Church of the Churchless

Get off the satisfaction treadmill where you always want more

I've got several stacks of books in my office that I've read, found interesting, but haven't yet written a blog post about. So I'm going to make a start on them by picking the one on top, "A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy" by William B. Irvine. 

Well, I decided to check and see whether I'd written about Irvine's book and it turns out that I had last June, in Past and present are outside our control. So here's my second post about the book.

Irvine, a philosophy professor, wants to make Stoicism relevant to us in the 21st century. He succeeds in that, offering up a bunch of tips about how to live life in a Stoic fashion.

Which definitely doesn't mean unhappily, or with a suck-it-up attitude -- the usual way "Stoic" is viewed by people who know just a little about Stoicism. That's why Irvine made his subtitle The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. Stoics don't want to be, well, stoic. At least not in the usual sense of that term. They want to be happy, to be joyful. 

Here's some passages that illustrate the Stoic approach to happiness.

We humans are unhappy in large part because we are insatiable; after working hard to get what we want, we routinely lose interest in the object of our desire. Rather than feeling satisfied, we feel a bit bored, and in response to this boredom, we go on to form new, even grander desires.

The psychologists Shane Frederick and George Lowenstein have studied this phenomenon and given it a name: hedonic adaptation. To illustrate the adaptation process, they point to studies of lottery winners. Winning a lottery typically allows someone to live the life of his dreams.

It turns out, though, that after an initial period of exhilaration, lottery winners end up about as happy as they previously were. They start taking their new Ferrari and mansion for granted, the way they previously took their rusted-out pickup and cramped apartment for granted..

...As a result of the adaptation process, people find themselves on a satisfaction treadmill. 

They are unhappy when they detect an unfulfilled desire within them. They work hard to fulfill this desire, in the belief that on fulfilling it, they will gain satisfaction. The problem, though, is that once they fulfill a desire for something, they adapt to its presence in their life and as a results stop desiring it -- or at any rate, don't find it as desirable as they once did.

They end up just as dissatisfied as they were before fulfilling the desire.

One key to happiness, then, is to forestall the adaptation process. We need to take steps to prevent ourselves from taking for granted, once we get them, the things we worked so hard to get. 

And because we have probably failed to take such steps in the past, there are doubtless many things in our life to which we have adapted, things that we once dreamed of having but that we now take for granted, including, perhaps, our spouse, our children, our house, our car, and our job. 

This means that besides finding a way to forestall the adaptation process, we need to find a way to reverse it.

In other words, we need a technique for creating in ourselves a desire for the things we already have. Around the world and throughout the millennia, those who have thought carefully about the workings of desire have recognized this -- that the easiest way for us to gain happiness is to learn how to want the things we already have.

This advice is easy to state and is doubtless true; the trick is in putting it into practice in our life. How, after all, can we convince ourselves to want the things we already have?

The Stoics thought they had an answer to this question.

They recommended that we spend time imagining that we have lost the things we value -- that our wife has left us, our car was stolen, or we lost our job. Doing this, the Stoics thought, will make us value our wife, our car, and our job more than we otherwise would. This technique -- let us refer to it as negative visualization -- was employed by the Stoics at least as far back as Chrysippus. 

It is, I think the single most valuable technique in the Stoics' psychological tool kit.

...But what about those individuals who clearly aren't living the dream? What about a homeless person, for example? The important thing to realize is that Stoicism is by no means a rich person's philosophy.

...Consider the person who has been reduced to possession of only a loincloth. His circumstances could be worse: He could lose the loincloth. He would do well, say the Stoics, to reflect on this possibility. Suppose, then, he loses the loincloth. As long as he retains his health, his circumstances could again be worse -- a point worth considering.

And if his health deteriorates? He can be thankful that he is still alive.

It is hard to imagine a person who could not somehow be worse off. It is therefore hard to imagine a person who could not benefit from the practice of negative visualization. The claim is not that practicing it will make life as enjoyable for those who have nothing as it is for those who have much. 

The claim is merely that the practice of negative visualization -- and more generally the adoption of Stoicism -- can take some of the sting out of having nothing and thereby make those who have nothing less miserable than they would otherwise be.

