Church of the Churchless

Churchless have more faith than believers

When you don't believe in religion or dogma any more, most people think you've become less spiritual – not as committed to fathoming the mystery of God.

Actually, the opposite is true. Jack Haas says it well in his "The Way of Wonder."

Faith, absolute faith, is the acceptance of walking with eyes fully open into the infinite darkness; faith is without expectation, hope, petition, or piety, or it is not faith, it is merely belief. Belief is a characteristic of concept, faith is a characteristic of mystery; for 'belief' is the acceptance of something we do not know, whereas 'faith' is the acceptance that we do not know.

…For just as we can receive the knowable only by 'knowing', so it is that we can receive the Unknowable only by not-knowing.

If God is considered to be the One – infinite, omnipresent, without a second, all-pervading ultimate reality – then what is there to know, and who is there to know it?

Making God into an object redefines the supreme divinity into an entity like us: a thing, force, or person that exists within existence. This anthropomorphizing succeeds in making religion possible, for now God can be reached via a "path," just like the Eiffel Tower can.

Begin here. Do this. End up at God's doorstep.

Neat and tidy. All that's required is to believe in the rightness of the path. God no longer is unknown mystery, for both the way and the endpoint are tidily defined.

Only problem (and it's a big one): religion has converted Godliness into a concept that can be understood by the human mind. Wonder and Mystery have been collapsed into commandments, tenets, beliefs, theologies, and other attempts to force the unknown One into the cage of conceptual structures.

Genuine faith is a rejection of these graven images that humans have formed not out of stone, metal, or wood, but words. Genuine faith is an unreserved opening to what can't be known or described, because God isn't an object.

More from Haas:

When we have given God back his or her rightful being – which is to say, his or her unknowability – then what happens is that we begin to also find out our own proper place in the cosmos; when the event (God) which is so important to our lives becomes impossible to understand, then we also become impossible to understand, after all we were 'created in his own image'. And if that image is beyond our imagination, then we must also be beyond our own imagination.

When God's attributes are gone, our own attributes are gone, and only then is it possible for the two mysteries to blend into One; before this absolute unknowing occurred – when we 'knew' God and ourselves – we saw them as distinct, different entities – for that was the only way to 'know' them (i.e. by separating them), but when we finally 'unknow' God and ourselves, only then, when the lines of division vanish, can the separate entities merge into One.

I used to believe in a path back to God. That's what religions offer: an understandable roadmap to replace the terra incognita of an incomprehensible cosmos.

Eventually it dawned on me that every path necessarily lies on known territory (otherwise no one would know about it). Yet what I'd been drawn to since my childhood was beyond the light: darkness.

Now I'm comfortable with not-knowing anything about God. And in that ignorance…I feel much closer to God.

Meaning of the universe may be meaninglessness

If a movie ever is made of my life, this coffee house moment has to be in it. In an intuitive flash, I got a glimpse into what the universe is all about.

Nothing. None of the above. No answer. Nobody home. No way to know.

A bunch of negatives. But the feeling I had was wonderfully positive.

Unfortunately, it didn't last. While it did, though, I felt lighter, more joyful, the weight of a gigantic question mark having been lifted off of my inquiring psyche.

Reading the first few pages of a book, "The Way of Wonder," preceded my mini satori.

I'm not sure which lines led me to stop sipping my Starbucks skinny venti vanilla latte, look up from the book, and gaze upon Salem's Court Street with fresh eyes. It could have been these words:

Life is an unknowable, inexplicable miracle; there is no solution, and … there is not supposed to be a solution. It is all an unsolvable mystery, and is unreachably far beyond the mind's ken. And that includes the self, like it or not.

…'Wonder', then, is the moment when answerless questions of the universe become not only fully obvious, but electrifying; it is the point where the individual is released from the limiting possibility that life is knowable, and the mind is cut free from the cognitive fetters which enclose it.

Those are words. Not the wordless aha! that washed over me.

For a while I simply looked at the street scene with a lot more wonder, and a lot fewer question marks in my mind, than when I walked into the Starbucks.

I knew that there weren't any answers. I knew that ultimate reality always would remain the ultimate mystery. I knew that I'd die not knowing what It Was All About.

And that was OK. In fact, better than OK: perfect. I thought, "The meaning of life is that we can't know what it is; questioning is the only answer we'll ever get."

Later, on page 157, I found that Haas explained what I was feeling in another fashion:

There is a point in life when all theories, ideas, proofs, and arguments fall irrevocably impotent, and the individual, determinedly bent hard upon comprehending his or her life in the implausible cosmos, will suddenly sense that none of what has been told to them about life is true; that Life, in fact, is not about understanding, but about living, and that the more we try to understand … the less we live.

For there is no wisdom in trying to understand what is not understandable. And there is less wisdom in imagining that one understands what one does not understand. And there is less reason still in retreating from the realization that we absolutely 'do not know,' and shrinking back into a secure, limited lie, instead of accepting the confounding Enigma, and thus embracing life's majesty completely, because of the very fact that it is well beyond our limited comprehension.

This is Life. Ours is the choice whether to obscure it with words, or worship it with wonder.

Miracles are just the law of large numbers

If enough things happen, some will be "miraculous." That's a given, if a miracle is taken to mean something way out of the ordinary.

Every time somebody wins a gigantic lottery prize, that's a miracle. What are the odds!? Hundreds of millions or more against those numbers being picked.

Yet, some set of numbers necessarily had to be chosen. So the winner feels it was utterly unlikely he or she got the prize, while it was completely predictable that eventually the money would be won by somebody.

In "Folk Numeracy and Middle Land" Michael Shermer discusses our inability to comprehend the laws of large numbers, mistaking them for other-worldly miracles.

