Church of the Churchless

Jed McKenna -- an illusion of enlightenment?

In "Spiritual Enlightenment," Jed McKenna tells us that he is enlightened. In fact, he says that a lot. Which got me to thinking, now that I'm a bit over halfway through the book (which was recommended to me by an old friend)...

Does enlightenment exist?
If so, what the heck is it"?
How would we know someone is enlightened?

Other questions come to mind also, because this is one of those intriguing/exasperating books that make me say "what a bunch of crap" on one page, and "right on, brother Jed" on the next.

Such as, does Jed McKenna exist as the sort of guy he puts himself out to be in the book?

Namely, someone who has achieved non-dual enlightenment, owns a big farm house somewhere in rural Iowa, and acts as a guide to all kinds of folks who come to this quasi-ashram to be disillusioned of all their fake religious, mystical, philosophical, and spiritual beliefs, and absorb the unexcelled wisdom of Jedism.

Since the Jedism blogger says this on his home page, I'm strongly inclined to accept the prevailing opinion that someone going by "Jed McKenna" has written a fictional book with non-fiction overtones.

Yes, we understand that “Jed Mckenna” is a fictional character or alter-ego, perhaps in the same way that “Don Juan” of the Carlos Castaneda books may have been, but that doesn’t diminish the impact that the ideas, images and intuitions have had on many people.

Now, just because Jed McKenna has made up stuff about his life, this doesn't mean that he has made up his enlightenment. However, the questions I asked above still remain.

Over and over, Jed talks about himself in the fashion below. It may sound tongue-in-cheek, but believe me, he wants us to believe him.

The difference between us isn't that I'm enlightened and you're not. The difference is that I know it and you don't. I possess selfless awareness and you don't... I basically believe that I know everything and nobody else knows anything... The greatest men and women who have ever lived are just children on a playground to me.

Jed's "trip" (as we used to say in the '60's) is demolishing everyone else's view of reality but his own.

He's got a way with words, and almost surely he's making up the conversations in his book anyway, so not surprisingly enlightened Jed comes out on top of every meaning-of-life dialogue in "Spiritual Enlightenment." (Spoiler alert: there isn't one -- a meaning of life.)

There's a lot of fawning praise of the book on Amazon. So I zipped right to the minority 1-star reviews. Quite a bit of thoughtful skepticism here. Such as:

Which brings up the interesting question, when he became enlightened, how did he know his other state-of-being was to be called "enlightenment". And not, for instance, "satori", "nirvana", "at-one-ness", "super-acidity", what have you?

The original words from which the word "enlightenment" was created: "nirvana" or "nibbana" and "satori" etc have been lost for thousands of years, so how did McKenna arrive at this state and said "Ah, this is the state of 'enlightenment'". How did he know it was not a state of permanent foobarisment?

In fact, he makes such strong and fine distinctions, that one wonders if there is a hidden school somewhere that maintains the old traditions: "That was spiritual awakening, not non-dualism, McKenna. Drop down and give me twenty! Now let's work on mystical one-ness for the next hour."

This reader review encapsulates the main problem I have with Jedism, or any "ism" that claims it's followers possess a clearer view of ultimate reality than the rest of us deluded fools.

We're expected to accept some guy's (rarely, gal's) claim of enlightenment without any evidence that he has achieved it -- or even often, as in Jed's case, that there is any way to describe a state of enlightenment.

"You'll know it when you become it," is Jed's oft-repeated message to his (fictional) acolytes. If someone asks "What is it?" or "How do you get it?" the basic answer is to seek what is truly true with great raging determination, a la Ramana's admonition to keep asking "Who am I?"

Here's some of the many contradictions in the book.

Spiritual teachers aren't to be trusted, and aren't really needed (Jed got enlightened on his own). But Jed clearly enjoys playing guru to his disciples, even though he'd deny that this was what was going on. 

Jed McKenna decries spiritual paths that exalt a guru and declare the teachings sacred, but he fills the first ten pages of his book with blurbs extolling him and what he's written (since, he's self-published several more titles about the truth of Jedism).

Everybody has to find truly true truth for himself or herself. However, there's only one acceptable outcome: non-dual enlightenment, whatever that is.

Along that line, it's tough to recognize the non-duality in Jed's enlightenment. In the book Jed acts like a normal, albeit deeply egotistical and self-centered, human being. He bikes, drives, skydives, shovels gravel, goes on walks, reads, watches TV, conducts interviews, and such.

Put him in a Mystic Lineup, and I don't see how a guy like Jed would reliably be chosen as the One Genuine Enlightened Being out of a bunch of other candidates.

Like I said, he talks the game better than most, but the question remains whether there's any meat/tofu under the bun of his verbiage.

Meaning, Jed, along with most other spiritual, mystic, and religious faiths, considers that it's possible to illuminate the darkness of primordial mystery. This, I guess, is "enlightenment" -- seeing what IT is all about -- even if IT can't be described to anyone else.

Jed loves to use a quasi-Platonic analogy.

Everybody but him is watching the movie of life, not realizing that it is just a dramatic production, not reality. Jed, though, has seen through the screen, projection mechanism, and all that. He knows that everybody is just playing a role, like actors in a movie.

This assumes that everyone has a self, or consciousness, that is non-role'd in some fashion -- a really real identity, better termed a non-self, that is the touchstone of truth. The diamond of reality compared to which everything else is costume jewelery.

Well, maybe.