This fits with the many stories I've seen on our local TV news about people who lost their homes in the recent devastating wildfires here in Oregon. When interviewed, typically they say how sad it was to have their beloved house destroyed. However, they usually add something like, "But we're alive. We have each other. And the help we've gotten from total strangers has been so wonderful."

So they envisioned an even worse thing than having their house burnt down -- having a loved one die, or themselves die. That took some of the sting out of their tragedy. 

On a smaller scale, I felt something similar in the days after we lost power during the high winds that caused the wildfires to spread so rapidly. Living out in the country, surrounded by large firs and oaks, along with a lot of brush, I was happy that our neighborhood didn't have a fire. 

A few days ago I got up on our roof and removed leaves and other debris from our gutters with a backpack blower. It isn't a fun job, being somewhat dangerous. But I enjoyed it more than usual because I'd spent so much time wondering  if our house might burn down, as hundreds did throughout Oregon.

Negative visualization does seem to work.

An ordinary life is all I need. Being religiously special, no thanks.

There are various reasons why I'm happier after ditching religion some fifteen years ago. Feeling ordinary is one reason. I get a lot of satisfaction from no longer believing that I'm on a special path that leads back to God.

Of course, virtually every religion believes that same thing. 

So religious people are like the children in Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon. Everybody is above average. Or at least that's what those who embrace religion think.

Supposedly they've been singled out for special treatment by God, Jesus, a guru, good karma, whatever. So the pressure is on to live up to a belief that they're destined to enjoy a life, and/or an afterlife, in a fashion denied to ordinary people.

This leads to constant questioning by the Chosen Ones.

Am I falling short from what is expected of me by the divinity I believe in? Is there more I can do to live up to the moral standards, or commandments, of my faith? What worldly desires stand between me and the exalted spirituality I aspire to?

By contrast, us ordinary people are content with living an ordinary life in ordinary ways. 

We don't agonize about whether we're doing God's will because we don't believe in God. We don't worry about what will happen to us after we die because we don't believe in an afterlife. We don't worry about meeting a divine moral standard because we don't believe in divinity.

Sometimes I'm struck by an overwhelming sensation of gratitude for having found the freedom to simply be who I am, where I am, how I am.

I feel deeply happy to have been deconverted from religious fantasies. No longer do I consider that there is a gap between what I should become and the reality of my present state of being.

Sure, I still have goals. I still worry about this and that. (Such as whether Biden will defeat Trump this November.) My mood goes up and down. 

But all of this takes place against a backdrop of an ordinary life. I feel a stronger kinship with other people, because I no longer identify with a religion that taught its devotees to feel special, being on a path to God-realization denied to others. 

I understand the appeal of feeling special. All I'm suggesting is that feeling ordinary is a wiser way to live.

 

There is nothing but now -- no past, no future

"Live in the now."

That is an utterly meaningless statement. It's akin to saying, "Exist in existence." Well, yeah. As if we had a choice. There's no place to exist but in existence. 

Where else are I supposed to exist? Non-existence? That'd be impossible.

Equally impossible is for anything, naturally including we humans, to exist anywhere but in the present -- now. So save your money on books that claim to teach you how to live in the now.

You're already expert at this. There's no place to be except now.

But what about thoughts of the past and future? Those are taking place now. Do you really believe that you can time travel into the past or future? I hope not. There is no evidence that this is possible. 

So if you consider that you can exist in the past or future, you're deluded. 

Ah, but what about the Theory of Relativity? People or clocks traveling at different speeds experience time differently. And light doesn't experience time at all.

(Leaving aside the fact that almost certainly, light lacks the ability to experience anything.)

Doesn't matter. Someone traveling at a speed that approaches 186,000 miles per second, light-speed, still would be having that experience now, not in the past or future. 

Yes, conscious beings in the space-time continuum can disagree about the order in which things happen. Past can be future, or the future can be past, depending on one's perspective according to the Theory of Relativity.

Still, my argument is that these perspectives are still occurring now, in the present moment experience of each observer.