Let us define a miracle as an event with million-to-one odds of occurring (intuitively, that seems rare enough to earn the moniker). Let us also assign a number of one bit per second to the data that flow into our senses as we go about our day and assume that we are awake for 12 hours a day. We get 43,200 bits of data a day, or 1.296 million a month. Even assuming that 99.999 percent of these bits are totally meaningless (and so we filter them out or forget them entirely), that still leaves 1.3 "miracles" a month, or 15.5 miracles a year.

Thanks to our confirmation bias, in which we look for and find confirmatory evidence for what we already believe and ignore or discount contradictory evidence, we will remember only those few astonishing coincidences and forget the vast sea of meaningless data.

So it's possible it will rain on Obama's parade tomorrow. But if that happens, it won't be prayer that made it happen. Just a meteorological anomaly.

God rejects prayers for rain on Obama

Excellent news for those of us who want Obama to win in November: God is on his side!

You want proof? Easy. Anti-Obama Christians have been praying for rain in Denver tomorrow, to wash out his outdoor acceptance speech.

Here's the forecast. 0% chance of precipitation. Will a miracle happen? Odds aren't zero, but close to it.

“Shut up” video has a lot to say

Thanks to a comment from Dvorah-gee! on my "Hey, God, shut up! No more conversations" post, I've been able to enjoy a music video made by disciples of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (not the musician).

It made me smile. And I appreciated the message. Shut up! indeed is a fine response…to ourselves, when our minds chatter away unnecessarily about ridiculous bullshit.

Be happy. Love. Hard to argue with those sentiments.

I also liked another video from Dvorah-gee! that puts forth the utterly reasonable proposition that the meaning of life is meaninglessness.

I'd never heard of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (guess at a certain spiritual level you earn a double Indian honorific). His goals, according to the Wikipedia article, are to relieve stress on the individual level and to relieve disease and violence on a societal level.

A CNN piece described his visit to Iraq and a meeting with the country's prime minister. Apparently quite a few Iraqis resonated with his meditative/yoga philosophy – which I wouldn't have expected.

Browsing through the Sri Sri and The Art of Living web sites, I found too much of a guru-focus for my taste. But at least this guy seems sincere, doesn't take himself overly seriously, respects other faiths, and is trying to make the world a better place.

If only all religious leaders did the same.

My response to offer of eternal life

Sometimes the notion of dying scares me to death. Like I said in "Who has the best deal on death?" it isn't the dying that bothers me so much, it's the not existing. Forever.

A few days ago "Teacher" left a comment on that post, offering me a darn good deal. (I apologize for not replying sooner, Teacher; I've been busy dealing with some neighborhood land use issues.)

As I have taught others, it would not be impossible to teach You how you may transform yourself into a Neo Being with eternal life and preserved consciousness, as in "Brian will always be Brian".

Sounds great. But…

My first reaction was that I took up a similar offer in 1971, when I was initiated by an Indian guru, Charan Singh, into the Sant Mat / Radha Soami Satsang Beas system of meditation.

Supposedly the guru took up residence in his radiant form at my third eye, and was going to guide me through inner regions of consciousness until I realized my true nature as pure soul: undying, eternal, formless, pure vibrational energy.

Never happened.

Doesn't mean it won't (I still meditate every day, though not in the same fashion as before). However, the thirty-five years or so I spent pursuing eternal life in that fashion makes me wary of practices that sound similar.

Namely, learning how to transform one's consciousness under the direction of a teacher, or guru.

Now, it isn't learning from a teacher that concerns me. I learn Tai Chi from an instructor. I learn ballroom dance from an instructor. I've got no problem learning from someone who knows more about something than I do.

It's the nature of the relationship with a teacher that has to feel right. I jumped from traditional Shotokan karate to a more flexible mixed-arts style partly because I got tired of the "sensei is always right" attitude. I liked being able to ask questions, to talk back, to not have to follow rigid formalities.

So my response to Teacher is: sure, tell me what you've got. If you don't want to share it publicly, you can email me via the link at the top of the left sidebar.

Hopefully the practice can be communicated from a distance. I no longer travel for spiritual inspiration. And I don't believe in paying for it, so when Teacher asked what I had to offer, I thought "Not money, for sure."

I guess what I have to offer any teacher, such as my Tai Chi and dance instructors, is diligence. When I study something, I take it seriously. I pay attention in class; I jot down notes afterward; I practice (though my wife and I have been slacking off on dancing during the summer).

The way I see it, if a consciousness-changing practice truly is scientific, as Teacher describes the process of becoming a "Neo Being" to be, it should be able to be communicated without a lot of mystic mumbo-jumbo.

Or, if it truly flows from some divine source, one would think that it could be transmitted directly to someone – in a vision, dream, spark of inspiration, satori, whatever you want to call it.

Anyway, tell me more, Teacher, if you like. I'm always open to new ideas. I liked "The Matrix," so all the talk of Neo Being sounds pretty cool. What I have to offer is…interest.

Spiritual portents in Beijing Olympics

I've been spending so much hours watching the Olympics every evening, I figure I might as well try to suck some cosmic significance out of my TV time.

Some spiritual (and profane) observations:

…How come godless China has way more gold medals than the godly United States? Our president ends every speech with "God bless America." What's gone wrong with our blessing?

…While watching the opening ceremonies that were choreographed for marvelously disciplined thousands, I wanted to move to China and become part of an egoless society where the individual is a cog in a societal machine. But then I realized that I don't even like to stand in line for more than 30 seconds at the grocery checkout lane, and cancelled my immigration application.

…Usain Bolt, the record breaking sprinter from Jamaica, crosses himself while in the blocks and points one finger at the sky. After winning, he then engages in an astoundingly self-centered celebration. Got to admire his cognitive dissonance.

