Church of the Churchless

Religion, watch out for a grizzly bear with an EEG!

Sometimes I'm called a materialistic atheist by commenters on this blog, as if that's something bad. Or at least surprising, given my previous fervent commitment to the metaphysical theology of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

But, hey, I've been talking about a grizzly bear with an EEG machine for a long time. Way back when I used to give satsangs ("sermons") to the faithful at RSSB meetings, this used to be one of my favorite thought experiments regarding the practice of meditation.

An EEG, or electroencephalograph, measures electrical activity in the brain. It's a crude way of testing brain function. Nowadays there are much more sophisticated approaches, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

However, those machines are massive. I can't see a grizzly bear carrying one, no matter how strong the animal is. So I'll continue to have my bear cart around a plain old EEG, with electrodes that get plastered to a person's head.

Here's how I used to tell my tale.

There I am, walking through the woods, enjoying the wilderness. My enjoyment comes to an abrupt end when a grizzly bear appears on the trail ahead of me. Worse, he doesn't look to be in a good mood.

My brain scrambles to remember what the hell you're supposed to do when confronted by an out-of-sorts grizzly bear. "Um, with a cougar you stand your ground and try to look big and unafraid. With grizzly bears though, don't you curl up in a ball and play dead?"

Maybe. I don't know. Regardless, that's how my thought experiment plays out. I collapse to the ground, trying to look as dead as someone very much alive – and wanting to stay that way – is able to appear.

I shut my eyes. Reduce my breathing. Go limp.

I can hear the bear shuffling forward, grunting. It sounds confused. No attack so far. Things are looking up, if you can consider that playing dead while a grizzly bear ponders your eatability is anyway describable as "up."

Then…a click. A metallic click. What the #$%&*! could that be?

For a moment I imagine that it was the sound of a hunter cocking his gun. Then I'm remember that I'm in a wilderness area. No guns here. No hunters either. I'm on my own.

I can't stand it. I dare to half-open one eye. Thankfully the bear is turned away from me. He's occupied – with setting up an EEG machine.

Holy shit! Now I know I'm really, truly, deeply fucked! (I kept my language a bit cleaner when I included this story in one of my satsangs).

Just my luck – I'm playing dead next to a grizzly bear with a goddamn EEG machine! In a minute or two he's going to be putting electrodes on my head and monitoring my brain activity. If I think, "Don't think!" that'll appear as thinking. If I feel that I shouldn't be afraid, that'll appear as emotion.

So I've got to be as dead inside my head as I'm trying to look outwardly. A tough proposition. Real tough. Especially with the grizzly bear working like mad to set up his EEG machine. Not exactly a conducive situation for a super-calm meditation.

Well, that's the gist of my grizzly bear with an EEG tale. You're probably wondering, what's the point? Good question.

I wish I remembered what came next in my sermonizing. Then I'd have my devotional kind of answer. I seem to recall that I went on to talk about how meditation should be approached with the same got-to-do-this-just-right attitude that you'd have if a grizzly bear was about to attach EEG electrodes to your scalp.

You'd either slow down your brain activity pronto, or you'd soon be dead.

Today, though, I like this tale for a different reason. Now the grizzly isn't a bear to me, he's everything.

Nature, the universe, God, cyberspace, cold cereal, television, thinking, feeling, perceiving, not doing anything at all, dancing, blogging about grizzly bears with EEGs, whatever.

Everything that happens to us, everything that we experience, everything that we imagine, everything that we believe, everything that we know – all of that flows through our brains. Even if somehow there's something of us that isn't material, that thing (soul?) is bound to the brain.

Now, maybe you don't believe this. But that belief will show up on a brain scanner, believe me. So will everything else that you do or don't do in an attempt to show a neuroscientist that you aren't really your body, but immaterial "soul."

You'll get eaten alive by the grizzly bear of science. For sure. This doesn't mean that you aren't right. Or rather, that after you die you won't be able to note your still-alive consciousness and realize Yes, I knew it; I wasn't just my body, but something more.

Unfortunately, it'll be too late for you to convince the skeptical scientist who monitored your always-active brain while you were physically alive. Nor could you ever have convinced him or her. Because so long as you live with a brain, you're a material boy or girl, just like Madonna sang about.

Here's how the book I've been reading recently puts it:

We have also suggested that, as far as we can determine, all human experience eventually enters human awareness via the function of the brain. It certainly seems reasonable to reach the conclusion that the brain is the structure that gives all of us our thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

…The question again is how we can show that the brain is what mediates all of our experiences. This is where imaging studies lend a strong degree of empirical support…The conclusion to be drawn from this huge database of studies is that, at least for now, it seems that no matter what happens to us or what we do, there is a part of the brain that becomes activated.

…In approaching theology, it seems that any human religious or ritual experience is necessarily modulated by the brain. In fact, we have already begun studies to show the activity in the brain during profound meditation.

Who's afraid of the big bad bear? Not me. Not anymore.

I've got a brain. I'm alive. I meditate. I seek the truth of what both the cosmos and us are all about. All of that will show up on an EEG or fMRI machine.

Which doesn't bother me at all.

Absolute unitary being – nothing that’s really something

AUB. An acronym for the highest reality humans can perceive. Or, more accurately, not perceive – because Absolute Unitary Being isn't anything you can be aware of, because it is awareness without any content other than itself.

This isn't just another wild-eyed, New Age, mystic-religious, or psychedelic inspired bunch of far out fantasizing.

Rather, the notion is founded on some solid science. In the book "The Mystical Mind" that I've been blogging about recently (here, here, and here), physician researchers Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew Newberg show how the brain produces experiences that often are termed mystical.

In their opinion, the most mystic experience of all is that of Absolute Unitary Being.

AUB is a state of pure awareness without the perception of discrete reality, without the sense of the passage of time, without the sense of the extension of space, and without the self-other dichotomy. In short, it is pure awareness or awareness without content.

