Inner Life, Talks and Thoughts

The label “gnostic” is used to recommend and condemn. So what is, and what was, Gnosticism? This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, with Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon, takes a lead from a series of fascinating essays exploring the ancient movement and its modern forms by the philosopher, David Bentley Hart. Gnosticism was originally a set of cosmologies which shared the sense that the created order was blocked from the celestial spheres by angelic and demonic powers. It was remarkably widespread amongst early Christians of all kinds. They turned to Christ, in the hope of redemption or escape. Nowadays, it is used in different ways, often to express a sense of yearning or hope. As Rupert and Mark discuss, gnosticism may offer the promise of a re-enchanted cosmos, freed from the Archons of the machine and mammon. Properly understood, it might offer a key for our times.Two of the essays written by David Bentley Hart are available without subscribing to Substack.https://davidbentleyhart.substack.com/p/the-gnostic-turnhttps://davidbentleyhart.substack.com/p/imprisonedFor more dialogues see:https://www.sheldrake.org/audios/sheldrake-vernon-dialogueshttps://www.markvernon.com/talks

What is the direct path of Advaita Vedanta and why is it significant for so many now? How is it found across traditions, including within Christianity? Why might it matter to us today, collectively as well as individually? What are its links to psychotherapy, individuality, freedom, God?Mark Vernon talks with Rupert Spira about these questions and more.0:34 What is the direct path and why is it of significance now?13:59 If awareness of awareness is the start, what happens next?17:20 Why might this matter socially as well as individually?23:27 What is the relationship between the direct path and psychotherapy?30:35 How does nondual show up in Christianty? What does the death and resurrection of Jesus mean?41:55 How might the Trinity express nondual life?50:47 How does this renew our experience of individuality?53:45 Nondualism and a positive engagement with creation and the world.1:10:38 Lessons from Dante’s journey into Paradise as a model of nondual expansion.1:20:34 Growth after the recognition of our true being.1:22:30 Goals after the recognition of true being.1:25:08 The spontaneity of teaching.1:27:47 Wrapping and further information.For more about Rupert - https://rupertspira.comFor more about Mark - https://rupertspira.com

Meditation, yoga, vegetarianism. Eastern practices have become a feature of western life. But what do we learn from them? This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, with Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon, is prompted by a sense that the western way of life is being challenged, if not facing a full-on crisis. As Rowan Williams puts it in his new book, Looking East In Winter, climate change and environmental degradation are leading to a sense of needing not a programme or an ideology but an epiphany, which might renew our perception of reality. They discuss how eastern Christianity, as well as traditions in India, are based on participating with life and emphasise the cultivation of consciousness. They ask how this relates to insights such as the Christian Trinity and movements such as romanticism, as well as the effects of mechanistic science, which itself grew out of western religious perceptions.For more conversations between Rupert and Mark see:https://www.markvernon.com/talkshttps://www.sheldrake.org/audios/sheldrake-vernon-dialogues

Rowan Williams has written another hugely significant book, one ripe with meaning for now. In this talk, I unpack its themes of non-dualism and Trinitarian life, eros and kenosis, politics and justice, seeing truthfully and destroying the world.0:39 Addressing the Anthropocene1:28 The need for an epiphany2:52 What is our key problem?4:32 Nondual non-identity7:12 Trinitarian life9:05 The erotic life of the divine13:30 True kenosis and ecstasy17:42 The truth of ourselves20:49 Watchfulness, angelic awareness, mindfulness23:39 Apatheia and anger25:19 Being in the world, not of the world28:20 The artist and philosopher29:43 The gift of wisdom and remedying ignorance30:27 Rationality and relating31:55 Being natural33:11 A new solidarity and Maria Skobtsova34:32 A new apologetics35:25 A new politics and sense of justice38:48 Hospitality as a way of life39:10 Freedom and fulfilment40:39 Divinization and the futureFor more on Mark Vernon, see www.markvernon.com