But I doubt that Jed is the real deal. Or, that anyone is. I lean toward leaving mystery mysterious rather than trying to explain it away with a magic word: "enlightenment."

There's a lot to like in Spiritual Enlightenment. I resonate with Jed's talk of black holes. I just question whether there is really any light at the end of the black hole tunnel. For me, truth is admitting "yes, blackness" when the big questions of life and existence remain unanswered.

Jed, however, believes it is possible to fly right through cosmic mystery and come out the other side.

Here's the most directly I am able to say this: The one and only truth of a person lies like a black hole at their very core, and everything else, everything else, is just the rubbish and debris that covers the hole.

...All fear is ultimately fear of this inner black hole, and nothing on this side of the hole is true. The process of achieving enlightenment is about breaking through the blockage and stepping through the hole, and anything that's not about getting to and through the hole is just more rubbish and debris.

Well, this assumes that it is possible to step through ourselves, or everyday reality, and reach somewhere else. Since the cosmos supposedly is non-dual, according to Jedism, I don't understand all this talk about rubbish and debris being so undesirable compared to the black hole.

Here's another way at looking at things: the Hubble Deep Field in 3-D. I like the idea of no end to the cosmos. Or of seeking the truth of it.

Rules of the non-duality club

I think this guy has nailed non-duality, in a Fight Club sense. Sure seems like he's been following the non-dual comment conversations on this blog. See if you agree.

Self, no-self...what's the difference?

Maybe I have a "self." Maybe I don't.

There doesn't seem to be any way to tell. Which makes me wonder, who the heck cares, if there's no evident difference between self and no-self?

I've enjoyed the comment conversation between Manjit and me on this blog's "Losing your self is so egotistical" post. We've been going at it discussing whether there's a self to lose.

Something related to my brain and laptop-typing fingers -- sure seems like a self -- keeps arguing that unless we're one with the cosmos, there's a separate sense of identity.

Manjit prefers to see this as a non-issue. Since there's no such thing as a self, there's no way to lose it.

Well, if that's the case, why have I been able to read big thick books by Ramana, Nisargadatta, and a bunch of others about how to go about realizing the truth of non-duality?

I mean, this sure doesn't seem to be the same thing as not being able to lose my unicorn, since I don't have one.

People don't travel to India and spend years meditating in a dark closet trying to come to the realization that they don't have a unicorn and shouldn't be worrying about what happens to it.

Yet there's a huge spiritual industry associated with losing the self. Or, as some put it, becoming aware that there never was a self to lose.

Gurus... books... seminars... retreats... web sites... what's the point of it all?

Here's how I've come to see this self vs. no-self question: if there's no way to tell the difference between someone who considers they have (or are) a self and someone who doesn't, we're in the realm of words, not reality.

I want to see a Who Has a Self? reality show. Put a bunch of people together. Film them interacting and doing everyday stuff. Viewers vote on who has a self and who doesn't.

If the public thinks someone is full of themselves, they get booted off Selfless Island.

Of course, we have to wonder whether the vote would be just a subjective opinion or an accurate reflection of reality. Are some people -- perfect gurus, realized souls, enlightened beings -- truly selfless, having seen through the illusion of duality?

And the big question: If so, how would anyone know? 

"Anyone" includes themselves. Because usually non-dual teachings say there's no obvious sign of having attained a selfless state.

No capacity to perform miracles. No freedom from normal human frailties. No extra-sensory perceptions. No knowledge unavailable to self-filled humans.

Often this issues comes up in books about, or by, some supposed guru or spiritual master. Why does he or she still get angry, irritated, depressed, or forgetful? Why does he or she not show any unique qualities that scream out, not leaving any doubt, Realized Being Here! ?

I've heard many first person stories similar to this one: a guru who is considered to be God in human form angrily throws a book manuscript at the would-be author. This is viewed as an act of grace, a "tough love" lesson.

Yet a neutral observer would say, "Gee, that bearded guy in the turban sure acted angry for no reason."

So I'm still looking for evidence that there's a difference between selfless and selfed people (including the non-dualists who straddle the self-no self divide).

Sure, there are wonderful devoted Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and others who serve the world in a seemingly selfless fashion. But there also are plenty of ordinary people with the same compassionate, centered, caring characteristics.

Sam Harris makes some good points in "A Contemplative Science." The brain just does what it does. There's no evidence of an immaterial "ghost in the machine," or self.

If we flow with experience, understanding that there's no hard and fast distinction between us and the cosmos, inside and outside, self and non-self, things seem to go more smoothly.

But this is a far cry from the religious claims of those who elevate the elimination of ego (or the realization that such doesn't exist) to sacred status. I'll end with this Harris quote:

Needless to say, any truths uncovered about the human mind through meditation cannot be "Buddhist". And if meditation ever becomes widely adopted as a tool of science, it will be quickly stripped of its Buddhist roots. There are, after all, very good reasons we don't talk about "Christian physics" or "Muslim algebra".

Physics and algebra are genuine domains of human inquiry, and as such, they transcend the cultural conditions out of which they arose. Today, anyone emphasizing the religious roots of these intellectual disciplines would stand convicted of not understanding them at all.

In the same way, if we ever develop a scientific account of the contemplative path, speaking of "Buddhist" meditation will be synonymous with a failure to assimilate the changes that will have occurred in our understanding of the human mind.

Start with mystery closest to home

I've been enjoying recent Church of the Churchless comment conversations, here, here, and here (plus a few other post places).

