Church of the Churchless

Jesus’ resurrection—does it matter if it happened?

I vowed that I would think positively all day on Easter, even about right-wing Christian fundamentalists who want to shove their chosen religion down everybody’s throat. But my vow ended when I chanced to hear a few minutes of the Jeff Kropf talk show on Portland’s KXL.

Kropf, a conservative Oregon state representative, started off by extolling the glory of Easter and the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. That was fine with me. He was expressing his personal religious beliefs positively and passionately. Nothing wrong with that.

But then he got rolling on the Terri Schiavo case. He said that it was an outrage for Schiavo to be starved to death on Easter weekend. He called her devoted husband, Michael, a scumbag. So much for his expression of Christian love.

During the past week I’ve watched a lot of television interviews with the Schindlers, Terri Schiavo’s parents, and with Michael Schiavo. I’ve never heard Michael make a single negative comment about the Schindlers, while they and their children say horrible untrue things about him.

Go figure. The people who are claiming to be the most godly act the most hatefully. Michael Schiavo doesn’t broadcast his faith through a bullhorn; he simply acts out with dignity and compassion his love for Terri. Which gets me to the title of this post: Jesus’ resurrection—does it matter if it happened?

This was the question that a caller to Kropf’s show asked when Kropf took a break from his ranting about Michael Schiavo and taking back America from judicial activists, and talked to a listener. The man, whose name was Steve, I believe, said that he was a history major. He had spent a lot of time reading books on both sides of the “Was Jesus for real?” debate.

His considered conclusion was that it doesn’t matter. What mattered, said Steve, was Jesus’ message, not the man.

This made great good sense to me, but Kropf went bananas. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?! If Jesus wasn’t resurrected from the dead, then there is no Christianity!” Steve respectfully disagreed.

“Let’s suppose for the sake of argument,” said Steve, “that Jesus was a charming con man. He was a great talker who could persuade people that he was the son of God. He said all the right things, convincingly. When he died, his followers missed him so much they imagined that he had come back to life. So what? What is important is Jesus’ message, not the man. He taught love. If people learn from him the importance of love, then it doesn’t matter whether Jesus was resurrected, for his teachings live on.”

Steve clearly had thought much more about the essence of Christianity than most fundamentalist Christians have. It was obvious that Kropf didn’t have a clue what Steve was talking about. So Kropf thanked him for phoning in and went on, I assume, to speak with less challenging callers (I turned the radio off to preserve what was left of my Easter spirit).

I wonder if holier-than-thou Christians like Kropf really listen to themselves. Do they ever wonder about the incongruity between their purported beliefs and their evident actions? When they call Michael Schiavo a scumbag, a murderer, a wife abuser, do they ever think, “What would Jesus say?”

It doesn’t matter if Jesus actually lived if Christians can’t live out the loving teachings that he left them. It doesn’t matter if Jesus really rose from the dead if Christians can’t rise above hate, egotism, and sanctimoniousness.

Plus, ritualism. Kropf was all over Michael Schiavo because he didn’t give permission for his wife to receive communion today. So what? She received communion when her feeding tube was removed. And does Kropf believe that God is going to love Terri any less because a few drops of wine, or whatever, failed to enter her body?

Isn’t the soul more important than the body? Kropf called America a “culture of death” because in this country we allow people like Terri Schiavo to die with dignity. I call this a culture of life.

Every authentic spiritual tradition recognizes that the body is a shell for the spirit. Soul can exist apart from the physical frame. Each of us should take good care of our God-given body for as long as it is habitable, but when it is worn out, there is more divinity in letting go than in clinging.

Here’s a quote from a “pagan” Greek mystic philosopher, Porphyry. To me he sounds much more Christian than a lot of Christians.

Nature releases what nature has bound. The soul releases what the soul has bound. Nature binds the body to the soul, but it is the soul herself that has bound herself to the body. It, therefore, belongs to nature to detach the body from the soul, while it is the soul herself that detaches herself from the body.

