The Hindu content-creator who calls himself "Path of Dharma" continues to polemicize against Christians and Christianity. This video isn´t as good as the one I linked to earlier, though. Too "apologetic" and evangelistic. Note the Hara Krishna tendency. Still, here it is.
What if there are no solutions to the climate crisis, the demographic crisis, the migrant crisis, the AI crisis (the real one), the autism crisis, the IQ crisis, the energy crisis, the ecological crisis...did I forget something? Well, American Coke still contains corn syrup rather than sugar. Tastes like shit, apparently. Or corn.
Welcome to kali yuga. And samsara...
Är Hübinettes brytning med vänstern total nu? Vi ses i Vorarlberg, under habsburgarnas skugga!
This guy again. Peter Levenda is the rumored author of "Simon´s Necronomicon". Here, he discusses the recent push (?) for UFO disclosure. Since Levenda is an occultist, he unsurprisingly draws the conclusion that the government and the military don´t know shit. The UFO problem is about *consciousness*, not technology. Hint John Keel hint hint Jacques Vallée. How likely is it that the Man knows about the fairy (to use my favorite term for the ufonauts)? The phenomenon might turn up in *your* backyard just now, rather than land on the White House lawn or what have you.
Levenda´s speculations may even be true. But there is another possibility: what if the intelligence community *know about the problem of consciousness* and has sent Levenda to cover it up? I mean, this guy is supposedly on a first name basis with CIA operatives and what have you. Or so he says in another interview...
Maybe somewhere there is a "UFOnomicon".
The Fermi paradox just got worse. Why haven´t we seen *the unmanned space probes* of the purported extraterrestrial civilizations? But maybe we simply haven´t been looking hard enough. Sabine never makes an explicit tie-in to Avi Loeb´s quixotic quest for such probes in our planetary backyard, but if the paper is correct, maybe the rest of us should go looking, too!
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| Krishna, Radha and Bhakti Ganapati |
That´s me to the right. The guy with the bananas. Yeah, I know, those two other guys just appeared uninvited, maybe they want my fruit salad?
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| - Nah, I´m a Vajrayana yidam, so you see, I´m not really here! Credit: Maitreya Fields / YouTube |
This is interpretation (c/o ChatGPT), but I suspect something like this myself. That is, Shaktism is "monist", "pantheist" and "idealist" at least in its philosophical forms. Which may be derived from "high" Shaivism (Non-Dual Shaiva Tantra). Matter isn´t an illusion as in "absolutely unreal", but a temporary appearence/manifestation of Consciousness, which is God. The wave and the ocean, that kind of thing.
Is there any form of Shaktism which argues that matter is robustly real in the above sense?
Yes, although it is less common than in Vaiṣṇava realism. There are certainly forms of Śāktism that affirm the full reality of matter, but they usually do so in a different way from Viśiṣṭādvaita. Instead of saying, "matter is a distinct but real creation of God," they tend to say, "matter is one of the real powers of the Goddess." That is a subtle but important distinction.
There are roughly three broad tendencies.
Many forms of Śrī Vidyā reject the idea that the world is merely an illusion.
The universe is understood as the manifestation (ābhāsa or vikāsa, depending on the author) of Tripura Sundarī.
The emphasis is often:
However, most classical Śrī Vidyā philosophers would probably stop short of saying that matter has an ontological status independent of consciousness or Śakti.
Instead they would say:
Matter is real because Śakti really manifests as matter.
That is a robust realism compared with Advaita Vedānta, but it is not realism in the dualistic sense of Nyāya or Sāṃkhya.
The nondual Śaiva traditions of Kashmir, which deeply influenced many Śākta traditions, are often misunderstood.
People sometimes assume they say:
"The world is an illusion."
Actually they generally deny this.
They argue that:
So they reject māyā as "mere illusion" in the Advaita sense.
Nevertheless, they also insist that matter is fundamentally consciousness.
So this is not the kind of realism you're asking about.
If you move away from philosophical nondualism and into devotional traditions centered on the Devī Māhātmya or the Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the tone often becomes more realist.
The Goddess creates, sustains, and withdraws the universe.
The universe is genuinely real as her creation.
Many devotees simply regard mountains, rivers, animals, and human bodies as real creations of the Mother.
These traditions often do not engage in detailed metaphysical analysis, but practically speaking they treat the material world as genuinely meaningful rather than as something merely apparent.
This is where things become interesting.
To my knowledge, there is no major Śākta philosopher who develops exactly the same ontology as Rāmānuja, in which:
are permanently distinct yet inseparably related, with matter serving as the real "body" of God.
Śākta philosophers generally move in a more monistic direction.
