Church of the Churchless

Is God really watching me?

The notion of a personal God who sees everything that we’re doing, and intervenes in our lives when He/She/It feels like it, seems increasingly strange to me. It just sounds too much like “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

He’s…gonna find out who’s naughty and nice…He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!

Also, for the sake of getting presents on Christmas Day. Just as believers in a personal God expect that they’ll be rewarded after death with salvation for being such a good man or woman during their lifetime.

The problem, of course, is that religions don’t agree about what’s “bad” or “good.” So it’s up to each person to determine what code of moral conduct pleases God. Which assumes that there is a God who can be pleased. About that there is much more agreement among the theistic religions.

Which, rather strangely, includes the spiritual path of Sant Mat and other similar mystic faiths that manage to combine a belief in an ineffable divinity beyond all conception with a belief that a human being, the guru, essentially is identical to God.

Meaning, the guru (or satguru, “true guru”) has all the powers of God, even though they are not outwardly apparent. Devoted disciples of a satguru consider that he (apparently God very rarely manifests in a female form, since virtually all reputed satgurus are male) watches everything that they are doing. He then rewards them according to the “goodness” and “badness” of their inward and outward actions.

My wife and I belong to a monthly discussion group that meets in members’ homes. The November meeting was at our house and somehow we got talking about the idea of a personal God who is continually looking over your shoulder and judging you. This possibility, as unlikely as it is, was universally described as “creepy.”

It’s like being stalked by an invisible presence, one that can jump into your life on a whim and change things around without your notice or consent. It’s difficult to envision how this could be possible.

My wife, Laurel, who I used to lovingly call “the infidel” back in the days when I was more of a true believer in my guru and his organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, would wonder what would happen if her guardian angel wanted to change our lives in one fashion and my satguru had a different idea of what should be done.

Do they get together in some conference room in the sky and hash out how our mutual destiny should be changed? Do they spiritually arm wrestle, with the winner getting to exercise his or her life-changing power? Belief in a single overarching personal God is weird enough, but it avoids the paradoxes that arise when a belief in multiple God-like entities, embodied or not, is entertained.

Even so, I know lots of disciples who think that their guru is observing everything they do. I used to be such a person myself. Now, I do my best to put my faith only in what I’ve experienced directly. And so far I haven’t observed that a personal entity is watching me and altering my destiny.

Here are some quotations from recent issues of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas magazine, “Spiritual Link,” which reflect this belief in the guru’s God-like power. Such may be true, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

We must never forget that our loving Master sees every single little attempt we make at meditation, and he also knows how we conduct our daily lives. He watches over us every minute of the day and the night. He is there, whether we can see him or not.

The Master is always with us, and we must call on him at every juncture and in every peril.

When the disciple surrenders himself to the Master for good, the Master looks after him in every way.

When a perfect living Master accepts anyone as a disciple, that fact significantly alters his karmic status, because then it is the Master who takes charge of the disciple’s account and he administers his karmas according to whatever he thinks is best for the disciple.

Once the Master has initiated a soul, along with taking on the responsibility of bringing it back to Sach Khand [a high spiritual region] he is handling the initiate’s karmic account and administers it in a way that is best suited for the straight road back.

Our life is like a film, with all that happens already scripted. Once we are initiated, the director of what happens in our life is the Master. He is fully aware of what has happened and what will happen. He has ordained the chain of events we are going through.

Including, I have to assume, what is written on a disciple’s weblog. Funny, it sure felt like I was deciding what to post on the Church of the Churchless this evening. But according to the last quotation, apparently not. My keyboard was under another’s control.

Who knows, it could be. In which case, you’ve just read God’s writing.

I like that idea. I’ve always wanted to be able to write divinely.

Kabir, a patron saint of spiritual independence

I love Kabir.

He was a fifteenth century North Indian poet and mystic who “preached an abrasive, sometimes shocking, always uncompromising message exhorting his audience to shed their delusions, pretensions, and empty orthodoxies in favor of an intense, direct, and personal confrontation with truth.”

That quote is from the back cover of Linda Hess’s masterful treatment of “The Bijak of Kabir.” There are many sides to Kabir. He’s impossible to pin down. Yet various religions and spiritual paths—such as Sikhism and Sant Mat—try to make him into one of their own.

A relentless critic of organized religion, Kabir would have laughed at their attempts to confine him within a dogmatic box. Hess shows us a Kabir who was wild, wooly, and utterly unafraid of priestly pretension. She writes:

While drawing on various traditions as he saw fit, Kabir emphatically declared his independence from both the major religions of his countrymen [Hinduism and Islam], vigorously attacked the follies of both, and tried to kindle the fire of a similar autonomy and courage in those who claimed to be his disciples. In a famous couplet he declares:

I’ve burned my own house down, the torch is in my hand. Now I’ll burn down the house of anyone who wants to follow me.

If Kabir insisted on anything, it was on the penetration of everything inessential, every layer of dishonesty and delusion. The individual must find the truth in his own body and mind, so simple, so direct, that the line between “him” and “it” disappears. One of the formulaic phrases in Kabir’s verses is ghata ghata me, in every body, in every vessel. The truth is close—closer than close. One form our foolish cleverness takes is our desperate, seemingly sincere searching outside ourselves. We try to find other people who have the secret, and then we try to understand them.

Boloji.com has a nice Kabir section. Here’s a translation of one of the poems attributed to Kabir. It’s described as “vintage Kabir mysticism.”

Neither am I righteous nor non-righteous
Neither am I an ascetic nor a sensualist
Neither do I speak nor do I listen
Neither am I a servant nor a master

Neither am I constrained nor liberated
Neither am I sad nor jubilant
Neither am I distinctly isolated from anything
Nor am I identified completely with anything

Neither do I go to the world of hell
Nor do I proceed to the world of heaven
All actions are really my actions
But yet I am distinct from the actions

This truth only a rare exceptional one realizes
Such a person sits in quiescence
Oh Kabir don't bring forth any creation
And don't efface anything either

The translator, Rajender Krishan, tries to answer the question “Why Kabir?” in a forthright personal statement of what Kabir means to him. And this essay by Maalok is a fine introduction to Kabir. Here’s an excerpt:

What distinguished Kabir from other “gurus” were his inner conviction and an undying trust in his own self and experience. He seems to have questioned and challenged all scriptural teachings, traditions and rituals, until he himself was able to validate their truth. This, however, should not be taken to imply that he rejected all teachings and practices. To the contrary, given his familiarity with, and his use of stories/teachings from, a variety of traditions, he appears to have openly embraced and accepted any path that could be validated by his own experience. Perhaps, this is why it is so difficult to typecast Kabir into this or that faith or tradition. Sometimes, he was this, sometimes he was that and at other times he was neither this nor that!