As such, it's the common denominator of every deep form of spirituality or religion, the glue that binds together otherwise disparate philosophies, theologies, and ways of looking at the cosmos.

AUB is analogous to the clear sky across which clouds of all kinds of shapes and sizes move, leading people to look up and say, "That one resembles Mickey Mouse, that one a dog, and there's some large breasts!"

Clearly, in AUB there can be no distinction between what is experienced by different individuals, even from totally different cultures. There may be significant differences in how these experiences are described and interpreted, particularly since they are usually related in terms of the specific cultural and societal milieu from which the experiencer comes.

We maintain, however, that the actual experience of AUB in itself is necessarily the same for any individual who experiences it. This is necessary from a neurophysiological as well as a philosophical perspective. It is necessarily experienced as an infinite, unified, and totally undifferentiated state.

The basic reason for this is that the brain normally does its best to locate the body to which it's connected in time and space. Evolutionarily speaking, this makes great sense. If you're being chased by a saber-toothed tiger, it's important to know exactly where you and the threat are in relation to each other.

But when sensory inputs are shut down, as in closed-eyed quiet meditation (or a sensory deprivation chamber), the brain may do some strange stuff. This is the result of deafferentation, which occurs when incoming information into a brain structure is cut off.

The deafferented neurons, d'Aquili and Newberg say, then begin to function according to their own "internal logic." Here's what happens with the orientation association area.

If this structure is totally deafferented so that it receives no input from the outside world, then it cannot form a sense of space and time abstracted from sensory input. It is still trying, however, to generate an orientation in time and space. It is still working by its internal logic.

It continues to attempt to generate a sense of space and time even without input from the external world to work on. The result is a sense of no space and no time, or conversely it might be described as infinite space and infinite time.

No matter how it is defined, it is the same sensation. The world's mystical literature is replete with experiences of no space and no time or infinite space and infinite time. Therefore, it appears that total or near-total deafferentation of the orientation association area may be involved in the generation of such mystical states.

Note the may. That's how scientists talk. Cautiously, unwilling to bind themselves to a view of the world that makes sense, but hasn't yet been experimentally confirmed to such a degree that it can be termed a valid theory.

However, d'Aquili and Newberg note that functional brain scans of experienced meditators (such as Tibetan Buddhist monks) show the changes that their model of the "mystical brain" predicts.

So, what can we make of all this? To me, it supports my churchless predilections. Because as noted above, AUB is considered to be the highest of mystical states in most traditions (some elevate a "non-dual" consciousness that includes awareness of the physical world to be more elevated than AUB).

A big reason for this is that those who have had an experience of Absolute Unitary Being generally say that it felt a lot more real than everyday reality. They come back changed, as is often the case with those who have a near-death experience.

d'Aquili and Newberg conclude that notwithstanding thousands of years of human pondering about what is real and what isn't, the phenomenological sense of This is real is the best measure of absolute reality. In this article, the authors make their case.

Clearly, baseline reality has some significant claim to being ultimate reality. However, AUB is so compelling that it is very difficult indeed to write off the assertion of its reality. Actually, for individuals having experienced AUB, it seems virtually impossible to negate that experience.

This being the case, it is a foolish reductionism indeed which states that, because unitary consciousness can be understood in terms of neuropsychological processes, it is therefore derivative from baseline reality. Indeed the reverse argument could be made just as well.

Neuropsychology can give no answer as to which state is more real, baseline reality or hyperlucid unitary consciousness often experienced as God. We may be reduced to saying that each is real in its own way and for its own adaptive ends.

It's interesting that people interviewed by d'Aquili and Newberg who have had an AUB experience describe it as neither subjective nor objective. That is, it wasn't a subjective local consciousness, and it wasn't consciousness of objective external reality.

It was something else. Itself. Pure awareness. Thus it's tempting to call it the "ground of being," or some such foundational term.

Well, whatever it is, it sure isn't religious. There's no ritualistic, theological, or personalized content in an experience of Absolute Unitary Being.

No Jesus. No Buddha. No guru. No God. No Allah. No anything that points to a particular religion or spiritual path.

However, some AUB'ers experience it as being suffused with positive affect that leads them to personalize it as "God." Others, such as Buddhists, experience it as suffused with neutral affect and describe it as nonpersonal or void consciousness.

This is one of my few quibbles with d'Aquili and Newberg. Seemingly in an effort to meld personal and impersonal AUB experiences into a single overarching framework, they equate them as reflecting "anterior" and "posterior" natures of God.

Whatever that means. I don't get how an experience of absolute unitary being can be divided into two, or how using the word "God" adds to their scientific explanation of AUB.

But this is a minor quibble. On the whole I've found the notion of absolute unitary being -- the product of specific brain states – to be a marvelous support for a truly scientific spirituality.

One that doesn't seek for ultimate reality "out there" in some mysterious hidden realm known only by revelation, divine grace, or secret mystical techniques, but rather within the brain that each of us possesses right here and right now.

Here's how "The Mystical Mind" ends.

Since the approach presented in this book is firmly based on the neurosciences, on neuroevolutionary theory, and on strict phenomenological analysis, we hope that it will carry a compelling plausibility, indeed probability, to twenty-first century readers steeped in a scientific culture and demanding proof.

Thus, the mystical mind has led us down a new and fascinating path toward the understanding of human beings and their relationship to religion, spirituality, and God. As we stated in our dedication, we certainly believe that neurotheology can help open us to a greater sense of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans – the tremendous and spellbinding mystery – and to the awareness that we, who are brought together in a love of truth, are the mystical minds seeking that mystery.

Embracing God in my brain

I'm still trying to get my head around the main message of a book that I'm reading: God is in the brain.

