Church of the Churchless

Have I ever had a meaningful, valuable meditation experience?

Yesterday Jesse left a comment on this post which asked me:

May I ask if you ever had a subjective experience in meditation that you found to be meaningful or that revealed something of value to you, personally? Not necessarily a RS [Radha Soami Satsang Beas] meditation or any specific lights or sounds but just something that left you in a state of deeper self reverence or lasting tranquility.

Good question. Not an easy question to answer. It's a question that got me thinking more about the question than a possible answer. 

Meaning, after pondering for a bit how I might respond to Jesse, I realized that it wasn't as simple as that, because what he asked threw me into a frame of mind outside of straightforward question-response.

I felt like his comment was a mobius strip which led somewhere -- yet also nowhere.

Thus all I can do is offer up some observations which are similar: ideas that strike me as lying on the mobius strip that is Jesse's question, but which, if laid end to end, don't point anywhere particular.

While perusing my Twitter feed a while ago I came across a link with an intriguing title: "8 Great Philosophical Problems That We'll Never Solve." Each of the eight bears some relevance (and also irrelevance) to my mobius strip answering. 

This excerpt from Can you really experience anything objectively? appealed to me.

Another way of saying all this is that the universe can only be observed through a brain (or potentially a machine mind), and by virtue of that, can only be interpreted subjectively. But given that the universe appears to be coherent and (somewhat) knowable, should we continue to assume that its true objective quality can never be observed or known? It's worth noting that much of Buddhist philosophy is predicated on this fundamental limitation (what they call emptiness), and a complete antithesis to Plato's idealism.

Emptiness.

I've blogged about this notion in several recent posts.  Emptiness, Buddhist variety, is all about how things exist, including experiences, not about what things exist. So what's truly meaningful, and this makes sense to me, isn't a particular thing, such as a particular experience, but an insight into the nature of how all things exist.

Interdependently. Through consciousness. Thoughts without a thinker. Actions without an actor. Creations without a creator. 

Grokking that, wow.

I've had some wow's in my life. Don't know if they were/are genuine emptiness wow's. Since emptiness isn't more of a thing than anything else (emptiness is empty, say Buddhists), I suppose "genuine" doesn't apply here. 

My wife and I don't travel far afield very much. We detest long airplane flights. Also, being away from our dogs for very long. So we've never been to Paris, Glacier National Park, the Caribbean, lots of places friends and relatives have been.

Thus we're short on seeing-the-world experiences. But we're always seeing something. Just like the folks who go on cruises, tour Europe, trek the Himalayas, and such do. We enjoy what we see. So do they, from what I've heard.

Each to his/her own, when it comes to experiences. Inner or outer. I've never had an experience, inner or outer, which has deeply changed me. I've never known anyone else who has been deeply changed by an experience.

But maybe I have my own understanding of "deeply changed."

I've become (and maybe always have been) a first there is a mountain, then there isn't, then there is sort of guy. I don't believe in deeply changed. I don't believe in enlightenment. I don't believe in supernatural divinity, in becoming god-realized, in changing into someone more than human.

I do believe, provisionally, vaguely, uncertainly, in the possibility of us Homo sapiens being capable of sapien'ing the world in a radically fresh fashion. My psychedelic experiences back in the '60s (decade, not my age) showed me that consciousness can have its channel changed, so to speak, with the flip of a neurological button.

Same world. Fresh way of looking upon it. My fascination with Buddhist/Taoist emptiness relates to this. 

Some of my most meaningful experiences, the ones that stick in my mind as wow-like, have been seemingly utterly mundane. Much of Zen strikes me as bullshit. The emphasis upon simply chopping wood and carrying water, wisdom. 

Jesse asked about "lasting tranquility."

Not sure if I'd recognize this if it hit me over the head (which admittedly doesn't sound very tranquil). After all, something lasting isn't very observable. If it is unchanging, like gravity, I just take it for granted, because it's always been with me, or part of me.

So the way it looks to me on the part of the mobius strip that I'm focused on now, it's the most unmemorable experiences I've had -- both in and out of "formal" sitting meditation -- which have meant the most to me. 

Saying anymore probably takes me away from from what I'm trying to say. But hey, since we're on a mobius strip, taking a step anywhere leads back to the same place, so what the hell? Words are cheap. My laptop charges me nothing for every keystroke.

In my current churchless state I feel like nothing is important, and everything is. No experience is special, and every experience is. It all depends on how, not what. You know, that amorphous quality stuff talked about in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

Which stimulated a Google search that led me to a not-bad You Tube video which seems to be a decent way to end this post. It's got some spelling errors, but who knows -- those could be the key to understanding quality.

 

How do we know someone is enlightened?

Enlightenment. It's an appealing notion.

There I am, clueless, ignorant, unsatisfied, then bingo!, an enlightenment switch is flipped. Now I know what life is all about. I go around with a Buddha-smile for the rest of my days, blissed out because I'm no longer floundering blindly in cold cosmic darkness, but rather am basking on the always-sunny beach of enlightenment.

Only problem is...some questions. 

Does enlightenment exist? Could I tell if I've got it? Is it possible to know whether someone else is enlightened? Are there various types of enlightenment? 

Short answer: nobody knows.

Opinions abound. Demonstrable evidence is lacking. However, some people are able to address those questions I asked better than others. David Chapman, for example. (I've blogged about Chapman's Buddhist'y writings  before; the Great God Google will point you to my posts.)

A few weeks ago Chapman wrote about "Epistemology and Enlightenment." The entire piece is well worth reading. Here's some parts that particularly resonated with me.

Much of what we think we know must be wrong, because it changes so often. This is obviously true of factual knowledge; but perhaps more importantly of ethical knowledge. Within living memory, everyone knew that it was fine to dump rubbish in the ocean, and premarital sex was wrong. Now, everyone knows dumping rubbish in the ocean is wrong, and most people agree that premarital sex is fine.

Acting on mistaken “knowledge” often has bad results. Ways of sorting out what’s so are precious.

The great triumph of epistemology has been to point out that two traditional sources of knowledge—experts and holy books—are not necessarily reliable.

...Buddhism, and other religions, are attractive partly because they have supposed experts on meaning, who claim to have definitive answers.

Should we believe them? Why?

Buddhist answers usually involve “enlightenment,” or similar terms such as “bodhi,” “nirvana,” “kensho,” and so forth. I mostly find these answers unhelpfully abstract and theoretical. What can we know about enlightenment, and how?

...Different brands of Buddhism have stories about enlightenment that sound very different.

• How do we know which theory of enlightenment is right?
• Maybe none of them. Maybe there is no such thing! Most claims about enlightenment sound like silly spiritual fantasies—which is one reason many Westerners reject Buddhism.
• Maybe the theories only seem to disagree. Like the parable of the blind men, they are describing one elephant in different ways, or grasp different parts of the elephant.
• Maybe there are different, real things that different Buddhisms call “enlightenment.” Maybe they argue only because they don’t recognize they are using one word for more than one thing.

...Supposedly, only an enlightened person can say if someone else is enlightened. They have special magic insight. Ordinary people can’t tell. So how does that work?

A skeptical view is that a supposed enlightenment expert (such as a Zen master) will declare you to be enlightened if:

-- You have been practicing hard enough for long enough to get enlightened, according to the sect’s traditions
-- You can recite the sect’s dogmas as needed
-- You conform to the social norms of the sect
-- You show conspicuous loyalty to the sect vs. competing ones
-- You have some sort of odd experience which you describe using the sect’s jargon

...According to some Buddhist texts, and some supposed experts, enlightenment is unmistakable. If you experience it, you know it, and it removes all doubt.

This is particularly common in “experiencing Oneness” theories of enlightenment. When you first taste chocolate, you cannot doubt your own experience of it. You know what chocolate is like. Similarly, if you directly experience your Absolute Oneness With Everything, that is indisputable. You know The Ultimate Truth. No one can dispute this, because The Ultimate Truth is itself an experience, and like all experiences it is private and unmistakeable.

There’s a couple of problems with this. You can (apparently) be mistaken about what you have experienced, and (more importantly) you can be mistaken about what it means.

...Intense non-ordinary experiences often include what seem to be profound insights into the fundamental nature of reality. But the second problem is that those can be totally wrong.

...Buddhism is based on the dogmatic belief that:

There was this guy Gautama, who finally got it while sitting under a tree. He was totally transformed. Whatever he got is by definition the best thing you can get. He was as enlightened as it is possible to be.

There is zero evidence for this, and zero rational argument. It’s pure mythology.

In fact, it doesn’t matter whether there was such a guy, or whether he really got it. The important thing is that the myth hides the unexamined assumption that there is exactly one thing to get.

My guess is that some of the theories of enlightenment, told by different Buddhisms, describe real things—but they are about different things. That makes talk about “enlightenment” inherently confusing. It’s like a barroom debate about whether Spain’s La Roja or the New York Giants are the greatest football team, without anyone noticing that they play two completely different games that both happen to be called “football.”

...The most popular modern Buddhist theory of enlightenment is that you discover that All is One, so your True Self is in fact The Entire Universe. This is taught by many Zen masters and some prominent Theravadins. There is some basis for it in the Mahayana scriptures, but it totally contradicts traditional Theravada. It probably comes mainly from Western monist mysticism.

The theory is obviously false. All is not one; chalk is not cheddar. (Try making a melted chalk sandwich.) You are not the entire universe. You are about six feet tall, whereas the universe is about six hundred trillion miles across. Your mind is not the entire universe, either. You know nothing about most of it.

(I’ve written more about problems with monist mysticism here.)

...As it happens, I think the Oneness experience does contain an important insight. It’s just that mystics misunderstand it. What the experience actually points to is the fact that there is no objective separation between you and your immediate surroundings. That’s quite different from your being the same as the entire universe; and it stands up to rational scrutiny.

...Some neuroscientists have an interesting guess about the mystical “Oneness” experience. If you are a monkey swinging through dense jungle, it’s critical to keep track of where all your body parts are. You always need know where you end, and the air or branches begin. Otherwise, you’ll slam into something. So, probably there is an evolved brain mechanism that keeps track of the physical self/other boundary at all times. Maybe what happens in the Oneness experience is that it stops functioning. You misinterpret your inability to feel where your body ends as having melted into the entire universe.