The joy of uncertainty

Admittedly, uncertainty is in a different league than sex. Yet it is as valid to praise the joy of uncertainty as the joy of sex. They both promise prodigious pleasure to those willing to take some risks and leave the familiar boundaries of the known.

When I speak of uncertainty I’m mainly referring to the spiritual variety: the embrace of mystery and not-knowing, opening yourself to higher truths in any sort of form they may present themselves, casting aside rigid programmed beliefs in favor of surprise me!

But you can’t confine uncertainty. It’s everywhere. It’s part and parcel of life itself. It’s what adds the spice to what otherwise would be bland routinized existence.

Which connects uncertainty with sex. The thrill of the unknown. Someone new. Green pastures. A hint of danger. Losing control. A generous dose of uncertainty is part of the formula for satisfying sex.

The same goes for satisfying spirituality. A few days ago I ran into an old meditation buddy who I hadn’t seen for at least ten years. He asked how I was doing, spiritually speaking.

“I’ve become a heretic,” I said. “I don’t know anymore. I’m not sure of anything. I’ve lost faith in everything except my own experience. It feels good. I’m a lot more relaxed now. The pressure’s off.”

Uncertainty is something you can count on. Indeed, you can be certain of it. Plus, uncertainty is real, honest, natural, humble, energizing, and scientific. I love it. I’d give it a big hug if I could pin it down. But it always pops up when you least expect it, and then dashes off again unexpectedly.

That’s the nature of uncertainty. Can’t change it. Wouldn’t want to. It’s a wild, unpredictable spiritual catalyst that brings passion into a person’s relationship with the cosmos.

Absent uncertainty, life is boringly mechanical and dryly logical. With uncertainty, life crooks its alluring finger and whispers “Step around the corner, honey, and see what surprise I’ve got for you.”

Uncertainty is the death of religion. It’s the lifeblood of mysticism and genuine spirituality. That’s how you can tell when you’re in the presence of deadening fundamentalism: you won’t hear “I don’t know,” “It’s a mystery,” or “Who can say?”

You have to dig deep to reach the uncertain mystical core of most religions. It’s there, but buried under dogma, scripture, theology, organized principles of metaphysics. Only a few spiritual traditions elevate uncertainty to the pinnacle that it deserves. Taoism. Buddhism.

Here’s an excerpt from Ray Grigg’s great book, “The Tao of Zen.” As you can tell from the title, he links authentic Taoism and Buddhism, revealing the common essence of both.

The wisdom, the peace, the grace of Taoism and Zen come from a special uncertainty. The result is a condition of perpetual preparedness, an easy readiness that takes an appropriate shape for every particular circumstance. Every answer becomes “as the situation arises.” Each individual person becomes the balanced and shapeless center of the universe, dancing alone with the unpredictable order that swirls everywhere.

…In a world full of people who are strewn between total confusion and absolute certainty, the Taoist and Zen challenge is the nearly impossible simplicity of reaching a deep insight that is wholly inclusive yet devoid of answers.

And here’s a link to an interesting piece, “Surprised by Joy: Experiments with Uncertainty,” from a fellow uncertainty embracer, Mel Crossley.

I have to add: this post turned out quite different from what I envisioned when I began writing. As it should have, given my subject. Now, it’s time to open the refrigerator and see what there is to eat for dinner. I'm ready to be surprised.

Intelligent design is creeping me out

I just read an anecdote about the visit of an intelligent design advocate’s son to Disneyland. It creeped me out.

Not only because I feel sorry that this boy’s critical thinking ability is being squashed, but also because the story reveals how Christian fundamentalists want to usurp science, and indeed the whole American culture, for their own ends.

Yesterday I wrote on my HinesSight weblog about how intelligent designers are out to Christianize America. This morning I read a few more chapters in the book that my post was based on, “Signs of Intelligence.”

Actually, it should have been called “Signs of Dumbness,” because the intelligent design movement (which is thinly disguised creationism) is notably bereft of solid facts or defensible logic. It’s based on blind faith. That’s acceptable in religion; it isn’t in science.

Here’s a briefer version of the anecdote told by John Mark Reynolds in his chapter “Getting God a Pass: Science, Theology, and the Consideration of Intelligent Design.” (Click on the link to read the entire disturbing piece).

Reynolds and his wife took their young son, Ian, to Disneyland. He wandered away in a store and they spent twenty minutes looking for him. After finding him sitting with some Disneyland cast members, Ian’s parents talked to him about the episode. Here’s where John Reynolds’ story started to sound really creepy to me.

Hope [his mother] said, “Well, Ian, we are so thankful to God for bringing you back to us. Mommy and Daddy prayed and Jesus heard us.”

Ian looked at his mother with the slightly bemused look usually reserved for the mentally disabled. “Mom,” he said with care, “Stop it. You are ruining the story.”

Hope was shocked. “What do you mean, Ian?”

Mr. Ian replied, “God had nothing to do with the story. The story is about me.”

“But Ian,” she replied in vain, “God is everywhere.”

Our four-year-old rolled his eyes and explained, “Mom, to get into Disneyland you must have a pass. God does not have a pass to Disneyland.”

Those Christians involved in the boycott of Disney might be tempted to agree with my son’s statement. In the end, however, all Christians have to agree that while God may not have a pass to Disneyland, he is certainly there. It is understandable when a small child makes such a mistake. After all, superficially God had nothing to do with his “rescue.” Because of his simple view of causation, God was not necessary to explain the events in the park that day.

Reynolds then goes on to say that what’s excusable in a child isn’t excusable in adults, who should know better. He castigates Christian scientists, theologians, and philosophers who consider “that the addition of theism to science ruins the story.” (Non-Christians who feel the same way aren’t similarly singled out for blame, probably because Reynolds views them as immature spiritual children who can’t be held responsible for their lack of understanding.)

As this story indicates, what Reynolds and his fellow true believers in intelligent design want is that Christian religion becomes the backdrop of every aspect of American life, scientific or otherwise. They desire a return to the not-so-good-old-days of the Middle Ages, when the Church and culture were essentially indistinguishable. Reynolds writes:

The issue, when carefully understood, is not whether Genesis should be interpreted literally. It is whether science or theology will be considered the paramount source of knowledge in the culture.

