Baruch Spinoza had one idea that nobody was ready for in his time: that we are all God. More on dailyphilosoph... daily-philosop... All assets, including music, licenced from Envato Elements. Some images created with Midjourney.
It's just fascinating how different cultures view and react to the same ideas. Poor Spinoza suffered endless persecution for proclaiming that we are all God, whereas among Hindus this idea was old hat and almost universally accepted since the time of the _Upanishads._
If you want to further enhance about the philosophy which he was talking about just search Swami sarvapriya anda" who am i" a hindu Vedanta scholar. This is basically Advaita Vedanta philosophy teaches you but in way more depth analysis.
But both have a different god in mind ... That you have to keep in mind..... And it's sad that hindus abandoned that philosophy.... Because of it's simplicity... Because everyone wanted some fantasy instead of finding simple truth
if he was born in India and claimed that "We are all gods", he would have been considered "enlightened" as many enlightened individuals of our country have made that declaration
How enlighted are those people? Where is their wisdom, where are their fruits? Have they changed the world? Have they changed indias cast system or protected the indian people from the numerous quacks?
@@fickgooglefickthem6884 It's not an enlightened person's duty to change the world. They only heed to the deep questions in life. They are not social workers. They are truth speakers who speak about the ultimate truth of non duality. Also we Indians don't need any protection, like any other nation, we have our flaws. Recognising them is the first step to solving them and we are on our way .
@István Sipos One must start with the 'I'. The I is what is mysterious, says Wittgenstein. The "testable claim" for 'I' is embedded in the theory of relativity, and the Doppler effect. It is also at the heart of phenomenological perspective, the main example of which is optical perspective. Until Brunelleschi in 1416 and thereabouts people could not see what they were seeing: that parellel lines converge in the distance. This was due to ignoring the fact of 'I', and to the domination of the allocentric object-to-object frame of view, or way of seeing. When the 'I' is established as the centre of the epistemic world, the entire nature of the world changes. The 'I' is not the thinking ego. When the nature of the witness is established, so is the dream-like photocognitive nature of everyday, otherwise normal, reality. Wittgenstein covers this in the latter parts of Tractatus (1922). He notes that the I shrinks to zero and pure realism coordinates with it. In variations on a theme this is represented in Taoism, Zen, Vedanta etc. The state of understanding this is called magic even by the great existential atheist Jean Paul Sartre, in his essay on a theory of emotion. God and the angels have to do not with 'things' but modes or states of 'being in the world'. How to know this? For some of us it required a great struggle to consolidate our childhood clarity. For others it comes by accident and yet others they never lose it in the first place.
In South India and once upon a time all over the world the "mind" was the heart. Hsin in Chinese. Sinn in German (for sense). Manas in Sanskrit, Tamil, Pali etc. Latin: Mens rea in law refers to "state of mind". Mens from.manas is feeling. Conscience, empathy the texture and tone of quality. common sense. Mind in the head is quantity, to with objects, things. Etc. The psychological heart has to do with process, and the big picture. The psychological heart is the axle of consciousness, will, intention, intuition and so on. Sadly in this aggressively "educated" age people are unaware of their own deeper self.
Nah brother may be he was ahead in time for European philosopher. If you want to further enhance about the philosophy which he was talking about just search Swami sarvapriya anda" who am i" a hindu Vedanta scholar. This is basically Advaita Vedanta philosophy teaches you but in way more depth analysis.
@@sanjaiyadav2080 There was no philosophy in India in those ancient times. Sure there were many texts, and many scholars, but in India philosophical thought never rise above religious thought because of the influence of religion, or religions. European philosophy was way, way ahead of everything, in fact, philosophy was born in Europe... That is explained in Hegel's History of Philosophy.
@@grosbeak6130 Why are you telling that to me? You think I care what you think? I spent 6 years at the university and I am a professor. You think that you will achieve something by using an ad hominem, insult addressed to me? I don't care for such things, that insult speaks about you, that you are incapable of making civilized dialogue, the first thing that one should learn if one aspires to be a professor of philosophy or even a good amateur. You are wasting my time, and shaming yourself... As one famous man said, the educated and ignorant are not problematic, the semieducated are problematic and boring.
It is also worth knowing the rumor about Spinoza that he played cards well and sometimes beat drunks in the bar. With what he won, he bought everyone a beer. People liked him a lot.
We work on impulses. Even if we believe 'we are all God and same" we still gonna harm others for our selfish desires. At least that's what Evolution wants us to do. Even if such a God exists reality is ultimately meaningless if he can't solve sufferings. May be that's why Buddha asked us to stop thinking about Supernatural and focus on the Here And Now. No meaning is needed in Life to be happy, what's necessary is acceptance of present moment.
@@garyp1432 Similar on a grand fundamental scale, but couldn't be more different from an analaytical, scientific perspective. It sounds paradoxical but it really isn't.
@@garyp1432 Daily Philosophy is inserting his Nietzsche hit the nail on the head with his will to power hypothesis, and Spinoza is right about creator and creation; spirit and matter, being necessarily one and the same. That said, we are not "all the same". No two people are exactly the same.
This man has influenced my thinking. I majored in Philosophy. I begged my Dean at my university to take a graduate course in Spinoza, as an undergrad. I got the course.