And not just "God," whatever this famously fuzzy word means, but also every form of religious, spiritual, or mystical experience.

This shouldn't be a big surprise, to me or anybody else. Yet the more I dig into The Mystical Mind, by Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew Newberg, the more I'm having to re-examine some deeply held and largely unconscious beliefs.

Like, the notion that when I'm meditating, something marvelously mysterious is going on. Or, at least, could go on if I were able to turn the key that unlocks the door separating Me from It – really real reality that is out there somewhere, though I'm completely clueless about "where" and "there."

Most meditators and spiritual aspirants feel this way. But you'd think (or rather, I'd think) that with my decidedly churchless attitude toward spirituality, my attitude would be firmly in line with d'Aquili and Newberg's.

Echoing a quotation I included in my last post, they say:

The implication is that the brain and the mind either generate mystical states or allow us to experience mystical states. Differentiating whether the brain and mind actually cause mystical phenomena or are merely the necessary occasion for them is most difficult.

The former implies that mystical phenomena are completely caused and contained within the functions of the brain and mind. The latter requires that mystical phenomena exist "out there" in the external world, which can then be experienced by human beings through the brain and mind.

We have argued in the past that the most problematic aspect of this issue is that the only way in which to solve this problem is somehow to get out of the function of our brain and mind, since, so far as we know, everything about the world, both internal and external, comes to us through the brain.

Thus, it is difficult to form an epistemological perspective to determine the true reality of any phenomenon, whether it be mystical or ordinary in nature.

That's for sure. The kitchen stool I'm sitting on feels hard at the moment. But "hard," obviously, is my feeling. I just said as much. To someone else with a differently sensitized posterior, another adjective would apply. So what's the true reality of the situation? Tough to say.

Similarly, even a powerful mystical experience like the one James Austin described at the start of this story is happening inside a human brain. A physical lump of matter. A concoction of chemical and electrical impulses. A piece of flesh.

The Mystical Mind is full of sentences like these, which are describing what happens in passive meditation, often called the via negativa.

The partial deafferentation of the right orientation association area likely results in stimulation of the right hippocampus by means of the very rich interconnections between the orientation association area and the hippocampus.

If, in addition, there is a simultaneous direct stimulation of the right hippocampus from the right attention association area, then the right hippocampus ultimately stimulates the quiescent centers of the right amygdala.

Oh, now I know what I've been doing wrong in my meditation. Got to do a better job of stimulating my right amygdala. Whatever the heck it is.

But seriously…I'm beginning to settle comfortably into an obvious truth that hadn't really dawned on me until this book hammered it home. Every experience that I have, whether meditative or otherwise, comes to me via my brain.

More, my brain and my experience aren't two separate entities. We're one and the same. Brain/Brian.

Naturally this isn't true just for me. It's true for everyone.

There's little (or no) doubt that if you stuck Jesus, Mohammad, Moses, Buddha, Lao Tzu, or anyone else in a brain scanner while they were communing with God or ultimate reality, their mystical experience would be reflected in a particular pattern of brain activity.

I find this to be a comforting thought, one which brings me closer to myself. And, my thoughts. Along with all the other experiences that my mind and brain generate through their fantastically complex neuronal goings-on.

There may indeed be a spiritual "out there." But as d'Aquili and Newberg said, there's no way to tell whether a mystical or religious experience is solely the internal product of a brain, or whether it reflects an independently existing external reality.

All we know for sure is that the brain is where it's at – what's happening.

And that's marvelously close to home, for all of us. There's nothing nearer to me than my brain. It's what just typed out those words, and came up with the thought, "It's what just typed out those words."

The idea of "nearer, my God, to thee" is appealing to many. Me too.

Yet it could well be that the "God" being sought for is a lot nearer than we could ever imagine. As near as the brain that imagines, in fact.

Getting down to rock-bottom reality

When we feel like somebody is putting us on, "Get real!" is an appropriate response. But what the heck is real? Most of us think we know. However, are we really right about reality?

I'm a sucker for big questions like this. So when I see a chapter called "Consciousness and Reality" in a book, my philosophical spine starts to tingle.

That chapter is in Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew Newberg's The Mystical Mind, which I praised in my previous post. It reduces a whole lot of scientific, philosophical, and religious speculation, thousands of years of it, down to a single question.

Which is primary, external reality or subjective awareness?

Scientists say "external reality." They argue that conscious awareness arises from the brain, which is part of material reality. Most mystics and religious types say "subjective awareness." They argue that consciousness – whether personalized as God or impersonalized as a cosmic force – creates and maintains materiality.

Most people's everyday experience is a blend (or you could say, mish-mash) of these perspectives. Newberg and d'Aquili write:

To the naïve observer, there is an absolutely certain sense that there is a reality external to the self that appears to be characterized by a heavy, substantive reality often termed matter or material reality.

The naïve observer also has the absolutely certain sense of a conscious self that seems to have a light, changeable, and ethereal quality often termed mind, spirit, or sometimes soul. The naïve terminology is anything but exact.

That's for sure. Because they point out that everything known about the seemingly objective external world, whether by scientists or anyone else, exists within subjective awareness. Knowing requires a knower.

What is known may indeed exist even if no one is aware of it. I find it difficult to believe that the universe was non-existent for the billions of years it took for conscious beings to evolve after the primordial Big Bang. And yet:

From the point of view of any careful examiner of the world, the only thing that is certain is that all aspects of material reality, including the laws of science and the mind/brain itself, exist within subjective awareness.

OK. So what if instead of assuming that subjective awareness arises out of material reality, we assume that material reality in some sense arises out of subjective awareness?

Solipsism immediately rears its self-centered head. It's pretty clear that my subjective awareness doesn't create material reality, because if it did a convertible Mini Cooper S would be sitting in our carport rather than a Prius. And my bald spot wouldn't be, well, bald.