Reynolds doesn’t want science and theology. That is too accommodating, too liberal, too open-minded for Christian fundamentalists. He says that the attempt to make nature and revelation coequal domains of knowledge “has been a disaster.” So he concludes that it’s got to be Christian theology that rules the cultural roost. Take the fundie way or take the highway (to secular Europe, I suppose).

We believe that such things—incarnation and resurrection—happened in space and time. This is not just theological speculation, but something we know.

No, it isn’t, Mr. Reynolds. You don’t know it. You believe it. What you know is very different from what you believe.

Your son, Ian, knew that he was found because his parents looked for him, and Disneyland staff took care of him until this happened. He was clearly right. You believe that your praying to Jesus caused Ian to be found. There’s no evidence of that. It’s just something you feel. Almost certainly you’re wrong.

Just like you, Mr. Reynolds, are almost certainly wrong about intelligent design being superior to the theory of evolution as an explanation for how living beings came to be as they are. In each case—finding your son and finding the cause for the origin of species—your religiosity causes you to add meaningless extra conjecture to what is plain and evident.

Yes, it is possible that Jesus answers prayers and God designs creatures. It also is possible that fairies keep the sun shining and gnomes are responsible for maintaining gravity in good working order. But science has prospered by following the principle of Occam’s Razor: one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.

Religion, on the other hand, prospers by doing just the opposite: adding on concepts such as “God,” “grace,” “divine will”, and so on to what otherwise would be simple (or, simpler) explanations of events.

This is a free country. People can believe whatever they want about how the cosmos works. However, they don’t have the right to impose their unfounded subjective beliefs onto others. And that’s just what the creepy goal of the intelligent design movement is: to substitute Christian theology for well-founded objective scientific facts.

In the end, laughter is an apt response to this ridiculousness. Check out this cartoon: “Intelligent Design, Coming Soon to a School Near You.” This cartoon is good too.

The journey between two steps

My Tai Chi class is a wonderful mix of Taoist movement and philosophy. I loved this phrase as soon as it left a fellow student’s lips: “the journey between two steps.” Thank you, Josette.

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around what it means, but intuitively it strikes me as being the key to almost everything.

We’re always on the way to somewhere, taking the next step on our life’s path. Even before we’ve fully settled into the place we’ve just reached, our intention is making plans for moving to another location—whether it be physical, mental, or spiritual.

Goals, dreams, to-do lists, routines, habits. Whether they be big (“enlightenment”) or small (“eat a snack”) intentions we’re almost always engaged in getting from here to there. Our focus is on a starting and endpoint. The journey between these two steps doesn’t get nearly as much attention.

Yet it should. In fact, Tai Chi teaches that it deserves almost all of our attention. For Tai Chi becomes an empty practice when the student lurches clumsily from one posture to another, losing along the way a rooted sense of centeredness and connection.

I had asked the instructor, Warren, about how to move between two postures in the 24 Form: from single whip to high pat on horse. He teaches this as a transition from a back stance (where most of the weight is on the rear foot) to a more balanced stance facing about ninety degrees to the left, necessitating a step forward with the right leg while turning.

It’s tough. Warren said that it was one of the more difficult moves in Tai Chi. He demonstrated how he does it. I still didn’t understand what he was doing differently than me, though I could see how much better his movements looked than mine.

“I call it bridging,” Warren explained. “That’s not good. It’s when you move from one posture to another as if you were crossing high above two banks of a river. Bridging prevents a smooth, rooted, continuous transition between the postures.” At that point Josette said, “Yes, the journey between two steps.”

If you’re not into Tai Chi this may not make much sense to you. I am into Tai Chi, albeit on a quasi-beginner level, and this barely makes any sense to me. But it’s simple to experience, really.

Take a step. Most of us fall into the stepping leg. Our intention says “step,” our leg moves forward, and we lurch into the new position. Now, focus on the journey between two steps. Sink into the leg that won’t be stepping. Put all your weight on that foot. Then, ever so slowly pick up the stepping leg and move your foot outward just above the ground, putting it down ever so gently, heel first.

That’s a Tai Chi step. Ideally, you feel balanced and connected all along the way. At any point during the transition from one step to another you could change direction, move the stepping foot somewhere else, place it back where it started from, stop and enjoy the scenery from wherever you find yourself.

It’s a whole different thing from lurching—zeroing in on the next place you intend to be and losing touch with the journey that is necessary to get from here to there. In Tai Chi you learn that the never-ending journey is the important thing, not the episodic steps that mark a few points along the way.

The way isn’t the steps. The way is the way. When you take out the journeying from the path, nothing substantial is left. Yet almost all of us get fixated on beginnings and endings, starting points and goals, desires and fulfillments. This moment becomes a chimera, whereas in actuality it is the only thing that is real.

Religions are big into bridging. They put before us distant goals: heaven, enlightenment, salvation, nirvana, paradise, God-realization. The religious focus is a step ahead of where we are now. This is why it’s natural to be attracted to churchlessness after you’ve taken lots of steps within the confines of a church and never enjoyed the promise that always remains out of reach.

Tai Chi is helping me to realize that it’s the journey between two steps which makes life fulfilling. If you’re always focused on where you’re heading, you’re never fully enjoying where you are. Plus, you need to be able to change your mind, to head in a different direction.

Why? Because you want to. Conditions demand it. Just for the heck of it. To do something different. The Tao guides you. No reason not to. To see what it's like to jump off the bridge and flow with the water.

Any reason at all.

Meditation strengthens the brain

Here’s some good news for meditators from Massachusetts General Hospital researchers: meditation seems to thicken the brain and might slow down age-related atrophy.

I’ve done a lot of meditation over the past thirty-six years. I can’t point to any conclusive evidence that all those hours spent trying to concentrate have brought me spiritual benefit, but it’s encouraging to learn that I might well be doing positive things to my physical brain.

The subjects in the Mass General study were practitioners of Buddhist insight meditation. Their focus was “mindfulness,” following the breath, sensations, and mental states in a non-judgmental manner. I’ve been a mantra meditator, where attention follows the repetition of a silently spoken word or words.

Hopefully mantra meditation brings the same benefits as insight meditation. I suspect that it does. Both practices are aimed at concentrating our normally scattered attention, bringing the focus of awareness back to the being who is aware.