Given my affection for mindfulness practices, I do consider that generally speaking it is good for us to be attending to what is physically present now, as opposed to thoughts of the past or future that are occurring now.

It's all now. We have no choice about that. But we can choose whether to be present to the world outside of us now, or present to the world within us now. 

True, in one sense everything is within us, since conscious awareness resides in the brain, and the brain is inside our head.

What I'm talking about is what the focus of our consciousness is -- the present moment of the physical reality that surrounds us, or the present moment of our thoughts, emotions, and such.

So enjoy the fact that you already possess the power of now, the title of an Eckhart Tolle book. And you didn't have to pay any money to Amazon, or another bookstore, to enjoy this power.

Failure can be fabulous. Perfectionism can be pitiful.

Most of us have experienced a lot of failures. Probably we feel bad about those. Most of us have some sort of perfectionist tendency. Probably we feel this is a good thing, since it spurs us toward success. 

But maybe we should look upon ourselves differently, viewing failure more positively than perfectionism.

Here's excerpts from Oliver Burkeman's book, "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking." Dome is a reference to the failed Millennium Dome, built as a monument to the dawn of the year 2000.

There is an openness and honesty in failure, a down-to-earth confrontation with reality that is lacking at the higher altitudes of success. 

To achieve something impressive -- as might have happened had the dome ever become, as Tony Blair predicted, 'a beacon to the world' -- is necessarily to erect a kind of barrier between yourself and everyone else. To be impressed by something, meanwhile, implies feeling yourself to be in the presence of something different from, and better than, yourself. 

Failure, by contrast, collapses these boundaries, demonstrating the fallibility of those who might otherwise try to present themselves as immune to defeat. It cuts people down to human size. The vulnerability revealed by failure can nurture empathy and communality.

...Still it can be exceptionally hard to adopt this attitude towards your own failures. As Christopher Kayes' notion of 'goalodicy' suggests, we too often make our goals into parts of our identities, so that failure becomes an attack on how we are.

Or, as Albert Ellis understood, we alight upon some desired outcome -- being happily married, for example, or finding fulfilling work -- and elevate it into one we feel we must attain, so that failing at it becomes not just sad but catastrophic. To use the Buddhist language of attachment and non-attachment, we become attached to success.

All these counterproductive ways of thinking about failure manifest themselves most acutely in the phenomenon of perfectionism. 

This is one of those traits that many people seem secretly, or not so secretly, proud to possess, since it hardly seems like a character flaw -- yet perfectionism, at bottom, is a fear-driven striving to avoid the experience of failure at all costs. At its extremes, it is an exhausting and permanently stressful way to live. 

(There is a greater correlation between perfectionism and suicide, research suggests, than between feelings of hopelessness and suicide.)

To fully embrace the experience of failure, not merely to tolerate it as a stepping-stone to success, is to abandon this constant straining never to put a foot wrong. It is to relax.

'Downfall', writes the American Zen Buddhist Natalie Goldberg, 'brings us to the ground, facing the nitty-gritty, things as they are with no glitter. Success cannot last forever. Everyone's time runs out.' She goes on: 'Achievement solidifies us. Believing we are invincible, we want more and more.'

To see and feel things as they really are, 'we have to crash. Only then can we drop through to a more authentic self. Zen transmits its legacy from this deeper place. It is a different kind of failure: the Great Failure, a boundless surrender. Nothing to hold on to, and nothing to lose.'

...Her [J.K. Rowling] words chime with many of the insights of the Stoics, the Buddhists, and others into the benefits of negativity, and they are worth quoting at length:

I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.

An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless. 

The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure that I knew. 

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea there was going to be what the press has since represented as a fairytale resolution. 

I had no idea how far the tunnel extended... so why do I talk about the benefits of failure?

Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

... I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive. [Failure] gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.

...Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

RSSB guru agrees to submit "sealed" tax returns to Delhi High Court

More news on the financial fraud scandal involving the Singh brothers and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

After the story I'll comment on something that I neglected to mention in a previous post on this subject -- how the guru has admitted to "round trip" financial transactions that appear to be illegal. Below is the Live Mint story.