@@dailyphilosophy My professor, Dr. Joel Friedman, took all the premises, corollaries, and axioms and made a chart connecting all the arguments. It was tedious work but I enjoyed learning these ideas. I had to refer to Aristotle's Metaphysics, the Kabbala, Latin, and Euclid to understand the terms. Substance is self causing blew my mind. Spinoza's breakdown of emotions, modes and attributes took some heavy thinking. Overall, Spinoza influenced my thinking and challenged many of my religious conceptions. I also realized that he was a man of courage, especially when he was confronted by a mob, during political upheavals in the Netherlands.
@@dailyphilosophy Wow! This brings back a lot of memories. I had the graph blown up and expanded. I have framed since then. I will go through my professor's body of work and locate that graph.
@@albertogutierrez8653 That would be brilliant, thanks! I'm teaching a class that includes Spinoza, so your graph would be put to good use and help educate a new generation.
That is also why Abraham of the Christian Holy Bible, Abraham started breaking the Idols, because it is all God and the Idols take away from the belief in the Living God.
It’s amazing how institutional religion, hates ideas, that are outside their box. Spioza’s theory touches me. My being is filled by good company, or being as close to nature as possible. Defined sacred places, are only special, in they are important to others.
Whenever I begin new notebook or journal, the first thing I write in it: "All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare." Spinoza The metaphor of the unseen connections of the fruiting bodies of the mushrooms expresses the concept so well. Thanks for your work.
I remember reading meditations of Marcus Aurelius and how he says that we should live in accordance with nature. I didn’t really understood what that means, and my atheist ass was resistant to the idea. But this makes so much sense
Yes, we must already have a natural inclination to live in accordance with the rest of nature. But somewhere along the line, human beings have deviated somewhat from that natural path. One might argue that we are now beginning to suffer as a result of this deviation.
Thank you for your comments! It's not only now, I think. There have been published multiple "ecological histories of the world" in recent years, which make clear that even in ancient times civilisations collapsed because they kept destroying the environments they lived in. If you go to Greece today, it's all rocky mountains without any trees. This is, in large part, due to deforestation that began in the 5th century BC when Athens built its fleet to create its maritime empire. The British did the same with their trees and the forests of Ireland, which now is among the least forested European countries -- because of the Empire's fleet of wooden ships. But humans learn very slowly, it seems, and our immediate interest always seems to trump our long-term needs.
This isn't meant to be mean, how can you not immediately understand it? It's, you know, pretty self evident? Even if I disagree with him on that, Marcus Aurelius' greatest contribution for me, is the popularisation of pronoia. We shouldn't live by, or with nature. Only as all other animals do, they don't have a special care for nature. They simply try to survive it.
@@BygoneT But isn't the problem that our rationality has made us too good at surviving? Other animal populations are naturally kept low and balanced by predators and scarce resources. We alone have managed to use our monkey brains to overcome these limitations, and now we're stuck in a situation where it's on us to care for nature and every other life form. It was different in Marcus' time, when Europe had one or two million people on it. Now it's half a billion, depending on how one defines Europe. I don't think we can escape our responsibility and say, let's go back to the state of natural innocence. We've lost that long ago.
@@dailyphilosophy Eh I don't know man. Apologies for the long ish comment, I included a practical, real example. Are tigers inconvenienced by the virtually uncontested dominance over their environment? I don't think so. In parallel we have always, as far as my modest public school education has let me understand, tried to find ways to overcome the harshness of survival. When chasing after animals as hunter gatherers became a bit of a problem, or maybe we just gave it a try and got hooked, we became a species concerned over territory and farmland. We developed hierarchical structures stronger than before to hold the new world we were trying to build. When water was inconvenient to reach, we found ways to take it to us without holding it in buckets. And at the same time, tried to solve the problems of having a mind that works independently from us, but with us. Until we managed to stave off the elements, hunger, infant mortality, superstition, bad hygiene, and got to where we are today. See, animals will do whatever they want. For them, every day is survival. They are not idiots, but to make an example, in Italy, wolves were quite literally going extinct some 15 years ago. This resulted in deers making trouble for the locals. The cause? Bears. Bears killed too many wolves, coupled with hunting as a traditional sport (Even if much less problematic and frequent in those years), this posed a problem for wild wolves. So, wolves were imported and now there is a new strain of wolves over there. Nature appears to be in balance, but it isn't. Balance is in existence, as proven by some forces being described perfectly in mathematics, but not in an existential sense. Life doesn't balance out. Life preys on other life to survive. It might look like balance, but for the species going at it, it's brute force overpowering another existence. Balance is something we only derive out of looking at it from above, but we don't see bad things happening to us as balance, well, some do. But usually they have issues. Sometimes, animals go overboard and make other species go extinct. Only we, maybe because we can afford the moral considerations, want to undertake something such as conservation of life. In my opinion, the biggest problem for us, is an exponential increase in freedom we couldn't begin to comprehend what to do with, since we are busy living in the boxes we built ourselves. Soon enough, we will be able to decide things we refuse to consider, except for a few experts. We always, without exception, step into territory that could be scouted and then develop into chaos ourselves. What happens when we can decide whether or not a child can have down's syndrome? Or look a certain way from genes? Have an ai wife/husband? Child? Or the biggest elephant thanks to Elon musk, interplanetary diplomacy and war?
