Church of the Churchless

Are there universal mystical principles?

A few days ago George posted a comment where he asked what people thought of these statements:

The principles common to mystical beliefs appear to be:
1) the existence of a Divine formless force underlying everything.
2) each person has a true inner self, kernel or spark surrounded by egos or wills clouding their perceptions and ability to know thy inner self and the Divine.
3) using meditation to allow connection or alignment of the inner self with the Divine and thus experiencing direct knowledge of the Divine, rather than thru the intellect with its egos which is inherently limited.
4) our purpose is self knowledge of the inner self, to know who we are, to know thyself.

Taoism appears slightly different, but appears to still require man to know himself to align his/her will or ego with nature, and that this is best achieved by putting the mind into a still passive or meditative state unburdened by the intellect or thought.

I didn't want this question -- are there universal mystical principles? -- to be lost in a string of comments, so dug it out for inspection.

It's a big question, obviously. I used to believe that there was such a thing as the Perennial Philosophy, but now I'm much less sure.

For those willing to wade through some fairly complex ideas about the perennial philosophy, these notes on a book by Jorge Ferrer are worth reading. I resonate with Nigel Wellings' conclusion:

At base I do not believe there has ever been a perennial philosophy until Huxley invented it. That in contrast there are a great variety of transpersonal and spiritual experiences available to us that are not essentially the same but which have all been valuable within their own cultural context. That it is only when we have the ability to compare them that we also then have a problem of making value judgments.

The main reason I agree with these sentiments, especially if the perennial philosophy is taken to be as George describes it in the four principles above, is that some mystic teachings don't emphasize (or even acknowledge) a distinction between "true inner self" and "the Divine."

These are dualistic concepts that don't seem to fit in with nondual philosophies such as Advaita, Buddhism, and Taoism. Here the self is viewed as a fiction or illusion to be seen through, not as a distinct entity that can merge with another entity, the Divine.

So when George says that Taoism is "slightly different," I'd say "very different." I've read a bunch of books about Taoist philosophy, and have practiced Tai Chi for about five years (which embodies Taoism).

In this post I discussed how Taoism is both similar to in some respects, yet also quite different from, the Sant Mat philosophy. I said:

The way I see it – and I understand that everyone has a unique vision of how things are – the Taoist notion of a divine melody pervading the universe is a more genuine reflection of Sant Mat's shabd, dhun, or "sound current."

That is, by and large Taoism lacks the religious dogma and metaphysical baggage that organized spiritual faiths carry along.

Taoism and Sant Mat both teach that mental conceptions obscure a wordless primal reality. However, Taoism (like Buddhism) espouses no-mind, not-knowing. Sant Mat, however, is based on an involved belief system. Once someone has bought into the beliefs, further questioning and conceptualizing is supposed to stop.

So while Taoism has no-mind, Sant Mat has locked-in-place mind. The aspiring Taoist mystic seeks to embrace mystery directly; the aspiring Sant Mat mystic considers that cosmic mysteries will be revealed after traveling a well-defined path.

Thus I think George is correct in identifying the four principles as being parts of many mystical teachings. But not all of those paths adopt all of the principles. And style is as important as substance, in my opinion.

Taoism and Buddhism, for example, take themselves much less seriously than faiths like Sant Mat do. In no small part this is due to the absence of a savior or guru in these more wide open and iconoclastic mystic pursuits.

From the introduction to The Book of Chuang Tzu:

Trying to read the book through logically will only produce faint, ghostly laughter. And the one who will be laughing at you from afar will be the spirit of Chuang Tzu. For if there is one constant theme in the book, it is that logic is nonsense and that eclecticism is all, if you wish to open yourself to the Tao and the Te -- the Way and the Virtue of all.

Commenters, here's how to reduce blog visitor aggravation

Like the good Buddhist that I'm not, I have boundless compassion for the sentient beings who visit this blog.

Largely, because I'm one myself.

Aside from proof-reading my own writings after they're posted, I read every comment, even when I have to grit my teeth and force myself.

So what produces the dreadful affliction, Comment Reading Aggravation? And how can it be prevented?

I covered these questions pretty well, in my non-humble opinion, last year in "Boxing up varieties of belief." Which began with...

Why do some people's proclamations irritate or please me more than other proclamations?

I'm speaking generally here, about all sorts of utterances. Verbal sayings. Blog posts and comments. Books. Magazine articles. Any way that someone communicates a belief from their brain into mine.

Sometimes I get an instant emotional rush of What the @#$%&! as soon as I register a communication that rates high on my irritation scale. Other belief messages produce a pleasant smile, and not just because I agree with what I've heard.

So what's going on here? What are the varieties of belief that generate such different reactions in me?

I ask -- no, I plead -- that certain aggravating commenters on this blog read what I wrote. (Echoing Carly Simon, if you think that I'm talking about you in this post, I probably am.)

Understand, I'm all for spirited discussion and debate. But there needs to be some basic common-sense understanding of what gets talked about on this blog, and how opinions get expressed.

Like I said before, here's why opinion can morph into aggravation: if someone insists that other people should believe something, yet there aren't a lot of good reasons for that belief, the insistence comes across as a dogmatic assertion rather than a subjective opinion.

And that's the basic (irritating) stance of fundamentalists. "Believe it because I say so." Well, that isn't going to fly on a blog called Church of the Churchless. Or, anywhere else populated by open-minded people.

So please, commenters, pretty please with humility on top, use language appropriate to what you're talking about to avoid unnecessarily increasing my blood pressure -- and that of other blog visitors.

If you're speaking about God, metaphysics, ultimate reality, life after death, soul travel, and such, there aren't going to be a lot of good reasons for your beliefs.

If there were, they wouldn't be "beliefs." They'd be facts. So understand that other people are going to look upon your opinions as just that: opinions.

It's fine that you like them. Just leave off the thou shalt insistence that if other people don't share your opinions, they're deluded idiots.

Sometimes I'll respond to a comment in a testy fashion, calling the commenter a fundamentalist. Usually he or she disagrees. Yet I'm correct in assigning that label if the person demands that other people accept the truth of what he or she is saying without offering up good reasons for the assertion.

Which includes the ridiculous retort, "No, Brian, you're the fundamentalist because you and your churchless ilk have a dogmatic belief that God [or some other metaphysical entity] doesn't exist."

Wrong. Not believing isn't a belief. Not knowing isn't knowledge, except in the sense of Socrates:

"Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful or good, I am better off than he is -- for he knows nothing and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him."

I'd say greatly the advantage.

So knowing when you know something that can be demonstrated to others, and when you don't, is advantageous to both ourselves and those with whom we interact.

Because we can't learn something new when we wrongly believe that we know it all. And people who are convinced they know what they really don't are hugely irritating to communicate with.

Satan exists...but only in deluded minds

Recently ABC's "Nightline" featured a face-off on the question, "Does Satan Exist?" Watching the recorded show last night, my wife and I were amazed that this is a subject for debate in the 21st century.

It's an example of how many religious people haven't progressed from exceedingly primitive beliefs. Astoundingly, more Americans believe in the devil (59%) than in the theory of evolution (47%).

Scary.

Which also describes the mindset of Pastor Mark Driscoll and former prostitute Annie Lobert (founder of "Hookers for Jesus"), who handled the arguments in favor of Satan's existence.

Opposing them, and getting frequent cheers from me, were Deepak Chopra and Bishop Carlton Pearson.