So whose subjective awareness do the laws of nature really reside in? Beats me. And everyone else, since there's no proof that an entity called "God" exists. On the other hand, d'Aquili and Newberg correctly point out that we also have no way of knowing that the universe as we know it exists outside of our way of knowing.

Since all of material reality exists at least in the mind of the analyzing knower, and since one would have to step outside of subjective awareness to ascertain whether any reality other than subjective awareness exists (a patently impossible situation), then one is constrained to see material reality (its past and future), the laws of nature, and science itself as aspects of present subjective awareness.

As disagreeable as such an epistemological position might be to those of us trained in Western science, it is the only possible rigorous stance unless one wishes to make a complete act of faith that the vivid sense of the otherness of external reality, which certainly exists in subjective awareness, reflects an isomorphic referent outside of subjective awareness.

But anybody who has taken a dog for a walk, as I do just about every day, knows that this isn't the case. I'm strolling along, immersed in sights and sounds of the Oregon countryside, and Serena (the family pet) is off in another world of scent . With her nose to the ground, she is transfixed by another perspective on reality, knowing things about passing deer and coyotes that I'm completely clueless about.

So neither dog nor human can say, "The external world objectively is as I perceive it, even if none of my species existed to be subjectively aware of those perceptions."

In the end, d'Aquili and Newberg argue for an integrated approach to the problem of subjective awareness and material reality. Instead of either/or, they point to the possibility of both/and. Nice and Taoistic.

The cultures of the Far East tend to favor consciousness or subjective awareness as prior. The cultures of the West tend to ascribe priority to external reality. But, in principle, there is no way to choose except by cultural prejudice or personal aesthetics.

…But there is a strange theological conclusion to be drawn from the fact that individuals and cultures have an irreducible choice whether "external" reality or "subjective" consciousness is primary.

In the first case, one can conclude with certainty that the concept and experience of God, and all religious phenomenology, are generated by the brain and nervous system. In the second case, one can conclude with equal certainty, from a rigorous phenomenological reflection on experience, that God (absolute unitary being or pure consciousness) generates the world (including the brain) and subjective experience itself.

Since it is in principle impossible to determine which starting point is more "fundamental," external reality or the awareness of the knower, one is forced to conclude that both conclusions about God (AUB) [absolute unitary being] are in a profound and fundamental sense true – namely that God is created by the world (the brain and the rest of the central nervous system) and that the world is created by God.

More about absolute unitary being in my next post.

Arousal and quiescence in the mystical brain

Browsing through my collection of half-read books, recently I came across The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience.

Starting in where I left off quite a few years ago (the book was published in 1999), I can tell that I'm going to be reading this baby straight through this time.

Because the question marks I left in the margins next to statements that questioned whether any mystical experience occurs outside of the physical brain now would have my personal version of exclamation marks next to them (a round dot made with my highlighter).

Back in my religiously devoted days I was resistant to any suggestion that the body is all that we are. After all, my goal was to rise to spiritual regions with my soul – if not now, then after death.

Older and hopefully wiser now about unsupported metaphysical claims, I'm a lot more open to scientific conceptions of spirituality. Which is why The Mystical Mind is more interesting to me the second time around.

This morning I read the first part of Chapter Two about the brain and central nervous system. Fascinating. As a long time daily meditator, for more than thirty-five years, I'd always wondered about the difference between active and passive approaches to meditation.

Some people sit quietly and try to reduce brain activity. Others engage in walking meditation, or dancing – if you're a Sufi.

The authors of this book are both medical doctors, so they're well qualified to explain goings on in the brain, which they consider to be the source of the mind.

The brain is the substantive underlying part of human thought, experience, and emotions. In other words, it is the bodily organ that allows us to think, feel, and receive input from the external world. The mind is generally considered to be the thoughts and feelings themselves. Thus, the mind is the product of the functioning of the brain.

OK, I already knew that. But what Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew Newberg then reminded me of was stuff that I hadn't thought about much since high school science classes: how the autonomic nervous system, which helps connect the brain to the rest of the body, is composed of two subsystems – the sympathetic system and the parasympathetic system.

The sympathetic system causes a sense of arousal (yes, the kind you're thinking of, along with opening airways in the lungs, increasing heart rate, dilation of the pupils, and such). The parasympathetic system, on the other hand, maintains homeostasis and conserves the body's resources and energy.

In short, we've got arousal and quiescent systems in our body and brain. And the point of this book, which I know because I jumped ahead and read the final chapters years ago, is that mystical experiences are the product of different sorts of arousal/quiescent states.

Reductionist? Sure. But like the authors say, point out any human experience that occurs in the absence of a body and brain. If that were to occur, the person would be dead, incapable of pointing.

What's interesting is that if you push either the arousal or quiescent systems far enough, they can cause an "eruption" in the other system.

Such a function may occur when one of these systems is driven to maximal activity despite the protective antagonistic mechanism. When this occurs, one can induce a "reversal" or "spillover" phenomenon.

This spillover effect occurs when continued stimulation of one system to maximal capacity begins to produce activation responses (rather than inhibitory) in the opposite system. This state is relatively rare and requires intense driving of one of the systems, beyond its normal capacity and beyond the inhibitory effects of the other system.

They give examples.

The hyperquiescent state "may be experienced as a state of oceanic tranquility and bliss in which no thoughts or feelings intrude on consciousness and no bodily sensations are felt."

The hyperarousal state is associated "with keen alertness and concentration in the absence of superfluous thoughts and feelings. The person may feel as if they were channeling vast quantities of energy effortlessly through their consciousness." (as when athletes feel they're in the zone or going with the flow)

The hyperquiescent state with eruption of the arousal system "is usually accompanied by the sense of a tremendous release of energy. Thus the meditator may experience an 'active' bliss or energy rush."

