In Praise of Praise: Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue 78

Why do people offer praise and gain from it? Does God require, even demand praise? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark discuss what can be wrongly implied by praise and what it might mean as an immensely rich practice. Mark confesses to having been put off the notion, as if adulation were demanded by a divine narcissist, which Rupert responds to by considering the etymology of praise, shared by words such as appreciation and interpretation. The discussion develops to consider how praise is a disclosing activity, arising from a spontaneous perception of wholeness, beauty and existence itself. They consider how praise is linked to attending, and the ways in which we reach out to see the world, even as the world reaches back to us, much as William Blake described when seeing "heaven in a wild flower". And they address the question of why and how God is associated with praise. Praise, it turns out, is highly praiseworthy.
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During the discussion the Boyle Lecture 2023 by Rowan Williams is mentioned, online here:
• 2023 ISSR Boyle Lectur...
The book on Shakespeare by Valentin Gerlier is also referenced, details here:
www.routledge.com/Shakespeare...
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Dr Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University he worked in developmental biology as a Fellow of Clare College. He was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and From 2005 to 2010 was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project, Cambridge.
www.sheldrake.org
Rupert's latest book is...
The Science Delusion: 2020 Edition
www.sheldrake.org/books-by-ru...
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Dr Mark Vernon is a writer and psychotherapist. He contributes to programmes on the radio, writes and reviews for newspapers and magazines, gives talks and podcasts. His books have covered themes including friendship and God, ancient Greek philosophy and wellbeing. His new book, out August 2019, is "A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling and the Evolution of Consciousness". He has a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy, and other degrees in physics and in theology, and works as a psychotherapist in private practice. He used to be an Anglican priest.
www.markvernon.com
Mark's latest book is...
A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling, and the Evolution of Consciousness
www.markvernon.com/books/a-sec...

[@johnkraner2892]

My gratitude overflows for you, Doctors Sheldrake and Vernon, for the generous sharing of your in-depth insights. You are a great comfort and are voices of sanity in this turbulent, dark time.

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

God doesn't need our prayer we need it and God wants us to have what we can get from it. My first prayer in the morning is "Love God" my second one my late mother gave me, "You should be good to each other." It took me a while to realize those covered the two great Commandments.

[@josephszot5545]

You thank GOD for the opportunity of being alive and consciousness to live right and qualify for eternal love and total knowledge!

[@ChorltonBrook]

These are so ‘valuable’ to share to anyone not subscribed but interested the subject: concise. Thanks again for making the effort uploading these. Sometimes I think you might not see how much it’s appreciated out here.

[@jasonwilcox6637]

The universe loves you

[@michelleburkholder2547]

A wellspring that rises up to heaven, so you will never thirst again.

[@swordczar6096]

This is highest gold. My gratitude is, too. Thank you.

[@sharma6186]

How could one not find gratitude for the ability to exist in and observe even a fraction of this majestic experience. Thank you both. Take care.

[@99rjs]

I found this an exceptionally engaging & insightful discussion - possibly my favourite so far. I'm very appreciative.

[@christianrokicki]

God doesn't demand praise but he does get very excited when we do it and when we feel his excitement it helps to guide us. Naturally we want to offer praise when we make intense spiritual progress.

[@justohayes]

I have been thinking that God would like to see us having gratitude rather than praise. In Leonard Cohen's song hallelujah, if you replace the word hallelujah with the words thank you it makes more sense to me.

[@ZenithBeyond]

Can you give an example of this kind of excitement. In which situations can it be experienced and how we know it is from God?

[@Corteum]

_"God doesn't demand praise but he does get very excited when we do it"_ Is that what it says in the book, is it a belief or interpretation, or is there some other way by which you're able to know that God gets excited about it?

[@christianrokicki]

@@Corteum He touches us as much as he pleases. Let it be known there is no such thing as a book when we are in our happy place says his electricity. And yet it leaps from every page of life! Praise him with me, if you will, in your own way.

[@Corteum]

@@christianrokicki I dont know what to do, though. I dont even know how to address such a being... how to even conceive it. And my mind wonders why such a being would need my praise. My puny praise.

[@WildAntics13]

We are created to worship and give glory to God and have intimate relationships with him.

[@patriciachadwick5658]

A tad late to the party, for which I apologise... thank you both for a very enlightening discussion... very much appreciated 🙏

[@AuroCords]

Loving this! Thank you both so much. I appreciate you :] That view of god creating through praise or his praise becoming the creation is beautiful to me ❤

[@gammaraygem]

"It is impossible to insult the Divine". (Sri Aurobindo). Imagine that.

[@christianrokicki]

The excitement of God ignites the fire of passion in us.

[@williamoarlock8634]

Your god is a puerile and privileged fantasy.