When I condemned myself to hell for a free DVD I talked about Pearson in a blog post, since he had a revelation from God that hell is a place in life, not after death. That made me feel better about selling my soul for a DVD.

He's still making good sense. In the debate Pearson correctly pointed out that the Bible was written by men, not by God, so it can't be taken literally. (Clips of the Nightline faceoff can be viewed here.)

Most interesting to me was a theme that keeps coming up on the Church of the Churchless: the difference between subjective and objective experience.

If something is evident only to me, it's subjective. If I can show that thing, or demonstrate that it exists, to other people, then it's objective. (Objectivity and subjectivity have other facets, of course, but my definition is good enough for a blog post.)

Lobert said that she's convinced Satan exists because she saw him in the eyes of her prostitution clients. I wish Chopra or Pearson had asked her if she was able to get any of these guys to go to an optometrist for a checkup.

If an eye doctor looked in their eyes and also saw Satan, that'd be pretty convincing -- especially if a camera could photograph the devil sitting on the retina.

Chopra said that Satan is in peoples' minds, not anywhere outside. Likely Lobert's emerging guilt and shame about the profession she was practicing caused her to project those feelings onto her clients.

Another instructive moment came when a female audience member chided Chopra for thinking that electromagnetism, gravity, and other scientific facts were more real than her personal experience of God.

Chopra could have come up with a better response, but he did fairly well. He said that he didn't deny her experience. Yet he felt his approach was more consistent with the laws of nature.

Thus he was pointing to the difference between a subjective experience, the truth of which can't be questioned by other people, and an assertion about shared experiences in objective reality, which damn well can be questioned for its truthfulness.

The woman proclaimed (pointing around the audience):

I'm saying that Jesus is your savior, and his savior, and their savior. I'm saying Jesus is true for everyone, and if you don't believe in him, you don't get to be with him.

I liked Chopra's response.

In that case, I feel really sorry for you. I want you to be saved.

Saved from fundamentalism, closed-mindedness, fanciful beliefs, misguided thought processes, being trapped in a constricted world view.

But it isn't only Christians who need to be saved. We all do, to some degree. It's easy to mistake personal experiences for universal ones, and demand that others embrace our subjectivity as their own.

We've got no right to do that. The day I started this blog I had to come up with a tagline to put under the name at the top of the web page.

"Preaching the gospel of spiritual independence" came quickly to mind. In over four years I haven't been impelled to back away from those words.

Watching fundamentalists fumble with the question, Does Satan Exist?, sure didn't change my mind.

Q and A about me and Sant Mat

I love questions. And me. So when someone asks me questions about me, I'm in double love.

Today Georgey left a comment on this post that included five questions. I started to reply via another comment, but then realized that even though I'm practicing non-verbosity through Twitter now, I needed the space of a blog post to do the answers justice.

Georgey started with...

Brian, yours is a very interesting blog, read thru many of your articles on the Sant Mat stuff, which my scientific conditioning nevertheless find intriguing and your different experiences of it. I'd be interested to know some personal stuff, but I understand if you don't want to reveal such truths.

No problem. I'm a revealing guy. Here's the questions and my answers.

(1) Why and how did you turn to Sant Mat initially?

"Why" has so many layers and levels. "How" is easier to tackle. I've told the (strange) story of how I became a Sant Mat initiate here.

Having done the devoted disciple thing with a Yoga teacher who melded his crazy style of Christianity with various Eastern teachings, including a Greek Orthodox'ized version of Sant Mat, I smoothly flowed into accepting Charan Singh as my guru.

Looking back on my 22 year-old self from my current 60 year-old perspective, I can theorize about some psychological "why's."

Having spent just one hour with my father, the notion of a cosmically close relationship with a wise, kind, loving bearded much older guru must have appealed to my father-deprived psyche. Plus, Charan Singh liked to speak about God as the Father.

Also, I applied for initiation in 1970, which was, obviously, right after the '60s. I'd just graduated from a college in the San Francisco Bay Area, so had been immersed in the free wheeling Flower Child sex, drugs, and rock-&-roll culture.

Some stability in the form of religious rules and vows was a counterpoint to the chaos of the sixties. I'd started on a straighter and narrower path through my yoga practice. That continued with the following thirty-three years of so of Sant Mat practice.

(2) Why do you think you never had a spiritual experience despite 30 years of devoted meditation?

Like I've been saying in several posts lately, including here, I'm not sure what "spiritual" means anymore. I had plenty of experiences in meditation.

What I didn't have was the sort of out-of-body, astral projecting, soul-flying, blasts of cosmic light and sound experiences that the Radha Soami Satsang Beas version of Sant Mat tells disciples to expect in meditation.

A few days after I was initiated I heard loud bell sounds inside my head while I was meditating. These never came back. I've had other glimpses of inner light and hearings of inner sound, but these could be (and probably are) produced by the brain, not immaterial soul or spirit.

Over more than three decades I've talked with lots of fellow RSSB initiates about their experiences in meditation. More accurately, their lack thereof.

When these people spoke honestly and openly (which usually isn't done in the formal satsangs, or talks), I learned that my lack of mind-blowing meditation experiences was par for the course in Sant Mat.

(3) Do you believe such spiritual (transcendental) experiences actually exist or that they are creations of our minds?

I lean toward the second hypothesis -- mind created -- but am open to the "actual" possibility. What helps tilt me in the skeptical direction is how members of different faiths almost invariably experience what their religious teachings tell them to expect.

Christian mystics feel the presence of Jesus or a personal God. Hindus, something quite different. And so on. If Buddhist monks came back from a meditation session and said, "Islam has it right! Allah is the One!," I'd pay attention.

But this happens extremely rarely. Yet the word "actually" in this question points toward a reality largely independent of human expectations, desires, mental conditioning, and the like.

At the least, it seems clear that meditators tend to experience what they expect to experience.

Sant Mat, in fact, instructs initiates not to pay attention to any inner sights or sounds that aren't accompanied by the presence of the guru. So this is a good example of a faith trying to prohibit certain inner experiences that aren't consonant with party-line teachings.

(4) These Sant Mat gurus might be fairly remarkable people, albeit with flaws, did you ever get the feeling you were in the presence of some sort of ultra-enlightened being?

I gave myself that feeling -- which was aided by all the hoopla and devotional rituals surrounding the RSSB gurus. But I never saw any evidence that the gurus really were "ultra-enlightened" (whatever that means).

They forgot things. Made mistakes. Misspoke. Just like a normal human being. Yes, they had charisma and what the current guru, Gurinder Singh, likes to call "the gift of gab."

But I'm a good public speaker myself. And I'm sure not enlightened. Unless I'm unaware of my divinity, which I'm pleased to consider as a possibility (my wife, however, would beg to differ).

Speaking of my wife... her skeptical non-Sant Mat self would frequently say, during our nineteen years of marriage, "I'd like to see what the guru is doing twenty four hours a day, not just during his public face time."

Her point, based in part on her experience as a psychotherapist, is that people can project an idealized image, and others can resonate with it, which is at odds with how they are at unguarded moments.

Laurel has had some close-up time with Gurinder Singh. She sees him as just a normal person, nothing special. This also is how I saw the guru when I didn't recognize him, as described here.

(5) Do you ever wonder if you would get back on the Sant Mat path?

Not really. But this question gets me doing so. Answer: almost certainly not. At least, not in the way I viewed the path before.

