment. Sigh, people nowadays.
Introduction - 00:00:03 Tantra & Analytical Idealism similarity - 2:36 Start of Converstation - 00:04:49 Bernardo's background and analytic vs continental philosophy Bernardo's journey to idealism - 00:09:37 So on the one hand, I convey a analytic argument, while being, on the other hand, a continental philosopher. Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein - 10:40 Impact of Godel - 11:07 Bernardo's journey "how did this come up?" (CERN-AI) - 12:00 Christoper gives overview of tantric nondualist idealism - 00:18:02 20:21 - "everything is that but" (love this tantric insight) 21:52 - quoting bernardo's book 25:35 - arriving at same conclusion Bernardo's response - Analytic idealism - everything is consciousness/mind - 00:27:47 29:52 - dissasociated mind (imp point) 32:04 - not multitude of state - fundamentally one guitar string 33:29 only evolved beings have metacognition Dissociation and external world in analytic idealism - 00:37:29 Understanding matter and perception in analytic idealism - 00:45:45 46:18 the dashboard is the world The unique human capacity for self-reflection and metacognition - 00:52:37 Accessing the world as it is in itself - 00:52:11 53:00 Christoper "it is possible to sense IT partially, experience ocean of vibration, vibratory field" Bernado responds "it is plausible" 54:59 Psychedelics, brain activity and altered perception - 00:55:56 No process in nature is perfect (dissociation is not perfect) Experiencing non-dual states of consciousness - 00:59:50 Christoper "I can drop subject-object dichotomy at will" entering non dual mode Childhood realization of the world not being me - 01:05:56 Bernardo feels imposter syndrome, and shares childhood story 1:01:39 1:05:14 "you are not the world" kundalini experience 1:07:04 important tantric insight Distinguishing internal and external phenomena - 01:11:23 Openness to suffering and accessing its beauty - 01:20:26 Bernardo's motivation for his work - 01:24:41 Growth process of public intellectuals - 01:30:19 Surrendering to life's flow - 01:36:10 Love as a fundamental aspect of reality - 01:44:07 Where to start with Bernardo's books - 01:52:57 Evolution's compatibility with idealism - 01:57:44 Bernardo's analytic idealism summarized - 02:12:05
What a wonderful, enlightening conversation between two great beings that are living their lives in the service of others for the benefit of all. It felt to me like a beautiful piece of music, each one bringing their own knowledge and experience with different words about what is reality. I loved how deep and personal the conversation was, like two best friends sharing deeply and personally. Thank you both. You bathed me, nurtured me, and enlightened me with your love and search for the Truth.
The most fascinating conversation I ever heard. This really gives me hope. I feel so privileged to be able to witness how spirituality, philosophy and science are beginning to come together.
Thank you as I have drawn similar conclusions many for years, not as well as the two of you. Thank the infinity (or infinities?) for the internet and this conversation, as I am sure the two of you remember when it was very hard and/or expensive to find content like this. What a great discussion.
🙏❤ Hareesh, thank you another insightful interview! Just a suggestion.. perhaps you could bring on Igor Kufayev as a guest? He seems to me a sincere "Dharma friend" (teacher) as do you btw, and is also articulate and unafraid to show his passionate side. Igor's bio is on Wikipedia 🙏
@davidmickles5012, great suggestion, and yes indeed there is that passionate side with Igor Kufayev... I also observe that in interviews and online conversations, Igor is always courteous and easygoing, while staying true to his insights. Hareesh and Igor share many interests, so such a conversation is bound to be of high value.
@davidmickles4476 - Yes, David, very good suggestion for Christopher to invite Igor Kufayev to be on his show. Igor has also invited Bernardo Kastrup to his YT channel and they had a wonderful, insightful conversation there. Something great would come out with Christopher and Igor speaking together on Kashmir Shavism for their respective audiences. Both of these teachers are so knowledgeable and are so articulate. It would be a joy to listen to them discussing the deeper knowledge of Tantra that they both embodied in that fluid, coherent style that they share.
