Church of the Churchless

“Nobody is going to come.” So I killed him.

In my dream, I hasten to add. No need to call 911. All the killing last night took place in my own mind for reasons unknown, like so much else that transpires in my psyche.

Usually I'm not big on trying to interpret dreams. Mostly they seem to be my mind's attempt to connect fragments of the previous day's disconnected experiences.

Maybe this explains my dream. Maybe not. Regardless, the peak emotional moment is still vivid.

"Nobody is going to come!" After repeatedly calling out for help to people I could see around me, I finally realized that if the man who was trying to kill me was going to be stopped, I was going to have to do it.

With that realization, my panic abated. And my ferocity fired up.

My attacker had been relentless. He wasn't armed. I had a gun, but it wouldn't fire. The trigger mechanism was devilishly hard to pull. It kept freezing up just before a shot should have been fired.

Deeply frustrating. Revolver interruptus. The fight turned to close-in combat.

Which is when I was able to pound the guy into his death throes. Conveniently, a pile of stones was within reach. I was on top of him as we struggled on the ground. I picked up a good-sized rock.

And smashed it into his throat. Repeatedly. It felt great. Blood started spurting. I got covered in it.

After he was dead I walked past the people who had ignored me. Probably because they weren't even aware of me. They didn't seem to notice a blood-soaked man with a rock in his hand slowly strolling by, out of breath.

"Nobody is going to come." The feeling stuck with me into this morning's meditation. It didn't make me feel lonely. More like resigned to reality.

Nobody has come after close to forty years of daily meditation. Nobody other than me, and sometimes even he didn't show up. So what are the chances that an outside rescuer is going to appear before the end of my life? Pretty darn slim.

I've done a lot of dialing and talking on my spiritual telephone over the years. Hello. Hello. Is anybody there? Can you hear me? Love to chat if you have a minute. Or, eternity.

When you don't get a response, how long are you going to keep holding the receiver up to your ear? At what point does it make more sense to pick up a rock and smash that plastic "Hello Kitty" toy into smithereens?

Because the fucking thing isn't connected to an outside line! Nor, anything. Other than my own mouth and ear, so far as I can tell.

Todd was one of my best high school friends. We kept in touch for a while after college. He moved to Oregon at one point. Took a few classes at Oregon State. Lived in an old house outside of Corvallis.

I remember going to visit him. Todd told a story about how he'd been trying to fix the oil heater in his basement. A line broke. Oil started spurting out.

Todd said that he remembered what his father used to tell him. Todd's family had a ranch in Three Rivers, California, where we grew up. They also raised hay down in the San Joaquin valley. Lots of stuff goes wrong on ranches and farms.

"Look around," was the advice. "Don't panic. You'll find that you have what you need to deal with the situation within reach. Just look."

Todd did that. He saw a rag. He wrapped it around the leaking pipe. Cinched it tight. Got breathing room for a real repair.

I thought of that story when I woke up this morning. Those rocks were right there next to me. All I had to do was pick one up. And smash away. Problem solved. The man deserved to die. It wasn't hard to accomplish.

All I needed to do was get past the turning point: "Nobody is going to come."

Creation Museum displays Christian credulity

Just when I've been thinking, "summer is here, living is easy; maybe I shouldn't hammer religion so hard," the Creation Museum has to open its doors and make me wish I had a hammer of Biblical proportions.

Oops, bad choice of words. Because the problem with the Creation Museum — a huge one — is that it treats the Bible as gospel truth rather than manmade fables.

So if Genesis says that the Earth was created just a few thousand years ago, then dinosaurs must have co-existed with Homo sapiens, no matter what science has discovered.

This ridiculous monument to religious credulity cost $27 million. Sadly, plenty of adults will fork over $19.95 to gaze upon the Creation Museum's impressive looking (so long as you look past their idiocy) displays.

Even sadder, children are going to come along. I'm with protester Edwin Kagin, who said:

Teaching children that science supports the Bible rather than evolution "is a form of child abuse" and "terrorism" that could plunge America into a new dark age.

Absolutely. Polls show that 40% of Americans believe that God created humans in our present form less than 10,000 years ago. Every effort should be made to get that percentage a lot closer to zero. The Creation Museum is a step in the wrong direction.

The Bible was written by pre-scientific people. They were human, not divine. They had no idea that dinosaurs even existed. Nor did they know any other purported "facts" (such as the Sun goes around the Earth) that weren't part of the limited knowledge base of those times.

Hmmmmm. You'd think that a divine revelation would include some hitherto unknown accurate information about our place in the cosmos. But none ever has — whether Christian, Muslim, Judaic, Hindu, Sikh, or whatever.

That doesn't bother the true believers. Museum visitor Kim Schiffman said, "Every word in the Bible is true. The whole evolution theory to me is ridiculous."

Well, Kim, as the Evil Bible web site points out, you must endorse ritual human sacrifice, rape, murder, and slavery (to name but a few Biblical barbarities), because these are spoken of fondly in your Absolutely True Bible.

You might also take a look at the many Biblical contradictions. I guess truth can be both true and false, because the Bible often likes to swing opposite ways.

Thanks to this sneak peek at the Creation Museum, I was able to get a look at how human reason is viewed there. Given the Bible's strong tilt toward superstition and myth-making, it isn't surprising that the museum gives reason short shrift compared to God's Word.

This means that if something was written by scientific ignoramuses hundreds of years ago, and has been given a stamp of approval by almost equally ignorant religious authorities, it should be accepted uncritically even if every reasonable brain cell in your body is screaming Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!

No, I haven't been too hard on religion. The Creation Museum helped me see that. So long as children are being taught that reality is to be fled from, rather than embraced, religious fundamentalism has to be fought.

I'm mildly worried about Islamic radicals. But I'm much more concerned about the Christian crazies right here in the United States. That's who really threatens American freedoms.

Such as the right to know the truth.

Going beyond “I am a (fill in the faith)”

It was the kickoff to a great coffee house conversation today: "So, Brian, would you say that you're still a satsangi?" Meaning, a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB)—an India-based spiritual organization.

I've had this sort of talk before. It leads to all sorts of interesting spinoff questions that apply to anyone of any faith. What does it take to deserve to be called a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, or any other persuasion?

I started with an obvious answer. "I was initiated into RSSB thirty-six years ago. Guess that means I'm a satsangi." Hans, my philosophical discussion partner, wasn't satisfied with that.

"Lots of people have been baptized Christian, but they aren't really Christians." Agreed. So we delved deeper.

After an hour or so of latte-fueled give and take, I finally began to reach the core of what the question pointed to in me. This came after Hans asked me if I still believed in some central Articles of Faith for RSSB disciples. Such as that a living guru is necessary to make spiritual progress.

"No, I don't really believe that any more," I said. "But I'm not sure whether it's true or false. I'm not sure about much of anything now. Beliefs that used to be important to me now seem like a bunch of empty words, concepts lacking any grounding in direct experience."

I told Hans about my "Believers, I'm even more deluded than you think" blog post. There I wrote that the current guru (Gurinder Singh), like the previous one (Charan Singh), emphasizes actually experiencing spirituality rather than just thinking about religious teachings. However…

Most RSSB initiates fill their heads with thoughts, images, emotions, and imaginings rather than emptying themselves and becoming receptive to unvarnished reality. I used to do this too, so I know whereof I speak.

I'd sit every Sunday in a satsang hall, adorned with photos of the guru, listening to a speaker read from an RSSB book, which taught that after death the Master would meet the disciple and take him or her to Sach Khand and the lap of God.

I'd feel grateful that I wasn't a deluded Christian who at that moment was sitting in a church, adorned with images of Jesus, listening to a preacher read from the Bible, which taught that after death Christ would meet the disciple and take him or her to heaven and the lap of God.

