Understanding Spinoza with Neal Grossman
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 มิ.ย. 2024
- Neal Grossman, PhD, is an emeritus associate professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is author of Conversations with Socrates and Plato: How a Post-Materialist Social Order Can Solve the Challenges of Modern Life and Insure Our Survival. He is also author of The Spirit of Spinoza: Healing the Mind.
Here he points out that the 17th century philosopher, Benedict Spinoza, was excommunicated from the Jewish community of Amsterdam. He did not believe that God was wholly separate from creation, but rather that the universe is created from God and is, therefore part of God. We are like cells in the body of God. Spinoza was a rationalist. The main thrust of his philosophy was to enable individuals to have the experience of unity with the divine. As such, he was one of philosophy's greatest mystics.
New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is a past vice-president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology; and is the recipient of the Pathfinder Award from that Association for his contributions to the field of human consciousness exploration.
(Recorded on October 17, 2019)
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It's wonderful to find a philosophy professor who is indeed a philosopher, one devoted to wisdom.
I wish I understood Spinoza much better. I believe it entirely possible that a combination of the Stoics and Spinoza may be the actual Truth.
??? why the stoics thought
Read the the present on truth contest.
It's the truth of life that agrees with Spinoza point of view
Indeed. 🙏🏻 thanks ❤
I‘m skeptic, I think Hobbes was pretty correct - whatever is true, a primary condition is that it works in reality. If it doesn’t, you modify or abandon it
@@charlesbourgoigne2130 I’m also a skeptic. I like Spinoza’s philosophy because he does away with the supernatural, and rationality deduces his ethics, AND then, by all accounts, LIVED those principles
Dr Grossman’s book “The Spirit of Spinoza” is a book that is very much worth buying and reading. Highly recommended.
Wow amazing! Dr. Neal is so humble while being so brilliant. Both Neal and Jeffrey smile the entire time, what kind and extraordinary men they are! Thanks so much for sharing your mission to increase the understanding of human consciousness.
It's because they understand it so well, that they manipulate us so good..You should wish they had conscience and empathy for others, which they don't.
What is happening now and what will happen in the future, is due to their decisions regarding humanity.
How many stages of cruelty does one have to go through..
The cruelty is their invention!
Like nazis vs jews..
Congrats for your choices and collaborators..
Nice to see Grossman here; I took a course on Spinoza from him at UIC in the 70's.
Never stop jeff!! I'm only 26 and I've loved u for almost 10 years! I started with Terence McKenna and john lilly and watched nearly every video since!
Extraordinary conversation. We could learn a lot from Grossman not just as an academic philosopher but as a spiritual guide.
Outstanding video, I'm an engineer and was drawn to Spinoza due to Einstein's quote, as well. Professor Neal does a brilliant job of describing the philosophy of Spinoza. Liked and Subscribed. Thank You for this high quality content!
BEST SHOW ON TH-cam! Thanks for your hard work Jeffery.
It is both humbling and rewarding to find that somebody as riverired as Spinoza has come to some of the same conclusions as myself. Long have I pondered till my hair turned grey at an early age only to find that Spinoza was there first. Yet, it shows that my thought was without fallacy. As well as gives a second agreement with his theory that god is the universe. As I have come to the same conclusion with all the advancements of technology to current day.
Wow, one of the greatest conversations I ever had the privilege of listening too.
I had the privilege of being in Dr Grossman’s class on Plato at UIC. Amazing professor
Thank you for the interview, Neal Grossman is absolutely wonderful :)
I find the talk about play-like amnesiac performative roles that we intentionally have chosen/fallen into, paired with the cosmic unity concept, exactly the same lesson psychedelics seem to teach. The similarities are mindblowing.
Thank you, Jeffrey and Neal. Spinoza can appear daunting so I appreciate how you were both able to make this accessible and relevant.
Thank you, Jeffery and all for allowing such wonderful conversations to take place
So fascinating that so many great thinkers come to the same understanding, that all is one and that that unity is divine. I’m so glad to understand Spinoza more now...my thanks for yet another ‘enlightening’ (and it is!) interview.