If there really is something to the notion of mental energy, or chi/ki, perhaps meditation strengthens the brain by redirecting that vital force back within the psyche rather than letting it dribble away without.

A researcher said, "What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone's gray matter. The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a monk."

Results of this study were presented at a neuroscience conference attended by the Dalai Lama. It’s strange that 800 people signed an online petition asking that the invitation for him to speak be withdrawn.

I’ve read the Dalai Lama’s recently published book about the convergence of science and spirituality, “The Universe in a Single Atom.” He’s highly supportive of taking a scientific approach to religious practice, notwithstanding the fact that his Buddhist beliefs prevent him from wholeheartedly embracing scientific materialism (he’s more of an intelligent design guy than a evolutionist).

And the Dalai Lama could be right. The results of this brain scan study can be interpreted as supporting the notion that mental intentions have physical effects. Of course, a materialist would argue that physical activity in the brain (mindfulness) is causing physical effects in the brain (thickening of the cerebral cortex).

Well, I don’t care what the cause is. If meditating makes my brain thicker and less prone to atrophy, I’ll take these beneficial results and leave the “why’s” to neuroscientists.

I do have one question for the researchers, though: how much heavier is the thicker cerebral cortex?

It would be great if the answer is “five pounds.” That’s how much weight I’ve gained in the past few years. I’ll stop trying to lose it if my beefed-up (or tofued-up) brain is the cause of our bathroom scale pointing to 188 rather than 183.

(Thanks to Church of the Churchless readers Maggie and Robert for pointing out this study to me).

Universism makes front page of LA Times

The faithless are rising! At least, they’ve risen to the front page of the Los Angeles Times, where “Doubt is Their Co-Pilot” raised the national profile of Universism, a national movement that I’m proud to be a part of.

The founder of Universism (Ford Vox) told me that he’d given my phone number to the LA Times reporter but she never called. Sigh… However, the article does mention Salem, Ore as one of just a handful of Universist discussion groups in the United States, so I sort of made the front page of the Times.

You just have to read between the lines. Really deeply. That’s what I told my daughter, Celeste, who phoned last night to tell me about the article’s mention of Salem.

I gently chided her for not keeping up with her father’s Church of the Churchless weblog, since she didn’t know that I myself had organized the Salem Universists—who now number a whole 10 strong (if you include a guy from Pennsylvania who joined to keep up on what we’re doing, 9 if you don’t).

The article notes that the 8,000 Universists in the country are equal to the number of worshippers at a single mega-church service. I say, “big deal.” Truth isn’t determined by a majority vote. Einstein was one man. Who just happened to be right about how the cosmos is put together.

Of course, the central tenet of Universism is that no one is right about religious truth. At least, no one can prove that he or she is right while others are wrong. This is what separates Universism from dogmatic religious groups, which is to say, all religious groups (for dogmatism is the lifeblood of religiosity).

The LA Times reporter recognized this refreshing characteristic of Universism, but unfortunately she chose to end her article on a “downer” tone. Read Ford Vox’s comments on the piece to get a better balanced picture of the Universist meeting the reporter attended.

The article ends with a quote from Universist newbie Kathleen White, who drove two hours to attend the meeting only to encounter a firm embrace of uncertainty that she called “frustrating.” “I don’t think it will be enough to keep me coming back,” she said.

But Ford says that she did come back to a second meeting, driving another two hours from Huntsville to Birmingham, Alabama (I figure that if Ford can round up twenty-two people in an Alabama town to come to a Universist meeting, our growth potential here in Salem, Oregon looks good, given that Oregon is one of the most unchurched states in the country).

The next meeting of the Salem Universists is Thursday, December 8 at The Blue Pepper coffee house—7-9 pm (in the loft area). If you live in the area, come and sip some uncertainty with us. We support each other in searching for answers to life’s most important questions. Just don’t expect any agreement about what may be found.

The Neoplatonic Church

A few days ago I heard from Eric Grainger about a recently formed Neoplatonic Church. It’s a great idea. The world needs more Neoplatonism and less fundamentalism, that’s for sure.

Eric wanted to post my “Become One to know the One” essay about Plotinus’s spiritual teachings on the Church’s web site. I told him, sure. It’s now on the Meditation and Contemplation page.

Plotinus’s Neoplatonism is a marvelously appealing blend of rationality and mysticism. Some philosophies and religions are highly rational; others are highly mystical. But if someone wants a spirituality that embraces both reason and mystery, nothing can beat Neoplatonism.

Plotinus is one of those rare mystics who lived and taught completely outside of a religious tradition. Like other Greek philosophers, he was his own man. Though deeply respectful of Plato and other philosophical forebears, he thought for himself. His basic spiritual advice, “Return to the One,” is simple and compelling.

Here are some excerpts from Eric’s email message. I like what he’s up to and hope that the Neoplatonic Church becomes another source of support for the churchless.

We expect to find some commonality between your Churchless ideas and this project as we too are opposed to dogma and have long been wary of organized religion. We would like to develop something that only distantly resembles the typical church. When I was in seminary (a very, very brief stay), several of the professors mocked my fondness for saying that we needed a church without preaching, collection plates, and/or Sunday services.

Two of the founders and I make our livings as clinical social workers and liberally tap that profession's lessons regarding small groups and non-profit organizations. We also hope to utilize our understanding of counseling (but not therapy) to help people develop their own version of neoplatonic thought and practice.

We hope the Neoplatonic Church can be a welcoming place for folks with beliefs as varied as the ones held by the Plotinian, Syrian, and Athenian schools. We strive to organize an unorthodox (by today’s standards) religious organization for Pagans and Theists alike (not to mention all the subgroups) to receive supportive fellowship, have access to some educational opportunities, and engage in some dialectic challenge as they find their individual religious/spiritual way. We hope to encourage much self thinking and mystical exploration.

Mantra meditation: it's all about melting

All these words in my head forming such marvelous conceptual structures, thought turrets soaring into an abstract sky. How wonderful to feel them melting down, icy stuck ideas turning into smooth flowing mystery.

For me, that’s what mantra meditation is all about: dissolving the mental temple where we worship our notions about God, not the real deal itself. I believe in being churchless. But it doesn’t do any good to stay away from physical religious institutions if we’ve got rigid beliefs firmly instituted in our own minds.

As I’ve been writing about recently in my (now) three-part post series on mantra meditation, I consider that whatever words we might choose to repeat as a mantra shouldn’t simply reinforce our current confused state of consciousness.