In this regard, I want to mention that I keep on telling TypePad, which hosts this blog, that they need to improve their comment features. It bugs me that only the ten most recent comments are shown on the left sidebar, and that it isn't possible for visitors to search through previous comments (I can, but others can't).

TypePad assures me that they'll get around to this. Someday. Guess I need to have faith.

Which brings me to a thought that's been stimulated by what others have been saying in their comments – and usually is front and center in my own questioning mind: What can we know for sure?

Really, not much. Even science recognizes this, because every scientific theory is provisional. Meaning, it can be falsified if new evidence comes along.

With religion, spirituality, mysticism, and philosophy, the knowing is even less certain. Here beliefs rather than observations predominate. And beliefs, being mental, always can be refuted by someone with a different mentality.

"Jesus died for our sins so that we may be born again and reside with our Father in Heaven."
"Prove it."
"It's a matter of faith."
"No, it's a matter of bullshit."

So it goes in the arena of belief. Nobody can be declared a winner, except by those who refuse to recognize the other contestants.

God remains a mystery. We don't know whether God exists. So obviously we also don't know how God might exist. Yet every religion and spiritual path believes that it has the answer, ignoring the evident fact of mystery.

As many commenters keep saying, either directly or indirectly, it makes sense to start from the other direction: with another mystery much closer to home. So close, it's right before our eyes. In fact, it is our eyes – plus every other sensory organ.

Because it's awareness, or consciousness. This is just as much a mystery as God is.

Science has no idea (though notions abound) as to how consciousness arises or what it is, really. Much is known about brain functions related to mental events, but the hard problem of consciousness — what is awareness? — shows no sign of being resolved.

Why not start here, if you're a spiritual seeker? Why speculate about far off divinities or heavens when you've got an equally peachy-keen gigantic mystery right here?

I'm aware. You're aware. That's so freaking amazing (and also the most natural thing in the world) that there's no need to look beyond awareness if we're wanting to grasp What It Is All About.

This morning I picked up one of my favorite books, "Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi." The first chapter starts off by talking about the mystery of awareness.

The essence of Sri Raman's teachings is conveyed in his frequent assertions that there is a single immanent reality, directly experienced by everyone, which is simultaneously the source, the substance, and the real nature of everything that exists.

He gave it a number of different names, each one signifying a different aspect of the same indivisible reality. The following classification includes all of his most common synonyms and explains the implications of the various terms used.

1. The Self. This is the term that he used the most frequently. He defined it by saying that the real Self or real "I" is, contrary to perceptible experience, not an experience of individuality but a non-personal, all-inclusive awareness. It is not to be confused with the individual self which he said was essentially non-existent, being a fabrication of the mind which obscures the true experience of the real Self.

He maintained that the real Self is always present and always experienced but he emphasized that one is only consciously aware of it as it really is when the self-limiting tendencies of the mind have ceased. Permanent and continuous Self-awareness is known as Self-realization.

Now, there's quite a bit in "Be As You Are" that, in my opinion, edges into esoteric Indian mysticism and beliefs that need to be taken on faith.

But it's impossible to argue with the fact that each of us is aware. And this is a mystery that holds the key to every other mystery – because consciousness is a prerequisite for being conscious of anything.

For a long time I've had an itch to write a book called "My Best Guess About God." Because that's all I have: speculations on the subject. There'd be one line in the book, though, that would be incontestable.

And cribbed from Descartes. Who echoes a multitude of other philosophers, mystics, and sages across the ages.

"I'm not sure about anything except that I am aware…of not being sure about anything."

Each of us has to start from somewhere. Awareness. Whether we ever can move from this place is exceedingly unlikely. In fact, impossible.

So religious dogmas that skip over this evident fact are worthless. They ignore the mystery (many would say, divinity) of our own self and would have us believe in artificial human conceptions rather than the most natural thing in existence.

Consciousness of existence.

I am, therefore I am

The older I get, the more I feel like embracing seriously simple approaches to spirituality.

That way, if I become senile, when someone asks me what I believe a ready answer is more likely to spring from my receding lips and failing psyche.

This helps explain why I'm enjoying Stanley Sobottka's Course in Consciousness so much. I've been lugging my laptop into my meditation lair each morning, reading some of his downloaded book-length manuscript before I meditate.

I'm about halfway through. The basic message is exceedingly simple, though it takes over 200 pages to express it.

Consciousness is all there is. That's the essence of Advaita, Vedanta, Buddhism, and some Western philosophies also.

Though countless books have been written about this notion, if you're asked to explain this world view whatever you say or don't say, that's it – already present in your questioner's consciousness, because he or she is conscious.

Over and over Sobottka reminds the reader that everything he's written is a concept, not reality. As is, in his opinion, time and space itself, plus the laws of nature.

What gives his position more intellectual credence is his status as an Emeritus Professor of Physics. Being someone who swings both ways with science and spirituality, I like how he starts off his Course in Consciousness with a solid overview of quantum physics, then heads into the airier philosophic reaches of nonduality.

Much of what Sobottka sets forth is virtually indisputable. Such as, knowledge of reality always comes through consciousness.

Well, yeah. How else could it come? If it's impossible to be conscious of something, what reality does it possess for us? Imagining a unicorn would be a lot more real, because that bit of fantasy would be present in an individual consciousness – which makes it something rather than nothing.

Just not a shared something, a part of supposedly objective reality that we can agree on. I say "supposedly," because Sobottka isn't big on objectivity given his consciousness is everything leaning.