…Likewise to receive life and to lose it, to feel passions that are its consequence, can refer only to the composite of soul and body. Nothing similar could happen to the soul, for she is not something compounded out of life and lifelessness; she is life itself…Let then your mind follow after God, and let the soul follow the mind, and let the body be subservient to the soul as far as may be, the pure body serving the pure soul

…Now the divine law cries aloud in the pure region of the mind: “Unless you consider that your body is joined to you as the outer covering to the child in the womb and the stalk to the sprouting corn, you can not know yourself!” Nor can anyone know himself who does not hold this opinion. As the outer covering grows with the child, and the stalk with the corn, yet, when they come to maturity, both are cast away, thus too the body which is fastened to the soul at birth is not a part of the man.

…Often men cast off certain parts of the body; be ready for the soul’s safety to cast away the whole body. Hesitate not to die for whose sake you are willing to live.

More about Terri Schiavo

I can't stop thinking about Terry Schiavo.

On my other weblog I've written that we all are Terry Schiavo.

With all the divisiveness surrounding her situation, we need to remember that death unites every man and woman. Where Terri goes, we all will go.

Jeb Bush's neurologist has no credibility

Why, what a surprise! (Not.) The New York Times says this about the neurologist who Florida Governor Jeb Bush claims has new information about Terri Schiavo's condition: his life and work have been guided by his religious beliefs.

Gosh, that's just the sort of person you want to have making objective, scientifically sound, patient-centered judgments about the condition of someone in a persistent vegetative state. (Not.) The physician, Dr. William Cheshire, has never published an article on the subject he claims to know so much about. He didn't find any compelling evidence to support his new diagnosis of a "minimally conscious state," but made it anyway.

What a farce.

Here's an excerpt from the article. The full article can be found in a continuation to this post.

Dr. Ronald Cranford, a neurologist and medical ethicist at the University of Minnesota Medical School who has examined Ms. Schiavo on behalf of the Florida courts and declared her to be irredeemably brain-damaged, said, "I have no idea who this Cheshire is," and added: "He has to be bogus, a pro-life fanatic. You'll not find any credible neurologist or neurosurgeon to get involved at this point and say she's not vegetative."

He said there was no doubt that Ms. Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state. "Her CAT scan shows massive shrinkage of the brain," he said. "Her EEG is flat - flat. There's no electrical activity coming from her brain."

Lessons in living from the Moken people

The Moken people are known as “sea gypsies.” They live on islands off the coast of Thailand and Burma. Amazingly, only one person in the largest group of Thai Moken died in the tsunami. Why? Because they knew how to listen to what nature was telling them. For example, cicadas stopped chirping before the waves hit. Silence spoke volumes to the Moken.

The Moken live simply. They don’t have a written language. A Denver Post article says, “They have no electricity or running water and eschew most modernity.” Many would call them primitive. I call them advanced. Advanced, that is, in knowing how to live happily and harmoniously.

Last Sunday, “60 Minutes” had a segment on the Moken people. Of all the cultures on earth, they are said to be among the least touched by modern civilization. They practice an animistic religion. They are nomads. The “60 Minutes” correspondent said that he quickly became captivated by their culture. It is easy to understand why.

When asked, “How old are you?” none of the Mokens could answer. They don’t know. They don’t pay attention to time. Their language has no word for “when.” Amazing. I envy them.

Per usual, I rushed around much of the time today trying to get things done when they needed to be done. When I’m done writing this, I’m hoping the Portland Trail Blazers basketball game still will be on TV, as I really want to be able to watch the fourth quarter and root for them to lose.

There’s another word that isn’t in the Moken language: want. A French anthropologist who has lived with the Moken for many years said, “Imagine not having the word ‘want’ in your language. How often do you say, ‘I want this’ or ‘I want that’?” The Moken people just have words for “give” and “take.”

