Naturally, naturalists and physicalists (i.e materialists) are exceedingly challenged by the "hard problem of Consciousness" as David Chalmers put it which is the challenge to explain, in physical terms, this somewhat transcendent reality called Consciousness which cannot at all be said to be caused by any brain activity.

One solution then is to posit "panpsychism", which is more or less the idea that Consciousness is as real as matter and energy and actually inheres in all matter and energy.

At any rate, we are currently studying a verse in the Paramārthasāra of Abhinava Gupta exploring the distinction between a "conscious" and seemingly "unconscious" or "inert" entities.

After all, this is one of the most radical claims of the Shaiva non dual tradition: all things are verily Śiva but Śiva, as you will recall, is not a mere principle of Existence with no sense of self; Śiva is self-reflexive Awareness, the kind of Reality that knows Itself (i.e God) and as such, everything must be Conscious as Śiva is conscious!

How then can we drive at a distinction between "cid" vs "jada", "conscious" vs "inert"?

We take a first swipe at this idea in this talk and we will slowly unpack the view in the course of the next few videos through a close study of Somānanda, the great Tantrik master in whose work, Śivadrshti is present in full force this idea that all things, even pots, pieces of cloth, coffee mugs and Artificial Intelligence, are conscious, willing, knowing, doing things!

TLDR: The world is God. Let's start to explore how!

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Rachel Held Evans and Matthew Paul Turner, What Is God Like?