[@stellapap2087]

My respect and love Mr.Rupert

[@brambler1902]

Thank you both. Amazing that this very concept has baffled me for a long time myself until I stumbled upon its root meaning in Arabic. While reading the Qur'an, I realised that the word سبح meant "to swim,"roll onwards,"perform a daily course," "occupation in worldly affairs." This very word's further derivatives mean "to praise." Which, to me, suggests that if I am "swimming" my day to day life while being mindful of God and remaining STRICTLY within His stated boundaries, then I am ultimately praising Him with my acts [so I am not just a reader of the Qur'an but I become the living Qur'an]. This definition is a different angle of the prevailing norm of rosaries, and "counting" the praise as it is habitually done. Although reading David's Psalms [may peace be upon him] gives immense respite to my heart. But for me, this root meaning logically solves the puzzle as to why there is so much corruption in day to day affairs in the world when the mosques are full. Probably because people separate "worship" and "praising" God from "living" life. "Worship" عبد another word in Arabic which does not mean to do some "worship" acts [which several translations of the Scriptures imply] but TO ADORE AND BE GOD'S SLAVE. The latter is not a boring habit but becomes a feverish high. God knows best. God bless and sabbath salam.

[@CAM-fq8lv]

Thanks for posting this. Insightful, even profound.

[@ELIASGTR]

Hey Rupert I discovered you through your discussions with J Krishnamurti . Im also watching you to imitate your accent. Love your insight !

[@TylerClibbon]

I love these talks but I just have to keep saying: what the world desperately needs most during the covid caused collapse of mainstream scientific consensus is Rupert's work on psi to blow up and go viral. The only way to do this is to go on super popular podcasts, as many as you can.

[@TylerClibbon]

Honestly no offense but I'm going to stop watching these; the world doesn't need more word games passively defending religion, it needs solid scientific statistical proofs showing the magic religion is based on is actually real. Please do debates again, you are SO good at it.

[@AlexisOmnis]

​@@TylerClibbon hello! I posted a new comment thread on this video & I thought it may be of interest. It's only anecdotal so far but the spiritual nature of the universe will soon be testable. Some particles of soulmates are entangled & this is how telepathy works but can even work between non soulmates. I'm telling you this as my soulmate and I can talk telepathically with each other & will hopefully be able to prove this, sometime this year.

[@TylerClibbon]

@@AlexisOmnis I believe it! Please prove it as fast as possible!

[@161157gor]

AI for Prophets not Profits… In Praise of Prayer 🙏

[@CaptainPhilosophical]

Speaking in duality reinforces this demanding Narcissist idea. It seems, to me, our judgments of God, from a duality POV, are projections of our own psyche. Attempts to see this from a nondual view encourages me to see ALL as manifestations of the One which brings up a feeling more like excitement for me.

[@davidpeet3863]

I think one’s presence is authored by one’s inner stance. the rubicon we cross is when we begin to trust that the world changes according to how we choose to look upon it - despite the appearances. The rather threadbare, utilitarian, consensus understanding is that you get to know something or someone then decide whether or not you love it. You determine what you think of it - basically you judge it some good, some bad. A higher wisdom realises that first you love something and then you know it. The extent to which it opens up to you, which at its fullest will be infinite and divine, is the extent to which your inner condition is in shape. This cannon be tricked, there is no hack. Imagine you are God, and you look upon something as God? What do you think might happen ? Imagine you are unconditional love and you look upon someone? It changes you to do this. It transforms you to do this. The giver receives. It’s outrageous, unreasonable, arrogant, self-aggrandising and presumptuous - it feels this way precisely because it is you defining yourself as MORE. We do not really appreciate the super-power we all have - our attention. It is a transfiguring yet gentle power. But for most of us it is dissipated. Our attention can be splattered in the past and in the future and in daily anxieties. There is little left for anything else. If we appreciate the value of our attention and over time become a master of the deployment of our attention - this is when we can more easily appreciate that the way we choose to see the world determines how the world chooses to respond to us. This means seeing everything as infinite. Infinity is a state of grace - and to see the infinite outside you, you must experience the infinite within.

[@jamesmanolakis2420]

Who doesn't love being praised?

[@Corteum]

Which God needs praise? There are many descriptions of God coming from different cultures/traditions...

