Church of the Churchless

Before Easter, I escape death. I feel sort of Jesus'y.

Back in the late 60's, the decade, not my age, I looked like Jesus often is depicted.

This photo was taken (unposed, I should add) by a friend who had sponsored a gathering where I led a group in some yoga postures and meditation. Not exactly Christian, though my yoga teacher called his ashram "Christananda."

Anyway, I share this information to establish an admittedly tenuous relationship between (1) the Christian celebration of Easter tomorrow, which marks Jesus' resurrection from the dead three days after his crucifixion, and (2) my recent celebration of a benign skin biopsy test, the "good news" of which came three days after a dermatology check-up.

Read all about it in a post on my other blog, "Skin biopsy unleashes my inner anxious Woody Allen."

Coincidence? Perhaps. But maybe not.

If I believed in reincarnation (I don't), then it would be easy for me to imagine that I am worthy of worship as a Christ figure whose earthly mission this time around is to overturn the money changers of religion, so to speak, having evolved beyond the spiritual dogmatism of my earlier Jesus incarnation.

The main thing I learned from the skin biopsy experience, where, while waiting for the test results, I was halfway convinced that I had malignant melanoma, is that the prospect of death (even if imaginary) is a marvelous method of focusing one's attention on what really matters.

In short, life. 

I'm finding that stuff which bothered me prior to the biopsy doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore. Visualizing the prospect of my impending demise (others do the same thing while waiting for test results) put things in perspective.

Problems, what problems? Compared to the Really Bad Shit I'd envisioned coming my way, whatever life throws at me now won't seem so bad.

Of course, we never know -- one of the points I made in my blog post about the biopsy.

There were moments, though, when I actually felt grateful for the biopsy.

It felt like a wake-up call. Doesn't seem like I'd need a Death Reminder at the age of 64, but as I went on dog walks, mowed the lawn, and did my usual daily stuff, I was struck by how special each and every experience would be if I knew that I wasn't going to be able to do these things for much longer.

Then, in about the closest my unenlightened mind will ever get to a Zen'ish satori, I'd suddenly realize: Hey, you idiot! Every fucking day of your life you should realize that one day you're not going to be able to live much longer!

Meaning, a biopsy with its "you could die soon" potential message is obvious. It grabbed my attention. Yet all around me are other warning signs of a possible impending demise.

Like driving in my car, because serious accidents happen. Like walking along the sidewalk beside a brick building, because strong earthquakes happen (especially here in the Pacific Northwest). I just don't pay much attention to the ever-present risks of dying until something stark like a biopsy comes along.

I ended that post with:

If there's anything I learned this week, it's to live FREAKING NOW.

And that includes living NICELY NOW.

Here's a nice short video about being nice that someone on my Facebook feed shared today. I liked it. Could have done without the Matthew verse at the end, though, becasue niceness has nothing to do with religion. 

 

[Update: Jim left a comment saying that back in the 60's I looked like the Jesus on a Jehovah's Witnesses flyer. My reply: Hey, I looked MORE like Jesus than Jesus did, having had longer hair and beard. Here's how the fake JW Jesus looks.]

Dogs as ministers. Finally, a religious practice that makes sense.

Today's Portland Oregonian has a religiously-themed story that I actually read: "Four-Footed Ministers program employs a canine to connect to the divine."

As far as Portland resident Jerilyn Felton is concerned, it’s no coincidence that the word “dog” is “God” spelled backwards.

Felton coordinates a dog-ministry program called the Four-Footed Ministers Pastoral-Care Program at Maryville Nursing Home in Beaverton. 

She designed the program while pursuing her doctor of ministry degree at George Fox Evangelical Seminary.

Felton believes that the presence of dogs can help foster a connection to the divine. The physical connections the residents make by interacting with the animal can lead to spiritual comfort and care, she says, while dogs also bring residents closer to each other.

Makes sense. 

I'm pretty sure that cats, if not evil, are much more aligned with a devilish than divine nature. For proof, have a heart-warming (and heart-chilling) look at "The difference between dogs and cats :-)"

 

What is meant by a "fake" guru?

A few days ago I wrote a blog post called "Kumare: truthful movie about a fake guru." Here I want to do some additional pondering about what it means to be fake. 

This is a subject of more than theoretical interest to me.

Back in my college years, 1969-70, I studied yoga and meditation with a long-haired, charismatic teacher who looked a lot like the movie's Kumare (even though my teacher was Greek, and Vikram Ghandi, who became "Kumare," is Indian.)

My weird story of how I switched from the first guru to another guru can be found here.

l changed gurus after discovering that the Greek guy was fake in various disturbing ways. I'm also no longer involved with the second guru, finding after he died that fakeness pervaded his teachings and organization in other sorts of ways.