That’s beautiful. If you have something, you can give it to someone else. If you don’t have something, you can take it from someone else. Where’s the need for wanting? The anthropologist said (using our terms) that the Moken don’t want to accumulate anything. They have no desire for wealth. Too much stuff is a burden for nomads. Also for we non-nomads.

My favorite “60 Minutes” scene started with the correspondent sitting on a wooden boat, talking with the anthropologist. A Moken man carrying an ax wandered into the camera shot. He and the anthropologist exchanged words. “What did he say” asked the correspondent.

“He said that you’re sitting on his boat.”
“Does he want me to move?”
“No, he just wanted you to know that you’re sitting on his boat. He needs to work on it.”
“Are you sure he doesn’t mind waiting?
”Oh, yes, I’m sure” said the anthropologist with a smile.

The Moken man could be seen standing calmly with his ax, listening to an English conversation he didn’t understand. He showed no trace of impatience. He looked like he could stand there forever, for as long as the correspondent and anthropologist wanted to sit on his boat.

Recently I had to wait for a few minutes in the “ten items or less” line at a grocery store while the cashier handled a problem with the pricing of chicken breasts that the woman ahead of me wanted to buy. I felt horribly aggrieved. “Hey, I’m in the ten items or less line! It should move quickly! Something is terribly wrong here.” I wasn’t in a Moken mood. Maybe next time I will be.

The Moken people also don’t have words for “goodbye” or “hello.” The anthropologist said that if you live with them for a year and depart, you simply leave. You go.

I was left with the impression that though the Moken aren’t conventionally religious, they are far more spiritual than Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and other followers of organized faiths.

The April 2005 issue of "National Geographic" says, "The Moken have faced pressures to accept other faiths, such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam, but many have refused, retaining their animistic beliefs." I hope they continue to do so.

The Moken actually live life as it should be lived. They don’t talk about it, or write about it, or preach about it, or proselytize about it. They simply live it. Marvelous, the Moken.

Religious zealots run amok in Terri Schiavo case

Anyone following the Terri Schiavo situation with an open, rational, compassionate mind can see that religious zealots are some of the most immoral people on earth. Who else but Congressional religious zealots would subpoena a woman in a persistent vegetative state to come “testify” (as if she could) on Capitol Hill? And now it appears that the same zealots are rushing through half-baked emergency legislation that would overturn longstanding principles about how end-of-life medical care decisions are made.

This is happening while other religious zealots are trying to break into the hospice where Schiavo is being cared for, trying to bring her bread and water—even though they know that she can’t eat on her own. I feel like puking.

But I won’t. For I’ve just eaten a large, tasty, healthy pancake, topped with strawberries and whipped cream, in honor of Terri Schiavo and her brave husband, Michael. I did this to counter the ridiculous call for a “Fast for Terri.” This is more hypocrisy from those who think that they alone know what is moral.

Michael has it right when he said, after Terri’s feeding tube was removed, “It felt like some peace was happening for Terri. And I felt like she was finally going to get what she wants, and be at peace and be with the Lord.” Amen.

My wife and I can’t understand why those who claim to believe in Christian everlasting life are so afraid of letting death happen naturally. Methinks their lack of faith betrays itself in their reluctance to let Terri pass to the other side, where Michael, her legal guardian, is convinced she wants to be.

Note what often gets forgotten by the zealots: Terri’s husband is her legal guardian. As Arthur Caplan, one of the nation’s leading bioethicists, wrote last October:

“No court has ever been persuaded that Michael Schiavo should be disqualified from making medical decisions on behalf of his wife. And no court has ever been persuaded that Terri has any hope of recovering from her severely brain-damaged state. So the courts have sided with Michael Schiavo using a well-established rule of law, which states that when a patient cannot communicate and has left no written instructions about their wishes, spouses have discretion about continuing or stopping medical care.”

A Fox News poll found that 59% of Americans agree that Terri’s feeding tube should be removed and say that if they were in the same situation, they wouldn’t want to be kept alive artificially. So what the hell is Congress doing trying to interfere with what should be a private decision between Terri’s caregivers and her legal guardian?