Note: from what I can tell, a sealed court document means that only the court and parties directly involved in a court case can see it. The general public doesn't have access to it, which makes sense if the document contains sensitive information.

New Delhi: Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the spiritual head of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas and his family on Tuesday informed the Delhi high court that they are willing to file their income tax returns in a sealed cover before the registrar of the court.

The copies of the document will also be given to the decree holder --Daiichi Sankyo-- and the concerned judgment debtors, subject to their filing an undertaking to maintain confidentiality in the matter.

Dhillon had filed an exemption application against the court order citing “severe prejudice" to them.

The court has disposed off the application now.

The legible documents related to bank statements have to be filed within two weeks.

The court had deferred its order last week as the counsel for the applicant had prayed that final orders in the application be deferred to enable him to obtain instructions on whether the garnishees are willing to file their income tax returns in a sealed cover.

Former Fortis Healthcare promoter Malvinder Singh had filed an affidavit last month in the Delhi high court alleging that Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family owe him ₹1,473 crore, lent to them over a 10-year period till 2016.

In the affidavit filed on 13 August, Singh alleged that over 2007-12, the Dhillon family took loans totalling ₹578 crore from RHC Holding Pvt. Ltd and Today's Holdings, both funded by him and his brother Shivinder Singh.

In 2016, a Singapore tribunal asked the Singh brothers to pay ₹2,600 crore to Daiichi Sankyo in a case involving Ranbaxy Laboratories’ regulatory issues. The dues have now ballooned to ₹3,500 crore, including interest.

In a previous post about the Dhillon family tax returns, an Economic Times story was shared that said in part:

In an affidavit filed before the Delhi High court on November 12 last year, Dhillon had disclosed about the financial transactions between RHC holdings Ltd and his family members dating back to 2006. In fact he has also tried to establish that his sons Gurpreet and Gurkirat Singh Dhillon were young at that time, Gurkirat being minor and both his sons did not manage their financial affairs personally.

He had also revealed that RHC devised such a mechanism that transactions essentially involved transferring money from one subsidiary to a bank account of Dhillons and then transferring the same money either on the same day or shortly thereafter to another subsidiary of the group or usually to RHC holdings Ltd.

That second paragraph describes what's been called "round trip" financial transactions. These caught the eye of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), which called them fraudulent. The SEBI report contains a diagram of one day's circular, or round trip, transactions. 

So it seems significant that the RSSB guru has admitted to getting money put into his account through this sort of complex round trip transaction. The Economic Times story calls the entities other than FHL and RHC subsidiaries, but a better term seems to be shell companies.

There have been reports that at one time those shell companies were controlled by the Dhillons and their associates. Thus it appears very unlikely that loaned money could appear to the Dhillon family bank accounts without their knowing how it got there.

This is how I summarized things in a 2019 post, "Why the RSSB guru is responsible for financial fraud."

Some core facts are clear:

(1) The Securities and Exchange Board of India has determined that funds were fraudulently siphoned out of a public company into shell companies. 

(2) Those illegal money transfers involved "round trip" transactions that required the collusion of conspirators at both the public company and the shell companies.

(3) The RSSB guru, his family, and close associates controlled the shell companies that received the fraudulent funds. 

(4) The Dhillon family and their close associates used the fraudulently-obtained money, in large part or entirely, to buy real estate and the High Court of Delhi has ordered that this money be recovered from the RSSB guru, his family, and other entities.

At any rate, this saga has more twists and turns ahead, almost certainly. I'll share them as I learn about them. 

RSSB guru has to submit tax returns to Delhi High Court

There's another development in the lengthy saga of the Singh brothers' financial scandal that involves the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB0, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. 

The Delhi High Court says that the Dhillon family has to submit income tax returns and other documents to the court. Here's the Economic Times story.

The Delhi High court has dismissed an application filed by the head of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) Gurinder Singh Dhillon seeking exemption on filing income tax returns and other financial documents.

“In my view, these documents are essential to enable the learned Joint Registrar/Court to determine the merit in the stand of the garnishees who are disputing their liability qua the JDs,” said the court in its order dated September 11. ET has seen a copy of the order.

