NIAS Consciousness Studies Programme

17/12/2025

https://youtube.com/shorts/FQJNmuiA0Ac

What is critical thinking in Nyaaya philosophy ...

Do watch and let me know your thoughts

Do you know what is critical thinking in Indian philosophy? The Nyaaya philosophers brought critical thinking into this part of the world very early, perhap...

14/12/2025

https://youtu.be/Bjxa6BVJKHM

Can a machine ever feel a moment?
Let me begin with a simple question.
Right now, you are in a moment.
You are hearing these words.
You are aware that you are hearing them.

Let me ask you this.
Are you merely processing information,
or are you experiencing something?

Now think about a machine.
A machine can process enormous amounts of data.

It can recognise patterns.
It can predict your next word better than most humans can.

But here is the question that matters.
Is processing the same as feeling?

Can a machine ever feel a moment?Let me begin with a simple question.Right now, you are in a moment.You are hearing these words.You are aware that you are he...

05/12/2025

Do take a look at the info on the second workshop on the neuroscience of consciousness organised by Murthy of Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science... If interested to attend, pl write to

12/11/2025

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VnB5mRAbgoY?feature=share Are our minds capable of thinking of the unknown? This is the question I wish to discuss with you today! Or even better, let us ask "can we know the unknown"?

Are our minds capable of thinking of the unknown? This is the question I wish to discuss with you today! Or even better, let us ask "can we know the unknow...

26/10/2025

https://youtu.be/ulVsYYoeySw
We now turn to Arjuna, not just as a warrior, but as a symbol of inner conflict that fundamental transforms to eventual clarity. I reserved the discussion on Arjuna towards the end of the Mahabharata series, not only because his narrative brings light to the darker emotional terrains we have already explored, but also because his transformation invites us to pause, reflect, and even, perhaps, smile, because something continues to shift inwardly as his struggle unfolds in front of us. Unlike Dhritaraashtra’s resignation or Duryodhana’s envy, Arjuna’s crisis is deeply ethical and to some extent his inner conflicts with his attempts for self-integration.
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We now turn to Arjuna, not just as a warrior, but as a symbol of inner conflict that fundamental transforms to eventual clarity. I reserved the discussion on...

10/08/2025

What happens to a Self that is all empty inside, but surrounded by riches and pleasures outside? Duryodhana is such a Self - an "Empty Self".
"Consciousness Conversations on the Mahabharata".Do watch https://youtu.be/SSxMXPcrwLw

If we are to understand Duryodhana, we must first understand that his story is not simply one of villainy or ambition.🕓It is a story shaped by deep psycholo...

21/06/2025

NIAS CSP WORKSHOP ON PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF MENTAL HEALTHCARE
If interested, Please register
TO REGISTER CLICK THIS LINK - LIMITED SEATS AVAILABLE
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WPdPjn0Sgq3QPw5vLuh8AllYp4rSHwga

12/06/2025

https://youtu.be/SJa-k98QGbU
Let me introduce you to the concept I have.
To give a set of analyses and presentations on the Mahābhārata, which as a text is complex.
The people therein are complex as well, and what they go through in their life too is very complex.
Let me begin with the perspective Iravati Karve takes - one of the greatest interpreters of the Mahābhārata.
According to her, the Mahābhārata is not a nice romantic story, and ends with the line such as: “Okay, thereafter everybody lived well, happily singing their songs.”
No!, According to Karve, the Mahābhārata is pointed to tell us that we all are contributors in what is happening.
In a sense, we are all perpetrators of a certain sense of violence or a certain sense of intrusion of different kinds.
And the goal of the Mahābhārata as a text is to analyze, or to show us what goes through each mind.
And there is no blame, there is no game.

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hashtag

Let me introduce you to the concept I have.To give a set of analyses and presentations on the Mahābhārata, which as a text is complex. The people therein are...

06/06/2025

https://youtu.be/l3Tw0SXuNhM

Hello Friends

I continue my reflections on "Desire".

This time I bring you the *Mahabharata*, and more specifically, the *"Kāma Gīta"* - just three verses - but exhaustively and powerfully presents the Indian philosophy of Desire, and give a befitting response to those scholars who said Indian philosophy is other worldly... In the Kāma Gīta, Kāma appears and speaks in the first-person, daunting his power and the potential to transform ... once again the tag line is ... the only way you can understand (or even transmute) desire is to be aware of it ... and aware of its contours and place too.

Do subscribe, listen and forward this 4 minute video to your friends ...

... Let me take you to the timeless epic of the Mahaabhaaratha.The Mahaabhaaratha. is not just a story of war —it is a vast ocean of human dilemmas, dharma, ...

02/06/2025

https://youtu.be/5GsKhBcYeB0

In classical Greek philosophy, Eros - commonly translated as desire - occupies a central and contested position.

For Plato, particularly in the Symposium and Phaedrus, desire is neither reducible to mere appetite nor to irrational impulse. Rather, it is conceived as a formative energy within the soul - a teleological movement directed toward the Beautiful and the Good.

Far from being a hindrance to philosophical inquiry, desire becomes its condition: the initial impulse that draws the soul upward, from sensory attraction to the realm of intelligible forms.

In this reconstructed dialogue, we engage a fictionalized moment between Plato and one of his students, where the philosophical significance of Eros unfolds - not as a distraction from reason, but as its ally in the pursuit of metaphysical truth.

Consciousness Conversations by Sangeetha MenonIn classical Greek philosophy, eros — commonly translated as desire — occupies a central and contested position...