Struggling to label my belief in unbelief

Sometimes silence says more than words. Recently an old friend asked me, "Do you still consider yourself to be a satsangi?"

I stared into the depths of my Starbucks latte. I started to speak, then closed my lips. The question spiraled deeper into my psyche. I waited to see if it'd hit bottom.

Satsangi – I knew what my friend meant by the word. An initiated member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a mystic-religious group with headquarters in India and branches around the world.

But the term is used much more broadly. Wikipedia associates it with another belief system. And here's a really different satsangi.

A non-fundamentalist member of any religion would face the same difficulty as I did. If you feel comfortable with some aspects of Catholicism, Buddhism, Judaism or any other "ism," but not other aspects, are you faithless or faithful?

I was baptized a Catholic. I had my first communion. But I never went through confirmation. So am I still a Catholic? I don't feel that I am, not a bit. Yet I've been told that baptism entitles a person to burial in a Catholic cemetery.

So maybe I am, from the Church's perspective.

And almost surely I'm still a satsangi from the point of view of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, because it's believed that the guru who initiates you never leaves the side of your soul – until the highest heaven is reached. Well, maybe. For sure, I'm not sure.

Eventually I answered my friend in a roundabout way. I told him that for a while in my true believer days I felt like I was standing on a solid spiritual floor.

Then, bit by bit, the ground started shifting beneath me. I was on an elevator, not terra firma. A jerky elevator. I'd stay on one belief level for a while, then whoosh! – I'd suddenly drop a ways down my tower of faith.

I'd remain there for a bit longer, until another whoosh! free fall dropped me further down the scaffolding of belief that I'd once perched myself upon. And I haven't reached bottom yet, I'm confident.

I said that I used to find these seeming descents (I don't know which way is up anymore) disconcerting. Now, though, they're enjoyable. I like the feeling of floating more freely, less encumbered by dogmatic ties.

Maybe eventually I'll become a completely unattached bubble of unbelief, I said, blown by whatever winds reality conjures up.

"This sounds to me like just what Radha Soami Satsang Beas teaches," my friend commented. "You're detaching from the mind and attaching yourself to spirit."

Well, I'll be, I thought. He might be right. My unbelief could be making me into a true believer of a different sort, sort of like going around the world by turning 180 degrees from the direction I faced before and ending up in the same place – but with a contrary viewpoint.

The main thing I thought, however, was how limited words are. We like to ask, "Republican or Democrat?" "Believer or unbeliever?" "Chocolate or vanilla?" Nuances, shades of gray, kind of this/kind of that – these aren't as appealing as black and white categories or labels.

Yesterday the Portland Oregonian ran a lengthy story in the Sunday paper, "Oregonians take many paths to religion: a state where fewer claim a particular faith yields stories of unusual journeys."

A while back the reporter, Nancy Haught, had asked for readers to send her an email describing their change of faith. Naturally, I did. A blurb from my message was included in a sidebar to the main story.

"Each of us is left with our private faith. Which again, for me, is faith that reality is all we need (though I readily admit that I'm still prone to fantasies and wishful thinking, especially when reality gives me harder knocks than I feel I deserve).
--Brian Hines, Salem, skeptical Taoist"

Last week Nancy emailed me, asking for permission to print the quote. She also wanted a one word description of my current beliefs.

I didn't labor too long over my response. "Taoist" came to mind right away. But that didn't sound quite right. So I added in "skeptical" and pressed the send button.

Skeptical Taoist still is lacking. Yet so is any word.

Comments

[elizabeth w]

Oh, your post this time brought tears to my eyes (a seldom event) - the whole darn thing (RSSB). My mind full of disbelief versus mind filled to the brim with desire to attain complete knowledge versus the sheer apparent randomness of events versus our predicament in an unpredictable world versus our horror and terror of death versus NOTHING. It is perhaps the ZERO that's the most horrifying and yet ... and yet ... somewhere within us one is cognisant
that our complex, analytical minds revel in dismissing certain relative "truths" with the emphasis on relative. Speaking for myself I recognise an obstinacy together with a need to have a clear mind unobstructed by wanting to know "everything"; acutely aware of one's conditioning at a certain level; a yearning for the impossibility of objectivity.
Yet somewhere within the deep core of self resides a "knower", perhaps the Joker who enjoys creating mayhem in human minds.
I plough on!
Thanks for your writings, Brian.
Elizabeth w

