Wow amazing! Dr. Neal is so humble while being so brilliant. Both Neal and Jeffrey smile the entire time, what kind and extraordinary men they are! Thanks so much for sharing your mission to increase the understanding of human consciousness.
It's because they understand it so well, that they manipulate us so good..You should wish they had conscience and empathy for others, which they don't. What is happening now and what will happen in the future, is due to their decisions regarding humanity. How many stages of cruelty does one have to go through.. The cruelty is their invention! Like nazis vs jews.. Congrats for your choices and collaborators..
I‘m skeptic, I think Hobbes was pretty correct - whatever is true, a primary condition is that it works in reality. If it doesn’t, you modify or abandon it
@@charlesbourgoigne2130 I’m also a skeptic. I like Spinoza’s philosophy because he does away with the supernatural, and rationality deduces his ethics, AND then, by all accounts, LIVED those principles
Never stop jeff!! I'm only 26 and I've loved u for almost 10 years! I started with Terence McKenna and john lilly and watched nearly every video since!
Reading and understanding Spinoza is a life time mission. He designed his Ethics as a sort of bible which should be put besides one's bed and read and perused over and over again on a daily basis; or rather in every free moment one has.
I've been drawn to Spinoza's teachings for the past year, but I couldn't distill why. I think Neil and Jeffrey succeeded in distilling Spinoza's contribution to peace of mind in a subtle and precise way. I'm so glad I discovered this channel, this interview and this book😊
His goal is "To take the reader by his hand and lead him to his own divinity." OMG! For the last 10 years that's exactly what i have been doing with my own writing! I never saw it as such until this very moment. I don't know if this is allowed but i wrote a story called, "The Stranger" which does just that but i never saw it as such until this very moment. If anyone is interested you can Google, Tales with a Twist Ponytail Bob. Im not doing this to gain anything for myself. Im happy with all that i have and don't have today at 85 years old. And i must say i just discovered Spinoza ONE WEEK AGO. His philosophy fits like the best shoe ever in my entire life. It's like, I discovered Spinoza before i ever knew he existed. Damn, aint life grand!
So fascinating that so many great thinkers come to the same understanding, that all is one and that that unity is divine. I’m so glad to understand Spinoza more now...my thanks for yet another ‘enlightening’ (and it is!) interview.
Unity is Reality. I promise, if you'll quiet your mind, for long enough, 5 minutes, 7 years, you will eventually look out and see that 'your' everything your looking at. Gotta be still and quiet though
On every level what does nature do? It folds and unfolds. It makes copies of what is working and incorporates what works better. At its base it is mindless and at its apex it is mindful. It dances to the harmony of seasons to sustain itself and to evolve a greater unfolding. Perhaps it is unfolding a god-like mind somewhere in the cosmos.
What a delightful conversation about Spinoza - I knew that name, of course, but not much more. Hearing it left we a taste for more. Much thanks gentlemen.
@@TheSoteriologist I actually read your comment the other day, didn't know you are the same person. A glitch stopped me from seeing it again till now. Well, in a sense Christian-Judeo beliefs do regard God as a separate deity, unlike a Buddhist view, no offense to the former. Separate as a glass of water from the ocean is what I mean. A Buddhist, however, would see "God" as in the person himself.
@@TheSoteriologist I can relate to the motif that Christians and Jews (non-Kabbalists) see God as separate and Buddhists view the higher consciousness in all things. I disagree with New Agers regarding the law of attraction. They overapply it to everything and overgeneralize.
Outstanding video, I'm an engineer and was drawn to Spinoza due to Einstein's quote, as well. Professor Neal does a brilliant job of describing the philosophy of Spinoza. Liked and Subscribed. Thank You for this high quality content!
I absolutely loved this. ❤ What a great man. ❤ I was surprised to find my own views coming from a completely different angle as Spinoza’s views, and even some of Dr. Grossman’s views. He described them so well, I am going to get his book. Great minds don’t only think alike. I’ll just leave it at that. 🥰👍🏻 Plato and Spinoza, 😊 and seeing between the lines 😊❤
Jewish excommunication or censure was fairly common in very orthodox communities in Amsterdam during Spinoza's life. It is called *herem* or *cherem.* A great novel to read about this is by Irvin Yolam entitled _The Spinoza Problem._
OMG!!! Neal!! I took philosophy classes with you at UIC back in the late 70s! So good to hear you on the topic of Spinoza, one of my favorite philosophers! Hope you are well.
I loved this interview!! Grossman’s energy for his subject seems powerful! I have loved the work of Spinoza for decades, and I loved Deluze’ work on him as well. I had somehow missed the “worm in the blood” reference but find it fascinating that a “mystic” in the 1600’s imagined DNA... I also wonder how his contemporaries Edward Kelly and John Dee (and Shakespeare) , perceived his work!! Thanks so very much...
I find the talk about play-like amnesiac performative roles that we intentionally have chosen/fallen into, paired with the cosmic unity concept, exactly the same lesson psychedelics seem to teach. The similarities are mindblowing.