I'd just add that summary, I think its important to emphasize that what we colloquially call matter is NOT denied in this formulation(not that you claimed such). Its just that its not fundamental(the ontic primitive) or more importantly NOT exhaustively describable via "quantities" alone, as physicalism would tell you. Just like with us & all living creatures, ALL matter in the "entire inanimate universe as a whole" is also mental/"qualitative" from its own perspective(just minus metacognition perhaps). In ALL cases, that so called matter("transpersonal" mind stuff) appears on our screens of perception(dashboards) as particles/energy & force fields(albeit only as partial images). Life/biology/metabolism is what that dissociative process in mind at large looks like from the perspective of "other" life. & since experience is indeed nature's ONLY given without inference, this hypothesis just grants more of the same type of existent(as a category) to the "outside" world beyond our individual(seemingly) minds. Very much like how we can safely assume there is just more earth beyond the visible horizon. I'd highly recommend the 7 part introduction vid series mentioned to anyone even slightly interested. Such a view is what currently connects the most dots & by FAR, IMO of course.
Loved hearing him expressing his envy and frustration for not experiencing more viscerally what he intellectually understands so thoroughly, and your reassurance 😊 I wanna say same, bro.
Dr kastrup is not a naturalist in the usual sense of the word. He likes to say he's not willing to give that word up to the materialists. And by insisting that analytic idealism meets the description of naturalism, he helps people find the way to understanding it. But most people who call themselves naturalists reject metaphysical idealism!
@@noahghost4476 He doesn’t believe divinity is omniscient or omnipotent, but that it evolves, develops, and grows In several dialogues and interviews he comes dangerously close to embracing a tautology with statements like, “It [nature, consciousness] is what it is because it does what it does, and it does what it does because it is what it is.”
Meaning, its 'doing' and its being are one and the same. Which makes perfect sense actually. the word 'because' in the above quote is what's potentially misleading.
@@christopherwallis751 The quandary I am having with Dr. Kastrup’s naturalism is that it can’t account for why it (consciousness) should ‘do’ anything at all, which is the same practical dilemma facing materialists. I have an atheist friend who is a primordial non-dualist as well. The only difference between him and Bernardo here is that one sees the ‘it’ as extremely fine matter or energy while the other sees ‘it’ as consciousness. But at the primordial level, the debate reduces to semantics. It has to. You are merely arguing over labels at that point.
EDIT: Wait, I muddled things and replied to dr wallis as if he had said the thing about tautology. I look forward to coming back to this conversation when I can slow down and pay attention! @@christopherwallis751you said almost exactly the same tautology to Moses in Exodus 3:14 : ) Great conversation! I'm going to explore the other videos on your channel. I need to come back to this one and listen a second time before I can know what to ask or say. Thank you!
I've been a long-time fan of both you and Bernardo and absolutely loved this conversation, especially when it started getting deep and personal around the 1.5 hour mark: surrender, being of service, etc. Incredible stuff. Thank you!
Thank you, I enjoyed this podcast thoroughly. This was my introduction to Bernardo, and I will check him with Rupert. I felt that these are two geniuses talking and everything said is thrilling and so true. Christopher, your clarification from the tantric standpoint is remarkable. Love and Light to you both.
This is a wonderful interview! I have purchased and been enriched and educated by many of Bernardo’s books-but to hear him talk to you so candidly was a treat!!
Vive la difference, our differences (individuality) of subjective experiences and that of other animals are what enriches the ontological primitive of Transpersonal Mind: if you believe that is the ultimate reality. So life is to be experienced and enjoyed (evolved for good) with its richness, albeit filtered by perception of each dissociated boundary. Suffering, like pain, is sometimes unavoidable but to be avoided if possible - one way to ameliorate it is how we think. Introspection is a path for some.
Brilliant conversation. Thank you Hareesh! On a separate note, would be great to have a perspective on "siddhis" and whether they are part of everyday experience after the awakening process.