…A Cuban runner had on the biggest gold cross that I've seen yet at the games. So much for godless communism (if you're a star athlete, at least).

…Lauryn Williams, who dropped a baton for the U.S. team in a relay race (causing disqualification), said that "Maybe someone has a voodoo doll out on the U.S." That's a great theory, since the men's team also dropped the baton. Nice to hear voodoo mentioned on national TV as a supernatural force, rather than Jesus.

…It's amazing to me that Jamaica has so many world class runners who are passing drug tests given the island's reputation for primo ganja. (Of course, so does Oregon, where I live, and Eugene is billed as the nation's track capital.)

--"The Professor," a.k.a. Todd Rogers, strikes me as an enlightened beach volleyball being (guy on right). Maybe I should start wearing my caps backward and shave my beard into a goatee. And, learn to jump like a kangaroo. Or is it the cool shades?

…Beach volleyball also is worth watching for other reasons, unnecessarily analyzed by a female professor. Yes, as she says, it's the year of the butt. I accept the divine turning of the cosmic wheel.

…Being such a moral person, I'd be pleased to support PETA's anti-fur Olympics themed campaign. Especially if swimmer Amanda Beard will show up at my door and ask me personally, looking just as she does in her poster.

Anyone else getting some mystic meaning from the Olympics?

Real and false faith

"Faith" is one of those words that people use a lot, but sloppily. That is, the meaning is assumed rather than being clearly defined.

So I enjoyed reading a message ("why argue faith?") over on the Church of the Churchless Google Groups discussion forum, which is rarely used – except by spammers. Jptxs (probably not a real name) has some interesting things to say about faith.

So you can take the definition of faith and now use some substitution
and come up with this:

Faith is an opinion or conviction not based on proof.

If that is true, then one can't really disprove a matter of faith,
either.  Right?  If there was no proof in the first place, how can one
offer any argument or proof that would sway someone who actually had
real faith in something.  

… All this brings me to my question: why does anyone bother to argue any
issue to which they claim to have faith?  If you truly have faith in
something, isn't it beyond reproach?  You may have lots of little
beliefs that have built up around your faith you may argue about, but
why argue about the core articles of faith?

Bonus points question: if someone is willing to argue about something
they claim to have faith in, is that a sign that it's really only a
belief that they will drop with proof?

Good questions. It seems to me that what people usually call "faith" really is more akin to a belief founded on shaky evidence.

They have faith that Jesus saves because the Bible tells them so. They have faith that a guru is God because they sense divinity in his presence. They have faith that keeping kosher is correct because their culture supports the dietary laws.

In each case, the faithful can provide reasons – albeit flimsy – that a theological position is founded in reality rather than fantasy. Thus their faith actually is a semi-logical conclusion, not a blind leap.

So, hey, if you want to embrace faith, why not go all the way? Open yourself to the unknown, a.k.a. God, without a whit of proof, none at all, nada, nothing, about what, if anything, lies over the horizon of Mystery.

I've plowed this philosophical ground in a number of posts, including "God wants to be forsaken." However, Alan Watts says it much better (not surprisingly). Here's some quotes from one of my favorite books, "The Wisdom of Insecurity."

We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use it here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would "lief" or wish it to be.

The believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be.

Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.

…To discover the ultimate Reality of life – the Absolute, the eternal, God – you must cease to try to grasp it in the form of idols. These idols are not just crude images, such as the mental picture of God as an old gentleman on a golden throne.

They are our beliefs, our cherished preconceptions of the truth, which block the unreserved opening of mind and heart to reality.

…What religion calls the vision of God is found in giving up any belief in the idea of God.

…If we cling to belief in God, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go.

Obama outshines McCain in faith forum

I doubt that Barack Obama will be using a Church of the Churchless endorsement in his presidential campaign, but I'll offer it anyway: he got more kudos from me than John McCain did as I watched yesterdays' "Civil Forum" sponsored by Rick Warren's Camelback Church.

Still, neither candidate impressed me from a churchless perspective. No big surprise. Heck, they were speaking in a church. And trying to appeal to evangelical voters.

Both Obama and McCain struck me as sincere. Each has deeply felt religious convictions, so far as I could tell. I expected McCain to be less comfortable in the Forum, since he doesn't speak about religion as much as Obama does, but he was surprisingly at ease.

(Some are wondering that this might be because he knew some of the questions ahead of time, not really being in a "cone of silence" while Obama was interviewed by Warren.)

Obama's brand of Christianity is much more palatable to me than McCain's is. Their answers to a question about evil were especially telling.

Each was asked, "Does evil exist, and if it does, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it, or do we defeat it?"

Obama's answer can be read here. I liked this part of it.

Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, but you know a lot of evil has been perpetuated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.

Contrast this nuanced and thoughtful response with what McCain said:

Defeat it. Couple points. One, if I'm president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that and I know how to do that. I will get that done.

Those words are straight from his stump speech. No thought went into them, no consideration about what the nature of evil is, no recognition that while "evil" vs. "good" makes for good applause lines, the line between these concepts is blurry rather than clear cut – as Obama pointed out.

Plus, if McCain knows how to capture Osama bin Laden, why hasn't he told the Bush administration how to do it?

Unfortunately, as a CNN commentator pointed out, McCain's religious style likely will connect emotionally more with Middle America.

Obama was more thoughtful, and thinking doesn't mesh very well with religion for lots of people. He should get most of the churchless vote though, for what that's worth (not much, sadly).

Really empty your spiritual cup

The "empty your cup" story is a favorite in spiritual circles. Most commonly, it's told from a Zen perspective.