The only bright spot in this depressing display of neoconservative/religious intrusion on individual rights is that it should spur more people to sign living wills and health care powers of attorney. In the late 1980s I was one of the founders of Oregon Health Decisions and its first executive director. (Here's a history of OHD) With Ralph Crawshaw, Michael Garland, Carolyn Lobitz, and others dedicated to helping Oregonians make wiser personal and political health decisions, we did a lot to make people realize that these “advance directives” need to be signed before you become seriously ill. If Terri had done this, the legal battles surrounding her wouldn’t be happening.

If you live in Oregon, you can order advance directive forms from the Oregon Health Decisions web site. A FAQ page has some useful information about advance directives. Before filling one out, you need to think carefully about what you want when the end of life nears. Laurel (my wife) and I have different opinions, but we each have advance directives.

Laurel is certain that she doesn’t want extraordinary measures like a feeding tube used to keep her alive if she is terminally ill or in a persistent vegetative state, as Terri Schiavo is. So her advance directive makes this clear. I’d rather have Laurel making the decisions on the spot for me, so I’ve signed a health care power of attorney that authorizes her to do just that.

Laurel’s approach assures that she won’t be given extraordinary measures even if I get cold feet and want to keep her alive against her stated wishes. My approach is more flexible because I find it difficult to envision what I would want in a situation that I’ve never experienced.

Here’s an interesting bioethics blog that has some informative and moving posts about the Schiavo case. Glancing through them confirmed my suspicion that those who know the most about bioethical decision-making almost universally are appalled at how ill-informed religious meddlers have injected themselves into the private lives of Terri and Michael.

Another weblog dispels myths and misrepresentations being put forward by Terri’s parents, their attorneys, and fanatical groups such as the Christian Defense Coalition, which is listed as a domestic terrorist group.

Ah, behold the benefits of slavish adherence to religious fundamentalism. From a normal caring human being you can become a domestic terrorist. Count me out. Way out.

Why don’t religions evolve?

Every night I read a chapter from Richard Dawkin’s marvelous new book: “The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution.” Dawkin’s tale starts with us, Homo sapiens, and traces our evolutionary path backward in time through each divergence from a common ancestor, or Concestor.

It just takes 39 steps, or rendezvous’, to meet up with the primal Eubacteria. This is as distant from modern humans as Dawkins goes; our nearest ancestors, whom we meet at Rendezvous 1 between 5 and 7 million years ago, are chimpanzees and bonobos—with whom we share Concestor 1.

People are far more evolved than chimpanzees and bonobos. And human civilization, taken as a whole, evolves far more rapidly than any animal culture.

Consider what astounding scientific advances have occurred in the past few hundred years. Consider how much more complex and sophisticated are human cities compared to medieval towns. Consider how technological growth has produced computers than soon promise to surpass human intelligence.

Then, consider how little religions have evolved in the few thousand years of recorded human history. The foundational scriptures of every major religion have changed little, if at all, during centuries or millennia. Further, it isn’t possible to discern any upward trend in religious expression. Some of the most ethereal, profound, and esoteric spiritual teachings are the oldest; some of the most crude, simplistic, and ritualistic spiritual teachings are the newest.

Godchecker.com currently lists over 2000 gods to choose from, with more being added all the time. Which, if any, is a true god? No one knows. Or at least no one can prove that he or she knows. Species evolve as they become better able to survive and prosper in a physical environment. Religions don’t evolve because there is no evident metaphysical environment where the degree of attunement to spiritual reality can be tested.

Maybe Jesus was the son of God. I don’t know whether he was or not. And neither did anyone else know for sure while he was alive, including his closest disciples. And neither does anyone know for sure now.

The same uncertainty applies to every other prophet, saint, guru, sage, and otherwise holy person. There simply is no proof that their spiritual evolution is greater than that of other people. Granted, they may appear to be better human beings—kinder, wiser, more loving—but it isn’t possible to assess the degree of their divinity. For the consciousness (or soul) of one person is not directly accessible to another person.