[@anthonyrussano]

it's about negating ourselves and raising God up

[@guillermobrand8458]

Information abounds in Morphic Fields. The ability to store and manage information differentiates inanimate matter from living matter. Observing how humanity's ability to manage information has increased in the last hundred years, Ray Kurszweil concludes that in 2045 humanity will access a Singularity. The exponential curve that Kursweil "stumbles upon" is not only a hundred years old. About two hundred thousand years ago humans became the Evolutionary Leaders. Then, thanks to the language that characterizes us, Reason arose. When observing the dynamics of Evolution considering the role that Information plays and has played since the Universe arose, it becomes clear that the "exponential evolution" that Ray Kurszweil appeals to to make his projections does not refer to the current "era of Information”, but that said exponential evolution dates from the origin of the Universe, which is evident if we consider the following “evolutionary milestones”. The universe arises: 13,700,000,000 years Life emerges: 3,800,000,000 years The brain emerges: 550,000,000 years Language Arises: 23,000,000 years Being and Reason arise: 200,000 years The information age emerges: 150 years The Singularity Rises: Year 2045 The figures indicate a decrease in the time between successive evolutionary milestones, which is equivalent to an increase in the speed of evolution. We can determine this "speed" if we look at the relationship in which the decrease in time between evolutionary milestones varies. In doing so we obtain the following “velocities”: 3.0 6.2 23.1 114.1 1332.3 The logarithm of these speeds gives us the following figures: 0.48 0.79 1.36 2.06 3.12 When graphing these figures, a “surprisingly coherent” curve is left before our eyes. The numbers don't lie; The information age that we are living in is the prelude to a Singularity in which humans will cease to be the Evolutionary Leaders that we were for two hundred thousand years.

[@judonazim_dot_com_is_a_website]

I have an interesting idea, we use to think all the beings in our dream are generated by our mind, but what if most if not all of them are not generated by our mind but rather perceived by our mind by telepathy. I speculate that these beings, are mostly other people that dreaming at the same time we dream, meaning some appear in other dreams. If this is true, we can test and verify it, by doing a world wide survey about people and conversation they recall from their dreams.

[@judonazim_dot_com_is_a_website]

I have another interesting Idea, I think babies learn languages fast because they have telepathic ability, and this ability is higher between the family relatives of the babies, and highest between the mother and her babies. And the higher the amount of brow or stem cells in babies may play a role here, because the receptors are more neutral in these cells, and as a result, accept wider range of magnetic frequencies. Telepathy between an Identical twins is because they have almost an identical receptors.

[@stewartbrands]

People realized and realize that human perception is part of everything that is and everything that is, is named so called "God". Therefore it is not surprising that having a name for everything ,stories arose to describe this name and associate them with the label which was put on everything. So the stories and emotions having reference to this name for everything are locally limited illusions or fantasies. Stories. Their function is to act as an element of tribal connectivity in a sociological sense. Hydrogen bonding in chemistry/physics would be an example. Stories amongst people have little to do with everything and are a sociological glue within some of the human domain only. It is not possible to slow a river with mind,faith,or praise since their function is exclusively a shared intellectual process related to tribal security and not general fundamental processes.

[@Demosophist]

We humans have it pretty good, actually. There are lots of things to be interested in, and failing that there's always the problem of survival. Never a dull moment. But think of how bored you'd be if you were God. You'd already know everything, be absolutely certain of ongoing survival FOREVER, and there would be nothing you couldn't do. YAWN... what's next?

[@rodgersmith-iu1yb]

How can I connect with Dr Sheldrake? Developing a study re morphic resonance?

[@marcietownsend3635]

Question: does anyone think "god" exists outside of our belief in said deity or deities? What if "god" is an overarching ideology that holds reality in place and we can choose how we create the "gods"? We can choose between AI or seeing ourselves as cosmic intelligence on our blue spinning planet. It's up to us.

[@googleaccountuser3116]

When you said throwing stones at dinosaurs you were thinking of the flinstones weren't you? Admit it! 😅 Based on a true story. 😁

[@hiltz0007]

DOES GOD EVEN REQUIRE RECOGNITION?

[@jamesconway9277]

Red was positive in the past until Dante Inferno made it identified as demonic. That suggests that blue was cold as ice or not hot with the Spirit. Nobody would then in the past want to identify the sky or water as negative.

[@ChorltonBrook]

Lapis Lazuli - the only mines in the world are inAfghanistan & even in the 1990‘s it was worth it’s weight in gold. Now China industrially mines it there. Very, very cheap on Ali Express. Probably not for long, in the long term. Just sayin’

[@earthstick]

One thing for sure is that God requires praise, because otherwise God disappears from our lives. Nobody worships the Gods Of Egypt or Greece or Rome anymore, or the Norse Gods. Those Gods are dead.

[@matthewgriffiths527]

Those weren't God's. The great I Am is the one and only. People do still worship entities that have "disappeared" from our modern form of daily life. Those that want to know seek such things out, those that want to stay ignorant do not.

[@ChorltonBrook]

Mark please stake a Twitter account under your name. The only guy with it is a paranormal investigator going on about spooks. Seems unlike you? You seems the type of person I’d want to listen to, along with Rupert of course. I want to add a more spiritual/sussed input to my head. Thanks & sorry for my attempt at this social media stuff.

