Church of the Churchless

The downside of guru bhakti

Devotion, or “bhakti” in Sanskrit, is admirable. But it can be taken to extremes. It seems to me that when a human being is worshipped as God, this is taking bhakti too far.

I appreciate the thoughtful comments I’ve gotten on my previous post, “God-man or Asshole? The guru conundrum.” My wife also has thrown in her two cents on the subject via some conversations we’ve had. When Laurel was a practicing psychotherapist she had quite a bit of experience with domestic abuse.

The man often wants to be treated like a god. His woman is supposed to do whatever he desires, or reap the nasty consequences. Any resemblances to guru bhakti are not coincidental.

Now, I’m certainly not equating devotion to a supposed God-man with domestic abuse, but the psychological state of mind of a worshipful disciple and a fearful wife is pretty much the same. Each has narrowed down her focus of concern to “What does he want from me?” and “What will happen if I fail to please him?”

This doesn’t seem healthy to me, even if guru bhakti is more about love than fear. Isn’t spirituality supposed to broaden our horizon, expand our sphere of concern, widen our perspective?

And, help us to become less filled with a sense of our own self-importance. I’ve observed that when people consider that their guru is God-incarnate, not surprisingly this leads to a attitude of “I’m the chosen of God.” Which means, other unfortunates who aren’t disciples of the God-man are the non-chosen.

Humility isn’t going to thrive under these circumstances. Like a snobbish high school, humanity is going to be divided into two camps: the “cool kids” who form the in-crowd, and the “nerds” who are on the outside looking in.

This is, of course, from the perspective of a particular chosen one. The strange thing about religion is that many different groups consider that they are God’s favorite, so the same person will be a religious “cool kid” or a “nerd” depending on whether the judgment is made from within or without his own tradition.

Here’s another problem with excessive guru bhakti: it short-circuits the spiritual impulse. There seems to be something within many people that desires to know and love the ultimate reality termed “God.” I don’t know what this something is. I don’t know whether it is divine or mundane. All I know is that I feel it, and over the years I’ve met many other people with the same drive to unravel the deepest mysteries of the cosmos.

A quixotic impulse, perhaps, yet undeniably noble. It needs to be given free rein. To circumscribe the quest for God-realization is to limit a search that should have no boundaries. Yet when God is considered to be embodied within a particular person, the divine shrinks down to the confines of a single human being.

Can this be spiritual progress?

I read through the January 2006 issue of “Spiritual Link,” a publication of Radha Soami Satsang Beas that reflects the group’s core theological tenet: the guru is to be equated with God. Even more: as in other Indian traditions, the guru is to be considered greater than God.

Here are some quotes from the issue that show the guru, or master, is the goal for the disciple—not God.

Meditation then becomes yet another time when everything can be left here, and when the flight to the presence of the Master becomes swift.

If we truly had thirst for communion with our Master how much less sleep would we need?

What is the mystery of the holy bond which makes men and women even in the hour of death utterly forget all earthly ties and cling to the Master alone?

Well, each to his own. I’ve never resonated with the belief that the ineffable mystery of God can be brought down to an understandable human level. Yet I can appreciate the appeal that this has for devotees of either a dead or living God-man. Jesus or a contemporary guru can be related to as a person. You can’t do that with formless mystery.

However, as the years have passed I’ve grown increasingly comfortable with not-knowing. Not-knowing the nature of God. Not-knowing what will happen after I die. Not-knowing whether any man or woman ever has attained a state of God-realization. This not-knowing seems completely natural to me. To others, it is heresy.

Here’s one way of looking at it.

I just got back from seeing a play (“Inherit the Wind”) about creationism and evolution that is based on the Scopes trial. Some lines from the end of the first act stick in my mind. The two attorneys in the play are old friends, though one is a fervent Christian and the other is a committed agnostic. Now they have opposing theological views.

The Christian says, “How is it that you’ve moved so far away from me? We used to be so close.”

The agnostic replies, “All motion is relative. Perhaps you are the one who has moved away by standing still.”

God-man or Asshole? The guru conundrum.

Ever since I met her, I’m been trying to convince my wife that I’m God. It just seems so obvious: I understand Windows XP and can fix her computer when something goes wrong; back when we used a VCR, I could program it to do whatever we wanted; I know how to hang a picture so it is centered perfectly over a piece of furniture.

Yet my husbandly divinity remains unrecognized. For some reason Laurel focuses more on such things as: my inability to put the kitchen sponge in its holder, rather than on the bottom of the sink; my incapacity to fold t-shirts properly and place them neatly in their designated drawer; my reluctance, after cutting off a slice of bread, to reintroduce the whole wheat loaf back into the bag where it is supposed to stay fresher.

Guess I should start calling myself a guru. Then my human failings could be construed as signs of my godliness.

This is what I learned by reading the May 2006 issue of the Western U.S.A. Newsletter, published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB)—America. Every month the RSSB representative for the Western states, Vincent Savarese, writes an article about some aspect of this organization’s teachings.

The issue that just arrived in the mail speaks about the guru as God-man, someone who has merged with God and so has no imperfections. If you want to know God, supposedly you have to be accepted by a guru.

The saints tell us that we need to find and associate with someone who is perfect. We say God is perfect and is absolute reality. But we haven’t seen or met God. Can we see that Perfect Being without an intercessor? Unequivocally all saints and masters say we cannot. We need a teacher who has met God and merged with God, an enlightened being, a God-Man, a Sat Guru, or Perfect Master.

Isn’t that amazing? Walking around on Earth are perfect beings who are incarnations of God, just as Jesus and Krishna were considered to be.

Why is it, then, that the multitudes don’t fall at their feet and worship them? What explains the fact that, back in the early 1990s, my wife got to sit just a few feet away from a purported God-man (Gurinder Singh Dhillon) and came away from a lengthy meeting with him saying, “I didn’t feel anything special. He just seemed like a regular person to me”?

Savarese offers up the reason:

Saints and mystics tell us only the soul is perfect and so also the Perfect Master. The Perfect Master is perfect within at all times and can be perfect outside if he wishes, but he guards his perfection very carefully…What is confusing to many people is that Masters may act forgetful, show fatigue or annoyance, may mispronounce a written name or call a female a male or vice versa.

Ah! This is exactly what I’ve been telling my wife! My seeming imperfections are just a necessary disguise to cover my Godliness. Otherwise, I’d be spending all of my time fending off wanna-be disciples who would desire to give me their devotion, money, and, in the case of young attractive women, their bodies. (Hmmmm. Now that I think about it, why would I want to disguise myself?)

So it turns out that there is no way to judge whether a guru is merged with God. If the guru acts perfectly divine, this is proof that he is an enlightened being. If the guru acts imperfectly human, this is proof that, in Savarese’s words, “He chooses to play the role of an ordinary man much of the time.” Why? Because, “If he didn’t he would attract all manner of miracle seekers and not the truth seekers he was meant to meet.”

Pretty good gig. Perfection means godliness. Imperfection also means godliness. It’s akin to a band being able to play as many off-key tunes as they wanted, because the audience would believe them when they said “We mean our songs to sound that way; if you are our fans, love the way we play them, not how you want to hear them.” Savarese writes:

For the disciple of the perfect Master, for the gurmukh, for the servant of the King, there is one simple and urgent rule…obedience. Logic and self-preservation, self-importance, must be set aside. He will provide everything for the thoroughly obedient disciple.