@@TheCapasio Man, I made that comment 4 years ago so.. not really. I guess I was talking about the feeling of remembrance you can get out of transcendental experiences, as if that's the "real", in contrast to the malaise that is our default state of consciousness. The thing is even if you know both experiences, you can eventually suppress the memory of the former as to re-claim your ego persona, and fall into it. Is comfortable to "know" who you are and where, is functional. The little voice that calls bullshit gets smaller with time, eventually you discard it as that wild thing you did back in the day. You become an amnesiac "god", knowing the reality of unity consciousness but performing as a separate being.
An excellent treatment of Spinoza can be found in The Radical Spinoza. This book was written by a professor of philosophy with an interest in Zen Buddhism. He also encourages the reader to try acquiring Latin. Even two years of high school Latin, a dictionary and a good translation should make this not too difficult.
Interesting reference to ACIM; would enjoy further expansion on that material. Perhaps an interview with Dr. Jon Mundy would contribute to the NTA program.
I’ve recently reopened ACIM after being introduced to Spinoza. And it’s so funny because I started noticing similarities between these two texts. The first being that this world and what it deems to be important is actually not. And the 2nd that man chooses fear over love because of his belief in fear and the world this fear has created. It is only until you understand that you are choosing fear because the ego has built up a false case that you can realize your priorities are mixed up. I’m still reading Spinoza and I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who saw the reference to ACIM as something that was popping up
It is both humbling and rewarding to find that somebody as riverired as Spinoza has come to some of the same conclusions as myself. Long have I pondered till my hair turned grey at an early age only to find that Spinoza was there first. Yet, it shows that my thought was without fallacy. As well as gives a second agreement with his theory that god is the universe. As I have come to the same conclusion with all the advancements of technology to current day.
Great interview. It would seem that as we progress in our own consciousness, understanding the wholeness of creation would be an experience-enabled reality. Now with relationships of consciousness, space and time tethered across dimensions, it would only seem rational that it would be so... experience-enabled.
Before reading Ethics by Spinoza I would consider reading ' On the Improvement of Understanding', probably his earliest work, but never finished. He tries to paint a whole picture from ontology to ethics in Ethics, like the Bible does, but by means of reason. I would not consider him a rationalist, because he has also written about the complexities of affects, and already saw that a person can only substitute one affect for the other. You cannot just stop feeling, but you can test your feelings and idea's through means of reason. Resulting in another affect. This idea is so futuristic that it almost the same as cognitive therapy, where for instance fears are substituted for reasonable thoughts by means of testing them rationally
Does the body create the cells of which it is comprised ? Or do the cells create, repair, maintain, replace other cells on the level of cellular automata with communication / interaction with other cells and the body is merely the aggregation of the collection of cells ? Like anthills or bee hives are the aggregation of the individual members performing special functions as directed by phenomenal messaging
Spinoza was not a mystic, he believed science would set us free, knowledge would set us free from superstition, I believe he was a truly amazing human being
Thanks Darren. They are 2 nice guys talking about Spinoza but when they say he was a mystic and when they use the word "he" talking about god as he had intention, like a person... it really surprised me! No god has no intention, we should able to use the word "nature" instead to be clear.
I am very sorry to correct you here, Sir! Unity of being is a concept that existed in islam even before the 9th century and especially within the Sufi discipline. Al-Bastami, Al-Hallaj and Ibn Arabi Al-Taai were some of the biggest theologians that brought it up. Thanks for this episode tho
Not sure I understand Mr Grossman at around 14:40 . How is one to understand the term " Universe " ? Surely it is not a top down picture - the one he describes . Rather things are creative , indeed ultimately creative of all other things ? The universe does not exist either from the top down or the bottom up. All of the things that exist that are things that exist are ultimately ( that is , in the final analysis ) responsible for the sum total of existence ( because, being existent they are , prima facie, part of the description or constitution of all things that exist and of all existence as a whole ) - not any one of them in particular is ultimately causa sui or sui generis but only all of them , together, as a whole . Each one part contains as a condition of itself the property to be itself precisely because it is a part of the whole thing ( all existence ) that does actually exist and it does so precisely in the manner of its existence ( that is, the precise nature of its existence ). Consecutively, the whole thing ( existence as a whole ) has ultimately the property to be itself ( that is , in the form that it is or rather actually may be ) especially because all of its infinitesimal parts of it are precisely what they are and each of them not another thing than they are. The whole of everything , Spinoza's Nature, Spinoza's God , is the only thing that could possibly ( reasonably ) be a possible cause of itself for the reasoned fact that anything finite is unlikely to be capable of absolute self generation since in some sense or another sense all finite things rely on other things so that they can be. Nonetheless , each thing that does indeed exist must by definition contribute to the ultimate nature of whatever that thing is that is the whole thing that might be , that is to say, Nature/God/Universe. I admit no great familiarity with his work but I speculate that the thinking of David Bohm may be of some use in clarifying what it is the fuck I am trying to say.
I just bought the book. I like that the author isn’t a Spinoza scholar. Otherwise, he would never be able to take leaps like the near death experiences analogy. Spinoza died young so it’s important for educated modern authors to make inferences, otherwise his work remains confined. I tend to trust his author more than most given his background and appearance of genuine love for Spinoza. I hope not to find a cancerous political message hidden in there as it’s so often the case.