How consciousness is related to Buddhist "emptiness"

When I wrote a recent post about the Buddhist notion of emptiness, I noted how Guy Newland defined an important concept:

intrinsic nature: an essential nature whereby something comes to have an independent way of existing without being posited through the force of consciousness. The sheer absence of this is emptiness.

Even though I'd just read Newland's fascinating book, "Introduction to Emptiness," I didn't really understand the reference to the force of consciousness when I typed those words. So I suspect others would be equally mystified by what he meant.

I'll let Newland explain:

Therefore, at bottom, to understand emptiness means understanding that things have no way of existing apart from minds that impute them. This is difficult to understand, and we can see that it is not at all how we ordinarily perceive the world.

In teaching this, I begin by scratching out a large letter A on the chalkboard. I ask the students what it is, and they say "A." But where does this identity come from? Does it come from the chalk dust? Does it come from the shape of the left slanted line? The right line? The centrally located crossbar? On the thin surface of the board, it is clear that there is no hidden interior place where the intrinsic A-ness of the A can reside.

...We find that an A utterly lacks any natural, independent identity from its own side, apart from our participation -- but that it is, mysteriously, fully capable of functioning. It works in words; it works as a letter-grade on a test. 

It does its job perfectly well even though it has no trace of the objective existence that we unconsciously attribute to it. This seems mysterious, even disconcerting, because we are deeply habituated to the idea that objective and intrinsic existence is necessary for things to be real and to work.

...In the twilight someone sees a rope and mistakes it for a snake. Suppose we leave aside anything we might know about the perspective of the person who sees the snake. Instead, we will ask about what the snake is like on its own terms. 

This is absurd; we cannot begin to discuss the features of the snake because, in fact, there is no actual snake there at all. Analogously, suppose we leave aside any consideration of how people and cars and tables appear to ordinary, valid conventional consciousnesses, and ask, "How do these things exist from their own side? What are they like in and of themselves?"

There is nothing that is purely objective, nothing out there completely apart from mind that we can pin down and point out.

...Whatever we know or talk about is already a thing-as-it-is-known, a thing as conceived by a mind. We cannot talk about or get at things as they are in and of themselves, apart from mind or in a way that is logically prior to any kind of conceptualization.

...It is because the thing in question, that which we would wish to know, is already something of which we are conceiving, something that we are asking about. When we completely set aside the involvement of our minds, and ask about how things are in and of themselves, we never find a shred of thing-in-itself. This understanding that things are empty in this way, is precisely the opposite of how ignorance sees things.

We usually suppose that the world is already and always fully real, independent of our minds, out there waiting to be revealed by the searchlight of consciousness. In fact, our minds are actually collaborating in the creation of the world, moment by moment.

This does not mean that hallucinated snakes have the same status as people and cars and tables. Snakes falsely imputed to be ropes do not in fact exist, while tables and people do exist because they have a valid, conventional existence. This is a vitally important distinction.

Suppose I very much want gold. I may see a rainbow and, affected by my desire for gold, think, "Over there I will find a pot of gold." This is rather in the nature of seeing a rope and, out of fear, believing it is a snake. 

There is no snake, no gold, in those places at all. But there is a rope; there is a rainbow. These things exist conventionally. We can appropriately impute them, saying, "There it is." They function. 

...So we can recognize that this idea -- that things depend upon minds -- does not destroy conventional existence. At the same time, it is definitely not just another way of talking about what we already know. It does not leave our our usual sense of the world unscathed.

To take the snake example: When a person sees a rope and imagines a snake, there is no snake at all in the rope. But even when there actually is a snake and we perceive a snake, the snake as we perceive it is also completely absent. It is just as nonexistent as the rope-snake.

This is profound and important to reflect upon. As we perceive it, the snake is inherently existent. It appears to our minds as something objectively real, existing in and of itself. Such a snake does not at all exist right now -- and it never could exist.

...We living beings all inhabit functioning worlds that arise through the unimpaired operation of our respective mental and sensory faculties; these worlds are external to -- but never independent of -- our minds.

Thus it is that the worlds of our experience intersect and overlap in astonishing ways, in infinitely complex patterns. All of this would be completely impossible if in fact each thing actually existed objectively, out there on its own, by way of its independent and intrinsic nature.

Brilliant.

Like I said before, this is the best book about Buddhism I've ever read. Its opening my eyes to what both Buddhism and reality are all about. To explain that last sentence requires another blog post.

But if you think deeply and clearly about what Newland said above, you'll see how absurd traditional religiosity is, and how close the Buddhist teachings about "emptiness" are to modern neuroscience.

Why blasphemy is justified (mostly)

I enjoy blasphemy. If you think that I say unduly nasty things about God, religiosity, and holiness on this blog, you should hear how I insult divinity inside my head.

Like a few days ago, when I watched the local news and saw a story about several high schoolers with bone cancer, one of whom only had a short while to live.

They were chosen to be prom king and queen of their school by classmates who had a lot more compassion than any fucking asshole god who might exist who allows so much pain and suffering even though the son of a bitch supposedly is all omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and other "omni" crap.

This sort of blasphemy feels deliciously fine to me. So I was happy to see political scientist Andrew March support my attitude, by and large, in his "What's Wrong With Blasphemy?" piece in the New York Times. 

First, March lays out some assumptions:

Most secular philosophical approaches to the morality of speech about the sacred are going to begin with three starting-points:

— Human beings have very strong interests in being free to express themselves.

— The “sacred” is an object of human construction and thus the fact that something is called “sacred” is insufficient itself to explain why all humans ought to respect it.

— Respect is owed to persons but not everything they value or venerate, even if other persons themselves do not uphold such a difference between their selves and their attachments.

Hard to disagree with this. March then discusses six arguments against blasphemy which he doesn't find fully persuasive. 

1. Blasphemy transgresses a boundary and violates the sacred. Not if someone else doesn't accept the sacredness of a boundary.

2. We should respect whatever people regard as “sacred” or treat as religious. Not if they expand "sacred" excessively, or expect other people to give up important free speech rights.

3. People are deeply hurt and injured by violations of the sacred or objects of love. True, this isn't desirable. But people get hurt in all kinds of ways by their attachments.

4. Blasphemy is dangerous. Something to consider, for sure, especially if you're blaspheming Islam and armed Muslim fundamentalists are around. But if your intentions are good, fear isn't always a good reason to shut yourself up.

5. Blasphemy is hate speech. But you can hate what someone believes without hating them. 

6. Blasphemy disrupts social harmony. March seems to feel this is the best argument against blasphemy, particularly when it is directed at someone you care about. Relationships matter. We need to consider how what we say will affect our relation to someone else.

Read the whole essay.

March does a good job of trying to locate the balance point between engaging in unfettered blasphemous free speech and maintaining social harmony in a world where people have diverse strongly held religious beliefs.

Without evolution, a world view is crazy

Thank you Bill Nye, the American science guy. You've made a You Tube video that tells it like it is. Creationism is not appropriate for children. Also for adults.

 

I took the title of this post from Nye's searching for words when he tries to explain what denying the reality of evolution is like. "Crazy" came to mind, but he then went for milder terms, like inappropriate.

Me, I like "crazy."

Like Nye says, once you deny evolution, your world view becomes really complex and hard to justify. You've got to explain dinosaur bones, radioactivity, a 14 billion year old expanding universe, all that stuff.

In other words, you need crazy religious dogma. Science is so much simpler, because it doesn't need to explain away reality.

Skepticism about Charan and Gurinder Singh

Some comments on this blog deserve more attention than they get if hidden away as part of a blog post. Here's one such thoughtful comment from "aloe," published yesterday on this post, which will be of interest to those who follow Sant Mat and Radha Soami Satsang Beas goings-on.
-------------------------------------------- 
I read some of these posts with some sadness. I was initiated by Charan Singh and followed him for 23 years. After 13 years among older initiates who were a joy to be around, my life in a good discipline, the next 10 years were a gradual revelation that Sant Mat was false.

It had started earlier, as once in a while someone would mention something that was out of order about Sant Mat. I would tuck these objections in the attic of my mind, thinking them to be exaggerated rumors.

Then I got to know younger Satsangis who went in and out of marriages, who acted oddly after being at the Dera, and a Representative who encouraged devotees to smuggle merchandise into the Dera via their suitcases.

Then there was my trip to the Dera, to hear Gurinder Singh. My roommate and I would write down what he said during the daily meetings for Westerners in a Yurt as soon as we got to our rooms, so we would not forget anything. We even matched notes. The only word we disagreed upon was “that”.

I thought he’d leave out the “that” in “so that” and she felt he must speak correct English and had put that word in. What surprised both of us was that Gurinder Singh answered someone who mentioned getting out in four life times (liberation from the material regions into the pure spiritual regions). Gurinder Singh said “I never said that!”

No wonder he will not be taped. He doesn’t know what the Sant Mat books say and does not want us comparing notes!

The other thing that surprised us was when he said that meditation results were “exactly the same as a drug trip.” The “only difference is, that a drug trip is unnatural, forcing your way inside. Meditation is the natural way inside.” Why this impacted me is that, unlike most Satsangis, I had not taken drugs and was very much against it.

I met a man shortly after the above exchange and he said that he had taken drugs and fully agreed with Gurinder Singh. In fact, he felt vindicated for using them, in the beginning, because of what Gurinder Singh had said. This is why I remember the incident so clearly. Two others besides myself heard him say this.

Another time a lady came up behind me as I was looking at the photograph of Nimi wearing Rajasthani jewelry with her father, Charan looking lovingly at her in the then new book Legacy of Love. She said curtly, “So that is who I bought that jewelry for!” I looked at her, astonished. She said “And with my money!” Then she walked off. This was on a United States Sant Mat property.

In the early 1980’s at a Sant Mat potluck, a pretty young lady in Salwar and Kamiz outfit came near me. She was obviously in a bliss state. She said, “Master is all love.” I smiled. Then she said, “I spent the night with him in his bedroom and he is all love, all love.” Upright me said, “Wait a minute. You spent the night where? “In his bedroom…” Before she could sing song the “love, love” thing again, I said “That is not proper!” She suddenly grasped her face in her hands and said “OH, I want my life back! I just want my life back!” She turned and literally ran away.

I was in a Western Representative’s home and he asked the group to volunteer to take some merchandise to the Dera. I volunteered and asked what I would be taking. He said that the package would be wraped. I said “What about customs?” Do you know what he said? He said “We don’t think about that.” I said, “But I will have to go through customs”. He said, “No, I don’t want you. You are not suitable.”