But not, apparently, for the disobedient disciple. As someone else put it, “He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!” Santa Claus, guru, God: what’s the difference? They all reward obedience and punish independence.

The nagging problem, though, is that nasty old fly in the ointment: reality. If Santa Claus, guru, or God aren’t really what we believe them to be, what then? Does it make sense to keep believing in the absence of evidence? What makes children stop believing in Santa Claus? Is this a mark of increasing maturity or a disturbing loss of faith?

Which brings me to the question with which I began: is the guru a God-man or an Asshole? Perhaps these seem like harsh choices. Indeed, previously I’ve suggested another option, the guru as loyalist (adding to the three traditional “L” options of the Lord, a liar, or a lunatic).

However, upon further reflection I’m beginning to think that loyalist and liar belong together in the broader “Asshole” category. This reduces the choices to two: God-man or Asshole, assuming that lunatic doesn’t fit. I realize that this may offend those who consider that the guru is God.

But here’s why it shouldn’t: if the guru truly is God, notwithstanding the lack of evidence, he, like God, isn’t affected by anything I or anyone else says about him. Heck, the same is true even for ourselves, really. I get put down, insulted, and criticized all of the time by other people who comment on my weblog postings and send me emails. By and large, it washes off my back. With God, it wouldn’t even come close to his back.

On the other hand, if the guru really isn’t God, I don’t see how he deserves any other title than Asshole. What else should you call a man (or woman) who accepts the fervent devotion of his followers, who fails to dissuade those who consider him to be God incarnate, and who encourages absolute obedience to his dictates as the only means of spiritual realization—yet isn’t who he claims to be?

For many years, before I’d meditate in the morning I would carry on a one-sided conversation with the guru who initiated me: Charan Singh. “Good day, Master. How are you? Hope to see you soon, inside or outside, in the heavenly regions or when you come to visit us physically.” And so on.

I still talk to him. But in a different fashion now. “How’re you doing, Asshole? Don’t like that name? Well, either you’re God and am aware of me speaking to you, or you were a fake and aren’t aware of anything now that you’re dead. So, if you’re God, come and talk to me now that I’ve got your attention. If you’re not, then Asshole is the perfect name for a man who claimed to be a Perfect Master for almost forty years, but knew that he wasn’t.”

It’s a conundrum. I don’t know which is true: God-man or Asshole. All I know is that for me, seeing is believing. I’ll believe someone is God when I see unequivocal evidence of this (as to what that might be, all I can say is that I’ll know it when I see it). Until then, if you say you’re God, I’m going to use my alternative title for you.

Evolution. Further.

Today I’m getting messages from somewhere or someone about something. Wish I could be more explicit. Maybe you’re better at deciphering messages than I am. Best I can do at explication is the one word title of an email that a friend sent to me: Evolution.

This cartoon was the entire message.

Which reminded me of a Rumi poem that I’d just read in Anne Lamott’s book, Traveling Mercies. The poem is called “Shore and Ground.”

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings.
Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Then for some reason (do I need to know?) I went back and re-read this passage from the gnostic Secret Book of John that was quoted in a book I bought last Sunday, The Gospel of Judas.

The One is
illimitable, since there is nothing before it to limit it,
unfathomable, since there is nothing before it to fathom it,
immeasurable, since there was nothing before it to measure it,
invisible, since nothing has seen it,
eternal, since it exists eternally,
unutterable, since nothing could comprehend it to utter it,
unnamable, since there is nothing before it to give it a name.

The One is the immeasurable light, pure, holy, immaculate.
It is unutterable, and is perfect in incorruptibility.
Not that it is just perfection, or blessedness, or divinity:
it is much greater.

The One is not corporeal and it is not incorporeal.
The One is not large and it is not small
It is impossible to say,
How much is it?
What kind is it?
For no one can understand it.

Ken Kesey, my man, you said so much in one word. Furthur.

Also, Further.

That’s all there is to do. The only direction there is to move. The sole commandment there is to keep.

Evolve. Further.

I meet a true guru

Today I met an honest-to-god guru. I trusted him immediately. He was warm, humble, forthright, genuine, and an evident master. I laid my problems before him. He listened patiently and then gave me some sage advice. I took it. And I’m considerably happier now.

My mountain bike is in much better shape after the ministrations of my guru. His name is Brad. He works at Eurosports in Sisters, Oregon. He taught me a lot this afternoon. I only wish that spiritual teachers were equally capable of resolving my questions and problems. But they’re not.

I could watch Brad affix an Armadillo tire to my rear rim so I’d (likely) never get a flat; I saw him adjust my front brake much more efficiently than I could; I heard him say, “your front tire pressure is 20 and it should be 40” after a quick press of his fingers (and a tire gauge proved him correct); I listened attentively when he said that the angle of my seat was scary and realized, after sitting on it following his adjustment, that my crotch indeed was more comfortable now (an important consideration for me, and all men).

In less than thirty minutes I got more proof of a bike shop guru’s competence than I’ve gotten during thirty years of my connection with a spiritual guru—which I’ve written about frequently in posts under the “Radha Soami Satsang Beas” category on this weblog.

Of course, it isn’t fair to compare the two gurus. Brad was dealing with a material entity, my mountain bike. Charan Singh, the spiritual guru who initiated me in 1971, supposedly has been dealing with an immaterial entity, my soul. I can tell how well Brad knows his stuff by how my bike handles. With my soul, it’s devilishly difficult to fathom what changes, if any, are taking place.

Which points to the problem of having blind faith in any sort of spiritual or religious “guru,” whether this be a human being, holy scripture, angelic entity, theological dogma, organized institution, or whatever. How do you know whether a guru is for real when the domain of his purported mastership isn’t on the physical plane?

If Brad had listened to my concerns about the condition of my bike and merely responded with, “Have faith that all will be well one day; just keep riding with a loose brake and puncture prone tire; if you ever can’t stop or get a flat, know that it is your destiny and be thankful for what the Bicycle God has given you,” I would have walked out of his store.

Yet this is basically the deal offered by virtually every Religion Shop on the planet: we don’t fix your screwed up soul now; you’ll have to wait until after you die to get the proof that our spiritual repair job worked. However, we’re pleased to accept your money, devotion, and obeisance now, thank you.

I realize that most people look to their religion for physical as well as spiritual benefits. Among other things, they enjoy the companionship of fellow believers and the opportunity to engage in charitable activities. But the thing is, if Brad had just made me feel welcome in his shop and pointed me toward the United Way jar on his counter, I wouldn’t have been satisfied.

I wanted my bike fixed! That’s what a bike shop is supposed to do. Likewise, I’m looking for spiritual fixes in a religion shop, not extraneous goodies that I can obtain equally well elsewhere. If it feels like my soul isn’t handling any better after many years of work on it, then I’m going to follow a different approach.

I’m not into endlessly deferred spiritual gratification. That’s the province of religion. My tilt is toward the mystical side of spirituality. That’s the home of people who want to soul-ride fast, loose, and free now, not after death.

Each of us has to decide on his or her own how well a spiritual repair job is going. It’s an intuitive judgment, not an objective determination. I could watch Brad spin my front wheel around until the rim was skimming past the brakes without obstruction. When it comes to my soul, I’ve got to trust my inner sense of what is properly balanced and what isn’t.