Eventually the absurdity broke through. I was decrying religion founded on blind faith, yet I had embraced a religion founded on blind faith.

Every organized religion or spiritual practice, pretty much, has its less mystical and more mystical sides. Even supposedly mystic philosophies like Radha Soami Satsang Beas, or Sant Mat. "Belief" is on the less side; "Experience" is on the more side.

So if you stay stuck on the fly paper of a belief system, you're not going to do much moving. Toward God, satori, enlightenment, self-understanding, or anywhere else.

In his delightful Buddhism is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom From Beliefs, Steve Hagen says:

Instead of putting faith in what we believe, think, explain, justify, or otherwise construct in our minds, we can learn to put our trust and confidence in immediate, direct experience, before all forms and colors appear.

…This is faith in its purest form: trust in actual experience before we make anything of it—before beliefs, thoughts, signs, explanations, justifications, and other constructions of our minds take form.

Belief can't hold a candle to the bright light of direct experience. But so long as a believer is fixated on the flickering candle flame—got to keep believing, got to keep believing—his or her awareness is going to be distracted from the really real reality that shines with infinitely more luminosity.

My wife and I saw Steve Martin's adapted play, "The Underpants," last night at Salem Repertory Theatre. (Interestingly, two of the actors walked into the coffee shop just as I was about to leave, which led to another interesting conversation with them).

"Religion is a lot like one of the characters in the play," I said to Hans. He lusts after a woman whose underpants fell down while she was watching a parade. It isn't all that difficult to seduce her, since she is married to a rigid, controlling, passionless guy.

Her would-be lover is a would-be poet, in love with words. More than her, it turns out. Before too long she is sighing, "Take me! Take me!" to the poet.

That should have caused a different part of his body than his literary sense to get aroused. But instead he runs into his bedroom to grab a pen and paper, not her. The poet has to capture the moment in words rather than experiencing it in reality.

Believing that you're about to have sex with a woman is a lot less satisfying than actually having sex with her. You've got to give up the belief and take the plunge, so to speak, into the real thing.

Rumi used almost exactly the same analogy as the playwright in "Tales From the Masnavi" (Arberry translation):

A lover, being admitted to sit beside his beloved, thereupon drew out a letter and read it to her. The letter, which was in verse, told over her praises together with much lamentation, misery and supplication.

"If all this is for my sake," said the beloved, "to read this now you are with me is a sheer waste of time. Here I am beside you, and you read a letter! This is certainly not the sign of a true lover."

Hans and I talked about how there's all these stories in the mystic literature about eccentric, crazed, unconventional, rule-breaking ecstatic lovers of the divine.

However, the stories are told in a decidedly settled setting. If someone jumped up and actually started acting like that, they'd be thrown out of the meeting room.

Well, if that's where the Wild Mystics roam, better to be wandering out there than sitting primly in your religious seat. Even if that means losing your identity and the ability to say "I'm a _______."

Me finding myself. And Van Morrison.

It happened again today. Searching for the meaning of existence via the Great God Google, I looked into the mirror of cyberspace and saw my own truth looking back at me.

Not surprisingly, I agreed with myself. Which, naturally, raises the question: "If what I'm searching for is what I already know, what the hell am I doing Googling?"

I'd been thinking about Tai Chi. Which got me thinking about Wu Chi. Which reminded me of a web site that had a reference to using "Wu" as a mantra – the sound of wind whistling through tree tops. Whoooooooo. Whoooooooo.

Which stimulated me to fire up Google and see if I could find the web site again. Which led to a page of results with only one item of real interest.

One of my Wu Project posts. So I ended up finding what I really was looking for: someone who fully agreed with me. Which, not surprisingly, turned out to be me.

Why don't I trust myself when it comes to the deep questions of life, those no one else can answer for me? I'm more than willing to follow the advice of someone who is expert in an area I'm ignorant about—like plumbing or car repair.

But each of us is our own authority when it comes to What's it all about? Even if we submit to someone else, that act of submission is under our control (I must give credit to a sex article in a women's magazine I recently thumbed through in a waiting room for that bit of insight).

So I'm telling myself to stand taller. As should you, if, like me, you find yourself looking for outside encouragement platform shoes for reassurance that your view of the cosmos is at least a smidgeon above ground level.

I'm never going to find anyone else who totally agrees with me about what it's all about. Or not about. My best shot at a boon philosophical companion is myself. And only then, if I don't get in the way of establishing a trust bond between myself and me.

None the less, I enjoy all of the others on the Road That Isn't Quite Where I Want To Go But is Darn Interesting Nonetheless.

Including the visitors to this here Church of the Churchless.

In a comment today Edward said:

Now drop what you're doing, find the song "Tupelo Honey" by Van Morrison and listen to it like it was your first birthday card. There will be a part of you, big or small, loud or quiet, that says, "Yes, this is true." Not a formal truth, not a provable theorem - just blood warmingly true.

Good advice. You can watch here. Or below. And read the lyrics here. Yes, that's truly true truth. It's got to be. I just said it was.

Atheists crush Christians at “Does God Exist?” debate

Naturally, it was no contest. There's no way a couple of fundamentalist Christians were going to best the Rational Response Squad on an ABC Nightline face-off over scientific evidence for the existence of God.

(These are the guys who talked me into condemning myself to hell for a free DVD.)

I haven't watched all of the video of the debate, You Tube'd versions of which are available at BSAlert.com. But I've seen enough to agree with the proposition that "the match was a slaughter and Ray and…Kirk [the Christians]...were left bleeding and wounded."

Ray and Kirk weren't supposed to use the Bible to prove that the Bible is true. They claimed they'd provide scientific evidence for the existence of God (the Christian God, I assume).

So I watch the (privately filmed) video of the debate on the Rational Responder web site. And I see one of the true believers, Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, holding up a image of the "Mona Lisa," claiming that wherever there is a painting there must be a painter.

Huh? That's the proof? Dude, that's so lame.

Like Sapient, one of the Rational Responders, said, with a painting you can see the canvas, the paints, the brush strokes. You can also meet painters of paintings, take photographs of them at work, talk with them about their artistry.

The universe exists. Existence exists. This doesn't mean that there was a creator of creation. Or that this Master Painter is a personalized being, rather than a universal power.

Sapient asked what the creator of God is. Good question. If an answer were to be attempted, a follow-up would be forthcoming: What created the creator of God?

I've little doubt that a few decades, or centuries, or millennia from now (sooner the better), debates like this one will be viewed as curious relics from pre-scientific times when humans held exceedingly curious notions about the cosmos.

As Christopher Hitchens puts it in his book, "God is Not Great":

One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody – not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms – had the smallest idea what was going on.

It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs).

Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think – though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one – that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.

Until people see the light of reality, instead of the darkness of religion, it's incumbent that those of us on the less shadowy side of the divide challenge those who would keep us mired in superstition, irrationality, and addiction to blind faith.

Courtesy of BSAlert, this YouTube video shows a woman confronting the fundamentalist Christians at the Nightline debate (which was held in a Manhattan Baptist church, not exactly neutral ground).

I love how she refuses to let the believers get away with not answering her question. She notes that they'd just praised how God so wonderfully created the human eye, nose, mouth and such. The woman asks, "What about cancer? How is this part of a perfect creation?"

Excellent question. Which the Christians are utterly unable to answer, except by meandering into some blather about suffering being part of God's plan, and how the Bible tells us that we started off perfect and then fell from grace.

She shakes her head, looks understandably irked, then rises to interrupt the blather and ask her question again. Beautiful. I sorely wish she could be at every press conference President Bush holds. They'd sure be a lot more interesting (and informative) if she was there.