Later I read about the smuggling that was the usual way for Dera to stock its computer room with computers and its hospital with medical supplies. I guess that quarter billion dollar business was not up and running yet, and Gurinder could not pay the customs duty? Evidently this also went on under Charan.

Bible verses of God revealing Himself to mankind ran through my brain. Reading the Bible again I was shocked that Jesus said that he was God (that is what the Son of God means in Jewish. It means you are God. That is what was so shocking to the Sanhedrin. They did not like Jesus claiming to be God. It was not in their plans for a material kingship type Messiah). My New Age upbringing had always stated that Jesus never claimed to be God!

Then there is Genesis, where the Satan as the serpent tempts the Adam and Eve with the path of becoming God through the path of knowledge—just like a Guru, my, my!

But wait, mankind through the birth of a Messiah through Mary will crush the head of the serpent, God will make the sacrifice burning up everyone’s karma, Jesus will establish His Church which will present the Eucharist as a sacrament to join us in His sacrifice so we will go to Heaven and enjoy the Bliss of God according to our own capacity and the bad guys will be thrown in the prison of Hell, so that goodness will not have to put up with evil any longer! Well, it is different!

I was struck by the person who said they were equally as comfortable with Sant Mat as with Catholicism. Well, Charan’s daughter was sent to Catholic school so guess where Charan got his information in fusing some Catholic ideas onto Sikkism?

It is the Hindu way to accept contradictions, to accept nonsense. That is why Sant Mat can blithely preach that God emanated Himself in a churning motion and precipitated the world out of himself.

A rock is as god-like as a Guru. The only difference is that the rock is unconscious that it is God and the Guru is conscious that he is God. Then Sant Mat can turn around and say that God as Divinity created the material world and God transcends the creation. Both are equally true: the creation is God and the creation is transcended by God. The creation always existed and God also made the creation out of nothing. There, everyone can be happy in what they believe. Just believe whatever you want, even both at the same time!

The only problem with this is that there are a few of us left who want the truth, just like the lady I heard at Dera, crying, saying “Master, you always speak the truth, don’t you? People are saying that you do not speak the truth. But you are truth. You must speak the truth. Tell me that it is not true, that you do speak the truth. Tell these people that they are wrong!”

Master looked pityingly at the poor soul, who had obviously not been messed up enough to just accept evil and good as being the same thing, merely an act to get over with until the last karmic tit for tat is done. He said “Why do you care what they think?” Then he just looked at her, saying “I will be what you want me to be.” Well, how convenient!

The world, my dear friends, is a battle between good and evil. Satan is the great trickster and liar, determined to stop you from fighting on the side of good against evil. Satan has a lot of followers who try to tell you to just be indifferent to everything and stay in a happy, self-induced bliss state through all and you will merge with…..WHAT? Merge with what? With whatever you want that what to be?

Few escape the New Age world. Very very few escape. Usually guru followers run after one guru, one New Age path after another. Even Catholicism has its New Age apparition. The current one is Medjugorje. Just type in Medjugorje/ documents , to learn the truth about that one.

Read Archbishop Lefebvre’s books especially Against the Heresies and The Mass of All Time for one who sees through paganism. This is probably your only escape route, as the Church is courting humanism, right now, and is confusing. Lefefbvre is never confusing. Read the Douay Rhiems version of the Bible as Jerome had manuscripts that are now missing. Thus his sources were older than what exist today, making his translation more accurate.

The 1500’s Rheims New Testement is hard to obtain, but possible. It is the literal Vulgate. Most are the 1700’s version and have a slight humanist slant to them, but it is still mostly intact. The real Christianity is quite austere and frugal in its required behavior. Very disciplined. That is why so many who need discipline follow gurus. The Church dropped the ball and made everything easy, which is not what disciples need. But Lefebvre does not. He follows Jesus, one of the few.

God’s plan is different from the New Age. Instead of humans inventing and discovering ways to be God, God reveals All to us and gives us a plan to obey so that we can adore God in His Realm and be happy forever. It is really a no- brainer, it is that sad tendency to keep rebelling that is the problem!

I hope this helps some of you to get over your deep sentiments of affection for Sant Mat. After the deep pain of seeing the truth (praying to Jesus to keep away all false visions really helps) and the embarrassment of being tricked, there is life after Sant Mat.

Few will understand you, but there are some out there who will leave the New Age behind for good, and not simply carry it with them. Just remember, however, that the entire world is against Jesus. Most of the world is much more accepting of Masonic type New Age stuff than it is of a true Jesus. The world loves humanistic Christianity; it will tolerate the moral discipline of a Satsangi, but it will never tolerate the Sacrifice of the Mass. Try to see the Infinity of God and not the chasm of world. Pax Christi

Religious belief: a delusion about an elephant in the house

I'm damn sure there isn't an elephant in my house.

I know what elephants look like. I know how large they are. I've checked every area where an elephant would fit. So it's reasonable for me to say "There's no elephant in my house."

But not if I thought like a religious believer. Because then I could argue, "Yes, there's an elephant in my house, because..."

It's an invisible elephant.
I'm the only one who can see it.
I can sense the elephant even if no one else can. 
Its disguised as an ordinary object. 

There are other possible delusions that follow the "because."

I just listed a few to give you an idea of how religious people justify a faith-based belief in God, spirit, soul, life after death, or other supernatural stuff in the same way a deluded person might argue "there's an elephant in my house."

This analogy is contained in Guy Newland's "Introduction to Emptiness," one of the best books about Buddhism I've ever read. (And I've read quite a few.)

Buddhist emptiness is the entirely scientific notion that nothing has an intrinsic nature or inherent existence. Here's how Newland defines these terms. 

emptiness: the sheer nonexistence of intrinsic nature. For example, the table's emptiness is the table's lack of existence by way of an intrinsic nature.

intrinsic nature: an essential nature whereby something comes to have an independent way of existing without being posited through the force of consciousness. The sheer absence of this is emptiness.

inherent existence: the existence of something by the power of its own intrinsic or essential character.

The elephant in the room, then, is akin to a deluded belief in something that is absolutely independent, eternal, unchanging, possessing intrinsic nature. Examples include traditional religious beliefs in God, soul, spirit, and such -- entities that are everlastingly separate and distinct from ever-changing material reality.

Problem is, they don't exist. Just like a elephant in a house that doesn't contain an elephant. Newland writes:

That cars and tables, people and schools are devoid of any trace of analytically findable nature does not mean that they do not exist. Clearly they do exist. But what kind of existence can things have when they have no shred of evidence from their own side? 

As we have seen, things exist as dependent arisings, phenomena that exist only through their interconnections with other (equally empty) phenomena.

...The point is that we must notice within our own experience the ignorance that is the root of our cyclic existence, our own misconception of ourselves as having intrinsic nature.

Then, we have to set before ourselves a limited but comprehensive set of alternatives for how such a nature might exist if it did, in fact, exist. As an analogy, suppose someone was suffering from the delusion that there was an elephant in the house.

We could make a comprehensive list of all the rooms in the house, or perhaps a list of all the spaces in the house that might in any way be large enough to contain an elephant. Then we could ask the deluded person to set it very firmly in mind that, were there an elephant in the house, it would absolutely have to be in one of those rooms.

If he had some doubt, then we could add more places to the list, even if they seemed logically unnecessary, until he was able to feel decisively confident that any elephant located in the house would have to be in one of those places.

Then, when a search of each room turned up no elephant, the force of his sense that, "There is simply nowhere else for an elephant to be" would be converted into the realization that, quite contrary to his delusion, there is no elephant in the house at all.

Again, for Buddhism (as for modern neuroscience) the "elephant" is the mistaken belief in an enduring, independent self, known as soul in many religious faiths. More broadly, it is the belief that anything at all possesses an intrinsic nature that's divorced from interdependence with other entities.

The metaphor is limited, of course. Elephants have what Newland calls a "conventional nature." Meaning, they actually exist, though not as beings with an intrinsic nature. So it is possible to find an elephant in one's house, albeit unlikely.

But in the case of imaginary religious entities like God, soul, and spirit, there is no evidence that these things even exist conventionally.

So there's a double delusion involved with them: first, they don't exist; second, even if they did exist, they wouldn't exist as entities with an unchanging intrinsic nature -- eternal, immortal, separate from material reality. 

A visit to a dark, deep place within

Here's a story from someone who found a dark, deep place within himself which taught him a lot. It was emailed to me, then edited a bit by the author when I told the person "I'd like to share what you wrote on my blog."

I enjoyed the honest clear writing. Also, how switching seats on an airplane was an enlightening experience. I've divided the story into two pieces because it is fairly long. Click on the "continue reading" link to read the last part.

-----------------------------------

Brian, I ran across your site when researching surat shabd yoga. I wanted to find opposing opinions and there you were. I was greatly disturbed when I saw that you had zero results after a lifetime of effort. Even more disturbing were the testimonies of others who had also followed this path and came up short. So sad but true.

I’m 58 yrs old and have spent decades reading about religions. I rejected my own Christianity when young because of its demand that I accept Jesus as my personal savior and if I don’t I’m going to hell. I was nowhere near comfortable with the original sin, the bloody crucifixion and all the rest. I felt drawn to the Eastern beliefs. Intellectually I recognized that if anything was true it had to be reincarnation and karma. Such a simple elegant system which actually accounts for everything we see -- the pain, suffering, brutality, etc.

At one point I asked myself, “Who were the first gods worshiped?” From there I spent years in the Sumerian cuneiform translations; today I feel as comfortable with An, Enlil and Enki as with any other gods. I followed these gods forward in time through all their changes in the Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian cultures.

Which led me on a different path, that which is called “alternative history.” The idea that in remote times there was a very high civilization of which we modern humans have no record of. Everyone knows of this “myth” from Plato’s description of Atlantis. What I found so fascinating was that there does exist a considerable amount of physical evidence for such a civilization.

The idea is that our earliest civilizations, Sumer and Egypt, were legacy civilizations which had possession of so called “secret” knowledge from this earlier civilization but, as time went by, lost the understanding of what they preserved. And thus we find the Egyptian beliefs, the Greek mystery religions, the gnostic Christians and even today surat shabd yoga preserving, yet perhaps not understanding, what they have. As crazy as it may sound to you that’s the idea.