When I went into Eurosports today my main goal was to get a Armadillo tire put on. Then, when I was watching Brad install it on the rim, I thought about asking if he could adjust the front brake.

“I could understand if you don’t want to show me how to do it myself,” I told him semi-seriously. “If all your customers could do many of their own adjustments, you’d have considerably less business.” Brad replied, “I want people to know how to fix their own bicycles. Here, this is how you should adjust the brake.”

I watched. I learned. Next time there’s too much play in the brake handle, I should be able to, well, handle it myself. Brad is a good guru. He wants his “disciples” who enter the store to leave knowing what he knows. Or, at least as much as he can convey in the time he has available to chat with customers.

If your religion or spiritual path isn’t doing the same—trying to make you truly independent—it’s time to find a “guru” who doesn’t foster dependency. Ride free. Worship free.

Another perspective on Sant Mat, version 2.0

Back in January I wrote about the seeming transformation of the mystical philosophy of Sant Mat into an updated version 2.0. I’m speaking not about Sant Mat in general but about the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB, or RS) sect, for there are many contemporary Sant Mat movements and I don’t know much about the others.

Recently I got an email from an RSSB initiate who described his own take on genuine Sant Mat, which is a lot closer to my version 2.0 than the traditional party line dogma. Like me, he’s got thirty plus years of meditation under his belt. This direct experience has led him to see Sant Mat in a different light.

In my opinion, it’s pretty much the correct light. I could quibble with a few of his conclusions below but those quibblings would be minor. What he, like me, wants to do is not throw the spiritual baby out with the religious bath water.

I agree with him that RSSB has turned into a religion. But if you separate the rigid religious theology from the free-flowing direct spiritual experience, Sant Mat becomes fresh again. Mystical rather than religious. Individual rather than collective. Inward rather than outward.

I couldn’t help my correspondent with his question, “Is there any group that believes the following?” Maybe someone else can. Email me any ideas and I’ll pass them on.

For those who aren’t RSSB savvy, some definitions: Charan Singh was a RSSB guru who died in 1990; Gurinder Singh is his successor; Shabd is considered to be an all-pervading divine power akin to “spirit” that can be seen as light and heard as sound by inner faculties of the soul; Kirpal Singh was the guru of another Sant Mat sect.

Here’s the message:
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Hi Brian,

I found your website yesterday and read much of it. I had previously discovered David Lane's website and the ex-satsangi Yahoo group. (There is a bit too much anger and, frankly, low IQ in these sites for me.) I'm currently looking for like-minded people, so I'm wondering if you know of any group that believes the following:

1) Charan Singh was a near perfect example of how to live a human life.

2) But if you passed him on the street, he wouldn't know you or even know that you had been initiated into RS (I do not know if this is a true statement, as I've had some experiences that certainly seem like miracles!).

3) And that he is God-incarnate ONLY if everything is "God incarnate."

4) And that the Guru doesn't "work out our karma" for us... or even connect us to the Shabd (unless "telling" us about it is what's meant by the word "connect").

5) And that the "radiant form" which IS seen inside in meditation is a projection of our own higher mind... and that the Shabd "form" is simply the Shabd, beyond the stage of the mind.

6) And that the Shabd is a FACT (I've been meditating for 30+ years).

7) And that talking about what we experience inside will not make us "lose" anything, but may make us more ego centered (look at Kirpal Singh, for example).

8) And that it is a fact that the meditation journey appears to be inside and that inner regions exist.

9) And that meditation on the Shabd IS the correct path.

10) And that we don't want to "throw the baby out with the bath water" simply by figuring out that the guru is not whom RS makes him out to be.

11) And that the vows are, indeed, important to keep in order to attain spiritual progress (how can anyone kill an animal and eat it and expect to hear the pure Shabd?).

12) And that Gurinder is mentally brilliant and very charismatic.

13) And that Sant Mat has already turned into a "religion" in the true sense of the word.

Anyway, can you point me in any directions... again, looking for people interested in Sant Mat, but without worshipping the "Master."

Thanks
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I establish a new religion, Galobet. Believe!

A few days ago I had a revelation. Galobet spoke to me. That’s the true name of God. I’m sure of that, because the God who wants us to know him as Galobet told me. So my advice is: believe!

Unless you don’t want to. In that case, I’m not responsible for how Galobet responds. You’ve been warned.

Here’s the story of my revelation. It will undoubtedly be told throughout the ages. Or at least as long as my TypePad blog account is paid up. I begin with the first of a series of miraculous occurrences.

LifeSource Natural Foods had a type of coffee on sale that I hadn’t bought before, an organic Fair Trade french roast. Since I always buy whatever is cheapest, the beans came home with me. And got ground.

Then, made into a cup of coffee on the Most Holy Day, Monday, April 17, 2006--when Galobet was revealed to the world though me, Galobet’s unhumble servant. The miracle is that this particular french roast was damn strong. Even stronger than the strong coffee that I habitually brew every morning.

So after sipping my way through some pre-meditation reading, my consciousness was marvelously attuned to Galobet’s divine message. I was flying high on the swiftly beating wings of caffeine. This proximity to Galobet’s heavenly realm allowed me to hear his words (I’m not sure if Galobet is a “he,” but since I am, and I’m Galobet’s chosen messenger, I’m going with the masculine pronoun.)

“I am all of the gods so far known to humankind. And yet I am so much more, my beloved Brian. You are destined to reveal my nature to the world.”

Understand, Galobet hadn’t yet spoken his name to me. All I knew was that a godly entity was communicating with me. This being had the power to form thoughts in my mind, so akin to my own that there was scarcely a hairsbreadth of difference between them. Such is the glory of Galobet—Oneness.

I was impelled to grab pen and paper. I felt Galobet’s guidance flowing through the sacred medium of the super strong cup of french roast coffee that enabled me to discern the mysteries of the cosmos with marvelous clarity.

Everything was becoming crystal clear, in much the same way as I remember my college statistics textbook becoming so much more interesting after a Benzedrine or two. Except, this natural high came from organic Fair Trade beans. And Galobet was directing my thoughts. He wanted to be known. I was to be his messenger.

I started jotting down the names of God associated with the major religions. I threw in Neoplatonism, even though it isn’t really a religion, because it is a philosophy that forms the root of many faiths. Not that I need to explain myself. Galobet can do whatever he wants; I am simply a tool in his mighty hand.

God—Christianity
Allah—Islam
Lord—Judaism
Brahman—Hinduism
Tao—Taoism
One—Neoplatonism
Emptiness—Buddhism

There was something here. I knew it. But Galobet wanted me to struggle with his revelation a bit. I wrote down the first letter of each name of God. I rearranged them in various ways. At first I had “Jehovah” for Judaism, but suddenly “Lord” struck me as a better choice.

I went from JAGBEOT to JAGOBET to LAGOBET. And then came the divine inspiration:

GALOBET. Right away it just seemed so…right. I had revealed the name of God, the God who encompasses all other gods, the God who was using my caffeine-soaked brain as his revelatory blackboard.

Praise be Galobet’s name, I present here the sacred piece of paper on which his nature first was revealed. I am ashamed to admit that when I lovingly placed this holy text in my scanner, I thought, “If only I had known that I was to be Galobet’s earthly messenger, I wouldn’t have put a free notepad from a gun shop in my meditation area.”

