Church of the Churchless

Why Radha Soami Satsang Beas initiates are so special

Recently I got an email message from someone who wanted to know why I felt so special when I was an active member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a Sant Mat organization headquartered in India.

In your posts, you often make mention of having felt special when you were in RS mode, and how you now feel relieved to have shed this sense of being special. It isn’t clear to me what was your basis for this feeling of being special.
 
The way I understand it, Sant Mat teachings and practice inculcate in the initiate an ever broadening and expanding perspective of all-that-there-is, while proportionately diminishing the relative significance of the self in this grand cosmos.
 
I do recall feeling special in the three months prior to initiation, but a few sessions in meditation after initiation quickly knocked any sense of special-ness out of me.
 
Maybe that has been my failing as a satsangi, that I was unable to sustain that attitude of being special. Or maybe the lack of special-ness is what keeps me in Sant Mat, because I can imagine that it would be an uncomfortable burden to carry year after year.
 
Perhaps you can remind me what there is to feel so special about as a satsangi? Sometimes it would be nice to feel a little bit special, just as a break from the sense of being nothing.

I was surprised that this person didn't understand why RSSB initiates are made to feel so special. The reasons are evident in the voluminous Radha Soami Satsang Beas literature, which I'm well acquainted with.

Here's some of the central specialness reasons that come to mind. I'm sure there are more.

(1) God's favored 1/10th. Supposedly God decided to populate his physical creation long ago, so souls had to leave the spiritual realm. Nine-tenths of them were eager to go -- yay! something new to do! -- while one-tenth were deeply reluctant to leave God. Those souls now get to go Home to heaven.

(2) RSSB initiates have been "marked" by God. The only way one of the lucky 10% can return to God is by being initiated by a perfect living guru, who is considered in Sant Mat to be God in human form.

The RSSB guru only initiates marked souls -- those who are destined to take the journey from materiality back to the highest spiritual region. How the guru recognizes his "sheep" is mysterious, but there are videos of him doing it. Nodding his head in one direction if an initiation applicant is marked, nodding in the other direction if the poor soul is unmarked and thus rejected.

(3) Sant Mat is the only way to know God. So if you're one of the unfortunate 90% of souls who aren't part of God's chosen people, what to do? Is there another way other than being initiated by a perfect living guru to return to God? Sorry, says Radha Soami Satsang Beas, there isn't. You're out of luck.

God has decreed that "no one comes to the Father but through me," and me means a guru who is God in human form. You can do all the meditation you want, and be a marvelously loving person, but unless you're initiated by a perfect guru, no god-realization for you.

So this is why RSSB books and speakers frequently emphasize how special members of the organization are. Numbering only a few million, at most, these are the only people on Earth who possess a ticket back to God. Everybody else is doomed to wander in delusion, apparently for eternity -- since the marking of souls only happened once.

Of course, I don't believe this any more. Which is refreshing.

As I've noted before, it's a burden to feel so special. For one thing, it divides you from other people, such as my wife -- who, because she wasn't a RSSB initiate, was looked upon with more than a little pity by many of the "chosen people."

(Other religions, such as Judaism, naturally would disagree with Sant Mat's conclusion about who is God's favorite, and who isn't.)

Shocked at my past beliefs, should I disown me?

I picked up the book. Thumbed through the pages and located the right chapter. Scanned a few paragraphs. Then found the lines I was looking for:

Mysticism has little quarrel with the theory of evolution -- as long as it is recognized that life evolves not randomly, but under the guidance of an intelligence which is far beyond our ability to fathom. All that is evident are the results of a divine will reflected most imperfectly in the fossil record and the current diversity of species.

Oh no!, I thought. The author is an intelligent design advocate. He believes in bullshit!

I threw the book down on my office floor in disgust.

I'd been looking for a quote to use in a blog post about evolution. But I wasn't about to use anything written by a guy who obviously didn't understand the difference between real science and mystical mumbo jumbo. 

Here's the funny thing: I was that guy. I was disgusted at myself. The book whose content I disagreed with was "Life is Fair" (now back in print over at the Science of the Soul Research Centre).

Now, I still believe in much, if not most, of what I wrote in Life is Fair. After all, life is. Fair.

But as I blogged about a few years ago, for different reasons that I argued in that book. That's how I see things presently, at least. Back in the late 90's I thought differently. In the future, who knows?

The only thing I can be certain about is that from this moment until the day I die, I'm not going to be absolutely certain about anything. Probably, I should add, to be consistent.

So after a few days of pondering my emotional reaction to re-reading what I wrote a dozen or so years ago, I've concluded that I was too hard on myself.

Yes, I was disturbed that my beliefs back then fell into a "religiously mentally ill" diagnosis. And when I read how the Brian of that time looked upon evolution, it bothered me that I was less scientific than I'd remembered myself being.

But here's the thing: I changed. And I'm still changing. As are we all. Thankfully.

Because change only stops when we're dead. Until then, living leads us in largely unpredictable ways. Our relationships with other people change; our bodies change; our lifestyles change; our physical activities change; our personalities change; our philosophical and religious beliefs change.

Which is unavoidable. And largely to the good, even though many of life's changes are objectionable to us.

Here in the United States, as likely is true elsewhere in the world, people like to play a "gotcha" game. Politicians and other public officials come in for special gotcha treatment. 

Opponents will drag up a quote from a speech someone made a decade ago, showing how that person believed in such-and-such back then and now holds a different view.

Gotcha!

Oh, really? Is there something wrong with a person changing his or her mind, arriving at a different conclusion, evolving into a more nuanced conception of reality?

No, there isn't. That's what I believe.

But still, if I really believed this, I wouldn't have had the throw-the-book-on-the-floor reaction that occurred when I was presented with evidence of how my notions about evolution have changed.

Which seems to point to some sort of lingering attraction toward a self that is more constant than I really am. Cognitive dissonance probably is at play here -- me wanting to resolve the conflicts between what I believe now and what I believed then by forgetting how different "now" and "then" were.

At any rate, this experience has reminded me not to judge other people's seemingly deluded beliefs overly harshly. One of my favorite blog post titles is "I've become the person I warned myself about."

Or reversing the arrow of time, "I used to be the person I now warn myself about."

I've got no clue who I really am, assuming there is an "I" at all. But the fact that I can be aware of how much I've changed shows that some aspect of me stands apart from being and becoming.

What we believe -- religiously or otherwise --  is important. However, re-reading "Life is Fair" reminded me that who I was deeper down, beneath my beliefs, when I wrote the book is pretty much the same person I am now.

If that's the case, doesn't it follow that we're all much more similar than alike? That what separates us all too often is our focus on beliefs. Political, religious, philosophical, moral, and so on.

We forget how easy it is to trade one belief system for another. How interchangeable ideas can be, while the person doing the mental changing is someone quite different from his or her thoughts.

"True Sant Mat" blog: a fresh look at mystic teachings

Sant Mat gets discussed quite a bit here because I was a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (a contemporary Sant Mat movement) for many years, along with other regular Church of the Churchless commenters.

I'm more familiar with Sant Mat than any other religion, spiritual system, or mystical path. So when Osho Robbins emailed me with news that he was starting a "True Sant Mat" blog, naturally I was curious.

And, upon request, gave him some advice about how to set the blog up, since we're both using the TypePad blogging service.

Osho's goal is to discuss the real teachings behind Sant Mat.

That's intriguing, since Sant Mat bills itself as the real spirituality behind organized religions. It's a never-ending undertaking, attempting to peel away the onion layers of untruth and arrive at the core of reality.

I just read through all of the True Sant Mat posts. (Here's the blog's short URL: www.tinyurl.com/SantMat)

A central theme, which makes a lot of sense to me, is that Sant Mat's Sach Khand ("heaven," basically) isn't some objectively real spiritual region where a seeker of God comes face to face with the highest divinity.

Rather, Sach Khand is a state of consciousness, right here and right now.

Now the truth is YOU WILL NEVER GET THERE. Why? because it is impossible. There is no such place - except in your mind. Of course you CAN get there IN YOUR MIND - just as you create dreams every night. The dreams APPEAR to be REAL. So Sach Khand or the inner flight of the soul will APPEAR to be real.

...SATGURU means one who has realized the TRUTH (ie. the ONENESS). Metaphorically speaking we say he lives in Sach Khand. This simply means that he lives in TRUTH (ONENESS). He is not ALL-KNOWING and he has not traversed any inner regions, since there are none.

...The ONE is ALL THERE IS. You can also call it the NOTHINGNESS. Because there is nothing there. It is not even a place - it does not exist within TIME and SPACE. It is the ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS - there is not even any EMPTY SPACE there. There is also NO TIME there.

You cannot ARRIVE there because (1) it is not a PLACE and (2) there is NO TIME and (3) there is NO YOU to arrive. As long as you think in terms of YOU and GOD - you are in DUALITY.

Take a look at Osho's blog. Leave some comments over there. Even if you don't know much about Sant Mat, I think you'll find his non-dual take on reality interesting.

I answer questions about the once-churched me

I was planning to write a blog post about another subject tonight.

But, hey, when someone leaves a comment on an Open Thread that focuses on me, wanting me to answer some questions about me, suddenly I found this topic a lot more interesting.

I'll put "Cell's" words in italics and my response in normal type.
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Brian, may I ask a few questions of you? I would just send you an email, but I think that some external input could be helpful, too.

No problem. I love questions. Especially ones I can answer.

Since they're about me, that's a subject I have quite a bit of familiarity with. Concerning "external input," you've already gotten some responses from a few of the churchless regulars. I agree with most of what they said, but will answer you in my own words here.

Might I ask you what your intent was when going into Sant Mat? Were you looking for God, or were you looking for the spiritual experiences associated with Sant Mat? I mean, the whole point of RSSB is to merge back with God; was that what you were looking for? Some of your posts confuse me about this. You seemed to have expected to ascend to the higher regions, to have out-of-body experiences, and to achieve God-realization within this lifetime.

Yes, your last sentence sums it up pretty well. This is what Sant Mat, Radha Soami Satsang Beas version, is all about.

One of the first books I read way back in 1970 was Julian Johnson's "Path of the Masters." I loved his descriptions of how it was possible, supposedly, to zip around in the astral and causal regions, learning the secrets of creation, one's own nature, and eventually God.

In the Sant Mat philosophy, spiritual experiences are necessary before merging with God. It isn't like Buddhism, Taoism, or Hinduism, where enlightenment can be (or is) a shift in consciousness that doesn't necessarily (or usually) entail mind-blowing mystical sights, sounds, and such.

Not everyone is so lucky. I've met several people that are spiritually realized, and I wish that you had the chance to speak with them. For some reason you've only come across those poor people that, for some reason, haven't had success in their meditation.

How could you tell that these several people were "spiritually realized"?

I've talked with lots of people who are on a path that is claimed to lead to spiritual realization. I've had a number of face-to-face meetings with gurus who were/are considered to be perfectly god-realized (Charan Singh and Gurinder Singh).

I can't tell the difference between a spiritually realized person, and someone who isn't. In fact, I don't even know what "spiritually realized" means. What do you think it means?

Regarding your statement about poor people who haven't had success in their meditation, I also don't know what you mean by "poor." I'm one of these people, if you define success as soaring into higher regions of reality and coming face to face with God. But I don't feel poor, lacking, or disappointed.

Again, I don't know anyone who has had the sort of success in meditation as defined above. Do you? And how would I know if I did come across such a person? Do they have some sort of identifying mark?

Also, on the point of meditation; did you love the Master when you where following the Path? Did you have faith? I question this because your critical thoughts have to have been brewing for a long time. Perhaps you went into initiation before your intellect was truly satisfied.

I'd say, "yes, absolutely." In thirty-five years or so of devotion to my guru and Radha Soami Satsang Beas, I shed a lot of tears that sure felt like they sprang from love; and I engaged in a lot of voluntary service that sure felt like it sprang from love. 

I had almost complete confidence, or faith, that I was on the right path until... I didn't. Getting initiated by a guru and getting married have a lot in common. For me, the two events happened about the same time (1971 and 1970, respectively).

When I got married, I thought it would be for forever. Ditto when I signed on to follow the Sant Mat path. With my first marriage, I got divorced after nineteen years. With Sant Mat, it took quite a bit longer. In each case, the love was genuine. Until it wasn't. People change. My wife and I grew out of love. Ditto with Sant Mat and me.

I wasn't critical of Sant Mat for at least thirty years. For sure, I was a true believer during that time, circa 1970 to 2000. When I met Laurel, who I married in 1990, she tried to raise questions about the perfection of the "perfect guru" and other Sant Mat truisms. I was unshakable. Until... I started shaking.

One more question; why do you even have this website? You know that the only resistance that you shall receive will be from initiates that haven't gotten very far (no offense, folks. I'm not even initiated m'self). People that are actual sants won't reply to you; they don't care.

I started this blog after George Bush won re-election in November 2004. The rise of the fundamentalist religious right in the United States bothered me, big-time. I wanted to strike a blow for open-minded, non-judgmental, science-centered spirituality. After almost five years I'm still blogging along.

I no longer know what "spirituality" means, though, which I consider to be progress rather than retrogression.

I don't worry a whole lot about who likes this blog, and who doesn't. Having written several books, I've learned that if I try to cleverly write for other people, rather than from the honest core of myself, both my writing and my enjoyment suffer.

Okay, just one more question; how can you deny the spiritual experiences of tens of thousands of people? There are satsangis that have had success, you're just not looking for them, are you?

Who are these people? What experiences have they had that you call "spiritual"?

I met countless satsangis (RSSB initiates) during the thirty-plus years I was an active member of the organization. I'm not sure what you mean about "not looking for them" -- those who supposedly have had success, spiritual experience-wise.

By the end of those years I was interacting with some of the highest of the higher-ups in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas organization, including the guru himself. Don't you think that I would have encountered spiritually elevated people through these interactions?

What I found, though, was that those who had spent the most time around the guru, and had done the most meditation, seemed to be just as human, flawed, and imperfect as I was. I don't know whether they had any marvelous mystical experiences. How would I?

What I do know is that I couldn't see any sign that they'd become more warm, loving, generous, happier, or compassionate. This helped lead me to question the wisdom of sticking with spiritual practices that didn't seem to produce positive effects in people, even after a long time.

I submit these questions with the utmost respect, Brian. Your choices are just that; your own.

On that we agree. And on other things too, I'm sure.

I'm convinced that people are much more alike than different. Religion, like other "isms," tends to divide us -- since religious believers cling to ideas and concepts rather than directly experienced reality.

Since I've embraced churchlessness, I feel quite a bit closer to other people. I no longer think of myself as belonging to any special group.

Except those who live in Oregon -- which obviously is the best state (except to those in other parts of the country who have a different view of obviousness).

A dialogue about Radha Soami Satsang Beas

A few days ago I posted a message from Shiloh, "The anguish of losing a loved one to exotic religion." That was part of my communications with her.

Here's the other part: a question and answer dialogue we had about Radha Soami Satsang Beas, the India-based spiritual organization that is the exotic religion Shiloh was concerned about.

We exchanged several email messages after Shiloh wrote to me, asking if I'd help her better understand the organization that I was an active member of for many years.

Here's our Q & A exchange, starting with some introductory remarks and moving to eight questions about Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

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Shiloh: I will be very grateful if you can help me with these questions, Brian, since I feel you are in a unique position to evaluate this movement with your years of involvement and the books you wrote associated with Radhasoami.

It seems to me that your seemingly ‘fruitless’ investment of thirty-eight amazingly patient years, has become an immensely valuable grounding for your post in its role of revealing to other seekers the pitfalls and time-wasting illusions of this particular path.

Especially since I dearly love and care about my sister, I personally feel deeply grateful for your openness and honesty about your experiences, which must ultimately save many souls much needless pain and confusion. So thank you for valuable work and whatever time and consideration you give to this particular letter.

Brian: No problem. Re. the paragraph above, I wouldn't say "fruitless." I gained a lot from my involvement with RSSB. For most of the three decades plus I was quite content. Sort of similar to my first marriage. Getting divorced doesn't take away all of the loving times. It just means that after the loving, a distancing occurred.

You might mean by "fruitless," though, that I didn't soar to higher regions of reality. If so, this presumes that such exist. Or that it is important to reach those realms to be "spiritual." Now, I'm not so sure. Some see this as sour grapes, a result of failed meditation. But to me it feels more like an understanding that inner and outer, spirit and matter, soul and body aren't so different. Maybe not different at all. 

Shiloh: Sorry you misunderstood me. I thought if I wrote ‘seemingly’  before ‘fruitless’ and encased ‘fruitless’  itself in inverted comas I would convey that this is not my personal feeling but how it could appear to others.

Here’s my questions, your answers, and my comments on your answers:

(1)  Is it true that one is required to pledge life-long loyalty to the Sant Mat master upon initiation?

Brian: Yes, this is true. It is supposed to be a life-long commitment. But of course, many initiates drop out along the way. Sort of like marriage. The vow is "till death do you part," but divorces are common anyway.

Shiloh: This ruling was surely designed to make any initiate wishing to drop out because of doubts, feel especially guilty and bad.


(2)  Is an initiate encouraged to meditate on an image – whether mental or photographic – of the master?

Brian: In the Charan Singh days, no. You had to have seen the guru in person. Then you could visualize his form (face/eyes) during meditation. This is part of the reason I went to the Dera in 1977, because I'd been initiated for almost seven years and hadn't seen Charan Singh in person.

Shiloh: Whatever the template used for this visualization, I find it suspicious, since in the pliable astral sphere, long-held thoughts become things. This tells me that disciples are being encouraged to build their own thought forms of the master which they could then see and mistake for his radiant form if they are ever successful in leaving the body.

Which further tells me that the master has no confidence in his own ability to appear in his light body to any out-of-the-body satsangis. This combined with praying for the Guru’s grace puts one in mind of the Christian biblical exhortation not to worship graven images.

(3)  Are satsangis encouraged to ‘pray’ to the master and to expect mental interaction with him about such petitions?

Brian: Well, not really. Surrender is encouraged more than prayer, in the sense of prayer being asking for specific things to happen. Praying for the guru's grace is encouraged, though. That's pretty much what meditation is about, in a sense. An initiate isn't told to expect a response to prayer. Certainly not "mental interaction."

Shiloh: Since one surrenders oneself to the will of the Guru and prays to him (if only for grace) the master clearly replaces God in the satsangi’s life, usurping what many would feel should be the Creator’s unique role in human lives.

(4)  Does the movement’s hierarchy hint at earthly or afterlife harm for satsangis who leave, thus ensuring uneasiness about ever leaving?

Brian: Yes. The idea is that once initiated, you're stuck to the guru/God forever -- the bulldozer metaphor that you might have heard of. Meaning, if you’re chained to a bulldozer, no matter how much you try to move in a different direction, you’ll end up going where the bulldozer does.

One RSSB devotee has been threatening me with Sant Mat hellfire for having questions about the path. I don't know about earthly harm, but lack of faith in the guru incurs some training/discipline after death, I seem to recall reading in some of the books.

Shiloh: This confirms my uneasiness about this movement setting up a premeditated trap, which the novice, after initiation, cannot easily extricate himself from emotionally. It seems to me that few uncertain souls (stressed-out and sleepless - especially at first - due to the long hours of meditation) would find the courage to risk such a fate no matter how disillusioned they may feel.

(5)  Are Kal and the mind used to dispel the disciple’s rational assessment of the master and his words and actions?

Brian: Absolutely. Questioning is supposed to happen before initiation. Afterwards, the initiate is warned to beware of Kal, the Universal Mind who stood on one foot for eons and earned the right from God to rule the lower regions of creation. (Shiloh: Great heavens! How spiritually athletic!)  Kal's job is to keep souls here, and the mind is his means of doing so.

Shiloh: I rest my case. The above-mentioned attitude nullifies the checks and balances ingrained into our very souls to guard against deception. Willfully giving up the critical mind must indefinitely commit one to labor, with dwarfed mentality, through a spiritual never-never land where the only hope of eventual rescue is through painful disillusionment. Since my sister defensively denied that there was any such requirement, she obviously knows, deep down, how dubious this is.

(6)  Do you know of anyone who has seen (first hand) the current master accompanied by machine-gun-bearing guards?

Brian: I went to India, to the Dera headquarters of RSSB, in 1998 to finish my book Life is Fair. While there, I saw Gurinder Singh walking around accompanied just as you said, by machine gun bearing guards. It was a bit surprising. But also understandable, given the tensions in the Punjab.

Shiloh: I agree. But only because I think the master is a mere man and not God.  If I thought he was God, seeing him protected by guns would blow my mind: after all how could God protect anyone else if he could not protect his own incarnated form without physical guards bearing material weapons?

I cannot imagine how this behavior squares up with those believing him to be God. Further, if God is love why would he even attract enemies? After all, Jesus’ death was apparently destined to save mankind and he did not arm himself against it but offered himself up to those who wanted him killed. And if God, embodied as the present guru, wanted to remain on earth longer, why couldn’t he make his earthly instrument safe without the offensive bad-example use of weaponry? After all no one is holding a gun to his head! (Or are they?)

Thinking of the current master as a man, I’ve just experienced my first pang of empathy.  I believe he was a reluctant successor – and  how terrible it must be to have to spend your entire life pretending to be God. How ghastly must be the constant scrutiny and the act of putting on a holy front and the continual dread of doing or saying something ungodly?

Hold on: even if any mistakes are made, the secret of his true human identity would remain safe with so many adoring satsangis primed to put a profound spin onto any awkward accidents! There seems little room for truth in god-man movements.