[Adam]

Thanks Brian and Elizabeth,

I empathize very much with both of your writings. Problem is, to say one is a satsangi or not a satsangi is accepting or pushing off of a concept, which is by nature limited. I more and more have the feeling that a meditation path is a path of (non)action, not a belief system. After all, saying the master is god or rejecting the master as fraud are both conceptual stances. We are not concepts, though the notion of "self-image" and "positive or negative self esteem" point to the experience of oneself as a concept with measurable quality. We are used to seeing ourselves conceptually and relating to others as such. I think your friend has a good point, Brian, that moving into realms of doubt is a loosening of a dogma, and the potential opening to more subtle types of knowledge, for lack of a better word. I think dropping all beliefs, if that could be possible, would take one much, much closer to an experience that would help us understand something...

[Adam]

We are self-conscious creatures, and know we will die. We, as a species, invest in stories to help us deal with the anxiety of knowing we will die. We grow attached to these stories, because to question them means to go back to staring death in the face.

I like Brian's approach. It seems Brian starts with the assumption, "there is something happening (reality)." What that is is truth. No other belief is needed. I then add: due to our disposition, especially finding that we end up telling ourselves stories about ourselves almost constantly, albeit subconsciously most of the time, we create a personal mythology that is mentally constructed and removed from the experience of what is. though it uses the experience of what is as material for the story. So the question arises, what's happening other than stories?

[Sita]

I fully agree with the 'satsangifriend' of Brian and with Adam.
There are stories/concepts/dogma's, one can struggle with, until the 'let go of it' comes..
There is freedom in that after some time.
Then one can choose how to live after the letting go of it.
I love to go to satsang again,because of meditating atmosphere..nothing more nothing less.

[Manjit]

Dear Sita,

Is the 'let go of it' perhaps your 'need' for the RS concepts to be a lie?

Is your still going to satsang a symptom of you still being 'married' to RS (in contrast to 'nothing more nothing less')

Now, whereas I find these concepts inane, cultic & even insulting, you found them very funny (hihihihi) quite recently?

Or perhaps that was just a symptom of something else entirely??.....

[Sita]

Manjit,I don't seem to understand your letter.
Maybe I am stupid.
I like the meditational atmosphere..
Have you problems with that?
I Loved and still love my guru(Charan Singh)I have always said that I am thankful for soo many things..
But if you are only sceptic..and I mean ONLY..I am not!
I tell you what Manjit,I am not the old satsangi as I used to be and also not the sceptic as some are.

[Sita]

Let I say it this way, I keep what is good for me..

[Manjit]

Hello Sita,

No, you don't appear to have understood my post.

Just to underline that fact, I have absolutely no interest or concern about you enjoying the meditational atmosphere in satsang. Neither in your expressing of that.

Neither am I a 'ONLY' a sceptic. Far, far from it in fact.

I was just pointing out the implicit irony of your comment here, in light of your recent comments over at RSS. With the merest hint of a suggestion that those comments were motivated by something other than integrity of message.

But never mind.

[Sita]

People sometimes don't understand eachother.
Especially on the internet.
One do not see eachother and hear the tone and see the eyes.
Sorry Manjit I seem to not understand you and also the other way round.
But it doesn't matter as long as there is respect hopefully..

[Aman]

Brian Sir
You kind of remind me of Ravana (Enemy of ram) or Kans (enemy of krishna) according to rasik theories & mythology of bhagvatam these souls also got liberation because they attached their mind to these avatars of ram & krishna in a negative way its like no matter how you attach your self to the path as long as you are thinking about it you are being liberated hahahaha anyways I think that since you've dropped all dogma, belief systems etc. that's exactly what santmat is & I think you are on your way only I would like to know whether do you have faith in anything? God, supreme being etc.