But then I realized, “Brian, how little is your faith. Galobet makes no mistakes. His will is supreme. If anyone looks down upon this revelation merely because of the paper on which it was written, they should be sorry for their failing, not you.” Ah, how true. The message is more important than either the messenger or the messenger’s gun shop notepad.

This message is so deep and profound I have barely begun to scratch the surface of it in this post. I must be content with just a few preliminary observations. We see that the true holy name is divided into three areas: GAL, the Western names of God, Allah, and Lord; O, the bridging Neoplatonist name of One; and BET, the Eastern names of Brahman, Emptiness, and Tao.

I leave it to the Galobet theologians who surely will follow in my footsteps to consider the possible meanings of “GAL” and “BET.” On the face of it, Galobet is hinting at his feminine predilections and the likelihood that given a choice between the gods of West and East, the East has better odds of being true.

My readers, in this divine communication I have tested your capacity for absorbing miraculousness. But please, permit me to share one final example of Galobet’s revelatory wonders.

After learning the true name of God, I decided to consult Google to see if there had been any false prophets before me. I typed in “Galobet” and waited a few seconds. The results appeared.

Just 104 of them. Not many. And what was the #1 Galobet search result: this.

Praise Galobet! I asked a German speaking friend, Irmgard, to translate “Der herr mine Gott.” She wrote back to me:

Hi Brian, This looks like perhaps Pennsylvania Dutch, Mennonite or some other "pseudo" German. I'm sure this is what they are trying to say: Galobet (German Round of Praise) Galo -o-o-o-o-o-o-bet sigh Gelobt sei der Herr mein Gott Galo -o-o-o-o-o-o-bet sigh --Praise to the Lord, my God--- Der herr mine Gott. more literal translation: --Praised be the Lord, my God-- In very old German you will find the word for "praised" shown as gelobet, but any prayer books I have of even my great-grandmother is gelobt.

Is it possible not to believe, my friends?

Dear devout Christian, thanks for the offer but…

A few days ago I got a comment from Scott, who wrote: “I beg of you to listen to the true Gospel message. Repent and believe in Jesus as your Savior so that your sins may be wiped away and that you may have the hope of eternal life.”

Scott, thanks for the offer. I understand that you sincerely believe in Jesus and consider that I’m heading for hellfire. Which I may be. I don’t know. And this gets to the main difference between us. Uncertainty.

You’re certain that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I’m not. Even more: I’m uncertain about every other religious claim that this is the Way. Scott, you’re probably aware that many religions say that they have a direct link to God that others don’t.

Hindus consider that the Vedas and Upanishads are divinely inspired, the Word of God. Ditto for the Koran, from the Islamic perspective. To devout adherents of Judaism, the Jews are God’s chosen people. I’m an initiate (satsangi) of the Sant Mat tradition and can testify that satsangis are taught that they are the chosen people—having been part of the small percentage of souls who didn’t want to leave the Lord back at the beginning of time.

So you see, if I wanted to believe in salvation, that would be easy. According to what I was told at initiation, I’ve already been saved by the guru. He is considered to be God in human form, just as Jesus was.

Except, the guru is alive and Jesus is dead. I’ve talked with the guru. I’ve sat at his feet. Thus I have a lot more reason to believe in the salvific power of Sant Mat than you have for believing in Christianity. Your gospels are secondhand accounts written sixty years or more after Jesus’ death. The “gospels” in which I used to believe came direct from the pen or mouth of the guru.

Plus, I’ve got a backup salvation avenue. I was baptized Catholic and went to first communion. Baptism supposedly gives me a free pass into heaven. I’ll find out if that’s true after I die. That’s when all the uncertainties will become certain, one way or another, for each of us.

I’m sure your Christian belief gives you a lot of comfort. That’s great. Naturally you want to share your good feelings with other people. That’s understandable. Just keep in mind that the true believers in every religion believe that their way is the way. Everyone can’t be right. Or, can they? More uncertainty, Scott.

I’ve become a believer in the value of uncertainty. This is the core of my spiritual questing these days. I call it my Wu Project. Not this, not that. Not yes, not no. Not faith, not atheism. Something else. Wu. I’m pretty sure this is the best way of approaching God: as mystery. Humbly, in a spirit of unknowing.

In one of his books Huston Smith speaks of a Zen friend who tells him, “I’ve got a new koan: I could be wrong.” Wonderful. I think it would be great if each and every religious person had the same attitude: I could be wrong. The world would be a much better place if everyone had that open-minded perspective.

Imagine a joke that begins, “Three fundamentalists walk into a bar: a Muslim jihadist, a Christian evangelical, and a Jewish Israeli hardliner.” What would the punch line be? “Only one of them walked out”? Except, that’s not so funny. Likely would be true, though. Milder version: “They all sat at different tables.”

Let’s change the joke: “A Taoist, a Zen Buddhist, and a Hindu walk into a bar.” What comes next? “At closing time they were still laughing together and arguing about who should buy the next round.” Still not funny. Also likely would be true, though.

You see, it’s possible to be spiritual and not rigidly religious. No Christian knows for sure whether Christianity is true. Neither does the adherent of any other religion. So why not be honest and admit that uncertainty? Faith then would become the embrace of mystery and a confidence that the cosmos rewards sincere truth-seeking.

To my mind, this sort of faith is far superior to a dogmatic clutching onto theological tenets that are clearly the stuff of mankind, not God. Which brings me, Scott, to your statement that:

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are unanimous in their declaration that Jesus came to lay down his life for His sheep and to be raised again for their salvation. These gospels have stood the test of archaeology and historical criticism, and have more historical validity than any secular works from the ancient world. I understand you're a proponent of anything that might reduce the credibility of Christianity, but really, the gospel of Judas is as historically suspect as any of the other gnostic gospels to date.

In an update to my recent post about the Gospel of Judas I included an article by Biblical scholar Elaine Pagels where she makes the point that early Christianity was much more diverse in its views than the four Gospels that made it into the New Testament. Those Gospels were chosen by a human being, Irenaeus, because they reflected his personal theological views.

A National Geographic program about the Gospel of Judas that I watched included a realistic re-creation of Irenaeus’ editorial approach. Dozens of scrolls were stacked on a shelf. Irenaeus would pick the ones he liked and throw the rest on the floor. The modern New Testament is the result. There’s no reason to believe that the discarded gospels are less representative of Jesus’ actual teachings than the gospels that were kept.

Of course, this assumes that Jesus actually existed. There’s good reason to believe that he didn’t, since the contemporary historical record is virtually silent about him. Jesus certainly didn’t make much of a splash at the time. I suspect that Christianity is much more the result of good marketing and the political support of Constantine than the legacy of a God-man.

But what a difference two thousand years makes. Now it takes much more courage to doubt than to believe. The easy way out, particularly in the hyper-religious United States, is to parrot the party line: Jesus saves.

The thing is, questioning religion requires faith also. Faith that human consciousness was given to us for a purpose—to understand our place in the cosmos and what reality consists of. If we don’t use what many would call our “God-given” faculties of rationality, intuitive insight, and questioning, I doubt that it’s possible to be saved from our ignorance.

That’s the salvation I long for—genuine knowledge of ultimate reality. The pseudo salvation promised by Christianity has no appeal for me.

I’m arming for the War on Easter

Just one day left to take part in the War on Easter. Got to armor up. Fire the weapons I’ve got available. Can’t disappoint Fox News, WorldNetDaily, and the other paranoid Christian conservative mouthpieces.