The court said that it sees no reason to exempt the applicants from filing copies of their income tax returns, bank statements and the balance-sheets.

Dhillon had sought exemption from filing Income Tax returns (ITR) in the Delhi High Court, citing that it contains “personal information” and it was not an “appropriate stage” to produce such documents.

The court had earlier asked Dhillon along with his family members to file ITRs after he denied of any liability towards RHC holdings Ltd, promoted by Malvinder and Shivinder Singh.

In an affidavit filed before the court, Dhillon has said that being individuals, the Dhillons do not “maintain balance sheet” and filing ITR would cause “severe prejudice” to them.

Dhillon had earlier admitted of his financial dealings with the Singh brothers by annexing copies of bank statements. However, he had denied of any liability to RHC holding, to which the court had asked those of who were disputing their liability to file their ITR, bank statements and balance sheets.

In an affidavit filed on January 30, Dhillon had sought an exemption from filing ITRs for himself, his wife, Shabnam Dhillon, his sons-Gupreet and Gurkirat and his daughter-in-law Nayantara Dhillon.

“In this regard it is submitted that the applicants have already placed on record in this court their relevant bank statements. Further, the applicants being individuals do not maintain balance sheets and hence the direction to that extent is not application to them,” read the 14-page affidavit.

In an affidavit filed before the Delhi High court on November 12 last year, Dhillon had disclosed about the financial transactions between RHC holdings Ltd and his family members dating back to 2006. In fact he has also tried to establish that his sons Gurpreet and Gurkirat Singh Dhillon were young at that time, Gurkirat being minor and both his sons did not manage their financial affairs personally.

He had also revealed that RHC devised such a mechanism that transactions essentially involved transferring money from one subsidiary to a bank account of Dhillons and then transferring the same money either on the same day or shortly thereafter to another subsidiary of the group or usually to RHC holdings Ltd.

He had also claimed that over the course of 2011-2015, out of the surplus of Rs 103.5 crores with RHC he and his family drew only Rs29.38 crores, leaving the balance surplus of Rs 74.12 crores. “Thus an amount of Rs 74.12 crores continued to be due from RHC holdings Ltd”.

Life is best lived by embracing insecurity

One of the things I talked about in my first book, a shorter and simpler version of which I published a few years ago, is that happenings in the world can be deterministic while also being unpredictable.

This is what chaos theory is all about. Complex systems are made up of causes and effects, yet in such a fashion that it is virtually (and maybe totally) impossible to know what they are going to do next. 

An example I cited in my book is tossing a cork into a stream above some rapids.

Every movement of the cork is determined by the laws of physics, yet there is no way to predict exactly where the cork will end up a few hundred yards downstream, because a slight movement at any point in its journey can lead to big changes in its final destination.

Such is one reason why our longing for security, for predictability, for being assured that what we want to have happen actually will happen, is doomed to failure. 

Another way of looking at security and insecurity is wonderfully discussed by Alan Watts in his book, "The Wisdom of Insecurity." I've written many posts about this book over the years, since it is one of my favorites. You can find those posts by using the Google search box in the right sidebar.

I'm making my way through Oliver Burkeman's book, "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking." This morning I finished a chapter called The Safety Catch. 

It contains a nice summary of how Alan Watts looks upon our quest for security. Here's how the chapter ends.

To understand the final flourish that Watts has in store, think back to the end of the previous chapter and the challenge it presented to our assumptions about the nature of the self. 

There we confronted the fact that there seems to be no straightforward place at which to draw the line between 'self' and 'other' -- and that the boundary itself, even if we settle on somewhere to draw it, is more of a meeting point than a dividing line. 'Self' and 'other' rely on each other for their very existence.

If that's true, it follows that 'security' is a mistake -- because it implies a notion of separate selfhood that doesn't make much sense. What does it even mean to separate yourself from an ecosystem that is, in fact, what constitutes you? 

The point is not to 'confront' insecurity, but to appreciate that you are it. Watts writes:

To understand that there is no security is far more than to agree with the theory that all things change, more even than to observe the transitoriness of life. 