I mean, if we knew what life was all about, we wouldn’t feel any need to meditate. If we knew the nature of God or ultimate reality, we wouldn’t feel any need to meditate. If we knew who we ourselves really were, we wouldn’t feel any need to meditate.

So it doesn’t make any sense to bring our uncertainty, doubt, and ignorance into meditation. We’re trying to get away from delusion, not grow closer to it. That’s why I don’t favor making a spiritual hypothesis a focus of mantra meditation.

For example, the classic Christian mantra, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Or the Buddhist “Namu amida butsu” (I take refuge in Amida Buddha). People who recite these sorts of mantras are assuming that they know what lies on the other side of the reality that is known now.

Jesus. Buddha. Guru. God. Krishna. Allah. Angels. Santa Claus. There are countless hypotheses about what is spiritually real. And that’s what they all are: hypotheses. Possibilities. Conjectures. Hopes. Objects of faith. Dreams. Imaginings.

Yet most mantras present some supposedly divine concept before the mind’s eye. Then the meditator gazes upon it with his or her psyche, focusing not on the open sky of mystery but on an idea painted upon a mental skylight.

Based upon my extensive experience with mantra meditation, this sort of conceptual mantra isn’t likely to lead the meditator into untrod spiritual territory. When you build a castle in the mental sky it’s very difficult to tear yourself away from it and fly higher.

This is why a meaningless mantra is to be preferred over a mantra with meaning. Meanings are what we have now: theologies, philosophies, metaphysical systems. If these were keys that could unlock the door that stands between us and Mystery, we’d be through it by now and know what lies on the other side.

I want to break down that door. Dissolve it. Make it go Poof! and disappear. Yet every meaningful effort that I make in this regard just adds to the thickness of the meaning that constitutes the barrier I’m trying to do away with.

There’s got to be another way. A wayless way. One that melts away meanings and leaves us with pure formless mystery.

There’s not much that you can say about this way. Nothing, really. That’s what I hear from people a lot wiser than me who have done a lot more exploring in that direction than I have. Plotinus. Rumi. Eckhart. Buddha. Lao Tzu. Ramana. To name a few.

They all taught that our biggest problem—really, our only problem—is our iciness. We’re ego-encrusted icebergs floating on the Ocean of Reality. We’re afraid of dissolving into that deep dark mystery so we cling to frosty ideas.

Those ideas keep us floating on the surface. Which isn’t a wise place to be. Water can’t drown. Fire can’t be burnt. Similarly, if I weren’t so sure of what I consider to be right, I wouldn’t be wrong.

A meaningless mantra points directly at Mystery. Obviously it isn’t the spiritual ocean itself, but it starts to dissolve the concepts, ideas, speculations, and what-not that we’re clinging to. Those mental life rafts are an illusion of security. In the end, death punctures everything that isn’t truly real.

Since we’re going to be thrown into mystery at some point, why not now? That’s the invitation of meaningless mantra meditation. In Zen, a koan can become a mantra. Or a mantra a koan. They aren’t two things. Just one.

One is what we’re after, not two. No iceberg and ocean. Just ocean. No castle and sky. Just sky. No meaning and mantra. Just mantra. Meditation is melting.

I’ve reached the end of what I can say. I’ll let D.T. Suzuki speak now (from his essay in “Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis.”

Joshu Jushin was one of the great Zen masters of the T’ang dynasty. He was once asked by a monk, “Has a dog the Buddha-nature?” Answered the master, “Mu!” (wu) literally means “no.” But when it is used as a koan the meaning does not matter, it is simply “Mu!”

The disciple is told to concentrate his mind on the meaningless sound “Mu!” regardless of whether it means “yes” or “no” or, in fact, anything else. Just “Mu!” “Mu!” “Mu!”

This monotonous repetition of the sound “Mu!” will go on until the mind is thoroughly saturated with it and no room is left for any other thought. The one who thus utters the sound, audibly or inaudibly, is now completely identified with the sound. It is no more an individual person who repeats the “Mu!”; it is the “Mu!” itself repeating itself.

When he moves it is not he as a person conscious of himself but the “Mu!” The “Mu!” stands or sits or walks, eats or drinks, speaks or remains silent. The individual vanishes from the field of consciousness, which is now thoroughly occupied with the “Mu!”

Indeed, the whole universe is nothing but the “Mu!” “Heaven above, earth below, I alone am the most honored one!” [an utterance the Buddha is said to have made after being born] The “Mu!” is this “I.”

We now can say that the “Mu!” and the “I” and the Cosmic Unconscious—the three are one and the one is three.

God, go to hell

Cursing God is my response to Pat Robertson’s warning to Pennsylvania voters of divine wrath after they ejected a school board that ordered creationism lessons.

Being scientifically minded, I feel that an experiment is in order: if there’s a God who gets ticked off just by creationism/intelligent design supporters being voted out of office, then he, she, or it should really become peeved at my telling him, her, or it to go to hell.

So either me or whoever will inherit this Church of the Churchless blog (should I fail to survive this test) will let you know if anything spectacularly or miraculously dire happens to me soon.

I can report that no avenging angels are evident outside my office window at this moment, 7:40 pm PST. And I don’t expect any to show up later. For if God gets pissed at being dissed, there should have been thunderbolts hurled at me a long time ago.

Over the years I’ve done a lot of cursing at God. From time to time I still direct some obscene blasphemy at any higher power who may be listening. For assuming there is a personal God who is aware of what is said and done here on Earth (an exceedingly doubtful assumption, in my opinion), that being deserves to be cursed.

When children die for no reason. When innocents suffer needlessly. When good people live in misery and bad people prosper. When silence is the response to sincere prayers.

Which means, God deserves to be cursed all of the time.

Now, I did indeed write a book called “Life is Fair.” It may well be. I don’t know. I like to think that it is. But if life is fair, it’s difficult to envision how there also can be a personal God—especially a loving personal God. This is why I don’t worry very much about the consequences of blaspheming God: I’m confident that no divinity can hear me.

My cursing at God is mostly to make myself feel better, to let off steam when the unintelligent design of this world becomes too much for me. I don’t really believe that any personal higher consciousness is taking in my words and reflecting, “Hmmmm. I’ll have to do something about that Brian Hines guy one of these days.”