More accurately, he sees subjectivity and objectivity as the same thing – consciousness. So the divisions we usually make between inner and outer, subjective and objective, spirituality and science, and so on, don't really exist for him.

From this perspective Descartes was right when he said, "I think, therefore I am." But he could also have said, "I don't think, therefore I am." More simply, "I am, therefore I am." Or "I am."

Or…anything at all. Like, "1, 2, 3, A, B, C." Whatever.

Whenever I read about nonduality or advaita, I tend to think "This is either the biggest bunch of crap ever, or the truest thing that can be said."

There's no in between, really. Once you say consciousness is all there is, you're committed 100%. Totally right or totally wrong. (Though if you're right, there's no right or wrong.)

Sobottka does a nice job of using quantum physics to support nondual notions. For example, he points out that those who posit some sort of transcendental mystic realm where quantum reality resides don't understand that the quantum wave function is deterministic and requires time and space to function.

So New Age notions about quantum phenomena being metaphysical don't mesh with scientific fact. They also don't mesh with nonduality or oneness, since dividing reality into "physical" and "metaphysical" is decidedly dual.

I also like how Sobottka demolishes the "we create our own reality" fiction. This often is heard from people who know just enough about quantum physics to make misleading philosophical conclusions about it.

He says that while consciousness does play a central role in the collapse of the wave function, which determines what quantum phenomena come into being and which remain potentialities, it must be a universal consciousness that does this – not an individual consciousness.

Again, this points to nonduality. We believe we're unique and separate from others, but it could well be that each manifestation of consciousness actually is an expression of the whole.

One reality. One consciousness. One thing going on.

Simple.

Many would be tempted to say "too simple." However, that "too" leads to "two." Which could be the way things are. But I've got an affection for one.

Quantum and non-dual consciousness

Ah, intellectual and inspirational bliss.

A free, downloadable, thoughtful, well-written "Course in Consciousness" that moves smoothly from down to earth quantum theory to soaring spirituality.

This is my cup of reading tea. I've only been able to quickly browse through the 242 pages of Stanley Sobottka's writing, but I can tell that there's a lot to like here.

Sobottka is an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Virginia, so obviously he knows his scientific stuff.

His deep knowledge of, and appreciation for, Buddhist/Advaita teachings is more surprising – though he isn't the only physicist to wade into some deep philosophical waters (Amit Goswami and Shimon Malin are some others).

Check out Sobottka's short "Dialogue in Consciousness" for an overview of his approach. I resonate with almost everything he says, though I can't help repeating my mantra, "What do I know?"

I learned about the Course in Consciousness from a post on the Church of the Churchless forum. It quoted a paragraph on page 184:

Particularly destructive among the self-deluded spiritual teachers are those who teach that only they and their personal power can bring freedom, or that they are the ones best suited for the task. They would merely strengthen the chains of our bondage. No genuine teacher will imply that we need anything or anyone, since we are already free and complete. A teacher's function is to convey this to the student, and to help him or her to see that. A teacher is at best an invaluable resource to the student, and at worst, a "false prophet", the deluded purporting to teach the deluded, the blind trying to lead the blind.

Amen to that.

This passage from page 101 also appealed to me:

In summary, the following is what physics (plus some simple logic) tells us: There are no objects. There is only a series of observations. There is no observer. There is only nonlocal universal consciousness. As we shall see later, these statements are the essence of both Advaita and Buddhism. (In Advaita, nonlocal universal consciousness is called pure Awareness. In Mahayana Buddhism, it is called primordial consciousness, or buddha-nature.) It is remarkable that physics, which is the science of external, objective reality, can tell us so much about subjective reality, and also can be in such agreement with our most profound nondualistic teachings.

I'm a big fan of science. I also am attracted to the nondual teachings that constitute much of Sobottka's course.

It seems crazy that to know reality, we'd have to ignore half of it: objectivity or subjectivity. Consciousness seemingly links the outer and the inner, science and spirit, physics and mysticism – because if we're not conscious of something, it doesn't exist for us.

Here's Sobottka's Chapter 26: "Very short summary"

The following concepts, like all concepts, cannot describe Reality, but, unlike most concepts, they point to Reality.

1. The premise: Consciousness is all there is. Another word for Consciousness is the impersonal, yet intimate, I.

2. The conclusions:

I am not an object or entity.
Objects and entities are never real.
Whatever is supposed to happen will happen. Whatever is not supposed to happen will not happen. There is no doer, so there is no choice.
The entire manifestation is an expression of Love.

3. The practice: Don't believe this—look and see it for yourself!

This interview with Sobottka also encapsulates his outlook.

[Technical note: Sobottka's web site has links to some interesting PowerPoint presentations. If you don't have PowerPoint, you can view them with a free PowerPoint viewer.]

Surrendering to nothing outside myself

Sometimes I surprise myself. Reading along in a nicely non-dualistic advaitaish book I didn't expect to find myself moved by a passage about surrender.

If you surrender, doesn't it have to be to someone or something outside of yourself? That doesn't sound very non-dual. Usually religions preach the virtue of surrendering either to God or His earthly representative – a prophet, guru, messiah.

I don't like the idea of surrender under those terms. Throwing myself at the mercy of an imaginary being called "God" makes as much sense as pleading to the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus to take care of me.

And surrendering to another human being – that's got too much of a master/slave thing going on.

