Even when I was a religious true believer, Eastern mysticism variety, I tried to avoid being irritatingly sanctimonious. People who consider themselves holier-than-thou are difficult to be around. And I necessarily associated with quite a few people who didn't believe in what I did.
Such as my first wife, who early on deconverted from the India-based Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) faith that I held on to for about thirty-five years. And my second wife, who always has been an "infidel" from the standpoint of RSSB.
When I gave talks at RSSB meetings, I often used her as an example, saying that it makes no sense for any devotee of a particular spiritual belief system to view themselves as being superior to others. After all, isn't spirituality supposed to have something to do with humility, love, compassion, acceptance?
Having run this churchless blog for almost eight years, I'm familiar with the putdowns of pseudo-spiritual wannabes -- because so many of those putdowns are directed at me in comments and emails. Here's some of the techniques I find most irritatingly amusing, because they are so nonsensical.
After I share those, I'll end with a suggestion about how to really put me, or another religious skeptic, down.
"Brian, you haven't had [such and such] experience. You're a spiritual loser."
This is an exceedingly lame argument.
No, I haven't experienced the blazing love of Jesus. No, I haven't had a peyote-fueled vision of the divine. No, I haven't felt the cosmic compassion of Buddha by repeating Namu Amida Butsu. No, I haven't astral traveled through inner regions of reality.
Who has experienced everything that religions, spiritual faiths, and mystical practices say is possible to experience?
And who can prove that any of these experiences are more than subjectively personal? I've had countless experiences that nobody else has. In fact, all of my experiences are unique to me, because no one can ever know someone else's conscious experience.
So this putdown is so weak as to be meaningless.
"Brian, you would have had [such and such] experience if you'd stuck with [such and such] longer. You're a quitter."
This is how I usually respond to this attempted putdown: Have you ever changed your mind, done something different, gone in a different direction, discarded one thing and picked up another?
Nobody -- repeat, nobody -- keeps on the same track forever. I can't understand how it is that many religious believers convert to a particular faith, then view any subsequent conversion to another viewpoint as a ghastly sin.
If they'd always felt that way, they would have stuck with what they originally believed. Or their lack of belief. We all learn from our experiences. We all discover what we like and don't like. We evolve in our understanding of what makes life meaningful for us.
Yet even though change is the only constant from birth until death, somehow religious fundamentalists imagine that once a believer in X, always a believer in X. If Y comes to look more true and desirable, the devil must have worked his wily ways.
Ridiculous. Please, come up with a better putdown.
"Brian, you do [such and such] and say [such and such]. You're an immoral egotist."
So what if I am? And how is it that supposedly you can judge me without being an immoral egotist, but when I criticize somebody or something, I'm all wrong?
Everybody has different standards of right and wrong. We all do what we feel we should. We're all trying to journey down the road of life in the best way possible. Still, I often disagree with what someone else is doing.
Politics is one of my passions. Every day I read the news and think, "Geez, what the Republicans are doing is so obviously wrong." But I realize that to them, us progressives are wrong. I try to avoid making absolutist moral judgments.
Which reminds me of some passages I read today in one of my favorite books, Raymond Smullyan's "The Tao is Silent." He describes four people. Smullyan likes the fourth a lot. The first, not at all.
The fourth says, "Why do I act as I do? To tell you the truth, I have absolutely no idea why. It is simply my nature to act as I act, and that's all I can say." ...The last one delights me utterly!... He is the one who is completely natural, spontaneous, and unself-consciously helpful.
...The first says, "I regard it as my duty and moral obligation to help my fellow man." ...But the first man! Good heavens, what a monstrosity!... People like the first man are so often pompous, vain, ego-assertive, puritanical, inhuman, self-centered, dominating, and unsympathetic. They are the people who act out of "principles." In a way, they are even worse than people who don't help others at all!
l don't know if I'm egotistical. I just do what I feel like doing.
Sure seems like that also is what people who criticize me for being an egotist are doing. Difference is, I don't feel superior to other people when I do what I feel like doing -- which makes me less egotistical!
Anyway, this gets me to how someone could really put me down for what I'm doing here on the Church of the Churchless: provide some super-good evidence that I'm wrong to be skeptical about god, soul, spirit, supernatural powers, and all that.
Ooh! That would show me!
I'd have to admit that what I've been saying in so many blog posts is wrong, wrong, wrong. I'd have to bow down before the truth: God is real; the soul survives bodily death; spirit is the ultimate reality; some people have supernatural abilities.