Matter is affirmed as real, but because it is Śakti rather than because it is a separate ontological category.
Historically, many Śākta traditions inherited ideas from Sāṃkhya.
Remember that in Sāṃkhya:
Many Śāktas identified the Goddess herself with Prakṛti.
This creates an interesting synthesis.
Instead of saying:
Prakṛti is merely unconscious matter,
they say:
The eternal Prakṛti is the Goddess herself.
This gives matter an extremely robust reality.
However, it also changes the classical Sāṃkhya picture because Prakṛti is no longer unconscious; she is divine and conscious.
From our conversations, I think you're looking for something like this:
Matter is genuinely real—not merely a temporary appearance or mode of consciousness—but it is also sacred because it is grounded in God.
That combination is actually somewhat unusual within Śāktism.
Most Śākta systems prefer one of these formulations:
Rather than:
If you wanted the strongest possible affirmation of both the independent reality of the material cosmos and its divine grounding, Viśiṣṭādvaita still comes closest among the major Hindu philosophical systems.
If, on the other hand, you are comfortable saying:
"Matter is fully real precisely because the Goddess truly becomes or manifests as matter,"
then Śrī Vidyā and related Śākta traditions come surprisingly close. They reject the notion that the physical universe is something to dismiss as unreal. Instead, they invite the practitioner to recognize the world as a living expression of the Divine Mother, whose presence is disclosed through—not despite—the richness of embodied existence.
So I asked the same question to Gemini´s perennial nemesis ChatGPT. This time they mostly agreed! So it must be True, then.
Is there some Hindu system in which matter / material energy is robustly real, rather than just a "manifestation of spirit". It could still be created / emanated by God, or formed into a world by a God from primordial matter.
Yes. In fact, several Hindu philosophical systems hold that matter is robustly real, although they explain its relationship to God in different ways. The idea that matter is "only" a manifestation of consciousness is characteristic of some influential schools (especially Advaita Vedānta and Kashmir Śaivism), but it is far from the only Hindu view.
Here are the major positions.
This is probably the clearest example.
Classical Sāṃkhya is dualistic.
It posits two irreducible realities:
Prakṛti is:
The world is therefore genuinely real.
Matter is not an illusion.
It is not "made of consciousness."
Rather, consciousness and matter are fundamentally different principles.
Interestingly, classical Sāṃkhya does not require a creator God.
Patañjali largely adopts Sāṃkhya metaphysics.
Again:
Yoga introduces a special Lord (Īśvara), but Īśvara is not generally described as creating matter from nothing.
These schools are strikingly realistic.
They teach:
Matter consists of eternal atoms.
Many later Naiyāyikas affirm God as the intelligent creator who organizes eternal atoms into a cosmos.
This is surprisingly close to certain classical theistic philosophies in the West.
God does not create atoms ex nihilo.
Rather, God orders pre-existing eternal matter.
This is the theology of Rāmānuja.
Matter is absolutely real.
In fact:
Everything exists as the "body" of God.
Matter depends upon God but is not illusory.
This is a classic example of panentheism.
God infinitely exceeds the universe, yet the universe is genuinely real.
From what I know of your philosophical interests, this is one of the closest Hindu systems to your own intuitions.
Developed by Madhva.
This is perhaps the strongest theological realism.
God,
souls,
and matter
are all permanently distinct realities.
Matter is entirely real.
It never becomes identical with God.
This tradition distinguishes:
Matter is real.
It is not merely an illusion or a mistaken perception.
Although dependent upon Śiva, it possesses genuine ontological reality.
By contrast:
tend to say that matter is fundamentally consciousness or Śakti appearing in material form.
Matter is still "real" in many of these systems, but not as an independent ontological category.
One can imagine a spectrum:
Matter is independent
⬅︎ Sāṃkhya
↓
Matter is eternally real but dependent on God
Nyāya–Vaiśeṣika → Śaiva Siddhānta → Viśiṣṭādvaita → Dvaita
↓
Matter is ultimately divine consciousness appearing as matter
Kashmir Śaivism → Śrī Vidyā → Advaita (with important differences among them)
Your question also raises another model that has analogues in both Hindu and Western philosophy:
"Matter is genuinely real, but created or eternally sustained by God."
That position is actually quite close to Viśiṣṭādvaita.
For Rāmānuja, matter is neither:
nor
Instead, matter is a real mode of God's existence—dependent on Him at every moment, yet possessing genuine reality. The world is therefore neither "just spirit in disguise" nor a second independent principle alongside God.
That is one reason many modern philosophers describe Viśiṣṭādvaita as one of the most robustly realist and panentheistic forms of Hindu thought. It affirms both the full reality of the world and its intimate dependence upon the Divine.