The notion of security is based on the feeling that there is something within us which is permanent, something which endures through all the days and changes of life. We are struggling to make sure of the permanence, continuity, and safety of this enduring core, this center and soul of our being, which we call 'I'.

For this we think to be the real man -- the thinker of our thoughts, the feeler of our feelings, the knower of our knowledge. We do not actually understand that there is no security until we realize that this 'I' does not exist.

This extraordinary passage, once you grasp the point -- and it took me a while -- explains in the most complete sense why our efforts to find happiness are so frequently sabotaged by 'ironic' effects, delivering the exact opposite of what we set out to gain.

All positive thinking, all goalsetting and visualising and looking on the bright side, all trying to make things go our way, as opposed to some other way, is rooted in an assumption about the separateness of 'us' and those 'things'. But on closer inspection, this assumption collapses.

Trying to flee from insecurity to security, from uncertainty to certainty, is an attempt to find an exit from the very system that makes us who we are in the first place.

We can influence the system of which we are a part, certainly. But if we are motivated by this misunderstanding about who we are and what security is, we'll always risk going to too far, trying too hard, in self-defeating ways. Watts concludes:

The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the 'I' out of the experience.

...Sanity, wholeness and integration lie in the realization that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate 'I' or mind can be found.

...[Life] is a dance, and when you are dancing, you are not intent on getting somewhere. The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance.

This, then, is the deep truth about insecurity: it is another word for life. That doesn't mean it's not wise to protect yourself, as far as you can, from certain specific dangers. But it does mean that feeling secure and really living life are, in some ultimate sense, opposites.

And that you can no more succeed in achieving perfect security than a wave could succeed in leaving the ocean.

Oregon wildfires reflect the uncertain nature of reality

Religions are prone to all sorts of ridiculous errors, but one of the worst is believing that reality can be tamed. Meaning, eliminating uncertainty, chance, randomness, unpredictability.

It's a psychological truism that we humans are uncomfortable with uncertainty. So we make up stories to fill the gap between what is known and what we have questions about where answers are lacking.

How did existence come to be? Nobody knows. Science is content with leaving this question as a mystery. Religions, though, make up a tale about how God created the cosmos -- ignoring the obvious problem of how God came to be.

(If it is assumed that God always has existed, then it also can be assumed that the cosmos always has existed.)

Here in Oregon, and also in our neighboring states of Washington and California, massive wildfires are burning. Today I saw a tweet by a reporter that said, "Since 1900, Oregon has never had more than 2 mega fires (100K acres or more) in a single year, said Jim Gersbach from ‪@ORDeptForestry‬. Now depending on how you count them we have 3 or 4 all burning at once."

Earlier in the summer it seemed that Oregon would have a mild wildfire season. There were some fires, but they weren't creating  big problems.

Then an unexpected combination of circumstances combined to create a Perfect Storm for wildfires.

Oregon has been in a long-standing drought. Very little rain has fallen for many months. And a rare September snow storm in the Rockies was followed by high pressure in that region that created strong east winds in the Pacific Northwest.

The National Weather Service realized the danger. They designated much of Oregon as being at high risk for wildfires. That turned out to be an accurate prediction. Yesterday I took this photo at 9 am while standing in our almost pitch black driveway. 

Smoke from what now is called the Santiam Fire was so thick, blown by the east winds in the direction of Salem, where I live, that the sun was completely obscured. All that could be seen in the sky was an eerie red glow. Later in the day it was still strangely dark, which made me think darkness at noon.

Thousands of people living in the Santiam Canyon east of Salem had to evacuate in the early morning hours on Tuesday. A small fire in the mountains that seemed to be posing little danger grew astoundingly rapidly, pushed by the strong east winds. This map shows the current size of the fire from satellite imagery.

(Yellow is satellite fire detections 24-48 hours ago. Orange is 12-24 hours. Red is 0-12 hours. So the red dots show where a fire has moved most recently. Note: on a slow Internet connection like what I have, the dots take a while to load.)