Christopher Hitchens rips on Rev. Falwell – and religion

The recently deceased Rev. Jerry Falwell probably was nice to his dog. But there isn't much else good that can be said about him. So yesterday I hugely enjoyed listening to an Air America replay of Anderson Cooper's interview of Hitchens on CNN.

Hitchens starts off snarky and sarcastic. Then warms up from there. Exactly what a fundamentalist hate-monger like Falwell deserves. Alive or dead.

The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing, that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called reverend.

Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September the 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification

People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup.

Sometimes I think I'm too hard on religion and that some commenters on this blog give true believers too hard a time. But when I hear Hitchens speak the ungodly truth, echoing the sentiments in his "God is Not Great" book, I'm struck by the power and the glory of faithless passion.

Like Hitchens says, society pretty much gives a free pass to the religious, no matter what sort of ridiculous crap they spout.

If you are a Christian who believes that someone unseen to you or anyone else is putting thoughts in your head, you're praiseworthy. If you're an atheist, you're considered to be loony.

I used to believe there was something called a "private faith" that should be immune to criticism so long as you didn't try to impose it on others. But now I side more with Sam Harris, who views religious moderation as the wellspring of the deep waters of crazed fundamentalism.

Like they say, draining the swamp is the way to get rid of alligators. Jerry Falwell wannabes probably always will be with us, sadly. However, we don't need to encourage them with "everyone is entitled to their own beliefs" apologetics.

No, everyone isn't.

Not when those beliefs threaten the life and limb of innocents. Falwell and his fundamentalist ilk are responsible for many thousands, if not millions, of deaths. Whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, or whatever, true believers have done far more harm to the world than the faithless.

We've got lots of problems to deal with. AIDS, other diseases, regional conflicts, looming environmental disaster, social breakdown. The subtitle of Hitchens' book is How Religion Poisons Everything. Absolutely true.

Can't distribute condoms in AIDS-ravenged Africa because that would encourage sinful unwed sex. Can't fund stem cell research because that would destroy a (hypothetical) soul. Can't broker a truce between Israel and the Palestinians because each believes God is on their side. Can't deal with global warming because the Second Coming makes it irrelevant. Can't find common ground on cultural issues because religious folks are right and everybody else is wrong—debate over.

Hitchens is marvelously erudite. He's got the sort of biting British wit that is lovable when you agree with him, and horribly annoying when you don't. Watching him defend the Iraq war on Bill Maher's HBO show, sarcastically shredding the arguments of Bush critics, I wanted to strangle the guy.

But when I finished reading page 18 of "God is Not Great" Hitchens had become my churchless buddy.

A week before the events of September 11, 2001, I was on a panel with Dennis Prager, who is one of America's better-known religious broadcasters. He challenged me in public to answer what he called a "straight yes/no question" and I happily agreed.

Very well, he said, I was to imagine myself in a strange city as the evening was coming on. Toward me I was to imagine that I saw a large group of men approaching.

Now—would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were just coming from a prayer meeting? As the reader will see, this is not a question to which a yes/no answer can be given. But I was able to answer it as if it were not hypothetical.

"Just to stay within the letter 'B,' I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad. In each case I can say absolutely, and can give my reasons, why I would feel immediately threatened if I thought that the group of men approaching me in the dusk were coming from a religious observance."

Hitchens then proceeds to describe how religion has poisoned the atmosphere in each of those cities, exacerbating tensions that would either be much minimized or non-existent if it weren't for religious fundamentalism.

Yes, religion poisons everything. And Falwell was a leading Christian poisoner. Hitchens said, "I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to." Amen to that.

Finding my original face in packing for a weekend trip

My mystical-spiritual aspirations used to be really grandiose.

I was going to grasp the secrets of the universe; soar through higher metaphysical regions of reality; get drenched in divine light and sound; merge with the Ultimate until there was nothing of me left but One.

Yesterday I managed to pack for a weekend trip and keep my calm. That's what counts as spiritual progress for me now. Call it what you will, it's undeniably real. I could feel the difference between the usual flappable-while-packing Brian and who I was twenty-fours ago.

Thank you, Kosho Uchiyama. I've been trying to absorb your message in "Opening the Hand of Thought," the subject of my last post. Today I read:

There is a koan that asks, "What is your original face before your parents were born?" One might naturally assume that there is some special thing called "original face," but that is not the right approach. When we open the hand of thought, letting go, the original self is already there.

It's not some special mystical state. Don't seek it somewhere else. When we open the hand of thought, what is there, in that moment, is our original face.

When we refrain from grasping our thoughts, we realize that the force that animates our lives and the force that moves the wind are the very same force. Our lives and the force that moves the wind are the same. Our breath and the wind blowing are one.

When my wife and I (plus the family dog) go to our cabin on the Metolius River in central Oregon, we pack heavy for what is usually just an extended weekend trip. We've got the routine down, but it's still a mini-ordeal.

Bike rack. Bikes. Food boxes (health-minded vegetarians that we are, we can't survive by foraging on local fare). Dog supplies. Heaps of unread magazines. Clothes for cool, warm, sunny, and wet weather (Oregon is changeable in the spring).

We usually try to leave by late afternoon. Yesterday, our schedule was side-tracked by a hectic day. No opportunity to pack until I rushed home about 6 pm, figuring that since I'd been gone most of the afternoon and Laurel hadn't, she'd have made a good start on the packing.

But all I saw was that two empty food containers had been taken from the garage and put by the front door. "I'm just beginning to pack," Laurel said as I walked in, frazzled and tired.

Usually I'd feel This isn't right. Yesterday I caught myself before that thought had a chance to get rolling down Mount Irritation. "Okay," I told her. "I'll put the bikes on the car. We'll leave whenever we can."

I'm no Kosho Uchiyama. But maybe I am, just a little bit. He says:

The important point here in terms of the truth of universal self is not to run away from the worse way (hell, unhappiness, or bad circumstances) and turn toward some better way (heaven, happiness, or good circumstances) by discriminating between better and worse using our heads.

Rather, what is crucial is magnanimous mind, with which we take the attitude of living straight through whatever reality of life we are presently faced with. In other words, if I fall into hell, then hell itself is my life at that time, so I have to live right through it, and if I find myself in heaven, then heaven is my life and I have to live right through that.

We pulled out of the driveway about 8:00 pm. Laurel got ready to go as quickly as possible. Me too. It was just the right time. Every time is, really.

We had a late take-out Thai food dinner at the cabin. We were hungry by 10:30. Dog was too. It was just the right time. Every time is, really.

Per usual, we stopped about halfway at Detroit Lake for coffee, a bathroom break, and snacks. Most everything but the little market closes down in Detroit after 9:00 pm. The woman ahead of us in the checkout line asked if any gas stations were open.

"No," she was told. "Oh, no," she said. "We're on empty and we've got to get to Bend."

A local guy heard her. "I know the people who own the gas station," he said. "I'll give them a call. I bet they'll be willing to come out and open it up for you."

Small town friendliness. And an advantageous meet-up at the cash register for the woman who was just about out of gas. It was just the right time. Every time is, really.

Religion is part of life for many people. But for all of us, atheist, agnostic, or true believer, it should be recognized for what it is: just a part, not life itself. Uchiyama:

Instead of looking at the fresh and vivid reality of life with their own eyes, people end up stifling that reality in the name of justice, or peace, or some fixed dogma.

All these memories and myths are produced by human life, so we cannot say they are meaningless. However, all these ideas and beliefs have only a conceptual existence that is fixed within our thoughts, they are not raw life-experience that is alive right now.

We tend to plunge our heads too far into memories and fantasies, into religious dogma and rigid doctrines. When we admire them and believe in them blindly, becoming frenzied and fanatical, we become imprisoned by this fixed and conceptual existence.

We would be much better off if our past experience and wisdom were made to live within the raw life-experience of the self here and now.