They’re quick to take affront and slow to recognize their own unfounded assertions, just like their revered leader, George Bush. Bill O’Reilly, though, broke from the ranks and admitted that there is no attack on Easter.

Well, there should be. And there has been. Back in April 2004 I wrote “‘He is risen!’ No, almost certainly not.” This was an attack on the almost certainly mistaken belief that Jesus rose from the dead. There are countless reasons to doubt this; blind faith is the only way the resurrection can be believed.

I’ll cast my lot with doubt, thank you. Tomorrow I won’t do anything different. Except, I won’t be able to go exercise on Sunday at the Courthouse Athletic Club like I usually do, because it will be closed all day. Stupid Easter. Why should non-Christians have to suffer tomorrow?

However, this week I did think more about Christianity than I usually do. All the publicity surrounding the Gospel of Judas stimulated me to contemplate the divinity of heresy. I’ve been basking in the warm glow of my churchlessness even more than usual.

I watched the two-hour National Geographic program about the Gospel of Judas. It featured realistic-looking reenactments of episodes from the Bible and the Gospel of Judas (though Judas’ hairstyle and short beard looked disturbingly metrosexual).

This was one of my favorite parts. We see the disciples sitting around a table. The narration goes:

The Gospel of Judas uses familiar scenes to convey unfamiliar ideas.

One day, he was with his disciples in Judea. And he found them gathered together, seated in pious observance. When he approached his disciples, offering a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread, he laughed.

Jesus comes upon the group of disciples, and they are celebrating together what looks to be a sacred meal, maybe it is kind of like the Eucharist. And they’re offering a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread, and Jesus laughs. In fact, in the Gospel of Judas, Jesus laughs a great deal.

He’s laughing because they think they’re worshipping the true God, but in fact they have it wrong. They’re worshipping the God who created this world, not the true God. The only one who understands is Judas.

To the Gnostics, the God who created Earth wasn’t worthy of worship. Only the true God, a being beyond comprehension, was sacred. Jesus laughs at what he sees as false piety. But the apostles don’t understand and grow angry at him.

Jesus: “Why have you been provoked to anger? Let any one of you who is strong enough stand and reveal to me the true spiritual person within.”

Their spirits did not dare to stand before him. Except for Judas Escariot.

Judas: “I know who you are and where you came from. I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.”

Jesus: “Step away from the others. And I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is a great and boundless realm which no eye of an angel has ever seen, no thought of the heart has ever comprehended, and it was never called by name.”

Jesus issues a challenge to the disciples. He says, let the perfect person inside of you step forward and face me. And that perfect person within is the inner person, the spiritual person, that truly knows, the person that ought to have a knowledge of God and a knowledge of oneself.

And the disciples say, well we can do that. But they couldn’t do it. And so Judas steps forward. And he was able to stand before Jesus.

Great story. This should be the Easter message, not an absurd fantasy about a body coming back to life. We don’t know what Jesus really taught, or even if he existed at all. But if Jesus was real, the Gospel of Judas is likely much closer to the truth than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

For if Jesus were to pop in on an Easter service tomorrow, I bet he’d laugh as heartily as he did at the disciples’ prayers.

“What the hell are you doing?” he’d chortle. “Two thousand years of Bible study and this is all you’ve learned! What a joke. The truth is within, not without. God isn’t a person, nor any other entity that you can wrap your mind around. God is in you. You are a spark of the divine, just as I am. Don’t worship me. Worship yourself. Your true self. All this genuflecting before altars, eating bits of bread, and taking sips of wine is laughable.”

I love it. The Gospel of Judas teaches that Jesus himself would lead the charge in the War on Easter. Heretics, it turns out, are the holiest. Churchless of the world, stand straighter tomorrow. You are the chosen ones.

(For another take along these lines on the Gospel of Judas, check out Mark Morford’s “The Bible’s All Wrong, Again.”)

Kissing Hank’s ass, the essence of religion

I never realized how much religion was like kissing Hank’s ass until, not surprisingly, I read “Kissing Hank’s Ass.” What a revelation! Every Church of the Churchless visitor should read it also.

If you don’t, Hank will kick your ass. I guarantee it. Hank told me so. Well, not Hank exactly. But the thought, If you don’t, Hank will kick your ass, just came into my mind, and I sincerely believe that it came directly from Hank. You’ll just have to trust me on that.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the good news. If you do kiss Hank’s ass, you’ll get a million dollars. Not right away, of course. There’s some fine print to the deal. Read it to learn the details. Or watch a video of Kissing Hank’s Ass courtesy of Carnival of the Godless.

Then check out John Cooper’s Hankisms. Here many religions of West and East have been converted into pithy Hankisms. I note that Sant Mat doesn’t have an entry yet. Hank willing, I’ll write one, since I’m eminently qualified. But if anybody else wants to beat me to it, be my guest.

The Kissing Hank’s Ass metaphor for the ages (or at least a few years) is the brainchild of Rev. James Huber, whose website's tagline is “Effing the ineffable since 1996.” Wow! An Internet old timer.

I found a lot to like after a quick browse of Rev. James’ sermonizing. His Frequently Asked Questions closely mirror my own attitudes concerning faith and science. I particularly liked these Q and As:

Q: If you don't believe in God, why do you spend so much time talking about Him? You don't spend time talking about the Toothfairy or Santa Claus.

A: The people who believe in the Toothfairy and Santa Claus don't vote, neither do they threaten to beat the shit out of people I care about. When people start beating my friends for not putting teeth under their pillow, or there's serious talk about defining marriage as between one man and eight tiny reindeer, I'll start complaining about that.

Q: Why do you use offensive language?

A: To offend a certain kind of people. I reference sexual and excretory functions; the people I'm mocking reference hellfire. Out of fucking, taking a shit and being burned alive, which is on your avoid-at-all-costs list for this weekend?

I also enjoyed Rev. Huber’s “Good News!,” “Nonconformist’s Oath,” “Metaphysical User Interface,” and “Mystic Atheism.”

And be sure to check out “Pascal’s Sucker-Bet.” If you don’t click on that link, Hank will kick your ass. Believe it.

Death of a religion: Universism’s strange demise

It isn’t often that we get to observe the birth and death of a religion. Especially a non-religious religion. Universism is, or was, such a beast. Its brief rise and sudden fall offers some instructive lessons concerning the dangers of institutionalized belief.

I’ve been writing about Universism since I discovered it last July. At first I considered it a kindred unfaith that was completely compatible with my churchless leanings. I then plunged deeper into Universism and organized a local Salem Universist discussion group.

But then the central Universist Movement started to turn weird. My posts became more critical, starting with “Herding cats, Universism’s challenge,” moving to “A friendly critique of the Universist Movement,” and culminating with “I abandon Universism.”

Today I decided to see what was up in the world of Universism and found that the weirdness has continued. The founder of this so-called “faithless faith” seemingly is just about the only person remaining on the Universist sinking ship. Ford Vox has taken over the organization’s website which features this language at the bottom of the page:

Universism has been seen on CNN, in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, U.S. News & World Report, and many more. Universism is a trademark and copyright of Ford Vox. All rights are reserved.

