I sat down last weekend with Shamil Chandaria to hear his plans for an upcoming day retreat.
Because it was intended just for my own use, it’s not a professional recording. But I found it so powerful and inspiring that Shamil agreed for me to share it. As a private conversation, it's perhaps more spontaneous and revealing than formal presentations tend to be.
As Shamil describes his vision of awakening, his warmth and enthusiasm are infectious, and the content is like a guided meditation.
I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr1jE...
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we're online with Michael Levin and Bernardo Kastrup in 3 hours 🙂
You can join here: dandelion.events/e/w32nr
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Rupert Sheldrake has said that Michael Levin is "one of the most creative biologists working today" and Bernardo Kastrup that he is “perhaps the most important person alive.”
So I'm beyond excited to have him returning for a dialogue with Bernardo to question and inspire each other's ideas on how intelligence and consciousness may pervade reality.
Michael Levin's pioneering research has already challenged mainstream assumptions about life. His work at Harvard and Tufts University shows how even a single cell can display memory and problem-solving abilities once thought exclusive to brains.
He contends that intelligence is a fundamental property of living systems, and that your body is a hierarchy of intelligent entities nested within each other, from your organs down to your cells, molecules and maybe even subatomic particles.
Michael aims to empirically demonstrate how these systems cooperate and combine, and his experiments with flatworms and tadpoles indicate that bioelectric fields may play a role. These could explain how a planaria can regenerate its dissected brain and rebuild the memories things it had learnt. Or how the cells on the back of a tadpole can be directed to spontaneously form a working eye.
Check out this short here for a taster:
www.youtube.com/shorts/UgbdKp...
Wednesday 24th September 2025
6-8pm UK time / 7-9pm CET / 1-3pm EST
And you can join the event here:
dandelion.events/e/w32nr
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Online in 10 minutes with Andrew Holecek: discussing a Tibetan Buddhist response to the Bernardo Kastrup | Jay Garfield debate - is consciousness primary or empty?
You can join live here!
dandelion.events/e/w0dr9
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What if myths and legends could awaken a deeper relationship with the creative forces of reality?
Our last conversation with Patrick Harpur transformed how I engage with fairy-tales I have known my whole life, and revived a deeper respect for Western traditions. You can see this previous dialogue here:
https://youtu.be/r4hEOJQpbiw
Bernardo Kastrup considers Patrick amongst the top 3 authors worthy of far more exposure, so I'm excited to have them in dialogue this coming Tues. They will discuss Bernardo's new book and the importance of moving past a literal understanding of imagination.
Zoom link for all our September meetings with Bernardo Kastrup is here:
www.withrealityinmind.com/special-guest-patrick-ha…
watch video on watch page
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Is meditation enough to stop the abuse that happens in spiritual communities?
If you're on this channel, you're probably already aware of how powerful and transformative meditation can be, and equally aware of how many gurus and communities are rife with abuse and scandal.
How can we reconcile these two facts?
Perhaps meditation is not enough.
In this 3 minute clip Andrew Holecek recounts his personal perspective, based on several decades studying and teaching around the world:
https://youtu.be/BSxkyh6nswk
In this short video, he also points you that you can't think or therapy your way to awakening - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUrZ9...
What do you all think?
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In 2012, Bernardo Kastrup released Meaning in Absurdity, a book on bizarre phenomena such as UFOs, entities and visitations and what they might imply about the nature of reality.
When we discussed this last year, my first question was 'what the hell do UFOs have to do with Idealism?' The ensuing conversation was fascinating and unique, and you can see it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=optOk...
We're doing a Q&A with Bernardo on this topic this coming Tues, and you can join here:
www.withrealityinmind.com/meaning-in-absurdity/
"The idea developed in the book is, in my opinion, one of my key contributions, for not only does it shed light on the absurd in an unexpected but intriguing manner, it also bears direct relevance to our entire view of the nature of reality."
Like the book, these sessions will "ask you to have an open mind and enough mental flexibility to navigate through seas that will drag you out of your comfort zone, wherever it may lie.
If you are at home with the wacky, the weird, and the absurd – but can keep yourself engaged when structured thinking is called for – you may find a new world of insights when we explore quantum entanglement, Gödel’s theorems, intuitionistic logic, and the history of science.
If, instead, you are comfortable with science and formal philosophy – but can balance your skepticism and cynicism – you may find a breath of fresh air when we explore the serious aspects of UFOs, the Otherworld, and the inner landscapes of the unconscious"
A rare opportunity
Because there is so much unreliable information on this topic, Bernardo no longer engages on it publicly. So it is a rare chance for a private conversation on the 12th and 19th of August at our regular time: 6-8pm UK time / 7-9pm CET / 1-3pm EST
On the 19th of August, we're also joined by special guest Jeffrey Kripal.
Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) and high strangeness field has seen remarkable developments in recent years:
In 2017, The New York Times published a groundbreaking article revealing a secret Pentagon program dedicated to studying UAPs - the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
Then, in 2020, the Department of Defense formally released videos confirming sightings by military personnel, followed by a 2021 report from National Intelligence stating that 143 out of 144 UAP of these encounters reported since 2004 remained unexplained.
In 2022 the U.S. government established an office (AARO) to investigate, before the 2023 whistleblower testimony to Congress which claimed the retrieval of non-human craft and biologics, pushing the conversation into mainstream awareness.
Additionally, academic initiatives like Harvard’s Galileo Project and NASA’s UAP study team are taking a rigorous, transparent scientific approach to these mysteries, moving the conversation from ridicule to serious inquiry.
Bernardo will provide an update on his most recent thoughts on these phenomena and their public perception, and as always, your comments and questions are welcome below, and will help shape the discussion.
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Here is a link to Ruben's paper on Cessation. He defines it carefully as "“The absence of all experience and consciousness—with no retrospective awareness of anything having taken place during the absence—accompanied by a subsequent profound sense of clarity, openness, and vitality."... "distinct from experiences
of pure consciousness and non-dual awareness"
meditation.mgh.harvard.edu/files/Laukkonen_23_Prog…
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"Awakening may not be a metaphor"
I caught Shamil Chandaria last night between two science conferences on consciousness. He observed thinking is converging on a striking insight
When we emerge from sleep in the morning, there's a measurable increase in cortical excitability, and information is distributed more widely in the brain. Remarkably, "spiritual awakenings" seem to continue the same pattern - bringing greater levels of brightness, clarity, lucidity into our lives.
Shamil will be covering all the details in his course starting Thursday. Its an incredibly unique privilege to have the most recent scientific thinking translated to a more general audience, with the practical applications for meditation and life.
He's excited, I'm excited, and we hope to see you there!
@ShamilChandaria
dandelion.events/e/m9nea
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Events, courses, podcasts and other resources to support curious and courageous enquiry in the nature of self, perception and reality.
Here is an inspiring community of meditators, mystics, scientists and researchers, dedicated to exploring the depths of perception, consciousness and the very nature of reality itself.
Our approach is inspired by both cutting-edge science and ancient wisdom. By integrating these new insights into your daily life, it is possible to experience a profound transformation in the way you perceive and interact with the world.
Whilst grounded in reason and observation, we embrace playful exploration when opening the door to the unknown. Our community is filled with individuals who are eager to explore new perspectives, challenge their assumptions, and have fun along the way.
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Joined 6 June 2020