death is not the end nor the opposite of life but the continuity......transcendence into permanent spiritual awareness/consciousness. ' we are not just human beings having a spiritual experience but we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

ALL: I cannot comment on philosophical content via KZfaq comments anymore, due to limited time and redundancy with other places where I do discuss my philosophical system. So if you like to engage on philosophical discussions, please post in my Discussion Forum at: groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/metaphysical-speculations. You can find more useful links about my philosophical system here: www.bernardokastrup.com/2015/04/social-media-policy-and-useful-links.html. I count on your understanding!

He does make a statement that is a little difficult to swallow. The idea that if we do believe that reality is a representation in our heads, then reality can't exist exterior. What about: colours do exist, but what we see is a representation of those colours, and what you see is also a representation of that reality, and there is some overlap that we share when we see those colours, space etc. Is that a possibility @Bernado? Ultimately I love this philosophy and I believe it. I do also see for us to have shared experiences - beyond simple colours - we must have a connection in common. A bit like computers before and after the internet.

I find with videos like this there is so much that hangs on an expectation that the listener is synced with the essayist definitions. I find it hard to follow but I like to listen and hope its true as it feels like a much more relaxing world than materialises.

This reminds me of the end of the first Matrix film. Bernardo has picked up the phone and is telling the illusory culture the truth at last!

Hi Bernardo, it is possible to add captions in other languages to your presentations? Your message has to reach more people because it feels true and the world needs to hear it in this moment more than ever

Thank you!

Great video. Thank you.

I have read the book and also delved into Bernado’s material on KZfaq. It requires a complete backflip in thinking, but I think (and hope) that he is right.

Hi Bernardo, I always look forward to listening to your views. Sometimes, I understand your arguments, sometimes I don't. I am lost in this video. I would subscribe to Non Duality. It makes perfect sense to me. The word Consciousness has me baffled. I never know whether the user of the word is describing Oneness, God, Awareness. Without our senses, we would not make 'sense' of our surroundings and are therefore reliant on them to form a picture of what is happening, objectively at least.. One problem we have is becoming prisoner to our conditioned thoughts regarding what our senses perceive to be real. It appears to me that many humana need to label everything, to name everything as it were, for it to be become conscious to us. This labelling is not reality, only conditioned beliefs about the labels themselves. It's a trap.

Consciousness is happening within itself living a mind wake.

Reality does not have these qualities. We construct these qualities from our perceptions of aspects of reality.

Man, i thought I’d give his ideas another go, assuming I just didn’t get his ideas from other exposures. Hoo boy this man seems much more confused than I first thought. Not a single of these „arguments“ seems coherent. Reminds me a lot of the nonsequetor ramblings of Rupert Sheldrake.

Thankyou

I wish i was able to understand this.

Mr Kastrup, please will you elucidate something for me? Excuse my paraphrasing, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you say that by the materialist view if death is the end of consciousness, then all conscious experience must be generated within the brain. But would a materialist not posit that conscious experience, occurring in the brain, is like a mirror reflecting external forms? Thus the brain (the mirror) is something concrete and material, and it reflects that which is concrete and material. A mirror may be broken apart, so that it no longer exists, but the external forms it reflected remain. Just so, the brain may dissolve, so that it no longer reflects, colours, or interprets that which is around it, but all which was around it remains? I would be most grateful if you could clarify this for me.

Right

Hello Bernardo. Thank you for sharing this essay. I agree with you that death is not the end of consciousness, or life; but for different reasons and within a different model of Reality. I am not a reductive materialist; but I do accept the existence of matter independent of mind. Perhaps in a deep way our models may not be entirely irreconcilable; but at a more superficial level I have some quibbles which may be useful - or not; as you decide. At 2.30 you describe the materialist's reality as a realm of abstract quantities akin to mathematical equations; but this is to confuse scientific theory with physical reality. Math equations are just a language to describe theories about physical reality - they are not physical reality itself. No scientist who knows what he is talking about would claim that physical reality is composed of mathematical equations. At 2.59 you say that in the materialist's model the room or world is in ones head. But this is not correct. The materialist would say the experience is in ones head; not the room or the world. The qualities of our experiences are how we perceive the various subtleties of physical reality. What we hear as sound is present in physical reality as pressure waves in the fluid we call air. What we see as colour is present in physical reality as different modulations of electromagnetic energy; etc. Why demand that the way we experience the subtleties of physical reality due to our particular sensorium is the manner in which they must exist in physical reality? The principle of transduction is all that is required. Sensory experience is a transduction of physical energies into mental forms and qualities. I admit that to my knowledge nobody knows how that transduction from the physical to the mental occurs; and unfortunately, due to the dominance of reductive materialism in our times, the question is not even considered by science. I hope a more advanced and enlightened science will one day address such issues. Just a couple of thoughts