Unity is Reality. I promise, if you'll quiet your mind, for long enough, 5 minutes, 7 years, you will eventually look out and see that 'your' everything your looking at. Gotta be still and quiet though
So I and the serial killer are together in oneness?
Awsome interview! I'm surely going to dive deeper in Spinoza's Phylosophy. "If it was good enough for Einstein, it's good enough for me. "
Thank you to both of you...
very fascinating talk!
Loved this. I’ll be looking into Spinoza now. Thank you.
Superb. One of the very best discussions that Jeffery has ever had. Thank you Neal Grossman and Jeffery Mishlove.
Great guest, coherent conversation. Thank you Jeffrey
Thank you.
Beautiful conversation
I've been drawn to Spinoza's teachings for the past year, but I couldn't distill why. I think Neil and Jeffrey succeeded in distilling Spinoza's contribution to peace of mind in a subtle and precise way. I'm so glad I discovered this channel, this interview and this book😊
i love this man, Neal Grossman, you are a true philosopher a seeker
Great interview! Thank you!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻❤️💜💚 Thank you both! 💪💪💪
Jewish excommunication or censure was fairly common in very orthodox communities in Amsterdam during Spinoza's life. It is called *herem* or *cherem.* A great novel to read about this is by Irvin Yolam entitled _The Spinoza Problem._
On every level what does nature do? It folds and unfolds. It makes copies of what is working and incorporates what works better. At its base it is mindless and at its apex it is mindful. It dances to the harmony of seasons to sustain itself and to evolve a greater unfolding. Perhaps it is unfolding a god-like mind somewhere in the cosmos.
Thanks Jeffrey.
Thank you!
Great discussion I really enjoined it. Thank you💜
Now that is a meaningful conversation
Brilliant discussion. Thnx.
Love this video powerful thought about emotions HOW to deal with .mind and body thru our intellectual minds to better understand our feelings.
What a delightful conversation about Spinoza - I knew that name, of course, but not much more. Hearing it left we a taste for more. Much thanks gentlemen.
That helps me understand but i might have to listen to it again thank you.
OMG!!! Neal!! I took philosophy classes with you at UIC back in the late 70s! So good to hear you on the topic of Spinoza, one of my favorite philosophers! Hope you are well.
0:50 a radiantly sparkling smile !
Thanks for interview.l bought that book and I am reading it now
Fantastic interview
This is beauty.
Thank you! Well explained.
Glad it was helpful!
Great interview. It would seem that as we progress in our own consciousness, understanding the wholeness of creation would be an experience-enabled reality. Now with relationships of consciousness, space and time tethered across dimensions, it would only seem rational that it would be so... experience-enabled.
I absolutely loved this. ❤ What a great man. ❤
I was surprised to find my own views coming from a completely different angle as Spinoza’s views, and even some of Dr. Grossman’s views. He described them so well, I am going to get his book. Great minds don’t only think alike. I’ll just leave it at that. 🥰👍🏻 Plato and Spinoza, 😊 and seeing between the lines 😊❤
Fantastic!!!
I loved this interview!! Grossman’s energy for his subject seems powerful! I have loved the work of Spinoza for decades, and I loved Deluze’ work on him as well. I had somehow missed the “worm in the blood” reference but find it fascinating that a “mystic” in the 1600’s imagined DNA... I also wonder how his contemporaries Edward Kelly and John Dee (and Shakespeare) , perceived his work!! Thanks so very much...
I love you, Jeff
Just discovering Neil Grossman, pleasantly surprised and impressed
Thanks for mentioning...alightment with what we don't want.
Thank you gentlemen: You are Quantum Mechanics ~ Creation ~ Evolution and Entropy
Thank you 😍😍
Interesting reference to ACIM; would enjoy further expansion on that material. Perhaps an interview with Dr. Jon Mundy would contribute to the NTA program.