Actually, I'd be happy to do that: admit I was wrong. It'd be nice to know that there's more to life, existence, and the cosmos than what appears to be. More is better, for sure. Especially if it really is better.
Problem is, for the putdown to be effective, you need to bring your best stuff.
Facts, demonstrable evidence, proof. No one ever has been able to do this throughout all of recorded human history, so I doubt anyone is going to submit a blog post comment or send me an email with truly convincing arguments for some sort of divinity.
That's why I'm pretty sure those unconvincing putdowns will continue. Those who don't know, but believe they do, are spiritual wannabes who can't stand people like me who look at them and say, "Oh, really?"
Dear Brian,
For the little value which it has, I endorse your just offered view/standpoint.
I believe you are less "full of crap" now than you were when I first communicated with you some years ago. Let us both so continue.
(Further, I do suggest each of your wives have apparently been of great help/"blessing" to/for you. They do deserve your thanks.)
Robert Paul Howard
Posted by: Robert Paul Howard | July 19, 2012 at 03:07 AM
Full of crap...............??
Funny said..;(
By the way Brian ,I have the idea that satsangis are becoming more genuine then earlier..
And I hope the put downs will become lesser.
Your wife can be as happy with you as the other way round.(I think)
And also your dog!!
Posted by: Sita | July 20, 2012 at 01:08 AM
Hi Brian. Don't worry about 'put-downs' or 'spiritual experiences'- it's all in the mind (brain). Check out my take on some of it below.
LIVING IN THE NOW!
The phrase or concept ‘Living in the now’ has mostly become a mantra that is chanted with little understanding of what it implies. It seems to be used as an updated version from the ‘hippy era’ of ‘living for the moment’. For most, living in the now suggests living each moment as it happens without bringing in the past or projecting into the future. But this is not possible. The mind is entirely composed of experiences and memories; the mind is its contents; it is a collection of information. We simply cannot live without this information. Even animals must have minds; that is information enabling them to recognise, recall and act accordingly – it is more than instinct.
Try looking at something without the mind coming in with its commentary and judgements. I am looking out of the window at a flowering bush; the brain is just observing and although the mind is not racing off into abstract thoughts such as thinking ‘I must pay that bill’ or ‘what shall I have for dinner’? It’s still subtly active. Without commenting on the scene words like yellow, wind, pretty arise automatically. Trying not to use the mind seems to be a forced, even aggressive undertaking. It takes a degree of concentration – which raises the question, ‘who or what is concentrating’? Perhaps this is where we need to clarify the concept of ‘Living in the now’.
It is surely not the purpose of ‘spiritual enquiry’ to attempt to arrive at a point where the mind is forced to be quiet or ‘tamed’? The mind is a very useful part of our survival apparatus; we would not get far without it; in fact, we would be as helpless as babies. But, we need to understand the mind, or rather be aware of how the mind/ego influences our lives, our relationships with each other and the environment.
Some of the contents which comprise the mind can strongly assume the role of being who we are; they become ‘me’, ‘I’, ‘myself’, ‘us’, ‘them’ and so on. Where we strongly identify with the contents such as a country, culture, race or religion, they become our identity. We have identified with the mind; we have identified with an arbitrary number of contents that were installed into our brains by the time and place of our birth; a different time, a different place would have given us a different ‘self’ identity.
Being totally identified with the mind – the experiences of yesterday, the experiences that made ‘me’ – is living in the past. The moment which is now is automatically obscured by the weight of the past. We are not talking here of the mind’s function of using information, planning and projecting but of obscuring the present moment, obscuring the actuality of what is before us with a predetermined conditioned response. Hence the flower is a thing of beauty or a weed or just a statement; the perfectly adapted seagull becomes a pest – and you become a friend, an object or an enemy.
Unless we understand the processes that form the mind’s structure it will continue to dictate how we relate to ourselves, each other and the world around us. It has a huge investment in identifying with anything that maintains the illusion of being the ‘I’, the ‘self’, the ‘controller’. In this respect ‘I’ will always live in the past – unable to see the reality of now. And here’s a paradox. The mind can never be in the now; as soon as the mind enters the picture the past arises. The body/brain is always in the now but the mind only ‘knows’ of it retrospectively. It appears that it is the mind which is witnessing the reality of the moment but through honest enquiry and awareness this almost instantaneous mental process can be seen as just another myth that is the mind.