…The only true enlightenment is awareness of the vivid reality of life, moment by moment. So we practice enlightenment right now, right here, in every moment.

Meditation is waking up to life

I'm a long-time meditator. Been on the cushion daily for about thirty-eight years. I'm still trying to figure out what meditation is all about.

Concentration? Relaxation? Getting in touch with myself? With God? All of the above? Something else entirely?

My practice has consisted mainly of repeating a mantra—trying to stop many complex thoughts by holding onto a single simple thought. I'd also attempted to do nothing except be aware of what remained in my consciousness when I wasn't doing anything.

Except trying to do nothing. Which is still something.

And there's the rub. I've been of the mind that meditation leads to a special sort of awareness, a higher consciousness distinct from my everyday thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and what not.

So I'd try to set aside my normal way of being and tune into a different frequency on the Cosmic Wavelength. But that trying, that desire for something more and better, was very much part of my habitual outlook on life.

Dissatisfaction with what is. Wanting what could be, or has been.

I'm beginning to get a glimmer of another way, in part thanks to Kosho Uchiyama's "Opening the Hand of Thought." I've read a lot of books about Zen Buddhism. So far as I can remember, this is the only one with a diagram of the mind in zazen (Zen meditation).

I like it.

Here are some excerpts from Uchiyama's "Waking Up to Life" section:

"When we are doing zazen, this line ZZ' is the reality of our lives right now, so we make every effort to keep to it. But we are not fixed and unmoving the way rocks are, so it happens that we tend to drift away from this line: thoughts come up or we doze off.

…This is b. If this b continues on to b' and b", we are actually dozing…Thinking and sleeping in zazen are pretty much the same.

…Sometimes we completely forget about where we are and what we are doing. We may chase after thoughts c, c', c" and end up completely separated from the reality of our life of doing zazen right now. Without being aware of it, we may start associating with or carrying on a dialogue with some vivid figure c''' that has been totally fabricated within our own act of chasing after thoughts.

…Actually, zazen is not just being somehow glued to line ZZ'. Doing zazen is a continuation of this kind of returning up from sleepiness and down from chasing after thoughts.

That is, the posture of waking up and returning to ZZ' at any time is itself zazen. This is one of the most vital points regarding zazen.

…Actually, ZZ' represents the reality of the posture of zazen, but the reality of our life is not just ZZ'. If it were only ZZ', we would be as unchanging and lifeless as a rock!

…The very power to wake up to ZZ' and return to it is the reality of the life of zazen. Zazen enables us to realize that all the thoughts that float into our heads are nothing but empty comings and goings that have no real substance and vanish in a moment.

…So we wake up to ZZ' and from the standpoint of waking up we are able to see that thoughts, desires, and delusions are all the scenery of life. During zazen, they are the scenery of zazen. There is scenery only where there is life. While we are living in the world, there will be happiness and unhappiness, favorable and adverse conditions, interesting and boring things.

…But my own true life is the reality of life that I wake up to without being carried away by the scenery. Zazen is the foundation of life where this reality of life is being manifested.

In that sense, zazen is the reality of the self—the true self. The essential thing in zazen is not to eliminate delusion and craving and become one with ZZ'.

Of course, there are times like this during zazen, but this, too is just part of the scenery of zazen. We aim at ZZ' even though we have a tendency to diverge from it. The very attitude of returning to ZZ' and waking up is most important for practicing zazen as the foundation of life."

Good stuff.

I could very well be the last long-time meditator who hasn't gotten The Memo concerning what meditation is all about. Maybe that's why I enjoyed fresh insights from Uchiyama's diagram and his description of it.

I've been trying to achieve the ZZ' state. Which is fine, according to this Zen adept. However, to consider that the deviations from ZZ' are "bad" and the tunings-in are "good"—not so fine.

Life is change. Not clinging to either the ups or the downs is what we're after, says Uchiyama.

Wise advice.

Why I’m justified in complaining about Sant Mat

Ander's comment on a recent post has me fired up. Along with a strong cup of 100% Kona coffee that I brought back from Maui. Just used up the last bit of it. Can't think of a better caffeine-fueled activity than responding to one of Ander's baseless statements:

Its funny how u even proclaim the fact that u never actually practised for a long period of time more than 2 hours of meditation. Let along 4 or 5 or 10 that would be the appropriate hours after the 30 years on the path. The fact the u complain about sant mat is TOTALLY UNJUSTIFIED. IF someone comes and tells me ," ive been meditating for 30 years for 3 hours a day and i have seen nothing" then i would remain speachless, knot my head and walk away, cause i would have nothing to say. But coming out and saying, " an hour or so". is ridiculus. So you read all the Sant Mat books, U wrote a couple yourself, and still go out and buy 5 books a week. Nice. Nice.

Totally unjustified? Dude, you're so wrong. I was initiated in the spring of 1971. For over thirty years—until 2002 or so—I was damn near a model satsangi (disciple).

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

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

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

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

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

I had a strange relationship (or lack thereof) with my father, whom my mother left when I was four. By all accounts, and my own impression of him, he was a jerk. But when he knew that he was seriously sick, close to dying, he reached out to me when I was in my 30's.

It didn't turn out to be a Hallmark moment. Life isn't a slogan on a greeting card. But because my father phoned me up after some thirty years of ignoring his son, I was able to spend a single hour with him in a Boston hotel room. It was the most deeply frustrating and disappointing hour in my life. Yet I'm thankful beyond words that my father gave me this gift.

He was much more generous than my supposed spiritual "father," Charan Singh. When I was initiated by the guru, the claim was that his astral form had been implanted within my being, and that he would eventually appear within my consciousness and guide me back to Sach Khand, the highest spiritual region.

Well, I'm still waiting. My physical father, who nobody would call a saint, turned out to be more caring and compassionate than Charan Singh, who was considered a saintly soul. Go figure.

I've done a lot of that over the years—figuring—and have concluded that either the guru (1) deceived disciples into believing that he was someone that he actually was not (most likely), or (2) had mystical powers but didn't use them in a generous manner.

Either way, I'm entitled to a whole lot of complaining.

The psychoanalytically-inclined will see in my story a projection onto Charan Singh of the father-qualities that I never experienced in my all-too-human life. I plead guilty (or innocent, whichever). Yes, I wanted a spiritual father who wouldn't disappoint me the way my physical father did. And I'm angry that I didn't fare any better the second father-time around.

Ander, you mentioned my "bodyguard" volunteer, or seva, experience with RSSB. Yes, I had some rather minimal karate background at the time. However, even if I'd been a sixth degree black belt, it wouldn't have made much difference if a van full of Sikh terrorists had pulled up with automatic weapons.

I pondered such possibilities one seva time. It was 3:00 am in the morning. I was standing outside the bedroom where Charan Singh's successor, Gurinder Singh, was sleeping, trying to walk back and forth in the darkness as quietly as possible, lurking behind some bushes so I didn't appear too obtrusive.

High quality seva. Seva that most disciples would die for. And I was prepared to. I'm pretty sure about that. I'd stand there under the stars wondering, "What would you do if, god forbid, some armed terrorists roared up the street and stormed the house?" (At the time, violent Sikh separatists in the Punjab were active and weren't friendly toward RSSB.)

I was strongly committed to Sant Mat and the guru. I had given it my all for over twenty years. I was ready to give more: my life. I couldn't conceive of cowering and remaining alive if Gurinder Singh was attacked. I'd rather die than live with that dishonor.

So again, don't tell me that I'm not justified in criticizing the group that I was more than willing to sacrifice myself for. I gave RSSB and the guru all that I was capable of for a long time, asking little in return.

As you said, Ander, I wrote three books for the organization. I've lost track of how much time I put into that seva. Seven years, probably. Many days I'd research or write for several hours. Few initiates, I bet, have committed that much to RSSB. So, yes, I feel justified.