[Stuart Resnick]

Aman wrote...
> You kind of remind me of Ravana (Enemy of
> ram) or Kans (enemy of krishna) according
> to rasik theories & mythology of bhagvatam

It's often useful to remember that mythologies you read in a book are one thing, and real life experience is something else. Yeah, it sounds obvious, yet so often I hear people talk about e.g. things they read in the bhagvatam as if they were real, rather than made-up stories.

When we take up the great question "What am I?" our true experience is "Don't know." All words, names, beliefs, ideas about who we are... they never feel quite right, because they're a little dishonest. It's all pretending to know something that we really don't.

(The eye can't see itself, but that's OK, since the eye's job is to see that the sky is blue and the grass is green etc etc. Likewise, the mind never understands the mind, but it can still do its job.)

The one time I was with one of those Sikh groups, I went with them to a community center where the satsang was supposed to take place. We were walking around, seeing various people going into different rooms, not sure which room was supposed to be the satsang, and which people were there for the same thing.

We encountered another group in the hall (it turns out that they were actually there for a Quaker meeting). One of our people asked them, "Are you Satsangis?" And they replied, "Uh... no... are you Friends?" And it was kind of funny, since they were talking right past each other, as if in different languages.

[Brian]

Stuart, I had a similar experience. I'd been asked to give a satsang in Eugene. Had never been there before. Didn't know which room in the community center they met in.

I peeked into one room. A bunch of spiritual looking people were sitting in chairs, expectantly staring at a podium. I figured, "This must be the place."

Sat down in the front row. Smiled at the man next to me. Looked down. Saw that he was holding a Bible. Looked around some more. Saw more Bibles.

Suddenly had an intuition that this wasn't the satsang of an Eastern meditation group. I muttered to the man, "Forgot something in my car" and walked out, never to return.

Yes, people are people. Back then I felt like I had left the room of a false teaching and found the room of a true teaching. Now, I don't know what is true and what is false.

[Brian]

Aman, there's even better news for me: I also spend time thinking critically about Jesus and Christianity, plus Mohammad and Islam, not to mention Buddha and Buddhism.

So by your theory I'm also going to be liberated by my non-attached attachment to these faiths. I guess all the creeds that I think about will have to fight it out to decide who gets to save my soul.

Cool! I like attention. Guess this shows that it's better to view many religions skeptically rather than just one, or none.

You asked if I have faith in anything. Sure: reality. What I'm unsure about is how best to know reality. It seems to me that being as open as possible to reality, in whatever way it can be known, is wisest, given the evident mystery that surrounds us (and is us).

[Aman]

Brian Sir
Thanks for replying & ofcourse I don't mean you being liberated just by thinking about the path as a fact, I was only thinking that if you were into rasik saints & their philosophy then yeah you would be in court with buddha, krishna etc & they'll probably fight among themselves to see who can take you to their abode :-) anyways thanks for answering my question.

[David]

Hi Brian,

Just wanted to know if you have come across discourses / books / tapes of OSHO.
I just watched some clips on utube. I love the guy (dont agree with everything he says)he's one hell of an iconoclast.
Am sending a link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBEIeRSLb8k

or else go to utube, click videos aand type in OSHO....

A lot of the videos are funny and thought provoking at the same time.

Love your postings.

keep them coming...

[Adam]

Hi David,

I found those vids on utube a couple of months ago, and now I watch them whenever I am feeling depressed. I have just read a little about him online and talked to a couple of people. It seems he was a very controversial "guru" due to his ambitious sex habits and his flagrant hedonism (he apparently owned 90 roles royces) and drug habits.
There is no doubt in my mind though, that he is HILARIOUS, very smart, and from my perspective, quite present, at least in most of those videos.

[Brian]

David, since I was living in Oregon during the Rajneesh years (before he changed his name to Osho), I find it hard to disentangle the memories of all the Rajneeshpuram weirdness from his philosophy.

Rolls Royces. Poisoning people in an attempt to influence a local election. All kinds of stuff.

He's sort of engaging. But so are a lot of other crazy people.

[billybob]

I'll put this as intulecktial as possebl so use kin unerstan.

Unchurched = Satan = Hell!

[BALLYHOO]

billybob = BRAINLESS BOZO