OK, but it’s hard to imagine Jesus copyrighting Christianity or the Buddha getting a trademark on Buddhism. And I’m not sure what it means to reserve the right on a philosophy that claims to have no dogma other than the open-minded search for truth. Ford Vox has a healthy ego, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you’re out to energetically counter the ill effects of traditional religions.

However, the Open Letters to Ford Vox posted on The Freethought Fellowship forum reveal what a mess he made of what could have been a promising movement. For example, John Armstrong, the spokesman for Universism, says:

I regret to offer my resignation as the spokesperson for Universism as well as the editor/author of deism.org. Unlike some, my reasons is not that I don't like you personally nor is it because I don't agree with the principles of Universism. In my heart, I still hope that some movement like it will succeed where Universism failed. My reason is that I feel Universism, whether or not you restart it in some other form, is a lost cause.

The reason Universism is a lost cause, frankly, is you. Again, I like you personally and respect you for the idea you came up with but I'm convinced that you can't manage a freethought movement and you're never going to let it go. Your apparent need to control the movement so tightly is just never going to work and it will inevitably antagonize any followers you manage to find. Freethinkers don't like strict management.

Yes, you can’t herd cats. Nor try to tell people who want to think for themselves what to think. My involvement with Universism, which included rewriting the Universist Movement FAQs to make them more coherent and understandable, has taught me that an organized un-religion is prone to the same defects as the organized religions which it supposedly is an alternative to.

In short, the problem is organization. As soon as two or more people are gathered together in an organized fashion, things are likely about to start going downhill. That’s how the universe works: entropy or disorder naturally increases.

But if you start with disorder and stay disorderly, there’s no problem. Nothing can fall apart if it isn’t put together, as the Tao Te Ching wisely advises.

Tao abides in non-action,
Yet nothing is left undone.
If kings and lords observed this,
The ten thousand things would develop naturally.
If they still desired to act,
They would return to the simplicity of formless substance.
Without form there is no desire.
Without desire there is tranquility.
And in this way all things would be at peace.

I’ve become a believer in a Religion of One. I’ve got mine, you’ve got yours, everyone else has theirs. No problem. Each to his or her own. Problems begin with a Religion of Two, and escalate from there.

I love my wife and she loves me. But when one of us tries to convert the other to our own way of spiritual thinking, you can feel tension in the air. It’s uncomfortable. And unnecessary.

What Ford Vox never realized is that dogmatic religious belief can’t be countered by equally dogmatic non-religious belief. As the cliché goes, two wrongs don’t make a right. Closed-mindedness is healed by open-mindedness.

Universism potentially could have become another home for free thinkers and untraditional spiritual aspirants. However, it needed to leave all the doors and windows open so that fresh ideas could flow freely. Instead, the founder’s ego tried to make the Universist Movement a monument to him. And that’s why it failed.

Monuments are set in granite. Which is exactly what the world doesn’t need: more rigid religious commandments etched in stone.

I don’t go to satsang, yet I do

Satsang is a Hindu and Sikh term that means, literally, “association with truth.” It has lots of connotations, but in its most basic sense satsang is a meeting. I’ve been going to the satsang of our local Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) group for about thirty years.

As the RSSB website says, “satsang” also means a group that seeks truth. So the satsang that is a group can have a satsang meeting where truth is discussed. A few weeks ago I stopped going to the meetings. I came to the conclusion that the boundaries of truth are a lot larger than the narrow confines of a RSSB satsang.

In these meetings someone talks for about 45 minutes. It’s a sermon of sorts. Quotations from the RSSB books are read and commented upon, much as a Christian minister would take a passage from the Bible and expound upon it.

Thus, a satsang is almost entirely conceptual, not experiential. I’ve given hundreds of satsangs over the years, so I know whereof I speak. The person giving a satsang is supposed to keep his or her personal experience out of the talk. The goal is to stick to the RSSB tenets and not let your individual ideas about spirituality dilute the supposedly pure teachings.

I never was able to do this. I always figured that the “sat” in satsang included the truth of the speaker’s own direct experience, as well as the RSSB conceptual truths—which are better termed hypotheses.

The guru is God. Soul and spirit are as drop and ocean. Via meditation it is possible to rise to higher levels of consciousness. These concepts, like any other religious dogma, are hypothetical possibilities until they are directly experienced as truth.

I’m weary of concepts. I’ve read plenty of books. I’ve heard plenty of talks. I don’t need any more thoughts running through my head. I’ve already got enough to last me a lifetime. So today I decided to go to satsang. But not the 45 minute conceptual talk type. Rather, the satsang that I have come to enjoy much more, the coffee house satsang after satsang.

I met up with a few satsang attendees at the Coffee House Café in downtown Salem. Over caffeine and roasted potatoes Steve, Hans, and I conversed about the mysteries of the cosmos for a highly enjoyable two and a half hours. Time flies when you’re talking about the truth.

Yes, we had a satsang. Everything we said was “sat,” truth. Except, it wasn’t truth from a book. Someone else’s truth. Conceptual truth. It was the truth of our own experience, as lived by us.

Sure, we often referred to authors, gurus, and spiritual teachers. But we didn’t slavishly mouth their words. We talked about how our lives are going, what our experience of meditation is like, our goals, fears, anxieties, hopes, dreams, and intentions.

In short, we had a churchless church service. It was inspirational for me, considerably more inspiring than any satsang I’ve listened to or given over the past thirty-five years. Why? Because it was real. The three of us didn’t mouth the RSSB party line, or any other religious dogma. By and large we spoke from the heart, not from the head.

After I was fired as a speaker by the RSSB powers that be for expressing my opinions on this here Church of the Churchless, it struck me how funny it was: I wasn’t allowed to give satsang any more because I had spoken too much “sat,” truth, on this weblog.

Not the conceptual truth of the RSSB teachings. But the experiential truth of how I have been living those teachings. Which truth is more valid? The concept or the experience? Each of us has to come to grips with our own answer.

All I can say is that for me the real satsang today was in the coffee house, not the RSSB meeting room.

Gospel of Judas casts heresy in a new light

Believers often say that the gospel of Jesus is good news. For churchless folks like me though, I’ve never been able to find much to cheer about in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

But now we’ve got the Gospel of Judas, and it contains some really good news for heretics. Jesus tells Judas that he is the disciple who will exceed all of the others. In short, he’s the only one who got Jesus’ message. As an excellent National Geographic article puts it:

The Judas gospel vividly reflects the struggle waged long ago between the Gnostics and the hierarchical church. In the very first scene Jesus laughs at the disciples for praying to “your god,” meaning the disastrous god who created the world. He compares the disciples to a priest in the temple (almost certainly a reference to the mainstream church), whom he calls “a minister of error” planting “trees without fruit, in my name, in a shameful manner.” He challenges the disciples to look at him and understand what he really is, but they turn away.

This gospel makes considerable sense to me. It says that Judas was being obedient to God’s will, since Jesus needed to die so he could be released from the confining physical body and liberate the genuine soul-Christ inside. It’s mystical rather than theological.

I’ve always wondered why Christians express so much sorrow over the crucifixion. Don’t they believe that Jesus died for our sins? Didn’t the crucifixion need to happen if humanity was to be saved? Wasn’t Judas part of the Big Plan rather than a duplicitous traitor?

True believers won’t look upon Christian dogma any differently now that the Gnostic Gospel of Judas has been released to the world. That’s the nature of true belief: it is impervious to fresh facts. But hopefully the open-minded members of the Christian faithful will study the gospel and consider its implications.