A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor's cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. "It's overfull! No more will go in!" the professor blurted. "You are like this cup," the master replied, "How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup."

I'm attracted to emptiness. And, cups.

Every morning, before I meditate, I fill an empty cup with coffee – following the adage, Meditation and strong coffee combine to produce a feeling that all is right with the world (of course, so does the coffee alone).

But here's the thing. I know what's going to fill my cup: coffee. Similarly, the Zen master knew what he wanted to fill the professor with: Zen.

To me, this isn't genuine spiritual or mystical emptiness. You're emptying your mind with an expectation of what's going to fill the void. Lurking behind the screen of nothing is a substantial something.

You aren't really empty, because you're expected to be filled with a specific experience, knowing, emotion, understanding, vision, intuition, or whatever.

Eventually this came to be one of the problems I had with Sant Mat and Radha Soami Satsang Beas. There was a lot of talk of the meditative practice being based on emptying the mind of thoughts and concepts so the purity of soul consciousness could shine forth.

But actually the practice, surat shabd yoga, presumed a whole lot that was supposed to be kept in mind during meditation.

Do this; don't do that. Follow this sort of sound or light; shun other inner experiences. Imagine the presence of the guru; don't attend to visions of other beings. Anticipate that you'll rise to specific realms of mystic reality; don't allow yourself to head in different directions.

If you know for sure what the nature of ultimate reality, or higher consciousness, is like, then I suppose it makes sense to order that up from the vast menu board of spiritual/mystical options. "A grande surat shabd yoga enlightenment, please. Hold the maya."

However, I've come to this conclusion (open to change, as are all my conclusions): given that an experience of ultimate reality likely is going to be much different from any possible conception of it, it's best to remain as open as possible to the manner in which this truth (assuming it exists) might make an appearance.

So one of my goals in meditation is to empty my consciousness of preconceptions. Sure, that goal is something rather than nothing. But it points me in the direction of emptiness, rather than taking me farther away.

I used to feel that there was a path leading to Truth (with a capital "T"), and I was on it. Now, I see the countless religions, meditative practices, forms of spirituality, mystical belief systems, and such as akin to spokes of a wheel emanating from a central empty hub.

That's a Taoist notion. Emptiness isn't revered for what will fill it, but as itself. From the Tao Te Ching:

We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the wheel depends.
We turn clay to make a vessel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house;
And it is on these spaces where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the house depends.
Therefore just as we take advantage of what is,
we should recognize the usefulness of what is not.

Religious practice is focused on being filled with something.

True faith, though, is to empty your cup and leave it at that. (Here's another way someone said much the same thing.)

Spirituality is as simple as 1, 2, 3

It might not be apparent from my wordiness, but I really do like to keep things simple. And the basics of spirituality, philosophy, religion, the meaning of life – whatever you want to call it – can be as simple as 1, 2, 3.

There's no magic in a trinity, of course. Plus, there's any number of different 1, 2, 3's. That's one of the principles of my 1, 2, 3, which yesterday I described in a comment addressed to Brad.

My questions, of course, could be directed to anybody. Including myself. Here they are.

(1) Brad, do you believe that you know the truth about the cosmos? Or at least, that you are on a path leading to knowledge of this truth? (yes, no, don't know)

(2) Brad, if you answered "yes" to 1, do you believe that other people could find this truth in different ways? (yes, no, don't know)

(3) Brad, do you believe that a cosmos-truth seeker would make an unbroken progression toward knowing this truth, or would the path to truth take unexpected twists and turns, impossible to predict in advance? (unbroken, unexpected, or don't know)

My answers are (1) Don't know, (2) Yes (even though I didn't answer "yes" to #1), (3) Unexpected.

This says a lot about myself. I'm looking forward to getting Brad's answers, because I think they will similarly reveal some basics about where he's coming from philosophically.

These questions popped into my head, and I didn't give much thought to them before including them in my comment. Still, I think they're a good way of sorting out fundamentalists from open-minded people.

I like Question #1 because most religions and spiritual paths presume a "yes" answer from adherents. Yet I consider myself to be a serious spiritual seeker, and I find it easy to answer "don't know." In fact, given my Taoist (and Unitarian) leanings I can't imagine offering up any other response.

In my true believing days, though, I would have said "yes." No problem. A Yes to #1 does not a fundamentalist make, unless it's accompanied by a No to #2.

(Upon further consideration, as above, I now see that #2 can be answered regardless of the answer to #1 – if #2 is rephrased to say "Assuming that it's possible to know the ultimate truth about the cosmos, do you believe that people could find this truth in different ways?")

I asked this of Brad, because from his previous comments he strikes me as a No-man on this question. I could be wrong, of course. But I get the impression that he thinks that because I no longer follow the strict Sant Mat/RSSB party line, I've meandered off of the only path to divine truth.

This presumes, of course, that there's only one way to knowing the Big Truth Upstairs (or Inside). Recently someone emailed me about my seeming flight from orthodoxy, after writing a book – "Life is Fair"— that was published by RSSB.

I told the person:

I haven't "left the path," as you put it. I'm still very much on the path. Only difference is, I no longer believe that there's only one way along the path, or that there's only one path. This is, by the way, just what Gurinder Singh [current RSSB guru] says, from what I hear. So all I've left is the religious or fundamentalist aspect of Sant Mat, which I consider to be progress rather than backsliding.

Then there's question #3, about a path to truth being predictably straight, or marked by unexpected twists and turns. From my reading of the most respected mystical and spiritual literature, there's virtually universal agreement that twists and turns is how the road to truth is laid out.

Why, the very word "conversion" implies an abrupt about turn. Fundamentalists simply consider that there's only one abrupt turn allowed on a spiritual, mystical, philosophical, or religious path – the one that brings a person to a particular set of dogmas.