I’ve recently reopened ACIM after being introduced to Spinoza. And it’s so funny because I started noticing similarities between these two texts. The first being that this world and what it deems to be important is actually not. And the 2nd that man chooses fear over love because of his belief in fear and the world this fear has created. It is only until you understand that you are choosing fear because the ego has built up a false case that you can realize your priorities are mixed up. I’m still reading Spinoza and I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who saw the reference to ACIM as something that was popping up
Great interview
Thinking has always been allowed, expressing your thoughts not always.
Hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Love. The doctor's book is now on my Amazon wish list.
@@TheSoteriologist Where?
@@TheSoteriologist I actually read your comment the other day, didn't know you are the same person. A glitch stopped me from seeing it again till now. Well, in a sense Christian-Judeo beliefs do regard God as a separate deity, unlike a Buddhist view, no offense to the former. Separate as a glass of water from the ocean is what I mean. A Buddhist, however, would see "God" as in the person himself.
@@TheSoteriologist Your right to disagree. I have mine with New Age thinkers as well.
@@TheSoteriologist I can relate to the motif that Christians and Jews (non-Kabbalists) see God as separate and Buddhists view the higher consciousness in all things. I disagree with New Agers regarding the law of attraction. They overapply it to everything and overgeneralize.
@Myth Tree Indubitably. In the end, it's the lesson we came to earth to learn, to experience, I believe.
thank you.
Awesome video
An excellent treatment of Spinoza can be found in The Radical Spinoza. This book was written by a professor of philosophy with an interest in Zen Buddhism. He also encourages the reader to try acquiring Latin. Even two years of high school Latin, a dictionary and a good translation should make this not too difficult.
Thank you. I remember your interviews with U.G. Krishnamurti years back.
Been an adherent of much of Spinoza’s thinking since I were a lad . Got to say, Mr Mishlove, your sitting posture seems to be excellent.
Excellent
I am very sorry to correct you here, Sir! Unity of being is a concept that existed in islam even before the 9th century and especially within the Sufi discipline. Al-Bastami, Al-Hallaj and Ibn Arabi Al-Taai were some of the biggest theologians that brought it up.
Thanks for this episode tho
Spinoza's views are very similar to the conceptualization of the Creator and the Creation in the models of Sufism.
May I recommend Steven Nadler’s “Think Least of Death” it’s the most comprehensive breakdown of Spinoza’s Ethics I’ve come across
Before reading Ethics by Spinoza I would consider reading ' On the Improvement of Understanding', probably his earliest work, but never finished. He tries to paint a whole picture from ontology to ethics in Ethics, like the Bible does, but by means of reason. I would not consider him a rationalist, because he has also written about the complexities of affects, and already saw that a person can only substitute one affect for the other. You cannot just stop feeling, but you can test your feelings and idea's through means of reason. Resulting in another affect. This idea is so futuristic that it almost the same as cognitive therapy, where for instance fears are substituted for reasonable thoughts by means of testing them rationally
Just wow
The universe is a prefect machine made of imperfect parts.
28:08 Really important point.
Another adherent of Non-Duality! Isn’t it wonderful to learn about Spinoza.🙏
closer to Taoism then western religions.
It's also nice to listen to those who cherish honesty.
I just bought the book. I like that the author isn’t a Spinoza scholar. Otherwise, he would never be able to take leaps like the near death experiences analogy. Spinoza died young so it’s important for educated modern authors to make inferences, otherwise his work remains confined. I tend to trust his author more than most given his background and appearance of genuine love for Spinoza. I hope not to find a cancerous political message hidden in there as it’s so often the case.
Spinoza was not a mystic, he believed science would set us free, knowledge would set us free from superstition, I believe he was a truly amazing human being
You can be both.
Brother of the Worm yes you can but I do not believe Spinoza was a mystic, have a great day
@@darren.davies3957 Spinoza was the definition of a mystic.
@@mertkusluvan3107 no you are wrong. he was not a mystic and his philosophy shows us why.
Thanks Darren. They are 2 nice guys talking about Spinoza but when they say he was a mystic and when they use the word "he" talking about god as he had intention, like a person... it really surprised me! No god has no intention, we should able to use the word "nature" instead to be clear.
I don't know about being free from emotions, I know sometimes I don't give attention to things or emotions because I don't feel it at that moment.