So far two people are known to have died in the Santiam Fire, a grandmother and her grandchild, who were in a car trying to escape the flames. Many homes and businesses have been destroyed. And this fire is just one of many ravaging Oregon.

Bad things happen.

This isn't news to anybody. It's the way the world is. If bad things could be predicted with certainty, we could stop them from happening. But usually we can't do that. Sure, meteorologists knew that the strong east winds could fan dangerous wildfires. 

Yet whether this actually would come to pass wasn't known until the winds arrived. And yes, now Oregon is suffering through the worst wildfires in the state's history.

My Tai Chi instructor and his wife have had to evacuate their home. They live near the road that links Silverton and Molalla in the map I shared above. They got out safely, along with their dogs, horses, and goats. That's good news, though better news would be if their house ends up being untouched by fire.

I can hope for that. Yet I can't know that. Life is uncertain. That's for sure. Which is why I started to work on an evacuation checklist yesterday, just in case.

"Mystical" experiences aren't what meditation is about

Today someone asked me and someone else some questions about the meditation I did during the 35 years I was an active member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a religious organization headquartered in India. 

Here's what Tony Wims said in a comment.

Hey Brian or Osho. Just curious: Did either of you ever see the light or hear the sound during meditation?

If you did, what stopped you from developing your perception further?
If you didn't, I'm actually really surprised that you didn't and you were initiated.

Were you following the precepts? ( If you didn't see/hear).
Did you not start by placing your attention at the 3rd eye center?

I know I shouldn't be, because anything is possible, but I'm very surprised to hear of initiates who left the path. Especially if they had even a brief glimpse of the light or a snippet of the sound.

Thank you in advance for your answer. Forgive me for asking if you don't feel like it.

Hey, I have no problem with questions about my meditation experience. But before I get to the answers, I'll share some observations about the assumptions underlying Tony's comment.

The main assumption is that there's such a thing as supernatural light and sound emanating from higher spiritual regions of reality. I used to believe this was true, but beliefs are different from what actually is the case.

There's no demonstrable evidence of anything supernatural, much less mystical light and sound. So the burden of proof rests on those who claim that there is, not skeptics like me who doubt the existence of realms beyond the physical.

Another assumption is that meditation is aimed at anything other than being fully in touch with what appears in one's consciousness. Yes, I realize that Tony is talking about a very special form of meditation, Surat Shabd Yoga, or uniting one's soul with a divine sound current. 

Again, this is a religious belief, not a proven reality.

In fact, a comment Sonia left today appears to accurately describe how the current guru of RSSB, Gurinder Singh Dhillon (GSD), looks upon meditation. What Sonia says fits with the notion that Dhillon has moved RSSB to what's been termed v. 2.0 and v. 3.0. 

@Tony Most people don’t recognize the light or sound.

GSD just said some people go to the doctor thinking they have tinnitus when really it’s the “sound”. He also said if you want to see lights go to a disco. He’s made it abundantly clear that seeing the light or hearing sound is not what meditation is about. Many people won’t recognize it. He said just do your meditation.

The reason he says all of this is because satsangis complain over and over and over again to him about not hearing the sound or seeing light during meditation.

And the only reason I’m sharing this with you is so that you will understand that your Master never promised you a rose garden—he never promises you’ll see light and sound and most of your fellow satsangis don’t have that experience.

That was my clear impression also from the three-plus decades I spent talking with countless (more or less) RSSB initiates, or satsangis. i used to do a lot of speaking on behalf of RSSB, where one of my favorite lines was "The easiest vow to uphold is the one against talking about your mystical experiences, because no one is having any."

The line always got a laugh.

And no one ever came up to me afterwards and said I was wrong. As Sonia said, most RSSB devotees aren't focused on experiencing inner lights and sounds. They're focused on other things: the guru, going to RSSB meetings, being a vegetarian, socializing with RSSB friends, and such.

Getting back to Tony's questions, in 2014 I wrote a blog post called "I'm asked about my RSSB meditation experience." These lengthy excerpts address the more recent questions from Tony.

In "Why I'm justified in complaining about Sant Mat" I wrote:

I was initiated in the spring of 1971. For over thirty years—until 2002 or so—I was damn near a model satsangi (disciple).