However, a lot of people do believe that they have a personal relationship with God, Pat Robertson among them. Many Christians are disavowing Robertson’s warning to the Pennsylvania voters while others are defending him, as can be seen from the comments to this Think Christian blog post.

I’ve been writing about mantra meditation lately here and here. It strikes me that anyone who considers that their mantra or prayer is being heard by God or some other higher power is in the same theological camp as Pat Robertson. For Robertson’s ranting, though appropriately condemned by mainstream believers, is rooted in a belief that they share.

Namely, that God hears us when we speak to him (or her, or it), and that God also has the power to respond to what is spoken.

This conception of God seems increasingly unlikely to me. It just doesn’t mesh with what science tells us about how the universe is put together and with the absence of any convincing evidence that God personally intervenes in human affairs, either on an individual or collective level.

As I’ve said before, and likely will say again, I understand the appeal of believing in a personal divinity who hears us, responds to us, walks with us, guides us, and yes, corrects us.

Pat Robertson believes in this sort of God. It isn’t a God who I choose to believe in. A loving God too easily turns into a wrathful God. Belief in a personal God not only probably is wrong, but it also leads to a lot of divisiveness—whether that belief be correct or incorrect. For people play favorites, and a personal God almost always is considered to do the same.

I’ll take my God universal, thank you. Hold the personality.

Nonetheless, I’ll keep one eye on the sky, checking for thunderbolts. It makes sense to be open to any and all spiritual possibilities.

Mantra meditation: what’s in a word?

If I had a penny for every time I’ve repeated a mantra during the thirty-six years I’ve been meditating, I’d have something to show for all the words I’ve spoken in my head. But I don’t.

So, what’s in a word? What’s the point of saying a mantra over and over, whether it be during a designated meditation period or at other times during the day?

Christians use mantras. “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me” was endlessly repeated by the Russian whose tale is told in “The Way of a Pilgrim.” Buddhists use mantras. “Namu amida butsu” (I take refuge in Amida Buddha) is chanted by the Pure Land school of Buddhism. “Om,” “Ah,” “Hu,” these one-syllable mantras are but a few of the countless other words that are repeated by millions of devotees in every corner of the world.

So what? All of us speak words all of the time, sometimes aloud, sometimes silently. Why is a mantra any better than the stream of verbal consciousness that normally courses through the mind?

Such as, for me right now: “Got to get going finish post later need to exercise hungry take banana remember put dog out maybe no chew stick diarrhea this morning yuck hope this ends up making sense think while driving wait supposed to be about mantra should practice what preach.”

D.T. Suzuki, a noted Zen adept, says that there are two ways of conceiving the purpose of a mantra.

In the first case the name itself is regarded as having a wonderful power, especially over human affairs; it is a magic formula…In the second case, the name is pronounced not necessarily as indicative of things that are therein suggested, but in order to work out a certain psychological process thus set up.

He is speaking here of “namu amida butsu,” but the principle applies to every variety of mantra. When we repeat certain words over and over, is it with an outward or an inward intention? Are we trying to influence someone or something out there that is separate from us, or is it we ourselves in here who is affected by the repetition of the mantra?

In every religion there are outward-directed and inward-directed followers. For example, in Buddhism the Pure Land believers consider that repeating “namu amida butsu” brings all kinds of benefits from various deities:

When we say "Namu-amida-butsu," the countless Buddhas throughout the ten quarters, surrounding us a hundredfold, a thousandfold, rejoice in and protect us.

OK. Maybe. I doubt it, but everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.

I find that the Zen approach to mantra meditation makes a lot more sense, for it is psychological rather than theological. D.T. Suzuki says that when “namu amida butsu” is repeated without regard to the meaning of the words, or envisioning that countless Buddhas are hearing the invocation, a profound alteration in consciousness may occur.

Psychologically considered, the aim of the vocal Nembutsu is to do away with the fundamental dualism which is a condition of our empirical consciousness. By achieving this the devotee rides over the theoretical difficulties and contradictions that have troubled him before. With all intensity of thought and will he has thrown himself into the deeps of his own being.

And what is found in those depths, ultimately, is Buddha nature. So the Pure Land devotee and the Zen practitioner seemingly arrive at the same destination via different avenues. Zen, however, takes a more direct path, since the journey doesn’t involve any appeal to beings or entities separate from the devotee’s own consciousness.

I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that Jesus, Buddha, God/Allah, Angels, Soul Guides, Gurus, or whoever, are listening to people doing mantra meditation and doling out grace when the right words are heard. That just seems like rank superstition to me.

When mantra meditation is viewed in that light—as a petition to some higher being—it is no different from traditional religious prayer. Masquerading as a mystical practice, meditation then simply is endlessly repeated prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” “I take refuge in Amida Buddha.”

Words directed outwardly, whether spoken aloud or silently within the mind, have meaning only if someone else is listening. Otherwise we’re just talking to our own self. And since I already know what I’ve said to myself, or I wouldn’t be able to say it, such is an empty circular exercise.

I understand why people like to feel that the Buddha, Jesus, a guru, or some other being is aware of their mantra meditation or prayer. It’s nice to have a companion on the spiritual journey. But I want a real companion, not an imaginary friend. Suzuki directs our attention to what really lies at the root of the words that are repeated in the mind.

Mere naming does not prove to be so efficient, is not so effect-producing, as when there is back of it a corresponding reality. Mere uttering the name “water” does not quench the thirst; when it is visualized and there is a mental picture of a spring it produces a more physiologically realistic effect; but it is only when there is real fresh water before us which is quaffed that the thirst actually ceases.

Words are just words unless they point to a directly experienced reality. When I call “Serena!” our dog comes running (usually). That’s because we have a dog who knows her name. When I’m hungry and feel too lazy to cook anything, I often call “Maria!” That’s the name of our imaginary maid. She never responds because she isn’t real.

I’m all for repeating a mantra. Purposeful mental activity is a lot better than letting the mind ramble around aimlessly. I feel more centered when I don’t allow words to run crazily around the racetrack of my brain like blind greyhounds chasing rabbits on meth.

However, I don’t consider that a mantra is magic. It simply is a pointer toward mystery, the mystery of me, the mystery of what lies at the root of the being uttering the mantra. As Suzuki puts it:

The Nembutsu ceased to mean “meditating on the Buddha” and came to be identified with the name, or rather with “uttering the name.” Meditation, or “coming into the presence of the Buddha,” thus gave way to the constant repetition of the phrase as not always or necessarily referring to any definite objective reality, but merely as a name somehow beyond comprehension, or rather as a symbol standing for something indescribable, unpredictable, altogether transcending the intellect, and therefore suggesting a meaning beyond meaning.