The hyperarousal state with eruption of the quiescent system may involve experience of "an orgasmic, rapturous, or ecstatic rush arising from a generalized sense of flow and resulting in trancelike states."

They add about the latter:

This experience may occur as a result of practices such as Sufi dancing and marathon running and even occurs briefly during sexual climax.

Ah, finally. A form of meditation that I'm good at.

Ken Wilber’s “Integral Life Practice Kit” looks like a scam

I've read many of Ken Wilber's books. I've written an essay critiquing Wilber's misrepresentations of Plotinus' teachings. So I'm pretty familiar with his Integral philosophy.

Intellectually, at least. I've pondered Wilber's quadrants until my head hurt. Which didn't take long.

That's the problem I have with Wilber's hyper-analytical approach to making sense of the cosmos (oops, should have written Kosmos – Wilber's preferred spelling).

It just seems like it reflects Wilber's mind a lot more than it reflects reality. I don't feel like I understand either the world or myself more when I read Wilber.

I'm impressed with his breadth of knowledge about all kinds of different disciplines (psychology, anthropology, history, science, sociology, mysticism, religion, and more). But depth often is lacking, as I pointed out in my critique of his understanding of a great mystic Greek philosopher.

Today I got an email from the folks at "What is Enlightenment?" – a magazine I subscribe to that is largely focused on plugging Wilber's Integral Vision.

They wanted me to take a look at his new offering, the Integral Life Practice Kit. This marvel, which does everything but floss your teeth and regrow hair, is priced at $199.

But you need to order in the next 48 hours to receive your seven bonus gifts , a free copy of Wilber's newest book, and a $50 discount.

Well, that's a great deal if you get enlightenment. However, it smells more like a scam than satori to me.

That said, the web site says Edith is happy with her purchase:

"Thanks to my work with ILP, I'm in a new groove. For the first time in my life, I look and feel at home in my body. Daily 3-Body practice is invaluable, giving me much needed discipline and rejuvenation... My family and friends are impressed with the results, and some of them are getting hooked, too. Meditation is my new best friend... Lately I've had bouts of joy so intense, it hurts!"
– Edith Friesen; Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

A new groove! Joy so intense, it hurts! She feels at home in her body!

Quick – what's the toll-free number? It's on the website, but I'm sure not going to help out with Wilber's marketing. You can find it on your own.

Here's a link to the free gifts, though. All I can say is, buyer beware.

RSSB’s strange fear of praise

What's wrong with telling someone "Good job"?

I can't think of any reason not to give out praise when congratulations are due. But religiously minded members of Radha Soami Satsang Beas sure did back in my RSSB speaking days.

I suspect that not much has changed. Which is too bad. Because spirituality should start from a base of being fully human.

That is, if we aren't engaging in the normal social niceties that bring people together and make everyday life flow more pleasantly, it's hard to see how we're on a path that leads to some sort of higher realization.

Quite a few years ago I remember being part of a panel that was advising satsang ("church") speakers at one of the periodic large RSSB gatherings. One of the organization's representatives said, "The worst thing anyone can do is congratulate a speaker after he or she has given a satsang." (satsang also means a talk, or sermon)

He explained that praise feeds the ego, so we shouldn't say anything even so simple as Thank you, I enjoyed your talk.

I disagreed. I told the group that if after years or decades of meditation a RSSB speaker is so easily influenced by a passing compliment, this is a pretty pitiful comment on the person's spiritual accomplishment, or lack thereof.

Good lord. Every day each of us gives and receives a lot of praise and blame. At work, at home, at school, on the highway ("Watch where you're going, you jerk!").

We should be able to let most of it roll off our backs without throwing us off balance. Especially if we claim to be following a spiritual practice, or path, that supposedly inculcates a feeling of detachment from worldly affairs.

Yet here was a high-ranking RSSB functionary telling initiates that they needed to walk on eggshells around satsang speakers, because a bit of praise could send their ego into a uncontrollable paroxysm of "Wow, I'm so great!"

Myself, I always enjoyed it when people came up to me after I gave a talk.

Some would have questions. Some would express their appreciation for my echoing their own feelings, because they didn't know that other initiates were as scientifically spiritually skeptical as they were. Some would take me to task for screwing up on some metaphysical or philosophical point.

Regardless, I liked the interchange. Person to person. Heart to heart. Mind to mind. Honest free-floating conversation, everybody saying what was true to them.

Like I said in a previous post, sat means truth. How can you have a genuine satsang if there isn't sat in both the speaker and the audience?

Being real – to me that's a big part of what spirituality, which really is nothing more than living life, is all about. Heck, maybe the only part.

"Thank you." "I didn't like what you said." "Here's where we differ." If that's what you feel, say it. Don't be afraid of being yourself.

There's nobody else you can be.

Blind belief in religion and politics: bad, bad, bad

Often I hear people say, "What's wrong with belief unsupported by facts if it makes someone feel better?"

Well, the explosive popularity of truthiness (way beyond Stephen Colbert, originator of the term) points to the common human propensity to believe that you know something even when you don't.

And there is indeed a lot wrong with it. This isn't an innocent frailty, though it's harmless enough when not taken to extremes.

I believe that some hair in my bald spot is growing back. I don't have any solid evidence for this, other than the feeling I have when I occasionally take a rearview glance at myself using a handheld mirror. But, hey, it's my head. My bald spot belief doesn't affect anyone else.

On the other hand, the Bush administration's belief that it's justified to trash the Constitution in the name of "war on terror" decidedly does affect other people. Like, every citizen of the United States.

Last night I read a Newsweek story, "The Constitution in Peril." I was struck by how similar blind belief is in both politics and religion. Of course, in Bush's brain there's a close connection between the two.

As in bin Laden's, Ahmadinejad's, and a disturbingly large number of other world leaders whose "reality is whatever I want it to be" attitude is a major threat to the rest of us.