Posted by: Ron Elloway | July 20, 2012 at 01:37 PM
Sounds a little defensive.
"Oh yah!
Yah!"
Says you...
No, you!
I'm having a good laugh.
Brian, you said something very important with which I agree completely. Our experiences are entirely subjective. The notion of objectivity is itself a system of beliefs. The notion of rational thinking is itself a set of rules to help us using our brains to understand our experience in a more honest and truthful, "objective" way.
But however we interpret it, that is our choice, and it is inevitably personal and subjective. It isn't actually Truth, just what we accept as truth.
The put downs are only put downs if you accept them as such, and they always apply both ways.
1. "You haven't had enough experience"
We are all seeking truth and more truthful experiences, Satsangis and non-Satsangis. Some are more diligent in their efforts. And in relation to our goal of getting to "objective truth" none of us can claim anything much on that front. So the accusation fits all of us, Satsangi and non-satsangi alike.
Yes, we see the world from our limited experience. That is the truth. But since no one can get into your head, they can't interpret your choices from their perspective, nor should you attempt the same.
2. "If only you worked harder you would see what I see". Well, maybe that works both ways too. Are you sure this isn't your projection onto others? It isn't the monopoly of religions, but "practical" men and women of the world as well.
What is truthful is that none of us see it all. The five blind men and the elephant...
So, what can you or any Satsangi truthfully say about someone else's experience? Nothing, I would suggest.
3. "Because of what you do and say, that makes you an immoral egotist!"
This really overlaps with 1 and 2 above. Since we are incomplete and our experience subjective, what are we wasting time judging others for? That happens all the time among atheists as well as religious devotees. Everyone thinks they know something you and I don't. And the truth is we are all in that situation. But that doesn't entitle us nor enable us to objectively make a judgement on anyone.
I only say, Brian, that this complaint of yours, if you are trying to be rational and objective, must be laid upon the greater lap of humanity and not a favorite enemy.
4. "I'd admit I'm wrong if you can prove it."
Brian, I have been attempting to follow this path for over thirty years. I am wrong every day,several times a day. Indeed I carry wrong with me, I express wrong continuously all the time.
My experience on the path is of being an onion of infinite layers that are getting pealed away one at a time. Intellectually, it's like being skinned alive every single day. Terribly painful to my pride.
If you haven't had to look at your own stupidity as a practice several times a day...if your particular beliefs and lifestyle permit you that insulated comfort, I envy you!
My spirituality helps me bear the burdens of....myself!
But a stiff drink, a good woman, or a vacation to a nice mexican beach might do the same....the problem is that everywhere I go there are still mirrors, and I come back to who and what I am, and if I haven't gotten any further along, the pain becomes sharper still.
Spirituality for some of us is not a choice.
And the more the onion is pealed, the more painful, the more central the "wrongs" are, over so many more years than this one life....and yet, the peace and happiness of finally being free of that layer is without comparison. The good company of my friend is without comparison.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | December 22, 2012 at 07:19 AM
Spence, thanks for the thoughtful comment.
There's good reason to consider that "peeling the onion" of our self doesn't reveal anything, because there is no self to be found. This was a theme of several short posts I put up tonight.
http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2012/12/who-the-heck-is-inside-my-head-talking-to-me.html
http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2012/12/how-to-challenge-ghosts-who-seem-real.html
Buddhism and like-minded philosophies don't find any meaning in anything but living life as it is, here and now. Searching for a transcendent reality or an immanent truth is useless since wherever we go, there we are -- and there is no "we."
Yes, subjectivity is a fact of life. So is objectivity. I don't mind people talking about a subjective experience which was important to them. What rubs me the wrong way is a claim that something subjective really is an objective truth.
The two shouldn't be confused. That way lies dogmatic religiosity, ego, holier-than-thou'ness. A subjective experience is just that, unless it is an experience of an objective reality that can be confirmed by others.
Psychotic people hallucinate experiences which seem real to them. So do mystically inclined people, people who meditate, people who desperately want to have a vision of Jesus, a guru, Buddha, or such.
Naturally I respect subjectivity. But I have little patience when people expect me to believe that THEIR subjectivity is better than MY subjectivity. I have experiences that would amaze you, if you were me. But you're not; you're having your own experiences.
Where we meet is on the common ground of objective reality, where you say "I see that" and I reply, "I see it too." Without that confirmation, no claim of knowing an objective truth unknown to others can be entertained.
Posted by: Brian Hines | December 22, 2012 at 08:16 PM