So arguments continue about which is the best religion. People have supplanted chimpanzees and bonobos as the most intelligent species on the planet. Findings of modern science have replaced pre-scientific notions about how the laws of nature work. But there is no criterion, and there never will be, by which a particular religion can prove itself superior to any other religion. The proof of the pudding, it is said, is in the tasting. This applies equally to spirituality and gastronomy. Tasting, whether it be associated with eating to sustain the spirit or the body, is a subjective experience, not objective. You cannot taste for me and I cannot taste for you. Conscious experience cannot be reduced to outward observations. You can see me eat, but you don’t know what I am tasting.

Evolution on the material plane occurs when a physical entity becomes better adapted to a physical environment. This can be observed. Evolution on the spiritual plane occurs when a non-physical entity (call it "soul") becomes better adapted to a non-physical environment (call it "spirit"). This cannot be observed. If it could, it wouldn’t be spiritual, for spirit is not matter.

So this is why religions can’t evolve: their purported goal is spiritual development, yet this cannot occur within the bounds of materiality. Holy books, rites, rituals, prayers, icons, pilgrimages, worship, service—all of these things and practices can be observed with physical eyes. Thus they keep us confined to the realm of matter.

A particular religion will change in concert with social, political, and other earthly conditions; it can’t change to become more attuned to whatever lies beyond the realm of time and space, for experience of spirit can be had only by conscious individuals, not unconscious organizations.

This is why the Church of the Churchless preaches the gospel of spiritual independence. Attach yourself firmly to a religion and you are guaranteed to travel nowhere, for religions don’t evolve. They don’t spiritually grow. They don’t arrive at a genuine godly destination.

Individuals do. Or so I believe. But not organizations. Spiritual advancement is a solitary affair. Not lonely. Solitary. Once that is accepted, real progress can be made on a spiritual path.

I’m attracted to spiritual teachings which recognize this. Most religions and metaphysical systems don’t. They preach freedom from illusion and untruth while doing their best to keep people behind the bars of dogma, obedience, belief.

Here’s an excerpt from Ray Grigg’s book, “The Tao of Zen.”

Both Taoism and Buddhism experience from within systems of understanding that must finally negate and abandon themselves; both practices can only happen when they are free of the constraints of themselves. Much of Taoist literature is an admonishment against becoming caught in any system, whether moral, political, philosophical, linguistic, or religious. With such freedom, belief is replaced by experience.

…To become a pure Buddhist, a Buddhist must ultimately renounce Buddhism just as the Buddha renounced self and all attachment. This principle pervades Taoism as well. Taoists cannot live Taoism if they hold to the system called Taoism. Individuals who practice either Taoism or Buddhism are inevitably inclined toward inconspicuousness and, finally, invisibility as the system that contains them dissolves itself.

Nicely said.

Meditating like an extra-terrestrial

What sort of spirituality would be practiced by an extra-terrestrial being? I find this an interesting question, one which points to a more practical question: “What sort of spirituality should be practiced by us right here on earth?”

Many people have pondered how the world’s religions would be affected by the discovery of extra-terrestrial life—particularly life from a civilization much more advanced than ours. Physicist Paul Davies, in his article “E.T. and God,” observes that Christianity would have the biggest problem with the discovery of alien superbeings because “of all the world’s major religions, Christianity is the most species-specific.” Jesus died for humanity’s sins, not those of extra-terrestrials.

Buddhists and Hindus, says Davies, “would seem to be the least threatened by the prospect of advanced aliens, owing to their pluralistic concept of God and their traditionally much grander vision of the cosmos.” Agreed. But this still begs the question of what sort of spirituality aliens would practice. How would Buddhists and Hindus have to expand their religions to accommodate an extra-terrestrial spirituality?

Or, would any expansion be needed at all? In other words, is there a common ground in Buddhism, Hinduism, or other capacious religions which could comfortably accommodate an alien religious expression?