Any further changes of direction are a no-no, which is why Brad (and others) take me to task for not sticking with a certain way for my entire life. This is precisely how a religious fundamentalist would think, but it's not how genuine mystics look upon the "wayless way."

If your perspective on life, consciousness, and the cosmos isn't changing, you're stuck in a dead zone. Or, I suppose, you could be at such an exalted spiritual level that you've reached the peak of Mount Truth and have nowhere else to go.

Unlikely. Very unlikely. Which is why my three questions are a good guide to sorting out the open-minded seekers from the closed-minded fundamentalists.

By their answers, you shall know them.

Life is just what it is

How's this for a sign of how close I'm coming to Buddha-hood?

This afternoon Laurel and I, plus another couple, visited the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery in central Oregon. Feeling boundless compassion for all the small trout stuck in boring concrete tanks, I took out two quarters and bought some fish food.

Tossing it into the tanks, I enjoyed watching all the thrashing about – the fish obviously much desiring the pellets, not recognizing that desire is the root of suffering (along with biting into a sharp hook).

Then we walked past some decorative ponds that I hadn't noticed before. They held fish also, fish that my boundless compassionate Buddha nature saw were being ignored by the hatchery fish feeding visitors, as they weren't in recognizable tanks.

I went back to the fish food dispenser. Dug deep for my last quarter. Put it into the dispensing machine. Walked to the ponds with my handful of pellets.

Throwing them into the water, watching the fish joyfully eat the food, I felt my oneness with all sentient creatures.

Naturally, my next thought was to tell my wife and friends about my exalted state. "My Buddha nature is almost complete!" I said. "Except for the ego loss thing."

Details, details.

Then, a guy I didn't recognize comes up to me. He says, "Are you a Buddhist? I noticed your t-shirt."

I looked down. On my chest was the Church of the Churchless symbol (upper left corner of this blog). I told the guy: "Well, this is the eighth of the Ten Oxherding Pictures. It's the stage where you don't know anything, so it describes me pretty well."

Laurel breaks into the conversation. "Aren't you the Salem Unitarian Church minister?" "Yes," he says, "I am." Ah, now I knew where I'd seen him. We went to the Unitarian church quite a few years ago on Christmas Eve, feeling the need for some churchless churchliness around the holidays.

Rick, the minister, and I chatted for a while.

The church has a Wednesday night Buddhist sitting group, a blend of Buddhist and Unitarian philosophies. I told him that I'd be more inclined to come to his church if his Sunday service wasn't so early, because I'm not a morning person.

Rick asked what time would be convenient. I told him, "Noon." He said that probably wouldn't work out for other Unitarians, but he'd see what he could do.

I like Unitarians. They're so non-judgmental. Most ministers would consider that if I wanted to save my soul, I could damn well get up earlier on Sunday. But Unitarians don't believe in soul-saving, thankfully.

I got in a mention of how I'd recently taken the Belief O'Matic quiz and turned out to be 100% Unitarian. (I'm just not Unitarian enough to actually go to a meeting, though.)

Returning to our car, I pondered how differently I looked on episodes like this in my current churchless state of mind. Before, when I was a true believer, I would have attached a lot of significance to the fact that shortly after I proclaim my Buddha nature, a Unitarian minister walks up to me and starts talking about Buddhism.

Cosmic! Far out! A sign from God! (or somebody Up There)

But now…just something that happened. No big deal, notwithstanding the fact that I've spent quite a bit of time blogging about this no big deal.

Earlier in the day we'd hiked up along the beautiful Metolius River on the always enjoyable Wizard Falls hike. We'd stopped at the confluence of Canyon Creek and the Metolius, where I'm always fascinated by how the two streams of water come together.

The patterns, eddies, mini-whirlpools, currents…ever changing. There will be a large section of calm water for a while. Then, it'll change into a swirling liquid dance.

It's all caused, naturally (fluid dynamics), but there's no conscious purpose behind all the movement. That's how my fish hatchery visit seemed to me – a happening without intention.

I've talked about this before. Interestingly, the last time I did – a few months ago – who did I mention in my post but…Rick Davis, the very Unitarian minister guy I met this afternoon.

[cue Twilight Zone music]

Maybe there's more to life than is apparent. But what's apparent is good enough for me.

My ego loss isn't complete. That's evident from my desire to proclaim my Buddha nature. However, to me it's much better to be honest about your egocentricity than to believe you're humble at the same time you're considering that the world revolves around your religious system.

Quoting David Ignatow again:

I should be content
to look at a mountain
for what it is
and not as a comment on my life.

True believers are always seeing omens, portents, karma, and signs from God in every passing coincidence. Or, you can just look at all that for what it is.

Who has the best deal on death?

I'm not religious (obviously), but I still could sign up on the faith dotted line if I was assured of getting a good deal on death.

Which would be, basically: living forever. That's the worst part about death for me, not existing. I can handle the dying part. It's the likelihood of an eternal non-afterlife that sort of bugs me. (Actually, quite a bit more than "sort of.")

So I decided to read "How Different Religions View Death and Afterlife" to get a better idea of what sorts of salvation bargains are out there.

I've only read five chapters so far. Each is written by a expert in that religion, so it's nice to get the straight scoop from a true believer. The faiths I've learned about are: Assemblies of God, Baha'i, Baptist, Buddhism, and Unitarian Universalism.

As you can probably tell, the nineteen faith chapters are presented in alphabetical order in the book. I jumped ahead to Unitarian Universalism for a couple of reasons.

One, when I took the Belief O'Matic test a few days ago, I scored 100% on Unitarian Universalist – probably because I answered "don't know" to many of the questions. This bothered me a bit, because I used to be solidly Pagan, and that's a cooler-sounding faith.