I had a transcendental experience last night. It seemilar to a very dose LSD trip (400 mm mcg) but clearer and more ecstatic, pure ecstasy. Energy flowing in and through me. A kind of pure bliss. After some whole I came back. Words came back, my body came back. For hours I was full of joy.I've been an idealist for a while, this simply confirmed it. O
Dude the very end about convenient fictions for reality. With evolution being a shadow of something occurring outside of space time but we observe it occurring looking back through space time since we have brain. My brain sort of broke for a moment. lol. Amazing talk.
This is all becoming way too bizarre. The way Shavism is taught is completely different in different systems within shavism which have all become conflated then conflated with information from different views of vedanda different views of Buddhism. Put simply there cannot be any path at all to liberation because it's already the attained and it's not by attained by individual someone or something. There's nothing in bondage inside-outside only apparently appearing as a someone or something in bondage. Only the illusion of bondage can be pointed out and only when nothingness spontaniously disolves the illusory me-energy when that energy disolves it's impersonally clear that it was never born. Nothingness is the singularity motionless apparently appearing as the separate energies of subjects and objects there is no separate energy inside-outside the body of apparently separate entities. The body is already formless-forming and doesn't need to be transformed into a spiritual energy body. Who would do that? There's plenty around who have fallen off the path or being kicked off that have spontaneously disolved into the fullness of voidness. It's incomphensible not to the body-mind rather to the illusory me energy. Spontaniously Disolving not spontaniously Evolving into a siddha being or an identity with a deity of some kind.
I'm curious about other perspectives. I personally have all the typical reasons for having no doubts regarding the reality of psychic experiences. Also, strong arguments for idealism (like Kastrup's) make it very clear that reality is fundamentally consciousness. That said, I notice that many teachers of non-duality jump from pointing to the phenomenology of the experience to ontological claims, as if once we notice the fact that we are always-already aware and that all experience arises and fades within this context...we have directly observed that space-time arises within awareness, and even more than that, they claim this IS validation that the field of awareness which we are IS the same field that all other beings are. Not that our awareness is an aspect of the whole (drop in the ocean), but that our awareness IS the ocean. I see this as just poor reasoning. But I'm open to somebody helping see it otherwise. There are plenty of materialists who are passionate non-dualists, who describe the exact same phenomenology of awareness. They treasure this realization and can point to the same 'benefits' that can arise when this realization is had. However, they do not draw the same ontological conclusions despite having the same experience. Again, I share the idealist perspective, but I point to this kind of materialist as just one more reason to suspect that the phenomenology of non-dual is not itself an argument for an idealist ontology. It isn't the best analogy, so be gentle, but it is a bit like watching the sun slowly move down the sky and then slip under the horizen and feeling it is obvious that this is what is actually happening. I fully agree that I am always-already aware and all events arise and fade within this awareness.
Of course Siva / God is aware of himself / itself, we're saying he doesn't *think* about himself -- his self-awareness manifests as the whole of nature.
If you are new to bernardo, it might also be worthwhile to check out his two free courses on analytic idealism. You can find them easily with a search.
You mention cancer many times in these podcasts. I would like it if you could put that concept into your idealism context. There’s no definitive identification using the scientific methods of an entity that we call cancer. And it isn’t something that attacks people arbitrarily. Rather, as you mention, it is what happens in the body as a response to some sort of interference in the normal maintenance of homeostasis. The symptoms are evidence of the restorative processes that happen just like breathing. The concept of something attacking that we have to kill is detrimental to balance physiologically and psychologically. Since the symptoms are an indicator of interference, it would be far more effective to focus on that than killing some fictitious microbe.
@@gramdeda not sure if you're addressing this comment to myself or to Bernardo, but I'll just mention that science does not at all claim that cancer is a 'microbe' or an 'entity'.
I think the notion of 'going into a non-dual mode' is missing something. I don't doubt Wallis goes into that mode. I think I do. I think many of us do. But his description of it being 'less thought' or cognitive activity sounds to me like a change of state. A GREAT change of state. But a change of state. I think many people aim for this change of state, they call it non-dual, and it is very often part of psychological bypassing.
Your comment wasn't addressed to me, but just to say, I don't usually enter a non-dual state when faced with a difficult interaction with someone. I don't use it for avoidance. I don't use it at all, really. It comes over me most frequently when just sitting and gazing, and also whenever it occurs to me to perceive in a non-dual way. And the decrease in cognitive activity is in no way intentional, but it seems to be just a byproduct of being in that mode. FWIW.
@@christopherwallis751 I hear you, Chris. Some of this is just language. I don't think it makes sense to talk of a non-dual state. There are states that arise, but all are always arising non-dualy. Even when we think seperative thoughts, those themselves arise non-dual. I know you get this, but it points to what I am getting at when I say that even our non-dualness is bounded.
@@christopherwallis751 Yeah, so it makes sense that when you are in a certain kind of struggle or interpersonal moment, you often are not recognizing the non-dual nature of all experience. My experience has been that recognizing that, even in the midst of challenges does not change anything. When I experience the kinds of changes that many teachers describe (less cognition, a joy surrounding the event, tenderness, acceptance), it now seems clear to me that this is a specific kind of state that is obviously non-dual. But whereas I used to believe that the recognition itself WAS that very shift, I now think that I simply believed that because it seems most teachers either state it explicitly or often imply that you aren't recognizing the non-dual nature of reality if you aren't having some kind of experience that resonates with those qualities.
When I hear people talk about their knowing of/as the non-dual reality, it matches what I recognize anytime I turn my attention to the nature of experience. Early on in our journey, I guess this often takes on a BIG or wild or cool or relieving sensation. And then it is just the way it is. It sounds like many teacher's tend to think that the non-dual awareness is not bounded as all their other experience is. I don't think so. When a teacher is eating a mango and aware of the non-dual reality, all of that is as bounded as the sensation in his toes, the way the tree appears from his point of view and his moment's of re-cognizing the non-dual.
@@christopherwallis751 Only in the sense that it is still taking place in/as the utterly unique 'whirlpool' of/as which 'your' awareness attends. You don't become aware and then pop back into the unique swirl of being of your living. Even your constant knowing of awareness is always 'yours'; even if you pop into a state in which no sensations, thoughts, or feelings are present, this pure awareness (which is not different than the awarenss of the taste of your coffee) is still the lip of your whirilpool. In other words, if you shift your attention from the taste of the coffee (which is obviously still non-dual) to some kind of 'pure' awareness, it isn't as if the person nearby you does the same in that moment. It isn't as if when you then, next moment, decide to make up a metaphor for what that shift was like that this is happening as any other whirilpool other than yours. I fully accept that awareness is always the case. I can only notice this in fact. Anything else is just a thought arising within this very always-already awareness. But many teachers tend to talk about this realization as if it 'takes them' outside the lip of their whirlpool. It certainly means that an aspect of their being is the eternal; but that doesn't suggest that they are then the entire 'ocian' so to speak. Being in touch with the fact that our essence is the same essence as reality itself is not he same as experiencing reality itself from its perspective; its perspective would include the unqiue experience of right now producing the aspect of experience that appears as this or that galaxy cluster. I am aware. But that is not the same as slipping outside of this whirlpool and experiencing that which is the whole non-dissociated, eternally creating reality.
That was too many words. I simply mean that when you taste the coffee (non-dual) you aren't tasting my donut. We are beautifully bounded while non-dual always.
@@rooruffneck totally agree. When we experience that we are the entire ocean, we are absolutely experiencing that from the vantage point of our particular whirlpool.
@@christopherwallis751 Ah, thanks for that clarity of that response. I think many many many of your students would predict you would not say that. I apprecaite it. Maybe this is the next step in my question: do you agree with me that when teachers point out the phenomenology of awareness -- namely its ever-presentness -- they then make a mistake in claiming this phenomenology is evidence of awareness being ontologically prior to time or any experience that arises and fades within the field of awareness?
A mind-stretching episode without a doubt. Thanks to you both for sharing your time and knowledge. In the summing up at the very end of the episode, you describe how 'mind at large' or 'God' is not metacognitive. This vast consciousness is not personal and the unfolding of its potential is unknown, even to itself. If that is the nature of reality it feels very bleak and depressing to me. Hopefully I'm missing the point entirely!
How/why is it bleak & depressing to you? Also, please note, the points you mention are speculative -- it would seem impossible for such a vast consciousness to be metacognitive, and if it knew in advance everything about the unfolding of its potential, why would it bother unfolding? But still, we can't know anything for sure in this domain.
Thanks for that reply. I'm aware that mine is very much an emotional response and that through it I express some of my own 'stuff'. If one of the things that imbues life with meaning is love, where is love in that understanding of the nature of reality? The very vastness and impersonality of it is where the bleakness comes in. The alternative view of God as a bearded, benevolent grandfather-like figure isn't very believable either! So much of non dual Shaivism resonates with me but I suppose I'm looking for a restaurant that serves it with a side order of warmth and a garnish of comfort! Or maybe it's already in the recipe but I just can't taste it! Thanks again for your work. Tantra Illuminated and the Recognition Sutras are and will remain books I return to again and again.
It's insulting to give a status of Dr to Kastrup,cause that would make that person whomever he or she is smarter that Kastrup himself and i would love to see that person 😂😂
The subject who is deluded that he is an earthly human being is the Mind at Large, or the universal consciousness, according to Bernardo's logic. But she must be under the illusion that she is a collection of earthly human beings and all of nature. And not just a human being. That must have been her experience. Consciousness is not the respective experience, nor the mental content. In the case of Mind at Large, it should be the subject who is trying to have the experience of Being the Mind at Large. The illusion may be about the meaning of the experience, or about the mental content. It makes no sense to have the illusion of being a consciousness. If the human being is not a consciousness, it is not the subject who experiences being the human being that he is, but a mental construction of another subject, of the mind of Mind at Large, the human being does not have an ontological existence. He is not a conscious being. He is like a thought or a character in a dream. He disappears with the dream. Consciousness is the dreamer. It is just a transient effect, like the whirlpool in the lake. Our subjectivity is phenomenal. It is not a conclusion from reflection. I think we are consciousnesses in interaction and not the Mind at Large with the illusion that it is just a human being.
don't you think it's weird that the vast majority of your training in south asian indigenous spiritualities comes from white people? that doesn't read to you as strange in any way at all? including the fact that you allow your audience of almost 15,000 to be sequestered in a bubble of whiteness and with exposure to almost exclusively other white spiritualists, besides maybe 2-3 south asians who you have invited on your channel?
a) your assumptions are wrong, as several of my key teachers (including both my root guru and my primary academic mentor for several years) are South Asian; and b) it's not weird that the majority of my academic teachers are of European descent, because modern India has (ironically) largely failed to pursue Indology as an academic discipline, due in part to the unfortunate legacy of colonialism which is still negatively influencing the culture. Sad perhaps but not weird once one understands the history. c) Your focus on the culturally constructed category of race is deeply missing the point of virtually everything discussed on this channel; as a key tantric scripture says, "There is only one caste, that of human beings. No “caste” was ordained for them, nor color such as white. All arise from the union of a linga and a yoni, and thus all souls are one and the same. One who has the eye of wisdom sees God in all of them."
@@ambireptorm your logic is faulty. There's no cap on the number of people who can research in this field, so the idea of "taking up space" is invalid. Please stop being racist now.
Christopher, please listen to this…..YOU speak far too much! It’s NOT YOU. I want to listen to your guest! YOU sir are way too interested in listening to YOUR own voice!,