So, this is how I became interested in surat shabd yoga, certainly not your typical spiritual journey although for me it has indeed been just that. I only want the “truth.” I don’t care about anything else, only the truth.

I see hard evidence in our known history for some sort of understanding, a development, quite likely spiritual in nature, of which we do not understand today. Amazingly enough, it appears to me that surat shabd yoga “may” be a degraded form of that ancient system. In particular I was struck with the similarities between the gnostic Christians and surat shabd yoga. I’m sure you’re aware of this, perhaps through legitimate scholars such as Andrea Diem-Lane (Gnostic Mystery) or others.

Sorry to bore you with such a long introduction but I did want you to know that I’m not a typical seeker -- I have no religion -- my only drive is for “the truth.”

Recently I had a mystical experience which has strengthened my beliefs. This was an “intervention from above” and it occurred through no deliberate effort of my own. It was something bigger in nature which presented “the truth” to me in a clear straight forward fashion. Of course my having such an experience has no direct relevance for you; you may brush it aside as a temporal fantasy.

For me it was as real as anything in all my life and it has had a staggering effect upon me. In short, this experience was a karmic judgment of two events in my life. I was presented these two life events alongside each other and I understood why they happened.

My reaction, against the injustice against me, in each case was clearly visible and this was the reason for the presentation -- to show me how I failed to measure up to perfection. I was not there to defend myself, it was not a trial. I said nothing but only understood. I had no questions because it was all clear -- there was nothing to say. It was, to me, the Egyptian ceremony of the Weighing of the Heart. I was measured against perfection and came up short.

I’ve attached below a document which I wrote shortly after this experience. The overriding understanding I’ve taken away is simply the truth of reincarnation and karma. There is something bigger in nature, call it god if you like, and there are laws which govern this life as well as a purpose to it all.

Just like you I have spent a lifetime seeking but in my own way. Please note that it was all black, there were no lights or sounds and such. I was unconscious of my body and absolutely all thoughts ceased. But like surat shabd yoga beliefs it was, literally, as if I had died.

Regards, mK

Why Buddhism doesn't believe in self-realization

For a long time in my spiritual seeking career -- about 1968 to the present -- I thought "self-realization" was a worthy goal.

I knew people who were active in the Self-Realization Fellowship founded by Yogananda. I followed a meditation practice that taught "self-realization before god-realization." I avidly read books by people who has supposedly found their true self.

Now, I'm much more inclined to the Buddhist viewpoint: there's no such thing as the self, so self-realization isn't possible.

This differentiates Buddhism from other religions, spiritual philosophies, and mystic paths which hold that we humans have (or are) a soul which needs to be united with God, spirit, or whatever other name is given to a hypothesized ultimate divinity.

Now, I readily admit that my understanding of Buddhism doesn't come from being an actual Buddhist. I find Buddhism too organized, religious'y, and dogmatic for my churchless taste, even though if I was offered a million dollars to join an organized, religious'y, dogmatic faith, I'd instantly yell "I choose Buddhism! Money please!"

Meaning, of the world's main religions, I dislike Buddhism the least.

In fact, I definitely like Buddhism when it is stripped of its supernatural elements, along with its hierarchical side -- teachers, masters, enlightened beings, and such who are considered to be loftier non-souls than the rest of humanity. 

Case in point: after learning about Sam Harris' recommended reading list, I headed off to the Amazon (web site, not the rain forest) and ordered a couple of Buddhist books on the list. This morning I read the first three chapters of "Introduction to Emptiness."

Emptiness is an idea that fascinates me. I really like the notion that nothing is the essence of everthing. This is what stimulated me to start my personal Wu Project, which became a blog category with quite a few posts, starting here.

The Buddhist view of emptiness, though, is different from "nothing." Guy Newland, the author of "Introduction to Emptiness," does a good job explaining it. (Newland is a Buddhist scholar and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Central Michigan University.)

We suffer unnecessarily because we do not know ourselves. Like addicts fiercely clinging to a drug, we cannot let go of the sense that we are substantial, solid, independent, and autonomous.

...To be real, to be alive, we feel that we must deep down somehow exist in a solid and independent way. Death tells us a very different story, but for that very reason we find a million ways to avoid hearing the message of death.

That message is that we are impermanent. Our bodies are disintegrating moment by moment, right now. And though we desperately wish to believe otherwise, the truth is that beneath our ever-changing minds and aging bodies there is no eternal and essential self. We have no natural existence, no independent way of existing.

We exist contingently, interdependently. We exist, but only in dependence on our ancestors, our body parts, our food, air, and water, and the other members of our society. We could not and do not exist otherwise. Devoid of any independent or substantial nature, our existence is possible only because it is far less rigid, less concrete, than what we imagine it to be.

Rather than seeing things as they are, we superimpose upon ourselves -- and on things around us -- a false existence, a self-existence or essential reality that actually does not exist at all. In the Buddhist philosophy explained here, the ultimate truth is the sheer absence, the lack, of any such essence. 

This is emptiness (stong pa nyid, shunyata).

While this may sound bleak, disappointing, or frightening, it is the very nature of reality. And it is reality -- not fantasy -- that is our final hope and our refuge. The path to freedom from needless misery, for ourselves and others, is through profound realization of this fundamental reality.

By and large, I think Newland and Buddhism (Mahayana variety) have it right. Emptiness, in the Buddhist sense, is wonderfully compatible with modern science, including modern neuroscience. There's no enduring self to be found within the brain.

Nor outside of it, notwithstanding the widespread religious belief in an ethereal soul which somehow floats around independent of body and mind, while also somehow being intimately connected with them as a source of life and consciousness.

Of course, I could be wrong. Buddhism could be wrong. Guy Newland could be wrong. This is the way of science: uncertain, open to new evidence, provisional.

Heck, even The Onion could be wrong, as shocking as that sounds. I bet, though, that "Search for Self Called Off After 38 Years" is much closer to ultimate truth than the teaching of any religion is.

CHICAGO—The longtime search for self conducted by area man Andrew Speth was called off this week, the 38-year-old said Monday. 

"I always thought that if I kept searching and exploring, I'd discover who I truly was," said Speth from his Wrigleyville efficiency. "Well, I looked deep into the innermost recesses of my soul, I plumbed the depths of my subconscious, and you know what I found? An empty, windowless room the size of an aircraft hangar. From now on, if anybody needs me, I'll be sprawled out on this couch drinking black-cherry soda and watching Law & Order like everybody else."

"Fuck it," he added.

My sentiments exactly. Except I prefer to drink strong coffee, or red wine, and watch Survivor or So You Think You Can Dance. (See my related blog posts here and here.)

Radha Soami Satsang Beas loses another believer

l like hearing deconversion stories. Deconversion, as I've noted, is as natural as conversion.

Here's a tale that came to me in an email message. Jesse was pleased to let me share it with others. Thanks, Jesse. I've added a few explanations of unfamiliar terms [in brackets].

Hi Brian,

Since your blog is the go-to place for anti-Radha Soami Satsang Beas stuff I thought I'd share this with you, you fuckadilly pigfuck. (I'm kidding. That's an insulting and hilarious line directed at you from a hater who left a comment on your I Hate Church of the Churchless site.)

Anyway, I'm not sure how to articulate this but I'll try.

Earlier today a friend and I went to the local Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) meeting in Minnesota. I'd decided to donate two boxes of RSSB books which I had already read. I never thought anything about donating the books since I'd been collecting free books and magazines for years.

Though I hadn't attended satsang [meeting of RSSB devotees] in a long time, I thought this practice was still kosher and encouraged since giving free shit to people -- ESPECIALLY free RSSB propaganda -- couldn't be wrong.

Or could it? Needless to say I was mistaken.   

With arms full of boxes of books I approached the local RSSB chapter secretary and asked where I could put the books. She as well as another local satsangi [RSSB initiate] simultaneously replied "Donating books has become a big problem. A really big problem."

I asked "Why? I've been getting free books for years." "Well, we have to ship them back to Fayetteville (or some other town?), and also since the books are already so cheap we can't just give them away."  

This sent me into severe aggravation for whatever reason. I said, "So the Guru needs more money?"

I think they are so used to everyone agreeing with them about everything that my taunting actually shocked them. Both the secretary and the other guy started rattling off more excuses as to why giving away free books was not halal [permissible] and they advised that I "give them to Half Price Books (local used book store) but.."   

This was my favorite part. "Don't accept any money for them because it sort of goes against the vows you've taken." Interesting.

RSSB vows as I remember: Meditation, clean moral life, no drugs or alcohol, no meat, do seva [volunteer work], give charity (which was code for giving to the Guru). Can someone explain how selling a book that is unclean for redistribution in a sacred RSSB hotel satsang is against the vows?   

I think you could imagine the faces and tones that were projecting from these people was all the more convincing of their complete brainwashing, but no words could describe it. As I was leaving I told them that I didn't believe in those vows. One of them sort of rolled his eyes in that "Let's not waste our energy on this non-believer" way that they do so well.

I left and decided that, unless I'm going with a friend or something, there will be no more satsangs and maybe I'll take Baba Ji's [the Guru's] advice that has been passed around recently and I'll burn the books. It could be the great cleansing ritual that I've needed for a long time.

I've been straddling the line for years and that pushed me over the edge. It's a strange feeling to admit that I was part of a weird cult and it's slightly scary to think of how I will fill the gaps that blind faith had been filling. Maybe the metaphor would read like I've grown out of my Guru will save me security blanket.  

Thanks for keeping the Church of the Churchless going for all these years. I've come back to it many times for inspiration and to open my eyes. I think you and some of your frequent contributers like Tara and more recently the articles by Waking Now have been a lifesaver.

That may be literal. Somehow I suspect that this fear and guilt I've felt for so long is rooted in Radha Soami Satsang Beas. We'll see how I do without it.

Take Care, Jesse

I'm confident you'll do just fine, Jesse. Absolutely fine.

Truth, meaning, well-being, happiness -- these don't reside within the confines of any organized religion, spiritual faith, or mystic practice. The dogmatic boundaries people put around reality aren't real. 

Life comes to us as water falls on a landscape

There's a lot of beautiful writing, thoughts, and inspiration in Iain McGilchrist's scholarly yet engrossing book, "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World."

(I've blogged about the book here, here, here, and here.)

I loved these passages. Deeply moving. If it resonates with you also, great. It sure did with me.