If a personal God exists, and that’s a giant “if,” seemingly He/She/It would be in control of the creation that this being has brought into existence. A clueless impotent God is no god at all, really. So if it is true, as Jesus said, that “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30), it makes sense that God was directing the whole crucifixion drama and wasn’t a passive member of the audience.

This means that Judas’ apparently black-hearted actions were divinely inspired. More generally, blasphemy, heresy, skepticism, and doubt are seen to be an integral aspect of God’s plan for the world (again, assuming that there is a personal God who has plans). The Gospel of Judas points us toward an inclusive and non-judgmental Christianity far removed from the absurd attitude of “the Devil made him do it.”

Gospel of Judas or not, Christianity still doesn’t resonate with me. It is too dependent on distant historical tales that probably never happened and lacks a coherent philosophical foundation. I lean strongly in the mystical direction but still am attracted to a metaphysics that makes sense.

It’s encouraging, though, to see that some early Christians, the Gnostics, had a more enlightened view of Jesus than the canonical gospels present. I can get behind this conception described in the National Geographic piece:

While Christians like Irenaeus stressed that only Jesus, the son of God, was simultaneously human and divine, the Gnostics proposed that ordinary people could be connected to God. Salvation lay in awakening that divine spark within the human spirit and reconnecting with the divine mind.

Amen to that.

[Next day update: Religion scholar Elaine Pagels has an interesting Op-Ed piece in the NY Times today. I'll share it as a continuation to this post. She makes the point that the Gospel of Jesus and other non-canonical early Christian writings are considered "heretical" now by church authorities. However, it may be that the heretical teachings are closer to Jesus' original message than the heavily edited New Testament.

This seems to be a general Rule of Heresy: many times, if not most times, a seeming heresy is an attempt to restore the clarity of a spiritual truth that has gotten covered with the mire of institutional dogma. People start to worship what is without rather than what is within and revere abstract concepts rather than direct experience. Viewed in this light, gnostic writings like the Gospel of Judas reflect genuine Christianity, while what passes for Jesus' teachings today is the counterfeit.]

What are the chances you’re right about God?

More and more, for me spirituality comes down to two basics: “What are the chances?” and “The odds are pretty good.” The first question points me toward humble skepticism, the second toward energetic inquiry. Here’s what I mean:

What are the chances…?
--That my chosen religion or philosophy, out of the thousands of religions in the world, just happens to be the one that is right about God, while the others are wrong.
--That any religion or philosophy, mine or another, possesses the complete truth about ultimate reality.
--That once I’ve settled on a spiritual direction for my life, there will no need for course corrections along the way
--That the nature of whatever power or law rests at the root of the cosmos can be described in words by a human being.

On the other hand:

The odds are pretty good…
--That during the thousands of years mankind has been searching for the truth about God, some persuasive hypotheses have been generated.
--That the faculties of my everyday human consciousness are less than what I am capable of, leaving open the possibility of finding new avenues for truth-seeking.
--That no matter what the nature of ultimate reality may actually be, and no matter whether it is possible to fully understand it, progress can be made in its direction.
--That given how the physical laws of the universe seem to lead back to a primal unity, whatever spiritual realities may exist are likely to be reflected in us as well as the cosmos.

In short, I’ve come to look upon spirituality through a gambler’s eyes. I’m more realistic about what I know and what I don’t know. My goal is to clearly see which cards are lying face up on the spiritual knowledge table and which are facing down. I want to end up a winner in this Game of Life, not a loser.

I’ve only watched the game show “Deal or No Deal” once. What I saw, though, helped to confirm my belief that most people are prone to ego-centered magical thinking, whether it be about their religion or about how much money they’re likely to win on a game show that is basically a lottery.

The contestants I watched were prone to disregard the evident low chance of winning a lot of money. Even when they had several hundred thousand dollars in hand, and they faced two out of three odds of going almost completely broke compared to winning a million dollars, they’d “go for broke.” And, that’s just what happened. They went broke.

The Banker on this show has a blog. A recent April 3 entry says about a current contestant: “I don't want to come off as negative, but I can tell it's going to be the same old story with her: nice person comes on show, pushes her luck too far, and gets eaten by the Bank. I can just see it in her eyes... GREED. I love it. She's mine!”

Similarly, most people are way too confident about how lucky they are to possess their current religion or belief system. They are gambling everything on an assumption that it is correct, just as I saw contestants on “Deal or No Deal” roll the dice based on flimsy intuitions such as “I feel in my heart that this is the right thing to do” or “Grandma’s birthday was on the 23rd, so I’m going to pick briefcase 23.”

When it comes to knowing God or ultimate reality we’ve got to think clearly. Understand, as Kenny Rogers advised, when it’s time to fold ‘em or hold ‘em.

You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
…Now ev’ry gambler knows that the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away and knowing what to keep.

Superstition and conceptual dogma: throw away
Reality and direct experience: keep

Theology vs. reality in the RSSB teachings

“Reality.” It’s one of my favorite words. Especially if you say it like Cartman would on South Park: Realitey. That gives it a certain Frenchy sort of snob appeal.

But reality, or realitey, really isn’t snobbish at all. It’s the most down-home thing there is. More: it’s the only thing there is. The only real thing, at least. The Greeks considered that something can exist, yet barely be. In other words, there are degrees of reality.

Generally we think, “it either is or it isn’t.” However, it could sort of be. And there could be something else with more beingness than that. Bill Clinton was ridiculed for saying “It all depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” But he was on to something.

Theology is real. It exists. The question is, how real? Does theology point to a deeper reality beyond words and concepts, or is it just a bunch of purely human ideas?

Nick explores the difference between theology and reality in the message that follows. He’s an initiate of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, or RSSB, an Indian-based religious organization that I’ve had connections with for over thirty-five years.

As I regularly note here at the Church of the Churchless, if I were a heretical Catholic I’d be writing about what I know about: Catholicism. Instead, I’m a heretical satsangi (RSSB initiate), so I tend toward writing about the mystical philosophy that I know best.

Or, as in this post, sharing the thoughts of someone else who is willing to critique aspects of the RSSB theology, Nick. (Note: he spells and grammars a bit funny to us Americans because he’s British. I thought of correcting his writing to red, white, and blue United States style, but decided that would be chauvinistic).
--------------------------------------
Dear Brian,

Further to the spate of recent messages from those who have experience of and scepticism towards RSSB, let me make some comments from where I stand at present.

The baggage of theology carried by RSSB seems at times a real barrier to realising anything of interior value. I am at the stage now where I simply meditate and stick to the core ethical principles (not because a guru figure has told me, but because I have worked it out for myself and it makes reasonable sense).

The main reason I stick with it? I enjoy it, I guess. The whole weird and wonderful trip of it all, with the odd history and lineage debates, the exotic mystical theology, the good friends and family who are on “the Path”. I still have to take supplements in the form of what I would call more depth theology, a la Advaita and Meister Eckhart in particular. This helps with making sense of interior states and in providing additional sustenance to the rather unsophisticated RSSB theological fare.

I have only been involved with RSSB teachings for 8 years, but have researched spiritual and psychological topics for over 25 years. I have had my flings with Krishnamurti, Advaita Vedanta, The National Secular Society of the UK, and various other 'isms' and 'ologies'. I have thus tried on all manner of belief systems from theosophy and vedanta to yogic cosmology. I have also tried on all manner of disbelief systems and was at one time a convinced secularist and Darwinian and have two degrees in the natural sciences.