One of my favorite Church of the Churchless posts is "Believers, I'm even more deluded than you think." This pretty much answers your question.

I don't consider that I've left Sant Mat. Meaning, to me there's a core of non-religiousness in this teaching which is a useful guide to seeking whatever reality (if any) lies beyond appearances.

It's the same core that is in almost every mystic teaching that I've studied or have heard about. I'm still on that pathless path.

d’Espagnat sees mystery at heart of reality

Reading a recent issue of New Scientist last night, I came across a brief mention of Bernard d'Espagnat winning this year's Templeton Prize for "arguing that quantum physics implies that reality must be partially unknowable, or 'veiled.'"

Sounded intriguing. And right up my interest alley, since I've done a lot of reading and writing about how quantum physics relates to mysticism and spirituality.

Here's a longer New Scientist piece about d'Espagnat's views (he's a physicist and philosopher of science). Excerpt:

So what is it, really, that is veiled? At times d'Espagnat calls it a Being or Independent Reality or even "a great, hypercosmic God". It is a holistic, non-material realm that lies outside of space and time, but upon which we impose the categories of space and time and localisation via the mysterious Kantian categories of our minds.

"Independent Reality plays, in a way, the role of God – or 'Substance' – of Spinoza," d'Espagnat writes. Einstein believed in Spinoza's God, which he equated with nature itself, but he always held this "God" to be entirely knowable. D'Espagnat's veiled God, on the other hand, is partially – but still fundamentally – unknowable. And for precisely this reason, it would be nonsensical to paint it with the figure of a personal God or attribute to it specific concerns or commandments.

The "veiled reality", then, can in no way help Christians or Muslims or Jews or anyone else rationalise their specific beliefs. The Templeton Foundation – despite being headed up by John Templeton Jr, an evangelical Christian – claims to afford no bias to any particular religion, and by awarding their prize to d'Espagnat, I think they've proven that to be true.

Absolutely. I don't see how assuming that reality is partially veiled from us offers any support to religiosity, since what is behind the veil is, obviously, unseen and unknown.

I've argued before, and will undoubtedly do so again, that science is incapable of grappling with the primal question of existence: Why does anything exist at all? And so is religion. Or mysticism. Or any attempt to know the unknowable.

Of course, this might not even be a real question. The "why" above presumes a creator, or reason. Yet existence may be simply a given, not to be reasoned about, never to be fathomed.

This seems to be close to what d'Espagnat is saying. I read the statement he gave on accepting the prize and agree with his basic stance (but not all of the particulars). See what you think.
Download D’Espagnat Statement 

I like that he mentioned Plotinus, the subject of a book I wrote, "Return to the One." This long-dead Greek philosopher doesn't come in for much attention these days, though he should -- being one of the few truly non-religious mystics.

For indeed – and this is nothing else than the second consequence I just mentioned – this “ground of things,” this Real, quite obviously is not a thing.  Clearly it is not imbedded in space, and presumably not in time either.  Let us call it “Being” if you like.  Or “the One,” following Plotinus.  Since science cannot tell us anything about its nature, clearly it cannot tell us what its nature is not.  And, similarly, it cannot rule out the possibility that also other forms of mind activity yield imprecise glimpses on it.

Note the "imprecise" and "glimpses." It's important to keep in mind that d'Espagnat is very much a supporter of science, and doesn't equate a partial intuitional unveiling of the One with the clarity scientific knowledge provides of the Many.

I do not claim for a moment that, just because he/she feels such an emotion, the listener to a Beethoven symphony or the beholder of Vermeer's View of Delft acquires a knowledge comparable in nature to scientific knowledge.  Moreover, artistic emotions essentially imply the impression of a mysterious realm which we may merely catch a glimpse of.  Manifest is the difference with science, which, within its domain proper, does really dispel mysteries.

A BBC news story listed five ways scientists look upon their field's relationship with religion. (1) The Atheist, (2) The Sceptic, (3) The Platonist, (4) The Believer, (5) The Pantheist.

Aside from The Believer, I've got a bit of each of the others in me. Which goes to show, as one would expect, that there's no single way to look upon the veiled mystery of ultimate reality.

Mystery is mystery. Why not leave it at that?

Some religious believers will seize upon d'Espagnat's views as justification for their dogmatism above divinity. However, they need to pay attention to what he said at the end of his acceptance speech. I find the last sentence to be a leap of faith, but the rest makes good sense.

Sure, it is not for a scientist such as me, who spent his whole life juggling with equations, to speak on spirituality.  I stand outside the temple, so to speak.  Still let me state once again that I feel myself deeply in accordance with the Templeton Foundation’s great, guiding idea that, even in this domain, science does shed light. 

In my view it does so mainly by rendering unbelievable any intellectual construction – of whatever nature – claiming to yield access to the ultimate ground of things with the sole use of the simple, somewhat trivial notions everybody has.  In particular, it reminds us that, even though images are needed, the letter kills, so that in this particular field science finally incites us to primarily resort to personal mental deepening. 

Ultimately therefore its message there is not so very different from the one we get from the most beautiful and inspiring Romanesque cloisters.  Of course I don't forget that in the world at large spirituality takes up many different forms and that some of them are quite definitely to be brushed aside, either because they went astray into fanaticism and apology of violence or just because they indoctrinate and overuse simplistic images of the type that stir up the crowds. 

The worse, in that realm, verges the best.  But the best exists.  I consider I have sound reasons to believe in the ground of things I mentioned, lying beyond our ability at conceptualizing and which from time immemorial thinkers, less naive than was often thought, called “the Divine.”  I like conceiving it to be infinitely lovable and am therefore convinced that those among our contemporaries who believe in a spiritual dimension of existence and live up to it are, when all is said, fully right.

Seeing differently vs. seeing different things

Once when we were on Maui, walking along Lahaina's charming Front Street, I saw a Proust quote on a board outside an art gallery. Since we were vacationing on a tropical island, far from home, it made me think.

There are several versions of the translation. Here's one close to what I read that night:

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Proust seems to have hit upon a central existential choice. In pursuing personal growth, do we focus on doing different things, or on looking upon things differently?

Some friends and I chatted about this last Sunday. None of us are big into traveling or thrill-seeking. Outwardly our lives appear pretty mundane compared to people who are always off on a new trip or fresh adventure.

Yet we didn't feel that we were stuck, unchanging, mired in routine. I said that even though every day I usually go on the same dog walk, around the same lake, each time is different.

I'm never quite the same person. Even when nature looks much the same -- climate, vegetation, wildlife -- my senses and brain process the dog walk differently. So I never get tired of taking the same geographic route, because the journey always is varied within my psyche.

Much discussion on this blog centers around a similar Proustian distinction. That's because religions, spiritual paths, philosophical teachings, and meditation approaches tend to reflect the same duality.

Some emphasize having different experiences. Others, experiencing differently.

Zen Buddhism, for example, doesn't focus much on other-worldly, mind-blowing mystical experiences.

Everyday here and now, such as pouring a cup of tea, is valued just as much (if not more so) as far out extraordinary excursions into alternative realities of consciousness.

Other faiths, such as the version of Sant Mat that I followed for over thirty years, emphasize the necessity of soul-soaring inner experiences, hearing cosmic sounds and seeing divine light.