But there's another way of looking at surrender: to reality. Which, since I seem to be just about as real (or unreal) as anything else, includes me. Here's how Ramana Maharshi puts it in excerpts from his writings quoted in "One."

Complete surrender is another name for jnana or liberation. Offer yourself up unconditionally to the power that is your own source.

It is enough that one surrenders oneself. Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one's being. Do not delude yourself by imagining such a source to be some God outside you. Your source is within yourself. Give yourself up to it.

I've read several books about Ramana's teachings. What can be confusing about is the way he bounces back and forth between speaking of the Self as the non-dual essence of everything, and talking about God in a seemingly theistic manner.

However, just as with Ibn 'Arabi, I've learned to mentally translate Ramana's "He's" and "Him's" into "That's." Ramana recognized that some people are drawn to a conception of a personal divinity, so he gave them what they wanted.

What I want, though, isn't surrender to another person – even if it supposedly is the Big Man Upstairs. Reality will do just fine, thank you.

And that's what I feel I get from Ramana, once I burrow beneath the apparent monotheism of his words and hit a deeper vein of non-duality.

Complete surrender does require that you have no desire of your own, that God's desire alone is your desire and that you have no desire of your own.

Banish even the thought "I am a fit instrument for Him" and remain still.

Abidance in one's real state is ceasing to exist as a slave [of God]; it is remaining even without the thought "I am a slave" rising; it is egoless mauna [silence], utterly still, having no mental movements. The unlimited consciousness that shines in this state is the [true] consciousness.

Surrender to Him and abide by His will whether he appears or vanishes; await His pleasure. If you ask Him to do as you please, it is not surrender but command to Him. You cannot have Him obey you and yet think that you have surrendered.

He knows what is best and when and how to do it. Leave everything to Him. His is the burden; you have no longer any cares. All your cares are His. Such is surrender. This is bhakti.

Or, enquire to whom these questions arise. Dive deep in the Heart and remain as the Self. One of these two ways is open to the aspirant.

Two ways? Maybe. However, I suspect they're the same way.

Worship at your own doorstep

This morning, before meditating, I read some inspiring words from Vivekananda about strength. Our strength. Not God’s. Not a guru’s. Not anyone else’s.

I decided to ask Google to tell me more about “Vivekananda” and “strength.” In the results I found myself. Thank you, Google. That’s exactly what I need to know.

Or rather, remind myself of. These distant gods, these elevated theologies, these remote sages—increasingly they seem like comic book characters to me. Two dimensional, artificial, unnatural, fantastical.

I may not have the answers to the big questions of life. I may be ignorant of what, if anything, lies beyond the physical. I may be clueless about how one even begins to unravel the mysteries of consciousness, life, death, and existence.

But there’s one big plus to me: I know that I am. Right here, right now, sitting on a chair, typing on my laptop, glancing out a window at a typically gray and rainy January Oregon day, I’m something real.

Now, what that “something” truly is, that’s a question for another day. Or moment. Or lifetime. However, there’s always an immediate answer to my what’s it all about? It’s whatever I’m aware of here and now.

Logically (and also intuitively) that’s always going to be the answer. It’ll shape shift along with every other changeable bit of the cosmos. Which, if the Buddhists have it right, is all the bits.

What I like about Vivekananda is what I like about myself when I’m not avoiding being who I am. He turns us around toward the person we see when we look in a mirror. He urges, “Worship that. Be that. Act boldly as that.”

My knowledge of Tango is as limited as my knowledge of ultimate reality. Still, I’ve learned this much: when the leader leads, he does so decisively; when the follower follows, she does so decisively.

No maybe’s. No perhaps’. No possibly’s. Either take a step, or don’t. If you do, do it. All the way. 100%. Full throttle. Pedal to the metal. That’s the ideal, at least.

Who can live up to it? Only a few, whether on the dance floor or in the meditation chamber. Still, whether we’re leading or following, yang’ing or yin’ing, pursuing or surrendering, the more strength and confidence we bring to whatever we’re doing, the better off we’ll be.

Religion is a strength sapper. Especially when your belief is in a personal god who is separate from creation. Vivekananda says:

There are, no doubt, great and wonderful things in the religions of the dualists. Wonderful is the idea of the Personal God apart from nature, whom we worship and love. Sometimes this idea is very soothing.

But, says Vedanta, that feeling is something like the effect that comes from an opiate; it is not natural. It brings weakness in the long run, and what this world wants today more than it ever did before is strength. It is weakness, says Vedanta, that is the cause of all misery in this world.

Weakness is the one cause of suffering. We become miserable because we are weak. We lie, steal, kill, and die because we are weak…We are miserable through delusion. Give up the delusion and the whole thing vanishes. It is plain and simple indeed.

What is so plain and simple?

I know it is Truth alone that gives strength. I know that Truth alone gives life, and nothing but approaching Reality will make us strong, and that none will reach Truth until he is strong. Any system, therefore, which weakens the mind, which makes one superstitious, makes one mope, makes one desire all sorts of wild impossibilities, mysteries, and superstitions, I do not like, because its effect is dangerous.

…When we have nobody to grope towards, no Devil to lay our blame upon, no Personal God to carry our burdens, when we alone are responsible, then we shall rise to our highest and best…Cry to all the gods in the universe. I cried for years, and in the end I received help. But the help came from within myself; and I had to undo what I had done by mistake.

