Is the world we experience truly real, or is it more like a dream we haven't yet woken up from? Michael James, a leading scholar and translator of the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, explores how Ramana's philosophy challenges our most basic assumptions about the self, the world, and the nature of reality. Michael James has spent nearly 50 years studying, practicing, and translating the works of Sri Ramana Maharshi. He studied under Sri Sadhu Om, a direct disciple of Ramana, and is the author of Atma-Vidya: The Science of Knowing Oneself. He is regarded as a leading authority on Ramana's primary sources and experiential practice. Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls: https://shorturl.at/OnyRq

Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls.

I like arguments about God, whether based on science, philosophy or personal experience. I like to push and to be pushed, explore the possible existence of a Creator. I must also consider defeaters of God.

Featuring interviews with Rebecca Goldstein, Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne, Robin Collins, Anthony Grayling, Yujin Nagasawa, and Alvin Plantinga.

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Can physical facts about the brain account for mental experiences of the mind? Has philosophy of mind made progress? We take a 15-year journey with John Searle and David Chalmers.

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We like pushing boundaries, trying to discern existence, searching the foundations of reality, knowing all that can be known. Overly ambitious? Sophomoric? We don't care. We do it anyway. Here are ultimate questions.

Featuring interviews with Lawrence Krauss, John Leslie, Max Tegmark and Paul Davies

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Explore diverse theories of consciousness, like materialism, dualism, panpsychism, idealism, and diverse ways of thinking about consciousness, like neuroscience, philosophy, wisdom traditions. Compare theories of consciousness on a ‘Landscape of Consciousness'.

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What kinds of afterlives do the world’s religions offer? Soul/spirit in heaven or hell, with or apart from God? Reincarnation with innumerable rebirths, seeking liberation and nirvana? Resurrection of the body, reuniting with a soul/spirit?

Explicitness is one of the fundamental mysteries in which our lives are wrapped. Our capacity, as conscious subjects, to make things explicit, so that what-is presents itself as “that-it-is” or “that-it-is-the-case” is at the heart of the mystery of human being. Philosopher Raymond Tallis explores how explicitness connects with fundamental ontological, metaphysical, and epistemological questions.

Tallis' latest book, Circling Round Explicitness: The Heart of the Mystery of Human Being, is available for purchase now: https://amzn.to/3MUX5Ke