These are considered to be the touchstone of spiritual progress, which helps explain why some commenters on my blog posts say that if I haven't had such experiences, then my decades of daily meditation have been in vain.

I used to agree with that perspective. But now I resonate more with "have new eyes" than "see new landscapes." And I don't think it's entirely, or even mostly, due to not having seen the inner regions that, Sant Mat teaches, await the soul traveler.

Seeing different things... this approach says that reality is divided into better and worse realms, that where we are now is not where we should be, that what we have to do is transplant ourselves into a heavenly domain far distant from Earth's crude materiality.

Could be.

However, there's a lot to like in the notion of seeing things differently... accepting that reality is just fine the way it is, that what's needed is a shift in perspective rather than a shift in time and space, that no matter how many new experiences are added to our "What We've Done" account our wisdom net worth won't increase much.

As I've mentioned before, one of the things that drove me in a churchless direction was having more involvement with higher-ups in a mystical-religious organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

These were people who had risen to positions under the direct supervision of the guru, who is considered to be god in human form. They had lots of meditation experience, lots of face time with RSSB gurus, lots of volunteer (seva) time under their karmic belt.

Yet I saw that they were just as egotistical and flawed as I was. Maybe more. So this led me to wonder, "What good is all of these supposedly spiritual experiences that they've had, if their attitude toward life hasn't changed in any observable fashion?"

People can travel to India every year, meditate for hours every day, feel love and devotion for a guru at almost every conscious moment. Yet all this can leave them just as they were before, aside from memories of their experiences.

I've found that when I don't worry about having certain spiritual or mystical experiences, it becomes easier to open up to a fresh way of experiencing -- everything.

More and more, my life is suffused with a sense of mystery and wonder that I hadn't felt during my true believing days, probably because back then I wrongly considered that I was well on the way to unraveling the Big Cosmic Mysteries.

So I understand, imperfectly but at least a little, how it is possible to flip into a fresh way of experiencing life that isn't dependent on particular experiences.

This doesn't denigrate the importance or significance of experiencing this or that. But when we're always waiting for something more to happen, we're not going to appreciate the happening that always is right at hand.

Spiritual experiences don't exist

People talk about "spiritual experiences" all the time. I've done my fair share of that myself. Yet frequent mentions of these words in a comment conversation on this post got me thinking about what they mean.

Conclusion: by themselves, nothing. Which fits with an earlier notion, that "spirituality" is a meaningless word.

A blog visitor asked me recently if I believed that people have had spiritual experiences. I replied, yes, people consider that they've had them. But before we can judge what this means, we need to define "spiritual."

And that's difficult to do, since there are so many definitions of "spirit." Any experience can be called spiritual, really.

Reaching the top of Mt. Everest. Having really great sex. Enjoying a glass of Oregon Pinot Noir. Meditating in a Zen monastery. Listening to Jimmy Hendrix. Seeing the Pope. Dancing the tango.

When I say that spiritual experiences don't exist, I'm looking upon "spirit" the way many do: as something metaphysical, other worldly, non-material.

Obviously any human who is alive can't be said to have had a spiritual experience, since he or she is experiencing life via a physical human brain. Similarly, as another commenter (tAo) noted recently, no one alive knows whether life continues after death, because anyone living hasn't died yet.

So it'd be better if people talked less about spiritual experiences, and more about experiences that they consider to be spiritual.

Meaning, tell me about the experience. Don't label it "spiritual." Describe it.

What were you doing when the experience you call "spiritual" happened? What did you see, hear, feel, taste, touch? Has it resulted in any lasting changes? Did you learn anything from the experience?

Again, this is necessary because the word is so vague.

If someone says, "I had a sexual experience," we have a pretty good idea what he or she means. (Of course, even here there is a lot of room for widely different varieties of experience.)

"Spiritual," though, can mean almost anything.

In Zen it could be chopping wood or carrying water. In mystic faiths it could be superconscious immersion in the bright white light of ultimate reality.

The only thing the word can't mean, in any meaningful sense, is a non-physical experience -- since anyone who claims to have had one did so as a physical human body.

Tips on talking to a fundamentalist

While this blog is for churchless folks, we get some fundamentalist visitors also. I enjoy having comment conversations with them, even though I can get frustrated with preachiness and closed-mindedness.

Soon after I started the Church of the Churchless I wrote "How to talk to a fundamentalist." With more than four years of additional experience in this area, it's time for an update.

Fundamentalism is defined in various ways. I like this Wikipedia definition: "clinging to a stubborn, entrenched position that defies reasoned argument or contradictory evidence."

If someone is certain they're right, it's tough to have a productive conversation with them.

So it's good to learn early on whether you're dealing with a fundamentalist, since most of us have better things to do than try to open up a mind that is nailed shut. A simple question, if answered honestly, is a helpful aid:

Do you consider that you could be wrong?

When you hear a "yes," that's an indication of openness. It turns the conversation in the direction of offering reasons for a religious, spiritual, metaphysical, philosophical, or mystical belief.

Because if there's a possibility of being wrong, no one else should be expected to accept an assertion on blind faith. And if you are told, "no," I'd look elsewhere for conversational companionship (unless you're a glutton for dogmatism).

Fundamentalists aren't always honest in answering this question, though. They might feign broad-mindedness just to get a foot in your psychological door. Or they might not be aware of how rigidly attached they are to unfounded beliefs.

Thus often it's necessary to diagnose a fundamentalist attitude in the absence of an outright admission. "The Guru Papers" has some useful observations.

Fundamentalism is essentially about controlling people. It can only operate in authoritarian hierarchies because unchallengeability can only be passed down and enforced in this way. ...Fundamentalists all share the same viewpoint that what must be returned to are the unchallengeable and unchanging dictates of a higher power.

...The great psychological appeal of fundamentalism is that it offers certainty. Certainty can feel better than doubt and confusion. It can eliminate internal conflict, or at least suppress and bring relief from it.

...Certainty must be able to withstand challenges and counter-evidence -- anything that brings doubt. No combination of reason and experience can give the necessary kind of certainty, especially about the future. So faith is the key to religious certainty.

...A simple universe with a simple good (those who follow the rules), and a simple evil (those who do not), and simple explanations that can never be disproven are necessary for certainty.

It only takes reading through some active comment conversations, such as the one on this post, to see how valid these points are.

Fundamentalists, who can follow an Eastern guru as easily as a Western god, aren't used to being challenged. They don't like it.

They're accustomed to nodding their heads during talks or sermons where everyone agrees (or feigns agreement) about the tenets of their shared faith. Thus when they preach dogma in a forum like this blog where questioning and skepticism are valued, a culture clash quickly becomes evident.

What's particularly interesting is how the fundamentalist's need for hierarchy and authoritarianism gets projected onto those who disagree with them.

It amazes me (and regular visitors to this blog, I'm sure) when someone speaks of my followers or acolytes. I only wish.

I can't tell you how many times I've written a post that struck me as astoundingly wise, inspiring, and reflective of reality, then waited for my well-deserved praise to arrive through cyberspace.

And waited... and waited... and waited.

Which is pretty much what I do when I throw a ball for our willful dog, whose accommodating Lab side unfortunately is overruled by her willful German Shepherd side when it comes to retrieving.

Or when I try to convince my equally assertive wife that she should accede to one of my philosophical positions, which she's managed to resist during our nineteen years of marriage.