In the course of writing those books I read every book published by RSSB from cover to cover. And believe me, there's a lot of them. I took notes on the contents and organized them. I'm as familiar with the Sant Mat philosophy as anyone. I've talked the talk and I've walked the walk.

So, yes, I feel justified. In the mid-1990s I got a phone call from India. Faith Singh, head of the RSSB Publications Department, told me that Charan Singh (who died in 1990) always had wanted to have a little book that he could hand out to people who wanted to know the spiritual rationale for vegetarianism.

This book project had hit some hurdles. Faith said that the present guru, Gurinder Singh, had told her, "Give Brian a call." It took me no time at all to say, "Sure, I'll take on the book."

Several years and countless hours of writing work later I got another phone call from India. Faith said, "You really need to come to the Dera [in the Punjab} so we can finish editing the book together. But I have to tell you, it probably will be published as part of a series of introductory Sant Mat books. The authors aren't identified. So you won't be credited."

"No problem," I told her. "I'll come to India." Which I did, and spent two weeks working on the final edits. In the end my name was put on the book. I was pleased. Yet I was content to be the anonymous author, because I was devoted to Sant Mat and my guru.

So, yes, I feel justified.

When I used to give satsangs (talks) for RSSB, one of my favorite subjects was passion. I'd say that someone who runs headlong in one direction, then turns around and dashes just as quickly the other way, is going to get to his destination quicker than a person who steadily plods along in one direction.

My basic nature is to be passionate and committed. My first marriage lasted eighteen years, many of them unhappy. I stuck with my wife for as long as she wanted us to stay together. My second marriage is into its seventeenth happy year. I've been having my hair cut by the same woman, Betsy, for thirty years (my longest female relationship!). It took me twelve years to earn a martial arts black belt. I felt like quitting many times. I didn't.

So, yes, I feel justified. I gave Sant Mat and RSSB my best spiritual and meditative shot. I did as I was told, but I didn't get the results that were, if not promised, told would be forthcoming with a high degree of probability.

After devoting nine years to traditional Shotokan karate, I was at an impasse. I knew that my martial arts skills were progressing, but the Shotokan powers-that-be who presided over rank examinations didn't like what they were seeing. So I faced a choice: stick with a style that obviously wasn't suited for me, or take the leap and leave my familiar martial arts home.

I leapt. And have no regrets. None at all. Barriers are meant to be leapt over. Back in 2000 I found inspiration in a heretical Shotokan karate web site, "Shotokan Planet." What Rob Redmond, a longtime karate practitioner, said applies equally to spiritual training:

If your karate instructor cannot get you to expertise within ten years, then you have a stinky instructor. A ten year veteran of a karate club who trained regularly should be every bit the match of the JKA [Japanese Karate Association] instructors who came to the West all those years ago. If not, then your instructor isn't doing his job or you are not training regularly.

The axiom should therefore be reprinted with a different line of text. Karate training that requires a lifetime is bad karate training. For every student, there is a time when training ends. For people who make their entire world revolve around a karate dojo, that time is death.

For everyone else who simply wishes to learn to take a different perspective on themselves, that time could be after six months or ten years, but the time eventually comes. Know when it has come, and have the courage to recognize it and do the right thing by yourself.

Finding my Way in the Bodhi Tree Bookstore

A few years ago I made my first pilgrimage to Hollywood's Bodhi Tree Bookstore, one of the wonders of the metaphysical book-selling world. I went again yesterday, leaving my month-old granddaughter and her mother (my daughter) cooling their heels in a neighboring restaurant.

Wise place to wait. Slower the service, the better. When I enter the Bodhi Tree Bookstore, I'm not going to be emerging for quite a while.

Wandering through the store's sections is a voyage of spiritual self-discovery. The patrons, me included, appear darn serious as they browse the shelves. After all, we're not looking for a book on how to restore a '57 Chevy, or plant a raised bed garden.

No, the entire Bodhi Tree content, by and large, is Big Questions of Life stuff: the nature of reality, what happens when we die, whether God exists, and if so, in what fashion.

Sure, there are smiles in the aisles—I loved how a red-headed coolly-clad young woman at the checkout counter responded to a "love your tattoos" from a person behind her with a flirtatious toss of her head and a finger pointing behind her ear: "you probably missed this one; see, it matches!"

Hollywood. I love ya.

But mostly I encountered intense gazes as I brushed by fellow shoppers. What I found most interesting about my 45 minutes or so in the store was how my emotional reaction to various sections governed my steps.

I've got a somewhat deserved reputation as an intellectual. However, when it comes to spirituality, religion, and mysticism, gut reactions serve as my compass, not my thoughts. In this regard, I'm typical. Mostly we feel our way through life, then rationalize the direction we've taken with logical-sounding reasons.

In the Bodhi Tree Bookstore, I was guided by gut, not gray matter. My first stop always is the Martial Arts, Buddhism, and Taoism corner. That's where I feel most comfortable.

Even here, though, there are more friendly and less friendly shelves. I did my best to find a book to buy in the general Buddhism section. However, I'd already bought the titles that appealed to me—the ones with a skeptical "kill the Buddha" theme.

I'd flip through some pages of a potential purchase and see a bunch of Sanskrit terms and references to this or that sutra. Ooh, too religious my gut would tell me. Back on the shelf it'd go.

I had to turn back to the Zen section before finding a couple of books that screamed (or at least strongly murmured) take me home: "Opening the Hand of Thought," by Kosho Uchiyama and "No Beginning, No End," by Jakusho Kwong. (In finding these Amazon links, I see that every reader review of these books has been 5 stars; other people clearly like them as much as I expect I will).

Zen has a way of laughing at its own pretensions that resonates with me. General Buddhism is just too damn serious. Ditto with most of Indian philosophy, the section that adjoins the Buddhist and Taoist shelves. I used to spend a lot of time there, but my gut won't let me tarry long with Indian mystics now.

Taoist sages, though, are more appealing. I found a couple of Thomas Cleary translations of Chinese classics, "The Spirit of Tao" and "The Book of Balance and Harmony." (Again, two 5-star reviews; my Bodhi Tree purchases batted 1.000 with Amazon reader reviews—though one Cleary book was review less.)

There's no other way to buy a book but with the guidance of your gut. You read the title, glance at the front and back covers, peruse the table of contents, flip through a few sample pages. In a few seconds it either speaks to you, or it doesn't.

Same with the spiritual, philosophical, mystical, and religious paths that books are written about. They either give you a come-hither look or a "no way, Jose" brush off. We like to think that we choose our Way for solid reasons, but almost always that isn't the case.

Generally we follow one path rather than another simply because it appeals to us. Is falling in love with a person any different? We can give reasons for our attraction, but they aren't the real cause of our infatuation. That's a mystery, even to the lovers.

So I brought home four books. Many others were inspected and rejected. Countless others, not even considered.

It comes down to the gut. Trust it. When buying a book. When embracing a philosophy of life. Each of us knows a lot more than we're able to tell ourselves in thought-sounds.

And what we know will be ours, not anyone else's. It'll be our little (or big) secret. Significant to us, not truly sharable with others.

I stood beside red-haired tattoo girl as she asked for some items that were stored behind the Bodhi Tree Bookstore checkout counter.

"Give me three copies of The Secret DVD," she said. "No, make that two."

I felt like telling her, "If you'd like some advice, may I suggest making it zero? Because in my opinion you're about to spend $60 on a bunch of bullshit."

But I kept my mouth shut. Because what I wanted to say would have been just that: my opinion. Like Alice's Restaurant, you can get almost anything you want, philosophically, at the Bodhi Tree. As with life. Different gettings for different folks, that's how the menu works.