…The idea that the goal is far off, far beyond nature, attracting us all towards it, has to be changed; the goal has to brought nearer and nearer, without degrading or debasing it. The God of heaven becomes the God in nature, and the God in nature becomes the God who is nature, and the God who is nature becomes the God within this temple of the body, and the God dwelling in the temple of the body at last becomes the temple itself, becomes the soul and man—and there Vedanta reaches the last words it can teach.

…The idea of freedom that you perceived was correct, but you projected it outside yourself, and that was your mistake. Bring it nearer and nearer, until you find that it was all the time within you, it was the Self of your own self.

Gangaji, Eli, and Neo-Advaita hypocrisy

Ah, nothing like a guru-student sexual affair to spice up a churchless blog. Through my friend Randy’s “Gangaji’s Pinprick” and “More on Gangaji and Eli Jaxon-Bear” posts I’ve learned about some Neo-Advaitan hypocritical failure to practice what you preach.

Understand: the hypocrisy is what bothers me about spiritual teacher Eli, who is married to fellow spiritual teacher Gangaji, having a three-year affair with a much younger female student. Affairs happen. Usually they should remain a private matter.

Some of the commenters to an Ashland (Oregon) Daily Tidings story about Jaxon-Bear’s affair wondered why this was newsworthy.

Well, I agree with a Ron who said, “When you have an Ashland-based group that has some national prominence, and that is a spiritual organization whose leader gets caught with his pants down, so to speak, that's news.”

(Another commenter called Ashland “ten square miles of land surrounded by reality.” Neale Donald Walsch of “Conversations with God” fame, the subject of my previous post, also lives in Ashland. Along with other gurus. I love this quirky southern Oregon town, noted for its Shakespeare festival, which is about three and a half hours down I-5 from where I live.)

Coincidentally, if there is such a thing, yesterday I had coffee with my philosophical friend Patricia. She’d brought along the most recent issue of “What is Enlightenment?” It featured a critical article about Neo-Advaita that I found interesting: “Who’s Transforming Anyway?”

The author, Tom Huston, describes his youthful descent into the craziness of this New Agey teaching that we’re all already enlightened; we just don’t know it. Concerning Andrew Cohen and the editors of “What is Enlightenment?” Huston says:

No matter how effective a mystical teaching Advaita might have been in India’s ancient past, its newborn Western child, Neo-Advaita, seemed to be missing something significant. Isolated from its Eastern religious and historical context and taught as a quick-fix, no-frills contemporary path to spiritual enlightenment, they noticed its tendency to ignore traditional values like ethics and the cultivation of personal integrity.

Gangaji is one of the Neo-Advaita teachers mocked in Jessica Roemischer’s related previously-published piece, where Stacey Heartspring encounters the post-modern craze of Neo-Advaita. Here’s a typical Neo-Advaita bit of blather from Gangaji:

There is nothing that keeps you from the realization of your inherent, permanent, present freedom except your imagination that somebody or something is keeping you from that.

Neale Donald Walsch, who by and large echoes Gangaji’s and Eli’s outlook, says pretty much the same thing:

It’s not really a question of stepping into an experience so much as it is allowing it to flow through us more fully and more completely. It is quite possible for anyone to do that without any sort of training, without any particular sort of discipline, without any study, but with just a willingness to have the experience. And the first step is to allow the possibility that it could occur, because of course if you don’t think it could occur, then it cannot.

Well, fine. I haven’t realized my “inherent, permanent, present freedom.” But it’s possible that Gangaji and her hubby Eli have.

She’s written a book that promises to reveal how we all can “directly experience the perfect radiance of who you really are.” And at this very moment spiritual seekers are enjoying the “rare gift of being with Eli in an advanced setting for ten days.” So we have to assume that Gangaji practices what she preaches about desperation:

Find who is feeling desperate. The feeling of desperation only continues because you assume that you are, in fact, something that the feeling is hooked on to.

Hmmmm. I wonder why Gangaji and Eli had to go through a three month separation to resolve their differences if neither of them is a “something” that can be hooked by negative feelings, and if, as fellow Neo-Advaitist Tony Parsons says, “all concepts of good or bad, original sin, karma or debt of any kind are products of an unawakened mind.”

Eli and Gangaji, who somehow spoke as one voice in this interview, say:

Each of us needs to experience the ignorance, to find the place of fundamentalist certainty, fear, aggression, and animal territoriality, and to discover what is deeper. What is deeper is the next stage in the evolution of the human. It is the transcendental realization that you are not limited to human animal-ness. I do not mean merely to understand this, or to believe this, or to hope this is so, but to directly realize it for oneself. This requires the willingness to turn one’s back on personal identity as a male or female human animal.

Yet a student of theirs says that Eli is a “sexual predator who abused his power in the most egregious way.” Sounds pretty animalistic to me.

I’ve got no problem with men or women acting like animals. That’s a big part of what makes sex enjoyable. What ruffles my avian feathers is when a religious or spiritual figure pretends to be something that he or she is not, or says one thing and does another.

Another proponent of Neo-Advaita, Francis Lucille, says that “the only sin is to take yourself for a sinner.” I don’t agree with that point of view, but it is admirably simple and clear.

If it is true, though, then there wouldn’t have been a need for the Gangaji Foundation to issue an apologetic letter to their community of followers.
[Update: This letter has been removed by the Foundation. However, emails from the Foundation relating to the scandal still can be found at another web site.]

What was initially seen as a matter between adults is now recognized to be a betrayal of the teacher/student relationship and an abuse of power. A trust with the larger community also has been broken. This is an important revelation as real harm is being experienced by the student and is being fully acknowledged. The repercussions of this betrayal are reverberating in ways that were never imagined, but are very painful.