The feeling we have of experience happening -- that even if we stop doing something and just sit and stare, time is still passing, our bodies are changing, our senses are picking up sights and sounds, smells, and tactile sensations, and so on -- is an expression of the fact that life comes to us. 

Whatever it is out there that exists apart from us comes into contact with us as the water falls on a particular landscape. The water falls and the landscape resists. One can see a river as restlessly searching out its path across the landscape, but in fact no activity is taking place in the sense that there is no will involved.

One can see the landscape as blocking the path of the water so that it has to turn another way, but again the water just falls in the way that water has to, and the landscape resists its path, in the way it has to. The result of the amorphous water and the form of the landscape is a river.

The river is not only passing across the landscape, but entering into it and changing it too, as the landscape has 'changed' and yet not changed the water. The landscape cannot make the river. It does not try to put a river together. It does not even say 'yes' to the river. It merely says 'no' to the water -- or does not say 'no' to the water, and, by its not saying 'no' to the water, wherever it is that it does so, it allows the river to come into being.

The river does not exist before the encounter. Only water exists before the encounter, and the river actually comes into being in the process of encountering the landscape, with its power to say 'no' or not say 'no.' 

Similarly there is 'whatever it is that exists apart from ourselves,' but 'whatever it is that exists' only comes to be as what it is as it finds out in the encounter with ourselves what it is, and we only find out and make ourselves what we are in our encounter with 'whatever it is that exists.' 

...In creation we are not actively putting together something we already know, but finding something which is coming into being through our knowing, at the same time that our knowing depends on it coming into being; as Pushkin says of Evgeny Onegin, in the middle of the work itself, that he did not know where it was going, it was an unfinished path, a journey, an exploration, of whatever it was that was coming into being between himself and the imaginative world.

That's life. An unfinished path, a journey, an exploration. Continually coming into being. We all are rivers formed by rain falling on a mysteriously unknown landscape. 

Sam Harris' recommended reading: good list of books

Amazon is happy. So is VISA. Having recently subscribed to Sam Harris' email list, today I got a message plugging his recommended reading list -- which includes suggestions from readers of his books.

Harris often is billed as a "new atheist." However, I see him more as a "spiritual but not religious" sort of guy, where spiritual doesn't mean anything supernatural. More like mindfulness, or making best use of human potential.

Along that line, I just ordered a few books in his Eastern Philosophy and Meditation category that appealed to me: "Mindfulness in Plain English" and "Introduction to Emptiness." 

Have a look yourself. These are books for people who aren't attracted to traditional religions, yet seek something more... with the something diffusely defined.

Lineage means little in science and art. Why so important in religion?

When you learn about an important scientific discovery, does it matter to you what "line" of scientists the researcher is associated with?

When you listen to a scintillating musical performance, does it matter to you what "line" of musicians the artist is associated with?

No. At least, not much. Likely not at all. 

Recently the Oregonian had a story about a classical guitarist who is going to play in Portland. It was mentioned that Scott Kritzer was the "grandson" of famed guitarist Andres Segovia, because his teacher was a Segovia student.

But that fact has no bearing on Kritzer's reputation as a guitarist, or why people are going to see him perform. He's a great guitarist. Period. That's obvious to anyone who appreciates music. 

So why is it that religions, spiritual paths, and mystical practices usually are so obsessed with who gave a thumbs-up to someone else, certifying that the second person is as enlightened, God-knowledgeable, pure, or whatever other quality is important to the faith as the first person? 

And so on.

Down through a lineage that might extend for a thousand years or more, as is the case with Buddhism. Also with Catholicism, which traces its Popes back to the apostle Peter. Believers are supposed to be impressed by the purported continuity of... something or other... in the faith's leaders.

Four words in that last sentence are central to the question of why lineage is so important in religiosity: something or other and faith. Because religions are focused on the supernatural, and/or on ineffable qualities of physical existence, there's no there there.

Meaning, religiosity is insubstantial, unprovable, evidence-free. In short, founded on faith. So something or other has to be taken on faith: salvation, enlightenment, god-realization, etc.

Science and art are much different.

"Show me what you've got" is the catch-phrase of scientists and artists. A discovery lacking evidence isn't a discovery. An artistic creation lacking observability isn't an artistic creation. So it's understandable why religions place so much emphasis on lineage: they've got nothing else to back up their empty claims.

I got thinking about this stuff after reading recent comments on this blog post relating to the lineage of Sant Mat gurus in general, and those of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) in particular.

Having been a member of RSSB for quite a few years, I find this sort of discussion mildly interesting from a historical perspective, yet meaningless from the perspective of whether the organization's teachings point to a transcendent truth or whether the RSSB gurus truly are "God in human form."

For that, demonstrable evidence is needed, not just proof that one guy who claimed to know a transcendent truth and supposedly was God-realized certified that his successor had those same qualities, so could take over the job of guru, so forth and so on down through an unbroken lineage.

Again, the religious obsession with lineage is a symptom of how lacking in anything supernaturally substantial religions are.

If a highly spiritual dude or dudette could perform obvious miracles, clearly foretell the future, or reliably transform the consciousness of believers into an evident more-than-human form, there wouldn't be any need for a chain of "believe me, this guy is real" testimonials from previous people with supposed spiritual accomplishments.

Since taking up dancing about six and a half years ago, my wife and I have taken lessons from quite a few different dance instructors. Our concern about who they learned how to dance from is essentially zero. What we care about is whether they know how to dance now, and can teach that to us.

It's pretty darn obvious whether someone is a good dancer. You just watch them dance. But with religion, it isn't obvious at all whether someone is a good... something or other. You see, I can't even think of what words to put after...

How can you tell whether someone is a genuine prophet, saint, guru, master, yogi, enlightened being? I have no idea. If anyone else does, please, um, enlighten me. And don't, repeat DON'T, describe some quality of a human being which could apply to any non-religious person.

Like: kind, compassionate, wise, charismatic, giving, selfless, inspiring, loving. I know lots of atheists and agnostics who have these qualities. 

And also don't tell me that genuine spirituality is demonstrated by getting a stamp of approval from some other supposed genuine spiritual person. I need to know how it's possible to discern the genuineness of the first genuine spiritual person.

Bottom line: with religions, don't trust lineages. Don't care about lineages. Be like a scientist or artist. Say "show me what you've got." Now. 

When is it OK to trash-talk a religion?

The recent killing of diplomats at the American consulate in Libya raises questions about the balance between freedom of speech and religious liberty.

This subject is dear to my heart, since I've been blogging on this here Church of the Churchless for eight years, attempting to do the same thing -- speak my mind about the ridiculousness of organized religiosity while respecting the personal beliefs of individuals (after all, we all believe in weird things; weird, that is, from the perspective of other people; to us, we're absolutely normal).

It's unclear what set off Muslims who attacked American diplomatic outposts in Libya and Egypt.

Part of the impetus clearly was an anti-Islam video put up on You Tube that trash-talks Muhammad. It's so infantile and poorly made, I'm not going to embed a viewer in this post like I usually do with You Tube videos. I managed to watch about five minutes before I got sick of the video and turned it off.

Before crowds attacked the embassy and consulate, but after rumblings of discontent had been heard in the "Arab street," the American embassy in Cairo issued a statement that got Mitt Romney in an unjustified uproar.

PolitiFact demonstrated that this wasn't an apology for the video, as Romney claimed. (How can someone apologize for something they had nothing to do with?) Still, Romney felt that it excused Islamic extremism and denigrated free speech. Here's what the embassy said.

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

Snap judgments aren't helpful here. There are some subtle distinctions to be thought about carefully in this statement. My first reaction was to disagree with the notion that the video was an unjustified abuse of free speech. If Muslims can't take criticism of their religion, that's their problem. Grow thicker skin.

But in the Romney campaign's talking points regarding whether it was appropriate for the embassy to condemn the You Tube video/movie, the response was "Governor Romney rejects the reported message of the movie. There is no room for religious hatred or intolerance."

I agree with this (one of the few times I've agreed with anything Romney says). 

To me, Islam is an absurd religion. But so is every religion. None of them are worthy of being believed as objective fact, because there's no demonstrable evidence to support the tenets of any religious faith. Yet (and this is an important yet), most people on Earth believe in an unbelievable religion.

So what is a non-believer like me to do? Spend all of my time going up to the vast majority of my fellow humans and scream at them, "You're an idiot! You believe ridiculous religous crap!"? No, that doesn't feel like a good thing to do. 

One reason is that I used to be one of those idiots myself. Another is that insulting people rarely makes them change their mind in the direction the insulter desires. Still another is self-interest: belligerently getting in someone's face can lead to your own being punched (figuratively or literally).

I heard this on a radio talk show yesterday: "Sure, you've got the right to tell your neighbor that his wife is dumb, fat, and ugly. But he's also got a right to sock you in the nose." Today our nation's top military leader recognized the same truth.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey called Florida pastor Terry Jones on Wednesday to ask him to withdraw his support for the video that some reports have linked with anti-American unrest in the Muslim world, a spokesman said.

“He called of his own initiative over concern that the violence incited by the film would pose risks to U.S. service members around the world,” said Marine Col. Dave Lapan.

The bottom line for me is this: I'm fine with people criticizing religious beliefs. However, I don't like it when these criticisms are hateful, overly emotional, insulting, denigrating, and aimed at hurting the feelings of believers.

Though I dislike organized religions, I've got no problem with individual religious beliefs.

Like I said before, we all believe things that are deeply personal, can't be proven as objective fact, and offer us comfort in this often-uncomfortable world. Life is tough. We all need someone or something to lean on.

This seems to be what the statement of the Egyptian embassy and Romney's campaign have in common. Me included, I guess. We respect the diversity of religious, spiritual, mystical, and philosophical beliefs in this country, and the world as a whole. We don't like it when haters venomously attack some belief system in a hateful manner, rather than reasonably.

"I don't agree with the premises of your religion" is a lot different than "You're a fool for believing what you do." Personal professions of faith shouldn't be attacked; collective claims that such-and-such is objectively true for everybody deserve rigorous critical debate.

I'd enjoy watching a You Tube video that dismantled in a reasonable fashion the tenets of Islam. But in my five minutes of watching I couldn't discern any coherent criticisms of Islam in the video that got some Muslims so righteously angry. 

Of course, they might have gotten angry at reasonable criticisms also.