Two, my wife's sister and her husband go to a Unitarian fellowship, and I like the sound of it. I could probably become a Unitarian if the group in our area didn't have such Christian overtones (every Unitarian group has its own style, I gather).

Unfortunately, I didn't find a whole lot reassuring about my death and afterlife in the Unitarian Universalist chapter, which, not surprisingly, is one of the shortest in the book.

Unitarian Universalists accept a scientific view of life and see life as lived in the here and now rather than in the hereafter. Whether or not Unitarian Universalists are agnostic about the existence of God, they tend to be agnostic about the existence of an afterlife…We simply admit that we do not know whether or not there is an afterlife.

Well, that's no fun. True, but not very helpful for my aspiration to eternal life at the right hand of Whoever or Whatever. So I went back to the beginning of the book. There I learned about two Christian faiths, Assemblies of God and Baptist.

It's easy to see why Christianity has taken off, believer-wise. Christians get a damn good deal on the afterlife, for not much cost. Basically you just have to believe in Jesus.

Assemblies of God: Death for us is simply transition into the presence of our Lord Jesus where we will share the joys of heaven…The believer who accepts and follows Christ is saved for eternity and retains his same personal identity…From the Bible we see also that we will recognize each other there [in heaven]. We shall know our friends and relatives. We shall enjoy fellowship with the saints of old time.

Baptist: Heaven and hell are conceived of as places where the redeemed and the damned either receive their rewards and undergo eternal felicity or are alienated from God. In one, there is the fellowship with God; in the other, the possibility of fellowship does not exist. The one is characterized by mansions, golden streets, home and reunion with loved ones; the other by outer darkness, fire, torment and isolation.

Hmmmm. Which to pick? Again, I can understand why so many people jump on the Christian train, since supposedly it's headed straight for the promised land – and it doesn't take along anyone but believers.

But, it's not for me.

So I moved on to the Baha'i faith. This felt quite familiar, as Baha'I is based on the teachings of a modern day incarnation of God, just as the Sant Mat faith that I followed for about thirty-five years is. In the 1800s Baha'u'llah revealed the way it is, death and afterlife wise.

There is, from a Baha'I view, but one physical experience for each soul – Baha'is do not believe in transmigration or reincarnation.

By becoming a Baha'I, one is not necessarily assured of salvation or of becoming more spiritual than someone who is not a Baha'i. But Baha'is believe that God has designated Baha'u'llah's teachings as the source of salvation of mankind for this dispensation, a period which shall endure for at least 1000 years. Therefore Bahai's also believe that the best means for the transformation and ascent of the human soul can presently be found in recognizing the station of Baha'u'llah and in following the guidance he has revealed.

Oh, great.

I spent more than three decades following the teachings of another messenger of God, and now I learn that I picked the wrong one. Plus, I'm never going to have another physical existence, so I'm screwed unless I get on board the Baha'I ship pronto.

Problem is, how do I know that Baha'u'llah is the real deal? He makes the same claims as Sant Mat does for their gurus, and also pretty much as Christianity does for its "guru," Jesus. How to choose?

Buddhism offers a pleasingly universal conception of the cosmos. But it sure requires a lot more brain cells to comprehend. Compare this excerpt from the "Buddhism" chapter with the pithy Jesus saves.

Selflessness, in both sutra and tantra, does not mean persons do not exist at all. "Self" here does not mean the "you" or "me" of ordinary language but refers to an overly concrete and otherwise misconstrued existential status. Nothing – neither persons, places, Buddhas, nor enlightenment itself – exists inherently. But they do exist. Only the inherently independent existence attributed to them does not.

Well, Buddhism, I want to exist as me! Otherwise, what's the point? (Guess if I understood that point, I'd be enlightened.)

So the search continues for a religion or faith that (1) makes sense to me, and (2) offers up a terrific deal on death. All offers considered.

I've got fourteen more chapters to read. Maybe Zoroastrianism…

Why God loves the churchless so much

When I'm not being grandiose and am feeling my normal humble self, I like to imagine how God sees things.

This isn't difficult for me to do – it's easy really – because after almost forty years of daily meditation my ego loss is so nearly complete, I'm in touch with the highest realms of reality.

(Just don't ask my wife to confirm this. Unfortunately, she still denies my divinity. But isn't there some sort of saying about a prophet not being recognized in his own land? Or…home?)

Anyway, I've been pondering why God would love me and other churchless souls so much more than fundamentalist believers. My ponders feel like they're coming directly from God, as do the answers. Thus I'm confident that what I'm about to say is the god-given truth.

If you don't agree, well, clearly Satan has got you terribly confused. I'm sorry, but that's the only explanation. Because following up on my previous undeniable metaphysical truths, here's some additional really real reality.

I begin by assuming that God, if such exists, is either going to have a personal or an impersonal nature. I suppose there could be other possibilities, but it's tough to envision them. (A God-machine, for example, would be impersonal).

A couple of years ago the true name of God was revealed to me through the grace of some extra-strong coffee. It is: Galobet

The first three letters of God's name reflect a personal nature: G-God; A-Allah; L-Lord. The fourth, O-One, is more impersonal, but early on Christianity absorbed the Neoplatonic "One" into a monotheistic worldview. The last three letters are decidedly impersonal: B-Brahman; E-Emptiness (Buddhist); T-Tao.

Now, if God's nature is impersonal, the question of love really doesn't arise. At least, not in any humanly recognizable sense. In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism the ultimate doesn't love us like a good friend, spouse, close relative, or other loved one would.

Rather, love is more like an integral aspect of the cosmos, an aspect of unity – if not identical with it. Something that is One can be said to love itself, since there's nothing other than it.