(7)  Is it true that satsangis are subtly pressured to donate money or property to the movement?

Brian: In my experience, subtly. Not overtly. I don't know what it is like in the Indian community.

Shiloh: I’m glad you mentioned the latter since I suspect that pushing for donations might be more easier and acceptable among faith based, notoriously blindly-believing Asian communities, and thus may be much more blatant there. This of course reveals the usual motive behind so many religious charades: money and possessions and the power that accompanies these things.

(8)  Is it an observable fact that the current master lives lavishly and travels in luxury?

Brian: Don't know if you have read the post on my blog by the Caribbean guy. Here's a link. He addressed this subject.

Shiloh: Thanks. Having now read this, I must confess it confirms my early belief that the current master seems more preoccupied with physical pleasure and material possessions than with the spiritual evolution of his fellow man.

The anguish of losing a loved one to exotic religion

Here's a well-written, thoughtful message from a woman who is disturbed that her sister has joined the spiritual group that I was a member of for many years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). 

Shiloh emailed me a while back, asking some questions about RSSB that I answered. I'll share those Q & A in another post soon. I asked Shiloh if she'd be OK with me sharing her thoughts in a blog post.

She was. And chose the title for this post.

Shiloh expresses herself well. She's a great example of how someone can be churchless, yet godly. As I often say on this blog, personal beliefs in god are fine so long as they are recognized for what they are.

Personal. Beliefs. Read on...
_____________________________

A message from Shiloh:

Dear Brian,

Coming from a loose Christian background, I am a fellow churchless one in that I have always been content with what was in my own heart and felt no need to seek God outside of it. I did free-form meditation from age eleven and consciously left my body several times from the age of thirteen. I have always believed in God, felt protected, loved and driven to serve – not a master but all creation.

As an adult, at different times over the years, I looked into two Eastern movements, not primarily for spiritual guidance, but in the hopes of improving my meditation and learning to astral travel at will.  After linking up with these exotic movements, I experienced associated phenomena (in both instances, strangely, before initiation). Although this was fascinating and intriguing, I divorced myself from both movements on points of principle, early on.
 
Being churchless is what I advocate, and in spite of upholding the teachings of Jesus and seeing his life as the highest earthly example (that I know of), I cannot accept the cruelties, errors and inconsistencies in the Bible and have never wanted to join any Christian church –  most of which seem to me to be rigidly stultified in their own brick buildings.

I believe each of us is capable of having a personal internal relationship with God, and have long felt that priests, whose purpose is supposedly to connect congregants with their God, often unknowingly do the opposite.

Which is why I was particularly horrified when my own sister joined the Radhasoami movement. (If priests, with their intercessions etc, stand between us and God, then gurus with their I-am-God implications must surely block Him out completely!) Alice has dutifully read much of the official RS literature, but this seems worth little since her only investigation into the guru’s godhood is conducted via other blindly-believing fellow devotees.
 
However, having myself consciously experienced (outside of Sant Mat) the astral plane, and (without being told of it) aspects of the Sound Current, I believe that the movement’s promised phenomena are real and achievable, if very rarely achieved (according to many ex-satsangis) and certainly not guaranteed. What these phenomena mean, and their benefits or lack thereof, are open to speculation.

What I cannot accept is the claim (A) that only Sant Mat adherents experience sound, light and astral projection, and (B) that its guru is a perfect living master (divinity incarnate) with an ability to raise his disciples to the ultimate in spiritual heights, to protect them from astral ‘monsters’ and from the consequences of their deeds – i.e. sparing them from endless karma-fraught future lives.

While I can accept enlightened mortals as teachers, I feel deeply disturbed about any man being set-up as an exclusive stand-in for God. Even more sinister is the requirement that followers give up the use of their own God-given minds – a necessary step if one is to hand over one’s life to another human being.
 
My sister believes that since she may never meet her master, no harm can come of belonging to this movement even if it turns out that the master is not God. I disagree, since what she is saying, in essence, is that truth does not matter. But Truth, after all, is objective reality, and whatever moves us away from that must necessarily distort our view of things and thus affect us in countless unknown ways.

Yet Alice, like thousands in this movement, is prepared to give up her free will, her life’s direction and her reasoning faculties to rely on the Guru’s ruling on everything – all this without evidence and on the fallible recommendations of others. I feel amazed that anyone can expect so little of the Creator of this marvelous Universe, that they so readily confer His exalted identity onto what, to all outward appearances, is a mere man.
 
With kind regards,
 
I am,
 
Shiloh

Tai Chi vs. Shabd Yoga -- I name a winner

I love questions. Especially those I can answer. Here's one that Todd Chambers asked me a few days ago via a comment on a post about giving up Buddhism and Zen.

So Brian, on the subject of Tai Chi, I wanted to ask you if you could say which practice has seemed more rewarding for you: Shabda Yoga or Tai Chi? Or do you have a preference?

Interesting question.

I diligently practiced the Radha Soami Satsang Beas version of Surat Shabd Yoga (a.k.a. Sant Mat) for over thirty years, including a whole lot of daily meditation. And for about five years I've been studying Tai Chi fairly intensely, usually attending classes for five hours a week and doing the forms on my own at other times.

Now, comparing Tai Chi and Shabd Yoga might seem like an "apples and oranges" sort of thing, because they are so different.

But Todd asked which has been more rewarding for me, which doesn't require a point by point comparison. Plus, most people would say they are both "spiritual practices" -- though I really don't understand what spiritual means and wish we could do away with the notion of spirituality.

I've gained a lot from both Tai Chi and Shabd Yoga. However, here's why I consider Tai Chi and Taoism (Tai Chi is an expression of Taoism) to be much better suited for me now.

I love the naturalness of Tai Chi.

There is nothing, or at least very little, forced about it. You don't try to be anything other than what you are, doing what you can do. Performing a form (a set of movements) is called "playing."

My instructor, Warren, likes to tell a story about a bunch of senior (meaning, old) Chinese Tai Chi adepts who got together and said, "Let's each play a form." They did. And every playing looked way different from the others.

Each practitioner had his own style, his own way of melding Tai Chi with himself -- his personality, energy, physical body, attitude, and such. When they all had shown their stuff, laughter erupted with hearty expressions of "Everyone looked so good."

And so different.

In Shabd Yoga, or Sant Mat, the goal is sameness. Every disciple of a Shabd Yoga guru tries to emulate the master, aiming to merge his or her self with the oft-heard "will of the Satguru." The result is a straining to act just right. Shabd Yoga disciples are perpetually worried about doing something wrong.

In Radha Soami Satsang Beas this could be eating a speck of meat, sipping some wine, consuming pastries with egg in them, having sex outside of marriage, or not meditating for several hours a day.

In Tai Chi and Taoism, the variety I've been exposed to, there are no rigid rules. Laughter and a smile is the response to a seeming stumble, whether of the physical or psychological variety. I like that. It feels so right to not worry about being wrong.

We are human beings living in the physical world. That's where Tai Chi and Taoism start. And, in a sense, end.

Meaning, there isn't the other-worldly emphasis that dominates Shabd Yoga and Sant Mat -- which are aimed at releasing the soul from the confines of mind and body. In Tai Chi mind and body smoothly combine in flowing movement, as well as stillness.

The frequently-stated Tai Chi goal is to listen.

To yourself. To an opponent. To the cosmos. You aren't trying to dominate, control, force, overturn, fix. You listen, and from the listening comes appropriate action.

Which will be different for every time, for every person, for every situation. My instructor is fond of relating how a Tai Chi master was asked what the application, or martial purpose, was for a particular Tai Chi movement.

The master laughed and said, "Who can say? Whatever is happening determines what needs to be done." In other words, if you are attacked or find yourself in a confrontation, there are no rules except listen and respond appropriately.

This makes Tai Chi and Taoism wonderfully flexible and non-dogmatic.

So I've found that by no longer trying to be spiritual, I'm closer to being whatever the hell that word means, or doesn't mean.

Example: when I practiced Shabd Yoga/Sant Mat, I worked hard at being humble. Every serious disciple I know did also. If someone thanked you for your volunteer work, you were expected to say something like, "Oh, it is all the grace of the guru. I'm nothing, just a tool in His hands."

Then you'd feel ever so special for being so marvelously humble. After a while (several decades, because I can be a slow learner), it dawned on me that feeling special isn't an especially laudatory quality.

It certainly was at odds with the egolessness that Shabd Yoga held up as the goal of spiritual practice.

I came to realize that the Sant Mat dogma of initiates being especially chosen by God and the Guru to return to "heaven" (Sach Khand), while other poor souls (like my wife) were doomed to endless reincarnations on this crappy physical Earth, wasn't helping me on the humility or ego-loss front.

Now, I love not feeling special. I'm just a run of the mill Tai Chi student, and run of the mill human being, who is doing his best to live life halfway wisely, responsibly, and enjoyably.

I no longer feel that I'm part of a chosen group who are privy to knowing, or on their way to knowing, secrets of the cosmos that are hidden from others by a divine design. I used to talk a lot about being one with my fellow human beings and the universe at large.

Now, I don't talk much about that stuff. But I feel the oneness much more than in my Shabd Yoga days, because I've stopped setting myself apart as a member of a special group.

Hope this answers your question, Todd. Halfway, at least. That's good enough for me these days.

(Here's ten reasons for guys to like Tai Chi, using "guys" in the inclusive modern sense.)

Punjab "deras" point to continuing caste tensions

A friend, Randy, sent me a link to an article about "Deras, Caste Conflicts and Recent Violence in Punjab." It's interesting.

Twice I've visited Dera Baba Jaimal Singh in the Punjab area of India. It's the headquarters of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an organization that practices a form of neo-Sikhism.

Meaning, a living guru is worshipped, not the Adi Granth Sahib, a book (which traditional Sikhs revere in somewhat the same sense as Christians look upon the Bible, as God's word).

I wasn't aware how many "deras" there are in the Punjab. The article says:

In Punjab, the number of Deras are not in hundreds but in thousands. A study conducted by the Desh Sewak, a Punjabi newspaper published from Chandigarh, gives figures that there are more than 9000 Sikh as well as non-Sikh Deras in the 12,000 villages of Punjab.

Being an American, I don't understand how the caste system can still be such a powerful influence in 21st century India. But the Deras, which are described as sects "headed by self-styled godmen," have sprung up largely in response to caste inequalites.

Much of the following that the sects are attracting is because people from lower casts and lower stratas of Punjab society are trying to seek a distinct identity for themselves.

Dalits are the low-ranking ethnic group that is getting shafted by caste prejudices. By contrast, the first article says that the Jatt Sikhs are on the high end of the Punjab totem pole.

Recently riots broke out in the Punjab after a leader of one of the sects, Dera Sach Khand, was killed in Vienna. If it weren't for religion -- the weird aspects of Hinduism and Sikhism -- likely none of this would be happening.

A Sant Mat guru answers a question with: "Don't question"

Shin, whose email to me a few months back was shared in "Good questions from a Sant Mat truth seeker," is still questioning.

Good for him.

Below I've shared, with minor editing, a report from Shin of a Q & A session between him and Gurinder Singh -- the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a branch of Sant Mat.

What's especially interesting about this interaction is that one of the parties, Gurinder Singh, is considered to be God in Human Form (GIHF) by RSSB devotees. So to a believer, what the guru says is the gospel truth.

Or the divine truth, since Sant Mat is far removed from Christianity, except in the sense that the GIHF guru is viewed, like Jesus, as having been sent to take fallen souls back to God.

Shin addresses this notion of a "fall" in his questions. If God is perfect, then why was an imperfect physical universe created?

And what's up with this game God is said to be playing? Souls fall from heaven, or are kicked out, and then need to make the right moves to return to their previous exalted state.

What's the point?

This assumes, of course, that a fall occurred, that God exists, that a savior is needed to bridge the gap between heaven and earth. Sant Mat, like Christianity, claims that these things are true. But no evidence is provided to back that claim up.

So it's natural to question. The following interchange occurred during a question and answer session following a talk at RSSB's headquarters in England (Haynes Park) earlier this week.

What surprised me is that this Q & A session reportedly included advice from Gurinder Singh not to question or use one's intellect after being intitiated into the RSSB fold.

Except, that is what everybody who comes to the microphone in a Q&A session necessarily does. Including the guru, who uses his intellectual capacities to answer questions, just as members of the audience use theirs to ask them.

I've never understood this fear of questioning, or of using one's god-given (rather, evolution-given) mental abilities. It seems to relate to the whole Fallen thing -- where humans are believed to have descended from paradise because they thought, questioned, and learned too much.

Theologically, this doesn't make sense. Psychologically, this dogma sets religious believers at odds with themselves.

As Shin notes, people productively use their intellects in every area of life, but are told to shut their intelligence down when it comes to their religiosity. One is drawn to wonder: is this for the benefit of the believer, or for the religious organization?

Read on...
----------------------------
From Shin:

I wish to share the following with your audience on the Church of the Churchless site.

The Master [Gurinder Singh] was at Haynes Park (3 day visit) over the weekend 2nd, 3rd & 4th of May. I did not attend until Monday and went to ask a question my daughter and others wanted me to ask, so here goes:

Question: "As you stated on Saturday (to another enquirer) and confirmed to me a couple of years ago when I asked...

This existence we are all a part of is a GAME created out of boredom. Therefore this infers IMPERFECTION. Hence, why do we want to go back to imperfection, only to be told, the Game will continue or a new one created and you will have to be sent back! As you will only be bored here"?

Answer: "Do not take everything I say as literal and it may just be expressed in jest! Anyway it is not imperfect up there/in there and you will not be sent back."

My thoughts: Why were we sent here from Perfection? Does not make sense and can only imply a game or a form of entertainment for the Creator. The Masters cannot explain why we are here but can categorically state we will not be sent back!

I challenged the Master once more towards the end of my questioning and asked if he could say "without question this is not a game."

Answer: "You can if you want, take it as a play or performers performing on a stage."

My thoughts: What's the difference?!

My second question, following on from the first:

Question: "This game is fundamentally the Creator experiencing Itself through each individual soul. Therefore he is experiencing all the good, all the bad, and evil through us as a part of this game?"

Answer: "No, the Creator does not need to experience good or bad, he does not need to."

My thoughts: The Shabd [Spirit] or Creator is within every living organism. In fact the satsang [talk] prior to the Q&A session was presided over by an American who categorically stated "every hair follicle and every amoeba has the shabd resounding within." Therefore the Creator MUST be experiencing all that happens and if he IS NOT why on earth can he JUDGE?!

Finally I asked this of him: "Do you believe in the Law of Confusion and the Veil of Forgetfulness?"

Answer: "There is no Law of Confusion!"

My thoughts: Well, I think 99.99% of us are indeed confused when it comes to religions and faiths. The ones who claim not to be confused are the "sheep" within these faiths. How can there be no confusion as the Masters themselves state we are not to know our previous lives and hence be able to stop from making the same mistakes?!

The Master more or less ended with this comment to me: "Once you have been initiated you should not question and use your intellect."

My thoughts: Use your intellect in everything you do in life but not on this faith. You cannot question at anytime in your life as you mature through it. You question everything as your perspectives change!

In October 2008 the Master said: "I believe you if you have doubts but will not if you say you do not!" Another contradictory statement.

During the Q&A session a lady stood up and made the following statement: My friend (or it could have been a relation, could not quite hear) was initiated recently but now claims he feels MORE confined now he is on the path."

My thoughts: The problem I feel with all faiths is though they claim to free you, you are in fact going from one prison to another. 

At the end of the Q&A's, as I walked to my car, a couple of people congratulated me on the question while one laughed it off and insisted he did not have any. Obviously this person forgot what the Master said in October -- another sheep!

On returning home and over the next couple of days i had three intense phone calls all insisting that I DO NOT USE MY INTELLECT!!

"The Leader is Great...Great is the Leader....Never Question the Leader"....a familiar Simpson's episode to many.

The family know my thoughts now and I suppose will shun me in the future. Though my brother agrees with virtually everything I have said and read on this blog he states he cannot leave the Master! I feel behind this sentiment is a feeling of fear, which is echoed amongst many followers of religions and faiths.

Take care,
Shin

Cogent critical analysis of Sant Mat

Often comments added to a blog post by other people are the best part of something I've written.

Such was the thought that went through my mind on April 28, when I read a comment by tAo that he'd submitted to my "Another RSSB initiate bites the dust" post. With minor editing, I've copied it in below to give it wider attention.

Though the subject is the Sant Mat philosophy that forms the basis of the teachings of an Indian organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, seemingly much of what tAo says applies to any religious group.

I agree that many of those who become "churchless" don't do so because of a lack of mystical or spiritual experiences while they're members of a "church." Rather, the opposite is true.

Often they have profound realizations. However, what is realized leads to a conclusion that truth lies in a different direction from what their organization teaches.

tAo also makes a good point when he distinguishes between (1) mystical experiences of purported higher realms of reality, and (2) intuitive insight into the nature of reality.

It's sort of like the difference between (1) having a marvelous dream, and (2) waking up. No matter what is experienced in a dream, it is still illusory -- not to be confused with awakening.

Here's tAo's submission. He is commenting on previous comments to the post, which I've shown in italics.

------------------------------------
George posted the following comments:

"One has to let go of the intellect to pierce the veil and connect with a different state to achieve some sort of mystical experience or gnosis."

-- But that which you describe is not the actual practice of shabda yoga. First, the intellect can not and need not be let go of. Shabda yoga meditation is simply listening to an 'inner' sound current and seeing an 'inner' light. And also, there is no "connect with a different state".

The prescribed meditation is to put attention upon the inner sound current (the "shabda" or "nam"), and that is itself the goal. From then on, the shabda then supposedly draws the consciousness of the practitioner into higher and higher subtle planes, and supposedly, ultimately beyond the realm of the mind into a transcendent purely spiritual realm. The "mystical experience" that is achieved, is simply the action of drawing of the individual's consciousness (the "surat" or "soul" in Radha Soami (RS) parlance) beyond the body and material plane, and up into inner higher subtle planes, supposedly eventually reaching the imperishable spiritual realm.

"These mechanical tenets [...] them being tools to try and open up the mind and release it from the supposed clutter of the intellect."

-- No... again, the practice of shabda yoga meditation is not done to "open up the mind and release it from the supposed clutter of the intellect". It is done specifically to bring the attention of the practitioner to directly perceiving the shabda/nam or the inner sound current (which supposedly emanates from the highest spiritual plane), which then supposedly has the power to automatically draw the practitioner's consciousness upwards into higher more subtle inner planes.

"Those that have had a mystical experience continue to follow RS, while those that do not become disillusioned."

-- I don't agree. It is actually more the opposite. Most of those who do continue to follow RS, have by and large achieved little or no mystical experiences; and many of those who have left RS (or "disillusioned" as you say), have indeed had unique and profound mystical experiences (but not derived from or related to the practice of RS meditation), but which the RS meditation has not brought about and not proven effective in achieving such experiences.

So I would not say that those who stay with RS are the ones who have achieved "mystical experiences". They only stay because they hope and believe in the promise of someday achieving those experiences, not because they have had any experiences.

These are all things that are much more obvious to those of us who are very knowledgeable and experienced in Sant Mat, and not to people like yourself who basically have little understanding and knowledge and no experience in Sant Mat. There is no criticism in this. It is simply a matter of having correct understanding of what is the actual practice and the goal of Sant Mat, of the shabda yoga meditation.

"Those that enter RS with a western questioning mind geared more towards rationalism, would seem inherently predisposed away from entering into this different state."

-- That may be true to some extent, but the eastern mind can be very inquiring as well. But neither eastern nor western is more predisposed. Achieving results in shabda yoga is much more simply a matter of focusing upon the inner sound current, and having experience of traversing the inner subtle planes as outlined in the Sant Mat cosmology.

"But this seems to be [...] that one has to risk one's mind as it were, to let it go totally, and i'm not sure if the disillusioned ex-satsangis were ever truly able to do this."

-- I beg to differ with that notion as well. It is the "disillusioned ex-satsangis" who are really the ones who have "let it go" far more than the RS believers who hold on to Sant Mat dogma and beliefs. The believers have not "let go" at all. They are rigidly holding onto the master/savior figure, the body of dogma, and the hope that the practice (shabda meditation) will deliver them to the goal.

[George's comments to Brian]:

"The goal of RS is to unite with the sound, othewise why do it?"

-- The goal is not so much as to "unite" with the sound, but rather to simply hear and meditate UPON the sound current (and light)... so that the sound & light current (shabda/nam) will then draw the consciousness (or 'soul') up into higher more subtle realms and beyond... eventually to the spiritual realm. So the practice is not to "unite", but rather to focus and maintain attention upon the sound. [The practice also includes internal repetition of a mantra, and visualization of the form of the guru]

"Mechanical tenets for achieving this, i.e. vegetarianism, purity, etc are surely all just tools forming part of a method that have been found through practical experience by the saints/satgurus through the ages to supposedly be the best method for achieving such a connection or unity."

-- Yes that is generally true of many paths, but in Sant Mat those things (vegetarianism, purity, etc) are simply peripheral aids intended to assist in a more effective meditation... and they are not the primary practice.

"the plain intended meaning, which is [...] some sort of unity or connection with a creative force or sound where one experiences this gnosis or direct intuitive insight into the nature of reality."

-- That is somewhat correct, but not specifically. Yes, the "intended meaning" or purpose is to "connect" with the shabda/sound-current, but that is not really stated as being to have "direct intuitive insight into the nature of reality".