If so, my one-word response would be tough. Deal with it. On the whole, Muslims seem to be overly touchy about people criticizing their religion. There's no excuse for trashing the American consulate and killing four diplomats. 

At the same time, I don't like trash-talking of personal religious beliefs either. Here on the Church of the Churchless I often say, "Whatever works for you, go for it. Just don't expect me, or anyone else, to agree with you."

I'm asked questions about Sant Mat. I answer them.

Recently I got an email from someone who shared ideas about Sant Mat, the Indian philosophy I used to believe in. My correspondent also asked me some questions. Here's what the person said, in italics, and my responses, in regular type preceded by a "ME."

A lot of this won't make sense to anyone who isn't into the intricacies of the Sant Mat teachings. But quite a few visitors to this blog are, so I figured that I might as well share the comments/questions and my responses.

----------------------------- 
I have been initiated for about 4 to 5 years now, and there is nothing that makes better sense than Sant Mat, as far as spirituality is concerned.

ME: I used to think that myself. Now I doubt it. But spirituality is a very personal affair. Whatever works for you, hold on to it. What doesn't, discard.

I should say that Life Is Fair is one of the books that I swear by. It makes sense and explains a lot of things or rather it opens the mind somewhat, so I don't think you should beat yourself up for writing it because even the most perfect book has its negative aspects. It should teach you though not to be too eager on the computer keypad.

ME: Well, Life is Fair was edited, re-edited, and re-re-edited. Both by me, and quite a few RSSB publications department reviewers. So whatever I don't like in the book now wasn't caused by over-eager writing. Rather, my views have changed on certain subjects. I'm no longer so eager to conclude that what I believe, or want to believe, really is true. I'm much more comfortable with simply saying "I don't know."

You raise a lot of legitimate concerns though concerning BEAS, because I have always wondered when I read Sar Bachaan as to where "our" lineage of Masters originate because Swami ji does not make a mention. It would be nice to get a history on Jaimal as to ascertain where he falls in, and why he regarded himself as a Master. In a letter to Sawan he mentions that he sent a lady (is it Swami ji's wife?) to take Sawan across the three regions; I have always wondered why he didn't do that himself, but maybe there is a logical explanation. 

ME: I don't think logic is what's needed. Logic can be used to justify anything. Just look at all of the Christian logical arguments for believing in the Christian God. Evidence has to support logic. Otherwise logical assumptions can't be trusted. This is why science works, and religion doesn't.

You question the 10% percent [of souls] that have to go back [to God] (is it really 10%?). I too have my reservation on that, but maybe again there is a logical explanation for that.

ME: Again, logic isn't the issue. The real question is whether consciousness survives death, whether reincarnation is reality, those sorts of things. This requires evidence, not logic.

I don't find the whole "science" to be a sham as when collaborated with Eastern and Christian content, it does prove somewhat to be something worth "looking" into". 

ME: Of course. Anything is possible. But not everything is true or real. We can fit together stories that make sense to us, whether religious or otherwise. This doesn't make that true or real, except in our own mind.

Have you done any research on vegetarianism as to ascertain it relation to Karma? I find Karma the explanation to make better sense than the big bang theory.  

ME: Not sure what you mean. The big bang theory has lots of evidence behind it. Karma, in the sense of cause and effect, is obviously part of how the universe works. But "supernatural" karma isn't proven. It's a hypothesis.

If Swami Ji was a real Master, then following his real lineage wouldn't be altogether futile. What do you think of that? Apparently the Agra sect were building a tomb/memorial which is not very much in line with the Masters' teaching; that is why I didn't bother researching the Agra lineage. What do you think of the Agra lineage? 

ME: I have almost zero interest in Sant Mat history. What's the point? It's like delving into Einstein's childhood life in an attempt to determine whether the theory of relativity is true. Truth, pretty much, stands on its own. There's a world apart from the human brain. The quest of science is to understand that reality, using the human brain. Our own internal world isn't very relevant to that quest, except insofar as (obviously) the human brain is how we experience everything, including the outside world.

I have never come across Kabir talking about the sixth Word. Can you help me with that. If the five names belong to Kal then does it matter?; considering that Sohang and Satnam are beyond Kal. Am I wrong there?

ME: I have no idea. This sort of question isn't very interesting to me, though I can understand why it is to you. Every religion is interested in its own history. I have just about zero interest in the history of Christianity, and the same level of interest in the history of "saints." 

VERY IMPORTANT
What is the truth in that when a "real" Master initiates you, it is compulsory that you see the light. Doesn't it make sense that you need a guide when traveling unknown territory? 

ME: You're assuming the territory exists. You're assuming there is something beyond this world that can be, and needs to be, explored. This is an example of how logic fails. You're assuming the Inner Light exists, and that Inner Realms exist, then asking how one goes about experiencing the light and realms. In my opinion, the basic question is whether these things exist at all. 

I'm sorry that I should give you so many questions as I was not initiated by you, but you have been there a while and you wrote one of the books so I guess I am not totally out of place when I hold you somehow "responsible." 

ME: Questions are good. No reason to apologize for them. Keep on questioning. This includes questioning your own questioning. Ask yourself whether your questions are the best ones. Are there more fundamental questions that need to be asked and answered before your questions make sense?

-----------------------------
Here's an explanation of what I was thinking about when I wrote those last sentences. I'd just been reading a section in my new favorite book about the brain and neuroscience. The author gives examples of how the left hemisphere of the brain looks upon the world.

It likes logic, even when a premise doesn't make sense. For example:

1. All monkeys climb trees.
2. The dog is a monkey.
3. The dog climbs trees.

The obvious response here is, "But the dog isn't a monkey!" Iain McGilchrist, the book's author, writes:

When asked if the conclusion is true, the intact individual displays a common sense reaction: 'I agree it seems to suggest so [by logic], but I know in fact it's wrong [by experience]'. The right hemisphere dismisses the false premises and deductions as absurd. But the left hemisphere sticks to the false conclusion, replying calmly to the effect that 'that's what it says here.'

So Sant Mat, along with all religions, has it's own left brain logic. For example:

1. A guide is good when traveling unknown territory.
2. Superatural spiritual realms are unknown territory.
3. A guide is good when traveling in spiritual realms.

The logic is fine. The premise in 2 and conclusion in 3 are highly questionable.

This is why I recommended that the person who sent me the email question more deeply his/her questions. If they are founded on false premises, it's the premises that need to be questioned.

Moving on from religion is as normal as other life changes

Once in a while I hear from somebody who asks me when I'm going to write another blog post about the Indian religious organization that I belonged to for about thirty-five years.

I usually reply in this fashion:

"I used to write quite a bit about Radha Soami Satsang Beas, but now I don't think very much about RSSB any more. It's a lot like when I got divorced from my first wife. She often was on my mind right after we split up. Eventually, though, we each moved on to other relationships and that woman became the focus of my attention."

Makes sense to me. Life happens.

Here's some other changes for the better that have happened in my life (I call my divorce a change for the better, since both my ex-wife and I are happier now in a second marriage.)

-- After starting out with an Apple II+ many years ago, I went over to the dark side and started using Windows computers for a long time. Then I switched back to Apple. I have no regrets about this, just almost 100% satisfaction with Apple technology.

-- I spent nine years learning traditional Shotokan karate. Got stuck at the brown belt level. I wasn't being advanced by the Shotokan black belt testers, and I wasn't enjoying my training any more. I switched to a different style that suited me much better. Great decision.

-- My wife and I bought an all-electric Nissan Leaf last year. I liked the car, by and large. My wife hated it. So we decided to sell it and lease a Chevy Volt. She's much happier now. So am I, both because I like the Volt more, and because my wife really likes it more.

-- Three years ago I got a big Suzuki Burgman 650 scooter as part of my incessant mid-life/end-of-life crisis (may it never end, but I suspect it will... when I die). It was hugely fun to ride. A few months ago I sold it. Time seemed right. Now I have a longboard skateboard. It's also fun, in a different way.

-- Since we started ballroom dancing, my wife and I have tried to learn many different styles. Waltz, foxtrot, salsa, tango, swing, and so on. We're not great in any. We finally realized that we liked some styles much more than others. Now we're focusing on West Coast Swing. Makes us feel good. Great reason.

I could give more examples of changes in my life. For sure you have many of your own. That's what life is all about: changes. They only stop when we're dead.

However, many true believers in some religion look upon someone changing from that religion as sinful, disappointing, a failure.

But while deconversion is frowned upon, conversion to their religion is smiled upon, even though both conversions and deconversions involve giving up on a belief system. Logic isn't a strong point of true believers when it comes to their chosen faith.

Here's the thing: falling into or out of love with a person, a computer, a martial art, a car, a scooter, a dance style, this is the same as falling into or out of love with a religious belief. It's subjective, a matter of taste, a feeling rather than a fact.

So why is it that believers in a particular religion often get really disturbed when someone falls out of love with that religion, while believers in a particular computer, car, dance style, or whatever tend to say "each to his own; no big deal" when someone moves on in a different direction? 

Good question.

I don't have a firm answer. Seems to have something to do with how important religious belief is to many people. Also, with how their faith is merely belief, unsupported by solid evidence or experience.

Thus they are threatened when someone else comes to feel that it's time to leave behind that belief system.

Which is more than a little strange, since every religious true believer goes through many changes in his or her own life, usually including the changing that brought him or her to the religion that's so important to them now. 

Like I said, change happens. Thankfully. Life would be lifeless without it. 

Sam Harris explains how life is good without free will

Free will. Who needs it? Not me. Not you. Not Sam Harris. Not anybody. 

Which is a good thing. Because almost certainly free will doesn't exist. So it's good news, and unsurprising news, that something humans don't have isn't necessary to live a satisfying life.

Harris is an excellent writer and thinker. Read his "Life Without Free Will."

If you're under the illusion that you're free to do whatever you decide to do, his piece will reassure you that's it's fine to give up that unsubsantiated belief.

I particularly liked this section of the essay.

In my view, the reality of good and evil does not depend upon the existence of free will, because with or without free will, we can distinguish between suffering and happiness. With or without free will, a psychopath who enjoys killing children is different from a pediatric surgeon who enjoys saving them. Whatever the truth about free will, these distinctions are unmistakable and well worth caring about.

Might free will somehow be required for goodness to be manifest? How, for instance, does one become a pediatric surgeon? Well, you must first be born, with an intact nervous system, and then provided with a proper education. No freedom there, I’m afraid. You must also have the physical talent for the job and avoid smashing your hands at rugby. Needless to say, it won’t do to be someone who faints at the sight of blood. Chalk these achievements up to good luck as well.