But what does fake and true mean when it comes to gurus? This isn't an easy question to answer, one of the reasons Kumare is such a fascinating movie.

Kumare' students liked him a lot. Kumare was an excellent listener. Kumare was accepting and non-judgmental. Kumare stimulated his students to deal better with their problems and pursue their goals more avidly. Kumare created a warm, positive, energizing atmosphere in his yoga classes.

What of that is fake? Nothing. 

My wife, a retired psychotherapist, was impressed with how Kumare/Ghandi utilized good counseling techniques in his one-on-one interactions with students. Clearly he served as a friend and shoulder to lean on for them.

Which also is how I viewed my first yoga teacher.

"Yogiraj," as he called himself, stabilized my scattered, psychedelic, hippie self of that time. I became a vegetarian. I stopped using drugs. I became adept at Hatha Yoga. I started meditating daily. None of that was fake. A few days a week I still do some of the yoga postures that I learned so many years ago.

My yoga teacher's fakeness came from him almost certainly not being who he claimed to be: someone with supernatural knowledge/power. (When he told me and other students that he communes with Christ in his basement, not figuratively but really, we all said "goodbye.")

Kumare's fakeness, on the other hand, was of a different variety. He never claimed to have any unique powers. In fact, his core guru-message was You don't need a guru; you are your own guru.

However, most or all of Kumare's students looked upon him as someone special. Well, in fact, he was. As noted above, Kumare/Ghandi came across as a kind, warm, gentle, understanding person. In that sense he indeed was special.

Yet not unique. Lots of people have those qualities. But few here in the United States look as exotic as Kumare did. 

(At least to American eyes. I remember mentioning to a friend who had, like me, been to India, "I wonder how Indians manage to not be continually distracted by the amazing street scenes of colorful saris, flower clad animals, gaily decorated trucks, and all that, endlessly going by in a stream of buzzing confusion." He sensibly replied, "Hey Brian, to Indians that's normal. They would find our lifeless strip malls exotic.")

So the way I see it, Kumare was truthful when he told his yoga students, "You are your own guru." What they wanted, they already had.

It just took a guy with a fake Indian accent, pretending to be someone other than he was, to give them the feeling that they could lose weight, have a better romantic relationship, succeed in business, be more compassionate, or whatever.

This sort of fake truthfulness is akin to what someone feels when they go to a Lady Gaga concert. Uplifted by both the singer's message and stage presence, they might tell their friends, "Lady Gaga is amazing! I had the most wonderful experience watching her!"

Well, actually the concert-goer is the amazing one. As are we all.

Because whatever we feel, whatever we experience, whatever we believe, whatever we think -- those feelings, experiences, beliefs, and thoughts are all manifested by a human brain. Our own brain. Yours, mine, everybody else's; each of us fashions a world through the largely mysterious workings of human consciousness.

Truth and falsehood aren't really germane concepts within that inner world. What is, is. What is felt, is what I feel. This is the truth Kumare expressed to his students: no one else creates your reality. You do. 

This morning I was browsing through Raymond Smullyan's "Who Knows? A Study of Religious Consciousness" and came across an apt passage.

I know a very remarkable lady who is a painter, poet, and playwright. She is devoutly religious and calls herself a Christian Buddhist. (She believes that Jesus was a Buddha.)

...To my great surprise, she once told me that God exists purely in the mind! (That reminds me of my fantasy that God exists purely as an ideal!) Sometime later, I asked her how her vision differs from atheism.

She replied, "Atheists also believe that God exists purely in the mind, but the atheists believe that God is therefore unreal, whereas I believe that things existing in the mind can be real." 

Of course they are. Thoughts, feelings, beliefs, experiences, perceptions -- heck, everything that exists in the mind is real, since it is produced by a real brain. 

However, not everything existing in the brain relates to something existing in the world outside the brain. This gets us into some deep philosophical/ espistemological waters that I'm not going to dive into this late at night, and this far into an already lengthy blog post.

I'll just end by saying that gurus are justifiably called "fake" if they claim to have some knowledge of a supernatural world, or even knowledge of the natural world, that they actually don't have.

Since Kumare never made such a claim, he was fake only in his presentation of himself as an esoteric Indian yogi, instead of the regular New Jersey guy he actually was. But insofar as he pointed his students toward an embrace of the reality existing within themselves, and as themselves, he was a truth-teller.

Kumare: truthful movie about a fake guru

"How do you know I'm not a fake? Maybe I just have the gift of gab."

There's a guru in India whom I'm familiar with, Gurinder Singh, who used to frequently say this. Maybe he still does.

At the time I was associated with the organization Gurinder Singh leads, his disciples would look upon those statements as a sign of some sort of humility/ Zen'ish koan/ anti-mystical mystic utterance.