The standard big history of human evolution, exemplified in Yuval Noah Harari's bestseller Sapiens, sees religion and spirituality as a byproduct of survival, at best a necessary fiction.But new science is telling a different story. Research done by Robin Dunbar, Agustin Fuentes, Robert Bellah and others is showing how engaging with invisible worlds and supernatural vitalities is an ancient and central aspect of Homo culture, which took off with the emergence of Homo sapiens.Considering matters from Neanderthal art to altered states of mind, this vlog tells that story and asks why it matters today.You might also enjoy my essay - https://aeon.co/essays/how-trance-states-forged-human-society-through-transcendenceFor more about Mark - https://www.markvernon.com

I've notice a tendency to downplay the divine element in accounts of William Blake, and to reduce his understanding of the imagination to a human artefact, from its true status as a supernatural capacity that he knew.In this talk I consider 5 ways in which this can be resisted:- Blake's insistence that "there is no natural religion".- Blake's affirmation that “God becomes as we are that we may become as he is”.- His understanding that, “The desire of man is infinite”, and without it, we consume the natural world.- His realisation that even Eternal Death is transformed by Eternal Life.- And his engagement with The Bhagavad Gita, which arguably not only inspired some of his own mythology but his clear absolute idealism and philosophy.

Covid has brought the reality of death into the centre of our lives, but what can we learn about death in response? This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, with Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon, is prompted by a sense that part of the anxiety arising from the pandemic is living in a culture that has forgotten how to know death in life. Rupert outlines some recent work on the role of death in plant life, and how that is not only of biological interest but can be spiritually resourcing. They discuss how wisdom traditions don’t dissolve death but understand it as a process that leads to more life, and therefore to be embraced and undergone. Both reflect on personal experiences of death and dying as well, in what they hope is a helpful as well as interesting conversation.For more conversations see - https://www.markvernon.com/talks

An extended conversation that begins with thoughts on Owen Barfield, participation and the meaning crisis, Schopenhauer and Jung, moving through the state of modern physics, to the nature of evolution, the nature of mind at large, the role of dissociation and projections, and freedom.For more on Bernardo's work see - https://www.bernardokastrup.comFor more on Mark's work see - https://www.markvernon.comRunning order:3:18 Introducing Owen Barfield and representations8:22 The modern mistaken and the meaning crisis13:38 The paradox of increased knowledge and decreased meaning17:25 Questioning uniformitarianism in physics and the laws of nature26:11 Physics in the first person and fine tuning28:42 Carlo Rovelli and relational quantum mechanics36:07 Dante's vision, consciousness and modern cosmology39:42 Panpsychism and stretching materialism44:16 Is evolution driven only by survival and random mutations?52:05 Science, intuition, evolution and participation56:31 Aesthetics in nature1:00:26 About mind at large and classical theism1:06:21 Entering the medieval worldview1:09:30 The becoming of creation and potentials are not nothing1:13:31 Divine activity and different kinds of change1:17:51 Polarities of being and becoming in God and nature1:22:36 Respecting the polarities in us1:24:10 Jung on the God of the Old Testament and New1:26:13 A critique of Jung and the evolution of monotheism1:29:30 Discussion of "The Origins and History of Consciousness" by Erich Neumann1:31:26 On not discussing privatio boni (the pushback at Jung would be that the relationship between good and evil is asymmetrical, much like the relationship between hot and cold, say)1:31:39 Introducing the role of dissociation1:31:50 Other psychological phenomena in mind at large, in particular, projection1:40:49 Projections connect with reality and the enriching role of alienation1:46:20 Bewilderment as the pathway of return1:49:25 Meaning in suffering1:49:56 Freedom, physicalism and conscious inner life1:58:50 Participation and co-creativity2:01:20 The freedom of service2:04:03 The Essentia Foundation

Anthony Ashley Cooper (1671-1713) may be the greatest English philosopher you have never heard of. In the 18th century, he was said to be the most famous philosopher in Europe. His ideas suffered in England, as those of his empiricist tutor, John Locke, took hold. But they inspired figures from William Blake to Adam Smith, and are, in my view, much needed now.For more on St Giles House - https://www.stgileshouse.com

A short discussion of psychodynamic psychotherapy, talking about the experience of suffering, the ego, the past and present, and the future change as people move through three zones - which might be described as hell, purgatory and paradise.For more see - www.markvernon.com.