The stated purpose of "connecting" and meditating upon the sound current is all about facilitating the so-called "soul" to be drawn up through and beyond the material, subtle, and mental planes... and into the (supposed) supreme transcendental spiritual realm. The practice and the goal of Santmat is not generally stated as being for any so-called "direct intuitive insight into the nature of reality". That is much more the orientation of traditions such as Ch'an/Zen, and advaita vedanta, jnana yoga, siddha yoga, and dzogchen.

"Such a feeling must surely be overwhelming if experienced [...] Why would someone get off the RS path having had such a profound experience."

-- Again, the reason that people remain on the RS path is not because they have had, but because they have NOT had "such a profound experience". They remain because they are seeking that, and because they believe that Sant Mat will eventually give them that.

It is far more likely that those folks who HAVE had "profound experiences" realize that such experiences are not at all dependent upon, or limited to Sant Mat. In fact, some of the practices and beliefs of Sant Mat may be impediments to realizing such mystical experiences.

But ultimately, all such supposed "mystical" experiences are phenomenal, transitory, and they do not equate with actual realization/recognition or as you say "direct intutive insight into the nature of reality".

"The love for their guru and his teachings would be massive."

-- The so-called "love" for the guru is simply an aspect of cult mentality. It is not actual real love, as the disciples never have any closeness or proximity, or any actual personal contact or interaction with the guru... the guru who basically remains aloof and inaccessible to the masses of followers.

"Perhaps I have misunderstood your reasons for leaving Sant Mat."

-- Yes, I believe that is definitely the case. But that is not your fault. To really understand why someone would leave, requires that you know quite a lot about the RS path, its dogma, its practice, its guru worship, its authoritarianism, its organization and sangat, and various sorts of other aspects that a non-initiate would not be privy to, or familiar with, or have had any direct experience of.

I hope this helps you to get a better picture as to the actual practice and intended goal of Sant Mat.

"I don't assume to know a single thing about ultimate reality. I find such a concept in itself quite overwhelming and am not even sure such a state or means of perception exists."

-- Thats good observation and thinking George. I agree with you.

"My limited understanding [...] is that RS is one of many mystic traditions that supposedly allows one to enter into some sort of raised consciousness in which one is able to unite with something bigger, with the one or ultimate reality or whatever."

-- Yes, that's more or less the supposition of Sant Mat.

"I understand it is a feeling like being in love, like returning home to the source and so on and so forth."

-- No... thats not really quite how it is, or how it turns out.

"I have never experienced this."

-- But that is irrelevant. You HAVE experienced many other things that are no less important and meaningful. There is nothing special that you do not have. Life itself is what's its all about, not some particular special meditation experience or extraordinary altered state. There is nothing lacking for you to gain, in that respect.

"What are people after? What were you after? I mean why did you not just go the zen route or yoga if it was mere meditation and clean living you were after?"

-- Its all simply a matter of the vagaries of the search. Each person's process and journey is unique.

"I don't assume that any form of religion - mystical, mainstream or otherwise - provides any type of higher knowledge, but am interested in trying to find out."

-- Thats a reasonable question. But the best path (in my opinion) is to be content with, and proceed on YOUR OWN unique path, as it is revealed and lived from moment to moment.

"It sounds like my understanding of RS is incorrect and that many people entered RS for other reasons, which means i obviously totally misunderstand the main aim or goal of the tradition itself."

-- Yes, that's much what I was trying to tell you awhile back. But you reacted in a negative way. Yet I and others have been trying to better explain Sant Mat to you. Its not your fault. It takes awhile to correctly understand what Sant Mat is all about.

"The guru is coming!" Strange things disciples do.

Here are some interesting observations about Gurinder Singh's apparent upcoming visit to the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) center in England, Haynes Park.

Singh is the "perfect living master" of the organization and is considered by the faithful to be God in Human Form (GIHF). So, not surprisingly, a visit from God creates a lot of excitement.

Some of which I used to share, when I was an active member of RSSB. But I passed up quite a few chances to drop everything and make a frantic dash to see the guru when he made one of his surprise trips to the western United States.

My attitude, which is echoed in some thoughts below, was that if seeing the guru had salutary effects on people, you'd expect that frequent GIHF-observers would have gotten some benefits from all their devotion.

This wasn't evident to me. Not that this should be expected. People go to see a rock band that they're big fans of and don't come away changed either. They simply have a good time.

Which also seems to be the goal of many, if not most, of those who are looking forward to the guru's Haynes Park visit. Nothing wrong with that.

What's strange, though, is how strange disciples act when word gets out that "the guru is coming!" Read on...

Q and A about me and Sant Mat

I love questions. And me. So when someone asks me questions about me, I'm in double love.

Today Georgey left a comment on this post that included five questions. I started to reply via another comment, but then realized that even though I'm practicing non-verbosity through Twitter now, I needed the space of a blog post to do the answers justice.

Georgey started with...

Brian, yours is a very interesting blog, read thru many of your articles on the Sant Mat stuff, which my scientific conditioning nevertheless find intriguing and your different experiences of it. I'd be interested to know some personal stuff, but I understand if you don't want to reveal such truths.

No problem. I'm a revealing guy. Here's the questions and my answers.

(1) Why and how did you turn to Sant Mat initially?

"Why" has so many layers and levels. "How" is easier to tackle. I've told the (strange) story of how I became a Sant Mat initiate here.

Having done the devoted disciple thing with a Yoga teacher who melded his crazy style of Christianity with various Eastern teachings, including a Greek Orthodox'ized version of Sant Mat, I smoothly flowed into accepting Charan Singh as my guru.

Looking back on my 22 year-old self from my current 60 year-old perspective, I can theorize about some psychological "why's."

Having spent just one hour with my father, the notion of a cosmically close relationship with a wise, kind, loving bearded much older guru must have appealed to my father-deprived psyche. Plus, Charan Singh liked to speak about God as the Father.

Also, I applied for initiation in 1970, which was, obviously, right after the '60s. I'd just graduated from a college in the San Francisco Bay Area, so had been immersed in the free wheeling Flower Child sex, drugs, and rock-&-roll culture.

Some stability in the form of religious rules and vows was a counterpoint to the chaos of the sixties. I'd started on a straighter and narrower path through my yoga practice. That continued with the following thirty-three years of so of Sant Mat practice.

(2) Why do you think you never had a spiritual experience despite 30 years of devoted meditation?

Like I've been saying in several posts lately, including here, I'm not sure what "spiritual" means anymore. I had plenty of experiences in meditation.

What I didn't have was the sort of out-of-body, astral projecting, soul-flying, blasts of cosmic light and sound experiences that the Radha Soami Satsang Beas version of Sant Mat tells disciples to expect in meditation.

A few days after I was initiated I heard loud bell sounds inside my head while I was meditating. These never came back. I've had other glimpses of inner light and hearings of inner sound, but these could be (and probably are) produced by the brain, not immaterial soul or spirit.

Over more than three decades I've talked with lots of fellow RSSB initiates about their experiences in meditation. More accurately, their lack thereof.

When these people spoke honestly and openly (which usually isn't done in the formal satsangs, or talks), I learned that my lack of mind-blowing meditation experiences was par for the course in Sant Mat.

(3) Do you believe such spiritual (transcendental) experiences actually exist or that they are creations of our minds?

I lean toward the second hypothesis -- mind created -- but am open to the "actual" possibility. What helps tilt me in the skeptical direction is how members of different faiths almost invariably experience what their religious teachings tell them to expect.

Christian mystics feel the presence of Jesus or a personal God. Hindus, something quite different. And so on. If Buddhist monks came back from a meditation session and said, "Islam has it right! Allah is the One!," I'd pay attention.

But this happens extremely rarely. Yet the word "actually" in this question points toward a reality largely independent of human expectations, desires, mental conditioning, and the like.

At the least, it seems clear that meditators tend to experience what they expect to experience.

Sant Mat, in fact, instructs initiates not to pay attention to any inner sights or sounds that aren't accompanied by the presence of the guru. So this is a good example of a faith trying to prohibit certain inner experiences that aren't consonant with party-line teachings.

(4) These Sant Mat gurus might be fairly remarkable people, albeit with flaws, did you ever get the feeling you were in the presence of some sort of ultra-enlightened being?

I gave myself that feeling -- which was aided by all the hoopla and devotional rituals surrounding the RSSB gurus. But I never saw any evidence that the gurus really were "ultra-enlightened" (whatever that means).

They forgot things. Made mistakes. Misspoke. Just like a normal human being. Yes, they had charisma and what the current guru, Gurinder Singh, likes to call "the gift of gab."

But I'm a good public speaker myself. And I'm sure not enlightened. Unless I'm unaware of my divinity, which I'm pleased to consider as a possibility (my wife, however, would beg to differ).

Speaking of my wife... her skeptical non-Sant Mat self would frequently say, during our nineteen years of marriage, "I'd like to see what the guru is doing twenty four hours a day, not just during his public face time."

Her point, based in part on her experience as a psychotherapist, is that people can project an idealized image, and others can resonate with it, which is at odds with how they are at unguarded moments.

Laurel has had some close-up time with Gurinder Singh. She sees him as just a normal person, nothing special. This also is how I saw the guru when I didn't recognize him, as described here.

(5) Do you ever wonder if you would get back on the Sant Mat path?

Not really. But this question gets me doing so. Answer: almost certainly not. At least, not in the way I viewed the path before.

One of my favorite Church of the Churchless posts is "Believers, I'm even more deluded than you think." This pretty much answers your question.

I don't consider that I've left Sant Mat. Meaning, to me there's a core of non-religiousness in this teaching which is a useful guide to seeking whatever reality (if any) lies beyond appearances.

It's the same core that is in almost every mystic teaching that I've studied or have heard about. I'm still on that pathless path.

Good questions from a Sant Mat truth seeker

Questions...they're so much more important than answers. Questions open us up. They point us in the direction of truth. They help us avoid premature explanations that haven't ripened into a reality we can depend on.

Below is a mildly edited email message that I got yesterday from a thoughtful, questioning member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, the group that I belonged to for over thirty years.

I've responded to this person in a comment. Hopefully other Church of the Churchless visitors will do the same, as he or she requested.

Even if you aren't familiar with the Sant Mat theologies that are referred to, some of the issues raised below are universal. That's the thrust I'm going to take in my own comment response: focusing on this person's overall frame of mind more than discrete questions.

Read on...
------------------------------
Dear Brian,

I have recently stumbled across your Church of the Churchless site and other ex- satsangi sites. I am writing this more in hope than anything else....hope of finding the TRUTH.

I have been initiated {RSSB - Current Master - Gurinder Singh} for over ten years. I came to RS through family, in fact through three generations of stalwart satsangis. Therefore it has been very difficult for me to speak like this with all around me opposing what I am doing. This is not totally true; I do have one other in the family who has questions similar to mine but closes his mind to it, stating that there is nothing better out there!

To get to the crux, I feel there are many anomalies within the faith as follows:

In the beginning there was nothing but God, therefore why was the world created in the first place – God was bored ?

At the beginning of time we are told that some souls did not want to leave Sach Khand ["heaven"] and these are the marked souls that are initiated. But this raises a couple of questions: this implies some souls did want to leave and the question is if Sach Khand is such a perfect place why did they want to leave ? And the other question is that those who did not want to go had to leave against their will – this seems very unfair?

At the beginning of time we were perfect ie. we had no karmas – how did we get the first karma if we were perfect – we were tempted – but God put this temptation here in the first place and knew we would give in to it. Therefore how then can we be blamed for our karmas ?

If God knows everything, which he must do if he is all-knowing, then he knows what we are about to do, including bad karmas – in other words bad karmas must also be pre-destined. Therefore, again, how then can we be blamed for our karmas ?

Why was the world designed with bad karmas built into it eg. we cannot breathe or eat without committing bad karmas. Therefore, again, how then can we be blamed for our karmas?

If God loves us and can take us back in a second, why doesn’t He ?

It is convenient to say "we cannot comprehend or understand the answers' OR "go in [via meditation] and find out for yourself" and then add "But you cannot disclose to anyone your findings".

Why was it decided that we should not know our previous karmas – this is very unfair as we cannot prevent making similar mistakes or seeing the justice of cause and effect!

If EVERYTHING is destined (each breath and hair on your body is pre-destined), surely the amount/quality/effect of our meditation must surely also be destined!

If we are told that Baba Ji [current guru] will never give us more hardship than we can take once we are initiated as Baba Ji controls our karmas from this point - then no initiate should ever commit suicide – but they have!

How can you be guilty of eating meat if you accidentally eat it even though from the investigations you did, it appeared it was pure vegetarian? Baba Ji said poison is poison – you will feel the effects even if you did not know it was there – this appears very unfair!

If meditation is the most important seva, why is it generally accepted that sevadars [volunteers] will sacrifice their meditation for seva on seva days especially when sevadars are expected to do seva on consecutive days where they start very early and may not be free until late, eg. National Satsang days?

Stories of previous Masters and their disciples, are just that, stories that cannot be collaborated or confirmed.

How many times are we told we must do our meditation, living in this world and the struggles they present BUT the 'Special Disciples', who either become Masters or nearest and dearest seem to have had the opportunity to go into caves or the forest and do years of meditation.

As most companies make money by corrupt means or unethically eg. employing slave labour, then this would mean avoiding working and buying goods & services from them would be very difficult to do, as so many are involved!

Why is Parshad [food] blessed by Baba Ji if it has no spiritual significance but is only served as a reminder of God when you eat it - as nothing but meditation is supposed to burn away karmas – this appears to be a ritual?

Why is Dristi [when the guru looks at disciples] by Baba Ji significant before satsang if there is nothing spiritual about it - as nothing but meditation is supposed to burn away karmas – this appears to be a ritual also?

In addition to this, would be the succession and the checkered history and the obvious family links. Through my own investigation you could probably add 'Business' to this list,  i.e. property development etc.

I feel utterly confused and truly yearn for the truth. I have read many stories of ex satsangis who feel betrayed and cannot believe how the 'faith' has become institutionalised verging on a corporate scale.

The questions I would like to put to you and your readers are: have you found anything BETTER?

If it is just a case of "freeing your mind" will this actually help in realising the truth?

In recent weeks I have tried to meditate without using the names but feel at odds. What can I use, what can I say.....I have tried 'one with the creator' / know thyself / who am I / I seek the truth etc etc. Can any of this work OR is it just one Mantra replacing another!

Additionally is there anyone out there who after investigation feels Sant Mat and RSSB is in fact the truth. Has anyone returned to the FOLD? The Masters always claim, disciples after becoming disillusioned with the faith eventually will return to the Fold. Has this actually happened or are we now in the realms of the four lifetimes?

I seek the truth and will continue my efforts until I either find it or give up due to sheer exhaustion.

Please excuse any grammatical errors and if wished you can add this to your forum.

Best wishes,
Shin [not real name]

"The Guru Papers" and magical thinking

Here's some additional correspondence that I've received from "Unknown," who sent along previously-posted (from January 12-28, 2009) material that can be found in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas category of this blog.

The theme of this submission is why people accept so uncritically a guru's claims of divinity, or special access to God, when either positive evidence is lacking or negative evidence is present.

I wasn't familiar with one of the cited books, "The Guru Papers." It looks interesting. I decided to order a used copy from Amazon -- 408 pages of anti-cult prose for $6.99, that's the kind of cost-effective churchless reading I go for.

Click below to read on.

Hanging out with a guru leads to disillusion

Most disciples of a guru believe that if they could have more intimate face-time with him, their faith would be strengthened. Plus, their spiritual progress would soar.

But belief isn't reality.

Here's the story of Phil Risby, a Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) initiate who got to hang out with Gurinder Singh, current RSSB guru, when Phil lived in the Caribbean.

Phil said it'd be fine to share his thoughts via a blog post. I've mildly edited a couple of his email messages, fixing some typos and adding a few explanations in bracketed italics.

It's interesting reading, providing a rare behind-the-scenes perspective on time spent with a guru who is considered by the faithful to be GIHF, God in Human Form.

You can either download the PDF file, or click on the continuation to this post.
Download Phil message (PDF)

Chapter 4 of RSSB expose: belief system critique

Here's the final installment of material sent to me by an email correspondent, Unknown, who assembled writings by a high-ranking Radha Soami Satsang Beas official (who called himself Waking Now) that appeared online some years ago after Waking Now became disillusioned with what he came to view as a cult.

Previous postings of Waking Now's writings are here, here, here, and here. This installment, which mostly is a critique of the RSSB belief system, is my favorite.

Whether or not someone agrees with Waking Now's conclusion that living one's life is best accomplished without submitting to the dictates of a guru figure, it's interesting to learn about the belief-to-disbelief trajectory of someone who was so deeply involved with the highest level of a religious organization for so long.

I was initiated by one of the RSSB gurus mentioned by Waking Now. I still have a great deal of fondness for Charan Singh, whom I was able to see in person during a two week visit to India in 1977.

Several decades later I was pleased to be able to write a book for RSSB, Life is Fair, on a subject that reportedly was dear to the heart of Charan Singh (when I was asked if I wanted to work on this project, I was told that the now-deceased guru had wanted to be able to hand out a small book that described the karmic rationale for vegetarianism).

So I have some understanding of how difficult it must have been for Waking Now to dissociate himself from the Radha Soami Satsang Beas organization in an effort to come closer to truth, reality, and his own self.

I don't feel that revealing the human side of a guru diminishes his value as a spiritual guide or teacher. Rather, it makes me feel closer to Charan Singh, or anyone else who has been raised to an undefensibly high godly platform.

Read on. As before, Waking Now's writings can be read by clicking on the continuation to this post, or by downloading this PDF file.
Download RSSB Chapters 6-7 PDF

Chapter 3 of RSSB expose: palace intrigue and waking up

Here's some additional interesting Radha Soami Satsang Beas-related material written by someone ("Waking Now") who was a high-ranking member of the organization. It was sent to me by my email correspondent, "Unknown."

I added some of this new information to the end of a previous post, Chapter 2, since it related to the subject of that post (business practices). Scroll down to the boldfaced "Note:" in the addendum to that post and you'll find the new stuff.

Whether or not you're familiar with this particular Indian guru-based organization, I think you'll find Waking Now's concluding comments of interest.

He speaks of his realization that he'd become caught in a limited form of spirituality that was at odds with broader Indian philosophies. I've had similar feelings myself, so resonated with words like these:

There is a difference between seeking on one’s own to understand life, and getting caught by a Guru to become a follower and believer.

In the first case, one remains alert and aware and fresh and finds joy in the discoveries.

In the second, one starts moving on the Royal Road to Dumbness, losing the appreciation of the beauty and vitality of one’s life.

For me, there is no enlightenment experience to run after.  Our daily life is the wonderful enlightenment experience. When we are fully attentive to it.

The question is when, if ever, do we sink into this understanding that there is nothing to achieve, and then, relax into our everyday life.

Different people have different episodes which cause all ‘notions’ of enlightenment given by others to just fall away.  Then they settle down.

There is no one who has traveled down the road we are traveling because the ‘road’ to our awakeness is the whole space around us.

As before (previous material from Unknown is here, here, and here), read on by clicking on the continuation to this post or by downloading a PDF file.
Download Chapter 4-5 RSSB PDF

Chapter 2 of RSSB expose: business practices

Here's the next installment of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas-related material that I'm receiving from my email correspondent, Unknown.

(Previous posts on this topic are here and here.)

As noted previously, this material mostly consists of writings by Waking Now, a senior RSSB functionary who came to have doubts about this Indian guru-centered organization and left it in the early 1990s.

When I read this chapter of the Waking Now compilation being put together by Unknown, I thought of how the Dalai Lama wants the Tibetans in exile to be governed.

Democratically.

About 550 Tibetan political leaders and activists have come from as far away as Canada, Australia and Brussels to discuss the future of the Tibetan movement. Its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has long advocated a democratic decision-making process, but Tibetans' reverence for him has inhibited many of them from speaking out in any way that might challenge his authority. "This is the problem with having God as your leader," says Tsering Shakya, a professor of modern Tibetan history at the University of British Columbia.

Interesting, in light of what Waking Now has written, which can be downloaded as a PDF file or read by clicking on the following continuation to this post.
Download Chapter 2-Business Practices PDF

Chapter 1 of RSSB expose: business dealings

My correspondent, "unknown," has followed up on his or her previously posted critique of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

Unknown's new material primarily concerns some RSSB business dealings, and how a few senior members of this India-based spiritual organization came to have doubts about it.

I've copied in the correspondence, which came to me by email, below. Here's a PDF version:
Download RSSB Business Practices-Chapter 1 pdf

I feel the need to explain why I think it's worthwhile to put this material up for public viewing.

Basically, I believe that it's desirable to freely share ideas and information so long as the privacy of individuals isn't infringed upon, and what's being shared isn't libelous.

Neither seems to be the case here.

This material apparently was on the Internet for a while, then removed. Once public, always public... that's the rule in this age of Google caches and file copying.

Naturally I can't vouch for the truthfulness of what "Waking Now" relates. However, it has enough of a ring of truth to be believable. If anyone wants to challenge the accuracy of Waking Now's allegations, they're free to comment away.

Lastly (before getting to Chapter 1), I feel that it's healthy to remind ourselves that perfection isn't a quality found in either organizations or individuals -- assuming it's even possible to operationally define what this word means.

Some RSSB devotees are going to feel that it's wrong to post any sort of criticism of this group. They consider that because the organization is led by a "perfect guru," then everything RSSB does must be above reproach.