He was absolutely ahead of his time! We know that we are a carbon-based life, but what's fascinating is that another 2 huge transformations had to happen to give rise to this: first is the universe cooling down just enough after the big bang to form the first hydrogen atoms, second is those hydrogen gas clouds collapsing together to form stars that will create carbon atoms which will one day land on this very planet to start that carbon based life. Which of course itself had to go through many iterations too, we call that biological evolution, but the entire universe has been evolving, we are just a part of that on going process. It's amazing to me that we got to figure out this process, like a cog in a complex machine gaining awareness and realizing the machine's existence and its place in it. It's no wonder then that people panicked so much as his philosophies (and many still do), it's a moment of existential dread for the cog, but I think it will pass and with the generations we will learn to appreciate and love this universe that is as much a part of us as we are a part of it. It's all very fascinating iterations of the same fundamental building blocks moving from one form to another. In that way when we die, we simply return our borrowed atoms to the universe much like the dead stars that gave us those atoms did. Spinoza would have loved our current knowledge of astrophysics, cosmology, and biology. No wonder Einstein referred to his ideas, it's the closest to our current scientific understanding of the world we live in. He truly was before his time. May your atoms be part of future stars and worlds Spinoza. Edit: this got long can you guess how much I'm excited for this xD But I have to add: you see iterations and change in everything, the entire earth surface is an ever changing thing, mountains rise and erode away, tectonic plates ever moving form continents only to break and reform them again, the climate changes from ice ages to temperate back and forth, and so on, it's like earth itself is alive. It's a never-ending process, and should it ever end we would consider earth as dead as Mars. It's just that we are really short lived compared to these processes so we can't see them happen in real time, and yet we are smart enough to look for clues and figure out what happened in our absence! I truly don't understand why some people think of science as some cold detached thing, what's more awe-inspiring and mesmerizing than a piece of the universe to arise in a tiny interlude after billions of years of cosmic evolution to look back at it all and ask in wonder "how?". I wish I could live forever to witness it all unfold, but I am honored and joyful that I got a chance to wonder at it all. To me this is the highest spiritual experience that one can feel.
Thank you for this wonderful, poetic comment. The connection to Einstein is particularly interesting. Unfortunately, our modern, technological ways of life tend to separate us more and more from nature, rather than making us feel a part of it. And as the climate effects get worse, our governments respond with more technological solutions rather than addressing the root of the problem. On the other hand, all the wonderful people who have watched and commented on this video are a reason for hope. We can still change things and try to live more sustainably.
@@dailyphilosophy aww I edited my comment and lost your like badge thingy :(. Yes, sustainability and the spread of misinformation and pseudoscience are major problems of our age, but I do believe we will overcome this as we overcame many of our own problems in the past. After all had Spinoza wrote his books today they wouldn't be burned, and many would have celebrated him during his life, and he wouldn't have died so early from the work he did. We overcame that kind of ignorance, and I am hopeful that we will overcome the kinds of ignorance we deal with in this age too. We are growing and learning as humanity.
Maybe less talking about metaphysics and more about the analytical school, or logical positivism, or at least a few videos about those things. I studied philosophy at university, and I don't think metaphysics is really useful, for many reasons.
Great video. 7:30 -8:24 that segment really reminded so much of Alan Watts. The source of confusion in life and our attempts to "make sense" of it is the nature of our consciousness and the nature of language. We break things into "parts". We bit (bite) them into concepts and "things" in order to be manageable for conscious attention to grasp and talk about. We imagine the universe to be a collection of parts separated and distinct from another acting on one another. Then we forget that we did that (or were never aware in the first place). This forgetfulness isn't an error in us as the us is what the entire universe is doing "here". We ultimately reduce the "things" to a duality leading to further confusion. Life/Death, being/non being, something/nothing etc and we become inclined to view one favourably and the other to be feared instead of seeing them as two aspects of the same process. The ego illusion is what gives rise to confusion.
I've always felt that Alan Watts was very inspiring, and he has this hypnotic voice and way of speaking that really captures one's attention. Unfortunately, my German immigrant English cannot quite compete with him for effect, but I'm still grateful to you for mentioning us together in one sentence. I also totally agree with what you say about duality. Unfortunately, we can't seem to be able to escape it. All our Western logic, since ancient times, is based on Aristotle's "laws of thought," which essentially cement this duality: if one statement is true, then its opposite must be false. Some Eastern philosophies have escaped that trap, and perhaps we ought to look more into Eastern thought for ideas on how to make more sense of our lives. Anyway, thanks a lot for your thoughts!
@@dailyphilosophy i enjoyed reading your reply. New subscriber, I look forward to digging through your videos. Yeah, Alan was a gifted speaker for sure. His ability to cut to the chase and simplify what could otherwise be presented as needlessly overcomplicated is a joy to listen to. His emphasis on Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist and Zen teachings instantly fascinated me. I agree with when you say that we could all benefit from looking at how the eastern traditions approached the fundamental questions of existence and consciousness. Good day to you Sir.
@@andromedarising5764 Thank you again for your kindness! Unfortunately, there are only three videos of mine currently to "dig into", so it won't be much of a digging. But I'm trying to catch up and more will be coming soon. Many thanks for subscribing and I hope that we can continue the discussion soon under another video :) (By the way, I published a new one about the concept of kings just yesterday, so you might want to see if you find it interesting). Thanks!
@@dailyphilosophy hey sir I really like this vedio, I am not known to many western philosophers but I came to know Spinoza few years ago and his writings really convinced me. I am from India and I am from Sikh religion and I do believe in god and I believe in concept of singularity only, I think duality is only mirror effect. like you say about duality that if one statement is true, then its opposite must be false( like day and night are totally opposite and considered as two things) but its good to say it like this that if there would be no day then there would be no night so day and night are not two things but actually one as they exist because of each other. and one more thing in our religion our gurus have already told that god is about experiencing not about knowing so we emphasizing more on chanting meditation and believe me once to started getting connect to universal energy or cosmos its amazing and its all true not even a single myth. And please try to read "Guru granth sahib ji" our holy granth, if youy have not. thank you
@@harman6730 Thank you so much for your comment! Yes, I agree with what you say about duality. I didn't know that this was also a topic in Sikh religion, but it is one of the main points also in Daoism. Especially Western languages (I'm not sure about Indoeuropean or Sanskrit) have this very strong focus on duality: yes and no. True and false. In our lived reality, things seldom are true and false in such a clear way. And, as you say, they always seem to appear as blending into each other. Even the best people have moments where they are evil, and even the evillest criminals may love their children. Thank you also for your reading suggestion! I will look it up.
Imagine an oak tree with tens of thousands of leaves. Is an Oak leaf the tree? Or is the Oak tree the leaf? Together they are one. Neville Goddard said it best. "Me and my father are one but my father is greater".
I think Jesus himself hints at this too when he says things like, "I and the father are one" or "When you do this for the least of my brethren, you do it for me", etc.
Thank you for this, it is beautiful. As a life long student of Spinoza's philosophy and now a teacher. I know that Spinoza's Ethics, and if read, studied and understood it will change your life for the better. As you know, Spinoza explains that we are a mode of two of his infinite number of attributes, THOUGHT and EXTENSION. That all of existence express God's essence; however, man's mind is comprised of clear ideas and confused ideas. That God constitutes the essence of our mind; that is when we are thinking clearly we are expressing God's infinite understanding or intelligence. The mind is an intangible thinking thing. It is an idea of the body and the body is the object of the mind. They act as one unit communicating. The body is a finite physical thing and the essence of the mind is eternal.
Spinoza must have read a lot on Hinduism, Sir. This is the ultimate in Hinduism as you may have known too. ADVAITHA PHILOSOPHY is what Spinoza has put forward basically. Not new to us Hindus. Thanks. MeenaC
Unfortunately, Hinduism is a pretty big area in itself, and difficult to get into if one doesn't have any background in it. So I have never really engaged with it, but I will give it a go now. Thanks!
Whatever he said is true. It is also a philosophy in Hinduism called the Advaita vedant. There is also the great statement "Aham brahmasmi" that is "you are the absolute reality"
So when John Lennon wrote, “ I am you and you are me, and we are all together” in “ I Am The Walrus” he was expressing Spinoza’s idea. But then I’m pretty sure Lennon was getting that from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Once again, we are back to eastern philosophy. And for us Christians, there’s a similar idea in the gospel according to John 17:10 - Jesus’s high priestly prayer: “ All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.” This is not threatening; this is awesomely cool!
Thank you for the video sir. I always have questioned God and the closest I've gotten to the idea of him is that everything is God and he is everywhere. Although, I always had doubts as I am a Hindu and there are a lot of people feeding all kinds of information to your brain. One common denominator I've found in all the major religions is that they all believe God is beyond space and time. I think this somehow relates to Spinoza's philosophy. It's sad to know that he had to live a terrible life. People do not like strange new ideas as it creates uncertainty, something that our minds hate like nothing else. I felt safe and heard so I wrote down a long comment. Thank you once again, you've earned a subscriber.
Many thanks for your kind words! They are a great encouragement to me. I hope that you will find my future videos also inspiring. Please keep telling me about your thoughts. I often find these discussions in the comments actually much more interesting than the videos themselves. To answer one of your points, I don't think that God cares whether we're Hindus or Muslims or Jews. If there is a God, there will be one only for all of us, and he will be generous enough to ignore our little fights about whose religion is better.
But the Hindu view of God is different from the Christian and Muslim one They view God as a Master - these are Master/Slave religions A slave may serve Only One Master - hence the One God and threats against others Take their Terminology - "Commandments, Submit, beg, obey, judge, wrath, punish, mercy, forgive, Fear" - ALL Slave/Servant words totally absent in Hinduism/Buddhism The word Lord has crept into Hinduism, but this came from outside and must be rejected by Hindus For us God is not our Master, we are not slaves We remain True Children of God - God Rama is our Father, we are His Children We ALL are - but lured by the promise of an eternal life of comfort, Christians and Muslims have reduced themselves down to slaves/servants That is their choice, not ours We sit by the side of God, His arm around us Christians and Muslims are down on the ground before us on their knees, begging for mercy, shaking with fear - all by choice! They want a life of ease & comfort - that is why they have lowered themselves down to such They will get it - but as lower life forms Take dogs for example - free food, shelter, protection and care - no work, no worries, lay about all day, every day! Heaven! They will get their Heaven but at a terrible price
@@ramaraksha01 Thank you for your comment, but I must say that I strongly disapprove of any form of religiously motivated hatred, and I'd prefer that we discuss here as thoughtful, kind human beings rather than enemies. I don't see any single one of those age-old religious rivalries leading anywhere except into more suffering for all sides. I hoped that this would be one take-away from this video.