Here's an excerpt from the story, which focuses on recently published books about the Bush administration's wars (at home and abroad):

In these books, apocalyptic delusions got us into Iraq and misjudgments have helped keep us there.

…And if there is a recurrent theme, it's that this administration set out to create its own reality, whether approaching the Bill of Rights like a classified document to be redacted or girding itself for war in Iraq with a steady diet of dubious intelligence.

The Bush and Cheney who emerge from these pages cherish secrecy, they deplore constraint and they sneer at dissent, so nothing and nobody can dissuade them from their chosen course. Reality checks are not allowed.

This is what blind faith, or belief, does. It splits the True Believer off from normal feedback mechanisms that could introduce a healthy dose of factuality into his or her truthiness.

Sure, secular blind believers can be as resistant to reality as religious types. I've given up trying to open the eyes of some people who keep telling me, "The Bush administration planned 9/11."

OK, dude. Whatever.

The difference between them and El Presidente, however, is that their ill-founded beliefs don't have major consequences for others, whereas Bush's do.

And secular blind beliefs divorced from religious dogmatism are more amenable to vision improvement. I know progressives who are unwilling to see anything positive in what the Bush administration does, they hate our president so much.

But they're not a lost cause, whereas Bush is.

When I point out to them that their leftish blind belief is similar to a neo-con's myopic view of the world, they usually agree that they're unwilling to look at any bright spots in the vast expanse of Bushian darkness.

Openness. Receptivity. Ever-fresh awareness.

Pretty tough to cultivate. However, the world desperately needs these qualities. Especially in national leaders. Where, in the United States, they're horribly lacking at the moment.

Faith or falsehood? “I can’t wait to die”

Religious people often look upon death as a ticket out of this world and into a better one. Me, I'm clinging to what I've got until I have hold of something else.

So I was intrigued by the following email message from a Church of the Churchless visitor. I know just what he's talking about, as during my devoted Radha Soami Satsang Beas days I encountered quite a few initiates, or satsangis, who couldn't wait to die (some who were seriously ill, some who were not).

My correspondent wanted to know my thoughts on this topic. Well, to me it's mostly about honesty. I'm afraid of death, so I understand why someone would want to feel that they're going to live on after their body dies.

However, the way I see it I need to live authentically here and now. "There and then" is fine – when it happens. But so long as it hasn't, I want to embrace the reality that I truly know, not what I falsely imagine.

This is me. You're you. The writer is himself. And the person he's talking about is someone else.

There's no right or wrong here. Just different ways of coping with life and death, present and hoped-for experience, what is and what might be.

Hi Brian, thought I'd send you a short note regarding a Satsangi friend, who I found out yesterday, is dying of cancer. If you wish to include this information in your discussion group, go for it.

Having done a bit of research on alternative cancer treatments and just wanting to wish him well, I thought I'd give him a call.

His response was interesting. First off, he wasn't interested in any information that I had that could possibly be helpful to him. And, he was primarily doing the things he was doing for his cancer just to go along with the wishes of those closest to him.

He was looking forward to dying soon and had complete faith in the Master. He went on to admit that his faith was "belief" and that all of us are really agnostics when it comes down to it. I agree with him.

You know, during my active years as a satsangi, I commonly heard this "I can't wait to die" rhetoric, as though it was a sign of spiritual advancement or something of that nature. One of the big "turn offs" to me with regards to the RS philosophy was its "anti-life" "anti-body" stance.

Seems that the goal was to get out of the body and to get out of the world, as though the cause of all our problems originated from "being in the world". This dualistic stance between the life of "spirit" and "worldly" life was one of the key factors that lead to my departure from RS.

So getting back to my friend, he seems very content to live in "His" will as he stated, while waiting for his "grand prize" (my description) when he dies.

Something seems very amiss here. And yet, he seems very content. His cancer is quite advanced and the likelihood of recovery is very slim.

Any thoughts you have on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

First atheist author: Baron d’Holbach

Watching a recording of PBS' "A Brief History of Disbelief" last night, I learned a fact that could come in handy if you're ever on a high-stakes quiz show.

They ask: Who wrote the first atheist book? You say, Baron d'Holbach. (When you win the million dollars, be sure to remember with gratitude what blogger informed you of this.)

Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789) hosted a notable salon in Paris where free-thinkers gathered for serious conversation. My wife and I belong to a Salem, Oregon salon group, so we've got that in common.

Philosophically, the Baron and I also are on much the same wavelength. I like this excerpt from his writings:

Madmen may everywhere be seen, who, after meditating upon their terrible God, imagine that to please him they must inflict on themselves, the most exquisite torments. The gloomy ideas formed of the deity, far from consoling them, have every where disquieted their minds, and prejudiced follies destructive to happiness.

How could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by men, interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears?

Man has been forced to vegetate in his primitive stupidity: he has been taught stories about invisible powers upon whom his happiness was supposed to depend. Occupied solely by his fears, and by unintelligible reveries, he has always been at the mercy of priests, who have reserved to themselves the right of thinking for him, and of directing his actions.

Videos of "A Brief History of Disbelief" can be viewed online. The three part series is a bit dry for my taste, but there's some enjoyable snippets. Like, the quotes from skeptics and unbelievers. Many of them can be read here, including some thoughts from the Baron.

If we go back to the beginning we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods, that fancy enthusiasm or deceit adorned them, that weakness worships them, that credulity preserves them, and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests.

Unfortunately, more than 230 years after he wrote those words not much has changed. Hopefully the next quarter of a millennium will bring more enlightenment to the Earth.

God-o-Meter rates presidential candidates’ religiosity

With seventeen candidates still in the running (or, at least, walking), it's tough to decide who I want to vote for in the 2008 presidential election.