The clerk reached back and picked up the DVDs. "Great Mother's Day presents," he told red-haired tattoo girl. "They can change someone's life." "I hope so," she replied.

She glanced over at me with another big smile. Irresistible. I smiled back. The Secret wasn't my Bodhi Tree shopping choice. But I'm me. She's she. Maybe that's all I needed to learn from my visit to the bookstore.

I still bought the four books though.

When it isn’t good to do good

Before I put away the RSSB newsletter that was the focus of my last post, I wanted to address the curious case of when doing good isn't really a good thing.

At least, if you've adopted a fundamentalist mind set. I'm familiar with that mental condition, because it was an integral aspect of my psyche for many years.

What happens is that your religious faith becomes the lens through which life's experiences are filtered. Everything takes on the hue of the dogmatic teachings that you've assimilated.

So in Sant Mat (my experience has been with the Radha Soami Satsang Beas branch of this movement), seva or service is considered to be important. This basically means "volunteering." But since the seva is done for the guru, or on his behalf, the work takes on a special taste.

Bhakti (devotion) flavored. There's nothing wrong with that. Selfless service in a spirit of love is good. However, if we limit ourselves to only serving people under the auspices of a religious group, this is limiting.

Quite a few RSSB disciples think nothing of driving hundreds of miles to perform weekend seva at one of the centers built by the organization, such as those in Petaluma, California and Fayetteville, North Carolina. That's admirable. But is it any different from performing a secular sort of service closer to home?

Apparently, judging from what I read in the May 2007 newsletter. Vince Savarese wrote that the sense of separation from God and the guru comes from our own ego.

This force in the mind is what urges us to enjoy old habits, create doubts, cause frustration. In contrast ego also directs us to achieve great noble ambitions, do good deeds, achieve noble goals for ourselves and society.

The more I thought about it, the stranger that statement came to seem. Savarese praises oblivion, which I assume means complete union with God. What should you do until you're obliterated, though?

Again, RSSB puts great emphasis on doing good deeds on behalf of itself—the organization. If this is a manifestation of ego, then why are disciples urged to contribute money, help construct buildings, organize local weekly meetings, and many other activities?

Because the good works done for the guru are considered to be of higher value than good works done for other people. Christians have it all over Sant Mat in this regard. Most preachers urge their flock to give of themselves to the poor, needy, and infirm. By contrast, I rarely, if ever, recall a RSSB speaker encouraging the faithful to volunteer time and energy for any cause other than RSSB.

The result, from my years of observation, generally produces more egocentricity among disciple sevadars, not less. The oh-so-special good works done for the oh-so-special guru create an oh-so-special feeling of, well, specialness among the faithful.

I know, because I had those feelings for several decades. And I knew many others with a similar attitude of "It's so wonderful to be serving God incarnate! I'm the selfless servant of the guru, which puts me at the foot of the Lord!"

It's hard to be humble when you're so close to the highest divinity. I'm happier now just being a run-of-the-mill do-gooder, helping out where and when I can, not considering that I'm any better or worse than any other volunteer.

My wife just got back from walking over thirty dogs at the Salem Humane Society. That doesn't count for much in the eyes of Sant Mat, but it sure does for me. And for a bunch of canines who had been cooped up in their kennels and needed to go.

Sant Mat doesn’t make much sense to me anymore

I used to enjoy reading the "Western USA Regional Newsletter," published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), because I wanted to have my spiritual beliefs confirmed. I still enjoy reading Vince Savarese's monthly message in the newsletter.

For the same reason.

Whereas before I focused on how much sense the RSSB teachings (also known as Sant Mat) made, leaving blurry all of the paradoxes, contradictions, and unanswered questions, now I zero in on the absurdities.

They've always been there, of course. I just did a good job of ignoring them for some thirty years. In this regard I was like a previously fundamentalist Muslim, Anwar Shaikh, whose story is related in Bruce Grierson's "U-Turn."

He was reading the Koran one day when a revelation hit.

I came to the conclusion, all of a sudden, that it was Muhammad himself who was telling the people how to bow before him in the name of Allah, as though it were a command from Allah. By now, I felt that this veil of ignorance had been lifted from my mind.

I was no longer willing to study the Koran through faith. I started reading it critically and rationally. And as I went through it, I realized the Koran did not appeal to me anymore the way it used to do, the way it had for the last twenty-five years…The moment I started reading the Koran critically, it looked entirely [like] another book to me.

Now, I can hear the true believers saying to themselves, "Ah, how unfortunate. Both this Muslim guy and this Church of the Churchless blogger have fallen prey to the doubting intellect, failing to trust their soul's intuition."

Speaking for the blogger, I beg to differ. I'm still all for the Aha! awareness that accompanies intuitive insight. In fact, that's what produces the skepticism that now washes over me when I read Sant Mat literature.

Before, I selectively chose which passages to embrace. That was a decidedly intellectual exercise. I'd sort the mystical wheat from the nonsensical chaff, figuring that if parts of the RSSB world view were appealing that was reason enough to remain an uncritical devotee.

I can't do that anymore. I read Sant Mat literature more holistically now. I'm looking for a Big Picture. If there are significant blank spots in the spiritual scenery, I can't ignore them.

Mystery always will be with us. I'm fine with not-knowing. But when someone claims to have knowledge of what lies beyond the physical, and asserts truths that can be put into English words, then that language can be judged with both intuition and intellection.

I open up the May 2007 newsletter and begin reading. Savarese says that "perfection seems unattainable, beyond the capacity of most of us."

Yet there are perfect beings, Perfect Masters.

I wish this was true. I really do. But there's no evidence of them. Their perfection is supposed to exist on another plane of reality, unknown to us mere mortals. Here on earth, that perfection isn't obvious.

Occasionally I hear from disciples of the Perfect Masters who have had intimate contact with them. The stories that are related to me confidentially throw cold water on the "there are perfect beings" hypothesis. My own experience, likewise.

I read on. I'm told that there is a mystic sound (shabd) that is the creator and creative power that sustains the entire creation. And so perfection exists within it."

Well, the two statements don't necessarily mesh. Since the creation seems imperfect (for example, George Bush is President and Paris Hilton is famous), why wouldn't the creator of all this be imperfect?

Leaving that aside, Savarese also says that "this sound or shabd which we hear or will hear is within ourselves." This makes a lot more sense. If there is a power that sustains everything in existence, and I'm an existent thing, that power must be part of me (or is me).

However, I turn the page and find Julian Johnson quoted. Johnson says that you can't get in touch with the omnipresent divine power of shabd without being initiated by a perfect human being, the satguru. He speaks of the guru, of shabd, and of spiritual freedom (jivan mukti).

There is not only a definite rule that one must have them all or none, but there is a very definite order in which they must come, and this fixed order cannot be changed. Their sequence is fixed by an immutable law of nature; it admits of no variation. It lies not in the power of any man to modify this law and this sequence.

The Satguru must come first. The Shabd-dhun comes second, and then comes jivan mukti. This is the order established by nature or God. No man can alter it.

But wait. How do we know that what Johnson says is true? Is it evident in the laws of nature? No, because if it was, scientists would have discovered this fact by now. Has it been revealed directly by God? No, because if it had been, there would be both evidence of God and of this supposedly "immutable law."

It turns out that, just as Anwar Shaikh intuited, a man is the source of the revelation that says "this man speaks the truth about God." This is no different from Christians believing that the Bible is the word of God because it says in the Bible, "this is the word of God."

Or from me writing "This Church of the Churchless blog invariably contains wise, brilliant, marvelously written, irrefutable observations about the nature of spirituality, religion, and philosophical thought." If you don't believe me, just read that last sentence again.

In "God is not Great," Christopher Hitchens (who I usually find irritating, but I'm enjoying his book) says:

Thus the mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made…And yet—the believers still claim to know! Not just to know, but to know everything.

