There is Only One Secret that Matters: Discussing Nihilism, Idealism, Solipsism, and Non-Duality

[@ericplatt6884]

A small point of clarification: the young man (Kenan) sitting behind me asking the question is using the word "nihilism" in a way that is not the usual one. Nihilism usually means something more like "life is meaningless, I don't believe in anything, I reject all moral and religious principles... " - a positive statement of something negative, and not "the world does not exist." However in philosophy it can mean "extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence." Either way though, as Francis points out, both (and idealism vs. realism, etc.) are positions, models in mind... interesting, maybe useful at times, but limited ways of seeing. "I don't have a clue" is a lot happier. :))

[@Anna-tz5em]

So beautiful and touching. Infinite gratitude to you dearest Francis, you are giving me the most precious gift, the timeless gift, all my love.

[@mindfulkayaker7737]

Great speech!! There is a great difference when I hear a spiritual teachers that speak from “book knowledge ” and those as Francis that speaks from his “Own personal experience”

[@stefanoprovvedi1155]

An authentic teacher….

[@hoonazghojallu2551]

🙏so much peace in your words

[@andreasrylander]

Possibly the best advaita vedanta teaching ever.

[@t108tom]

"I do not know" how simple and complete, thanks!

[@sarvashura]

Quelle magnifique mise à genoux, quel magnifique sourire. Merci.

[@taraclover4783]

"I don't know"...ahhhhhh like a huge load has been dropped but in so doing, there seems to be an opening space for Unknown Wisdom. Thanks Francis, but "i dunno" why I prefer you to slay in Pink🥰

[@hanayama8721]

This is good to hear, in part because I used to think Francis himself sometimes blurred the distinction between mind and consciousness (aka God), if not in his own mind then at least for those listening to him. Recently he has been explicit on the distinction, for example when he stated that mind isn’t made of ‘mind stuff’ and matter isn’t made of ‘matter stuff’. A while back I came across a guy named Bernardo Kastrup who identifies as both ‘nondual’ and as the founder of ‘analytic idealism’. He’s a very ambitious man. I liked him, but I thought at the time he needed to talk some to Rupert Spira, who I was then more familiar with than Francis. Shortly thereafter (in the world of KZbin there are no coincidences) I came across a talk by Rupert where he spoke of his friendship with Kastrup and recently I have begun to wonder if Kastrup hasn’t had more influence on Rupert than the other way round. Rupert seems to be drifting into an idealist conflation of mind and God. Maybe this is what Francis is referring to when he speaks of ‘former students’. I hope Rupert hasn’t become so grand that he no longer regards himself a student of Francis. Speaking of the grand and the grandiose, it was Adi Da who helped me understand the distinction between mind and God when he said, perhaps somewhat mischievously, that matter was more ‘intimate’ with God than mind. Mind, after all, that ‘stuff’ that loses itself in abstraction, separation, and avidya, ignoring the ‘open secret’ Francis refers to. Da, speaking as a ‘godman’, referred to himself as ‘omnipathic’. We might say that arising in the ‘one touch’ of God, New York is just as real as Shropshire.

[@a13xdunlop]

Rupert is quite arrogant in his insistence that Kastrop will “find god”, in reality Kastrop has no illusions of needing to “find god”.

[@ailidhlalala1592]

Thank you, for bringing some light in this I already wondered a few times why Rupert is so sure with this, seems a little unscientific to me. Lately I only hear Francis, he is much more difficult to understand but he is so scientific in his approach.... Like not wanting reality to be like this or like that but just honestly stating that we cannot really know Although kastrups ideas are interesting and there is no proof to believe them less (or more) than the materialistic idea

[@hanayama8721]

@@ailidhlalala1592 Yes, Francis is deeply intimate with the insight, ‘We know ‘that’ we are, we don’t know ‘what’ we are’. Which is to say we have to be cautious, or proceed with some humor and humility, when expanding that essential insight into metaphysical speculation. Personally, I like the notion that God (awareness) ‘Is’ and yet is also free to ‘exist’ as both material stuff and mind stuff, dialectically engaged in a given universe. In a sense, God occasions ‘mind’ in order to ‘know’, and matter in order to ‘be known’ (or even, ‘to feel’), and yet prior to such phenomenal ‘inventions’ simply ‘Is’, immaterially and ‘mindlessly’. Idealism’s fixation on ‘mind’ strikes me as supererogatory. But who knows? That said, when Rupert keeps his eye on the ball, he expresses himself clearly and profoundly. I don’t listen to him much these days, but I just happened to watch his recent talk with the Omega Institute yesterday and it was almost ‘perfect’, material I could happily direct others to as a contemporary Advaita intro. I’m curious though about what you find difficult in Francis? He’s a one trick pony. It’s just the best trick there is. I suppose he can be playful at times and approach the ‘subject’ from obscure angles, but he’s always on the mark.

[@ailidhlalala1592]

@@hanayama8721 yes, I guess he is.... He has a different approach than Rupert but a more detailed one. When I listen to Rupert I often know what he is going to say, I never know with Francis.... So I cannot half listen to him and I don't get everything but if I get it, it really sticks.... Kind of... How the world is and work we don't know, maybe we will never really be able to grasp it..... But if you're interested in this matters, you should defenitly watch Anton zeilinger (the quantum physics Nobel prize guy) he won the prize together with a France and an American pgysicist but I forgot there names. I am sure you can google it. I am not sure if there are interviews with zeilinger in English since he is an Austrian like I am, I watch the videos in german. Rupert is great as long as it doesn't come to his idealism... Than it gets strange because he is way too sure... When I ask myself, where is the proof?

