We gave this lecture on the full moon celebrating the Guru, guru-pūrnimā the day when we honor our teachers and our lineage. You are all of you my guru, my teacher. And it is at your feet that I offer all of these words, like so many meagre flowers. You have all taught me and are continuing to teach me and will go on teaching me so much! I am eternally indebted to each and every one of you. A hundred thousand pranams at your feet! What could I possibly say to you now or offer you that can express my gratitude and devotion?  To celebrate the occasion, I intended to give a lecture on the major schools of Indian philosophy in overview: cārvāka (materialist hedonism), dvaita Vedanta (dualistic theism), vishishtadvaita (qualified non-dualism), kevalādvaita (pure non-dualism), paramadvaya (Shaiva non-duality), acintya bhedabheda (Caitanya's devotional Vaishnavism) etc. I wanted to tell some stories of the great gurus of India: Ramanuja, Nimbarka, Madhava, Vallabha, Shankara, Abinava Gupta etc. But alas, we only really managed to discuss Rāmānuja's very sophisticated form of Theism: Qualified Monism, the in-between ground straddling Duality and non-Duality. Most of the lecture though turned out to be, as per our inspiration that evening determined, a sustained critique on materialism and a defense of theism (that is, the existence of God). As such, I thought I'd call the lecture "The God Solution" which is of course a subtle dig at the title "The God Delusion"!  00:00:00 The Indian Spiritual Heritage: A Thaali Meal 00:07:00 Material Reductionism: "God is Unreal, Matter and Energy is Real" 00:11:30 Why Did Indian Spiritual Masters Respond to Material Reductionism? 00:16:40 Critique of Material Reductionism #1: 2 Axiological Issues 00:23:40 Critique of Material Reductionism #2: 3 Epistemological Issues  0:30:06 An Aside on Consciousness: What Is First Person Subjectivity? 00:36:55 An Aside on Mystical Experience, i.e Verifying Spiritual Claims  00:38:20 Critique of Material Reductionism #3: Metaphysical Issues 00:42:20 The God Solution 00:49:50 Epistemological and Metaphysical Issues With Dualistic Theistic Religion (And Some Responses) 01:06:10 An Aside on Skeptical Theism (And Why It's Problematic)   Support the show