We all get angry because we think that the world should be different than it is. Is anger a form of suffering? Ask that question to the Buddha and he would say yes. Of course, the Buddha used the word dukkha to refer to suffering ( it rages from mere disappointment to other despair). Anger isn't the same thing as depression, but it seems to be rooted in sadness. In other words, under our anger is often a sadness we don't want to face. We get a sense of some deep sadness and rather than face it we erupt in rage and anger. " We never get angry for the reasons we think we do." -ACIM. In this interview the best advice is given for how to deal with the anger problem. Namely, to sit with the feeling of sadness and allow yourself to experience it. If we feel do this (as most of us do) then we are just contributing to our shadow material. All these repressed feelings build up over time and shadow material becomes our habit energy. This is why genuine/authentic meditation is essential. We don't know why we got angry because we are not the Knower (of the thing) but we can become the observer and the forgiver. We need to retrain our mind. Every time we get angry, stop. Feel the sadness under it. And see this as an opportunity for forgiveness. Then we can relinquish our personal views, our desires, our fears (and our ego-story). This forgiveness is a returning to a certain knowledge that we don't know what we don't know and we need not look for someone to blame...
*Only those people can understand Spinoza correctly who are guided by God, and they know that Spinoza was not Pantheist but Pure Monotheist. Some people say that he told that "Every thing is God", so he was a pantheist but he never told that "every thing is God" but he said "every thing is in God". These both statements differ each other like darkness differ from light. Many verses of Quran also support what Spinoza said but what Mullahs follow is not from Quran but from millions of fabricated hadiths*
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I love Spinoza, but strongly disagree with Einstein. Einstein believed in a finite universe AND in a universe that had a beginning. Spinoza argues that the universe is infinite and eternal, and I agree with Spinoza. The 2 people argued for entirely different things.
@chris evans You are right that I don't like Einstein. I think he gave very little credit to other scientists, whose ideas he sometimes plagiarized, and I think his theory of relativity is illogical and demonstrably false. I see Einstein as the first 'celebrity scientist', who ushered in a new age of science by thought experiment, rather than science by experiment (aka real science). I have far more time for Michelson, Morley, Sagnac, etc. They were doing real experiments, which makes them real scientists.
Who said that the Judea-Christian concept of God is that he is separate from creation? The ancient and medieval understating is that we participate in God's being, which obviously means that we are not separate from God. God is wholly other in the sense that we cannot grasp or comprehend God; but he's not wholly other in the sense that he is separate from creation.
What is love? Or what kind of love? People will kill to protect those who they love. Hatred and love are only concepts just like good and bad. People like to romanticize the word love as just something good, when it is by the grace of love that everything happens in itself.
@N30N 0M3N It appears so. Quantum theory has made numerous verified predictions, so it seems reasonably sound. The fundamental nature of the universe seems to be random and paradoxical, ergo no rationalist Prime Mover.
No, not odd at all. The thoughts of guys like these is the foundation upon which we built our western society. I do like Grossman's sweet style, but I jerked at his words about all emotions being "bad" (after just having stated that Spinoza didn't differentiate between good and bad), so that the most enlightened state would be a totally "rational" mind. Well, what does "ratio" mean, really? I think the devil's in the detail here. We modern beings totally "rationally" and "intellectually" and "void of emotionally" destruct the very ground we are living off. Is that rational? I think there is some kind of over-arching rhythm to ideas like these. It's interesting and worthwhile to learn about the philosophy of these intellectuals, but their time is gone. We need new heros who can understand, contemplate and divulge knowing about our own time.
What like or dislike has to do with philosophy? You either have an argument for or against a certain philosophical argument. Philosophy is not your damn spinach pudding!
I was hoping this dialogue would bring us closer in comprehending the truth, turned out to be jargon from beginning to end, I don’t know how my question could reach either, sirs, when it comes to human behaviour why is it that we live in a constant state of conflict, they say that living in the moment is how it should be, so WHY are we being cultured to live OUT of it? Maybe language is not the apt instrument in reaching truth, is there an alternate? Also in all humility would there be a chair at the table for one more, we never know something new may arise. My first of question of significance is, AT WHAT POINT IN A HUMANS LIFE DOES CORRUPTION TAKE PLACE, by way of inculcation, conditioning, doctrine or wrong education.? 🙏. Anyone may answer 🤷🏻♂️
16:28 the reason I as an atheist don’t come to your conclusion is because we stop at things we don’t have evidence for, you keep saying “it’s gotta be “ that’s classic assumption about things we have zero evidence for
@N30N 0M3N All the types we can classify The typical ones telepathy telekinesis Precognition And the more out there ones Like bilocation materialization of objects levitation healing The siddhis are a particularly fascinating to me
Affirming positives is love. This is obvious. But negating negates is also love. This is not so obvious. If you affirm negatives you get the same result as negating positives, anti-love or negative love. This is why pacifist philosophers suffer a lot, because they are trying to defeat negatives with positives. This is like giving candy and flowers to your bully and smiling sincerely after he just beat you up. Einstein talked about militant pacifism. I think Einstein got it right. If Germany and Japan were not defeated in WW2 we'd all be giving flowers and candy to them. This is just multiplication of negative and positive numbers. Fighting is negative and Injustice is negative but the fighting of injustice is positive (love). The only remaining point is defining injustice. I believe the silver rule is the best definition; don't do to others what you'd not like done to you, namely doing things you'd not like done to you is injustice. This also means that we should not let others do to us what they would not like done to them, we should either fight them or flee. Lastly I see no problem in viewing God as the affirmer of positives those who acted by the silver rule(giving heaven) and the negator of negatives (punishing with hell) those who violated the silver rule, becausing negating of negatives equals positives. The negative stuff people acquired into their minds needs to be scraped off.