At some point you must decide to become a surgeon—a result, presumably, of first wanting to become one. Will you be the conscious source of this wanting? Will you be responsible for its prevailing over all the other things you want but that are incompatible with a career in medicine? No. If you succeed at becoming a surgeon, you will simply find yourself standing one day, scalpel in hand, at the confluence of all the genetic and environmental causes that led you to develop along this line.

None of these events requires that you, the conscious subject, be the ultimate cause of your aspirations, abilities, and resulting behavior. And, needless to say, you can take no credit for the fact that you weren’t born a psychopath.

Of course, I’m not saying that you can become a surgeon by accident—you must do many things, deliberately and well, and in the appropriate sequence, year after year. Becoming a surgeon requires effort. But can you take credit for your disposition to make that effort? To turn the matter around, am I responsible for the fact that it has never once occurred to me that I might like to be a surgeon? Who gets the blame for my lack of inspiration?

And what if the desire to become a surgeon suddenly arises tomorrow and becomes so intense that I jettison my other professional goals and enroll in medical school? Would I—that is, the part of me that is actually experiencing my life—be the true cause of these developments? Every moment of conscious effort—every thought, intention, and decision—will have been caused by events of which I am not conscious. Where is the freedom in this?

Hard to argue with. But if you feel like disagreeing with Sam Harris because you believe in free will, go ahead. After all, you're powerless to do anything else.

Meandering is the path; uselessness is the purpose

The older I get, the less I care. Must be getting close to my Ultimate Enlightenment.

Except, I care so little, I've lost interest in trying to figure out whether I'm closer to or further from something or other... God, spiritual truth, Buddha-nature, enlightenment, Tantric ecstacy, whatever.

For a long time the notion of a spiritual path made sense to me. Now, it doesn't. A path leads to somewhere I want to go. And which I know exists. What the hell is a spiritual path? Can anybody point to it? Are there signs of the destination?

Devotees of religions, forms of spirituality, mystical practices -- they're seeking something they don't have.

I can heartily identify with that. I don't have a Retina Macbook Pro laptop. And I want one! Difference is, I've seen and touched a Retina Macbook Pro laptop. I haven't seen or touched God, spirit, soul, ultimate reality, heaven, or anything else spiritual paths supposedly lead to.

So meandering aimlessly appeals to me now. I still have things on my to-do list, of course. (I'm married, after all.) I just feel much more comfortable not-knowing what life is going to bring me. Or what I'll bring to life.

Yesterday I woke up with a plan for the day in mind. Finding that our wi-fi router, Apple's Airport Extreme, wasn't working dumped that plan in my psyche's garbage heap. I spent much of the day figuring out what was going on with some recalcitrant pieces of technology, a modem and router, which had their own ideas about how I should spend the day.

Which was fine.

A few years ago, in January 2008, I talked about this sort of meandering in "Meditation is useless." I can't believe how wise I was in that post. That's the thing about me: I find it so easy to agree with myself! 

I've meditated daily for almost forty years. I've read Zen literature for even longer. I've never actually practiced Zen. But maybe I have. Heck, I surely have.

We all have. We're alive. And once in a while, either by accident or on purpose, or with purposeless purpose, we see what life seemingly is all about. A glimpse at least.

It's cold here in Oregon right now. Freezing cold at night, which is fairly rare in the temperate Willamette Valley. This morning I got up and looked at our indoor thermometer, which also shows the outdoor temperature.

"27.2 degrees," I said to myself. At that moment I had a flash of it's so absolutely right. That was the temperature! Absolutely marvelous! In a little while it'd be different. And that too, absolutely right.

It might snow later in the week. Which could make it tough to drive around. Still, absolutely right. There's always only one thing going on: what's going on.

Any attempt to convince oneself of that – completely useless. Yet this is what religion is all about. As is Zen and Taoism.

The only difference, and it's a big one, is that religions take themselves seriously. Zen and Taoism don't. From what I've read, the ultimate Zen experience is throwing a pie in the face of your most revered Master.

Whereupon he laughs uproariously. So do you. What a joke!

True. But the humor can be related to serious neuroscience. 

This morning I was reading another chapter in my new favorite book, Iain McGilchrist's "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World." Divided refers to the left and right hemispheres, which look upon the world in markedly different ways.

Thus it is almost as if we're two different people. McGilchrist says that in people where the connection between the hemispheres has been severed, they can still function mostly normally. 

So the two hemispheres can be viewed as each being conscious, since this is explicit in a "split brain" patient and implicit in our own everyday divided sense of self. At the end of McGilchrist's The Nature of the Two Worlds chapter, I learned about a central difference between the left and right hemispheres.

The left is purposeful. The right is caring... about what is, not what could be.

The nature of language in the left hemisphere and its relationship with grasp imply the overriding value to it of use. The left hemisphere is aways engaged in a purpose: it always has an end in view, and downgrades whatever has no instrumental purpose in sight.

The right hemisphere, by contrast, has no designs on anything. It is vigilant for whatever is, without preconceptions, without a predefined purpose. The right hemisphere has a relationship of concern or care (what Heidegger calls Sorge) with whatever happens to be.

...The world of the left hemisphere, dependent on denotative language and abstraction, yields clarity and power to manipulate things that are known, fixed, static, isolated, decontextualized, explicit, disembodied, general in nature, but ultimately lifeless.

The right hemisphere, by contrast, yields a world of individual, changing, evolving, interconnected, implicit, incarnate, living beings within the context of the lived world, but in the nature of things never fully graspable, always imperfectly known -- and to this world it exists in a relationship of care.

If "spirituality" is a word that means anything, and increasingly I feel that it doesn't, it points to the world of the brain's right hemisphere. There's no path here, no perfection, no eternal truth, no disembodied reality. There's uncertainty, awe, being present caringly with what is here and now.

Where the left hemisphere's relationship with the world is one of reaching out to grasp, and therefore to use, it, the right hemisphere's appears to be one of reaching out -- just that. Without purpose.

Remember one of the unsacred teachings of useless Duhism: 

The Universe hears your every wish, and wonders why you can't hear it replying, "Uhhh… no."

Romney's religion isn't an asset. No religion is.

Nice people are just that: nice. Good people are just that: good. Compassionate people are just that: compassionate. 

There's no need to ascribe their niceness, goodness, or compassion to their religiosity, as Jack Roberts did in an opinion piece, "Romney's religion should be an asset, not a liability," in today's Portland Oregonian. 

I say this as a non-Mormon who from my Mormon friends has gained a deep appreciation for the positive values that church imparts to its members -- chief among them their obligation to provide support and charity for others. I could never join that church myself because their beliefs are not my beliefs, but I am convinced that every community benefits by having more people with the personal qualities most of the Mormons I know exhibit. 

Well, it's nice to know that the Mormons Jack Roberts is familiar with are nice, good, compassionate people. But if you read some of the comments on the Oregonian article, it'll be clear (and utterly non-surprising) that some Mormons are jerks.

Most of my friends and acquaintances are either atheists or non-Christians. They have lots of positive qualities. I can pretty much guarantee that they're as nice, good, and compassionate as any bunch of religious people.

But I would never claim that their non-belief in God is what makes them so kind and caring. It's irrelevant, really, just as Romney's religion should be when voters assess his qualifications to be president. 

Roberts quotes from a South Park episode dealing with Mormonism. This is to his credit; thumbs-up to any opinion writer who is able to support his position with a South Park quote. However, I learned from a commenter on his piece that Roberts left out the end of what a Mormon boy said in the South Park episode.

Through the magic of Google, I was able to find the script of that show. Here's what the Mormon boy says, in full (I've italicized the part Roberts left out, for understandable editorial reasons).

Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life. and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don't care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that's stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you're so high and mighty you couldn't look past my religion and just be my friend back. You've got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. Suck my balls.

"Suck my balls" humanizes Gary, the Mormon boy. I found his mini-speech annoyingly sanctimonious up to that point. Those three words revealed him to be an appealingly flawed human, just like the rest of us. 

Still, it's absurd to think that just because the Mormon church encourages its members to love their family, be nice, and help people, this is why Mormons do these things. Non-Mormons do those things also. Non-religious people do those things also.

All kinds of people all over the world love their family, are nice, and help people. Jack Roberts needs to realize this. By and large religion doesn't make people better, any more than playing golf, going to college, playing a musical instrument, or doing anything else makes people better. 

Everything we experience in life, along with our genetic heritage, makes us who we are. Religion is one influence, but by no means the most important influence. Get to know all those nice, caring, compassionate atheists in your community, and you'll understand what I mean.

Goddamn it -- "God" is back in Democratic Party platform

Jeez, I was beginning to think that the Democratic Party to which I belong really was a coven of atheistic religion-haters who got their kicks from burning the Bible while high on illicit drugs (that'd be a good thing, of course).

My hopefulness arose from reading that "God" had been dropped from the 2012 Democratic platform. The Christian Broadcast Network reported:

Guess what? God’s name has been removed from the Democratic National Committee platform. This is the paragraph that was in the 2008 platform:

“We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.”

Now the words “God-given” have been removed. The paragraph has been restructured to say this:

“We gather to reclaim the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most prosperous nation on Earth – the simple principle that in America, hard work should pay off, responsibility should be rewarded, and each one of us should be able to go as far as our talent and drive take us.”

I much prefer the godless paragraph. It sounds much more American to me. Hard work. Responsibility. Talent. Drive. Those words seem more in tune with our national ethos than "God-given potential."

God-given potential? Sounds like whatever we're born with, that's what we're stuck with, because God gave us what we have to work with, and nobody can argue with God. 

But the Democrats acceded to a request by President Obama to restore "God" to the platform.

Well, I watched video of the voice vote at the convention which needed a 2/3 majority to be approved, and it sure sounded to me like an equal number of delegates approved and disaprroved of God in the platform (plus Jerusalem being the capital of Israel).

Maybe in 2016 the Dems will hold firm on their godlessness. I'll start praying for that!

Thinking about life isn't the same as experiencing life

About half an hour ago I was walking around a nearby lake with our two dogs. Then I was directly experiencing what it was like to be outdoors in late afternoon on a pleasingly sunny and warm Oregon day.