I never missed a day of meditation. Mostly it was for the full proscribed two and a half hours. Sometimes less. One and a half hours was a minimum, such as when my daughter needed after-work attention and I was working full time. I followed the other vows perfectly, aside from having a single drink at my ten year high school reunion, which was just too freaking weird to endure without a dose of alcohol.

So don't tell me that I can't complain about Sant Mat and Radha Soami Satsang Beas. I'm totally justified in doing so. Because I know more about this philosophy and this organization than most initiates. Not just book knowledge—direct experience also.

Or, lack of experience, when it comes to meditation. I'm typical in this regard. Over those three decades I talked with hundreds, maybe thousands, of RSSB meditators. Very few, perhaps none, had experienced what they were told to expect. Those flights to inner mystical regions and the meeting with their guru's radiant astral form.

With me, it wasn't for lack of effort. Again, I did everything right. And the results were wrong. Now, many of the faithful would say, "Brian, you expected too much, too soon." Give me a break.

Thirty years isn't too soon. A glimpse of the promised spiritual land isn't too much.

In "Q and A about me and Sant Mat" I wrote this in response to another question that I'd gotten:

(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.

So there you have it.

Naturally I had lots of experiences in meditation. It was impossible not to have them, since I was awake and aware for most of the 1.5 to 2.5 hours of meditation I did each day for over thirty years. (Yeah, I'd fall asleep occasionally.)

I feel like I gained a lot from all that meditating.

It was a mix of "mantra meditation" (repeating a word or words to concentrate the mind) and "open awareness" meditation (trying to be still, mentally and physically, and being aware of what passes through consciousness).

Thus even though Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) views its meditation technique as something special, actually it is very much in the meditation mainstream. Mantras and open awareness are used in many other meditative practices.

The RSSB meditation did focus on "going within," though, to a much greater extent than mindfulness practices do. That is, the initiate was supposed to direct his/her attention to the third eye, or eye center, which supposedly was a gateway to higher realms of consciousness.

Now my daily meditation usually involves more of a balanced approach.

I like to follow my breathing for part of the time, either counting breaths or simply being aware of my breathing body doing its thing. I also enjoy mantra meditation. Usually I choose different words than the Five Holy Names taught by RSSB, but for old time's sake I'll occasionally return to the mantra I repeated for so many years.

It's difficult for me to describe what I experienced during my RSSB meditation years. As noted before, I've sat for tens of thousands of hours in meditation. How is it possible to sum that up in a few words? 

I laughed; I cried; I was joyful; I was sad; I was peaceful; I was restless; I felt at one with the cosmos; I felt alone. And so much more.

One of the key things I learned was the difference between what my conscious mind does, and what the rest of my mind does. Well, let me rephrase that, because I no longer believe there are two entities inside my head: me, and my mind. 

There is just one: brain/mind, or whatever you want to call it.

I used to enjoy, and still do, the sensation of either repeating a mantra, or doing nothing, and being aware of what happens inside my head when the brain/mind aspect called "I" isn't trying to direct the show of consciousness.

As anyone who meditates knows (or anyone who is alive knows)... a lot happens.

The brain/mind, like an iceberg, consists of a whole lot more than our conscious awareness, will, intention, and such. Dualistic forms of meditation, which see a distinction between soul and mind, or pure consciousness and impure consciousness, consider those unintended goings-on to be a distraction. Non-dual forms of meditation, such as mindfulness and Zen, don't.

To them, as to me these days, what happens in the brain/mind is what is happening. To deny it is to deny reality. Thoughts come and go. So do emotions, perceptions, intuitions, and much else. 

Thus whereas I used to believe that God and the guru were responsible for what happened within my consciousness when I wasn't trying to make anything happen, now I realize that the part of brain/mind outside of conscious awareness is responsible.

I still feel that I'm part of something much larger than myself. I just don't call it God, or divine. It is me. And the world, which really isn't different from me. 

Comic strip wisdom about combatting stupidity

Here's some excellent advice from the Pearls Before Swine comic strip.