This is a fundamentalist religious attitude, no different from that of Muslims who say "no cartoons can be published of Prophet Muhammad!" or of the medieval Catholic church, which punished heretics who dared question the holy faith.

Radha Soami Satsang Beas claims to be a spiritual science. Science progresses by testing hypotheses, examining all of the data related to a problem, disseminating research results and discussing them openly.

So here's some information about RSSB. Consider it; ignore it. Your choice.

A critique of Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Over on this post "unknown" has left several interesting comments about an Indian mystical-spiritual organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) that I, and quite other Church of the Churchless regulars, have been associated with.

Being thoughtful and well-written, I didn't want the comments to be submerged within a post on another subject. So I've copied them in below (with some mild editing to correct some typos and clarify formatting).

I'm a believer in open discussion of any and all topics relating to religion, spirituality, mysticism, meditation, philosophy ... whatever.

Some will disagree with these ideas. Some will say "right on." Others will have no opinion or be disinterested in the whole subject.

The important thing is to share, discuss, debate, question. Shining a light on a corner of reality ends up making it more visible. Truth has a way of winning out, though sorting fact from fiction can be difficult.

Here's a compilation of what "unknown" has shared so far.
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After 20 years of wasting time in a dark room with my thumb in my ear seeking self induced sounds and sights as proof of spiritual progress, a series of events revealed the obvious for me.  Debating unverifiable abstractions as a way to test the authenticity of the so called ‘Masters’ and their doctrines is a circular waste of time.

One need go no further than ‘follow the money’.  The Dera is structured as feudal work farms where the serfs, the impoverished underclass of India, provide legions of labor, including child labor, for example the ongoing construction projects, the vast agricultural enterprises etc in exchange for the Darshan [sight] of the Master and a few bare necessities in abject poverty.

There was a Radhasoami Satsang Beas book ‘Origin and Growth’ (that Gurinder asked to have removed from circulation). [In] there is a hidden principle which states “it is the basic principle of Sant Mat and especially of the Radhasoami faith, that the Satguru, being God Incarnate, has absolute authority and power to deal with His Parmarthi (religious) property of every kind in whatever way He likes.  All Bhaints (offerings) made to Him by His followers and all properties inherited by Him from his Satguru become His personal properties and His power to use such properties is not restricted in any way.”

In reality, beneath the charade of modesty and simple tastes these ‘Masters’ have built  billionaire fortunes largely at the expense of those most desperate and vulnerable and by perpetuating a cynical fraud that has been especially exploitative toward India’s underclass and harmful to many in other walks of life.

As for the meditation, an ex representative explained it best: ‘I think it is heartless to delude people into imagining that a neural show represents the experience of God. The emphasis in the Indian spiritual tradition is finding out who you are at the core, not getting caught up in specific experiences.  Zen clearly advises against the mental hallucinations during meditation.

RSSB has a good marketing program going.

Promise what is tantalizing but unattainable.  As long as people are caught in tantalizing images, there will be no dearth of customers.

Not only does the RS Guru play upon the natural human fear of death but also entices blatantly by promising company on the ‘inner spiritual journey’.  When the seeker is hooked and enters the fold, he or she finds innumerable qualifications which make the experience of ‘the inner spiritual journey’ with ‘the Master always with them’ almost unattainable.  Then starts the push to alternative group highs in ritual meeting and project activities”.

---------------------------

To further clarify on a few points re. RSSB deceit:  The Radha Soami ‘Masters’ are very skilled at avoiding the public relations pitfalls of many Gurus who publicly indulge themselves which has made the scam/charade much more deceptive.

As with any cult, when the mind is trained to gymnastically avoid rational critique it always lays the groundwork for abuse and crimes against humanity and creation. Cognitive dissonance makes mankind a dangerous animal and religion, with its subversive power agendas, is always cultivating that fatal human flaw in addition to primary primordial motivators of the human psyche…the need for meaning and security.  If nothing else, a careful reading of history documents mankind’s horrific tradeoffs and abdication of personal responsibility in exchange for a sense of ‘meaning and security’.

Specifically, in supporting RSSB, or ‘looking the other way’ in choosing not to address the feudal system impacting many thousands of India’s underclass and other gross exploitations, one is choosing a feel good panacea to prop up a superficial spiritual self image instead of honestly addressing  the obvious. 

Earlier posts regarding the utter self absorption and counter productiveness of this kind of ‘spiritual progress’ caught my attention.  It is so true.  Consider the hierarchical nature of Sant Mat, specifically RSSB.  The more Seva you do, the more exposure to intimate audiences with ‘God Incarnate’ you are eligible for which feeds your ego….hence ‘I am special, I’ve had a semi private audience….etc’  It becomes a game of ego gratification masked as spiritual progress, climbing the ladder and politics in direct correlation with how much work you do or how much you donate.  I have a great deal of personal experience on this subject, it is not speculation.  But if one is observant and not disconnecting rational critique, it is easy to see.

A very high ranking ex-representative intimately connected with Charan Singh made this account:

“RSSB-House of Sawan”

About a year ago, I was reading a report on the Net from a newspaper in Pakistan.

The report said that a NGO (non-governmental organization) engaged in teaching good health habits to women and children encountered a lot of difficulty in a particular village when they tried to speak with the women in their home.  The women were afraid and did not wish to have anything to do with them.

When the NGO women persisted and tried to find out the reason for this unusual behavior, they learnt that the families lived in homes which were on land belonging to a Feudal Landlord.  They labored in his fields and houses, but if they displeased him, they would be forced to leave their homes but they had nowhere to go.  So although they would like to learn good health habits, they were afraid that by talking to outsiders they might incur their Lord’s wrath and be out of hearth and home.

They said that when their families first started working for the Landlord, he had told them that they could build their homes to live there but if they left the place or were forced to leave, they would have to leave their houses behind but could take only their portable belongings with them.

Then it struck me.

Had I not seen similar rules somewhere else?   And I remembered the booklet, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Origin And Growth.  I looked it up and saw in the copy of Great Master’s Will, 1937:

“A number of satsangis have built houses in the Dera Baba Jaimal Singh with my permission and on land belonging to me and in my possession on the condition that they and their descendants can reside in the Dera only as long they have faith in the Master…and are considered to be suitable persons for residing in the Dera, otherwise they have no rights to live at the Dera and I or my successor shall be authorized to eject them any time we liked  In the event of their ejectment, the satsangis concerned or their assignees will have no right of any sort to the land or materials of the building.

I am the sole owner of the Dera and all properties connected therewith…”

Sd. Sawan Singh    reference: ex-representative, intimate of Charan Singh

For anyone who had not been to Dera or heard first hand accounts; it is vast almost beyond description….it is now a city with hundreds of thousands of acres agricultural lands, railroads transporting legions of indentured servants (who have built their impoverished huts on Dera lands and have nowhere else to go or are slaves for Darshan) to agricultural and construction projects…..all profitably benefiting a hierarchy of astronomical wealth.  Gurinder’s investments are now worldwide including large commercial projects in Mumbai (Bombay).  

In order to understand these points, one must abandon insistence on a quaint version of the humble Guru and energetically scrutinize, logically evaluate.  It is interesting that the seeker and initiate is assigned to be at war with and to disregard his own mind, when in reality one is completely ensnared in charade once bereft of our mental faculties.

---------------------------

Hello all,

After 20 years with RSSB and shortly after Gurinder was appointed myself and spouse left the path in disgust after a series of events revealed the crass deception of it all.  The arrival at ‘eureka’  also enabled us to finally articulate what had become a subliminal discomfort with the whole Sant Mat agenda and nagging inconsistencies which ultimately take a toll on one’s ‘life force’. 

Because if the integrity doesn’t resonate with you on a deep level, then you are simply going thru the motions or trying to keep yourself psyched up and enthused with group highs (Bandaras, pep rallys and the like) which provide temporary elation produced by group psycho dynamics only and all charlatans/illusionists know the simple tricks of orchestrating group highs and ‘sleight of mind’ which are powerful temporary deceptive techniques.

Or worse than constantly trying to keep oneself motivated and enthused by trekking to group highs and work camps, many blame themselves for the lack of ‘inner experiences’ during meditation….the promised Shangri-La accompanied by your ethereal guide bla, bla, and fall into depression, despondency and harsh self criticism.

My spouse and I consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have left RSSB undamaged after such a length of time because we know a good number of people whose lives have deteriorated at great deal in attempting to climb the ladder in a corrupt cult organization.

And some people who were merely eccentric in early years, with this predisposition have become totally dysfunctional in mainstream or the world at large in their later years with the cult.

Tragically, we have seen much worse than that too.  A number of individuals have taken their own life as a direct result of Sant Mat influence and despondency over lack of attainment.  The specifics of the cases and the suicides are very dramatic, and well known to a large Sangat, involving individuals who were pillars and long established, but due to privacy of surviving relatives, it’s best not to be more descriptive.

Suffice to say, it is recklessly irresponsible and in fact criminal to advocate for anyone susceptible to disorders such as clinical depression or schizophrenia to practice a 2.5 hour daily assignment of sitting in the dark internalizing and trying to conjure inner lights and sound, hallucinations and delusions.  It is criminal to prescribe that and especially unsupervised.

Does anyone really think that Gurinder or any of these ‘Masters’ could pick out their initiate from a supermarket check out line??  Much less be supervising them on the inner planes as an inner guide and directing their karma???  It’s all a delusional fantasy, like ‘my imaginary friend’ of childhood.  And yet with those who are prone to mental instability, promoting these delusions can be deadly.

We have a folder of accounts from a very high profile representative in the 80’s (anonymous), an Indian who is also the son in law of an individual, now deceased, who was one of highest ranking within the organization and was known to all and who disavowed RSSB prior to his death.

As this site is exploring the subjects in intelligent fashion, I’d be glad to email more of the documents to Brian to be offered for discussion because the ex-representative’s writing style, knowledge of Indian spiritual culture and ability to get to the essence is so compelling and would be possibly productive for those trying to evaluate Sant Mat.

He did post briefly years ago at the ex-satsangi site under the name ‘Waking Now’ but later requested his posts be deleted.  Here is one of his posts addressing the Guru delusion.

Re: A look into the Beas Dera culture

Gurudom, the feudal kingdom of the Guru in which his subjects (mass-initiated disciples) have a real teaching relationship with him is fundamentally dishonest.  The relationship is one of power but the marketing words suggest a real (fantasy) spiritual one (love, they say).

Gurudom has appropriated the benefits extolled in poetry of the wonderful Indian tradition of learning in which a small number of students (chelas) have the intimate company of their teacher (Guru) for a number of years and learn ways of being to allow them authentic expression, and converted that hallowed tradition into a Mass movement.

The masses are inducted into the Gurudom through a psychologically stressful initiation ceremony and encouraged to develop fantasy relationships with the Guru Emperor to project specific mental states touted to be godly ones with little or no real formation of character other than that of slaves.(I will write about this later)

And what do the masses need to be kept in line, bread and circus as the French say, for which ample opportunity is provided in food services, construction projects coming to fruition and choreographed mass meetings for continued indoctrination.

---------------------------

Hi Roger, et al,

Gurinder requested 'Origin and Growth' be removed from circulation but as public record it came up on google and addresses some specifics of RSSB administration and Great Master's will.

It is notable that through the documents it makes it clear that all religious and ancestral properties is owned by him.  It also references that certain activities be conducted for the benefit of the Sangat.  The context is it is a religious family business (hence no non-family member is appointed Godman).  Any board or committees serve entirely at the pleasure of the Master and a dissenter can be dismissed at any time.

I may have some information on the arrangement by which homes are built on Dera lands  Primarily it is a life estate (it the occupant continues to serve and have faith in the Master) and the property reverts to the Dera.  As for the impoverished shanty towns built on Dera Lands to serve agricultural and construction needs and other tenants....they are basically indentured servants and vulnerable often with nowhere else to go.

http://www.geocities.com/rssbdata/oag.htm

RSSB guru does karaoke. He must be God.

In the Sant Mat faith, the guru is considered to be God in human form. Believing disciples, of whom I used to be one, are fond of looking for signs of his divinity.

Since obvious miracles aren't evident, nor other overt indications of godliness, it's necessary to look upon the guru with devotional eyes to see his saintliness shining through.

The current Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) guru is Gurinder Singh Dhillon. I've seen him quite a few times, including some personal interviews.

He strikes me as a fine intelligent, well-spoken, personable guy. I liked him.

But is Gurinder Singh God? My bet is "no."

However, I still enjoy digesting evidence regarding this question -- which arises in every philosophy (generally Eastern) that elevates a spiritual or religious teacher to the ultimate height.

Recently I heard some news about goings-on last month at the Dera, RSSB's headquarters in India.

Reportedly Gurinder Singh emphasized "doing nothing" in meditation. I can resonate with this advice. It's pretty much what I've experienced the past thirty-eight years in my own daily meditative practice.

When I went to the Dera in 1998 I heard Gurinder Singh express the same sentiment. He was asked a question about meditation and replied, "How difficult is it to do nothing?"

That's just about the only thing I can remember him saying during the two weeks I was in India.

Must have made an impression on me. Nothing has a way of slipping through the cracks of one's psyche.

Now, obviously an emphasis on nothingness, the via negativa, doesn't point toward divinity -- much less prove that the emphasizer is God. But it shows that in this regard at least, Gurinder Singh's philosophy is akin to the teachings of some highly respected sages.

Meister Eckhart. Plotinus. Saint John of the Cross. Ramana. Rumi. Lao Tzu. Buddha. To name a few.

They all stressed the mystery, ineffability, and interiority of ultimate reality. If you can sense it, describe it, or understand it ... that isn't IT.

Which makes another bit of news about Gurinder Singh more than a little incongruous, in light of his "do nothing" theme.

I heard that at the Dera Christmas party, where skits traditionally are performed, there was a whole lot of singing, dancing, and laughing going on. First with Gurinder Singh as part of the audience. Then the guru took the stage himself.

And proceeded to do karaoke. Enthusiastically.

I'm not sure what songs he sung. Some Beatles tunes were among them, I believe. ("Nowhere Man" would have been an appropriate via negativa theme song.)

When I told my wife about Gurinder Singh doing karaoke she said, "He sounds like a regular person." That was my basic reaction also.

If everyone who grabs a microphone and sings along to some oldies and goodies is God, then we've got a surfeit of saints roaming the Earth.

Yet my understanding is that most of those in attendance on a party-on December Dera day viewed the guru's performance as another manifestation of God tending to his sheep by feeding them with his karaoke'ized presence.

Well, I admittedly tilt toward the rational side of the spiritual spectrum.

But I still don't see how "doing nothing" fits philosophically with disciples gazing adoringly at a turban-clad guru singing his heart out on stage and thinking, "Ah, my sweet Lord."

This is the enigma and the paradox of faiths that simultaneously try to (1) make God into a formless all-pervading conscious energy, and (2) a thoroughly human guy or gal.

Maybe there's a way to reconcile these seeming discordancies. I doubt it, though.

When religious believers try to have things both ways -- God as universal ultimate reality and God as personal best friend -- what we get is confusion, not truth, in my thoroughly personal opinion.

Reasons for my belief (and disbelieving)

I thought I'd try to glean some broader meaning out of "My strange RSSB initiation story," since that tale I told a few days ago was so personal.

Maybe that isn't possible. Perhaps my thirty-eight year journey from devout true believer to skeptical churchless agnostic is so idiosyncratic, it doesn't hold any lessons for someone else.

Well, let's see.

I'll take a stab at resurrecting a few reasons (so far as I'm aware of them) that led me to join a religious group. I'll also try to briefly share how those reasons morphed as my involvement with Radha Soami Satsang Beas waxed and waned.

(1) Lure of the Way Out There. In the '60s we said "Far out!" a lot. Also, "That's trippy." Along with countless others, I enjoyed exploring some of the farther limits of altered consciousness states.

Psychedelics were one way to get there. An Eastern form of meditation where you were told you could travel to the astral plane and way beyond, seeing inner lights and hearing inner sounds along the way -- that seemed a natural other way.

I read Julian Johnson's "Path of the Masters" as a mystical travel guide, which it was intended to be. I looked forward to learning what lay beyond the tiny corner of the physical universe I knew about now.

When a whole bunch of spiritual practice didn't lead to any discernible soul uplift, despite following instructions nearly to the letter, I began to think, "Hey, what's going on here?" (Answer: not much)

Was I a thrill seeker looking for meditation fireworks? Yes. Was I disappointed when the inner sky of consciousness turned out to be almost entirely dark and silent? Yes.

Are current true believers going to read this and think, "HIs shallow ego-centered expectations did not deserve to be fulfilled by the guru (or God)"? Yes. Is that in itself a shallow ego-centered thought? Yes.

(2) Looking for a place to call home. A philosophical place. A believing place. By the not-so-ripe age of 22 I'd already run through a lot of notions about the meaning (or lack thereof) of life.

I'd gone from mild Catholicism to Bob Dylan'ish whatever to Flower Power mind-expansion to Sartre existentialism to sort-of-Zen something-or-other to Yoga self-realization.

And I still was questioning, "What the hell is life all about?"

Damn! I was about to graduate from college. With a major in psychology and a minor in humanities. I should have the answers by now!

So I leaped into the embrace of a teaching led by a guru who assured his disciples, "Don't worry. Be happy. Just do what I say and it'll all become clear before too long."

Now, admittedly before too long came with a small print footnote that read "could be three more lifetimes, if you're a dim-witted recalcitrant karma-heavy spiritual fuckhead." But naturally I didn't think I was, nor did any other of my fellow bright-eyed RSSB newbies.

As years, and then decades, passed, I grew more comfortable with not-knowing. I didn't have such a strong urge to know all the answers. I could say to myself, "I'm clueless." And sometimes even speak those words out loud (at least to our dog).

In "Evidence of my steadily declining divinity" I wrote:

When we had to drag everything out of the crawl space above our garage, I found a 1970 photo that hadn't seen the light of day for quite a while.

I was struck by how I appeared so wise at 21, and, let's admit it, Christ like (leaving aside the minor detail that no one knows how Jesus looked).

Now, at 58, I don't know nothing about God and all that. I'm on a downward trajectory that has culminated in my Wu Project. But I'm confident there's further to fall.

How right I was. I'm 60 now. I know even less than I did two years ago.

The good news is that being spiritually homeless feels more and more homelike to me. When you don't confine yourself within dogmatic walls, your habitation is always close at hand.

(3) Wanting a friend in Jesus. Or some other personalized divinity. I'd had enough with wandering alone through the stark landscape of Zen Buddhism and existentialism. I wanted a companion who'd accompany me to Ultimate Truth.

When I studied with my Yoga teacher, who blended Christianity with Eastern mysticism, I went to a Christian supply store and bought a picture of Jesus. Who, as noted above, looked a lot like me at the time (which I liked).

I'd talk to the picture before I meditated on my mantra. Sure, now I know I was talking to myself, but it didn't feel that way back then. I enjoyed having a friend who watched over me.

Then I learned about Sant Mat and the perfect living saint, Param Sant Satguru Hazur Maharaj Charan Singh Ji.

(Indians give a whole lot of appellations to revered gurus; it took me a long time before I could simply say "Charan Singh" without feeling like a lightning bolt was going to strike me).

Now I had a Jesus figure to follow with an important benefit: Charan Singh was alive.

You could listen to tapes of his talks. You could read books he'd written. You could watch videos of him. You could write a letter to him and get a reply. You could visit him in India, or wait for him to tour your country.

But otherwise Charan Singh was Jesus in a turban.

I didn't realize this for many years, until I was struck by how many once-devout Christians had joined the RSSB fold. They barely needed to change their belief system, Christianity and Sant Mat were so compatible.

At least, the way Charan Singh presented the RSSB teachings in relation to the Bible. He interpreted St. John and other gospels in a fashion that made Jesus into a guru, just like him, who had been sent by God to retrieve marked souls and take them back to heaven.

Cool! I was a marked soul! I had a friend in Jesus Charan Singh!

It was marvelous, to feel so cared for, so looked after, so guided through life and death, so assured of a wonderful hereafter.

I still wish that all this were true. However, now truth has come to be more important to me than fiction. One of the appellations above is "satguru." Sat means truth.

In 1971 I became a satsangi, a disciple of a satguru, who went to satsang meetings. There's a whole lot of "sat" in the RSSB teachings. I liked that.

I'm still deeply attracted to "sat," to truth. So much so, I can't bring myself to believe what doesn't seem true to me, no matter how attractive those beliefs look.

My strange RSSB initiation story

A few days ago I talked about how I came to have doubts about the guru-centered faith, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), that I followed diligently for over thirty years.

One of the commenters on that post asked a question about why I was so gullible in accepting teachings that, in retrospect, seemed so unlikely to be true.

I responded that all of us believe things which we're mistaken about. Discarding worn-out beliefs and accepting new ones is part of life's maturation process. I also said that to attempt to answer that question I'd need to tell the tale of how I came to be initiated into the RSSB fold.

This is a strange story. I don't think I've ever shared it on the Internet, though I've told it verbally quite a few times.

Satsangis (which is how RSSB initiates describe themselves) like to talk about how they came on "the path." You get bonus points for the unlikeliness of the events that led to applying and being accepted for initiation by the guru.

For example, moving in to an apartment that was completely vacated by the previous owner except for a single RSSB book, which, when opened, instantly speaks to the eventual initiate.

I've heard many stories along these lines, as have other satsangis. Yet often when I've finished telling my own, I hear: "Wow, that's the strangest initiation story ever."