What drew me to sant mat? Here was a spiritual teaching making audacious claims to be the highest possible on earth, surpassing advaita vedanta and zen. With gurus that supposedly outstripped non dual sages like Ramana Maharshi. Quite some claims! This needed checking out! So eight years on, what are my feelings?

I have come round to a state that I can only call “Radical Agnosticism”, that is uncertain as to the great metaphysical questions but veers towards a devotional and theistic slant to this unknowing. Sounds confused, but I get where I'm coming from! Like Brian, I feel an intuitive attraction to mystery and unknowing even if it is more scary and uncertain than belief. I feel this can still be applied through sant mat (even in RSSB if we are selective in our company and our researches through reading) if we cut through all the theology and practice it as a true inner science of experimentation.

So I've arranged some thoughts in a series of Theology versus Reality call and respond themes around RSSB claims. Try them on for size! I have to say the Reality is my own take. I make no claims for universal objective reality!

THEOLOGY
The RSSB guru is god incarnate and pretty much omnipotent and omniscient and can tell the disciple’s interior state with one glance etc, etc, and is at a higher state of realisation than advaita sages or zen masters (for example).

REALITY
Doesn't seem that way to me. I’m uncertain and agnostic towards the status of gurus, but veer towards their humanness as “representatives” or “teachers” responsible for upholding a lineage according to the instructions of their guru in turn. Willing to admit I could be off target and that the guru is really akin to people like Julian Johnson's description. I have long had a problem with some satsangis who are a bit more educated saying that a non dual sage such as Ramana was a simple yogi, who is outreached by shabd yoga masters in their depth of realisation. This does not “ring true” at all, although once again I admit I could be off track.

THEOLOGY
Sural shabd yoga exceeds advaita and zen and other non dual paths in its reach.

REALITY
I have not ever truly believed this, so I don't expect to ever find or interpret interior experience to bear it out! Most yoga pundits, non dual realisers and academics will tell you that in Hindu cosmology, advaita is definitely the crest jewel of Hindu metaphysical theology and is generally felt to be “above” any of the yogas. The same applies to Zen, which is a direct “seeing” into That or suchness, though still employing zazen to facilitate this.

THEOLOGY
That god can be realised in this lifetime and certainly in four lifetimes.

REALITY
To paraphrase Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy: “Who is this God person anyway!”. This now seems an ambitious project, since there is no clear definition of what God is. Whatever it is, ultimate reality would seem an impenetrable mystery not given to us earth bound mortals to know. I feel a strong pull to the Buddha's silence on metaphysical questions. To pursue meditation as a means of deep connection to interior beingness (whatever that may be!) to nature, to others and to shed psychological baggage and stress seems a more worthwhile meditation project than to try realising ultimate reality that lies beyond all understanding.

THEOLOGY
Drinking the odd beer or glass of wine is going to heap on karmas to an already overladen burden.

REALITY
I have pretty much given up alcohol anyway because it doesn't suit my particular mind body set healthwise. But over the years when I have felt annoyed with the no alcohol thing I have not felt that the odd beer is in any way a problem.

THEOLOGY
In contemplation the soul leaves the body for inner regions of consciousness, existence or being.

REALITY
I now no longer care what happens ontologically in meditation. If it is felt to provide that connectedness to nature, to other people and to make “myself” less of a problem in terms of reducing neuroses and mental overactivity, then that is just good enough for me! I guess I just can no longer do the seeker thing of expecting or even wanting experience according to the glorious sant mat descriptions of inner regions. For me its all just enough to realise the former than to be fixated on the latter. If it transpires then so be it! If not, then so be it!

So these are just five of the big themes that I have struggled with. I now apply some core Buddhist type principles to the whole metaphysical claims, and prefer to focus on the simplicity of trying to live a benevolent and loving life, with meditation to calm, centre and connect.

On one level the whole RSSB ship provides some structure and a church to enjoy the social side of spiritual seeking. But really one has to face the fact that whatever reality is, it is churchless, dogma free, beyond any metaphysics and for each seeming individual to realise for themselves.

With regards to Brian and all other 'churchless' visitors.

Nick

Dance to your own music

I’m taking tango lessons. Hard to believe. But I’ve got proof. Check out my “We tango and also get tangled” post. A month has passed and we don’t get quite as tangled now. I’m enjoying tango much more than I thought I would.

It’s tempting to dive into an analysis of what I like about tango. However, the memory of some pithy advice I was given at the last class is still vivid: “Shut up and dance!”

That declarative statement was a gift, not an insult. Borrowing a favorite word from Steven Colbert, I enjoyed the marvelous truthiness of it. It came from the lips of an accomplished dancer who I hadn’t partnered with before.

For some reason I usually feel the need to make small talk when the instructor says “Women, rotate to the next partner” and I’m dancing with someone I haven’t met before. I asked this woman how long she’d been dancing. “A long time,” she said. I then said, “What do you like most about dancing?”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. Which, in the dancing world, I certainly am. I sensed that I’d made a dance faux pas. “I’ve never been asked that question,” she said. “I don’t know. I just love how dancing makes me feel. Free.”

I should have been aware enough to stop talking at that point. But no, I had to blab on about what I liked about dancing, based on my whole six-week experience. She listened politely for a while, then said: “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but shut up and dance.”

I did. Thankfully.

My dance partner wasn’t thinking “churchless” when she spoke those words, yet they jolted me back into the direct experience that exemplifies spirituality for me now. Heck, more than exemplifies—that’s all genuine spirituality is, direct experience. Everything else that’s added on, dogma, belief, faith, conceptions, interpretations, surmises, is an imitation, not the real thing.

Bill Long is a friend of mine. He’s also taking tango lessons. In some ways we’re a lot alike. Analytical. Wordy. Bill’s a law professor. Also, an author. Shakespeare aficionado. Biblical scholar. Prolific essayist.

Recently Bill wrote two essays about tango and life. I liked them a lot. They’re about dancing—the kind you do to outward music, and also the kind you do to inward music. I highly recommend them to Church of the Churchless visitors. You may not be much into the first kind of dancing but all of us move to inner rhythms.

The question is, what music are we dancing to? Our own, or someone else’s? When it comes to how we live our life, are we original composers or imitators?

These questions are particularly apropos in the area of spirituality. Traditional religions offer up ready-made answers to life’s biggest mysteries. God. Life after death. Creation of the universe. We can either choose to march to the beat of someone else’s spiritual drum or follow the unique rhythm that is heard by us alone.

Bill’s “Tango and Life” essay contains an fascinating story about an influential tango composer, Astor Piazolla. It’s about how four blunt words from a woman changed his life forever. Read it.

Then move on to “Tango and Life II.” Here Bill talks about three lessons about life that he’s learning on the dance floor. (1) The man leads, (2) Always stand chest to chest, and (3) You communicate without talking.

Leading and following is a subtle thing that I’m just beginning to understand. When Bill says, “The man leads,” there’s a lot more going on than simply pulling the woman around on the end of a dance-rope. It’s all about the interplay of yin and yang, cosmic forces reflected in tango steps.

The Tango Moments web site has a nice piece on The Gender Relationship in tango. It contains some wise advice for anyone seeking to integrate the yin and yang of themselves.