We are never upset for the Reason we think! Yes, finally, now go one step further and state: We are upset because the breadth of scope of factors that are entirely out of our control, ie ancestral genes, mother's stress hormones will you were a fetus, the 25 year development of your frontal cortex, environmental and cultural factors throughout your life, your diet or lack thereof for the day of your upsetness and BOOM, you have it! Biology baby! Spinoza just called it GOD or the paradox: We are God, God is us.
Schopenhauer said the only reason Spinoza used the word God was to avoid persecution. Pantheism is a bizarre concept; how is it different from atheism? Saying God is the world is making the word God or world superfluous.
The existence of God and/or gods IS a superfluous concept. That's why people have been debating the existence of god for thousands of years and why most people do not live lives that acknowledge the existence of gods. If god was real, we wouldn't be arguing about it. God is a truly superfluous concept because it can't withstand either empirical or rational explanation and is useless because it has no explanatory power or value. It is an idea that reflects underlaying fear and ignorance and I think you would find that most Trump supporters would call themselves 'god fearing' people:) Don't forget that we invent these terms and then get all confused by the poorly understood definitions we assign (and do not agree to which leads to endless debate about nothing). If there is One universe, defined as everything that exists is, which includes this invisible but apparently real and important god ... then that definition is self evidently true by definition regardless of what god is and including if god is nothing. God is an absurd notion for the completely insane. Its also a big money maker and a powerful technology for tyrants. Better than bit coin.
It's wonderful to find a philosophy professor who is indeed a philosopher, one devoted to wisdom.
Dr Grossman’s book “The Spirit of Spinoza” is a book that is very much worth buying and reading. Highly recommended.
Wow amazing! Dr. Neal is so humble while being so brilliant. Both Neal and Jeffrey smile the entire time, what kind and extraordinary men they are! Thanks so much for sharing your mission to increase the understanding of human consciousness.
It's because they understand it so well, that they manipulate us so good..You should wish they had conscience and empathy for others, which they don't.
What is happening now and what will happen in the future, is due to their decisions regarding humanity.
How many stages of cruelty does one have to go through..
The cruelty is their invention!
Like nazis vs jews..
Congrats for your choices and collaborators..
I wish I understood Spinoza much better. I believe it entirely possible that a combination of the Stoics and Spinoza may be the actual Truth.
??? why the stoics thought
Read the the present on truth contest.
It's the truth of life that agrees with Spinoza point of view
Indeed. 🙏🏻 thanks ❤
I‘m skeptic, I think Hobbes was pretty correct - whatever is true, a primary condition is that it works in reality. If it doesn’t, you modify or abandon it
@@charlesbourgoigne2130 I’m also a skeptic. I like Spinoza’s philosophy because he does away with the supernatural, and rationality deduces his ethics, AND then, by all accounts, LIVED those principles
Never stop jeff!! I'm only 26 and I've loved u for almost 10 years! I started with Terence McKenna and john lilly and watched nearly every video since!
Extraordinary conversation. We could learn a lot from Grossman not just as an academic philosopher but as a spiritual guide.
Nice to see Grossman here; I took a course on Spinoza from him at UIC in the 70's.
Thank you Dr. Grossman for sharing your insights and enthusiasm for this brilliant thinker and guide to a better life.
I had the privilege of being in Dr Grossman’s class on Plato at UIC. Amazing professor
BEST SHOW ON RUclips! Thanks for your hard work Jeffery.
Spinoza was one of the greatest, ever! I would mention only Marcus Aurelius as maybe equal!!
Wow, one of the greatest conversations I ever had the privilege of listening too.
Thank you, Jeffrey and Neal. Spinoza can appear daunting so I appreciate how you were both able to make this accessible and relevant.
Reading and understanding Spinoza is a life time mission. He designed his Ethics as a sort of bible which should be put besides one's bed and read and perused over and over again on a daily basis; or rather in every free moment one has.
I've been drawn to Spinoza's teachings for the past year, but I couldn't distill why. I think Neil and Jeffrey succeeded in distilling Spinoza's contribution to peace of mind in a subtle and precise way. I'm so glad I discovered this channel, this interview and this book😊
Thank you for the interview, Neal Grossman is absolutely wonderful :)
His goal is "To take the reader by his hand and lead him to his own divinity."