Not having made much progress in losing my ego, that gives me a certain satisfaction. Guess I'd rather be strange than nondescript. So I'm pleased to retell my tale, attempting to be as brief as possible (always tough for me, given my writing style).

I can justify the likely rather considerable length of this post by the lesson that it may hold for others. However, I can't say what that lesson is, since people will look upon this story in idiosyncratic ways.

A RSSB true believer, which I no longer am, will probably think, "Ah, the guru works in such marvelous ways." A skeptic's thoughts will run more along the lines of, "Fooled once, fooled twice."

Whatever. I'll just tell it like it was. You can decide what to make of the telling. Read on, if you like.

Why I'm not a Sant Mat true believer

Fairly often I hear from people -- usually via email -- who want to know why I've "left the path."

By which they mean, failed to keep on wholeheartedly believing in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) teachings, which are an offshoot of Sant Mat. I respond in various ways, but usually end up saying much the same thing.

To save time in the future, I thought I'd take a stab at re-stating my stock response so I could simply point to this post when the question of my supposedly heretical change of direction comes up.

First, and probably also last, I don't consider that I've left a "spiritual" path.

(I used quotation marks because this word has come to mean less and less to me; but it still conveys a quest for the meaning of life that goes beyond the obvious.)

Quite the contrary. I simply found that an honest, energetic, no-stone-left-unturned search for truth required going beyond the bounds of the RSSB belief system.

That's the thing with belief systems: they're great for organizing ideas, concepts, facts, and other mental entities that can be tied down in words. However, if you want to reach what can't be grasped by human thought or language, a belief system won't get you there.

Notions of duality and unity come into play. The words I used in the previous sentence -- "duality," "unity," and the rest -- obviously are dualistic.

They have to be, or I couldn't communicate with you. Without separate letters, separate words, and separate thoughts, verbal or written statements would be one big mushy blend of everything-all-together.

Yet the best guess of both scientists who seek a Theory of Everything (not Theories) and mystics who claim to have experienced union with the One (not the Many) is that unity rather than manyness lies at the heart of reality.

Not everybody believes this, of course. The Western monotheistic religions, notably Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, posit: (1) God and (2) other than God.

So that basic duality, which never is breached (a Christian gets close to God, but never becomes God) allows other sorts of dualities to be a comfortable and harmonious part of the religions.

Words, thoughts, emotions, ideas, and such directed toward God are how dualistic religions relate to a divine reality that can't ever be experienced as one's own self or being.

I talk with my wife and other people to know them better. That's because they're different from me.

However, I know myself directly.

There's no need for me to tell myself about me, because that's clearly a circular and meaningless exercise (when we talk to ourselves inside our heads, it's for another purpose other than self-knowledge).

Eastern religions (such as Hinduism) and philosophies (such as non-religious Taoism) by and large claim that ultimate reality is much more along the lines of "no need for me to tell myself about me" than the wordiness of dualistic Western faiths where the emphasis is on relating to a God different than oneself.

When I signed up with Radha Soami Satsang Beas, I was attracted to its monistic (reality is one) philosophy. The promise was that meditation would lead the disciple to an experiential realization that oneness rather than manyness is the way things really are.

I still believe that monism is more likely to be the foundation of existence than dualism. It just makes sense that the essence of reality is one, rather than two or more.

Which gets me back to the reason I couldn't hold on to the RSSB belief system.

It dawned on me (partly as a result of writing a book called "Return to the One") that the teachings I originally considered to be aimed at oneness actually were headed in the wrong direction.

At least, so long as I took them more seriously than they deserved. Buddhism has its "if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!" Taoism has its "the Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."

But Sant Mat, in its modern form, lacks the sort of pin that punctures the dualistic, self-righteous, dogmatic bubble. ("Modern," because the 15th century Kabir, who is held up as a Sant Mat saint, did a great job of pinpricking in his more iconoclastic poetry.)

So I realized that I needed to burst my own bubble if I was going to have a chance of getting beyond all the RSSB "two's" that divided off One.

Guru and disciple. God and man. Mind and matter. Positive and negative powers. Marked and unmarked souls. Virtue and sin. Karma and salvation.

All these concepts came to seem like fences that were keeping my spiritual understanding confined within certain permissible bounds. I got tired of bumping up against them, when my intuition kept telling me "truth lies beyond."

This isn't the whole story, or answer, naturally. There's always more to be said about what can't be described.

There will be another day, another saying, another attempt to bridge the gap between the one that is me and the two that is me and you.

Is there anything else to do?

Jyotish astrology affirms RSSB guru

I don't know much about astrology. I know even less than that about Jyotish astrology, which is a Hindu/Vedic system.

So I was intrigued when I got an email from Catherine, a South African who is deeply into this stuff.

By "intrigued," I mean interested in an unfamiliar subject.

I'm highly skeptical of astrology. I've never heard a reasonable, or even semi-reasonable, theory about why it might work.

Still, I'm open to the notion that forces beyond our usual understanding could impact us. And I'll admit to liking the one indepth chart that was done for me quite a few years ago (a friend recently did another, but I haven't learned the details yet).

Catherine is an initiate of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, as I am. However, I've become a RSSB heretic as regards the dogmatic religious aspects of this India-based organization.

Catherine is considerably more positive about Radha Soami Satsang Beas, including the current guru of the group: Gurinder Singh Dhillon. As you can read below, she prepared a Jyotish analysis of Gurinder Singh and found that astrology confirms his guru status.

My reaction: interesting. And I'll leave it at that.

I don't see much of a downside to believing in astrology. The people I know who do believe in it clearly enjoy this art (I can't call it a science) and consider that it enriches their understanding of life.

That's great.

But as to whether what follows should be accepted as truth, that's a whole other question. I simply am sharing (with Catherine's permission); you decide. Read on...

If a satguru isn't God, what is he?

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I don't write as much about my experience with Radha Soami Satsang Beas anymore. My  of posts includes just about everything I want to say about my churchy phase. Still, there's always a bit more to say.

Today I answered an email from someone who wondered how to deal with unjust situations. I told him that keeping calm, cool, and collected is admirable, but there's a difference between not being unduly affected by an injustice and failing to deal with it.

Action is called for when someone is trying to screw you over. That's common sense. You don't have to get angry; you simply have to deal with them.

People who are still active in RSSB have left quite a few comments on my posts along the lines of: "Brian, you should get over your anger and disappointment with this spiritual path. Just because you didn't get the benefits you felt you deserved doesn't entitle you to criticize the guru."

Partly true, partly false. I'm not angry. And I no longer feel disappointed, because I've learned that what I expected wasn't reasonable.

So I admit that I'm responsible for embracing a delusion. So is every religious believer. But there's a difference between guru-centered faiths and traditional religions that justifies my criticisms of RSSB.

The guru (more accurately, "satguru" or true guru) is considered to be God in human form. Here's an explanation, in pseudo-spiritual science nomenclature. This is a more traditional perspective.

Now, let's consider what this means from the perspective of someone who signs up to be a satguru's disciple. Like me, who assiduously followed the guru's guidance for over thirty years.

Either the guru really is God, or he isn't.

If he isn't, then the alternative title I talked about in my "God-man or Asshole?" post holds true. Because someone would have to be a real jerk to pretend he or she is a divine being, accepting all the benefits that come with the satguru gig, leading devotees down an illusory enlightenment road.

On the other hand, if the guru is God, then he or she should act the part. Miracles should be forthcoming. Other-worldly wisdom should be evident. There shouldn't be any doubt that God has manifested in a human form.

However, there is. That's indisputable. Just as there is doubt that any religion based on belief in a personal God is true. John Loftus talks about this in his book, "Why I Became An Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity."

He wonders, what sort of God would leave his creation in the lurch rather than revealing himself to humans? Not a loving God, given the other options.

God could reveal himself to us in every generation in a myriad of ways ... He could become incarnate in every generation and do miracles for all to see. He could spontaneously appear and heal people, or end a famine, or stop a war, or settle an important question like slavery.

He could raise up John F. Kennedy from the dead for all to see. He could restore an amputated limb in full sight of a crowd of people that would include all of the best magicians along with the myth-busters and James Randi, who would all find fault if fault could be found.

He could do any and all of the miracles he did in the Bible from time to time, including miraculously feeding five thousand men with their families. The list of things God could do in each generation is endless.

Yet in fact, they are non-existent. This is easier to understand when God is considered to be a transcendent being. Maybe he's busy taking care of another universe, or otherwise has better things to do.

However, when God is believed to be living right here on Earth as flesh and blood it becomes much more difficult to rationalize his failing to come out of the closet and reveal himself unambiguously.

The likely answer why this doesn't happen: God-men and God-women are fakes. That leaves them open to well-deserved criticism for pretending to be someone they aren't, and promising benefits they know can't be produced.

Loftus has a similar attitude toward the Christian God he once believed in:

I too am shaming God, if he exists. I am an atheist to protest the fact that even if he exists he has not revealed himself clearly to his creatures, or shown us divine compassion. Even if there is a God after all, I will shame him for not providing sufficient evidence and reasons to believe.

So a supposed satguru is deserving of criticism on both fronts.

If he really is God, then he should act like a divine being and not pussy-foot around as a normal human. And if he isn't God, then he should never have led people to believe that he is.

No one is perfect. That's what I remind myself when someone lets me down, or a product doesn't perform as promised. But the claim is that a satguru is perfect.

That's why it's appropriate to hold him to the highest standards. If he doesn't meet them, that's proof perfection lies elsewhere -- or nowhere.

The strange side of guru devotion

Today I got an email about the recent visit of an Indian guru, Gurinder Singh, to Petaluma, California. The guru's organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), has built a large center there. It's mainly used for gatherings of devotees during Gurinder Singh's periodic, and often unscheduled, visits.

I found the following tale interesting, not least because I was an active member of RSSB for many years. Since most people who read this post won't be familiar with the group, or with a few Indian words, here's some background.

"Seva" means service, volunteering.

It takes on a special cast when done for the guru, as opposed, say, to helping out at a senior center. Seva is supposed to make you humble. But as you'll read below, there's some question about how well it serves that purpose.

"Sevadars" are people who do seva.

As is the case in most organizations, there's a sevadar hierarchy. Since access to the guru is prized highly (he is viewed as God in human form), the ability to see him close-up and personal sends RSSB initiates into devotional heaven. So "face time" with the guru is the compensation most desired by sevadars.

I used to do a lot of seva, of various kinds. During several organized tours by the guru I was a security sevadar, which is pretty high on the seva pecking order.

Once, in Palm Springs, I stood next to the auditorium stage while Gurinder Singh was giving his talk. That meant I couldn't see him, since I was supposed to watch the audience for attackers, or whatever. But I was close to him! So that was great seva.

That experience made me less humble, in retrospect. By contrast, another time I did child care seva during the guru's talk – missing it completely. Yet I didn't mind, because parents of the children were benefitting.

After all, if "selfless service" isn't making people less self-centered, what's the point of it? Read the following and see if you think RSSB seva is doing the job.

I've left off some personal identifiers, since those who provided this information might prefer to remain anonymous.

Hi Brian, I am not sure if you heard about this but I got it from 2 of my friends in Petaluma.

When the "Core Sevadars", I think that means those who did seva twice a month on a regular basis, showed up to help with the logistics of Baba Ji's [the guru's] visit, they were broken into 4 categories.  The yellow badges (the executive class), the green badges (the managerial class), the red badges (the secretarial class), and the no color badges (those who were looked upon as having no class).

At around 11:30 on Tuesday the no class sevadars were told to go to Building 7 to eat lunch, which is what they did.  After this guards were posted at all the exits and told not to let anyone out.  When management was asked why they were being held they were told that they did not want the sevadars to be given priority seating just because they were there before the general public and because they were supposed to do seva out of love, not so that they could get a better seat.  They were told that 15 minutes after the general population began showing up at 2 they would be released.  The general population starting showing up at 1 and they were still kept caged up till 2:15.

One guy even broke out and while the guard was frantically calling for help on his walkie talkie others reasoned with him and asked if he wanted to start a fist fight with the guy. 

 In the end, all the yellow, red, and green badge people sat up front, the white badges sat behind them, and R.S. began to look more and more like the weird cult it has become. 

The following day all the sevadars who had been coming every Wednesday (one of my friends had been coming for 10 years every week on Wednesdays and Saturdays) were told by phone that Petaluma would be closed on Wednesday and not to come.  One of the Wednesday sevadar group was told this and also assigned the task of calling the other Wednesday sevadars to keep out. 

 On Wednesday there was an invitation-only party with Baba Ji.  It had a list of about 100 people.  This included the sevadar elites and their family members and friends.  If someone tried to get in their name was compared to the guest list and they were not allowed to come in if their name was not on the list. 

I live in ______ now and I can't imagine the people here behaving this way, but then again, once upon a time I could not imagine this happening anywhere.

Hope you are well and that you are continuing to seek the truth (whatever the hell that is) as Maharaj Ji [Gurinder Singh's predecessor] taught us to. Maybe this atrocity against truth will make for a good blog subject. 

Well, yes, it did.

What strikes me the most about this story (my wife too, when I read it to her) is the part about keeping people locked up in a building to enforce their humility.

Why not have someone stand up during lunch and say, "Here's something to consider, everyone. We're able to be here early as volunteer sevadars. It might be nice to give other people a chance to enter the meeting hall first, especially since some of them will have travelled quite a ways to hear Baba Ji."

And leave it at that.

This was one of the things I didn't like about RSSB: the artificial efforts to lessen egos, which seemed to be carried out by those who had the biggest egos of all.

Once I was at a meeting where people were advised never to thank speakers who gave talks locally, because this would enlarge the speakers' egos. I disagreed, saying that normal human courtesies are just that, normal.

Keeping volunteers locked up in a building for two and a half hours so they won't rush into an auditorium before others coming to hear a talk, is that normal?

Change is what it’s all about

Yesterday Jay left a comment that contained a question deserving a response.

Brian,

I cannot believe that you have been a follower of RSSB and written a book called 'life is fair' for RS, yet you have gone anti-RS. Whats that all about. I have been initiated for just under s decade by Babaji and okay its hard but what is easy.

You think that you are too clever. Don't forget, you are an embassador of babaji and you will come back one the path. Is just a matter of time.

Jay

Even with the typos, and the lack of a question mark after "Whats that all about," I get Jay's message.

He's a true believer of the religious organization I belonged to for some thirty-five years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), and can't understand how I could have wandered off this spiritual path.

Well, Jay, I've already addressed your question – several times. For example, in "How writing a book rewrote me" and "Believers, I'm even more deluded than you think."

But that was then. Here's what I think about the question now. And really, that's my point.

Then isn't now. Change is what's happening. Indeed, there's good reason to say that change is the only thing that's happening.

Existence exists, probably forever. (It's hard to picture existence no longer existing; where would it go?) But everything within existence, so far as is known, is constantly changing. This fits with a basic premise of the RSSB philosophy: that vibrational energy permeates the cosmos.

I agree. As does modern physics. Change, though, doesn't require a cosmic perspective to be noticed. It's part and parcel of everyday life.

So I say to Jay: how can you believe that someone, me, for example, can assiduously meditate every day for thirty-five years; have all kinds of experiences associated with an immersion in a mystical-spiritual organization; come to know some of the leaders of the organization quite well, including the head guru himself; contribute countless hours of volunteer service to the group; study its teachings in great detail and even contribute to them via several books; and not change in some significant ways?

From my high school days on (I'm 59 now), I've had a passionate desire to understand what It is All About. I still do. The desire just has taken on different forms, as my understanding has changed (hopefully, grown).

I realize how religious true believers think, because I used to be one.

They have an illogical notion that all change leading up to someone embracing their particular form of belief is positive and good, while all subsequent change leading away from that embrace is negative and bad.

For example, someone is a Buddhist. He or she then converts to Christianity. Christians see this change as wonderful. Buddhists likely will think, "Off the path…"

Thus spiritual progress or retrogression depends on one's perspective. There aren't any universal mile markers, because each religion has its own definition of what the "path" consists of. So Jay can consider that I'm left the spiritual path, while I can feel that I'm more firmly on it.

"It" isn't like I-5, the freeway that runs close by my home, connecting Mexico and Canada plus the states in between. There's no map to ultimate reality, no obvious on-ramps, no vehicles that everyone agrees can get you somewhere – largely because there's no evident "where" to point toward.

All each of us can do is wander along the best we know how. That's what I'm doing. That's what Jay is doing. That's what everybody on Earth is doing.

Wandering. Changing. Seeking.

When somebody seems to be heading the same way we are, we say "You're so right!" And we might also be able to supply some reasonable reasons for the correctness of our traveling, in contrast to those deluded fools who are meandering off in a different direction.

We can't be sure, though. It's impossible to know where ultimate truth lies. All each of us can do is follow our instincts, intuition, and experience the best we can.

So there's my answer to "What's that all about?" I'm continuing to move, to grow, to change. As are we all.

Service without servitude

Doing some deck sweeping this afternoon at a cabin in central Oregon that we share with three other owners, I got to thinking about service.

This used to be a big deal to me in my Eastern religion days. Seva is an Indian word for service. It really just means volunteering. But when seva is done for the guru, who devotees consider to be God in human form, the service takes on an aspect that's hard to describe if you haven't experienced it.

I wrote about seva in my "When it isn't good to do good" post.

One of my points there was that it isn't good to feel that selfless service to your religious organization is vastly more important than volunteering close to home – like I've done for seventeen years for our neighborhood association.

As secretary, I've spent countless hours writing minutes, slaving over a hot copier at Kinkos, putting stamps and labels on a mailing, and other secretarial chores.

Interestingly, I spent about the same number of years serving as secretary for our local branch of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (guess I've got some significant secretary karma). That also involved many, many hours of service.

One difference: my neighborhood association service – like my cabin sweeping – is considerably humbler than my religious seva was. That's because service to God or a guru is much more of an exchange relationship, rather than truly selfless.

You're hoping to please God or the guru. You're looking to get on his good side. You're envisioning that all of your seva will help to reduce your ego and thus speed your way on the path to enlightenment.

I know this, because I used to see seva that way. And over thirty-five years or so, I talked with lots of other sevadars who felt the same.

People enjoy belonging to a religious organization because it feels good to do good for others. But there's nothing special about volunteering for your church, temple, mosque, or other religious group. Service is service, no matter where it's done or who it's done for.

Today I enjoyed my sweeping. I do a more careful job than I really need to. Pine needles continually fall onto the decks. By the time the next owner comes to the cabin, my meticulous sweeping isn't even going to be apparent, most likely.

But I like to sweep for sweeping's sake. I don't figure that it's going to bring me any spiritual benefit. Or any material benefit either, for that matter.

I imagine that the next family coming to the cabin will appreciate a deck that's cleaner than if I hadn't done my sweeping thing. I realize that this is mostly a fantasy, though, given that the pine trees are also doing their needle falling thing.

Anyway, however I felt during my seva days is still much like how I feel in my current churchless days. Except, as noted above my ego isn't nearly as involved.

Service is just service now, not a means to some spiritual end.

And that, perhaps, makes it a lot more spiritual.

Talking back to RSSB foolishness

Usually I read trash-talking comments on my blogs and then put them out of my mind. I enjoy responding to thoughtful people who have a different point of view. But I don't see much point in answering gibberish.

Today, though, I'll make an exception. I'm in the mood to reply in kind to a guy who strongly challenged my churchlessness. I assume you won't mind me being (almost) equally blunt, Richard.

You said it like you see it. Here's my own outlook on Radha Soami Satsang Beas, based on my thirty-eight years of experience with the organization.

The content of Richard's comment is in italics. My response follows each of the quotes from his blog comment, which I've left as he wrote it.
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The Masters of RSSB-are an example for all of us in the world

Sure. Agreed. So is everyone else in the world. Each person can serve as an example for someone else. That's what parenting is all about. And teaching. Sports, also. There are good examples and bad examples. We have to pick and choose who deserves our emulation, and who doesn't.

if you have beeen lucky enough to see them hear them talk read their discourses-with an open unbiased mind-they do not want followers to rush blindly after them-this path is one of total commitment -just like any path.

I've seen them. I've heard them talk. I've read their words. I was totally committed to the RSSB path for well over thirty years. So I've walked the path and know where it led for me.

Before judging this path -have you ever read one word written by the RSSB masters,- concepts of spirituality remain in the domain of the intellect-whereas experiencing first hand within the inner bliss say of meditation-this is the path,the real path of sound and light,the holy name,word shabd,nam,Tao,bang-i-ismani. give it any namit is the same EXPERIENCE.

Good god. I've read every word in every RSSB book. Several times. I know the difference between concepts and experience. Every mystic, every spiritual guide, every philosopher – everybody knows that difference. If you've had a experience, Richard, that's your experience. I've had my own experiences. They're all just that: personal experiences. Christians have them. Buddhists too. And Hindus. Not to mention atheists and agnostics. They don't prove anything about the nature of really real reality.

For those so called ex -satsangis remember this is a path of forgiveness-the teacher who has your best interests at heart has not turned his head away from you-go back to class and see-there he is 24/7

There's no sign of him, dude. He hasn't popped up in thirty-eight years of meditation. Best explanation: the guru isn't who devotees believe he is, God. I've never heard one disciple, not one, tell me that they're in contact with the astral/spiritual form of the master. So he's not there to be seen, in my experience. The guru is only there to be imagined, which is a big difference.

-He is ready to accept ALL those who wish to learn -don't forget WE are not teachers are we?