Not just to know that god exists, and that he created and supervised the whole enterprise, but also to know what "he" demands of us—from our diet to our observances to our sexual morality.

…The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.

When I read RSSB literature now, I'm aware of how humancentric and egocentric most of the Sant Mat teachings are. Their truth is to be taken on faith, since absolute devotion to a man, the satguru of our time, is considered to be a prerequisite for learning the mysteries of the cosmos.

How or why this is the case—not explained. Even when I was a RSSB true believer, I never understood why initiation by a "perfect master" was necessary for me to contact the all-pervading conscious energy of spirit or shabd.

If it's all-pervading, the essence of everything (including me), why do I need to be connected to it? This is a big unanswered question in the Sant Mat literature, one which I relegated to the back of my mind for many years.

It's good to look freshly at unexamined assumptions. If something doesn't make sense, there's several possibilities. Maybe it isn't understood well enough. Or, it isn't true.

With Sant Mat, for a long time I favored the former explanation. Now, I'm strongly leaning toward the latter.

Christians admit their religion is based on hate

I'm pretty harsh on Christianity, along with every other faith-based religion that asks us to believe in things unseen and a god unknown.

But it takes a Christian to really reveal the dark side of Christianity—a true believer whose world view is so blinded by an egocentric conviction that he's got all the answers, he doesn't see how deep is the moral morass into which he's sunk.

Such a man is Rick Scarborough of Vision America, an organization that claims to be "restoring the original American vision." This supposedly includes the right to discriminate against, hate, and vilify people who are different from you.

The House of Representatives has passed a federal Hate Crimes Act that would expand the definition of hate crimes to include attacks against homosexuals and transgendered people. On Fox News I heard Scarborough inveighing about this threat to hatred.

Religious freedom is about to be dealt a mortal blow, and religious tolerance is about to become history if this legislation becomes the law of the land.

Huh? Hard to understand what the hell he's getting at, but a Fox reporter explained.

Some religious groups fear prosecution and intimidation of pastors whose sermons against homosexuality inadvertently inspire a hate crime.

Oh, poor pastors. They're demanding that society tolerate their spouting of hatred toward homosexuals, even if it leads to violence, while basking in the hate crimes protection already offered (for attacks based on race, religion, or national origin).

Consider the delicious irony. And bullshit. Christianity, a religion that supposedly is founded on love, is up in arms at the prospect of hate crime legislation being passed. If this isn't enough to make you an atheist, or at least an agnostic, what is?

Yes, not all Christians are anti-gay. But an awful lot are. In fact, it's difficult to come up with anything but a religious reason for abhorring homosexuality.

This is why Vision America screams "the hate crimes bill would criminalize Christianity." Fine with me. Criminalize away. If you can't practice your religion without discriminating against other people, you don't deserve to enjoy unfettered religious freedom.

It's good to see a counterpoint to the Christian right prejudicial mindset. A "Call to Courage" campaign has set out to urge believers not to be taken in by the anti-gay wing of Christianity. Motto:

Religious-based bigotry…Let's end it now and forever

Amen to that.

It deeply disturbs me to read letters to the editor like the one that appeared in our local newspaper today. It was written by Angela Makarenko, a 13 year old who, sadly, has already been sucked into the hate-filled whirlpool that passes for mainstream Christianity these days.

I know Salem legislators are deciding laws regarding gay rights, and I'm against that. Since the day I was born, I went to church called Slavic Christian Church of Salem.

I'm Christian, and my parents taught me that God created Adam and Eve – one man and one woman.

Most people say that they were born gay. You can't be born gay, you choose to be gay – it's your lifestyle.

I have three nieces, and by the time they go to school, teachers are going to be teaching them that it's OK to be gay. I don't want that to happen.

Please, no gay rights.

Angela, sometime you're going to Google your name and find this blog post. I hope so much that by the time you do, you've opened your mind and heart to a more compassionate philosophy of life.

You're confined in a small fundamentalist pasture right now. Jump over the fence. Head for the horizon.

There's a lot more joy and love out there than you'll ever find in the Slavic Christian Church of Salem.

Turn back, if you’re on the wrong road

My statistics instructor in graduate school cited this Emerson quote frequently, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds..." He stimulated me to look up the essay on Self-Reliance and read what comes next:

…adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though you contradict every thing you said today.

Yesterday I ran into an old friend at the natural food store. He's a long-time initiate of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, like me. Both of us have traveled through a lot of "what's it all about?" mystico-spiritual twists and turns.

We seem to have emerged at pretty much the same place: cluelessness.

Whenever I run into Paul I hope that there isn't frozen food in my shopping cart, because we can chat for a long time about this and that. Friday's conversation centered on our mutual interest in Oregon land use policies, and how short-term greed is endangering the long-term health of some marvelous ecosystems—like the Metolius and Little North Santiam rivers.

At one point I found myself saying, "This sure is different from what I used to believe." I felt a bit—just slightly—apologetic. But I didn't know who I was apologizing to.

The Brian who once held the different belief? The old discarded belief? The guru who was instrumental in my once holding the belief that I no longer believe in?

I don't know. I just recognized the residual inertial power of believing. It's as if once strongly held beliefs have a last-gasp foothold in my psyche, where they resist being dumped completely in favor of a more attractive world view.

I told Paul that in some melodramatic moments, when I imagine myself at death's door, wondering what I've done with my life that has been meaningful or made a difference, I picture the Twin Hills in our neighborhood that are the centerpiece of a proposed 137 acre subdivision that my wife and I have been leading the fight against.

Trundled up to the property in my last hours, I look at the hillsides—which are covered with a beautiful vineyard instead of 43 homes. I think, "I've done something. Which was good. And real." I smile. (Maybe because the hills are shaped like breasts.) Then pass away.

This goes against the message that I used to promulgate in countless (well, not quite that many) talks to my spiritual group. Plus several books.

Back then I looked on this life as maya, illusion, shadows dancing on the cavern wall. Genuine existence lay beyond, in some metaphysical realm that I hadn't yet reached, but was confident that I would someday.

I still hope to get there, if there's any "there" to reach. However, now this world seems pretty damn real to me. And worth trying to protect, just like any other friend or loved one who I see is in danger.

A copy of Bruce Grierson's "U-Turn" arrived while we were on vacation. It was the first thing I opened when I picked up our mail at the post office. The initial chapters have hooked me. Heck, the very first page hooked me. It had a single line:

No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.
--Turkish proverb

Grierson tells fascinating stories about people who made either religious or secular U-turns. Michael Allen Fox was a philosophy professor who argued that experimenting on animals was ethically defensible. He wrote a book, The Case for Animal Experimentation: An Evolutionary and Ethical Perspective.

But nine months after it was released came an event that must be every publisher's nightmare: The author decided that he disagreed with himself…Fox stopped eating meat, and encouraged others to do the same…He no longer condoned animal experimentation. He wrote another book, Deep Vegetarianism…He continues to teach moral philosophy, and to host workshops, tap-tap-tapping the beat of deep vegetarianism in his hemp shoes.

Beautiful. As is Julia Hill, who wandered into a Earth First! Rally in northern California and soon found herself becoming a "tree sitter" in a thousand year-old redwood that was marked to be cut down. She was told she'd have to stay on a platform eighteen stories off the ground for five days.

She ended up staying in the canopy of Luna, the redwood, for 738 days. Now, that's a life U-turn.

During one particularly terrible storm on the eightieth day, Hill, sleep-deprived and borderline delusional, heard Luna "speak." The tree dispensed a pithy bit of wisdom of exactly the sort my grandfather, in his own journals, told of receiving just when he needed it, when his faith was wavering.