Which means to me, no more words tonight. Time to make a salad. And get wordlessly real.

Mantra meditation: does God make it better?

“Love, love, love.” “ God is love, God is love, God is love.” “I am love, I am love, I am love.” Three mantras that could be repeated in meditation. Which is better?

This question was addressed in research reported in the September 3, 2005 issue of NewScientist. The conclusion was that “If meditation is good, God makes it better.”

After randomly assigning students to three groups, researchers found that the spiritual meditation group (which concentrated on a phrase such as “God is love” or “God is peace”) showed greater reductions in anxiety and a higher pain tolerance than a secular meditation group which used a phrase such as “I am happy” or “I am joyful.”

I’ve practiced mantra meditation daily for about thirty-six years, so naturally I was interested in the results of this study. Almost all of that time I repeated non-English words that referred to spiritual concepts far removed from everyday experience—as contrasted with familiar words such as “love” and “peace.”

Most recently, I’ve become a believer in keeping my mantra as short and simple as possible. And even more meaningless, since my goal is the cessation of thinking instead of positive thinking, as was the case in this research.

That’s a subject for another post: whether a meaningless or meaningful word is more suitable for mantra meditation. The question of the day is whether introducing the idea of “God” into one’s meditation makes the practice more beneficial.

When I first read the NewScientist article I was skeptical of the researchers’ conclusions. Not only because I have come to favor a godless mantra, but also because the experiment seemed a bit awry. It seemed funny that the spiritual meditation group repeated “God is love” while the secular meditation group repeated “I am happy.”

Why didn’t the researchers have the secular group say “I am love?” Or just “love”? I had no idea why this would make a difference in the outcome. It just seemed that making the two mantras identical except for “God” would have made more sense.

In the September 24 issue there was a letter about the article from a reader in Australia. Barbara Robson crystallized some cogent points that I could perceive only fuzzily. She said:

“God is love” will be considered true by almost all who believe in God and meaningless by most of those who don’t. “I am happy” and “I am joyful,” by contrast, are specific statements that may or may not be true, and invite evaluation, which will distract from the meditation, especially if not true.

Robson went on to say that other studies have found that meditation switches off parts of the brain associated with a sense of identity, resulting in a sense of “oneness with the universe.” Thus, she concluded,

Having subjects focus on “I” or “me” phrases may switch these parts back on, and decrease the effectiveness of the meditation. A more telling test might have been to compare “God is peace” with the simple mantra, “Peace.”

Good points, which were echoed in some of the comments about the NewScientist article on a Buddhist discussion group. If meditation makes us more aware of our ego-encapsulated self, the “I” who experiences both positivity (“I am happy”) and negativity (“I am sad”), it isn’t going to be of much help in breaking free of our usual restricted states of being.

I’ve spent a lot of time pondering the questions, “What words, if any, should I repeat in my mind during meditation and the rest of the day? Does it matter what particular mantra fills my head, or are all mantras equally efficacious?”

Perhaps I’d be better off repeating a mantra, any mantra, instead of pondering, but I’m a ponderous sort of guy. So I’ll probably be sharing what my ponders have produced in some other Church of the Churchless posts.

The Vatican gets it right (for once)

My thanks to Steve, a Church of the Churchless reader, for letting me know that the Vatican says the faithful should listen to science. Since it is likely that a majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices soon will be Catholics, maybe this will help spur the court to make a correct decision if an Evolution v. Intelligent Design case comes up.

It was encouraging to hear that at least some Vatican functionaries have a decent understanding of what differentiates evolution and intelligent design/creationism: proof.

Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis." "A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."

Intelligent design is a hypothesis. That’s all. Christianity also is merely a hypothesis, but I don’t expect the Vatican will be holding a news conference anytime soon to admit this. Nor will any other religion, the tenets of which all are hypotheses—not facts or even theories.

Advocates of intelligent design misuse these scientific terms: “hypothesis,” “fact,” “theory.” For example, in the case challenging the school board in Pennsylvania that wants to put evolution and intelligent design on an equal footing, it was claimed that “Charles Darwin’s theory is not a fact.”

Well, how could it be? Facts and theories are different according to definitions of the National Academy of Sciences.

A fact is an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as true. A theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

The theory of evolution is supported by countless facts. But a theory is more than a collection of facts. It is an explanation, a higher-order level of knowledge.

However, when speaking informally scientists also use “fact” to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. In this sense evolution is indeed a fact, as the “Is evolution a fact or a theory?” FAQ says.

Almost certainly, no religious hypothesis ever is going to become a fact. For a “hypothesis” is a tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested. Tested, not accepted on faith.

I can’t think of any genuinely religious hypothesis that has been confirmed by science after being tested. What statement in the Bible, Koran, Vedas, or whatever has turned out to be scientifically true?

I’m sure it’s possible to find general propositions that are in tune with modern science (this is the premise of “The Tao of Physics” and similar books), but so far as I’m aware no prophet or saint ever has revealed a hitherto unknown truth about the natural world.

If you’re looking for spiritual facts, they’re going to have to be directly realized and proved by yourself. Facts are observations. Spiritual observations, by definition, aren’t material. Thus they can’t be shared with others, as when we say “Look at that bird over there!” and the other person sees what we’re talking about.

With spirituality, no one ever is going to see what we’re talking about. That’s why science is science and religion is religion, notwithstanding the efforts of true believers to blur the distinction.

Cardinal Paul Poupard’s warning is apt: religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason. For once, the Vatican got it right.

How writing a book rewrote me

A few days ago I got around to looking through a bunch of unanswered emails. I came across a message in which someone asked me to elaborate on a quote from my July 14 post on “Filtering Reality.”

An aside: it’s sort of ironic (or, some might say, karmic) how I began working on a book that ended up changing how I viewed Radha Soami Satsang Beas and, more generally, my whole approach to spirituality.

Radha Soami Satsang Beas, or RSSB, is the India-headquartered spiritual group that I’ve been associated with for some thirty-five years. The “ironic” aspect of the line above was pretty much explained in the following sentence.

For it was the guru of RSSB, Master Gurinder Singh, who suggested to me various mystics who might serve as worthy subjects for a “Mystics of the West” book. One of these was Plotinus, to whom I was most attracted.