@@dailyphilosophy I look for rational explanations - And I look to philosophers to echo these ideas and sadly I find none Don't see much value in philosophy, when in all other areas including philosophy we can discuss ideas, criticize or praise them But when it comes to religion now it is a "rivalry" and so my views must be silenced That's like saying Liberals promote Abortion access as a rivalry against Cons or vice Versa . There is no evidence for God, so these ideas must come from us Hindus don't condemn Non-Hindus to hell, neither does Buddhism But both Christians and Muslims do - OPENLY! Why is that? There is a history of mass killings in the name of religion. Again, why is that? . To me the answer is clear Christians and Muslims made God using their Kings/Dictator as a Guide, for Hindus and Buddhists God is a Parent/Teacher Christians and Muslims view God as their ticket to an everlasting life of ease & comfort And using that carrot these religions promote hate against unbelievers And just like leeches, oligarchs have raped, tortured and killed those who did not support their benefactor, so have these people . For Hindus and Buddhists - there is no such life of ease & comfort The Buddha is a Teacher - all he can offer is knowledge, guidance For us, God is everywhere, God is our Parent to ALL of us - hence the lack of hate in these religions
@@ramaraksha01 if "God" is the creator of the universe, there is evidence of that. Two science experiments. The amazing resonance experiment and star in a jar. One shows the true "word" and the other shows light being created. Frequencies are the driving force of ALL creation. "God" is a fractal pattern endlessly expressing itself. You are the word made flesh...
@@ahobimo732 Yes, it is like Christ saying we are his body and that we are gods. We choose whether we will be one with him or separated because everything is connected. Hell is the separation from the source. I don't get why Christians were harsh against him. Maybe because the societies were agricultural and not even the priests cared to understand and analyze the scripture.
@@babisbabinos8075 Well, to be honest, I think most "Christians" would be shocked and appalled by the figure of Christ, if they ever encountered him in real life. There is an enormous gulf between the ideals presented in the Gospels, and the behaviour of most people claiming to follow those ideals. In my view, "Christianity" refers mostly to a collection of institutions of social control that arose to exploit the message of love and unity associated with the figure of Christ. The greatest irony is that the Gospels clearly describe how Jesus railed against religious corruption. This was the one sin for which he had no mercy, no compassion. Those "false shepherds" who exploit and mislead the lost, desperate masses were the very people who Jesus identified as the greatest evildoers. And yet the story and meaning of Jesus life was ultimately co-opted by precisely such people.
Of course we are all one, one with Nature/God :) It's a good thing people are coming back to remembering this, it can't happen too soon! We must love one another and love our planet in order to survive.
You are so right! Unfortunately, modern life and technology are designed to isolate us more and more from each other and from nature. Let's hope that we can change this as long as there is still time.
Absolutely entrancing and insightful video sir. The way you have edited it is both subtle and purposeful. This video managed to hold my attention (despite being very less viewed.. Which is sad.), provide a novel insight and possibly change the the way my mind works atleast to some degree. Keep it up sir. You have earned a subscriber. I will watch other of your videos.
Thank you so much for your kind words! This is only my second video, so I'm very much aware of its shortcomings, but I hope that I will manage to improve the quality in the future. Please also feel free to tell me which topics or philosophers you'd like to see more about. I'm always grateful for ideas for future videos.
We are all energy, vibrating in unique patterns. Diety, people, plant, stone. The universe is a complex vibration that each contributes to, infinitely connected with others, in the now, in the past, and in the future.
Thank you so much for your kind words! If you like, have a look at daily-philosophy.com, where we publish weekly articles on all sorts of philosophy-related topics.
Not dharmic hinduism: Dvaita: cosmic soul and individual soul are apart. Vishistadvaita: individual soul is on the body of cosmic soul Advaita: cosmic soul alone exists
As in, who/ what is the "I" in "I think therefore I am"? Now, there is a most fun and fascinating question! Getting to the root of that question is the beginning of a wonderful philosophical outlook.
@@andromedarising5764All long term meditators and many psychedelic drug trippers have the same Ontological observation which is the corner stone of Eastern Mysticism both from India and China; namely that you are the being. You aren't the thinking. The being is who is listening observing the thinking. Over time (for those on the path) the voice over the commentary the static goes fainter and less and less influential. You Begin to recognize your thoughts as a by product of your neural net as some baggage you must take with you through this life but not you. So one begins to see it as one's, would be imposter. And you can easily notice who's a slave to the noise between their ears and who isn't. We all are from time to time. So the I in I think isn't you at all it's basically existential fear in all it's many many forms. But it ain't the eternal you. Now thinking is actually related but distinct from intellect.
In hindsight, Spinoza was naively optimistic in thinking that an all-powerful and all-knowing deity or substance would be rational or benevolent- as opposed to strict Necessity or Fate, amoral and incomprehensible.