We're all teachers. As well as students. There are countless teachers, and countless students. It's crazy to believe that only your teacher has the truth. In religion and spirituality everyone believes they, and only they, have the truth. Obviously, everyone who believes this is wrong. Like you are, Richard.

however one can not relinquish ones duty as a student in a university to study and pass the core curricculum nor blame the institution if we fail at passing our exam-it is not the libraries fault if we refuse to digest the knowledge therein. So it is with the perfect masters The Professors Emiritus of The University of Spritualty-the Shabd Illumni-so to say

You're a true believer, Richard. I used to be one too. So I can't fault you for believing. But I can criticize you for being blind to your own dogma. You're no different from a fundamentalist Christian, Muslim, or Jew. They all think they're right, and everyone else is wrong. In university studies, scholars come to agree on core truths. This doesn't exist in religion or spirituality. I used to argue that it did, but I was wrong. There isn't a core spiritual curriculum, Richard. It only exists for you, not in reality. Again, there's a big difference between what you believe and what is real.

These perfect ones and I mean perfect-they never hurt anyone , never accept a single dime from anyone personally-they work normal jobs they havefamilies or not .they go through the samr problems as us-they meditate daily they pay taxes have friends are generous build charitable hospitals-now does a selfish person wrapped up in their own little world do that ?

You make no sense. You're saying that the RSSB masters are just like us. And they are. Lots of people, including me, never hurt anyone, don't accept a single dime from anyone personally, work a normal job ( before I retired), have a family, pay taxes, and go through problems. So I guess I'm a perfect master. You may worship me, Richard. I give a lot to charitable causes. I spend countless hours serving my community/neighborhood. Obviously I'm perfect – along with countless other normal human beings. What makes a RSSB guru more perfect than any other person? Answer me, Richard. Show me the evidence, the experience.

In short do any or all of YOU American haters of the path of Sant Mat TAKE ON THE KARMAS OF OVER 2 million human beings? No! I didn't think so.

I don't know. Maybe I do. Maybe this explains why my hair has turned gray. What makes you think the RSSB masters do this? This is just a concept that you've come to believe, Richard. Where's the proof of it?

Well before you cast aspersions on Gurinder Singh or any other master past or present-have a look at your own spirituality-take a good long look at your past lives,your present self righteous one -and I know about that -I am in the club too-but I have EXPERIENCED the mountain top, I have been to the summit of Christ,-I KNOW who Gt Master is Charan Singh and all the VERY FEW perfect masters in this world -maybe just One....

Your humility is obvious, Richard. Clearly your vast spiritual experiences have done a lot to reduce your ego. Congratulations. As for me, I'm just an ignorant fool. Yes, I'm self-righteously ignorant. I'm supremely confident that I don't know squat about ultimate reality. I'm also pretty sure that no one else does either. You claim absolute knowledge, though. Pretty impressive. Please share one verifiable truth about the cosmos that no one else knows, but you do. Like, say, how quantum theory and relativity theory fit together. Einstein worked on this for several decades and couldn't figure it out. No scientist has, so far. Leave a comment on this blog that explains it. Since you've been to the "mountain top" of reality, that should be easy for you to do.

so American fanatics of hatred of the so called ex satsangi get real -WHY DID YOU APPLY to be INITIATED in the first place? Exactly! You want love-? You want bliss-? You want spirituality? Well then -GO INSIDE-shut the criticising mouth and meditate. Do your simran do your bhajan-read discourses -stay married. You heard.Be a diciple if YOU got the guts.

I meditated every day for over thirty years. Give me a break. Many of those years, for the prescribed two and a half hours. I've been a disciple. I've walked the walk. I just never had the experiences that RSSB claims a disciple will have in meditation. I got initiated because I wanted truth, love, and spirituality. I still want those things. Even more than before. That's why I'm looking for them in a different direction now, because I'm not going to spend my whole life in a spiritual dead end.

You and I are either on the bus or off the bus,-as Baba Ji says Here is an example of a prayer witten -n 1947 by the Great Master My Lord I am ignorant I do not know what to ask from you. Give me that which you think best for me.And give me the strength and wisdom to be happy about what you deem fit to give me and about how and where you keep me .I have no virtue , no devotion.My actions are all dark and sinful. I possess no merits and the mind has thoroughly crushed me,For a sinner like myself,O Lord there is no refuge but Thy Blessed Feet,I want nothing more. Make me Thy slave, that I become Thine and Thou mayst become mine Sawan Singh-1858-1948

I'm very familiar with that prayer. I assume you believe it, since you quoted it. The guru is saying that he has no virtue, no devotion. He has no merits and the mind has crushed him. Yet you, Richard, believe that you're way beyond all that. You know it all, whereas the Great Master didn't. You say he wrote this in 1947, a year before he died. It sounds like Sawan Singh was humble up to the end. Maybe you could learn something from him.

And another thing Mohammed was a perfect living master of his time-you never been inside -don't judge true muslims then until you have seen within so to say and you have never read the Koran -suggest you do then-then go to a mosque-ex satsangi -American racist oofas.

Hmmmm. I've never heard that Mohammed was a perfect living master. So I assume you believe the Koran is all true. I've read the Koran. It's full of a lot of ridiculous stuff, like every holy book. I'm not racist. I just don't believe in Islam, like I don't believe in Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other religion. So why should I go to a mosque?

Also can Jesus and Mohammed Guru Nanak, Sawan Singh Charan Singh Rongomai O Te Whiti etc be seen within? The answer is yes- easier than sending am email to the Church of the Churchless Alofa Richard

Say hello to them for me, Richard. Tell them I'd like to have a chat. Have them drop by in my meditation tomorrow. I'd love to hear these guys explain to me the mysteries of the cosmos. It'll be especially interesting to listen to Jesus and Mohammed talk about how the Bible and the Koran are both true. I just have one request: since these perfect masters are all-knowing, please ask them to tell you the name of the girl I took to the prom my freshman year in high school. Leave another comment with her name and I'll be impressed.

[Update: I'd like to know the answer to the prom question. But there's a few people in the world, aside from me, who know her name. Here's a better test…I've folded a dollar bill up and put it in a compartment in my wallet. What is the serial number? The perfect masters must know, since they know everything.]

Getting real at a coffeehouse Sunday “service”

I don't go to the Radha Soami Satsang Beas version of church (satsang) anymore. But in a way, I still attend a service. And it's a lot more real and satisfying than the one way "sermons" I used to listen to, and give, back in my true believing days.

Yesterday I got together, as usual, with my Sunday coffeehouse conversing bunch. Most have had, or still have, a connection with RSSB. We're not dogmatic, though, and that makes all the difference.

Most of the time it was just me, Lynette, and Hans huddled at a table, sipping expresso and munching on nachos, making tremendous progress at figuring out the mysteries of the cosmos.

Next week, we'll do it all over again.

That's the beauty of open, unstructured, respectful discussion. You feel good about where you're going, even though you know that the road has no end.

I was able to try out some arguments from a book that I've halfway through reading, which I can tell is going to become one of my all time favorites in the What's It All About? genre. It's "The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality" by Andre Comte-Sponville, a French philosopher and professor at the Sorbonne.

It's wonderful. And not only because I agree with almost everything Comte-Sponville says. It's the way he says it that grabs me just as much.

He'd fit right in with our coffeehouse discussing. He's got one of those marvelous minds that cut through intellectual crap and focuses right in on the essence of a subject. In this case, the nature (or non-nature) of God, and how we relate to God's existence (or non-existence).

Later I'll share some specifics from Comte-Sponville's book. For now, I'll relate how immersing myself in some right on philosophical writing affected my talking with Lynette and Hans.

Without being obnoxious, or so I hope, I kept trying to bring us back to solid ground. Reality. Here and now, rather than there and then.

Concepts are mind frothings, like the top layer of a latte. It's enjoyable to sip, but underneath is the heart of the drink. Same with speculating about the nature of the cosmos and human existence. Sticking with what we directly experience makes for much better musings.

Like Comte-Sponville, we'd start talking about God and I'd say, "First, let's ask What is God?" If that word, "God," is just a concept with no substantive reality behind it, discussing divinity is like analyzing unicorn behavior.

It's all make believe – though taken with great seriousness by the world's religions. Leaving the purely conceptual froth aside, what we're left with is communing in a community of fellow believers or seekers.

That's what we were doing at the coffeehouse. And that's what billions of people do in their own religious gatherings: enjoy the presence of other people with whom they share a common bond.

OK, I can't resist sharing some Comte-Sponville quotes along these lines.

What binds believers together, as seen by an outside observer, is not God, whose existence is open to doubt; rather, it is their communion within the same faith. Such, according to Durkheim and most sociologists, is indeed the true content or primary function of religion – it favors social cohesion by reinforcing communion of thought and adhesion to the rules of the group.

…The question of faith should not obfuscate the more decisive question of fidelity. Do I really wish to subject my conscience to a belief (or unbelief) that cannot be verified? Do I really wish to derive my morals from my metaphysics and measure my duties against my faith? That would mean giving up a certainty for an uncertainty, an actually existing humanity for an only possibly existing God. This is why I sometimes like to describe myself as a faithful atheist.

…I had given a lecture, somewhere in the provinces, on the idea of a godless spirituality. Among the people who had come up to chat with me after the lecture was a rather elderly man who introduced himself as a Catholic priest (and I saw there was a small golden cross pinned to his lapel). "I came to thank you," he said. "I enjoyed your lecture very much." Then he added, "I agreed with everything you said."

I thanked him in turn, but could not help adding, "Still, Father, I must admit it surprises me to hear you say you agreed with everything I said. Surely you can't agree when I say I don't believe in either God or the immortality of the soul!"

"Oh," said the elderly priest with a benevolent smile, "those are such secondary matters."

Beautiful. And so true. That's why our coffeehouse conversing was so enjoyable yesterday.

We zeroed in on immediate human reality and left the secondary matters – God, guru, soul, life after death – for the conceptualizers.

Get real. Is there anything else to do?

Artifacts of my non-heretical heresy

My wife found some note cards when she was cleaning out a drawer. "Here," she said, handing them to me. "They're yours."

No doubt. My handwriting is distinctive, in the sense of unreadable.

But I can decipher my own scribblings. Most of the time, at least. (I've been known to hand a store clerk my grocery list and ask, "Can you tell me what I wrote down here?")

I thumbed through the cards and realized what they were: an initial attempt to organize themes for the talks that I used to give regularly at meetings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) devotees.

After I'd jotted down some thoughts on a handful of cards I gave up, realizing that my unorganized speaking approach was something that I'd never be able to cast off.

Still, there was some benefit to writing down these ideas. Now they serve as a window into my past true believing mind. Which, not so surprisingly, turns out to be quite similar to my current skeptical mind.

Do we ever really change our personality spots? I don't think so. We just make up different stories about them.

Here's what I said back then, whenever "then" was. Ten years or so, probably.

I'm considered a RSSB heretic now. But reading the cards, I realized that whatever I think today isn't so different from what I thought then. That's why I consider my heresy non-heretical.

Non-existence would be proof that God doesn't exist. Hence, it is terrifying. Of course, no one has experienced it. But prospect is dreadful, depressing, scary.

God is existence [Meister Eckhart]. All beings thirst for existence. This thirst is infinite, because existence is infinite. A longing that never lessens. With spirituality, eating causes hunger. Love…love, a circle with no end.

God is one. We need to look through everything and see God within. A single great chain of being. If Master [the guru] lies along that chain, our attachment to him is beneficial. If not, then it isn't.

Why do we not see God? Why is he missing? Perhaps, because the One is everything and so is everywhere. All is spirit, so spirituality is omnipresent. But we see only the crudest side of spirit.

Satsang [sermon, basically]. No truth in satsang, none at all. The true word can't be spoken. So, no heresy. Heresy is a matter of will, not intellect. Even the Master never says anything that is true.

Brain has no sensation at all, so we may sense all things. Likewise, when our non-material consciousness is empty of all self-induced sensation, it perceives what is beyond the self.

What is the most amazing thing we can say about God? How little, if anything, we can say about God. Same with Master; same with us.

Knowing. Do I know what I am talking about? No. But I know that I am talking. And this is the only true knowing: immediate and intuitive. Meister Eckhart: "To know God is to know that He causes us to know."

What you know of yourself is what you know of God. Self can't be known; it is lived.

Beautiful blonde at end of bar. "Buy a girl a drink?" We're accustomed to "but's" accompanying fulfillment of desire. Can't throw ourselves completely into anything, which is wise with worldly desires. But with spirit – need to boldly embrace.

Many words, less truth. No agreement. Even "holy names" not holy.

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.

Radha Soami Satsang Beas embraces the Internet

I like it when a religious organization shows some flexibility. So kudos to the group that I belonged to for some thirty-five years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, for significantly expanding its embrace of the World Wide Web.

Today I learned that the RSSB web site has a new look. Previously there was basically just a home page and a catalog of RSSB publications.

Now there's much more, including essays on the Sant Mat philosophy that forms the core of the group's teachings.

For a long time the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh, asked that disciples refrain from discussing Sant Mat on the Internet. Many initiates have been reluctant to read or comment on this blog, or the Yahoo Radha Soami studies group, for that reason.

Now that RSSB itself is more actively disseminating information over the web, hopefully this reluctance will vanish.

I've browsed through most of the web site's pages. Here's a few observations.

The home page says:

There are no rituals, ceremonies, hierarchies or mandatory contributions, nor are there compulsory gatherings. Members need not give up their cultural identity or religious preference to follow this path.

Well, leaving aside the dubious claim of no rituals or ceremonies, dictionary definitions of "hierarchy" are a series of ordered groupings of people or things within a system and the organization of people at different ranks in an administrative body.

Having been a member of the RSSB hierarchy for several decades, I can say for a fact that it includes: (1) the guru, (2) managers of various RSSB functions, including representatives who administer goings-on in different countries and regions within large countries, and (3) secretaries who organize local meetings (satsangs).

If there isn't a RSSB hierarchy, how could I have been fired as a satsang speaker a few years ago?

The reason that was given was my blogging here on the Church of the Churchless, because it had been making a lot of people uncomfortable. Thus I found this statement on the RSSB "Philosophy" page interesting.

They [members] are free to make their own choices in life and maintain any cultural or religious affiliations they choose. RSSB does not involve itself in the personal lives of its members.

Except when the personal life includes a hobby of blogging about spiritual and philosophical subjects, including some critiques of Sant Mat.

Understand: I don't object to a religious organization choosing who it wants to speak at meetings. I'm just pointing out that several pages on the RSSB web site make the organization sound a lot less hierarchical and controlling than it really is.

Along that line, I found that the web site's introductory pages are considerably more ecumenical than the essays, which are a truer reflection of Sant Mat teachings.

The home page starts off with:

Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is a philosophical organization based on the spiritual teachings of all religions and dedicated to a process of inner development under the guidance of a spiritual teacher.

Hmmmm. For sure, not all religions agree with the Sant Mat philosophy. Not even close.

I guess the word "spiritual" offers the required wriggle-room, since RSSB would argue that while the outward teaching of every other religion conflicts with Sant Mat, the inner mystical teaching doesn't.

I'd disagree even with that, though. Sant Mat says that the soul returns to God under the guidance of a guru who is divinity made flesh, traversing higher spiritual regions and leaving the material and mental worlds of illusion (maya) behind.

This is far removed from orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Also Buddhism and Taoism. Hinduism and Sikhism come closest to being in accord with Sant Mat, but even here there are significant differences.

So this is my biggest quibble with the revamped RSSB web site, and RSSB in general. Sant Mat has a legitimate claim to religious validity, as do all of the world's religions. (Whether a claim can be backed up – that's the big question.)

However, I don't think Sant Mat should claim that it is the common denominator of every religion and spiritual/mystical path, because it isn't.

Consider this statement in one of the essays:

It is only when we finally meet a saint or master that a soul can rise above this level of duality, of action and reaction, reward and punishment, and discover its true spiritual nature…They [masters] re-connect the soul to the holy Word, and explain the technique of discovering God within the body.

Yet the essay also says:

Sant Mat concerns itself with this common ground which is the spiritual heart, or heritage, of every great religion.

Again, this isn't true. I'm intimately familiar with the Sant Mat teachings. I'm also well acquainted with the tenets of the major world religions.

Most recently my study has focused on Taoism and Buddhism, because I resonate best with these approaches to fathoming the big questions of life.

The core of Sant Mat – initiation by a living guru who connects the disciple's soul with spirit, and thereafter guides the soul through higher realms of reality – isn't found in Taoism or Buddhism. Nor is it found in the Western monotheistic religions.

This doesn't mean that Sant Mat is wrong. Just that the RSSB teachings need to stand on their own, and not attempt to be supported by an illusory connection (or even supposed identity) with other religions.

Loving is one thing, investing another

I've had an interesting email exchange with someone who noted my statement in a previous post:

"Often I hear believers say, on this blog or elsewhere, that sharing their personal experience runs the risk of enlarging their ego. In my opinion, the risk lies in the other direction."

She disagreed, saying that for her (a Sant Mat initiate), love is the whole of spirituality. And love should be private.

The inner personal experience of meditation is regarded by many satsangis as a very personal, private, and precious gift which has relevance only to oneself. The experience is a special gift from the inner master or sound, (or whoever/whatever one calls the giver of the gift), and is far more private than special gestures of love between two people in a loving relationship. In a latter relationship, I would feel that I am betraying something of that bond of love if I were to share their special "gifts" without the express permission of my beloved. So, too, with those inner experiences.

I told her that I respected those sentiments, as I used to feel much the same way. However, given my current outlook, it seems to me that the analogy with a "loving relationship" isn't really appropriate when it comes to a guru-disciple or god-believer connection.

Loving is one thing, investing another. If love is truly all that Sant Mat, or any other spiritual path, is about – great. Love one another is pretty darn pure and simple.

But my correspondent also refers to inner experiences that are gifts of the guru, god, or holy spirit (in Sant Mat, the three are virtually synonymous, sort of like the Christian Trinity).

She implies that these experiences are the spiritual equivalent of a sexual union. You don't talk about what goes on in the bedroom with your physical lover, and you don't talk about what goes on in the meditation chamber with your divine lover.

Here's how I see it, though.

If you're in an intimate relationship, or married, it's presumed you're having sex. You may not want to offer up juicy details, but if someone asked me, "Do you have sex with your wife?" I'd have no problem saying "Sure."

However, Sant Mat disciples – like most initiates of a guru – are extremely reluctant to admit that they're even involved in a metaphysical relationship with their master. They'll say, "I can't talk about it; it's too personal."

Well, I'd like to know details, but I'd be happy with much less. Do you get "gifts" of mystical experiences that you know are coming from the guru? Yes or no. Leave aside a mention of what they are. What's wrong with sharing the general nature of your spiritual relationship?

My suspicion is that what's wrong is that the gifts aren't as clear cut or demonstrable as the Sant Mat teachings promise. This makes Sant Mat more of an exercise in investing, and less an exercise in loving.

Meaning, Sant Mat promises certain experiences. A meeting with the guru's radiant astral form. Journeying with the radiant form through higher regions of reality. Merging with the ultimate cosmic energy in the form of light and sound. Entering a formless realm beyond time and space.

This isn't love. This is investing. It's an exchange relationship, really.

At the time of initiation the disciple promises to keep to certain vows, and the guru agrees to take the initiate under his spiritual wing – guiding the disciple back to his or her divine Home.

Problem is, it's said that this promise isn't always fulfilled in one's lifetime. Thus the investment of meditation, vegetarianism, and such isn't guaranteed to show a payoff until a maximum of three additional reincarnations have been lived.

In lots of cases, though, the guru's gifts are supposed to be bestowed in the present lifetime. This is why the meditation practice is billed as a "science." You do certain things, and certain results happen.

It's akin to handing over $10,000 to a investment advisor who says "I can make your money grow." Then you wait. And you wait some more.

No checks in the mail. Not even any financial statements. You've got no indication that the guy is making any money for you. Reading the investment agreement more closely, you note it says:

--You may not make any money until after you die.
--If you make money in this lifetime, you may not know it.
--You can't ask other investors if they're making money.
--You can't tell other investors if you're making money.

Huh? When you entered into this deal, you were sure it was a good one. So you didn't worry about that fine print. But now that the expected payoff hasn't shown up, you're curious about what's going on.

You can't understand why all the secrecy. If so many people are making money through this investment advisor, why isn't wealth evident? You know some fellow investors, and though they won't tell you how they're doing, their lifestyle appears just the same as before.

When you inquire about this, another clause in the agreement is pointed out:

--If you make money, you can't flaunt it.

I could go on in this vein, but hopefully you get the idea. Sant Mat may be the real deal. However, the way the deal is structured, it bears a lot of resemblance to a financial scheme that would make you think, There's something shady going on here.

So this is another way of explaining why I favor full disclosure of initiates' spiritual net worth. If mystical wealth is being accumulated, let's hear about it.

That's the only way for investors/initiates to know whether the payoffs that aren't being made to them, are to other people – which would go a long way toward establishing the credibility of the setup.

Love doesn't have anything to do with credibility. It stands by itself. Promised spiritual experiences, though, either are forthcoming or they're not.

Show me the money. Then I'll know if the deal is credible.

Is there anything to do but be?

I love it when a Church of the Churchless post comes back to life. Resurrection! Praise Blog!

The past week there's been an intense high-quality discussion on last November's "Another RSSB initiate bites the dust" – a 75 comment interchange since February 12. I've followed the conversation mostly from afar, though I've thrown in a comment or two of my own.