Consider physics. Almost certainly the basics of human knowledge about atoms, molecules, elements, and so on wouldn’t be affected by contact with an advanced extra-terrestrial civilization. For these aliens wouldn’t be so alien as to live in a different universe.

They likely would perceive physical reality with different sense organs than ours, and “think” (if that is the right word) about what they perceive with different cognitive faculties. But earthly and E.T. physicists would be able to bridge these gaps by using the Rosetta Stone of material existence. However a hydrogen atom is described, with whatever words or symbols, that atom undeniably exists apart from the descriptions.

However, what would be the Rosetta Stone, or common ground, of earthly and alien spirituality? Obviously it couldn’t be any historical event that happened on only one planet (such as Jesus’ incarnation), since this wouldn’t be part of a shared reality. And it also couldn’t be a theology or metaphysics dependent on culture-specific concepts, for vast differences would almost certainly exist between earthly and extra-terrestrial cultures.

I think bare naked consciousness has to be the common ground. Not thoughts, emotions, and what-not that clothe consciousness, for these would be unique to humans and unique to aliens. And also not conscious perceptions of physical reality, for these are, by definition, of material origin. Thus I keep coming back to consciousness plain and simple when I try to imagine how earthlings could share a sense of spirituality with alien beings.

If a spiritual reality exists apart from the physical it can only be known by consciousness. Otherwise it would remain unknown. The nature of consciousness is a mystery. Yet it is clear and evident to both you and me right now. This is why it is such a mystery: obvious, yet hidden; right in front of our eyes (and also behind our eyes), yet unseen.

I meditate every day. I like to try to form my consciousness into an alien consciousness. I don’t know how well I’m succeeding. I haven’t met an alien with whom I can attempt to share meditation experiences.

Still, I suspect that any technologically advanced extra-terrestrial civilization would have explored the consciousness that produced those advances to as great a degree, and likely much more so, as has our own civilization. They would have stripped consciousness down to its core, to its essential irreducible reality—just as earthly scientists seek to discover the root of physical matter, energy, time, and space.

I like to imagine that the essence of my consciousness is the same as an alien consciousness. Maybe this can be called “soul.” Maybe it can’t. Whatever it is, whatever it can or can’t be called, I strongly suspect that the more empty it is, the more alike it is to extra-terrestrial consciousness.

I probably will never meet E.T. on the outside.

But I might be able to meet E.T. on the inside.

All masters but one are false

I’ve followed just two masters in my life. Of course, if “master” is taken in the broader biblical sense (“No man can serve two masters…You cannot serve God and wealth”) then I’ve had lots of masters. Everything that has led me in a direction in which I didn’t really want to go has mastered me. If I started to list all those things, this post would go on…and on…and on.

So I’m not talking about those masters of me, just the two spiritual “gurus” that I pledged allegiance to sequentially several years apart. I believe that one was much more true than the other. But in the end, all spiritual masters but one are false.

By “false” I mean not truly true. I know, that’s a high standard: truly true truth. Yet if the spiritual quest is to know God, ultimate reality, then this is the only acceptable endpoint. Such is unchanging. Or, if ultimate reality does change, it is the least changeable entity in the cosmos. For there must be something that brings about the changes we see happening all around us and within us, a primal root from which the branches of the laws of nature sprout.

The theory of everything. God. Buddha-nature. Tao. Allah. Whatever we call it, virtually every spiritual tradition teaches that this is the One source of multiplicity. That’s the only true master: rock-bottom unitary reality. If something stands between us and that One, it’s another aspect of the Many that has to be removed if we’re to know the unity behind appearances.

I’m attracted to masters who recognize this. Nisargadatta, an Indian sage, was one. He said, “Believe me, a true disciple is very rare, for in no time he goes beyond the need for a Guru, by finding his own self…It is very important to understand that it is the teaching that matters, not the person of the Guru. You get a letter that makes you laugh or cry. It is not the postman who does it. The Guru only tells you the good news about the real Self and shows you the way back to it…There will be many messengers, but the message is one: be what you are.”