I can share a photo I took, but what you see isn't what I experienced. In fact, even if you had been standing right beside me when I got my iPhone out, how you looked upon the lake wouldn't have been the same as my experience of it.

That's the thing about experience: it's subjective, personal, ineffable, ever-changing, impossible to pin down.

We can try to describe our experiences, but when that description falls short of the vivid intensity of something we want to share with another person -- what it was like when my child was born! --- often we end up saying, "Well, you just had to have been there."

Except, as just noted, even if you had been there with me at the birth of my daughter, you would have had your own experience, not mine.

Notice the "what" in the italicized passage above. Psychiatrist/philosopher Iain McGilchrist says one of the differences between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain is this: the left loves "what" while the right loves "how."

What (there's that word again) I'm trying to get at when I talk with someone about my daughter's birth really is how that experience was for me. I use language with lots of what-descriptors, date, time, who was in the room, how the labor went, etc., because it is so difficult to get across how it was for me back in St. Vincent's Hospital in suburban Portland back on a wintry January day in 1972.

Poetry. Dance. Music. Facial expressions. Tone of voice.

These are right-brain ways of communicating "how" experiences much more directly than the left-brain language, concepts, and abstractions which re-present actually lived reality can do. McGilchrist talks about this in his fascinating book about the divided brain, which I've blogged about here and here.

Reading the book, I've been fascinated by how (aha!) I'm getting fresh insights into so many mystical and spiritual philosophies I've learned about over my lifetime.

Rumi, Ramana, Meister Eckhart, Plotinus, Zen, Taoism, Sant Mat, St. John of the Cross, Buddhism -- on almost every page McGilchrist writes something which reminds me of how some seeker of cosmic truth approached reality. Again, not what was found, but how it was sought and then described.

Fairly frequently McGilchrist uses some words which I"ve criticized in other contexts: "as it is."

What he's talking about is how the right hemisphere of the brain is focused on embodied experience of here and now. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, feelings, that overall sense of being which each of us enjoys each and every moment we're alive.

This isn't the same meaning some non-dual, Buddhist, Advaita, Vedanta, etc. adherents give to "as it is." They often use those words to denote some objective truth, objective reality, objective experiencing. That's left-brain stuff. At least, that's how I look upon their use of the term.

I like McGilchrist's "as it is," though, because he founds his meaning in solid neuroscience, philosophy, and, importantly, experience. We all know the difference between thinking about something and experiencing that something. 

Concepts never fully (or even partially?) capture experience. Yet McGilchrist eloquently describes how the left hemisphere of the brain is focused on breaking the world into parts, assembling those parts into a model of how the world is, and then defending the truthfulness of that model. 

How dare you!? Say that. Do that. Believe that.

Recently I've been getting quite a few How dare you!? comments from religiously-minded people offended by something or other. They have a model of the world, of reality, which they think is so correct, so true, nobody should be able to criticize it. 

Yet they feel free to criticize other people's model of reality.

This is the left hemisphere of the brain talking. It takes a personal experience -- I feel God's love... I feel devoted to the guru... I feel how true my religion is -- and elevates that experience into an objective truth of the cosmos which everybody should accept. 

Even if the experiences of those other people lead them in a different direction. 

This sort of dogmatic attitude baffles me. Even when I was an avid believer in an Indian philosophical system called Sant Mat, I was tolerant of other people's beliefs. Heck, my first wife started off believing as I did (or at least acted like she did), and my second wife was skeptical of my spiritual beliefs from the start.

But I was married to my first wife for eighteen years, and I've been married to my second wife for twenty-two years. Love doesn't have much, if anything, to do with thinking. In both my marriages, it didn't really matter whether my wife and I had the same way of looking upon the world conceptually. 

It's experience that draws people together. And also, at times, of driving them apart. In a relationship how two people experience the world is much more important than what they conceptualize as being true about reality.

(If you don't believe me, my response is Well, I guess you just had to have been there through my forty years of marriage.)

Anyway, what's my point in this blog post? I'm not really sure. And that, I guess, is my point. 

It's OK not to be sure; to simply experience life without fitting reality into tidy conceptual building blocks; to embrace your own unsureness while accepting that other people feel really sure about their own way of looking at the world; to rest contentedly in experience "as it is," yet being thankful for our evolved left-brain ability to stand back from experience and organize it in useful ways.

(That's what science is all about.)

Fake celebrity video shows how gurus scam devotees

Watch this You Tube video. In four and a half minutes you'll have a much better understanding of how gurus, prophets, masters, and other "spiritual" celebrities get so many people to believe in them.

Fascinating, how easy it is to delude us humans. Our tendency is to follow others like sheep.

(Thanks to a blog visitor for sending me a link to this video. It's got over 4 million You Tube views, but I hadn't heard of it before.) 

 

Enlightenment explained in 47 words

Just got this email from a Church of the Churchless visitor. Nicely said from someone about my age who looks on enlightenment pretty much the same way I do now.

I never knew what to believe until my early twenties when I came to believe in enlightenment. Now, at the age of sixty-four, having found that I can’t explain clearly what enlightenment could possibly be, I can’t believe in it anymore, and I find this inability enlightening.      

Zen reality

From a recent The New Yorker. Pretty much sums up my own mindfulness practice. 

Download Zen reality (pdf file)

Certainty is how the brain's left hemisphere deludes itself

Are you certain? For sure? No doubts at all? 100%? Your faith in what you know is absolute?

Congratulations.

The left hemisphere of your brain is firmly in control of you -- recognizing that almost certainly (notice that almost? my brain's right hemisphere is working) there's no difference between "you" and "your brain."

This is my second post about Iain McGilchrist's fascinating book, "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World." See here for the first. I'm hugely enjoying learning about how the left and right hemispheres function. 

After all, how the world appears to us is a result of how the brain processes information. Interestingly, "what" is a left brain thing; "how" is a right brain thing.

Ultimately if the left hemisphere is the hemisphere of 'what,' the right hemisphere, with its preoccupation with context, the relational aspects of existence, emotion, and the nuances of expression, could be said to be the hemisphere of 'how.'

This is related to the left hemisphere's focus on certainty. It shies away from amibiguity, whereas the right hemisphere is much more comfortable with not knowing for sure. The left hemisphere will make up stories about how the world works even when there is no good reason to believe in them. 

(See "The reasons we give for what we do: are they reasonable?") 

Religiosity, then, seems to be supported largely by left brain goings-on. Religious people weave together myth, wishful thinking, dogma, blind faith, unsubstantiated stories, and vague personal experiences into a confident This is How the World Is tale that's extremely resistant to criticism.

McGilchrist points out in his book the obvious: both the left and right hemispheres are vitally important. It isn't possible to live a normal life without both sides of the brain functioning nearly normally.

But we need to recognize the tensions between left and right. Like I said before, the divided brain is the root of our divided sense of self. McGilchrist says:

Before embarking on this chapter, I suggested that there were two ways of being in the world, both of which were essential. One was to allow things to be present to us in all of their embodied particularity, with all of their changeability and impermanance, and their interconnectedness, as part of a whole which is forever in flux. In this world we, too, feel connected to what we experience, part of that whole, not confined in subjective isolation from a world that is viewed as objective.

The other was to step outside the flow of experience and 'experience' our experience in a special way: to re-present the world in a form that is less truthful, but apparently clearer, and therefore cast in a form which is more useful for manipulation of the world and one another. This world is explicit, abstracted, compartmentalized, fragmented, static (though its 'bits' can be re-set in motion, like a machine), essentially lifeless. From this world we feel detached, but in relation to it it we are powerful.

This helps explain the appeal of religious theologies, spiritual philosophies, mystical teachings. They present devotees with a nice tidy package of beliefs with few, if any, loose ends. Want to know what God is like, what happens after death, what is right and wrong? 

No problem.

Just embrace Holy Book X, Guru Y, or Master Z and all of your questions will be answered. Of course, few people fret about why it is that X, Y, and Z have such different answers; true believers assume that they have been singled out to know the Truth with a capital "T," while all others are deluded.

The brain's left hemisphere loves this! Certainty delights it! Forget about flux, impermanance, interconnectedness, subjectivity. That's right brain stuff. Us left hemispheres just want to know that we know. 

McGilchrist again:

The left hemisphere likes things that are manmade. Things we make are also more certain: we know them inside out, because we put them together. They are not, like living beings, constantly changing and moving, beyond our grasp. 

Because the right hemisphere sees things as they are, they are constantly new for it, so it has nothing like the databank of information about categories that the left hemisphere has. It cannot have the certainty of knowledge that comes from being able to fix things and isolate them. In order to remain true to what is, it does not form abstractions, and categories that are based on abstraction, which are the strengths of denotative language.

...Even in the absence of amnesia, the left hemisphere exhibits a strong tendency to confabulate: it thinks it knows something, recognises something, which it doesn't, a tendency that may be linked to its lack of ability to discriminate unique cases from the generalised categories into which it places them. The left hemisphere is the equivalent of the sort of person who, when asked for directions, prefers to make something up rather admit to not knowing.

...So the left hemisphere needs certainty and needs to be right. The right hemisphere makes it possible to hold several ambiguous possibilities in suspension together without premature closure on one outcome. 

...The right hemisphere is also more realistic about how it stands in relation to the world at large, less grandiose, more self-aware, than the left hemisphere. The left hemisphere is ever optimistic, but unrealistic about its short-comings. 

I'll end with a few other passages that I liked in McGilchrist's book.

How do we get out of endless loops, trapped situations, blind alleys, unproductive belief systems? Religions want us to embrace more of the same. Growth requires something fresh and new.

The left hemisphere's 'stickiness', its tendency to recur to what it is familiar with, tends to reinforce whatever it is already doing. There is a reflexivity to the process, as if trapped in a hall of mirrors: it only discovers more of what it already knows, and it only does more of what it already is doing.

...The right hemisphere, then, is capable of freeing us through negative feedback. The left hemisphere tends to positive feedback, and we can become stuck. This is not unlike the difference between the normal drinker and the addict. 

After a certain point, the normal drinker begins to feel less and less like another drink. What makes an addict is the lack of an 'off switch'-- another drink only makes the next, and the next, more likely.

So don't get addicted to religion. Have a few drinks of a belief system, then move on. Remember what the signboard said in one of my favorite movies, "LA Story."

The Signboard: There are more things in heaven and earth, Harry, than are dreamt of N your philosophy.