Watched all of it 23:27
nice
Is life chemistry and the mind these questions and answers add to my understanding of who we are
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I would love to know the professor's thoughts about the Spinoza's critique on free will.
Does the body create the cells of which it is comprised ?
Or do the cells create, repair, maintain, replace other cells on the level of cellular automata with communication / interaction with other cells and the body is merely the aggregation of the collection of cells ?
Like anthills or bee hives are the aggregation of the individual members performing special functions as directed by phenomenal messaging
This is right up my street, but I'd like to ask: "is anger a form of suffering?" Anger isn't the same thing as depression.
We all get angry because we think that the world should be different than it is.
Is anger a form of suffering? Ask that question to the Buddha and he would say yes. Of course, the Buddha used the word dukkha to refer to suffering ( it rages from mere disappointment to other despair). Anger isn't the same thing as depression, but it seems to be rooted in sadness. In other words, under our anger is often a sadness we don't want to face. We get a sense of some deep sadness and rather than face it we erupt in rage and anger.
" We never get angry for the reasons we think we do." -ACIM.
In this interview the best advice is given for how to deal with the anger problem. Namely, to sit with the feeling of sadness and allow yourself to experience it. If we feel do this (as most of us do) then we are just contributing to our shadow material. All these repressed feelings build up over time and shadow material becomes our habit energy.
This is why genuine/authentic meditation is essential. We don't know why we got angry because we are not the Knower (of the thing) but we can become the observer and the forgiver.
We need to retrain our mind. Every time we get angry, stop. Feel the sadness under it. And see this as an opportunity for forgiveness. Then we can relinquish our personal views, our desires, our fears (and our ego-story). This forgiveness is a returning to a certain knowledge that we don't know what we don't know and we need not look for someone to blame...
Who said that the Judea-Christian concept of God is that he is separate from creation? The ancient and medieval understating is that we participate in God's being, which obviously means that we are not separate from God. God is wholly other in the sense that we cannot grasp or comprehend God; but he's not wholly other in the sense that he is separate from creation.
No, it does not "obviously" mean that we are not separate from God. Old Testament theology is opposed to this idea strongly.
@@PercyGold-gb8xb The OT has a multiplicity of theologies.
*Only those people can understand Spinoza correctly who are guided by God, and they know that Spinoza was not Pantheist but Pure Monotheist. Some people say that he told that "Every thing is God", so he was a pantheist but he never told that "every thing is God" but he said "every thing is in God". These both statements differ each other like darkness differ from light. Many verses of Quran also support what Spinoza said but what Mullahs follow is not from Quran but from millions of fabricated hadiths*
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
06:36 I'm certain that by "image of God" he did in fact mean concept of God.
What is love? Or what kind of love? People will kill to protect those who they love. Hatred and love are only concepts just like good and bad.
People like to romanticize the word love as just something good, when it is by the grace of love that everything happens in itself.
I love Spinoza, but strongly disagree with Einstein. Einstein believed in a finite universe AND in a universe that had a beginning. Spinoza argues that the universe is infinite and eternal, and I agree with Spinoza. The 2 people argued for entirely different things.
@chris evans You are right that I don't like Einstein. I think he gave very little credit to other scientists, whose ideas he sometimes plagiarized, and I think his theory of relativity is illogical and demonstrably false. I see Einstein as the first 'celebrity scientist', who ushered in a new age of science by thought experiment, rather than science by experiment (aka real science). I have far more time for Michelson, Morley, Sagnac, etc. They were doing real experiments, which makes them real scientists.
Not sure I understand Mr Grossman at around 14:40 . How is one to understand the term " Universe " ? Surely it is not a top down picture - the one he describes . Rather things are creative , indeed ultimately creative of all other things ? The universe does not exist either from the top down or the bottom up. All of the things that exist that are things that exist are ultimately ( that is , in the final analysis ) responsible for the sum total of existence ( because, being existent they are , prima facie, part of the description or constitution of all things that exist and of all existence as a whole ) - not any one of them in particular is ultimately causa sui or sui generis but only all of them , together, as a whole . Each one part contains as a condition of itself the property to be itself precisely because it is a part of the whole thing ( all existence ) that does actually exist and it does so precisely in the manner of its existence ( that is, the precise nature of its existence ). Consecutively, the whole thing ( existence as a whole ) has ultimately the property to be itself ( that is , in the form that it is or rather actually may be ) especially because all of its infinitesimal parts of it are precisely what they are and each of them not another thing than they are.
The whole of everything , Spinoza's Nature, Spinoza's God , is the only thing that could possibly ( reasonably ) be a possible cause of itself for the reasoned fact that anything finite is unlikely to be capable of absolute self generation since in some sense or another sense all finite things rely on other things so that they can be. Nonetheless , each thing that does indeed exist must by definition contribute to the ultimate nature of whatever that thing is that is the whole thing that might be , that is to say, Nature/God/Universe.
I admit no great familiarity with his work but I speculate that the thinking of David Bohm may be of some use in clarifying what it is the fuck I am trying to say.
I was hoping this dialogue would bring us closer in comprehending the truth, turned out to be jargon from beginning to end, I don’t know how my question could reach either, sirs, when it comes to human behaviour why is it that we live in a constant state of conflict, they say that living in the moment is how it should be, so WHY are we being cultured to live OUT of it? Maybe language is not the apt instrument in reaching truth, is there an alternate? Also in all humility would there be a chair at the table for one more, we never know something new may arise. My first of question of significance is, AT WHAT POINT IN A HUMANS LIFE DOES CORRUPTION TAKE PLACE, by way of inculcation, conditioning, doctrine or wrong education.? 🙏. Anyone may answer 🤷🏻♂️
You ever hear about mystics with supernormal abilities and are you going to do videos on them again
@N30N 0M3N
Not really a question
I'm know he had heard of stories of that topic but I just like asking
For replies they are a joy to to see
@N30N 0M3N
Yes
I really like this channel
Especially when he talks about
Human abilities
@N30N 0M3N
All the types we can classify
The typical ones telepathy telekinesis
Precognition
And the more out there ones
Like bilocation materialization of objects levitation healing
The siddhis are a particularly fascinating to me
18:00 ish
42:00 too attached
The Road to Eleusis and The Immortality Key, books assisting in fleshing out the mystical experiences these ancients were having-particularly the Greeks for over 2,000+ years. They used hallucinogenics! God is there, just suck down the cocktail and you will see him. Now, if we could just get modern religion to reinstate the worship that Greeks, Romans, early Jews and possibly, early Christians partaked in, then the churches would fill to the brim and humanity would change
Schopenhauer said the only reason Spinoza used the word God was to avoid persecution. Pantheism is a bizarre concept; how is it different from atheism? Saying God is the world is making the word God or world superfluous.
The existence of God and/or gods IS a superfluous concept. That's why people have been debating the existence of god for thousands of years and why most people do not live lives that acknowledge the existence of gods. If god was real, we wouldn't be arguing about it. God is a truly superfluous concept because it can't withstand either empirical or rational explanation and is useless because it has no explanatory power or value. It is an idea that reflects underlaying fear and ignorance and I think you would find that most Trump supporters would call themselves 'god fearing' people:) Don't forget that we invent these terms and then get all confused by the poorly understood definitions we assign (and do not agree to which leads to endless debate about nothing). If there is One universe, defined as everything that exists is, which includes this invisible but apparently real and important god ... then that definition is self evidently true by definition regardless of what god is and including if god is nothing. God is an absurd notion for the completely insane. Its also a big money maker and a powerful technology for tyrants. Better than bit coin.
💜❤️💙💚🧡💛
Too many religions and philosophies have this pessimistic and apocalyptic/day of reckoning-style worldview. Why can't this world be the ultimate form of reality and the pinnacle of existence? Maybe even our creator's masterpiece?
When considering I have a biome makes me a we in spinoza's whole of we.
you can not set yourself apart from your emotions not even the most rational..harness them its all one unit
I agree
Two terms have different meanings: God, and attributes of God
If it is good enough for ryan stein it good enough for me.