I must admit that I simplified things for this video. As I said, his philosophy is pretty complex, and you can see from the quote I had in the video: "The eternal being ... necessarily acts as it does" that Spinoza indeed thought that we are all driven by necessity and that the universe is deterministic. But of course, being identical with God, he wouldn't have seen it as amoral. Incomprehensible, perhaps.
Cognitive dissonance has always plagued the human mind. We have an eternal need to explain our world and give reasons for its existence. Then when we don’t agree we imprison, kill or banish those we disagree with. The worst first cause explanation was God. How futile to to try to explain the unknowable. The best and most profitable course of study is to understand Nature. We as human beings were nature’s worst mistake. We have a bigger brain than our primate cousins but have failed to use it with wisdom to solve our most basic problems, greed, wars, racism’s, global warming, etc. We are our worst enemy sad to say. Natures greatest enemy.
But unfortunately, he doesn't have quite the impact today that many others have. He is much less popularly known than others (if one asked people in the street or perhaps even first-year philosophy students to name 3 philosophers, how many would say "Spinoza"?) And also if one looks at publications and conferences, or even university classes, Spinoza is almost always dealt with as part of some "Enlightenment" package, not on his own terms. One wonders why that is.
Incredibly pertinent! We are all links in the same chain. All drops of water from the same ocean. I don't like thinking that Hitler and me are one. It forces me to have compassion for those who I disagree with. If we are aware of oneness we don't have enemies, just parts of ourselves that we need to help to a better place.
I have been searching for 50 years for truth and bliss and have found that the greatest wisdom is in advaita Vedanta non duality....we can actually BE INFINITE DIVINE BLISS PEACE AND LOVE....seek and you will find the answers to every question 🙏☮️🥰🕉️🙏
Thanks for the video. Here are my thoughts on this, so basically what Spinoza wrote is similar to Lao Tzu's philosophy of the Tao and Wallace D Wattles' Original substance. And the more I read and listen to these unrelated texts, the more and more I see a trend of similarity and the harder it is not to believe in the existence of something greater in us and in all things.
You might be interested in a book by Aldous Huxley. The Perennial Philosophy (I think). He tries to show that all religions are connected by common ideas. The present Dalai Lama also often emphasises the point: you can be of any faith, but in the end, the basic ideas of a spiritual life are the same for all of us. Thanks!
I loved that! Beautifully presented 👏. Clear and perfectly understandable. Spinoza's axiomatic treatise condensed into one simplified, comprehensible, eloquent and meaningful production.
Thank you so much for your kind encouragement! I'm just starting out on this RU-vid journey, and it means a lot to me to know that others enjoy what I'm trying to do.
Wayne Dyer taught the same thing...for me, I am a piece of God, His reflection, His image an likeness, a combination including my background in Christian Science
it might also be connected to spinoza's early education: as a jew, he was taught 'god is one'. he took this seriously. thank you for an excellent presentation.
We call ourselves The Murder of Crows among other names. We have never heard of Spinoza but fermly agree with these beliefs, we, the entire universe is God to us. We are 23, and autistic. We were raised as an atheist, our mortal father was our God, but there was no love, it was always a game and a truama bond. When we could no longer run from this truth, it shattered us completely. But we kept living in this new form, completely unrecognizable. The first time we sincerely quistioned our former Atheism was before being disowned, it was after we were diagnosed with autism and after we had accepted our true self as a man. We summoned a jinn with our sister, a man named He Who Walks on Iron Sands, he was an elephant from Mars with burns all over his legs. He told us stories about the wars on Mars and we could not see or hear him, but our sister could, He asked us, "Why are you here if you don't believe I exist?" And we responded at the time, "Because I want to believe that you do." That night after the experience I declared myself an Agnostic, because we could not believe that our sister staged an experience so shocking and amazing. - Now we're a chaos magician on the left hand path, and our sister is more traditional and on the right hand path. We absolutely believe that everything to ever exist, IS God. Because God to us is Everything, including us. Our favorite angel is Samiel. He helped us after our father disowned us last year which split us into multiple identities, multiple people. We consider that angel our father now instead. We praise him every Saturday by singing songs about death, playing the piano, and burning scent sticks. Even though everything is God. We still have our favorite aspects of God.
As a child I heard a religious figure teaching that the real name of god could never be known. Then he said, if anyone ever uttered the true name of god, the world as we know it would end. This was a mystery I felt compelled to solve. Why, why would God's real name end the world? It took a while. But now I understand. The real name of god is " I am".
It *is* interesting, but very hard to read because he always refers back to something he's proven 20 pages earlier. Anyway, if you want to read the original, his Ethics is online, for example here: www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm Thanks!
@@dailyphilosophy Fantastic! I didn't have to look! Thanks! I am used to super-dense material and I can rely on second opinions ( like yours) if I get stuck. 👍
Spinoza threatened the Power of Judaism and the Churches.He was, like many groundbreaking philosophers,persecuted.I wrote a poem about him for Sydney University Philosophy magazine.
First time watcher, I really enjoyed your video. You have a nice voice, and you compose the video very well, subscribe! This idea has been mine as well, of course it already exists, I shouldn’t be surprised the idea exists. Nature is “god,” we are nature, therefore we embody god. But nature is unpredictable, and even though we find more ways to control it, it will always outlast us in drastic change. If people understood that nature will always change and evolve, we also could change and evolve- which is the worst thing to do for niches of power that control, that requires the idea that change is detrimental and wrong to keep said power.