What's going on here, it seems, is that fundamentalist visitors to this blog can't understand how people can simultaneously (1) be deeply committed to understanding what life, spirituality, and meditation is all about, and (2) be deeply uncommitted to accepting on faith someone else's understanding. Including mine.

This accounts for all the talk in the above-mentioned comment conversation about me, and others by implication, giving up on seeking the truth merely because we're looking for it in a non-fundamentalist fashion.

That's ridiculous. But ridicule is one of the tools used by fundamentalists. In "The Guru Papers" this is one of the six strong indications of belonging to an authoritarian group:

No deviation from the party line is allowed. Anyone who has thoughts or feelings contrary to the accepted perspective is made to feel wrong or bad for having them.

So when a shaming tactic is used by a fundamentalist, throw it back at them: "Shame on you! For trying to shame me! Keep your guilt to yourself!"

Fortunately, I've found that most religious people consider their personal faith to be just that... personal.

A guy used to come to my Tai Chi classes who was a devout Christian. I enjoyed him a lot. He'd call me "Brother Brian" and bless me. He was so sincere, so humble, and so accepting of my own beliefs, we got along great.

It isn't differences in beliefs that is the problem.

It's holding onto a belief with such rigidity and certainty that alternative views are rejected out of hand, and any questioning by a skeptic is rejected as the devil's handiwork. 

That's when it becomes next to impossible to talk to a fundamentalist.

Life is change. Why cling to a religion?

I've been thinking about some of the changes that have happened in my life. Starting with marriage, since it's our anniversary today. (Laurel and I were smart to get married on St. Patrick's Day; when green beer starts to be mentioned, I'm reminded of what I shouldn't forget).

After being married for eighteen years to one woman, now I've been married for nineteen years to a different woman. Good change.

After getting a Master's Degree in Social Work, I realized that I wasn't cut out for counseling and worked on a Ph.D. in Systems Science. Good change.

After buying a Ford Fairmont in the 1970s and seeing what American cars were like (had VWs before), I switched exclusively to European and Japanese models. Good change.

After spending nine years in traditional Shotokan Karate, I switched to a mixed martial arts style and then to Tai Chi. Good change.

After being an early Macintosh adopter, for a long time I went to the dark side and embraced Windows computers, but now have returned to the Mac fold. Good change.

After my wife had several purebred, high-strung, hip-problem prone German Shepherds, we got a good-natured, mellow, healthy Shepherd-Lab mix. Good change.

There have been plenty of other changes in my sixty years of living, of course. As there are in every person's life.

We move around, marry and divorce, shift jobs, have children, get sick and become healthy, take up new activities, alter political persuasions, and so much else.

Yet when it comes to our core religious or philosophical beliefs, many people believe that these should remain fixed for a lifetime. I know this is true, because I've had so many fundamentalists tell me, "Brian, how could you change your beliefs?"

Well, it's easy. Change is always happening. It's the only constant.

It's strange, really, this notion that we should remain content with a religious choice made at a young (or even old) age, or even stranger, stick with one that was chosen for us because it was the faith of our parents.

Growth and increased understanding come with experience. That's why second choices usually turn out better than first choices.

For example, I learned about relationships from my first marriage, about martial arts from my first karate training, and about mysticism/ meditation from my first guru initiation (well, second in a sense).

In each case I'm happier with my subsequent choice(s). When I made them, I had a better grasp of who I was, what I wanted, and what didn't work well for me the first time around.

So there's no reason for anyone to feel that something is wrong if an urge arises to change to a different religion, spiritual path, philosophical persuasion, or belief system.

Today I came across a Zen lecture by Suzuki Roshi that spoke about change. I didn't resonate with all of the essay, but liked this part.

There is a famous koan about a man who climbs to the top of a hundred foot pole. If he stays at the top, he is not the enlightened one. When he jumps off the top of the pole, he may be the enlightened one. How we understand this koan is how we understand our practice. The reason we feel that something should be pulled out is because we stay at the top of the pole. Then you have a problem. Actually there is no top of the pole. The pole continues forever, so you cannot stop anywhere. But you think because you have some experience of enlightenment that you can rest there, observing various sights from the top of the pole.

Things are continuously growing or changing into something else. Nothing exists in its own form or color. When we think, "Here is the top," that is already a misunderstanding. Then you will have the problem of whether or not to jump. But you cannot jump from here. It is not possible. And even though you try to stop at the top of the pole, you cannot stay there because it is growing continuously. You may think it is possible to stop, but it is not.

That is the problem. That is why you should practice and forget all about the top of the pole. To forget about the top of the pole is to [be] where you are right now. Not to be this way or that way, or to be in the past or future, but to be right here. Do you understand?

You should forget this moment and grow into the next. That is the only way. For instance, when breakfast is ready, my wife hits some wooden clappers. If I don't answer, she may continue to hit them until I feel rather angry. Why we have this kind of problem is quite simple. It is because I don't answer. If I say, "Hai!" ("Yes!"), there is no problem. Because I don't say, "Yes!" she continues to call me because she doesn't know whether or not I heard her.

Sometimes she may think, "He knows but he doesn't answer." When I don't answer, I am on the top of the pole. I don't jump off. I believe I have something important to do at the top of the pole and think, "You shouldn't call me. You should wait." Or I may think, "This is very important! Don't you know that? I am here, on top of the pole! Don't you know that?" Then she will keep hitting the clappers. This is how we create problems.

So the secret is just to say, "Yes!" and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself, always yourself, without sticking to an old self. You forget all about yourself and are refreshed. You are a new self, and before that new self becomes an old self, you say, "Yes!" You walk to the kitchen for breakfast. So the point of each moment is to forget the point and extend your practice.

As Dogen Zenji says, "To study Buddhism is to study yourself. To study yourself is to forget yourself on each moment. Then everything will come and help you." Everything will assure your enlightenment. When I say, "Yes!" my wife will assure my enlightenment. "Oh, you are a good boy!" But if I stick to this, "I am a good boy," I will create another problem.

Hmmmm. I didn't realize before that saying "Yes!" to my wife is how my enlightenment will take place.

Fortunately for my spiritual progress, I say it all the time. No man stays happily married for nineteen years without countless, "Yes, dear's."

"Churchless" is a 360 degree perspective

Thanks again to Shin for sharing his or her doubts about Radha Soami Satsang Beas, which formed a recent post. I've enjoyed the comments also.

These thoughts have, not surprisingly, gotten me thinking ... about my own evolution from a fervent RSSB true believer to who I am now.

It's sort of tough to encapsulate my current state in a few words, like I used to be able to do with "RSSB initiate" or "RSSB disciple." This is progress.

Before, my spiritual focus was narrow. Even though I read widely in other traditions -- Sufism, mystical Christianity, Greek philosophy -- I was mostly interested in how these teachings related to the Sant Mat belief system.

I was looking for truth along a narrow section of the philosophical, or spiritual, horizon.

While I was more open-minded than most religious believers, I'd still put on devotional blinders that prevented me from seeing that really real reality could lie in a considerably different direction from where I was facing.

That was toward a guru, a dualistic theology, a rigid set of lifestyle commandments, a well-defined meditation approach, an obedience-demanding organization that didn't tolerate dissent.

There are other ways. A multitude of ways. Maybe even an infinity.

Because if there is one thing humans have learned about ultimate reality, it is that we know nothing about ultimate reality. Nothing for certain, for sure.