As frequently happens on this blog, the specifics often have to do with Radha Soami Satsang Beas, the mystic-religious organization I was involved with for thirty-five years.

But the general themes are universal.

One of which, to my mind the central topic, is whether spirituality involves doing anything at all. My innate laziness likes this notion.

Just be. Simple.

And entirely in line with deep mystic philosophy, from all sorts of sages. Including the guru, Gurinder Singh, who currently heads up Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

I went to India in 1998. While I was at the Dera, RSSB's headquarters in the Punjab, I heard Gurinder say at an evening meeting of Western disciples, "How difficult is it to do nothing?"

He was talking about meditation. Interestingly, this is the only thing I remember from any of the meetings where he spoke (aside from some comments he made to me about a book I was working on).

It struck me at the time as being both remarkably trite and remarkably true.

Meaning, it was one of those statements that sound profoundly wise coming from a distinguished looking Indian guru, replete with beard, turban, and flowing white garments, and profoundly simplistic coming from almost anyone else.

Of course, it's indeed difficult to do nothing if this is taken to mean stopping all thoughts, emotions, imaginings, and what not in meditation.

But there's a broader meaning, one which kept arising in the comment conversation that started February 12. Doing nothing except being what you are. Now that's really doing nothing, because there's nothing to be done.

For example, on February 17 Tulsi said:

The One is playing a game of hide and seek with itself. All paths lead to nowhere because there is nowhere to go. Just be as you are, really are, right now, which is just fine as it is.

On the same day Aman replied:

Yes there's no where to go or reach in the end the final realization is of the self which is present now agreed but just the knowledge of the self is not enough there has to be a process which will unfold the real self & that realization will not be a mere thought or belief system which you've come to understand but instead it will be a result & conclusion to your experiment with your self & your soul.

And so the dialogue goes. Where it stops, nobody knows. At least, I sure don't.

More and more, I find myself tilting toward the nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to become camp. But what do I know? I could be completely wrong.

Maybe my soul needs a total makeover, and I'm sitting here contentedly unkempt, not realizing what a shabby state my self is in.

Who knows for sure? Again, not me.

I'll end by mentioning that while I read and enjoyed all of the 75 comments, Manjit's February 18 submission was particularly interesting. I appreciated his openness and honesty in talking about the validity of his "mystical" experiences.

However, my intense desire for the truth caused me a great, great deal of problems. I began to question, REALLY question, what my inner experiences really showed. I tried testing them. Astral projecting to a place and counting the money on top of a cupboard and then subsequently checking in 'real' life if I was correct (never). Reading the testimonies of countless other 'seekers' who saw the 'radiant form' of their obviously deviant 'guru'. Reading Neural surfer and Chand. Etc etc etc. The avenues which disprove the RS theology quite convincingly are both obvious and many.

Thanks to all for this stimulating interchange. Per usual, no answers. Just great questions.

Jesus is alive and well in India

Most Christians would be surprised to learn that right now, in 2008, millions of people believe that a man in India not only teaches the same spirituality as Jesus, but is the same godly being.

Yes, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a branch of Sant Mat, holds that the path of the saints (a translation of "Sant Mat") is identical with the teachings of Jesus. One of the RSSB books, "Light on Saint John," says:

Since most of you have a Christian background, I shall try to explain the teachings of all the Saints in the light of the Bible, for their teachings exactly coincide with those contained in the Bible, if rightly understood.

…If you go deep into the roots of Christ's teachings, you will find that his teachings are the same as the teachings of all other Saints, and in that light I will discuss Saint John with you.

Pretty amazing. And to my currently churchless soul, extremely difficult to accept.

For even during the thirty years or so I was a largely uncritical RSSB devotee, this purported equivalence between the message of the Gospels and Sant Mat was hard to swallow.

As I noted in a recent post, RSSB uses the New Testament in contradictory ways to cozy up to Jesus. On the one hand, the Bible is decried (correctly) as an entirely human document whose language has been fiddled with for centuries, not a one-time divine revelation.

Yet certain Biblical verses are also cited unquestioningly to support the contention that Jesus' message is the same as the teachings promulgated by RSSB gurus such as Charan Singh (who wrote "Light on Saint John").

A few days ago I got an email message from someone who said:

I've been reading your blog about RSSB, the organization, and have been enjoying it a great deal. Could you tell me which books by the RS masters claim that Jesus was a "sant mat 'guru'?" I know that you say this is an RSSB contention but I'm wondering if any of the masters, in their writings or tapes, have said as much. From what I remember of the master's books, tapes, this claim is not directly made.

Well, actually it is. I dug out some RSSB books from storage boxes in our attic and browsed through them yesterday. It was interesting to re-read passages that now strike me differently.

What's most interesting is that Master Charan Singh is speaking as much about himself, as he is about Jesus, when he interprets the Bible in the light of Sant Mat teachings.

The teachings of different Saints cannot themselves be different. Because the Lord is one, the way to realize Him must also be one, for He is within every one of us. We have to search for Him within ourselves, under the guidance of one who has himself realized Him within, as Christ did in his lifetime …Masters may take birth in any nation, race, or religion, but they all preach the same Truth.

So since Jesus is a Master or Saint, and Charan Singh is a Master or Saint, and all Masters or Saints have trod the same path to God-realization, whatever Charan Singh says about Jesus applies to himself.

This helps explain why so many RSSB initiates come from a Christian background. In the person of the guru they believe they've found the 21^st century Jesus (the current RSSB master is Gurinder Singh Dhillon, who succeeded Charan Singh after he died in 1990).

I used to find these Sant Mat dogmas appealing, because I liked the idea that I was "chosen" and "saved." But now they strike me as overtly religious. I can't accept Christianity in an Indian guise. (All quotes from "Light on Saint John." My comments on a quote follow in italics.)

John the Baptist's answer points out a fundamentally important law of the Creator: that each Master has been allotted a certain number of "sheep" to initiate and take home to the Father, and that only the Father determines which souls are for which Mystic.

Well, maybe. But this notion of predestination is ethically challenging. Repugnant, even. Some people are born to be saved and returned to God; others aren't. And that's it. The Creator decides who merits salvation and who doesn't.

There are two types of people in this world: those who are devoted to a perfect Master, and hence devotees of the Lord, and those who are devoted to the mind and senses. The devotees of the Lord always remain devoted to their Master and become free from sin by doing the spiritual practice as directed by him. The others are dominated by the mind and senses and have worldly values, which cause them to do worldly things, and this in turn causes an accumulation of sins and karmas – the chains that bind us to the material world – thus preventing us from going home to our Father in heaven.

There's a lot to comment on here. The duality. The "us" vs. "them" mentality. The equation of devotion to the guru with devotion to God. The warning that only the spiritual practice enjoined by the guru is sin-free. My wife, who isn't a RSSB initiate, used to do a great Saturday Night Live "church lady" imitation when she heard these sorts of sentiments expressed. "I'm doomed," she'd say, "doomed!" Somehow, I doubt it.

There is no difference between me and my Father. You are spiritually blind and deaf, you cannot see and hear Him in the Spirit. Therefore, out of His mercy and grace He has come down to your level in the physical form to instruct you and put you on the path leading back to Him. It is He that you see in the physical form and it is He who is teaching you. I do nothing. It is the Father who is doing everything.

In Sant Mat and RSSB, the guru is God. This is similar to Christian Trinitarianism, but a bit more extreme. My understanding is that Christians consider Jesus to be one in nature with God the Father, but not the same as God. Here Charan Singh seems to be saying that Jesus (and by implication, himself) is God in human form.

People believe that they are worshipping God, but they do not really know what they are worshipping. In fact, they are being deceived by the negative power, who will further ensnare and entangle them in this world again and again. The negative power tricks them into thinking that they are worshipping the Father and thus prevents them from contacting a living Master, so that they may not know and worship the one true God.

I keep hearing from RSSB devotees, "this is not a religion." But the quote above is pure fundamentalism. There is one way to God, devotion to a living Master or guru. If you're not on that path, you've been deceived by the negative power, the Devil. Again, my wife would disagree. Of course, from the RSSB perspective that's just the negative power speaking.

Until we contact a living Master who has realized God, we can never realize the Father.

Clear and simple. Only problem is, how can anyone know that someone has realized God? This is the big question. And I've never gotten a good answer to it.

Playing fair with words

Yesterday I got some advice from a commenter on a post to "be silent." I responded right away, because this is one of my favorite subjects – playing fair with words.

Zion, I always find it interesting when someone, like you, advises that silence is the best policy -- and posts a public comment using many words.

If I should be silent, shouldn't you? Or do you know me better than I know myself? And does your advice only apply to me, or also to yourself?

…I'm curious about this: how do you know that "those who know always keep quiet." Does this mean that someone who never speaks or writes anything "knows"? You just wrote something. Apparently this means that you don't know.

So how is it possible that you can offer such contradictory advice? If you knew, you would keep quiet. Since you didn't, I have to assume that you don't know.

If you are to be believed, every single holy book and every single holy person who ever uttered a word, or taught in some other communicative fashion, doesn't know. I find this easy to believe, by the way -- that people who claim to know about higher realities, really don't.

But again, when you undercut everyone else who speaks, your own speaking is cut away also. Anyway, thanks for the advice. As you can see, I'm not taking it.

I don't mind people telling me what I should do. If I did, I wouldn't have been able to stay married for 36 of my 59 years, that's for sure.

My wife frequently tells me I should be neater and cleaner around the house. She's neat and clean, so her actions match her advice. That's consonant with the Golden Rule approach to morality (mentioned here).

But when someone uses thoughts to tell me "you think too much," or words to tell me "be silent," my bullshit detector goes off.

Start with yourself, dude is my immediate response.

The post that stimulated the "be silent" comment was about RSSB books. So it's appropriate to use some Radha Soami Satsang Beas publications as another example of how words are used unfairly.

A number of RSSB books relate Christianity to Sant Mat, which is the foundation of RSSB teachings. I won't go into the nature of these relations here, because my concern is with how the Bible is used to support the RSSB contention that Jesus basically was a Sant Mat "guru."

On the one hand, RSSB authors (including the guru who initiated me, Charan Singh) correctly note that the words in the Bible have been messed around with since the New Testament was written.

And that these writings were composed a long time after Jesus lived. So we don't have a dependable record of what Jesus said.

Yet after saying this, somehow these same authors feel justified in explaining the genuine message of the Gospels, using quotations from the Bible to support the notion that Jesus was a vegetarian, meditating mystic who initiated disciples into an inner path of light and sound that leads to higher spiritual realms.

Even when I was a fervent RSSB devotee, I'd read this stuff and think, huh?

How could it be that some words in the Bible can't be trusted when they support a traditional view of Christianity, but other words can be used to argue that Sant Mat and Jesus' teachings are essentially identical?

I'm up with wordlessness, believe me. I spend a good share of my day doing my best to keep my psyche as word-free as possible.

Other times, like now, I open the gate to my word animals and let them run free. Words are what they are, neither good or bad. How we use them – that's the question.

Fairly. That's part of the answer. We shouldn't expect other people to adhere to a word standard that's different from our own.

A parent who screams to a child, "You're too loud!" doesn't have much credibility. Nor does someone who writes, "we should keep our thoughts to ourselves."

My inside look at RSSB books

It's interesting that currently churchless me once was so involved in writing books for a decidedly churchy organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

A couple of years ago I blogged about "How writing a book rewrote me." This was the third, and last, major RSSB book project that I was involved with.

The end result was "Return to the One: Plotinus' Guide to God-Realization." But it wasn't published by RSSB, even though the plan all along was that this would be the first in a Mystics of the West series.

I have to give credit to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru who heads up Radha Soami Satsang Beas, for wanting to study the teachings of Western philosophical mystics like Plotinus – even though the effort came to a crashing halt.

Early on in the book project, Gurinder Singh mailed me a list of possible subjects for a Mystics of the West book. I chose Plotinus because I was intrigued by him and resonated with the approach of Greek philosophy – open-minded non-religious, and rational, as noted in my earlier post.

Also to Gurinder Singh's credit, when I was in India in 1998 I asked him, "If I find a conflict between the teachings of Plotinus and of RSSB, what should I do?"

His reply: "Stick with Plotinus."And that's what I did.

Which is one reason why I ended up publishing the book myself. I wasn't willing to compromise my description of Plotinus' marvelous mystic philosophy to fit with how the RSSB Publication Department powers-that-be wanted the book to turn out.

Our disagreements came down to a few areas that might seem fairly inconsequential, but were important to me. I talked about one issue in the other post – whether there is such a thing as a "Western mind." (Since I have one, I'm convinced that there is.)

Also, RSSB wanted to include quotations from a previous RSSB guru, Charan Singh, after each chapter title – to show that West and East were on the same wavelength when it came to spirituality.

I was OK with this, but just for the version of the book that would be published non-commercially by RSSB. I saw no reason, none at all, to mix up RSSB teachings with Plotinus' philosophy in the commercial version that would be sold to the general public.

This related to another disagreement I had with RSSB Publications staff. They wanted me to include a mention of my involvement with Radha Soami Satsang Beas, so that readers would know "where I was coming from."

I even was asked to thank Charan Singh (the guru who initiated me in 1971) in the introduction for making it possible for me to write the book – supposedly, I guess, by infusing my consciousness with enough wisdom to grasp Plotinus' not always easily graspable teachings.

I balked at that too.

I told RSSB that I've always had a better than average ability to understand complex subjects and write about them fairly clearly. That preceded my involvement with RSSB meditation. It's an integral part of my makeup, not a gift from my guru.

And on the "where I'm coming from" front, my position was that if a knowledgeable reader couldn't tell that I'd been a member of an Indian-based mystic/meditation group for thirty years, then there was no need to mention this.

I mean, I sent drafts of the book manuscript to scholars who were experts on Plotinus. I got lots of suggestions and criticisms back, but nobody ever suggested that my interpretation of Plotinus was slanted in a particular fashion.

Yet RSSB wanted me to talk about how my immersion in the organization was related to my "take" on Plotinus. I kept saying that I'd never seen a similar mention of an author's personal philosophy in any of the scholarly books I'd read about Plotinus.

It simply was taken for granted that the author had done his or her best to write about Plotinus teachings, not his own way of looking at the world.

Sure, "Return to the One" includes a lot of Brian Hines along with Plotinus. That's inescapable, because I wrote the book, not a robot. However, I successfully separated the "me" aspects of the book from the "him" (Plotinus) aspects.

At the moment my book is #2 on an Amazon search for "Plotinus," right behind Plotinus' Enneads. That's satisfying. It's the most readable book about an influential Greek philosophy who should be more widely read.

I wish Radha Soami Satsang Beas had been less concerned about infusing the book with a RSSB slant. But this is par for the course with RSSB publications about mystics who aren't in the direct Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru lineage.

There's a decided tendency – and I can't go into this in detail in this already lengthy post – toward slanting a mystic's teachings to more tightly fit with RSSB dogma.

This would be somewhat understandable, though still not acceptable, if an overtly religious organization was doing it. But RSSB bills itself as a "science of the soul," and scientists need to be as objective as possible in their writings and research.

A key tenet of the RSSB philosophy, which is shared by all sorts of mystic teachings, is that words can't encompass ultimate reality. Given this, I always found it difficult to understand why RSSB books were so concerned with saying things the same way, and describing metaphysical principles in consistent language.

Might as well end by quoting myself (from the "Infinity is Ineffable" chapter).

Our whole approach to the One will be thrown off course if we believe we can travel to enlightenment through words or thoughts. It isn't a matter of, say, pondering the Buddhist Dhammapada for my whole life and then realizing that the Christian Bible contains a more correct description of divine reality.

This would be like me believing that God is square and then finding out that God actually is a circle. Since I was looking for some sort of spiritual shape, I wasn't far off the mark and might simply observe, "Oops, I made a slight mistake; now I know better."

But if God is formless and nameless, far removed from any shape or word, then a much more radical change of direction is needed. A person's entire consciousness must be transformed if he or she is to experience God. A way has to be found of experiencing emptiness, of entering into the nothingness that is the threshold to the One.

More evidence Sant Mat is a religion

Yesterday Jay Lou left a comment on one of my posts that started off, "I don't want to be rude to you. But if you can't say anything good about something then don't say it at all."

I was surprised by that sentiment. I seem to recall an elementary school teacher saying something similar back in first or second grade, but adults rarely, if ever, speak that way.

It struck me as remarkably unscientific.

Yet it was pretty obvious that the commenter was a devotee of Sant Mat (likely the Radha Soami Satsang Beas branch), a spiritual path that I used to follow assiduously, and which likes to call itself the "Science of the Soul."

For the rest of his comment was:

This path is to be experienced on our own. It doesn't always work with everyone, even the Masters say that. Even though things might be going good for you but at the time of your death you will see what you have turned your back on. This mind of ours makes us doubt a lot and we have to control it. I'm just saying this to you to please don't say anything about the path, if you can't say anything good then don't say anything at all. Respect the path for what it is, even if you think its wrong and gives and didn't work for you. I think you have lost faith and don't know what you have lost. I just hope one day you understand and find what you are looking for.

It's difficult to imagine a scientist advising a colleague, "Don't say anything about this theory. Respect it for what is, even if it appears to be wrong and unworkable."

But it's easy to picture a religious fundamentalist wanting to stifle criticism of his belief system. Which sure seems to be the case here.

Lots of God-fearing people are, obviously, swayed by fear. Guru-fearing people also. I used to be one of them, so I understand where Jay Lou is coming from.

He believes that if you're not initiated by a perfect living Master who has been sent by God to take on the sins (karma) of marked souls who are destined to return to their heavenly father, then you're screwed after you die.

Just as Christianity teaches, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth as you're thrown into the clutches of the Devil (which Sant Mat calls the "negative power" or Universal Mind).

Well, maybe at the time of my death I really will see what I've turned my back on. But I doubt it. What I've made a commitment to face myself toward is truth – reality.

It's difficult for me to imagine that reality is going to turn into fantasy after death. And I don't see any evidence that the cosmos has been set up so that certain souls are punished post mortem, and other souls are rewarded.

My spirituality, if you want to call it that (I think of it more as reality'ity), is premised on a scientific assumption: universal laws are just that. They apply to everyone, everywhere.

Gravity doesn't care if someone believes in it or not. Gravity doesn't care if someone criticizes it, or not. Gravity doesn't care if someone calls it by every swear word in their lexicon, or not.

By contrast, many people believe that God (or his emissary, such as a guru) does care. So they are super-careful about not taking the Lord's name in vain, bad mouthing their chosen divinity, expressing doubts about this being, and such.

They view God as akin to an easily offended human. Someone you don't want to say anything bad about, because he doesn't take kindly to criticism. Hence, "if you can't say something good, then don't say anything at all."

Well, what I say about Sant Mat and Radha Soami Satsang Beas on this blog is based on more than thirty-five years of intimate experience. I diligently followed the path that Jay Lou refers to, and now I feel entirely justified in speaking about what I found – and didn't find – along the way.

That's science, whether it be directed at knowing physical reality or what, if anything, may lie beyond the physical. You say it like it is, recognizing that "is" continually changes as reality becomes better understood.

What you don't do is censor the truth as you perceive it because such might offend someone. That's ridiculous, especially if it's considered that ultimate reality (a.k.a. "God") is the one being offended.

If God is that fickle and hyper-sensitive, I've got no interest in kissing his ass. Actually, I'm not interested in divine ass kissing regardless of God's desires in this regard, because if I'm going to affix my lips to a posterior, I want it to be a real one.

Jacob just submitted his own blog comment on "Reality is the best religion." My reaction? Right on, dude.

I agree, im 16, many people around me believe that their is a heaven or hell, why? i mean maybe if life was a movie or video game sure, but seriously when has something like that ever been seen before your eyes? when you die, your dead so live it up

I also liked Benito's response to Jay Lou. Nicely said.

Liberalists vs. fundamentalists in Sant Mat

Reminding me of myself when I was less than half of my current pushing 60, today disgustingly young Adam sent me an email about his take on Sant Mat.

I replied, and got his permission to share his thoughts. Below is Adam's message, followed by my reply. I like how Adam differentiates between "liberalism" and "fundamentalism."

The question in my mind (and Sam Harris') is how distinct these approaches to spirituality really are. Adam thinks that it's possible to separate out the crazily dogmatic aspects of an organized religion, while still remaining true to the group's core principles.

In my own experience, that way led to contradictions and stresses that eventually caused me to break away from the dogma and the organization.

And as I say in my reply to Adam, if the leader of a religious organization doesn't support the craziness and the dogma, how is it possible for that fundamentalism to continue? That's why I find it difficult to follow the leader while denying what is done under the auspices of the leader.

Here's today's email exchange (F.Y.I, Gurinder Singh is the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, the Sant Mat branch to which Adam belongs, and I used to be an active part of):

Dear Brian, I am a younger (27) recent initiate into Sant Mat. It has been interesting to read your blog, and also the posts of your regulars. I am pulled to share my perspective with you...don't know why exactly, probably because you're out there, listening, thinking about this stuff.

I still don't know exactly where you stand in regard to Sant Mat. It's clear to me that you have little or no faith in it anymore, but I also sense an undercurrent of love for your master, Charan Singh, and an open-minded curiosity about the universe that seems would fit quite well into the version of Sant Mat in my head. Maybe I'm wrong.

OK, my perspective. I have been involved in an ongoing email dialogue with a good long-time friend of mine from high school who also happens to be Muslim. We basically connected in high school because we could have metaphysical conversations with each other in an environment that didn't really encourage such discussions.