I like Nisargadatta’s advice about what to do if you start to have doubts about a spiritual teacher: “Trust your heart to warn you if anything goes wrong. If doubt sets in, don’t fight it. Cling to what is doubtless and leave the doubtful alone.”

So, what is doubtless? That’s the big question. If you throw everything out of your mind that might not be true, what remains? Why, the doubter. And the real self of the doubter which is said by countless mystics to be identical with the Self of the cosmos: universal consciousness.

Ramana, another Indian sage, put it this way: “You must exist in order that you may think. You may think these thoughts or other thoughts. The thoughts change, but not you. Let go of the passing thoughts and hold onto the unchanging Self. The thoughts form your bondage. If they are given up, there is release. The bondage is not external. So no external remedy need be sought for release.”

However, most people don’t want to be told that the cure for their existential afflictions is in their own hands, not in anyone else’s. Just as people want a doctor to make them healthy so they won’t have to make those oh-so-difficult lifestyle changes on their own, so do spiritual seekers want a guru, a master, a prophet, a saint, a savior, somebody, to do the heavy lifting for them.

This has been one of my criticisms of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the spiritual path that I’ve been associated with since 1970. Gradually over the years it seems that personal experience of the divine gained through meditation has been downplayed in favor of fawning guru-worship. Disciples are urged to surrender to the master, who is expected to take them back to God if they simply have faith and believe. Well, if that’s what I wanted I would have remained a Christian.

Things may be looking up with RSSB, though. I’ve been enjoying a new book by Hector Esponda Dubin, “Living Meditation,” that was published recently by Radha Soami Satsang Beas. I haven’t read the entire book yet, but I like what I’ve thumbed through. It is refreshingly clear of the sanctimonious tone that many other RSSB books are full of (excepting my own, naturally; in 1998 RSSB published a book I wrote, “Life is Fair”).

Here’s an excerpt from “Living Meditation” that is a pretty good reflection of how I’ve come to view spiritual masters or gurus. They are desirable up to a point. Beyond that point, it is necessary to discard what previously seemed so essential.

“In the introduction to the book Nobody, Son of Nobody, a story is told of a young disciple whose Master has turned cold towards him and finally has him thrown out of his presence. Bereft and in anguish, with no one else to go to, he turns to the Lord and throws himself on his mercy. Suddenly an indescribable peace descends upon him and he tastes that which he was seeking. At that moment his Master comes to him, and still confounded, the disciple asks him how he could treat him that way. The Master answers, ‘You had given up all and everyone, but there was still someone between you and your Lord; me! I was the only idol left in the temple of your hopes, wants and fears and that had to be taken from you for your ego to surrender and take refuge in the Beloved. Rise now, let’s relish this victory.’”

This story is a bit anthropomorphic for my taste—I don’t think of God as “Lord,” or as a “he” that you can throw yourself on and get mercy. Still, the advice to give up everything that stands between yourself and ultimate truth is sound.

For yourself, “your self,” is what you, me, and all of us are looking for, even if we don’t realize it. Ramana says it clearly, as always:

“Grace is the Self. Because of false identification of the Self with the body, the Guru is considered to be with body. But from the Guru’s point of view, the Guru is only the Self. The Self is one only….Is not then the Self your Guru? Where else would Grace come from? It is from the Self alone. Manifestation of the Self is a manifestation of Grace and vice versa. All these doubts arise because of the wrong outlook and consequent expectation of things external to the Self. Nothing is external to the Self.”

Which is why all masters but one—the Self—are false. The self is what we are seeking. Not the self of someone else. Our own self. When we expect that looking outward to another person or being will put us in touch with the truth that mystics say is within, clearly we’re misguided.