Fortunately, Belief Net has come up with a way of thinning the herd for me: a God-o-Meter. This provides a regularly updated religious wackiness score – though what I derisively call "wackiness" a disturbingly large percentage of Americans would fondly term "faith."

I'd already began to tilt away from my initial favorite, Barack Obama. Seeing that Obama presently rates a "9," almost a full blown theocrat on the 1 to 10 scale, turns me off more. Hillary's a "7," which is probably as good as I'm going to get this God-filled election season.

I thought Obama was more spiritual than religious. But there he is, sucking up to evangelicals with talk of how he has accepted Jesus and being an instrument of God.

Lord Almighty, even John McCain is just an "8." And he believes that the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation – a fallacy nicely demolished today by a local newspaper columnist.

A plain reading of the Constitution shows that McCain, and apparently much of the country, is 180 degrees wrong. No religious polemics, no histrionics of the religious right, no obfuscations and no wishes of the majority can change this fact.

The Constitution does not create the United States of America as a Christian nation.

Candidates often say they are strict constructionists when it comes to the Constitution. No more of this judicial activism they say. Yet here McCain is rewriting the Constitution to suit his own religious beliefs or his own political necessity.

If God is on anybody's side, breaking Oregon news reveals that it is…gays. Opponents of recently passed domestic partnership legislation in my state tried to gather enough signatures to block the bill from going into effect.

It turns out that they were 116 valid signatures short of the 55,179 needed to suspend the law and put it on the November 2008 ballot for a popular vote.

Amazing: 116. The gay rights crowd is jubilant, as am I. I love it when miracles happen, and God steps in to prevent discrimination against people attracted to their own sex.

If any of the presidential candidates learn of this Oregon news and say, "Praise the Lord," I'll seriously consider voting for them.

Better to be truly real than falsely perfect

Back in my super-devoted Radha Soami Satsang Beas days, I used to love the Hindi word "sat." It means truth, with an additional connotation of perfection.

In Sant Mat "sat" gets used a lot. Sant itself means "one who knows the truth," such as a saint. Then there's satguru (true and perfect guide), satsang (true company or association), sat nam (true name), and other sat-based terms.

Sat, sat, sat. The sound of the word has a pleasing emphatic ring to it. It reminds me of the movie "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring." My bloggish review of it included:

When the world would become too much with him, the young monk would sit before a stone Buddha and rapidly strike a piece of wood with a stick. Clap, clap, clap, clap. A percussive mantra. Listen to the sound of one stick clapping and all else fades away.

But this assumes that when the world is too much with us – for the monk, that included having a lustful thought when an attractive girl visited his island retreat – something is wrong. There's been a departure from some ideal perfect truthful state: sat.

I'm now becoming a lot more comfortable with reality as it is.

When I was in my sat-obsessed phase, that longing for a transcendent unchanging Truth, unmixed with any hint of earthly imperfection, would carry over into my everyday life. It'd bother me when I failed to be as perfect as I felt I should be.

Religions are big on "should be's." Radha Soami Satsang Beas was no exception. There was a right way to give satsang (basically, a sermon or talk). There was a right way to show devotion to the satguru. There was a right way to behave as a satsangi (initiate).

All this emphasis on right ways and wrong ways tended to make devotees rigid, uptight, and overly self-critical. I didn't go as far in this direction as some, but I still had some excessively perfectionist tendencies.

It's a relief now to get real. "Perfect" is a concept, as is "Truth" with a capital "T." You never see either thought creature in the wild. They don't appear in this world, where everything and everyone changes daily, hourly, minutely, moment to moment'ly.

The satguru would make a mistake. True believers would rationalize, "The guru doesn't manifest his perfection on the worldly plane, only in his spiritual radiant form." OK. But I'm here in my physical form, observing the guru's physical form.

The notion of a transcendent realm of immutable perfection has a long history and is still very much with us in the guise of the world's religions.

However, many ideas don't reflect reality. Just because we can think "perfect" doesn't mean it exists outside of our own mind (I can think "cake" without having a real one in front of me).

Yesterday I engaged in my normal habit of fumbling my way through the day.

After chatting with an acquaintance in my athletic club's locker room, I realized that I'd probably told him the same witty observation the last time we talked. Trying to phone in a prescription refill, I reached a woman who responded to my "Is this the pharmacy?" with a "Good god, no!" While taking the dog for a walk, I talked for 10 minutes with a neighbor and his sister, then got home, glanced down, and saw that my fly was open.

In short, a typical day in the life of Brian Hines. Perfectly imperfect. The older I get, the less it bothers me when I screw up.

I'm sure there are psychological reasons for this. But philosophically, I don't compare myself with an ideal of perfection, "sat," nearly as much as I used to. By and large, the goals I set for myself come from me – not an outside institution or authority figure.

And one of those goals is to accept reality as it is, however it is. Witty observations get repeated. Wrong numbers get dialed. Zippers get left down in public.

Have you ever seen a perfect anything, or anyone? I haven't. Not in the sense of a perfection that is flawless, unchanging, and completely consonant with a transcendent ideal.

What makes life "perfect" is its imperfections. So I guess I have seen perfection – when I've looked at reality as it is, and not as how I'd like it to be.

Help expand recognition of my divinity

Thanks to my friend Randy, who emailed me these images today, for a while I felt really good. Finally! I was beginning to get a well-deserved recognition of my holiness – as befits someone, namely Me, who has preached so many sermons here at the Church of the Churchless.

Unfortunately, I let reality enter into my fantasy. Not a good idea, if you're entertaining delusions of spiritual grandeur (one of my favorite activities).

I made the mistake of Googling "church of briantology card." And damn it!, up popped a result that led me to a blogger who just had to write about his birthday, and how he got a great card that says on the front "The Church of Briantology," blah, blah, blah.