Which, interestingly, is almost exactly what students who flocked to a genuinely fake guru, Kumare, a.k.a. New Jersey-born Vikram Ghandi, felt when at every yoga class he taught he told them "The only guru you need is inside yourself" and "I'm not a guru."

In the Nightline video embedded below, Ghandi says that when he told his students this, people thought it was a riddle. Ghandi also says:

If we wake up on a desert island with no scripture, we still could live perfectly happy lives.

A non-religious Amen to that, brother.

A few nights ago my wife and I watched "Kumare," the documentary Ghandi made. We streamed it via Netflix. Clicking on the link will reveal quite a few other online places the film can be watched.

Do it. It's inspiring. And fascinating.

"Kumare" reveals the power of belief in a unique fashion. The movie shows real people being drawn to embrace a fake guru who also is a real person. What Kumare teaches in the movie is similarly both false and true. He makes up rather absurd yoga postures and practices, yet his students benefit a lot from them.

This short (about five minutes) Nightline piece about Kumare and Vikram Ghandi will give you a good feel for the movie. [After embedding a You Tube link, I discovered that ABC news demands that the video be watched on You Tube; so you'll be led there if you click on the "play" arrow. Or click here.]

 

Ghandi is a convincing guru. Naturally he speaks perfect English, being born in the United States. He used his grandmother's accent as the model for his Kumare-talk, which he pulls off flawlessly.

A New York Times review of the movie captures the philosophical spirit of Kumare.

“Faith begins as an experiment and ends as an experience.” That quotation from the Anglican priest William Ralph Inge, which begins the documentary “Kumaré: The True Story of a False Prophet,”evokes the film’s ambiguous exploration of religion, teaching and spiritual leadership.

...Initially, Mr. Gandhi recalls, “I wanted to see how far I could push it.” He is shown presiding at one gathering with a picture of himself between portraits of Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden. But his earnest followers, including a death-row lawyer, a recovering cocaine addict and a morbidly obese young woman, are sympathetic, highly stressed Americans who pour out their troubles.

As Mr. Gandhi warms to these people, who demonstrate an unalloyed faith in his wisdom, the film becomes a deeper, more problematic exploration of identity and the power of suggestion, and its initially sour taste turns to honey. The meditations, mantras and yoga moves he invents, however bogus, transform lives, as his followers discover their inner gurus and gain a self-mastery.

For all his deceptiveness, Mr. Gandhi is not an egomaniacal prankster but a benign teacher whose “mirror” philosophy involves uniting the everyday self with the ideal self. A goal of this practical program of discipline and reflection is to cultivate an inner guru so that you don’t need someone like Kumaré.

“Kumaré” builds up to the big reveal, in which Mr. Gandhi, with great trepidation, presents himself to his flock as himself, without mystical trappings and speaking in his regular voice.

The film’s message lies in a paradox expressed early in the film. His impersonation was the biggest lie he’s ever told and the greatest truth he’s ever experienced. It is a thought worth pondering.

Wow. I'm (finally) polite to some Jehovah's Witnesses.

My Buddha-nature must be coming along nicely. This morning I was the most courteous I've ever been to the Jehovah's Witnesses who periodically ring our rural doorbell.

And I had some reasons to be my usual blunt, ascerbic self.

The blueberry-filled whole wheat pancake I usually have for Sunday breakfast had just been put on a plate, butter and syrup applied. I was hungry. Hearing the doorbell ring, my wife said "Who could that be at this time?"

It took me about two seconds to make what turned out to be a highly accurate guess. 

I opened the front door with my right hand, while holding Family Dog #2 back with my left hand. Seeing two men standing there, neatly dressed in suits, the lead guy holding a black Bible and a glossy colored flyer, my immediate reaction was irritation.

Pushing my body halfway through the door to keep our squirrel-crazed dog from dashing outdoors, I mentally rehearsed my usual Jehovah's Witnesses brush-off: "Thanks, but we're not interested. We're happy with our beliefs, or rather the lack thereof." Slam door.

I'd actually started to reach out with my left hand to grab the flyer so I could start crumpling it up to make the door slam more dramatic, but I think the guy thought I was trying to shake his hand or something (with the wrong hand). My grasping was of air, an empty gesture.

That gave me a few seconds to reassess the situation. The men seemed pleasant. It was a nice day. The pancake wasn't going to cool down much in the next minute or two. So I calmly stood in the doorway, waiting for the pitch.

Which -- no big surprise -- was about Easter coming up, the biggest day of the year for Christians, they told me.

They wanted to invite me to the Kingdom Hall in Salem where, the Bible-holding guy said, he'd be giving a special talk on something or other Jesus'y (I wasn't paying much attention to the details, knowing there was no way in hell I'd ever set foot in their church).