You're right! And, despite our attempts to control nature, there have been estimates that a few tens of thousands of years after we're gone, nature will have removed most of our presence from the planet. To the extent where an alien visitor might not realise that we ever existed. So much for controlling nature :) Thank you for your comment!
This is a very well made video. The imagery to go along with it fits so nicely too. I would love to see you do a video on another 'heretic', Jakob Boehme. His influence is vastly underrated in philosophy. He influenced a lot of German idealists, particularly Schelling and Hegel. To see his ideas brought to life in video form would be great! One thing I would say about Spinoza as mentioned in this video, I think we are underestimating Spinoza's God by equating it to nature. Spinoza in my opinion is incorrectly labelled a pantheist. He uses the term Deus sive Nature - 'God or Nature' in his Ethics only twice, but that has been taken on by many modern interpretations as key to his philosophy. We need to take into context what Spinoza meant by 'God or nature' rather than taking it as a standalone equivalent. “Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be, or be conceived without God.” - Part 1 (Concerning God), Ethics, Spinoza. Spinoza uses the term 'Being-in-God' far, far more often than he does 'God or Nature'. We can therefore say that Spinoza was more akin to a Panentheist than a Pantheist. All that nature is, is God, but God is more than nature.
Thank you so much for your kind comments! First, I'd love to do more on German Idealism, and especially the German Romantics, who, I always felt, expressed a valuable opposition to the technocratic thinking prevalent today (Novalis, for example). I don't know much about Boehme, but I'll take your suggestion for a future video and perhaps also go towards Schelling and Fichte. Hegel, honestly, I have trouble understanding, but there's always hope as long as one's alive :) You are, of course, also right that reducing Spinoza to this one half-sentence is misleading. As is evident from the quote that is used in the video, the "sive" is not even the focus here, but Spinoza's determinism ("necessarily acts as it does"). But the aim of this RU-vid channel (and my blog and newsletter on daily-philosophy.com) is not to provide a precise introduction for students of experts, but to find something in Spinoza's thought that is relatable to us as we live today and that can help us in some way improve or enrich our own lives. The fact (about which I'm myself endlessly surprised) that this video reached 32k views in ten days shows that something in this "deus sive natura" resonates with us and our contemporary problems, and so the video achieved its goal in providing some little value or inspiration to its viewers. Trying to popularise philosophy will always come with the danger of misrepresenting parts of the philosophies discussed (the same thing happens all the time with modern "Stoicism" or "Daoism"), but I believe that it is still worthwhile. I feel it's better to keep even one little insight of Spinoza's alive and to inspire others with it, than to miss this opportunity for reflection and inspiration. But, as I said, I understand and agree with you that this "sive" cannot justifiably be seen as the core of his philosophy, especially when taken out of all its (historical and textual) context. I also agree with you about Spinoza's pantheism vs panentheism. But a video like this necessarily has to simplify as it does (to paraphrase Spinoza). It's always a struggle to balance scholarly precision against popular interest, and, depending on the communications channel one uses (lecture vs RU-vid), one will be more relevant than the other. I hope that the video still provides some value to the viewers, even if it simplifies Spinoza, perhaps even beyond what would be academically defensible. Thank you so much again for the inspiring comment and your suggestions!
Another excellent, lucid examination of a fascinating figure. Spinoza showed nteresting connections to some strands of Jewish mysticism and was an important writer on ethics as well. Thanks.
Thank you so much for your kind encouragement! It's only my second video of this kind, so many things are still suboptimal. For example, many remarked on the bad sound. I'll try to make it better next time. I hope I'll be ready with the next video tomorrow.
There is a school of Indian philosophies called Adwaita (A-dwait : No- two : there are not two separate ultimate realities) which says : Aham Brahamasmi ( I am the God ). This is believed to be rooted in Vaidic (of Vedas) philosophy that's why also known as Vedanta (the essence of Vedas). Vedas are believed to be gotten in existence around 4500-3500 years ago. Later compiled by someone called Vedvyasa. Interesting to see that western philosophers also came up in with the similar way of thinking later.
There's a book from Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, where he tries to show how all religions of the world are connected by the same basic ideas. I believe that, too. Why would we, when our lives are shaped by the same hopes and fears, come up with wildly different religious ideas? I often thought of approaching the Vedas, but it seems like such a huge tradition that it would take years to get to know them and all the relevant commentaries and later work in any useful way. So I never tried. But perhaps I should. Thanks for reminding me.
A beautiful explanation . Spinoza was a wise man. He was ahead of his time. It is only slightly different from the vedantic point of view where we and nature are the substance and God the essence.
It would be so interesting to explore this difference. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Indian thought to do that. But thank you for the suggestion!
As you say, this is what Spinoza also thought, which is why he wrote the "necessarily acts as it does" part. If there is only one substance and only one will, and if this is somehow aligned with the laws of nature, then it's difficult to see how we can avoid being determinists. Then everything "necessarily happens as it does."
Unfortunately, there's so much to know in philosophy that I never came around to studying the Indian philosophies. But the reactions to this video, with dozens of comments mentioning Indian thought, convinced me to finally try and get into it. So thanks for the reminder!