But with the death theory aren't you assuming that there is only one consciousness? Or that the "whirlpool in consciousness" i.e. our brains and bodies, aren't the things that constitute our individuality? So when the brain and the body loses reception of consciousness, the individuality is gone. Or maybe I need to watch many more of your videos to really know where you are coming from. My own belief is that the source/the creator/the almighty cannot have a substance because then it is not the source. And because everything is alive and conscious, the source must be conscious. The source "is consciousness." Every thing that is composed of cells has reception of consciousness. But the other things that are not composed of cells don't have reception (minerals, elements.) The shape of cells is like the whirlpool. Just like an antenna has recepcion because of it's shape. Geometry. Minerals and elements must also come from consciousness because they have other shapes. There is no chaos. Shape and order requires consciousness, a source. In all religions there are gods and/or angels and/or "spirits" and they exist in another way than we do, they are no composed of elements/minerals set up in certain shapes (cells) that have reception of consciousness. So there are three different types or consciousness, the source which is the main "field", the shapes composed of elements/minerals that has reception (cells,) and beings that have consciousness without the those shapes. But consciousness *is* the source, so those beings must be here somehow. The "unconsious mind" is "where" those beings exist, the angels/gods etc. That means there is the same consciousness but at least two levels if it: the "shape level" and the "pure" level. It is the pure level since it only exists inside our hidden mind, not in the consciousness we percieve with out individuality in the world. But they can express themselves in the world by numina.

Bernardo. If the world is mental, and there is nothing "outside" why do i bump into a chair in a completely dark room? I wasnt aware it was there so i could not percieve it in any way. But i bumped into it. It was outside of my conscious awareness. Does that mean that i am only one of the excitation in consciousness just like that chair? Because i agree that the world i percieve is trully mental. If that is so and i too am an excitation in consciousness, it would prove that i am not consciousness itself, the way majority of spiritual teachers teach today. I am not consciousness but i am IN consciousness. That's the only way i can explain it to myself how someone can get affected by material objects one is not aware of. So there. I am not consciousness. I am just like that chair in it. This is turning to sound more and more simplistic.. the way things looked since i was a kid. No mystery there. Making all this quest only to arrive from where i started. Which is, i am just a passenger in a big show that takes place in the only thing there can ever be - consciousness/mind. But why do they say "i is consciousness'? I am sure there must be a reason they claim that?

Mr. Kastrup, you mentioned that materialism is the presumption of a "purely abstract realm of quantities, akin to mathematical equations". However, my question to you is this: What makes you - or anyone else for that matter - think that that worldview is any different from Kantianism? Because that description sounds an awful lot like Kant's "noumena" (which lack all the qualities of conscious experience, as you mentioned). Wouldn't that simply mean that what we call "materialism" is just idealism with an inherent logical contradiction? Serious question ;) (As you're probably aware, Kant was [after all] an idealist.)

Nice repacking of Advaita Vedanta's principles in 'scientific bottle'.

OK, but can you answer the question that I asked twice a few months ago, and you didn't answer. It was: If we are analogous to whirlpools in a sea of consciousness, then how does it help us if the whirlpool ceases on death. Wouldn't it effectively be the end of us if our individual consciousness were dissipated into universal ground consciousness? Identity seems to be tied to perspective, so if that perspective is gone and other 'whirlpools' arise, that doesn't seem offer any hope of life after death as far as I can see. You might as well say that a part of us is present in every mosquito buzzing around _right now_, purely on the basis that they are also whirlpools in the same sea of consciousness. Also, if the above is correct, then can you suggest any potential mechanism or principle that could account for the generation of another whirlpool to carry on where another _specific_ one left off? This is the only way I could envision real continuance after death from being compatible with your model. I think I can be fairly sure that you are rejecting dualism and so that would leave out the possibility of our continuance of minds in a purely mental state, awaiting the next 'whirlpool'. No, you seem to be saying that there is no such thing as a 'mind' that is altogether separate from the world, but the whirlpool _creates_ the individual mind. Anyway, I'm not saying that there's nothing in what you're saying. I also tend towards idealism and think there is the possibility of personal continuance after death, and a lot of what you say makes sense to me. However, I don't think that your model of idealism is full enough to give a convincing account of personal continuation. One reason I find this interesting is that I've noticed that the Buddhist doctrine of Nirvana, which I take as being more-or-less dissolution into ground consciousness, seems, on the face of it, pretty much the same as the ancient Egyptian idea of the destiny awaiting people who had not 'done their work' while living. However, on the Buddhist account it's presented as a _good_ thing, and on the ancient Egyptian account it's presented as a _bad_ thing. There are some Christians who have similar ideas to the ancient Egyptians here. The Buddhists of course think that the self is an 'illusion' anyway, and the result of 'attachment', so would you say that _that's_ of any relevance to your model and a clue to how successive and related whirlpools could possibly become generated? Alternatively, do you think the ancient Egyptian model, where you have to _earn_ personal continuance, perhaps by maintaining personal integrity, is compatible in some way? In relation to your model, I think it seems significant that one meaning of 'integrity' is 'the state of being whole and undivided.' Of course, there's no obligation for you to answer, but I was a bit disappointed that you ignored my questions last time. I don't think they're stupid, but perhaps I didn't make them clear enough.

Being fond of inversions, Bernardo soon started writing by rubbing paper against pens, exclaiming „we’ve been doing it all wrong, people!“

Great ideas, but when you start attacking materialism as boloney and mad the phrase "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" comes to mind. Let your arguments do the convincing. You come across as religious sounding with such an attitude. Having once been a Fundamentalist Evangelical Christian I know this attitude only too well. I much prefer the attitude of the humble seeker. Not that I have attained it either.

This does not make any sense.