So I've got the impersonal bases covered, given my fondness for this philosophical position. Heck, I even wrote a book about it, "Return to the One."

What if God is personal, though? Well, then the question becomes, "What sort of person is God?" There's no agreement among the world's religions.

The Christian personal God is much different from the Islamic personal God, as is the Judaic personal God. Then we've got all kinds of other personal Gods, such as that described by the Bahai faith, by Sant Mat, and by other mystico-spiritual faiths of both the East and West.

Most people make a guess about what sort of person God is, and leave it at that. Meaning, they either accept the religion they were born into, or they grab onto a monotheistic belief system that makes the most sense to them.

The way I see it, this is a bad bet. If God is the sort of person who wants to be known and loved as he/she/it is, rather than how humans imagine God to be, then blind faith isn't going to be pleasing to the ultimate divinity.

It's as if someone you had never seen in person said, "I'll meet you at Starbucks," and before confirming that you had come across the right individual you started hugging the first guy or girl you saw in the coffee house and forgot about finding who you were really supposed to meet.

My churchless way of looking at the world is aimed at not making such a mistake. I'm no longer willing to make a leap of faith into the arms of whatever personal God (in my case, that of Sant Mat) appeals to my whim.

Now, a leap like that strikes me as being disparaging, or even insulting, to a personal God. I figure that if God exists, then God will appreciate my waiting to embrace him/her/it until divinity truly makes an appearance. I don't want to be distracted by a poseur or fake when the Real Thing is still to be found.

Thus I'm open to however God wants to make an appearance. I'm here, Ultimate Dude or Dudette. Stop by and say hello whenever you've got a moment. Or, eternity.

Hope you love my attitude. If not, I've got an interesting afterlife awaiting. (As will also be the case "if so".)

Ten undeniable metaphysical truths

OK. Before getting into the meat (or tofu) of this Moses-like blog post, let's break down the title.

Ten. Just seems the right number. The Ten Commandments should be cast aside in favor of my revelation. Plus, I haven't come up with my truths yet, but intuitively I'm pretty sure that, given the amount of red wine I just poured and my sipping speed, I can come up with ten before the glass is empty.

Undeniable. Yeah, I wish. None of the brilliant stuff I write on this blog has received the unquestioning acceptance that it deserves, so I've got no illusions about how this post will be received. I just mean that anyone with sound reason and clear perceptions of reality (namely, someone like me) won't be able to deny what I say.

Metaphysical. Not sure if this is the right word, but I don't feel like quibbling over it. What I'm expounding concerns the nature of what, if anything, lies beyond the physical. So, it's "meta."

Truths. Well, sure. What follows seems so obviously true to me, I can't understand why everybody in the world doesn't bow down before my deca-truthiosity and proclaim, "So utterly right you are, Brian!"

I keep repeating these truths in blog posts, in one form or another, as well as in comments to those who don't understand how correct I am. Maybe now I can simply point people to this post and say "#3 and #7," sort of like a Chinese menu of metaphysical correctness.

Here goes…

(1) Nobody on Earth knows what happens after death. Why? Because if you're still alive on this planet, you aren't dead yet. My logic is impeccable. Near death or mystical experiences don't count as pointers toward a possible afterlife, because they're experienced in this life.

(2) There's no solid proof for God or any other unearthly divinity. If there was, religious skeptics wouldn't have a doubting leg to stand on. Everybody would believe. Plus, whatever religion preached the gospel that matched the proof would overwhelm competing faiths lacking the support of that evidence.

(3) No religion has more validity than any other. This follows from (2). Given that there's no evidence of God, in the sense of a personal (or even impersonal) entity that consciously creates and/or sustains the physical universe, every religion rests on the same foundation: the shifting sand of human speculation.

(4) Miraculous powers are possessed by no one. Ever since cameras and other forms of objective documentation came into existence, miracles have taken a decided downturn. Jesus supposedly walked on water a couple of thousand years ago, but there's no scientifically defensible proof of a major (or even minor) miracle since. Likely reason: nobody can perform one.

(5) Mystical, religious, or spiritual experiences never can be corroborated. Claims abound of people who have seen God, angels, beings of light, or whatever; who have experienced enlightenment, satori, Buddha nature, or whatever; who have risen to heaven, astral planes, paradise, oneness, whatever. Fine. Good for them. Nobody can know whether this is fact or fantasy.

(6) Physical proof of a metaphysical reality belies the truth claim. This relates to (5). Any sort of metaphysical evidence that can be perceived by the bodily senses obviously is physical. So unless it falls in the realm of the miraculous, ruled out by (4), such evidence can be explained by the material laws of nature.

(7) Consciousness or awareness doesn't count as a divine revelation. Devotees of certain "Eastern" faiths, such as Vedanta or Zen Buddhism, basically look upon a higher state of consciousness – or pure awareness – as a manifestation of foundational reality. That may be. But a crystal clear mentality still is rooted in materiality, the physical brain, not metaphysics.

(8) If God is ineffable, a mystery, anyone who speaks about divinity is spouting falsehoods. More simply put, this truth says "If you know God, why the hell are you blabbing about him (or her)?" Prophets, mystics, saints, gurus, yogis, and so on often claim that God is beyond words. Then they blab on and on about this. What gives?

(9) Absolute unity doesn't permit anyone to know about it. Often ultimate reality, personal (God) or otherwise (the One), is considered to be an unbroken wholeness. Well, if there's (a) absolute unity and (b) someone aware of it, we've got two things. So consciousness of oneness belies the claim that such exists, in a sense similar to (6).