I have my meditation practice, he has his prayer rituals, but we differ on one point that has recently come up for us. I, like you, am very critical of religion. I have read Sam Harris' "End of Faith," as well as Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion," and haven't yet made it through the Christopher Hitchens literature, but want to.

I find all of this lit to be not completely in sync with how I feel, but insightful, and engaged in perhaps the most important cultural war of our time. In my discussions with my friend, we have (very simply and for the sake of argument) divided the Western world up into two large groups of people: those who have some sort of religious leaning, and those who have a more liberalist background.

Those with a religious background focus more on things like morality, right and wrong, ritual, holy books, "faith" (which often means lack of reason), and controlling one's actions, while a liberalist tends to focus more on scientific understanding, plurality of opinion, and democracy. Under a liberalist system, religion can exist, but liberalists often feel judged and controlled when they encounter religious systems.

This is the argument I have posited to my friend. This is because I feel the neocons in our country are basically the most dangerous group of people I have witnessed in my short life, and they couldn't exist without their connection to a (doubtless corrupted) version of Christianity.

This is all to say that both types of people can be found in Sant Mat. There are those who wish to treat it as a religion, are ritualistically oriented, etc., and then there are those more like you, who were at one time very drawn to Sant Mat, probably because it seemed like the greatest experiment in consciousness you could embark upon. Maybe I don't understand you, and I could be wrong. I am certainly in the second category.

And I get frequently turned off by religious attitudes, whether in Sant Mat or anywhere else. For me, though, this is not so much of a problem in my own relationship to Sant Mat. This is because I keep Sant Mat very simple in my mind. There are the four vows, three of which are meant to facilitate meditation and keep our karmas to a minimum, and then there is the meditation and the master. And that's it.

Yes, there's satsang [spiritual talks] and seva [service], the bhandaras [large gatherings] and the weekly meetings, and all that stuff. But Charan Singh has made it perfectly clear that no one has to do these things if they don't want to. Sometimes I go to satsang, and if I don't want to, I just don't go. Sometimes I do seva, and if I don't want to, I just don't do it.

And regarding the master, I don't get too hung up on the Guru, Sat Purush, God-in-human-form thing. I don't get it, but I also don't think it's so important for me to get. What is important for me is that I really want to meditate. The chakras seem real to me because I can feel them in my body. I like the feeling of concentration, and the notion of concentrating all of my energy at the eye center makes intuitive, visceral sense to me, and, having been around Gurinder Singh, I believe that at the very least, he is practiced in this exercise.

That's enough for me. When it starts to feel too Sant Mat'y, I just do my own thing. And the masters (at least Gurinder) have often said that the master-disciple relationship is very high -- and that it's ok to think of him like a teacher, a friend, a guide, or whatever word doesn't feel so far out as "master."

I wonder if your frustration is with your guru and the meditation, or is it more with the organization? For me, the guru and meditation is Sant Mat, and everything else is just the scaffolding. But you can't fault the teacher for the craziness of the students. You are a scientist, right? You don't believe in science less just because you have had to subsist alongside grant-hungry, egotistical, money-crazed peers, right?

All the best,
Adam

--------------------------
Here's my reply…

Adam, yes, I still do have fondness for Charan Singh. As a teacher who, by and large, made pretty good sense. I just don't view him as God in human form anymore, if I ever did. I say that, because looking back I'm not sure how much I believed, and how much I believed in believing, if you get what I mean (which I'm sure you do).

Your analysis of the two sorts of spirituality, liberalist and fundamentalist, rings generally true. Sam Harris, however, would say that the liberalists support the fundamentalists, because both sides support faith-based religiosity. I'm not as extreme as Harris, but I understand his position and agree with it by and large.

For example, the Sant Mat vows have to be taken on faith. Meditation is a consciousness experiment, but the other vows are basically moral in nature. I had sex with my first wife before we got married, and before we got initiated (both in 1971, the really old days). I know lots of satsangis who ignore the "no sex before marriage" thing. It just doesn't make any sense, except as a rule to be followed because it is a rule set down by the guru. Which gets back to believing in believing.

That said, I admire and respect your approach to Sant Mat. It meshes with mine back when I was a devoted satsangi. All I can say, and this is just my own experience, is that when that approach is taken consistently with the RSSB organization, I learned that the powers-that-be are much more fundamentalist than liberalist. And since they take their marching orders from the guru, it's hard to come to any other conclusion than that Gurinder Singh, for all his liberalist talk, supports the "straight and narrow" approach organizationally.

I eventually found that I couldn't reconcile my liberalist attitude with the fundamentalist actions that were expected of me if I was going to continue to be active in the organization. That conflict led me to make a break with RSSB, though I still go to coffee with my old satsangi friends most Sundays.

I'm not a scientist, by the way. I did spend two years working on a Ph.D. in Systems Science, but that's more a science of sciences than a discipline itself. I've just read a heck of a lot of science books and subscribe to several science magazines.

    --Brian

Another RSSB initiate bites the dust

It's always a pleasure to hear from another heretic. Yesterday Fred, a fellow disillusioned initiate of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, sent me an email titled "Another one bites the dust."

Well, Fred says he's back to sipping red wine. So his un-conversion isn't as dryly uncomfortable as that title implies.

In fact, when you read his thoughtful message you'll see that he's doing just fine. Real fine, in fact.

Apart from his observations about RSSB, I enjoyed Fred's description of an orgasmic meditation session. He asked me for meditation pointers, but obviously I should be kneeling at his feet (oops, that doesn't sound quite right, given the context).

I've offered up the message in three formats. It can be read as a continuation to this post. It also can be downloaded in Word or PDF format by clicking on the links below.

Word: Download note_to_brian.doc

PDF: Download note_to_brian.pdf

Thanks to thankfulness on Thanksgiving

Last year I thought I'd said about all there was for to me say about "Who should I thank on Thanksgiving?"

Existence. You can't get down to a deeper level of thankfulness than that.

I am. Oh yes. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If I wasn't, there'd be no thanking. Or anything else.

Well, there's always something more to say. Just not a whole lot. About thankfulness. Right now.

Yesterday I was given some notes that described recent talks given by the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh.

Glancing through them I was struck by a question and answer about thanking.

Someone got up and thanked the organizers who made it possible for the meeting to be held. The guru reportedly said:

You will be doing them a disservice by thanking them.

I thought, "how sad." Religions end up with so many ridiculous rules and restrictions.

In an effort to crush the ego and become a selfless servant (of God, the guru, whoever), disciples are being asked to give up normal human niceties.

"Thank you." What's wrong with saying that?

Beats me, as I said last month in "RSSB's strange fear of praise."

We shouldn't be shy about expressing our thankfulness.

To other people. To existence. To anyone or anything else.

Tomorrow, like every day, is a time for Thanksgiving.

When the old sermon doesn’t soar anymore

What seems to be the final newsletter that I'll be getting from my old "church," Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), came in the mail yesterday.

RSSB no longer is going to mail the newsletters. You'll have to go to meetings (satsangs) to get the information – some of which is about upcoming meetings, so go figure.

I'll miss getting this publication, which comes from the Western Regional Office headed up by Vince Savarese. I read it mostly to gauge my reaction to reading it.

Like lots of other people who have become more churchless over the years, I used to find the RSSB literature inspiring. It made my psyche soar. Now, it doesn't. The sermons haven't changed. My attitude toward them has.

I'm not claiming that now I know the truth about God, the cosmos, life, and the hereafter. I just look upon those who do make just a claim with considerably more open-minded skepticism.

In Christopher Hitchens' new book, "The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever," he says in the introduction:

I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record of any human being who was remotely qualified to say that he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim – so modestly and so humbly – to possess.

It is time to withdraw our "respect" from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.

In the Fall 2007 RSSB newsletter, Vince quotes from a book by Sawan Singh, "Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. III." Sawan Singh supposedly knew the "mind of God." Even more, he is considered by RSSB devotees to be God, as are all satgurus (true gurus).

Gurus describe the real austerities through which the cycle of birth and death is ended and the soul reaches the door of the Master. The greatest of the austerities is the Master's service, through which the Lord dwells in the heart.

…He who withdraws his mind and senses from the pleasures of the senses and puts them in the service of the Master is a real ascetic.

Even when I was a RSSB true believer, all this talk about reaching the door (or feet) of the Master struck me as strange. What about God? Isn't the supreme being our goal, not a human being? It's similar to how Jesus dominates Christianity, while God fades into the background.

Further, given my scientific approach toward spirituality I'd get frustrated with the circular reasoning found in the RSSB literature. In the newsletter Vince quotes from another RSSB book, "Call of the Great Master."

Someone has asked the guru, Sawan Singh, how one can recognize a perfect Master and know that the Path he teaches is the true one. Here's the guru's answer:

There are one hundred and one kinds of Gurus in the world, and a seeker certainly finds it difficult to choose the right one from amongst them. Saints have mentioned in their writings signs and marks by which one can recognize a perfect Master and the true "Word" with which He baptizes.

Hmmmm. So you're supposed to read the writings of a perfect Master to learn what the signs are of a perfect Master. Not surprisingly, the perfect Master who wrote those writings describes someone exactly like himself.

In the same fashion, whenever I read a brochure from, say, Toyota, I learn that the best cars in the world are made by – no big surprise – Toyota. Now, this may indeed be the case. But there has to be an independent source of truth for claims like that, whether they be for the best guru or the best car.

It's like when Christians say, "The Bible is the word of God because it says in the Bible, This is the word of God." That's how con artists operate, asking people to believe them because they're so believable.

Another newsletter-inspired thought: I've done a lot of "seva" (volunteering) for RSSB. An awful lot. Years and years of it. So I understand the attraction of performing selfless service for the guru and a spiritual community in general. It feels good to give of yourself.

But Hitchens makes an excellent point:

Nine times out of ten, in debate with a cleric, one will be told not of some dogma of religious certitude but of some instance of charitable or humanitarian work undertaken by a religious person…My own response has been to issue a challenge: name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.

As yet, I have had no takers. (Whereas, oddly enough, if you ask an audience to name a wicked statement or action directly attributable to religious faith, nobody has any difficulty in finding an example.)

The RSSB teachings put a big emphasis on serving the Master. The newsletter contains a call for volunteers to construct bathrooms at the RSSB center in Petaluma. Design/Construction seva (service) also is available at other centers around the world.

There's nothing wrong, and a lot right, with volunteering. But there are plenty of "seva" opportunities close to home for anybody, religious or not. Charitable organizations always are looking for warm bodies willing to lend a hand.

What bothers me now, and even concerned me in the days when I did a lot of volunteer work for RSSB, is that members of religious groups often come to feel that volunteering done under the auspices of their group somehow is more worthy than other sorts of service.

It isn't very selfless to consider that the service you're providing is going to result in your getting spiritual goodies, up to and including salvation. Yet this is how the RSSB faithful look upon seva for the guru.

Hitchens again:

If we stay with animal analogies for a moment, owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are god.

(Cats may sometimes share the cold entrails of a kill with you, but this is just what a god might do if he was in a good mood.) Religion, then, partakes of equal elements of the canine and the feline. It exacts maximum servility and abjection, requiring you to regard yourself as conceived and born in sin and owing a duty to a stern creator.

But in return, it places you at the center of the universe and assures you that you are the personal object of a heavenly plan. Indeed, if you make the right propitiations you may even find that death has no sting, and that an exception to the rules of physical annihilation may be made in your own case.

It cannot be said enough that this preachment is immoral as well as irrational.

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.

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.

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.

Spirituality: following fences or bursting barriers?

I just got the September issue of the Western USA Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) newsletter. It made me sort of sad to see that soon I won't be getting it any more.

(Starting in 2008 it'll only be available at the RSSB equivalent of "church," satsangs, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since the inspiration and information in the newsletter can be conveyed directly at satsang, while many "churchless" RSSB initiates stay in touch with organizational goings-on only through the newsletter).

I like to read it, even though I'm no longer a RSSB true believer, because I enjoy the sensations of ah yes! and oh no! that course through my mind as I come across sentiments that either still resonate with me, or now turn me off.

In the "turn me off" category, I question whether this definition of an ideal satsangi by RSSB representative Vince Savarese really captures the essence of what spirituality is all about for satsangis (RSSB initiates).

Get up at 3:00 AM; that is, rise and shine and sit somewhere other than your bed, fully awake and alert with a straight spine, unmoving for two to three hours or more every day, including Sundays and holidays.

While sitting do not fall asleep, do not lie down, do not think of anything but the Lord and your Master and his instruction.

Next eat only enough to satisfy hunger, not to satiety. While working, whatever you do to earn your livelihood or maintain your home and family obligations, remember God and your Master throughout the entire day as your main preoccupation.

And it goes on from there, the basic message being to "spend the bulk of your life cultivating spiritual desires and meditation practice and spend some time fulfilling your worldly obligations and needs."

Now, this advice leaves a lot to comment on. For now I'll limit myself to a general question. Is spirituality really about following rigid rules such as these?

What if, God forbid, you were to meditate with an unstraight spine? Or eat until you felt your stomach would burst? Or threw yourself into an educational, professional, or child-raising pursuit that consumed most of your time every day?

Would you be a bad satsangi? Would God be displeased if you had to work twelve hours a day to make ends meet and needed to spend your remaining free hours with your family rather than meditating?

Rules. Some people need them, some don't. I've got nothing against rules. I follow many pretty rigidly myself (such as "Thou shalt browse the World Wide Web and write a blog post daily").

But rules also are made to be broken (when I'm on vacation, sometimes I don't blog). And when it comes to spiritual rules, they have to be left behind at some point – in my unhumble opinion.

I'm speaking about the mystical side of spirituality here, not the religious side. Mystics seek wide open spaces, boundless horizons, oceans without shores. For ultimate reality is viewed as Oneness. Unity isn't divided into pieces by nice neat fences, which religions love to put up.

For many years, more than thirty, I stayed within the confines of the RSSB rules. When I bumped up against a thou shalt or thou shalt not barrier I followed it, making sure that I never, or rarely, strayed from the straight and narrow path enjoined by the organization's (and guru's) dictates.

However, the goal of all this fence-respecting supposedly was freedom. Breaking out of habitual ways of perceiving, thinking, acting, believing. RSSB's Enlightenment Stockyard was billed as a holding pen that prepared you for finding the gate that led to endless green pastures where the soul roamed freely.

Not in my experience, which is the one and only experience I can rely on when it comes to the inner side of my life.

Eventually I came to recognize what probably should have been obvious much earlier: you can't leave a fence behind if you're still holding onto it.

In the passage above RSSB initiates are told to think of "the Lord and your Master and his instruction" during meditation. Well, if you keep on thinking of these things. when are you ever going to reach a realm beyond thought, beyond instructions, beyond distinctions of this person and that person?

In every deep mystic practice that I'm aware of, there's this notion that what you're looking for is right here, right now. It isn't at the end of a long white fence plastered with rules. It isn't reached by following confining chutes constructed by religious leaders.

That nameless, featureless, mysterious Whatever is realized by dissolving all the barriers that keep you from recognizing what you really are and the universe truly is.

That's the theory, at least. And I can point to countless instances of it in the world's great mystical traditions: Christian, Sufi, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, Neoplatonic.

None of them say that rule-fences are to be stayed within forever. If they serve any purpose at all, they're to lead you to look over them and say, "Wow, there's so much more beyond."

Then, to hop over and not look back.

A koan for all guru-based faiths

Here's something about gurus and disciples that I find intriguing. I guess you could call it a koan of sorts, because whatever conclusion you come to about it won't make sense rationally.

Which could well be the correct conclusion: that the whole guru bhakti system is so full of contradictions, it deserves jettisoning.

But this is just a possibility, one of many. I'm asking questions, not supplying answers.

I'll describe this koan using specifics from the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) branch of Sant Mat. However, the basic questions are applicable to just about every guru-based faith, especially those that emphasize devotion to a spiritual teacher.

Who often is believed to be a God-realized being. This is the case with RSSB. The guru is viewed as God in human form, an incarnation of the highest divinity similar to how Jesus is considered in Christianity.

The guru who initiated me in 1971 was Charan Singh. He died in 1990. Before his death Charan Singh appointed a successor, Gurinder Singh, who similarly had been initiated by him.

Charan Singh would give talks (or satsangs) to thousands of people. He'd sit on a high podium. Devotees would gaze spellbound at him, hoping to catch a glance (darshan).

The devotional attitude of Sant Mat initiates essentially is, "The guru is everything; I am nothing." We can imagine Gurinder Singh sitting in the audience while Charan Singh was alive thinking just that. He is everything; I am nothing.

Yet there came a day when Gurinder Singh found himself on the same podium, having been elevated to the status of guru. So now all the initiates are looking at him, thinking "The guru is everything; I am nothing."

But wait! How did Gurinder Singh go from being nothing to everything? At what point did this happen? Was it sudden or gradual? Did this transformation depend on the formal conferring of guru status, or did it occur in some other fashion?

And a more basic question: Did the change from nothing to everything even happen?

Do you see what I'm getting at? These are intriguing questions that I never gave much thought to back when I was one of those true believing initiates trying to be as nothing-ish as possible while I was in the presence of the guru.

I didn't spend much time musing on the fact that the guru once was a disciple, just like me. In the Sant Mat tradition a disciple is the humble servant of the guru. Yet what changes when a disciple becomes the guru?

Overnight, the servant becomes a master (in fact, this is what the RSSB gurus are called in English, Master). Even stranger, gurus often say that they are still nothing compared to their own guru, who is everything to them.

Yet that guru (Sawan Singh, for Charan Singh) generally has his own guru. And so it goes. So somehow all the gurus are both nothing and everything.

However, the disciples are just nothing. Unless they become a guru, then they're everything.

It's pretty confusing. Well, that's to be expected when you mix hierarchy (guru on top, disciple below) with mysticism (all are One).

The supposed nothing to everything transformations strike me now as a bit of organizational sleight of hand, a way of inculcating obedient submission among the millions of RSSB initiates. Without it, you're left with something much more akin to Buddhism than Sant Mat.

A spiritual teacher who isn't higher or lower than his students.

Now, I'm not saying this is the answer to my koan. Like I said, I don't know what the answer is, or even if there is one. I just find it intriguing to ask:

When someone is nothing, how does he become everything while remaining nothing?

I return to church. And sit through a sermon.

Yesterday I went to the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) equivalent of "church," a satsang. It'd been quite a while. I felt right at home, though no more so than at the Beanery Coffee House – our post satsang destination.

Old friends Ron and Rita had come down from Seattle for their almost annual visit. They enjoy the Salem Art Fair, even when I kid Ron about a leather cap making him look like one of the Village People.

Ron is a faithful RSSB devotee, though by no means a fundamentalist. Me, I'm whatever I am now. Some would say, a "deluded heretic." I prefer "open-minded skeptic."

Whatever, I enjoyed listening to Ron's discourse (e.g., sermon) to about fifteen members of the Salem sangat (congregation). I felt a little bit like Martin Luther going to Mass after nailing his theses to the door of the Castle Church. (Guess he didn't have a blog.)

Just a bit, though.

I'd always given rather heretical talks when I was a satsang speaker myself. So my churchless current state of mind wasn't all that different from my ostensible true believer days. I listened to Ron's 45 minute discourse with the same sort of attitude I had when satsang was a weekly habit.

Positive, yet questioning.

I agreed with one of Ron's main themes: We should lessen our ego, which manifests as a desire to have this happen rather than that. Trusting that what's going on in our lives is just fine exactly as it is, relax. Try to change what you can, if it seems to need changing, but don't sweat the small stuff. Which includes just about everything.

Question marks were emitted from my cranium, however, whenever I'd hear phrases like "We should be thankful to the Lord" and "God knows what is best for us."

References to a personalized divinity don't resonate with me anymore. The all pervading Tao or One seems plausibly possible to me, but not a Big Guy in the sky.

This is no criticism of my good buddy Ron, whose talk was about as non-dogmatically appealing to me as a RSSB "sermon" could be. It's just that I was newly struck, after my lengthy absence from satsang, at how much the RSSB teachings can sound like Christianity with all this talk of the Lord and God's grace.

What gives?

Back in 1971 I signed up for an Eastern philosophy, not Jesus-speak in Indian terms. Over the years I got accustomed to the guru who initiated me, Charan Singh, talking about the "Father." However, it always sounded incongruous to me, the result of trying to cram a formless monistic mysticism into a dualistic religious box.

Never wanting to pass up an opportunity to quote myself, I'm reminded of a favorite passage from a book I wrote about the Greek philosopher Plotinus, "Return to the One."

Normally love is considered to involve some sort of relationship. A relationship by definition consists of a connection that includes some and excludes others. If I am related to members of my family it means there are many other people in the world with whom I am not related. Having an intimate relationship with one person implies less than intimate relationships with others. There are shallow acquaintances and deep soul-mates.

It is easy then to project this sort of love onto the One. Some people believe they have a personal relationship with God. Thinking like Plotinus, we might ask them: "Does this mean that God is a person? Or does it mean that you are a person?" Perhaps it is possible for my relationship with the One to be markedly different from the One's relationship with me, because I am a minute part of creation and the One is the whole of creation.

There is no mention in the Enneads [Plotinus' writings] of a divine love that waxes and wanes or falls more upon some than others. It is our love that has these changeable and arbitrary qualities, not the One's love. For universal love is founded in absolute unity. When love, the lover, and the beloved are all the same entity, where is there room for any limit or duration?

Wow. I sure make a lot of sense to me.

Next time I go to church, it'll be inside my own head.