So a sincere truth seeker shouldn't forestall any possibilities. Reality can lie in any direction; a 360 degree perspective needs to be embraced. We don't want truth to tip-toe up behind us and remain unnoticed as we gaze in the opposite direction.

Shin brought up the subject of meditation. I still meditate every morning. Now, though, it's with a who knows? attitude. For example:

Who knows...?
whether God exists
whether consciousness continues after death
whether any existent divinity is personal or impersonal
whether minds can connect non-physically
whether psychic stillness leads to deeper reality waters
whether we can even ask cogent questions about the cosmos

I sure don't.

So I sit down on my meditation cushion with a let's see and show me. I might start off with a churchless prayer that goes something like this.

Hey, God, if you exist, I'm here. Show me what you're like. Or if any other entity is aware of me -- angel, guru, disembodied soul, advanced alien being, whatever or whoever -- let's have a chat. My consciousness is open for truth-business, so long as you've got good intentions (I'd just as soon not meet up with demonic presences, though even that could be interesting). 

This sort of talk is directed at the possibility that some being can communicate with me. Since I don't know what or who this might be, I put out a "Welcome" sign for Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Jehovah, Krishna, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or anyone else who wants to drop by my awareness.

So far my meditation has been pretty damn solitary, however. This leads me to suspect that the really real reality I'm looking for isn't outside of me, but rather is me.

Which isn't an original suspicion, of course, since some version of that hypothesis lies at the root of almost every deep mystical teaching or philosophy. Heck, it's even how I started off my book about Plotinus (which is one of my favorite sentences in the 369 pages).

If something has been lost and you're not sure where to look for it, there's good reason to start searching right where you are rather than far afield.

It's good to have a 360 degree perspective. But that doesn't necessarily mean looking far away toward a distant horizon. 

Meister Eckhart, a medieval Christian mystic, put it this way:

The eye with which I see God is exactly the same eye with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowledge and one love.

What's more all-encompassing and 360 degree'ish than one?

Good questions from a Sant Mat truth seeker

Questions...they're so much more important than answers. Questions open us up. They point us in the direction of truth. They help us avoid premature explanations that haven't ripened into a reality we can depend on.

Below is a mildly edited email message that I got yesterday from a thoughtful, questioning member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, the group that I belonged to for over thirty years.

I've responded to this person in a comment. Hopefully other Church of the Churchless visitors will do the same, as he or she requested.

Even if you aren't familiar with the Sant Mat theologies that are referred to, some of the issues raised below are universal. That's the thrust I'm going to take in my own comment response: focusing on this person's overall frame of mind more than discrete questions.

Read on...
------------------------------
Dear Brian,

I have recently stumbled across your Church of the Churchless site and other ex- satsangi sites. I am writing this more in hope than anything else....hope of finding the TRUTH.

I have been initiated {RSSB - Current Master - Gurinder Singh} for over ten years. I came to RS through family, in fact through three generations of stalwart satsangis. Therefore it has been very difficult for me to speak like this with all around me opposing what I am doing. This is not totally true; I do have one other in the family who has questions similar to mine but closes his mind to it, stating that there is nothing better out there!

To get to the crux, I feel there are many anomalies within the faith as follows:

In the beginning there was nothing but God, therefore why was the world created in the first place – God was bored ?

At the beginning of time we are told that some souls did not want to leave Sach Khand ["heaven"] and these are the marked souls that are initiated. But this raises a couple of questions: this implies some souls did want to leave and the question is if Sach Khand is such a perfect place why did they want to leave ? And the other question is that those who did not want to go had to leave against their will – this seems very unfair?

At the beginning of time we were perfect ie. we had no karmas – how did we get the first karma if we were perfect – we were tempted – but God put this temptation here in the first place and knew we would give in to it. Therefore how then can we be blamed for our karmas ?

If God knows everything, which he must do if he is all-knowing, then he knows what we are about to do, including bad karmas – in other words bad karmas must also be pre-destined. Therefore, again, how then can we be blamed for our karmas ?

Why was the world designed with bad karmas built into it eg. we cannot breathe or eat without committing bad karmas. Therefore, again, how then can we be blamed for our karmas?

If God loves us and can take us back in a second, why doesn’t He ?

It is convenient to say "we cannot comprehend or understand the answers' OR "go in [via meditation] and find out for yourself" and then add "But you cannot disclose to anyone your findings".

Why was it decided that we should not know our previous karmas – this is very unfair as we cannot prevent making similar mistakes or seeing the justice of cause and effect!

If EVERYTHING is destined (each breath and hair on your body is pre-destined), surely the amount/quality/effect of our meditation must surely also be destined!

If we are told that Baba Ji [current guru] will never give us more hardship than we can take once we are initiated as Baba Ji controls our karmas from this point - then no initiate should ever commit suicide – but they have!

How can you be guilty of eating meat if you accidentally eat it even though from the investigations you did, it appeared it was pure vegetarian? Baba Ji said poison is poison – you will feel the effects even if you did not know it was there – this appears very unfair!

If meditation is the most important seva, why is it generally accepted that sevadars [volunteers] will sacrifice their meditation for seva on seva days especially when sevadars are expected to do seva on consecutive days where they start very early and may not be free until late, eg. National Satsang days?

Stories of previous Masters and their disciples, are just that, stories that cannot be collaborated or confirmed.

How many times are we told we must do our meditation, living in this world and the struggles they present BUT the 'Special Disciples', who either become Masters or nearest and dearest seem to have had the opportunity to go into caves or the forest and do years of meditation.

As most companies make money by corrupt means or unethically eg. employing slave labour, then this would mean avoiding working and buying goods & services from them would be very difficult to do, as so many are involved!

Why is Parshad [food] blessed by Baba Ji if it has no spiritual significance but is only served as a reminder of God when you eat it - as nothing but meditation is supposed to burn away karmas – this appears to be a ritual?

Why is Dristi [when the guru looks at disciples] by Baba Ji significant before satsang if there is nothing spiritual about it - as nothing but meditation is supposed to burn away karmas – this appears to be a ritual also?

In addition to this, would be the succession and the checkered history and the obvious family links. Through my own investigation you could probably add 'Business' to this list,  i.e. property development etc.

I feel utterly confused and truly yearn for the truth. I have read many stories of ex satsangis who feel betrayed and cannot believe how the 'faith' has become institutionalised verging on a corporate scale.

The questions I would like to put to you and your readers are: have you found anything BETTER?

If it is just a case of "freeing your mind" will this actually help in realising the truth?

In recent weeks I have tried to meditate without using the names but feel at odds. What can I use, what can I say.....I have tried 'one with the creator' / know thyself / who am I / I seek the truth etc etc. Can any of this work OR is it just one Mantra replacing another!

Additionally is there anyone out there who after investigation feels Sant Mat and RSSB is in fact the truth. Has anyone returned to the FOLD? The Masters always claim, disciples after becoming disillusioned with the faith eventually will return to the Fold. Has this actually happened or are we now in the realms of the four lifetimes?

I seek the truth and will continue my efforts until I either find it or give up due to sheer exhaustion.

Please excuse any grammatical errors and if wished you can add this to your forum.

Best wishes,
Shin [not real name]

Religious abstractions are authoritarian

Oneness. Unity. Enlightenment. Perfection. Salvation.

These are abstractions. Nobody ever has seen, touched, heard, tasted, or smelled them.