(10) Reality is marvelously beyond our understanding, just as we know it. My proof: I'm down to my last sip of wine, sitting outside on our deck on a warm Oregon summer night, watching a crescent moon through the branches of a three hundred year old oak tree, little me being part of a 14 billion year old universe whose beginning and end almost certainly will forever remain beyond the reach of human cognition.

Which means…the mysteries of this physical realm are plenty enough to grapple with. Who needs imaginary metaphysical enigmas?

On knowing less than nothing

If one person knows nothing, is it possible for two people in the same state to know less than nothing?

This marvelous philosophical question was resolved yesterday on PBS' Car Talk, which features the always entertaining Magliozzi brothers, Tom and Ray (a.k.a Click and Clack, or Clack and Click; I don't know what goes with each brother).

They read a letter from listener Andy Reischman, who thanked them profusely for answering that question – which he said had deviled him for twenty years.

Me too. I'd just never phrased it in such a clear fashion. After all, this really is what religion is all about. (And, I have to admit, much of this blog also).

Namely, two or more people – billions, in the case of the major world religions – getting together to ponder problems that no single individual knows anything about.

Does God exist? What is God's nature? Where do we go after death? Do butterflies have a soul? Is it bad karma to eat meat? How is salvation best attained?

I scribbled down notes on Reischman's letter as I was driving, necessarily incompletely, as I was more concerned with not crashing my car than in getting every detail down.

For a full rendition check out segment 4 on the August 2, 2008 show. I love it. Reischman is a fine writer; he makes some terrific points; Tom and Ray have a great time making fun of themselves (a staple of Car Talk).

Basically, Reischman concludes that, yes, two people can know less than nothing. One person who knows nothing will shrug his shoulders and toss his hands in the air.

But two people…they will egg each other on in a pas de deux of breathtaking speculation. Apologies and gestures of doubt are rendered unnecessary.

Great stuff, Mr. Reischman. You've pretty much summed up just about every metaphysical book in my extensive library.

He went on to say that Car Talk resolved this philosophical question for him when he heard Tom and Ray addressing a caller's query about a problem with electric brakes on a cattle car.

They started off by saying that they'd never heard of electric brakes and, obviously, didn't know how they worked. But they then engaged in an extensive discussion of the whys and wherefores of the electric brake problem.

Well, it's fun to talk about stuff we don't know anything about. Like, God and the hereafter.

We just should recognize when we've gone from knowing nothing on our own, to knowing less than nothing as a member of a religious or spiritual organization.

I'm totally competent at knowing nothing – I don't need any help in knowing less than nothing. Which is why churchlessness appeals to me.

Change is what it’s all about

Yesterday Jay left a comment that contained a question deserving a response.

Brian,

I cannot believe that you have been a follower of RSSB and written a book called 'life is fair' for RS, yet you have gone anti-RS. Whats that all about. I have been initiated for just under s decade by Babaji and okay its hard but what is easy.

You think that you are too clever. Don't forget, you are an embassador of babaji and you will come back one the path. Is just a matter of time.

Jay

Even with the typos, and the lack of a question mark after "Whats that all about," I get Jay's message.

He's a true believer of the religious organization I belonged to for some thirty-five years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), and can't understand how I could have wandered off this spiritual path.

Well, Jay, I've already addressed your question – several times. For example, in "How writing a book rewrote me" and "Believers, I'm even more deluded than you think."

But that was then. Here's what I think about the question now. And really, that's my point.

Then isn't now. Change is what's happening. Indeed, there's good reason to say that change is the only thing that's happening.

Existence exists, probably forever. (It's hard to picture existence no longer existing; where would it go?) But everything within existence, so far as is known, is constantly changing. This fits with a basic premise of the RSSB philosophy: that vibrational energy permeates the cosmos.

I agree. As does modern physics. Change, though, doesn't require a cosmic perspective to be noticed. It's part and parcel of everyday life.

So I say to Jay: how can you believe that someone, me, for example, can assiduously meditate every day for thirty-five years; have all kinds of experiences associated with an immersion in a mystical-spiritual organization; come to know some of the leaders of the organization quite well, including the head guru himself; contribute countless hours of volunteer service to the group; study its teachings in great detail and even contribute to them via several books; and not change in some significant ways?

From my high school days on (I'm 59 now), I've had a passionate desire to understand what It is All About. I still do. The desire just has taken on different forms, as my understanding has changed (hopefully, grown).

I realize how religious true believers think, because I used to be one.

They have an illogical notion that all change leading up to someone embracing their particular form of belief is positive and good, while all subsequent change leading away from that embrace is negative and bad.

For example, someone is a Buddhist. He or she then converts to Christianity. Christians see this change as wonderful. Buddhists likely will think, "Off the path…"

Thus spiritual progress or retrogression depends on one's perspective. There aren't any universal mile markers, because each religion has its own definition of what the "path" consists of. So Jay can consider that I'm left the spiritual path, while I can feel that I'm more firmly on it.

"It" isn't like I-5, the freeway that runs close by my home, connecting Mexico and Canada plus the states in between. There's no map to ultimate reality, no obvious on-ramps, no vehicles that everyone agrees can get you somewhere – largely because there's no evident "where" to point toward.

All each of us can do is wander along the best we know how. That's what I'm doing. That's what Jay is doing. That's what everybody on Earth is doing.

Wandering. Changing. Seeking.

When somebody seems to be heading the same way we are, we say "You're so right!" And we might also be able to supply some reasonable reasons for the correctness of our traveling, in contrast to those deluded fools who are meandering off in a different direction.

We can't be sure, though. It's impossible to know where ultimate truth lies. All each of us can do is follow our instincts, intuition, and experience the best we can.

So there's my answer to "What's that all about?" I'm continuing to move, to grow, to change. As are we all.