@@dailyphilosophy That's great :D You can maybe start by reading the famous Bhagavad Gita, I recommend the Gitapress translation if you can get it anyhow, after that you can dig deeper by reading the major Upanisads, Brahma Sūtras and certain philosophical passages in the Vedas. Despite this single Philosophy being similar to Vedantic Philosophies of India (especially the Advaita and Vishitadvaita schools), Indian thought is extremely diverse and somehow the various schools of thought and traditions are still binded together, like different leaves of a single branch. Happy learning one of the most complex thoughts produced by the Human mind
@@mohanadasa2268 Thank you so much for this reading list! But you can already see from it why Westerners like me, who have not grown up in that tradition, find it difficult to get into it. It always comes across as being this huge amount of literature that is all interconnected but still diverse and incredibly complex, and this makes one think, oh well, let's leave it to my retirement to deal with that. By the way, apart from reading all those sources, do you know of any good overview or introduction to the whole area that you can recommend? Thanks!
Thank you for this video. You explain things with calm and nice illustrations so interesting to ear and nice to see. Thank you and I look forward to ear and learn more. May life be kind to you. Namasté
My favorite philosopher. I interrupted his writings to mean that all the contents of the universe, in their totality, is the closest thing to the concept of the abrahamic god. "Deus sive Natura" But this does not mean that there is a self aware and willful deity in any way. I struggle with his ontology.
You are right, I think. It's easy to say "God is everything at once", but hard to make sense of that statement and draw more specific conclusions from it. Thanks!
Making telescopes at the time was very dangerous not just from the dust from grinding lenses and mirror blanks but from the putting the reflective mirror on the glass blanks for reflecting telescopes .the solid stone floor was damaged at William Herschel's observatory in Bath and was shattered when some of this hot stuff fell on it.Spinoza is very interesting and I think a Pantheist but he could have been a Panentheist.I suppose that the difference lies not in the substance of the Universe but in the purpose behind it?All rather perplexing.
Oh, I didn't know that about the mirrors! That's a fascinating detail I wish I had known when I made the video. Thank you for that. This whole story of how philosophers thought (and think) about substance and/or purpose has been going on since Aristotle, who, one might say, saw both substance and purpose as essential, defining parts of every thing, and it continues until today, where we still have the same debates in metaphysics. It's not likely that we will ever find any definite truth in any of these positions. I'd suspect that our brains, evolved to catch zebras and eat them more efficiently, are just not up to the task. But at least these questions keep us philosophy teachers in employment, so there's a positive side to it all :)
Spinoza was an excellent proponent of Monism, which is an ancient idea that he sought to support via logical exposition. He was met with ridicule from dogmatic traditionalists of Theistic persuasion. Also, a superficial reading of his ideas has been appropriated by dunces to support everything from atheism to luciferianism. However, his ideas coalesce well with the Deism at the core of Freemasonry as well as some of the related mystic Jewish traditions upon which Masonic ideas are based. He's probably the single most influential philosopher/theologian for modern Freemasonry. They still make references to Deity as "Grand Geometrician" and "Grand Architect" and God - alluding to the Almighty as a mathematician, scientist, and otherwise benevolent, generative force, rather than a personal god that intervenes upon the prayers of certain faiths. Einstein, who was certainly no atheist, was probably influenced by Spinoza, also. I keep trying to remind these 1st amendment hacks, who think they're so clever, that the main feature of Homo Sapiens that separates it from prior hominids is the belief in a higher power - aka symbolic thought. Atheism isn't a new idea that confronts religious traditions, but rather a holdover from species that humans outperformed and overcame in the process of natural selection.
If you want to further enhance about the philosophy which he was talking about just search Swami sarvapriya anda" who am i" a hindu Vedanta scholar. This is basically Advaita Vedanta philosophy teaches you but in way more depth analysis.
Spinoza's friends used to leave him food and money to find, because he was too proud to accept charity. If you know nothing else about his nature, that would be enough to show you what ki d of man he was.
Thank you for simplifying philosophy! I find philosophy fascinating but the actual writings are too dense and heavy. So happy you're bringing it down to a more easily digestible manner!
Realizing that we are all god is the ultimate truth, rather than the worthless sinner born in original sin, fallen from grace in need of saving by baptism etc etc.. As a matter of fact, both the OT Psalm 82:6 and the NT John 10:34 verses confirm this ultimate truth that .. "ye are gods". We all are gods. The Upanishads at the very highest level of Spiritual understanding has a similar message too...that we are all Atman, Brahman, pure consciousness, God. Tat Tvam Asi
" But a God who had one nagging question-what happens if I cease to exist?-might be motivated to find the answer in order to complete his knowledge. ... The fact that we exist is proof that God is motivated to act in some way. And since only the challenge of self-destruction could interest an omnipotent God, it stands to reason that we... are God's debris."
I truly believe that Jesus was teaching that everyone had a part of God within them. I believe God has Unconditional Love of his children, that he created in his own image. Jesus is teaching that he wanted everyone to show love and unconditional love towards every human being. This is using the god part within you, the unconditional love part. Jesus demonstrated unconditional love towards people such as Mary Magdalene. He taught not to judge people, but to love them despite their failures or difficulties.