He and his companion clearly were jazzed about the anniversary of Jesus' death, which the flyer informed me was Tuesday, March 26, after sundown. They said they wanted to let people in our neighborhood know about the Jehovah's Witnesses event.

Like I said, ordinarily I would have responded with some sort of anti-religious putdown. Or at least a brusque brush-off. But today I calmly accepted the flyer and said "Thank you" without rushing back inside.

I guess I was sort of curious to see what came after the usual one minute Jehovah's Witnesses pitch, since I'd never stayed around after it.

In this case, nothing of the proselytizing sort. Maybe they knew I wasn't a likely conversion candidate (seems like the organization would maintain a database of addresses with comments attached, like "aggressive atheist lives here, bound for hellfire").

One of the men made a compliment about how nice our yard looked. I said that we'd just had a whole lot of bark blown in, which, at my sixty-something age, appeals to me much more than having a big pile of bark dumped in our driveway, since our yard is large, convoluted, and difficult to shovel mulch over.

This reminded one of the guys about his youth, when his mother would point to just such a pile of bark and say "spread it." So we ended up having an exchange pleasantly unrelated to anything religious.

We said our goodbyes. I went back to my pancake. I felt good. I was glad that I'd been more polite than I'd ever been to Jehovah's Witnesses. Don't know if my mellow mood will carry over to their next visit, which I'm sure will come.

Today I just felt that these men were doing what they felt impelled to do. No different from what we all do. They deeply believe in Jesus and his power of redemption/salvation. They want to spread the "Good Word."

Have I ever believed in something equally unprovable and unlikely? Sure I have. Have I ever wanted other people to believe in my unprovable, unlikely belief? Sure I have.

He who is without a history of unjustified holier-than-thouness, throw the first stone of non-self righteousness. That person sure isn't me. 

The "One Man Died for All" flyer is in our recycling bin. Yet not crumpled up. How respectful of religiosity I was today! 

Spiritual Naturalism appeals to my churchless non-soul

Thanks to an email from Alex Szeto, I learned about Spiritual Naturalism. After reading some articles on the website of the Spiritual Naturalist Society, I haven't found much that I disagree with. 

But given my often-disagreeable nature, I'm sure if I dug deeper, I would.

Which wouldn't bother Spiritual Naturalists, because they embrace science, reason, and such, not rigid dogma, blind faith, and unarguable thou shalt's. 

"What is Spiritual Naturalism?" included a nice description of what "spirituality" can mean to someone who doesn't believe in God or the supernatural.

Naturalism is a view of the world that includes those things which we can observe or directly conclude from observations. Naturalists’ conception of reality consists of the natural world as outlined by the latest scientific understanding.

As for claims for which we have no evidence, we do not hold any beliefs in these and do not make any other claims about them. It is quite possible, even likely, that many things exist which we cannot detect, but we believe in a humble approach to knowledge. With humility, we can recognize that human beings are imperfect in their ability to know all things.

Therefore, we are careful to limit our claims about reality to what we can experience and measure, as well as reproduce and show to others. On all else, we are content to admit “we don’t know”.

Spirituality is the other word in Spiritual Naturalism. For many, the word ‘spirituality’ has an association with the supernatural. However, we mean the term in its more general and original sense.

The Latin root word spiritus meant ‘wind’ or ‘breath’, or the essence of something. As we might speak of the ‘spirit of the law’ or ‘school spirit’, the spiritual is that which is concerned with the essence of life – or the essential things in life.

Thus, a person with no sense of spirituality would be a person that lives on the surface, always dealing only with the shallow or the mundane; perhaps even a materialistic person. But to have spirituality is to be concerned with the larger, deeper, and essential matters of life and to apply ourselves consciously toward them in a committed practice or ‘walk’.

This includes, as Socrates put it, the ‘examined life’, and this is what we mean by spirituality.

Sounds about right.

I still don't like the word spiritual very much, because it has other-worldly connotations. However, given how many people identify with the oft-heard adage, "I'm spiritual, but not religious," it seems that this term is going to be with us for quite a while, even if religiosity takes a downturn.

The Spiritual Naturalism folks have a diagram that shows where they see themselves on the philosophical landscape. 

It looks like just about anybody could be a spiritual naturalist. Supernaturally-inclined "spirituality" types just need to tilt in the natural direction more; scientifically-inclined "naturalism" types just need to tilt in the spiritual direction more.

This group must be for real, because they have t-shirts, coffee mugs, and other items for sale. My only problem with their merchandise is the decidedly space alien'ish look of their logo. Doesn't seem to jibe with "spiritual naturalism," but maybe I'm missing the connection.

 

Why Taoism beats Zen on being non-religious

I can understand why someone who isn't religious wouldn't feel any need at all to embrace a philosophy that has some churchy aspects -- such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism. 