So I’m led to assume that what my questioner wants me to elaborate on is my reference to “changing.” How did it happen that writing a book sparked a change in my entire spiritual attitude?

I only wish that I knew for sure. I’m much more familiar with the what’s of my life than the how’s and why’s.

I mean, usually I can say pretty confidently what happened to me (such as “I bought the wrong size of garbage bags yesterday”), while the how and why of that happening remains a mystery (My wife wasn’t clear about what size she wanted, but initially I had the correct product in hand; then I changed my mind; is trust in my intuition lacking? Or do I have a deep karmic connection with the grocery store’s return counter, since I spend so much time there?)

Ignorance never stops me from writing, though, so here’s an elaboration on how writing “Return to the One” changed my approach to spirituality.

My subject in this book, the teachings of the Greek mystic philosopher Plotinus, caused me to think more deeply about the RSSB philosophy than I ever had before. By nature I resonate with how the Greeks delved into the big questions of life: not by trusting in tradition and the answers of their forefathers, but by searching for truths that could be defended both by reason and personal experience.

Philosophy, the love of wisdom, was a way of life for philosophers like Plotinus. It wasn’t an abstract exercise divorced from everyday existence. If someone’s philosophical beliefs weren’t directly reflected in his actions, then he wasn’t a real philosopher no matter how many books he had read or written.

Early on I realized that if I was going to write a book about the teachings of Plotinus, I had to do my best to live in the spirit of his teachings. Meaning, as imperfect as the attempt might be, my goal was to think in the manner he and his philosophical brethren thought and to worship (insofar as that word applies to Neoplatonic spirituality) in the fashion that he worshipped.

The years I spent working on “Return to the One” marked an extended coming-out process for me. Increasingly I realized that I was a Western psyche trapped in an Eastern body of theology. I was a questioner who had submerged his natural self under an ocean of faith and devotion. I started bobbing to the surface and taking gulps of honest fresh air.

It felt good. It felt real. It felt like I finally was being true to who I was.

One of my arguments with the staff of the RSSB Book Department, which was intended to be a publisher of my book (there also were plans to publish it privately, which I ended up doing on my own) was whether there really is a “Western mind.”

Since I had one in my possession, right inside my head, I knew that there was. Further evidence of this creature’s existence, I argued, was Richard Tarnas’ marvelous book, “The Passion of the Western Mind.” How could this well-reviewed book have gotten away with that title, I’d say to the RSSB publication honchos, if there was no such thing as a Western mind?

Here’s what I wrote in the Introduction to my own book:

I don’t have an ironclad definition of the Western and Eastern minds (which implies that my own may not be indisputably of the Occidental variety). But, in a light-hearted spirit, here are a few ways to distinguish them experientially.

If you attend a talk on some spiritual subject—a lecture, sermon, discourse—and the people around you are reaching for handkerchiefs to dab their tears of love and devotion, while you are pulling out a notebook and pen to jot down critical questions to ask the speaker, you have a Western mind.

If passages in your Bible or other holy book are highlighted in various colors, you have a Western mind (give yourself extra points if objections are penciled in the margin next to pronouncements you disagree with).

I don’t mean to imply that the Western mind is entirely detached, rational, skeptical, independent, and analytical. Even those with a strong predilection toward a Western mentality are capable of manifesting the opposite characteristics as well: intimacy, intuition, faithfulness, interdependency, holism.

This is because each of us is a mixture of what we might call “masculine” and “feminine” qualities. The challenge, psychologically, spiritually, even societally, is to find the proper blend of masculine and feminine, Western and Eastern, yang and yin, respectively.

Yes, the proper blend. I’m continuing to explore what is proper for me, what feels right, what meshes with my inherent way of looking at the world. Plotinus helped me admit to myself that I can’t buy into any spiritual philosophy which isn’t founded on reason and direct experience.

That’s the Greek way. And it’s my way. I recognize that other people have no problem accepting dogma on faith and wholeheartedly devoting themselves to a person, or path, that they believe possesses the truth about God. Myself, I can’t believe in belief. I’m unable to have faith in faith.

It isn’t that writing “Return to the One” caused me to have fresh doubts about RSSB teachings. Trying to embrace the mindset of a Greek rational mystic merely led me to acknowledge and express more honestly the doubts that I already had.

I decided that if the RSSB tent was big enough to hold believers who didn’t totally believe and the faithful who didn’t have lots of faith, then it could hold me. If not, well, I wasn’t willing to cut off an integral part of myself just so I could fit under the tent.

Do you need to kill the Buddha?

Previously I'™ve written:

"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!" Buddhists are fond of saying. And not just Buddha: also Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Lao Tzu, Guru Nanak, every spiritual teacher. And not just these people are to be killed: also the concepts that comprise the shell of their teachings. For only then can the kernel of truth be released.

But is this really the case? Below you can read an email message from a person in the United Kingdom who argues otherwise. He, like me, is an initiate of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, also known as "Sant Mat." The "satsangs" mentioned in his message are meetings of this group.

These are special words, unfamiliar to most people. But the questions being explored here are universal. To what extent does an evolving skeptic or agnostic need to disassociate from a religious organization to which he or she currently belongs? Can you discern grains of truth anywhere you look and find a way to separate them from ritualistic, dogmatic, fundamentalist chaff?

If you're a questioning Christian and want to relate this message to your own experience, you could substitute "church"€ for "€œsatsang,"€ "Christianity" for "Sant Mat,"€ "Christians" for "€œsatsangis," and so on. For the issues discussed below are common to anyone who feels an urge to move beyond the boundaries of a well-defined faith.

In Zen master Seung Sahn's book "Dropping Ashes on the Buddha" he tells a student:

Throw away teaching, throw away everything. If you say you are not attached to methods of practice, this is being attached to method. If you cut off your attachment, then your words ("€œthe real '˜I' functions without thinking or talking") are not necessary.

And also:

You say that you have no faith in your Buddha-nature. I too have no faith in my Buddha-nature. And I have no faith in Buddha or God or anything. If you have no faith, you must completely have no faith. You must not believe in anything at all...€But when you see red, there is red; when you see white, there is only white. You must let go of both faith and non-faith. Things are only as they are.

Seung Sahn is fond of saying things like "If you understand yourself, I will hit you thirty times. And if you don't understand yourself, I will still hit you thirty times." When asked "Why?"€ he will say, "It is very cold today."€

Here's a weather report from my British correspondent: