Bernardo Kastrup – Part I – A Rich Exploration of Idealism

Edge of Mind Podcast

Join Bernardo Kastrup for Part I of a rich exploration of idealism, the radical proclamation that reality is of the nature of mind. As a scientist and academic, Bernardo shares how he found his way into this view, and relates some of its tremendous explanatory power. If idealism is the right view, why is there so much resistance by the intellectual elite? Is it a psychological and developmental issue? And why is the standard view of materialism so wrong? The conversation turns to the nature of the transpersonal mind – is it benevolent in nature, or is it naïve to see the world this way? Bernardo talks about dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder) as a potent analogy for “dissociative alters,” or the generation of the self and the personal mind. He then elaborates on the image of a whirlpool, and its relationship to the stream (or “mind at large”). Is death the dissolution of the whirlpool back into the stream? Bernardo says that we really have nothing to fear at death, because the end of the alter is not the end of the world. Death is not the reduction of consciousness, but its expansion. Where does contraction and fear fit into this, and how about spiritual practice? What is healthy vs. unhealthy contraction? The discussion then turns to the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind, and how metacognition fits in. What is enlightenment in terms of the conscious and unconscious mind? See why Dr. Kastrup is causing such a stir in the academic, scientific, and spiritual community with his razor-sharp insights into the nature of mind and reality.