Tom Huston describes how he awakened from the relativistic nightmare of Neo-Advaita that, for a time, passed for spiritual truth in his excessively nihilistic eyes. There’s a valuable lesson for all of us here: fundamentalism doesn’t only come in the guise of traditional religion.

Tell it like it is, Tom:

Night after night, day after day, I’d storm Zen Buddhist forums, atheist forums, Christian forums, and even Natalie Portman fan discussion forums with my proselytizing passion for the Neo-Advaita way. “You morons think you’re real? Try this,” I’d say, as I dished out the intoxicating truth that renders human beings and their concerns into utter irrelevancy.

…“If all is One, then nothing is wrong,” said the notorious murderer Charles Manson. And while I didn’t actually kill anybody as I spread my love of Neo-Advaita far and wide, I probably did as much damage as one can with words alone, subverting all beliefs, trouncing all opinions, actively denying all values, hopes, and dreams—and loving every second of it, as I savored my absolute power over all relativity.

Yesterday Patricia and I talked about the big difference between thinking that you’re an enlightened spiritual person and actually being such. Passionate Neo-Advaita advocates, like all true believers, are prone to confusing the two. Thinking so doesn’t make it so.

If you claim to have turned your back on being a human animal, having a lengthy sexual affair with one of your students is just a touch contradictory (to put it mildly). Still, it’s always possible to take heart from a saying that my friend Hans is fond of repeating:

No one’s life ever is completely wasted. He can always serve as a horrible example for others.

Spirituality in one word

“Wow!” “Camat!” That’s all of spirituality in one word, for both words mean the same thing. “Wow!” is English; “Camat!” is Sanskrit. Both point to wonder, the touchstone of spirit.

I learned about camat from Luther Askeland. Recently I’ve been re-reading Luther’s book, “Ways in Mystery.” His thoughts stimulated some of my own: “Mystery is omnipresent” and “Dismantling the golem project.”

So it was a treat to get an email message from Luther on Monday. We’ve corresponded by snail mail a few times, but I didn’t know that this Minnesota philosopher and woodworker had a cyberspace presence.

Probably because of Luther’s classic writing style, and my assumption that he still lives in Welch, Minnesota, I’d always pictured him writing letters by hand under candlelight (probably after bringing the cows in).

Yet wonder of wonders, Luther has not only has email but also a website, where you can see an appropriately mysterious photo of him in his rural element and download a booklength essay: "When the Word-Animal Discovers Signlessness: A Reflection on the Possibility of the Mystical."

Here’s some of what Luther had to say. I’m thankful for being exposed to a new word, “camatkara.” I read on this web site that camatkara means consciousness without obstacles, the consciousness of a subject “who is finessed in the vibration of a marvelous enjoyment.” Sounds good.

Hello Brian. The last few days our paths have crossed, probably both in cyberspace and in mystery. I wanted to check back to your website and read through 5-6 of your recent blogs, and so I discovered of course that you have also been looking at some of my stuff lately.

We certainly seem to be in the same place--edgeless mystery!

When you say that "Wow!" and similar words are the best possible form of spiritual utterance, I'm reminded of a Sanskrit word I've frequently thought about lately: “camatkara.” It's an important term in Kashmir Shaivism, a monistic Shaivism with some basic similarities with the Vedanta.

“Camat” just by itself is an exclamation of surprise, astonishment, or wonder, just like "Wow!". “Kara” has the basic meaning of making or doing. So the basic sense of camatkara could be translated as "saying 'Wow!" or maybe as "the Wow!-word" or even the "Wow! experience."

The word is often translated as meaning astonishment, amazement, etc. And this word is frequently used in Kashmir Shaivism to point to the supreme spiritual experience or realization.

You wrote recently about the oddness of everything. Lately I've been thinking back about my fairly long path (I'm now 63) and trying to discern its main threads. And one of the most important of them is just the strong sense of that oddness.

For it has long seemed to me that the basic thing spiritually "wrong" with us isn't sin, but our extraordinary dullness. Unaware of mystery, we usually act as if all this ("the world," "This") is perfectly normal, "just what you would expect," when in fact it's infinitely abnormal, the "strangest thing," or as you write, full of oddness.

On a lighter note, I feel much more on top of things, having learned how to create a "religion of one." As soon as I sign off, I plan to look at my driver's license and get started. Thanks! and all the best to you in all your endeavors.
--Luther

Ramana: Simplicity

Ockham’s razor is a rule in science and philosophy that the simplest explanation is the best. Extending this principle to religion and spirituality, Ramana, a twentieth-century Indian mystic, shines.

Only recently did I began reading Ramana seriously. I wish I had done so earlier. I’d always thought that the Vedanta teachings which form the core of Ramana’s message were intellectual and complex. They can be, if a complex intellectual tries to communicate Vedanta.

But when the teachings are described by Ramana in the lively question and answer format of “Talks with Ramana Maharshi,” the highest form of Vedanta is revealed as marvelously simple and practical. This is Advaita, literally “not two.”

What could be simpler than one?

Advaita finds unity at the core of the cosmos. So does science. Or, at least this is what science expects to find. The quest of physicists is for the theory of everything that is the root explanation of the universe, not for the theories of everything.

Ramana’s teachings thus have an appealing scientific flavor. This is in contrast to most other spiritual paths and every religion, which expect you to believe in things that defy rational explanation or direct experience. Why? Because any faith founded on dualism necessarily posits a gap between the believer and what is believed.

If I believe in God, there obviously are two entities involved here: “I” and “God.” Given this situation, confirming my belief gets complex. Somehow I have to narrow the divide between me and divinity so what now is just a subjective idea or emotion for me becomes an undeniable objective fact.

So spiritual systems generally proscribe dogmas and theologies that amount to marching orders. Do this, don’t do that; follow this course, not that one. If the believer follows directions and treads the spiritual path in the correct manner, then the promise is that he or she someday will arrive at God’s doorstep (taking “God” to mean ultimate reality, not necessarily a personal being).

The more steps you’re asked to take, the more potential missteps there are. This is why I’m much attracted to Ramana’s simplicity. He says that all of Vedanta can be summed up in two Biblical passages: “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14) and “Be still, and know that I am God!” (Psalms 46:10).

Vivekananda: Strength

In my “Five Books to Support the Churchless” post, I said I’d share what I like most about the teachings of Vivekananda, Ramana, Eckhart, Plotinus, and the anonymous author of “The Cloud of Unknowing.” Each points toward the same spiritual goal, unity with the ultimate reality of God. Yet I find that each emphasizes a different quality needed to become one with the One.

For Vivekananda the quality is strength. In his presentation of the ancient, yet still new, Vedanta philosophy he continually urges us to realize that there is nothing to fear. Only in duality can fear exist. I am only afraid of things that are not me, whether they be immaterial or physical. An attacker who tries to steal my wallet isn’t me. A cancer that upsets my body’s health isn’t me. An obsessive thought that won’t leave my mind isn’t me.

Or so I believe. Maybe, says Vivekananda, all these things really are me. For if the cosmos truly is one, not many, then there is no “other” to fear. This is the highest teaching of Vedanta, unqualified monism.

A dualistic religious perspective that sees God as separate both from nature and the human soul has to grapple with the problem of evil. “How,” Vivekananda asks, “is it possible that under the rule of a just and merciful God, the repository of an infinite number of good qualities, there can be so many evils in this word?”

The Hindus, he answers, never put the blame on God or on a separate Satan. Instead, they hold the eminently scientific view that effects spring from causes in a never-ending chain. Vivekananda says, “Therefore no other person is needed to shape the destiny of mankind but man himself….’We reap what we sow.’”

So here is one source of strength, the fact that each of us creates our own destiny. If we don’t like the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we can do something about it. Fresh causes will led to fresh effects. It isn’t necessary to passively wait for God to save us from our suffering, for our own actions have created both our joys and our despairs. What we have created, we can change.

But Vedanta goes farther than this dualistic idea that the entity known as “me” can cause effects in “not-me” that will then alter my condition (for example, if I am nice to people they will be nicer to me, thereby making me happier).

Vivekananda says, “The real Vedanta philosophy begins with those known as qualified non-dualists. They make the statement that the effect is never different from the cause; the effect is but the cause reproduced in another form. If the universe is the effect and God the cause, it must be God Himself; it cannot be anything but that.”

This means that the universe is the body of God, just as the flesh and bones writing or reading these words is the body of me or you. As the soul is considered to be immanent in the human body, so is God immanent in the body of the entire universe. Bodies come and go, whether they be individual forms or entire universes (the Big Bang may culminate in a Big Crunch), while souls and God remain unchanged forever.

So this qualified non-dualist philosophy encourages even greater strength in you and me. At heart we are not weak, isolated, limited beings who are born, live for a brief spell, and then die. We have the capacity to realize our oneness with the All—God. Vivekananda says, “There is not a particle, not an atom in the universe, where He is not. Again, souls are all limited; they are not omnipresent. When their powers become expanded and they become perfect, there is no more birth and death for them; they live with God for ever.”

Yet Vedanta urges that even this exalted conception of the soul be expanded. This is non-dualistic Vedanta or Advaita, “not two.” Namely, one. According to Vivekananda this is where human thought finds its highest expression. “It is too abstruse, too elevated,” he says, “to be the religion of the masses…It is difficult for even the most intelligent man or woman in any country to understand Advaita—we have made ourselves so weak; we have made ourselves so low.”

According to Advaita the truth is that there aren’t many souls in the universe. There is only a single soul: the Self. From one perspective this is God, Brahman. From another perspective it is an individual soul, Atman. Regardless, there is no difference between God and the soul, Brahman and Atman. All is One.

Vivekananda says, “The whole of this universe is one Unity, one Existence—physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually. We are looking upon this one Existence in different ways and creating all these images upon it.”

Who then should we worship? A God far off in the heavens? No. A savior sent by God to redeem us? No. A natural world separate from ourselves? No. A book, icon, holy relic, place of pilgrimage, or other sacred object? No. Advaita Vedanta teaches that the only entity worthy of our worship is wonderfully close at hand:

Our own Self.

I’ll let Vivekanada explain this bold assertion in his own words. As you read them, feel the strength within you. I love how he reminds us that we have been beaten down for so long by religions that weaken us, we have lost touch with the power of the soul that is our birthright. And also our deathright. That power can’t be taken away from us, even though most of us have voluntarily surrendered it.

Take it back. Become spiritually independent. Let the energy of the cosmos flow through you, for it is you.

[All of the excerpts in this post are from “The Atman,” a talk delivered by Vivekananda in Brooklyn, February 2, 1896]