However, I enjoy reading books in both genres, and am heavy into Tai Chi, which expresses Taoist principles in movment.

It seems to me, along with others much more knowledgeable about Eastern philosophy than I am, that Zen minus Buddhism equals Taoism. 

(More or less, at least. We're not talking mathematical precision here.)

Buddhism adds in a bunch of religiosity to Zen, which would be more closely related to Taoism if it didn't have all those revered masters uttering supposedly profound commentaries on the sutras, etc. etc. 

Hans-Georg Moeller does a nice job of describing why Taoism/Daoism is less annoyingly religious than Zen in his book, "Daoism Explained." 

Daoism is much more into the body.

Daoist philosophy takes the body very seriously. Although Buddhism, especially in its early Indian forms, also cares about the body and even includes yogic practices, it focuses much more on the mind and its "spirituality." 

...Early Daoism did not react to a Buddhist philosophical background, and it did not develop into a philosophical discourse in which consciousness was a central issue.

...In Daoism, the "mind' is more or less understood in bodily terms. It is integrated into the functioning of the body and is not a separate force or constructive power. I believe that this constitutes one of the main differences between early Daoist philosophy and later Chan [Zen] Buddhism.

Daoism more strongly affirms the reality of the real.

Daoist philosophy, as I hoped to show, generally affirms the world of "presence" (you), that is all the "ten thousand things," life and death, even action and speech. The nonpresence (wu) in the midst of presence -- the emptiness that is neither dead nor alive and neither acts nor speaks -- does not expose any "relativity" of the present. Daoist emptiness and nonpresence do not diminish but rather confirm the authenticity of the present.

In comparison with Daoism, Chan has a more ambiguous concept of the reality of the real. Like Daoism, Chan also affirms the autheticity of the here and now, but it also affirms its inauthenticity. The Chan Buddhist ambivalence in regard to the reality of the real is evident in its well-known "rule of three." A mountain is a mountain. A mountain is not a mountain. A mountain is a mountain.

...In the end, the inauthentic is also accepted as authentic, and this is represented by the final statement that again sees the mountain as the mountain. This third level of reality is not to be equated with the first; it is more complex and has integrated or "superceded" its own negation.

...Ancient pre-Buddhist Daoism affirms the full reality of the real.

Daoism has a less religious institutional character.

Even though both Laozi and Zhuangzi are portrayed as masters who answer the questions of disciples, the sources do not indicate that they were revered as religious leaders by "monks." Even though Chan Buddhists were extremely critical of Buddhist religious institutions, many of them lived in monasteries. 

...The more religious character of Chan Buddhism is also demonstrated by the nature of its most important writings. The Laozi is a colllection of philosophical poetry, and the Zhuangzi is a book that includes allegories, dialogues, and short philosophical treatises.

In contrast, Chan Buddhist scriptures are often sermonlike speeches (like the famous "Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch") or records of the sayings and deeds of important priests (the so-called yulu) as noted down by the monks in the monasteries.

Naturally l like both Zen and Taoism a whole lot better, than, say, fundamentalist Catholicism (is there any other kind?).

But when I need some non-religious inspiration, more and more I tend to turn to Taoist writings of the philosophical variety. Taoism does have its own religious, supernatural side, which doesn't appeal to me. I enjoy the lighter, looser, more laughable vibe of Taoism, as compared to Zen.

Zen Buddhism also enjoys a joke, but only if one's sense of humor comports with what a Zen master dude considers is funny. If you laugh at the wrong time, or in the wrong way, he'll hit you over the head with a stick.

Philosophical Taoism doesn't have that sort of hierarchical, patriarchal stuff. Everybody is just wandering on their own path in the misty mountains, enjoying nature, doing their own thing. 

Taoism's small and great awakenings

Wake up! 

We here in the United States will say that to someone who is figuratively sleeping. Meaning, if they don't understand something obvious, something they're clueless about but should be clued in to, waking up is what we want them to do.

Taoism also talks about awakening. In a way that is both similar and different. Hans-Georg Moeller explains Taoism's (or Daoism's) small and great awakenings in his book, "Daoism Explained." 

It's one of my favorite Taoist books.

Moeller has a fresh way of looking upon Taoism's way of looking upon things. He argues convincingly that many Western interpreters of Taoism overlay Christian or Platonic sorts of concepts upon Chinese notions of what reality is all about.

For example, Moeller says the small and great awakenings can be understood in terms of a familiar Taoist image: that of a spoked wheel and its hub.

The wheel is you (in Chinese), something, a presence. The hub is wu, nothing, an absence.

Yet the nothing of the empty hub is the key to the wheel doing what it does: revolve. So presence and absence are co-equals in Taoism, whereas by and large Western philosophies and religions abhor nothingness.