They're conceptions, but religious believers often take them to be more real than here-and-now reality. "The Guru Papers," which I'm enjoying a lot, says:

The concept of oneness is an abstraction created by thought as a way of framing and attempting to describe the mystical experience. Insofar as Oneness is placed in a higher realm or plane than the world of separation and multiplicity (the Many), this is done by abstracting out and reifying a presumed quality or essence from life, and making that more important than the individual expressions of life itself.

I started out by reading the final chapters of this book by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad first. Having written a book about oneness, "Return to the One," I couldn't resist jumping right into the Oneness, Enlightenment, and the Mystical Experience chapter.

Especially "The One-Sidedness of Oneness" section. I've got to agree with Kramer and Alstad, though not too long ago I wouldn't have.

It is through constructing images that idealize unity and selflessness to the detriment of separateness that spirituality and morality have gone awry. By a sleight of mind which easily passes unnoticed, the experience of an underlying unity is turned into the ideology of Oneness, which contains both unwarranted assumptions about reality and prescriptions on how to be. The commonest ones are:

1. Such experiences are more real than ordinary reality, and so unity is superior to diversity.

2. It is possible to be in the mystical state all the time and, of course, the more you're there the better.

3. The path to unity is through negating individuation. Here descriptions of unity turn into prescriptions for individuals to no longer act like individuals.

4. Following a presumed "arrived" master is the best way to get there.

The experience of being a part of something larger (even the whole cosmos) is very different from declaring the whole more real than its parts. Just as it takes an individual to have this experience, it takes an individual mind to construct the ideology of Oneness -- an ideology which quixotically denies the individuated reality of the person constructing it.

Duality is ever-present in religions. It just is more obvious in Western monotheistic faiths like Christianity. God and Creation are clearly separate.

But Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism have their own more subtle dualisms. Kramer and Alstad say, "The ideology of Oneness contains a hidden dualism precisely to make certain expressions of unity better and higher than others."

For example, those expressed by a so-called perfect master. After all, how could anything be better and higher than perfection?

The problem, though, is that "perfection" is an abstraction, as is "oneness." Neither exists in the sense that a tree, person, fish, or star does. If fact, logically many abstractions of this sort can't exist.

How could someone claim to have experienced oneness? Wouldn't they have to exist separate from absolute unity in order to have the experience?

Likewise, I've spent quite a few hours in the company of gurus who are considered by true believers to be "perfect." Yet I saw plenty of imperfections. They make mistakes, forget things, get facts wrong, express negative emotions.

Still, because the gurus are considered to be enlightened beings, everything they do and say is viewed uncritically as a manifestation of perfection by their disciples.

What drives this submission to an authoritarian hierarchy? Abstraction.

The ideal of enlightenment at first blush seems completely innocent of human corruption because it is defined as being totally selfless. Yet it is this sacrosanct concept of perfection that allows authoritarianism to manifest, and indeed flourish.

...Whereas monotheism makes the revealed Word of God sacred, Eastern religions make presumed enlightened beings sacred. Thus the concept of enlightenment brings authoritarianism at the personal, charismatic level (gurus, masters, avatars, and buddhas).

Here the authority comes from living people, not an institution -- although they almost always create an institution around themselves or are already part of one. Not coincidentally, surrendering to and obeying the master is presented as a (usually necessary) step on the path to enlightenment.

The very nature of any structure that makes one person different from and superior to others not only breeds authoritarianism, but is authoritarian in its essence. Just as there is no way for humans to question a remote God, there is really no way for a non-enlightened being to question the words or actions of a presumed enlightened one.

This is why gurus can get away with anything -- they are judged by different standards that make whatever they do perfect by definition.

It's amusing how frequently I'm criticized by true believers who say that I live in a world of my own deluded concepts.

Yet actually the reverse is true.

Since my conversion to churchlessness I've become a lot less abstract, while those who consider notions like "perfection" and "selflessness" to be more true than clear and present reality are still addicted to conceptions.

BIt of a blog makeover

TIme for a Church of the Churchless banner change. I wanted a stronger look that matched my other blog.

Browsing through my photos for image inspiration, I came across one that I took at Suttle Lake in central Oregon. (Larger version viewable in this blog post.)

I like how Serena, our pet companion (a.k.a. Canine Perfection), is gazing in the opposite direction from the way the chair on the dock is facing.

When I saw the photo, my mind said "spiritual independence." Which got the image onto the banner.

Last October I made a video of our walk around Suttle Lake. It has some closeups of Serena and shots of the fall foliage. Nature is so, well, natural. No God required.

Yay! Churchless are on the march in U.S.

Excellent news: a survey has found that the ranks of faithless, irreligious, and pagan people are growing rapidly in the United States.

"nones"—people claiming no religion—constitute the only "religious" tradition that's growing in all 50 states

Keep not-believing, churchless brothers and sisters. We are overcoming!

The only depressing part of the survey findings for me was how Oregon has slipped over the past 18 years. I feel like I should have done more to keep up my state's godless credentials.

This nifty USA Today chart shows that back in 1990 Oregon was #1 in No Religion.

Now look at us in 2008. Vermont is kicking our butt. (Along with New Hampshire, Wyoming, Washington, and Maine.) Sad.

 Well, back to the positive: this table shows how various belief systems have fared, popularity-wise, from 1990-2008. "No religion" had by far the greatest percentage growth -- from 8.2% to 15.0% of the population.

That's an 83% increase! At that rate, we'll eventually cover the country with unbelievers.

The South, though, is going to be a tough religious nut to crack. Arkansas and Mississippi aren't growing the faithless very fast. Need to send some anti-missionaries down there to do some unconverting.

It was nice to see that those who profess a fondness for Eastern religions more than doubled, from .4% to .9% of the U.S. population. Maybe bookstores will start carrying more Taoist and Buddhist titles, which I'd like.

This country is still deeply traditionally religious. But as USA Today reported in an in-depth story on the survey, "Most religious groups in USA have lost ground."

So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, "the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion," the report concludes.

Nice.

Religious and worldly wealth bubbles

Some days the financial meltdown has me feeling like our stock market portfolio -- trashed.

In an effort to get some benefit from the holy shit! that bursts forth every time I take a peek at our Schwab account (my soma hasn't shown up yet), I'll attempt to suck some cosmic meaning out of the dry rind of increasingly bad economic news.

What's been striking me is how similar a rapid decline in net worth and a sudden loss of religious faith can feel.

Having experienced both, I can say that the defining emotional characteristic of each (for me, at least) is a sensation akin to standing in a rapidly descending elevator. The floor is still there, but it's falling away from you.

Exciting. Disturbing. Unsettling. Exhilarating. All at the same time.

When the elevator comes to a stop and the door opens, you're on a lower floor, closer to the building's foundation. Now you can walk on and go about your business. Or, pleasure.

Similarly, coming down from the artificial high of a financial or religious bubble can make someone feel like the plug has been pulled on a bathtub full of reality.

Except bubbles aren't really real. They've been artificially inflated to appear larger than they are.

Unfortunately, brokerage house statements and theological belief systems don't come with warnings like car mirrors do: "Your financial/religious net worth may be a lot smaller than it appears."

With the housing bubble, people thought that the value of homes was a lot higher than was actually sustainable. With my true believing bubble, I thought that the value of certain religious tenets was a lot higher than they turned out to be.