Well, that explains why the guy on the card doesn't look at all like me. Where's the beard? Where's the distinguished, graying, intelligent, charismatic, literary, sublime expression? Where's the posture of profound humility mixed with undeniable worshipability?

So it looks like I need to toot my own horn, since so far I don't even have a greeting card purely in my honor. It's time for some Church of the Churchless devotee to perform an act of service that, frankly, some visitor to this blog should have thought of on his or her own a long ago.

But it looks like the divine plan is for me to proclaim the obvious from my blogosphere mountaintop: There should be a "Brian Hines" Wikipedia entry.

I would have already written it myself, being eminently qualified to discuss my marvelous accomplishments and qualities, but Wikipedia has a hangup about autobiographical articles.

They are often biased, usually positively. People will write overly positively about themselves, and often present opinions as facts. Wikipedia aims to avoid presenting opinions as facts.

Hey, me too. If someone wants to draft a Wikipedia article about me, I'll be happy to review it and make sure that any unsupported opinions in it are converted to facts.

For example, if the draft said "Some feel that Hines has an inflated opinion of his philosophical and spiritual knowledge," I'd correct the sentence to read "Hines' writings are recognized as exceptional examples of modern scientific spirituality."

One point in my Wikipedia favor, among many, is that lots of information about me and my life is available online. Some of it even hasn't been written by me. Wikipedia says:

One thing which you can do to assist other Wikipedia editors is, if you already maintain a personal website, please ensure that any information that you want in your Wikipedia article is already on your own website. As long as it's not involving grandiose claims like, "I was the first to create this widget," or "My book was the biggest seller that year," a personal website can be used as a reference for general biographical information.

I've scanned the notability criteria (though not too closely, because I've already decided that I'm notable and don't need any inconvenient facts messing up that conclusion). Name recognition is important, and Google testifies to my preeminence among the world's Brian Hines'.

Which reminds me: Eric, another friend, recently passed on a link to The Church of Google. I already spend a lot of time worshipping there, so I'm glad to learn that one of my favorite divinities (other than Me) has been proven to be God, as I've always suspected.

Would-be "Brian Hines" article writers should feel free to email me to discuss how we can best collaborate on relieving the distress of a well-deserving man who is suffering from Wikipedia deprivation.

Fawning sycophants will receive priority attention. But since admirers in this category seem to number in the zeros, I'll consider anyone moderately capable in the English language to be well qualified (openness to editing suggestions is a must).

Some darn good advice

On first reading, I didn't like the advice that came to me in an email from a Church of the Churchless visitor. After a second and third reading I came to see what the person was trying to tell me.

Sort of. It's hard enough for me to understand me. Translating understandings from one mind to another is considerably more difficult.

I particularly like the third and fourth paragraphs (see message below). This person is right. When I was a Radha Soami Satsang Beas true believer I did become preoccupied with rights and wrongs, do's and don'ts, rites and rituals.

Most initiates did. That was what was expected of the guru's disciples: obedience, sticking to the straight and narrow, following the initiatory vows.

But my advisor is right. Brainwashing almost always requires a willing brain (with rare exceptions). I was indeed looking for something to fill a void in my life. Heck, I still am. Who can say that they're totally fulfilled, with no empty spots in their larder of happiness?

The search for meaning, though, is undertaken by each and every individual – voluntarily. Just as we shouldn't say "the devil made me do it," an equally lame excuse is "god/guru made me do it."

I don't feel abused by Radha Soami Satsang Beas. Just as my first marriage was marked by more pleasant years than unpleasant years, so my "divorce" from this India-based organization has left me with a preponderance of enjoyable memories.

Separations often are healthy for both parties. There's a time to be together, then there's a time to be apart. The growth I feel taking place in me now wouldn't have happened within the confines of a religious organization like Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

[Note: I wasn't the one who added a link to this blog in the "Controversies" section of the Wikipedia entry for RSSB. However, after someone told me that this entry kept getting deleted, I copied the code so I could replace it myself.

Controversy is positive. It isn't something to cover up, as the Wikipedia deleter (who likely is a fervent RSSB devotee) wants to do. So I'll keep putting that section back whenever I notice it's gone – a small step for open minded spiritual discussion.]

Here's the message I got, mildly edited for clarity:

Good day Brian,

I spotted your website when I read about RSSB. I just wanted to let you know that being an initiate isn't always about the rules; it is about the love and devotion that is in your heart. In order to love something you have to know what it is you love, what you hate, what you fear, what you need, what you don't need, what is real and what is an illusion.

Ultimately, the self-realization kicks in and if it hasn't it is because you choose to listen to your 'negative thoughts'. No one says being an initiate is easy, never mind even being a non initiate. Life is full of surprises no doubt but how much did you really love...to learn about love is not easy, nor is it to control your mind and it's way of thinking. But once you do, you understand what the teachings really meant. You become that what you seek.

I believe the (Your) problem was you became too preoccupied with the dogma of rites/rituals/practices of what you should or shouldn't do. The meaning of "brain washed" is when you have no choice; you have been brought up a certain way and you have been taught a certain way to think - or did you really have the choice and you chose to sway the way of the majority?

Or was life that empty that you had to 'hang' off every balance or word that was being said as if it was the truth and when it didn't make sense to you or your mind you just quit. Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened....we literally don't understand these simple rules yet we make a mockery of them because they didn't make sense to US and wow they should have.

Brian, if you were an initiate for 30 years, believe me those years did not go to waste - I mean you have a website that branches off. You are still trying to find "yourself" and most of all you still have love in your heart. I don't even know why I am writing to you...I thought you had a "hurt child" in your writing and maybe if you can heal that you will see what the world has to offer you.

Lifetimes....my friend...many lifetimes, but if we can be positive and love and see that we are all one...we might be on the right track...remember you didn't go beyond yet...because if you did you wouldn't "write" this way.

Take care on your journey.