OMG! For the last 10 years that's exactly what i have been doing with my own writing! I never saw it as such until this very moment. I don't know if this is allowed but i wrote a story called, "The Stranger" which does just that but i never saw it as such until this very moment. If anyone is interested you can Google, Tales with a Twist Ponytail Bob. Im not doing this to gain anything for myself. Im happy with all that i have and don't have today at 85 years old. And i must say i just discovered Spinoza ONE WEEK AGO. His philosophy fits like the best shoe ever in my entire life. It's like, I discovered Spinoza before i ever knew he existed. Damn, aint life grand!
Superb. One of the very best discussions that Jeffery has ever had. Thank you Neal Grossman and Jeffery Mishlove.
i love this man, Neal Grossman, you are a true philosopher a seeker
Thank you, Jeffery and all for allowing such wonderful conversations to take place
So fascinating that so many great thinkers come to the same understanding, that all is one and that that unity is divine. I’m so glad to understand Spinoza more now...my thanks for yet another ‘enlightening’ (and it is!) interview.
Unity is Reality. I promise, if you'll quiet your mind, for long enough, 5 minutes, 7 years, you will eventually look out and see that 'your' everything your looking at. Gotta be still and quiet though
So I and the serial killer are together in oneness?
@@JavierBonillaCshush 😂😂😂
@@andrei00000shush 🤫 is the right message to one who is not truly interested, but will respond in one’s limited perception.
On every level what does nature do? It folds and unfolds. It makes copies of what is working and incorporates what works better. At its base it is mindless and at its apex it is mindful. It dances to the harmony of seasons to sustain itself and to evolve a greater unfolding. Perhaps it is unfolding a god-like mind somewhere in the cosmos.
Thank you to both of you...
very fascinating talk!
Awsome interview! I'm surely going to dive deeper in Spinoza's Phylosophy. "If it was good enough for Einstein, it's good enough for me. "
What a delightful conversation about Spinoza - I knew that name, of course, but not much more. Hearing it left we a taste for more. Much thanks gentlemen.
Love this video powerful thought about emotions HOW to deal with .mind and body thru our intellectual minds to better understand our feelings.
Thank you.
Beautiful conversation
Hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Love. The doctor's book is now on my Amazon wish list.
@@TheSoteriologist Where?
@@TheSoteriologist I actually read your comment the other day, didn't know you are the same person. A glitch stopped me from seeing it again till now. Well, in a sense Christian-Judeo beliefs do regard God as a separate deity, unlike a Buddhist view, no offense to the former. Separate as a glass of water from the ocean is what I mean. A Buddhist, however, would see "God" as in the person himself.
@@TheSoteriologist Your right to disagree. I have mine with New Age thinkers as well.
@@TheSoteriologist I can relate to the motif that Christians and Jews (non-Kabbalists) see God as separate and Buddhists view the higher consciousness in all things. I disagree with New Agers regarding the law of attraction. They overapply it to everything and overgeneralize.
@Myth Tree Indubitably. In the end, it's the lesson we came to earth to learn, to experience, I believe.
Outstanding video, I'm an engineer and was drawn to Spinoza due to Einstein's quote, as well. Professor Neal does a brilliant job of describing the philosophy of Spinoza. Liked and Subscribed. Thank You for this high quality content!
I absolutely loved this. ❤ What a great man. ❤
I was surprised to find my own views coming from a completely different angle as Spinoza’s views, and even some of Dr. Grossman’s views. He described them so well, I am going to get his book. Great minds don’t only think alike. I’ll just leave it at that. 🥰👍🏻 Plato and Spinoza, 😊 and seeing between the lines 😊❤
Jewish excommunication or censure was fairly common in very orthodox communities in Amsterdam during Spinoza's life. It is called *herem* or *cherem.* A great novel to read about this is by Irvin Yolam entitled _The Spinoza Problem._
OMG!!! Neal!! I took philosophy classes with you at UIC back in the late 70s! So good to hear you on the topic of Spinoza, one of my favorite philosophers! Hope you are well.
I loved this interview!! Grossman’s energy for his subject seems powerful! I have loved the work of Spinoza for decades, and I loved Deluze’ work on him as well. I had somehow missed the “worm in the blood” reference but find it fascinating that a “mystic” in the 1600’s imagined DNA... I also wonder how his contemporaries Edward Kelly and John Dee (and Shakespeare) , perceived his work!! Thanks so very much...
I find the talk about play-like amnesiac performative roles that we intentionally have chosen/fallen into, paired with the cosmic unity concept, exactly the same lesson psychedelics seem to teach. The similarities are mindblowing.
Yup I've done so much LSD and I knew I knew the truth after learning about Spinoza and how he saw the world. It had made life so much better
Can you expand on what you mean
@@TheCapasio Man, I made that comment 4 years ago so.. not really. I guess I was talking about the feeling of remembrance you can get out of transcendental experiences, as if that's the "real", in contrast to the malaise that is our default state of consciousness. The thing is even if you know both experiences, you can eventually suppress the memory of the former as to re-claim your ego persona, and fall into it. Is comfortable to "know" who you are and where, is functional. The little voice that calls bullshit gets smaller with time, eventually you discard it as that wild thing you did back in the day. You become an amnesiac "god", knowing the reality of unity consciousness but performing as a separate being.