[@ecoutetonetre729]

He’s amazing

[@СергейМоисеев-я5й]

Francis may speak about dolphins mating, I guess. 'Cause it's this intelligent benevolence what really gets the job done.

[@elogiud]

Who is the author he was referring to? Robert Anthony? I could find nothing on him...can anyone help with this? Thank you

[@jessicaleonard-sandino5414]

Magnificent

[@EgayuuG1]

that’s a beautiful smile😊　finally.

[@lucyliu4970]

I'm confused about the statement that New York is real. Without any perceiver perceiving it, how do we know if it exists, therefore, being real or not? Also, what does the word real mean in this statement? Does it mean Reality (independent existence) or manifested phenomenon?

[@xanderheiple7959]

Hi Francis, I'm wondering why we focus so much on awareness if the end result is to have an unlimited view of reality. That is, is calling it "that which perceives" not a limitation? Are you saying that perceiving is one thing reality does but that there may be other levels of reality which do not at all include that which perceives?

[@FrancisLucille]

Reality is that which REALLY perceives, AKA awareness as I define it. It doesn't imply that reality is confined to perceiving. It all hinges on the revelation that there is only one reality, one being, one substance.

[@xanderheiple7959]

@@FrancisLucille thanks for replying Francis. Does this mean that awareness could have an underlying reality which isn’t awareness? As in, could that which perceives have an underlying reality which isn't that which perceives?

[@rsr9200]

If I understand what Francis is implying in this video when he talks about the seemingly different models of (appearances of) ultimate reality, e.g., Advaita narratives which we label as classical, tantric, scholastic, cosmopolitan, etc., it is that “I don’t know” is an acceptable response from a teacher of Advaita who is asked “Which of these various models will help me realize that I am free from suffering?”. However, if I am not mistaken, he is not suggesting that “I don’t know” is an acceptable response from a qualified teacher of Advaita who is asked “As ultimate reality am I free of suffering?”.

[@sanekabc]

The I is never free of suffering.

[@rsr9200]

@@sanekabc Thank you for your response. You may, perhaps, arrive at a different conclusion than what you have currently if “I” were to be understood as a pronoun which cannot be referred to as “The I” in the English language.

[@grahamtrave1709]

Just a load of words put in a nice order.

[@vinceofyork]

"The world is unreal, only Brahman exists, Brahman IS the world."

[@kimjansson2338]

🙏🙏🙏

[@TheModernDating]

There is only one You. God.

[@adayinapril581]

Knowing. Thank you.

[@zazzyz4558]

How would we possibly know whether New York exists or not when we are not directly experiencing it?

[@gurugeorge]

The way of framing the question presupposes a narrowing down of the concept of "knowing" to "directly experiencing" or something like that, so it's circular - you can only know things by this method that you can know by this method. You can't know New York exists by this method; you can't have present knowledge of New York without present experience of New York. But it's a moot point, because you don't know about New York from that method but by other methods (e.g. you read about it in a book, saw it on a documentary, etc.). Directly experiencing things isn't the only way of knowing that they exist or what they're like - it's a special kind of "knowing." Furthermore, scientifically, directly experiencing something only gets you so far, what you're interested in is the structure, overt and hidden, of the thing. The senses take samples of reality, and that's your essential connection with reality, for sure - the thing you can use to prove or disprove things - but you do that sampling within the context of accepted procedures and methods, which are appropriate to the type of perception, conditions, apparatus, etc. Other than that, you're just hanging out with reality, and being it - and you can call that "knowing" in a sense too, in the sense of Gnosis.

[@krischnakrischna]

excellent....thank you...

[@ailidhlalala1592]

I wonder why he is so different in his approach to reality from Rupert Spira.... If I get it right

[@hgracern]

Wow, thank you. ..am sure Francis also says colour, texture n sound belong to mind. Not to NY. 🌈 and we never exp space or succession.

[@pdevika3629]

🌺🙏💙

[@JackLamona-tk9of]

This is confusing, Francis. What are you talking about? "Mind" in idealism (I stick to bernardo Kastrup's Analytic Idealism) doesn't mean "mind stuff" as in "fantasies". It means that God is a mind, and everything exists in God's mind. Hence it is not "matter" in the classical sense. It is a "mind only" ontology. Reality isn't in your mind alone, or my mind alone. It is all in universal mind. In fact, it is the exact same God as we use as a working model in Advaita. So is it solipsism? No more than in Advaita, where there is only Being. In idealism, there is only Mind. Same thing, basically. Both are "universal solipsism".

[@sugarfree1894]

I think Francis is intelligent and brave. The granite is made of thought and the thought is made of granite (the thought of granite, in any case). All descriptions in words, even formulated solitarily in the mind, are the domain of Vac.

[@dalegriffiths3628]

Hi, just to clarify he said ‘granite is NOT made of thought’ - he kind of suggested they are the same and are both made by god

[@sugarfree1894]

@@dalegriffiths3628 Yes, I heard him say that. I experience it differently. I cannot conceive of how granite could be said to exist without a mind to experience it. I guess I am of the mind only approach and know that what is put into words exists in a different way from what is experienced in silence.

[@fredphipps9452]

Interesting; Idealism is not reality therefore can be nihilism in disguise.

[@danielfinn1526]

But what is the one open secret that matters?

[@sotokuco]

It's open one.

[@ElizabethReninger]

You are :)

[@sanekabc]

@@ElizabethReninger I'm suddenly in love with Elizabeth. :)

[@oldrusty6527]

Don't try to get straight answers out of these people, Daniel.