To every image of your imagination you say, “Oh, my spirit, my world!”
Were these images to disappear, you yourself would be the spirit and the world.
--Rumi

The Rambling Taoist

I’m pleased to recommend a weblog, The Rambling Taoist, about my recently chosen faith. Sometimes I forget that I became a Taoist last October. Trey Smith, the Taoist who does the rambling, helps to remind me why I did. Of course, since the impulse for my conversion was forgetting something, I suspect that the more I forget about Taoism the better Taoist I will be.

Trey writes about both worldly and philosophical matters. He preaches the virtues of being non-dogmatic, progressive, compassionate, flexible, open.

I like his weblog’s tagline: The predominant perspective in the western world is derived from a Judeo-Christian viewpoint. This has led to dualism; people have become estranged from the environment, each other and themselves. This blog is written by a Taoist. See if you can discern a difference.

I can. Below I’ve copied in one of Trey’s thought-provoking posts (February 26, 2005) about the unity that underlies diversity. Trey lives in Salem, Oregon like me. I’m looking forward to meeting him. The Church of the Churchless and The Rambling Taoist seem to look upon reality in a similar fashion.

Best religion: reality. Worst religion: faith

I always enjoy getting a message from my favorite (and, really, only) regular Christian correspondent, Steve. He sent a thoughtful response to my post, “Reason unites, faith divides.” I’ll include it in its entirety as a continuation to this post. Steve is so reasonable, I certainly don’t include him in my category of Closed-Minded Religious Faithful—they who ignore unmistakable immediate reality in favor of unproven faith in what may lie beyond what is known now.

I agree with Steve that “science is but a limited tool,” so long as it “doesn’t deal with things outside the natural, physical realm.” This was one of the central themes of my first book, “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder.” Since science doesn’t know whether the essence of ultimate reality is material (physical) or non-material (spiritual), it needs to be open to any and all possibilities about what lies at the root of manifest existence.

So if “religion” means embracing really real reality, sign me up. But I don’t want any substitutes for the Real Thing. Give me the truth about the cosmos, or give me nothing. And this is what faith is, compared to truth: nothing. It’s a hope, theory, hypothesis, conjecture, wish, desire—whatever you want to call it. Whatever, it isn’t the real deal: something directly experienced.

Last Sunday I gave a talk to our local Radha Soami Satsang Beas group on this very subject. I heartily agreed with a statement by Lekh Raj Puri in his book Radha Swami Teachings: “True faith is that which is based on one’s inner transcendent spiritual realization. In that faith there is no scope for doubt; it is faith in true transcendent knowledge; it is real and reliable faith.”

But this definition of faith is far distant from what people usually mean by the term. Puri’s “faith” is precisely what I call “reality,” something directly and truly experienced. By contrast, the criticism which Sam Harris has of faith, which I echo here in the Church of the Churchless, is that shaky beliefs are mistaken for rock-solid truth. Worse, most people of faith (but not Steve) expect that other people should think and act like they do.

Steve correctly notes that “Science is not immune to folly or arrogance.” However, scientists don’t try to force their beliefs on other people, and scientists also have to offer solid evidence for the correctness of their beliefs (theories). Without such evidence, no one is expected to give those beliefs any credibility. Many religious faithful, though, expect that their unfounded beliefs about creationism, homosexuality, stem cell research, and so on will be treated seriously by society.

Sam Harris writes:

Imagine that we could revive a well-educated Christian of the 14th century. He would prove to be a total ignoramus, except on matters of faith. His beliefs about geography, astronomy, and medicine would embarrass even a child, but he would know everything there is to know about God. We could explain this in two ways: Either we perfected our religious understanding a millennium ago—while our knowledge on other fronts was still hopelessly inchoate—or religion, being the mere maintenance of dogma, is one area of discourse that does not admit of progress. The fact is, with each passing year religious dogma conserves less of the data of human experience. By this measure the entire project of religion seems perfectly backward.

By and large, I agree. Yet I encourage you to read Steve’s message, which presents religion and faith in a more favorable light. Each to his own.