An excellent treatment of Spinoza can be found in The Radical Spinoza. This book was written by a professor of philosophy with an interest in Zen Buddhism. He also encourages the reader to try acquiring Latin. Even two years of high school Latin, a dictionary and a good translation should make this not too difficult.
Loved this. I’ll be looking into Spinoza now. Thank you.
Great guest, coherent conversation. Thank you Jeffrey
Interesting reference to ACIM; would enjoy further expansion on that material. Perhaps an interview with Dr. Jon Mundy would contribute to the NTA program.
I’ve recently reopened ACIM after being introduced to Spinoza. And it’s so funny because I started noticing similarities between these two texts. The first being that this world and what it deems to be important is actually not. And the 2nd that man chooses fear over love because of his belief in fear and the world this fear has created. It is only until you understand that you are choosing fear because the ego has built up a false case that you can realize your priorities are mixed up. I’m still reading Spinoza and I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who saw the reference to ACIM as something that was popping up
Just discovering Neil Grossman, pleasantly surprised and impressed
closer to Taoism then western religions.
It's also nice to listen to those who cherish honesty.
Great discussion I really enjoined it. Thank you💜
Thinking has always been allowed, expressing your thoughts not always.
0:50 a radiantly sparkling smile !
It is both humbling and rewarding to find that somebody as riverired as Spinoza has come to some of the same conclusions as myself. Long have I pondered till my hair turned grey at an early age only to find that Spinoza was there first. Yet, it shows that my thought was without fallacy. As well as gives a second agreement with his theory that god is the universe. As I have come to the same conclusion with all the advancements of technology to current day.
Thanks for mentioning...alightment with what we don't want.
That helps me understand but i might have to listen to it again thank you.
I love you, Jeff
Been an adherent of much of Spinoza’s thinking since I were a lad . Got to say, Mr Mishlove, your sitting posture seems to be excellent.
Thanks for interview.l bought that book and I am reading it now
Great interview! Thank you!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻❤️💜💚 Thank you both! 💪💪💪
Thank you. I remember your interviews with U.G. Krishnamurti years back.
Great interview. It would seem that as we progress in our own consciousness, understanding the wholeness of creation would be an experience-enabled reality. Now with relationships of consciousness, space and time tethered across dimensions, it would only seem rational that it would be so... experience-enabled.
Now that is a meaningful conversation
Brilliant discussion. Thnx.
This is beauty.
Thanks Jeffrey.
Before reading Ethics by Spinoza I would consider reading ' On the Improvement of Understanding', probably his earliest work, but never finished. He tries to paint a whole picture from ontology to ethics in Ethics, like the Bible does, but by means of reason. I would not consider him a rationalist, because he has also written about the complexities of affects, and already saw that a person can only substitute one affect for the other. You cannot just stop feeling, but you can test your feelings and idea's through means of reason. Resulting in another affect. This idea is so futuristic that it almost the same as cognitive therapy, where for instance fears are substituted for reasonable thoughts by means of testing them rationally
Thank you gentlemen: You are Quantum Mechanics ~ Creation ~ Evolution and Entropy
Fantastic!!!
May I recommend Steven Nadler’s “Think Least of Death” it’s the most comprehensive breakdown of Spinoza’s Ethics I’ve come across
Another adherent of Non-Duality! Isn’t it wonderful to learn about Spinoza.🙏
I would love to know the professor's thoughts about the Spinoza's critique on free will.
Is life chemistry and the mind these questions and answers add to my understanding of who we are
I don't know about being free from emotions, I know sometimes I don't give attention to things or emotions because I don't feel it at that moment.
Awesome video
Spinoza's views are very similar to the conceptualization of the Creator and the Creation in the models of Sufism.
Does the body create the cells of which it is comprised ?
Or do the cells create, repair, maintain, replace other cells on the level of cellular automata with communication / interaction with other cells and the body is merely the aggregation of the collection of cells ?
Like anthills or bee hives are the aggregation of the individual members performing special functions as directed by phenomenal messaging
Thank you! Well explained.
Glad it was helpful!
Spinoza was not a mystic, he believed science would set us free, knowledge would set us free from superstition, I believe he was a truly amazing human being
You can be both.
Brother of the Worm yes you can but I do not believe Spinoza was a mystic, have a great day
@@darren.davies3957 Spinoza was the definition of a mystic.
@@mertkusluvan3107 no you are wrong. he was not a mystic and his philosophy shows us why.
Thanks Darren. They are 2 nice guys talking about Spinoza but when they say he was a mystic and when they use the word "he" talking about god as he had intention, like a person... it really surprised me! No god has no intention, we should able to use the word "nature" instead to be clear.
Fantastic interview
I am very sorry to correct you here, Sir! Unity of being is a concept that existed in islam even before the 9th century and especially within the Sufi discipline. Al-Bastami, Al-Hallaj and Ibn Arabi Al-Taai were some of the biggest theologians that brought it up.
Thanks for this episode tho
Watched all of it 23:27
Thank you 😍😍
Not sure I understand Mr Grossman at around 14:40 . How is one to understand the term " Universe " ? Surely it is not a top down picture - the one he describes . Rather things are creative , indeed ultimately creative of all other things ? The universe does not exist either from the top down or the bottom up. All of the things that exist that are things that exist are ultimately ( that is , in the final analysis ) responsible for the sum total of existence ( because, being existent they are , prima facie, part of the description or constitution of all things that exist and of all existence as a whole ) - not any one of them in particular is ultimately causa sui or sui generis but only all of them , together, as a whole . Each one part contains as a condition of itself the property to be itself precisely because it is a part of the whole thing ( all existence ) that does actually exist and it does so precisely in the manner of its existence ( that is, the precise nature of its existence ). Consecutively, the whole thing ( existence as a whole ) has ultimately the property to be itself ( that is , in the form that it is or rather actually may be ) especially because all of its infinitesimal parts of it are precisely what they are and each of them not another thing than they are.
The whole of everything , Spinoza's Nature, Spinoza's God , is the only thing that could possibly ( reasonably ) be a possible cause of itself for the reasoned fact that anything finite is unlikely to be capable of absolute self generation since in some sense or another sense all finite things rely on other things so that they can be. Nonetheless , each thing that does indeed exist must by definition contribute to the ultimate nature of whatever that thing is that is the whole thing that might be , that is to say, Nature/God/Universe.
I admit no great familiarity with his work but I speculate that the thinking of David Bohm may be of some use in clarifying what it is the fuck I am trying to say.
Great interview
I just bought the book. I like that the author isn’t a Spinoza scholar. Otherwise, he would never be able to take leaps like the near death experiences analogy. Spinoza died young so it’s important for educated modern authors to make inferences, otherwise his work remains confined. I tend to trust his author more than most given his background and appearance of genuine love for Spinoza. I hope not to find a cancerous political message hidden in there as it’s so often the case.
06:36 I'm certain that by "image of God" he did in fact mean concept of God.
This is right up my street, but I'd like to ask: "is anger a form of suffering?" Anger isn't the same thing as depression.
We all get angry because we think that the world should be different than it is.
Is anger a form of suffering? Ask that question to the Buddha and he would say yes. Of course, the Buddha used the word dukkha to refer to suffering ( it rages from mere disappointment to other despair). Anger isn't the same thing as depression, but it seems to be rooted in sadness. In other words, under our anger is often a sadness we don't want to face. We get a sense of some deep sadness and rather than face it we erupt in rage and anger.
" We never get angry for the reasons we think we do." -ACIM.
In this interview the best advice is given for how to deal with the anger problem. Namely, to sit with the feeling of sadness and allow yourself to experience it. If we feel do this (as most of us do) then we are just contributing to our shadow material. All these repressed feelings build up over time and shadow material becomes our habit energy.
This is why genuine/authentic meditation is essential. We don't know why we got angry because we are not the Knower (of the thing) but we can become the observer and the forgiver.
We need to retrain our mind. Every time we get angry, stop. Feel the sadness under it. And see this as an opportunity for forgiveness. Then we can relinquish our personal views, our desires, our fears (and our ego-story). This forgiveness is a returning to a certain knowledge that we don't know what we don't know and we need not look for someone to blame...
Excellent
*Only those people can understand Spinoza correctly who are guided by God, and they know that Spinoza was not Pantheist but Pure Monotheist. Some people say that he told that "Every thing is God", so he was a pantheist but he never told that "every thing is God" but he said "every thing is in God". These both statements differ each other like darkness differ from light. Many verses of Quran also support what Spinoza said but what Mullahs follow is not from Quran but from millions of fabricated hadiths*
28:08 Really important point.
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I love Spinoza, but strongly disagree with Einstein. Einstein believed in a finite universe AND in a universe that had a beginning. Spinoza argues that the universe is infinite and eternal, and I agree with Spinoza. The 2 people argued for entirely different things.
@chris evans You are right that I don't like Einstein. I think he gave very little credit to other scientists, whose ideas he sometimes plagiarized, and I think his theory of relativity is illogical and demonstrably false. I see Einstein as the first 'celebrity scientist', who ushered in a new age of science by thought experiment, rather than science by experiment (aka real science). I have far more time for Michelson, Morley, Sagnac, etc. They were doing real experiments, which makes them real scientists.
Who said that the Judea-Christian concept of God is that he is separate from creation? The ancient and medieval understating is that we participate in God's being, which obviously means that we are not separate from God. God is wholly other in the sense that we cannot grasp or comprehend God; but he's not wholly other in the sense that he is separate from creation.
No, it does not "obviously" mean that we are not separate from God. Old Testament theology is opposed to this idea strongly.
@@PercyGold-gb8xb The OT has a multiplicity of theologies.
It’s not for no reason that Spinoza was called an atheist. His ideas that god was not separate from creation were central to his “ex-communication”.
18:00 ish
42:00 too attached
What is love? Or what kind of love? People will kill to protect those who they love. Hatred and love are only concepts just like good and bad.
People like to romanticize the word love as just something good, when it is by the grace of love that everything happens in itself.
Is it odd that I dislike the philosophy of Spinoza and Descartes?
For me, rationalism's flaw is its assumption that order is a fundamental property. I think it's an emergent property.