[@jroses1225]

I haven't watched yet, but God isn't a human. Doesn't have an ego to praise. God is existence. It is us. We need praise, from ourselves - perhaps to know we're God. So I'd say that yes God needs praise, through us, but only for our sake.

[@mateokarlvonpavlovic8295]

We arent gods, human are egoistic and we arent perfect like our creator.

[@jroses1225]

@@mateokarlvonpavlovic8295 we aren't Gods but we are God. Because there is only God. Our egos are just temporary

[@mateokarlvonpavlovic8295]

@@jroses1225 well i would agree that we are part of God, but i dont agree that we are God. We are part of him when we are in heaven with him.

[@jameshowell450]

What annoys me is people only say God. But who is he? Well hes Krsna. Why don't people recognise this? They stop at the impersonal brahman stage. God is real. Bhagavan. Haribol.

[@gammaraygem]

This is disappointing. What about the Ukrainian conscript in a trench, who just lost 5 buddies in a mortar attack while bleeding to death himself....Praise the Lord? Hmmm...Or the Russian who was told he´d only do logistic work who finds himself in an assault team heading for almost certain death, while being shot by his own if he tries to return to safety? A Hindu would have no problem with that. Good and evil are all Divine actions. One of their central teachings, the Gita, takes place on a battlefield. Looking LIFE in the face, head on. Who said we need to praise anyway? Jesus? I doubt it. I dont know much about the bible, but this convo is just not up to standard.

[@1111Tactical]

You don't know much about the bible but you know this biblical discussion is not up to standard? How? Wars are the result of egos from disunified leaders operating out of self interest and hatred. That can hardly be levied onto God, his unifying presence, or his natural world Do you think if those soldiers were grateful for each moment they continue to live and keep a positive mindset, they would have worse odds or better odds? I've gotten military training, positive mindset is key. The answer is that in the face of overwhelming evidence, gratitude is EVEN MORE beneficial

[@musicsubicandcebu1774]

Worship and praise of a higher power? All very suspicious. "Stockholm Syndrome" will explain it quite nicely . . . we worship what we fear.

[@eliyasara9786]

I'm not so sure about that. One thing is for certain and that is that we fear what we fear. However I think we worship what we believe holds any form of power in our life. For example Saints, while not particularly feared, are semi-worshiped within Catholicism, with prayers being directed around them and centred on them in relation to the Trinity. In Hinduism there are a multitude of gods, some entirely benevolent and some not as much, who are all worshiped globally. Some people worship money, especially people who already HAVE a lot of money. I don't think you'll find anyone who says that these people genuinely fear and are terrified of money, it's just that they have a complex associated with the luxuries of wealth and the changes these things can make within ones life, thus they put mental energy into the complete and total accumulation of it. Stockholm sydnrome is slightly different I would say. It didn't demonstrate a 'worship', but rather an unexpected flipping of emotional states. Where one would assume fear for a captor, instead the victims demonstrated love and care. Universally, Christians fear the Devil. However Christians don't doctrinally worship the devil. Instead, going along with my thesis, they worship what they believe holds ultimate power over their life; God.

[@gammaraygem]

@@eliyasara9786 What about the Ukrainian conscript in a trench, who just lost 5 buddies in a mortar attack while bleeding to death himself....Praise the Lord? Hmmm... A Hindu would have no problem with that. Good and evil are all Divine actions.

[@thegodpill914]

Are you incapable of comprehending gratitude? Even if one had the most negative opinion possible of god that would do nothing to change that everything pleasant that exist and occurs in the omniverse is a result of the first cause. What are you expecting God to apologize to you for you not being equally omnipotent and eternal or something? My goodness what a world we live in.

[@barleyarrish]

No. People Do!

[@jan-martinulvag1953]

Consciousness is the domain of the ego. You are stuck in ego. Lost.

[@roderickcortez138]

Well I just lost all respect for Rupert.

[@googlepigs7027]

I really think the "Divine narcissist" says it all when it comes to the historic coception of bible "God". The idea that there's a divine being in itself, it seems to me, is such an obvious and mostly unpleasant creation of the primitive human mind; and is much more a reflection of our primitive selves, than any supposed being of omnipotent authorship. That said...my 63yrs. of intuitive experience, tells me there are fantastic things far beyond the stuffy, stingy pronouncements of our nascent science. I believe we are some kind of eternal "energy beings", on a never ending quest to experience, learn, and improve and enjoy ourselves, and each other; and our fantastic, yet to be descovered, never ending Universe; and all the wonders it contains, waiting to be found out. I also believe there are beings in this existence, so far beyond us in their evolution and development, that to us... they are Gods. We dont get to see them though....because it would ruin our present mission that this place is specifically designed for: experiencing and learning.