Also, Western minds like to feel that there could be a spoke on the wheel that is more true than the others. Each of our lives is made up of many time-revolutions. Most of us consider that somewhere in all that spinning is the real me. 

Maybe in the past. Maybe right now. Maybe in the future. Whatever, some changings, some perspectives, some spoke being higher or lower must be the "me" that is preferred, the person I really am.

A small awakening consists of the realization that this isn't the case. 

Within each phase, within each small dream and small waking, it is important to be fully absorbed within the phase, and each small segment is fully real. Life and death are such small segments of change and each step between the segments is a small awakening -- or a small sleep.

To really awaken means to newly accept another stage in the process, to begin another life or death. The small awakening takes place in the "periphery" of change, and while in the periphery of change, while taking an "active" part in the process, it is best to be fully awake in one's presence. A small awakening is the full acceptance and integration of oneself in the present circumstances.

So the small awakening mostly involves a sense of you, presence in Chinese. I was fully this before. I am fully this now. Unmarried/ married. Religious/ unbeliever. Conservative/ liberal. Child/ adult. Alive/ dead. Dreaming/ awake.

Instead of looking for some transcendent or ultimate something-or-other that isn't whatever I am now, I realize that whichever spoke of the wheel of life I am now, that is the presence I fully embrace.

I can't tell you how many times someone has left a comment on this blog along the lines of, "Brian, you used to believe in God so strongly. How is it possible for you to be such an avid unbeliever now? You must have been deceiving yourself before. Or maybe you are now?"

People who say stuff like that obviously haven't had a Taoist small awakening. They don't understand that everything, including people, changes. Who we are today isn't who we were yesterday. Who we will be tomorrow is somebody else again.

It'd be crazy to ask me, "Brian, you used to be six years old. How is it possible for you to be sixty-four now?" I'd reply with a bemused smirk, "Because change happens, dude. Once I was fully a believer; now I'm fully an unbeliever. Once I was fully six. Now I'm fully sixty-four."

Taoism is right in line with modern neuroscience in this respect: neither finds any enduring self or soul to be part of human nature. We are wise to consider that whoever we are now, is who we really are. When there's another now, there will another really.

But for Taoism, a great awakening is even more awake'y than a small awakening. Here's how Moeller describes it.

The great awakening is the awakening of the Daoist sage -- it is his/her "enlightenment." It is the "ultimate" change from the present Zhuang Zhou to the nonpresent Master Zhuang. This awakening does not lead beyond life and death, but rather right to their center.

A Daoist sage identifies him/herself not with the turning spokes of a wheel but with its unmoving hub. To be the pivot or center of change means to be identified with the whole process of change. This "zero-perspective" on the process of change is the Daoist sage's perspective on life and death, and the great awakening is the awakening to this perspective.

As opposed to the small awakened who totally identifies him/herself with the present segment of change, with life or death, the sage identifies him/herself with neither of the specific segments, but with the whole process as such.

...From the zero-perspective of the hub, the wheel always looks the same, no matter where the spokes are. Since the sage has no present "self" and no present identity or function, his/her own present body is his/her present periphery or environment.

Which sounds like a fancy way of saying pretty much what the Beatles sang in "I Am The Walrus." 

I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together

Cool. Or I guess I should say, Goo goo goo joob goo goo goo joob.

Update: Just read a letter to the editor in New Scientist. Seems on the same wavelength.

From Wolf Kirchmeir
I think what is wrong with the metaphors Jan Westerhoff gives for the self is that both a string of pearls and a rope are objects, but the self is a process.

A better metaphor would be a fountain. The fountain's shape exists as long as there is water flowing, and ceases when it stops. The self is the shape, not the water. The water represents the operations in the brain.

This idea is not mine, but I cannot recall where I first encountered it.
Blind River, Ontario, Canada 

Video of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the secretive guru

One of the most strangely secretive gurus in the world is Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the leader of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (headquarters are in Beas, India). 

His predecessor, Charan Singh, had no problem with being photographed in both still shots and videos. However, Gurinder Singh prohibits cameras from being used in his presence, even in public places. 

I witnessed this myself when I was serving as a security volunteer at a RSSB meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Prohibitions of that sort, though, can be gotten around. Here's a You Tube video, "Babaji Gurinder Singh Dhillon -- I Just Wanna Hide," that pokes some fun at the guru's secretiveness.

Gurinder Singh also won't allow recordings of his talks, or even, I believe, contemporaneous notes to be taken of what he says. Could be wrong about this, though. I haven't been to a meeting of his for many years.

 

Being totally into what we do makes us godlike: kamiwaza

I've finished Seth Godin's book, "The Icarus Deception," that I blogged about before in Here's something to be afraid of: fear. 

I didn't find it astoundingly inspiring or informative. However, it did reinforce some notions I already hold, and said some old stuff in some new ways.