What Hill heard was this: Let go. Trees that bend to the wind, live. Then and there she lost her fear of death. On a jerry-built platform not much bigger than a crib, she was, by her own description, reborn.

It's crazily egocentric, more delusional than Julia was up in Luna, to consider than you , or me, or anyone, knows how many turns—180 degrees or otherwise—are the proper amount to take on life's journey from first breath to last gasp.

A dramatic religious conversion leads to calls of "praise be!" from like-minded believers. An equally dramatic conversion from that conversion, "backslider!"

But who is to judge what constitutes forward movement? More basically, is there anything but forward movement between birth and death? Grierson writes:

By some definitions, having a moment of clarity and pulling a complete 180 in response is a spiritual event…Every day, in almost every field, individuals perceive themselves to be on the wrong side of a divide…The "second brain" in their gut – that ten-billion nerve knot – tells them their life must change.

…A certain amount of scorn and ridicule is almost guaranteed to pound down like purgatorial rain upon the reverser. You watch through your fingers the U-turner on a course of self-reinvention – which can, in the moment, look an awful lot like a course of self-destruction.

…But reversers themselves don't want our sympathy. For this is, at least subjectively, a generally positive phenomenon. The price paid is worth it, because the U-turner is now, at least, living an authentic life – perhaps even fulfilling, to some extent, Mahatma Ghandi's notion that "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."

The quote at the top of page 1 also is a gift to U-turners.

"I cannot say who I will be tomorrow. Each day is new, and each day I can be born again."
--Paul Auster, City of Glass

Viewing life through a narrow bandwidth of ideology

About time to leave Maui. Hawaiian shirts have been bought. Waves have been boogie-boarded. Some tropical photons have managed to make it through SPF 30 and gifted me a take-home tan.

I'll let a Maui resident, James Miner, do much of the speaking today. He wrote an intriguing letter that was published in the Maui News last Saturday—a philosophical cut above the usual letter to the editor fare.

It speaks to me on several levels. Over on my other blog I wrote a few days ago that Maui overdevelopment makes for sad sights. That's part of what Miner is getting at.

But just a part. Almost everywhere the land is being overdeveloped. So are our psyches. Surely there's a connection between the two.

Unnatural buildings going up here, the product of minds divorced from natural ways of being.

I've spent a lot of time in the ocean the past ten days, flowing this way and that. Swimming across Napili Bay I'd feel more or less in control. Boogie-boarding down the face of a large breaking wave—I was in the grip of something much more powerful than myself.

Regardless, the ocean is a great teacher. Even when you can't describe the lessons you've learned. Like Miner says, instinct trumps ideology the closer you are to nature.

Wave. Board. Man. Coming together just so…ahhh.

At such moments, life is marvelously simple and satisfying. Could every moment be such a moment?

Here's Miner's letter:

According to evolutionary theory, at some point in prehistory we were all indigenous peoples. We leveraged our higher intellect to survive and thrive while remaining consciously attuned to our instinctual roots.

We understood the language of nature because we knew we were a part of nature. We interacted creatively with the elemental world, recognizing the intimate relationship between spirit and matter.

At some juncture a division appeared in the indigenous mind between intuition and instinct. Intuition became deified while instinct was demonized. Our intuitive resources gazed heavenward, forsaking our original intimate relationship with earth and nature.

We began to worship ideals and forces disconnected from earth, succumbing to what many anthropologists call "ideological pathology."

Now we chase imaginary ideals like a carrot on a stick. We worship religious ideals completely devoid of environmental responsibility. We deify polarized political and economic systems. We crave mass accouterments of power and status. We laud attention on the fluff of celebrity emanating from the "divine" portal of video technology, hoping to avoid the eventual crash of our addictive denial.

Because we view life through such a narrow bandwidth of ideology, we comprehend no other language. We now view nature as this mute, foreign, organic substance needing to be conquered, consumed and manipulated. Because nature expresses without a human dialect, we proclaim it devoid of spirit.

This is how we view Haleakala – a distant molehill voyeuristically framed in religious or scientific fundamentalism. Can you hear Haleakala calling? Can you feel her?

Photo from Hawaiian LandMark Images

Rocks in the thought-stream are natural too

As so how often happens on this here Church of the Churchless blog, a comment to one of my posts diverts my stream of consciousness in a fresh direction. In this case, one that I'd already been meandering toward.

Edward's response to my "Flowing with waves while sitting on the beach" made me think Oh, yeah, so true. His comment had a delightful Edwardian neo-Zen flavor to it that led me sit up even while I was lying down (on the sand).

Lately, I have been having difficulty seeing some thoughts as unworthy, ("get out of my way,") and others as worthy. I read a NYT interview with Russell Simmons, and he said something to the effect that living in permanent satori was the ideal. Dismissing parts of my internal life is somewhat akin to growing a beard and declaring that my chin has been subdued by spiritual discipline.

Which is a wave and which a rock? I don't want to push the metaphor too far, (water feeling like concrete, etc.); I don't think that there is an imperative to have an opinion on each interior stimulus.

The feelings come unbidden, thoughtlessly, and the thoughts come numbly. I perceive some connections, but they are like the coincidences that happen in a dream.

I have the experiences, and just as importantly, the immediate creation of now wants me to have experiences. The five colors, the five tones, the five tastes can all be taken in. The stomach is not separate from the eye. "Therefore the sage discards this for that," is an expression of arrogance, a Laoism that is part of a dualist canon.

Can you discard the parts that are not your original face? Say it now!!

Yes, which is a wave and which a rock? Which is a worthy thought and which an unworthy thought? What should be discarded from the thought-stream and what embraced?

This morning I was in my usual shade-spot under a palm tree on Napili Beach, trying not to try to want larger waves to enter the bay, frustrated that I was feeling frustrated that my boogie board had been gathering dust sand the past few days.

Two couples walked by. I heard a loud "Shit!" It had come from an overweight man wearing tennis shoes with socks. He'd been trudging along the waterline and was shocked, absolutely shocked, that a wave rolled over his feet.

"Duh," I thought, "what do you expect when you walk on the beach? Dry pavement?"

Apparently, because his New Jersey accent (which sounded remarkably like what I hear on "The Sopranos"—plus the guy looked a lot like Mafia, which is why I was careful to just think what I thought rather than blurt it out aloud) continued to echo over the beach.

"I've got mud in my shoes. I'll meet you at the caaar!" he boomed in a pissed-off voice to his companions, who had left him behind. "Come on, get over it" they yelled back. I had the feeling that they were used to putting up with his nonsense.

So what was I supposed to do? Not be affected by this astounding display of beachy ignorance? When someone wearing socks and tennis shoes is offended by the ocean doing what it does naturally, make waves, "Duh, what do you expect?" is a fitting response.

But a momentary one. For this was just a moment among many moments on the beach today. To linger on it after the moment had passed would have distracted me from what came next. And after that. With more to come.

From Thomas Cleary's Soul of the Samurai.

The basic mind is the mind that does not stay in a particular place but pervades the whole body and whole being. The errant mind is the mind that congeals in one place brooding about something; so when the basic mind congeals, focused on one point, it becomes the so-called errant mind.

…To make an analogy, the basic mind is like water that does not stagnate anywhere, while the errant mind is like ice that cannot be used for washing your hands or your head. When you melt ice into water so that it flows freely, then you can use it to wash your hands or feet or anything else.

…The idea of getting rid of whatever is on your mind also becomes something on your mind. If you don't think about it, it disappears of itself, and you naturally become unminding.

I'm bringing home a print of this marvelous "Wave Sculptures" photograph by Victoria McCormick. It's amazing. And not retouched. It's what a North Shore wave actually looks like, if we could see with the eye of McCormick's camera.

Complex. Edgy. With many surfaces. Not only smooth and flowing. Also sharp.

Rocks and waves do blend.