@N30N 0M3N It appears so. Quantum theory has made numerous verified predictions, so it seems reasonably sound. The fundamental nature of the universe seems to be random and paradoxical, ergo no rationalist Prime Mover.
No, not odd at all. The thoughts of guys like these is the foundation upon which we built our western society. I do like Grossman's sweet style, but I jerked at his words about all emotions being "bad" (after just having stated that Spinoza didn't differentiate between good and bad), so that the most enlightened state would be a totally "rational" mind. Well, what does "ratio" mean, really? I think the devil's in the detail here. We modern beings totally "rationally" and "intellectually" and "void of emotionally" destruct the very ground we are living off. Is that rational? I think there is some kind of over-arching rhythm to ideas like these. It's interesting and worthwhile to learn about the philosophy of these intellectuals, but their time is gone. We need new heros who can understand, contemplate and divulge knowing about our own time.
.. While at the same time I hold the philosophies of Ibn al-Arabi and Rumi in very high regard
What like or dislike has to do with philosophy? You either have an argument for or against a certain philosophical argument. Philosophy is not your damn spinach pudding!
When considering I have a biome makes me a we in spinoza's whole of we.
I was hoping this dialogue would bring us closer in comprehending the truth, turned out to be jargon from beginning to end, I don’t know how my question could reach either, sirs, when it comes to human behaviour why is it that we live in a constant state of conflict, they say that living in the moment is how it should be, so WHY are we being cultured to live OUT of it? Maybe language is not the apt instrument in reaching truth, is there an alternate? Also in all humility would there be a chair at the table for one more, we never know something new may arise. My first of question of significance is, AT WHAT POINT IN A HUMANS LIFE DOES CORRUPTION TAKE PLACE, by way of inculcation, conditioning, doctrine or wrong education.? 🙏. Anyone may answer 🤷🏻♂️
We want to will what we want to will. But is this actaully a free will or help on the side?
16:28 the reason I as an atheist don’t come to your conclusion is because we stop at things we don’t have evidence for, you keep saying “it’s gotta be “ that’s classic assumption about things we have zero evidence for
❤ from Germany
Thank you!
Just wow
You ever hear about mystics with supernormal abilities and are you going to do videos on them again
@N30N 0M3N
Not really a question
I'm know he had heard of stories of that topic but I just like asking
For replies they are a joy to to see
@N30N 0M3N
Yes
I really like this channel
Especially when he talks about
Human abilities
@N30N 0M3N
All the types we can classify
The typical ones telepathy telekinesis
Precognition
And the more out there ones
Like bilocation materialization of objects levitation healing
The siddhis are a particularly fascinating to me
Affirming positives is love. This is obvious. But negating negates is also love. This is not so obvious. If you affirm negatives you get the same result as negating positives, anti-love or negative love.
This is why pacifist philosophers suffer a lot, because they are trying to defeat negatives with positives. This is like giving candy and flowers to your bully and smiling sincerely after he just beat you up. Einstein talked about militant pacifism. I think Einstein got it right. If Germany and Japan were not defeated in WW2 we'd all be giving flowers and candy to them.
This is just multiplication of negative and positive numbers. Fighting is negative and Injustice is negative but the fighting of injustice is positive (love). The only remaining point is defining injustice. I believe the silver rule is the best definition; don't do to others what you'd not like done to you, namely doing things you'd not like done to you is injustice. This also means that we should not let others do to us what they would not like done to them, we should either fight them or flee. Lastly I see no problem in viewing God as the affirmer of positives those who acted by the silver rule(giving heaven) and the negator of negatives (punishing with hell) those who violated the silver rule, becausing negating of negatives equals positives. The negative stuff people acquired into their minds needs to be scraped off.
nice
We are never upset for the Reason we think! Yes, finally, now go one step further and state: We are upset because the breadth of scope of factors that are entirely out of our control, ie ancestral genes, mother's stress hormones will you were a fetus, the 25 year development of your frontal cortex, environmental and cultural factors throughout your life, your diet or lack thereof for the day of your upsetness and BOOM, you have it! Biology baby! Spinoza just called it GOD or the paradox: We are God, God is us.
The slayer of God, Nietzsche deeply admired Spinoza.
Schopenhauer said the only reason Spinoza used the word God was to avoid persecution. Pantheism is a bizarre concept; how is it different from atheism? Saying God is the world is making the word God or world superfluous.
The existence of God and/or gods IS a superfluous concept. That's why people have been debating the existence of god for thousands of years and why most people do not live lives that acknowledge the existence of gods. If god was real, we wouldn't be arguing about it. God is a truly superfluous concept because it can't withstand either empirical or rational explanation and is useless because it has no explanatory power or value. It is an idea that reflects underlaying fear and ignorance and I think you would find that most Trump supporters would call themselves 'god fearing' people:) Don't forget that we invent these terms and then get all confused by the poorly understood definitions we assign (and do not agree to which leads to endless debate about nothing). If there is One universe, defined as everything that exists is, which includes this invisible but apparently real and important god ... then that definition is self evidently true by definition regardless of what god is and including if god is nothing. God is an absurd notion for the completely insane. Its also a big money maker and a powerful technology for tyrants. Better than bit coin.