And I did learn some new things. Had never heard of the Japanese word kamiwaza before. Godin writes:

Superman. Thor. Moses. Athena. George Gershwin. Thomas Edison -- they each represent part of what it is to be human; they are inside all of us. We know we are capable of this -- to be that strong or that cool or that generous. To persevere and connect and contribute the way our gods can -- that's why we invented them, why we revere them, and why they resonate with us. We have them inside, every day.

And yet we have no perfect word for expressing godlike abilities. We don't know how to talk about what it is to perform in a mythological way, to strip away the artifice and let the deity express itself.

And the Icarus Deception pushes us to avoid even thinking of it. it strikes deep into our psyche with a vivid warrning about the dangers of hubris.

Too late.

We've built a world where the only option is hubris, where the future belongs to anyone willing to act like the gods of our myths. Better coin a word for it.

The Japanese call it kamiwaza. 

If the gods are us, then do we dare be as the gods are?

The Japanese term kamiwaza, like most great words for which we have no equivalent, is difficult to translate. The shortest version is "godlike." 

So when we strip away self-doubt and artifice, when we embrace initiative and art, we are left with kamiwaza. The purity of doing it properly but without self-consciousness. The runner who competes with kamiwaza is running with purity, running properly, running as the gods would run.

How dare we? How dare we presume to ignore Daedalus, to fly close to the sun, to apparently forego humility in a quest for something unattainable?

How can we not dare?

Hubris makes us godlike, and being godlike makes us human.

One of Godin's oft-repeated points is that what we should be after is art. Our life should be art. Our work should be art. An artist makes art because he or she is compelled by his or her inner artist to be artistic. 

Art isn't made on an assembly line. It isn't something routine, mass-produced, generic.

Art springs from a daring openness to risk it all, to take chances, to say, do, feel, think, write, create, or make something unique, something that never before has been, and never again will be, because no one in the past, present, or future of the cosmos ever has been exactly like the artist, feeling what the artist feels, expressing what the artist expresses.

A barista making a coffee drink can be an artist. Or... an assembly line worker. It all depends. On the difference between art and non-art. Godin again:

Art isn't painting.

Art isn't something you hang on the wall.

Art is what we do when we're truly alive.

If you've already decided that you're not an artist, it's worth considering why you made that decision and what it might take to unmake it.

It you've announced that you have no talent (in anything!), then you're hiding.

Art might scare you.

Art might bust you.

But art is who we are and what we do and what we need.

An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it (all of it, the work, the process, the feedback from those we seek to connect with) personally.

Art isn't a result; it's a journey. The challenge of our time is to find a journey worthy of your heart and your soul.

Reading Godin's book, I kept thinking about how all this relates to religion, spirituality, and mysticism. Short answer: who knows? We're talking art here, not science. There's no absolute right or wrong when it comes to The Meaning of It All.

Personally, which is how each of us looks upon life, I was reminded of how safe and stale these supposedly far-out aspects of human culture almost always are. Sure, there have been wild and crazy prophets, mystics, yogis, and such who broke all the rules in an artistic effort to embrace the unembraceable.

I'm thinking Kabir, Rumi, Meister Eckhart, Chuang Tzu... many others, both known and unknown.

But whenever religion, spirituality, and mysticism extend beyond the bounds of one person's artistic consciousness, almost invariably their art gets turned into something "corporate." Rulebound. Organized. Structured.

I liked these thoughts of Godin:

We are consumed with the humility of asking for directions, following the leader, and playing it safe. We have embraced the humility of not taking initiative and of designing a life where we can't possibly be blamed.

...We're so afraid of demonstrating hubris, so afraid of the shame of being told we flew too high, so paralyzed by the fear that we won't fit in, that we buy into the propaganda and don't do what we are capable of.

...The biggest cultural roller coaster of all is the one that pushes us to keep our heads down and comply, the one that is short-circuiting your art. This is the unspoken threat (the one we're reminded of from first grade) that you're just one misstep away from being fired, ostracized, thrown out, and exiled from the community. It's not true, but your lizard brain doesn't know that, any more than it knows that a roller coaster at Six Flags isn't going to kill you.

Best of all, being "god-like" in the kamiwaza sense doesn't require any sort of absolutist perfection. Or even the likelihood of success. It just means throwing yourself wholeheartedly into whatever activity you're engaged in.

As a vulnerable artist.

In every myth, there's tension. No god is omnipotent, no action is certain, no one exists in a universe with no pushback or risk.

The gods, when they act, take a risk. They are engaging with the universe, with one another, with the mortal population, and something might happen. And this just might not work out for them.

It's this vulnerability that makes it interesting. And of course, it's the vulnerability that makes each god human.

..."This might not work." This is the mantra of the artist.