I'm fascinated by the connection between monetary and spiritual investing (which perhaps is visible only to me, given how little attention my brilliant musings on this subject, such as this post, have received from the world outside my head).

In both pursuits, it's easy to lose sight of basics, fundamentals, simple principles. Most people -- me included, at some points in my life -- feel that they can beat the broad market.

Investors think they're smarter than the "other guy," forgetting that to other investors, they are that guy.

Religious believers consider that they're saved while other apostates are doomed, forgetting that to believers in other faiths, they are doomed.

I've come to the conclusion that it's better to go with the flow, both economically and salvationally. Index investing is the equivalent of spiritual agnosticism. Whatever happens to everybody is what will happen to you.

(See "Spiritual diversification, a sound salvation strategy")

So this economic downturn is a nice (first time I've used that term about the meltdown) reminder that what goes up unnaturally must come down.

Keeping our feet on the ground...
Not trying to be superior...
Accepting things as they really are...

That's genuine wealth.

Sure you're right? You're probably wrong.

Is a depression coming? Will Obama's stimulus and budget plans get the country back on track?

Does God exist? Is heaven the after-death destination for believers, and hell for doubters?

These sets of questions seem very different -- economics is worldly; religion is other-worldly. But after reading a recent Newsweek article, "Why Pundits Get Things Wrong," I suspect there is a commonality between those who offer up answers in both areas.

Ongoing research by Philip Tetlock, a psychologist, looked at 82,361 predictions by 284 pundits. Searching for an explanation of why some people were better predictors than others, he found that:

The best predictor, in a backward sort of way, was fame: the more feted by the media, the worse a pundit's accuracy. And therein lay Tetlock's first clue. The media's preferred pundits are forceful, confident and decisive, not tentative and balanced. They are, in short, hedgehogs, not foxes.

In other words, those who were most certain they were right were more likely to be wrong. It's better to be a fox, someone who knows many things, than a hedgehog, who knows one big thing.

The article's author, Sharon Begley, lists the characteristics of foxes (better predictors) and hedgehogs (worse predictors).

Foxes... cognitively flexible, modest, open to self-criticism, consider competing views, doubt power of Big Ideas, recognize uncertainty, pepper their speech and writing with "however" and "but."

Hedgehogs... supremely confident, dismiss opposing views, drawn to top-down arguments based on a Big Idea, seek certainty, dismiss information that undercuts preconceptions.

In punditry though, and this applies to supposed secular and spiritual experts alike, most people like to hear decisive answers rather than tentative opinions.

Even though in my graduate school days I was taught that it's better to be roughly right instead of precisely wrong, brazen black and white statements generally appear more attractive than those in shades of gray.

However (yes, I'm a fox), reality is grayish.

So usually those who predict extremes of doom and gloom, or sunshine and roses, will be off the mark. Likely the world economy isn't heading into a free fall, and probably the Second Coming isn't near at hand (or far at hand, for that matter).

Here are some excerpts from an interesting New Yorker story about Tetlock's book that support my churchless inclinations.

I don't trust experts who make over-confident economic predictions, nor religious leaders who claim to know what is going to happen to us after we die.

People who make prediction their business—people who appear as experts on television, get quoted in newspaper articles, advise governments and businesses, and participate in punditry roundtables—are no better than the rest of us. When they’re wrong, they’re rarely held accountable, and they rarely admit it, either. They insist that they were just off on timing, or blindsided by an improbable event, or almost right, or wrong for the right reasons. They have the same repertoire of self-justifications that everyone has, and are no more inclined than anyone else to revise their beliefs about the way the world works, or ought to work, just because they made a mistake.

...The accuracy of an expert’s predictions actually has an inverse relationship to his or her self-confidence, renown, and, beyond a certain point, depth of knowledge. People who follow current events by reading the papers and newsmagazines regularly can guess what is likely to happen about as accurately as the specialists whom the papers quote.

...The experts’ trouble in Tetlock’s study is exactly the trouble that all human beings have: we fall in love with our hunches, and we really, really hate to be wrong.

...Most people tend to dismiss new information that doesn’t fit with what they already believe. Tetlock found that his experts used a double standard: they were much tougher in assessing the validity of information that undercut their theory than they were in crediting information that supported it.

...But the best lesson of Tetlock’s book may be the one that he seems most reluctant to draw: Think for yourself.

Like a fox. (If you're not sure whether you're more of a fox or a hedgehog, here's some questions that will give you an indication.)

Danes and Swedes don't obsess over meaning of life

For most of my sixty years I've seriously pondered the Big Question, "What is the meaning of life?" So much so, I've assumed that anyone who doesn't engage in similar pondering is shallow, clueless, frivolous, unaware.

After all, Socrates said: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

But there's intriguing evidence in Phil Zuckerman's "Society Without God" that most people in Denmark and Sweden simply live life, without questioning its meaning. And the citizens of these nations are among the happiest in the world, according to comparative surveys.

So what gives? Zuckerman lived in Scandinavia for fourteen months, interviewing about 150 Danes and Swedes and conducting other sociological research. Here's what he says at the end of a chapter about fear of death and the meaning of life.

Having conversation after conversation like those excerpted above led me to some deep thinking. Some serious pondering. But not about the meaning of life. Rather, I deeply pondered the deep pondering of the meaning of life.

Put simply: I began to seriously question just how important and significant "knowing the meaning of life" really is for people, after all. Is it truly such a burning matter? Is it really such a deep, universal concern?

...Based on my research among Danes and Swedes, I have started to theorize that most people, most of the time -- at least in certain cultures -- don't actually worry too much or actually even care about the "ultimate meaning of life."

...Sure, every human who has ever lived may, from time to time, wonder why we are here and what the point of it all is at certain special moments, now and then. Call them fleeting moments of existential pondering.

But I would argue that these fleeting moments of existential pondering come and go, and are not necessarily the moments that people construct their lives around, or devote inordinate amounts of energy to. At least not contemporary Scandinavians, who are living proof that the quest to know the ultimate meaning of life need not be a deep or vexing human obsession.

Here's some examples of what Danes and Swedes told Zuckerman:

Do I wonder about the meaning of life? No, I don't go that deep.

I don't know if I think about the meaning of life. The meaning of my life, I think, is just to have a good life for myself and the people I care about.

It has no special meaning. People try to find some special meaning. We are born, we live, and we die.

But sometimes you can ask yourself, now you are here what are you going to do? Do something, you know, so that when we get to the end you can say I did something good for other people.

I basically think that life is about what we do now, and whatever makes us happy and feel like we're achieving something. That's the meaning of it. Because if you think of it, look at animals. They just live and they're happy. I hope, at least.

The meaning of life is living your life and having a good life, and you should not be living life waiting for something afterwards.

Amen to that. More and more, I've been coming to the same conclusion:

"The meaning of life? Life."
"Maybe the meaning of life is...life"
"Meaning of life is right now, or never"

"The Guru Papers" and magical thinking

Here's some additional correspondence that I've received from "Unknown," who sent along previously-posted (from January 12-28, 2009) material that can be found in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas category of this blog.

The theme of this submission is why people accept so uncritically a guru's claims of divinity, or special access to God, when either positive evidence is lacking or negative evidence is present.

I wasn't familiar with one of the cited books, "The Guru Papers." It looks interesting. I decided to order a used copy from Amazon -- 408 pages of anti-cult prose for $6.99, that's the kind of cost-effective churchless reading I go for.

Click below to read on.