...Kamiwaza doesn't mean all-powerful and perfect. If the gods were perfect, there would be no point to the myths we tell. We tell them precisely because the gods aren't perfect -- they are merely bold. 

The industrialist (your boss, perhaps) demands that everything be proven, efficient, and risk free. The artist seeks none of these. The value of art is in your willingness to stare down the risk and to embrace the void of possible failure.

In this moment, be the mystery of existence

Thirty-five minutes until the Beanery coffeehouse closes. One sixteen ounce of coffee to consume while composing a caffeinated blog post. I accept the mission. 

Now. In this moment. 

To say something about one of my favorite chapters in one of my favorite books: "God in the Moment," in Luther Askeland's marvelous Ways in Mystery. I've highlighted this chapter so many times, there's fewer non-colored lines than colored.

Blogged about this chapter before in my very early blogging days, when I wrote "Still trying to set my hair on fire."

Re-reading it, I was pleased to find that when I was nine years younger I was still not noticing whether I'd locked my car as I walked away from it, key fob in hand. So however senile I was then, I haven't changed much. 

Anyway... back to Askeland's moment. And that nasty word, "God." 

It's nasty to me the way most people use it: as referencing something, or someone, knowable. In that knowing arises all of religion's problems. Dogmatism. Holier-than-thouness. Preachiness. Intolerance. Rigid commandments.

Askeland, though, is speaking quite differently when he uses the word "God." 

That unencompassable source from which all things flow, we ourselves, our energies, and our lives included.

Me, I prefer "existence." Existence exists. That's mind-blowing. Or utterly obvious. Either way, we're talking mystery here. Not only that: the mystery of all mysteries. Call it existence. Call it God. Whatever.

Something, or someone, is the source. Eternal, whatever that word means. All-encompassing, whatever that word means. Uncreated, whatever that word means.

Luther Askeland is big on recognizing the useful uselessness of words. They're really valuable. Except when they aren't. When it comes to understanding the mystery of existence, which Askeland prefers to call the mystery of God, words and their associated concepts lead us nowhere.

But neither does anything else.

This is one of Askeland's creative insights. Religiosity, mysticism, spirituality -- these are just other ways we use to pretend to ourselves that we've got some sort of grasp on the mystery that can't be grasped. We expand our repertoire of illusory mystery-penetrating mechanisms to include supposedly metaphysical ways.

Same difference. 

We still imagine, in other words, that we can name and describe the world, ourselves, and our spiritual lives, only we now add to our repertoire world by adding to it images of a perfect condition contrasting sharply with our present state... we imagine that this perfected condition as one that will someday be ours.

In all this, however, we are just like a chick that, still enclosed in the egg, thinks it knows what the world is like, for we have at that point no more knowledge of other "worlds" than does the chick in the egg or the butterfly still working free of its cocoon. 

Here's the thing: there's no outside of the egg, no freedom from the cocoon. 

How could there be? How is it possible to get outside of existence, to be free of "God" -- whatever you want to call the mystery of the source?

Give it up, dudes and dudettes. In this moment, says Askeland, is all there ever was and ever shall be. Mystery. The mystery of us is identical with the mystery of the cosmos. 

Accept that you will never know either. Because it isn't possible to get outside of either yourself or the cosmos and know it as an object. Best approach, no, the only approach, says Askeland, is to open up a hole of mystery within, or as, yourself.

Then the mystery within and the mystery without are realized as a single mystery. Which doesn't make it less mysterious. Just a much more intimate mystery.

Which brings me to closing time. And a final sip of coffee. Now.

Weirdness: editing a book I wrote that I no longer agree with

This afternoon I decided that I've got to get serious about finishing my re-write of "God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder," a book I wrote in the early 1990's that has been out of print for a long time -- since the publisher went out of business.

Years ago I edited the book significantly. My preachiness bothered me. Of course, at the time I wrote it, what I said didn't sound preachy to me. Hey, it was the truth!

So this evening I spent 90 minutes or so on proofreading and editing instead of on writing my usual Church of the Churchless blog post. It was a pleasingly weird experience. Whenever I read what I wrote in this book, even de-preachy'fied, I'm struck by how differently I look upon life now.

Which is a good thing. I feel like I've evolved into a more genuine way of understanding my place in the cosmos. Still...

There are moments when I read what my true-believing self wrote and think, "Ah, back then it was sort of nice to be so sure about God, soul, spirit, life after death, and all that stuff."

Why, you might wonder, would I want to re-publish a book that I don't really believe in any more? Well, several reasons.

Some other people will find my arguments more convincing that I find them myself nowadays. In fact, there's a chance I was on the right track before, and the wrong track now. I put a lot of work into researching and writing this study of how "ageless mysticism" relates to the "new physics." And I wouldn't mind getting some royalties from Amazon to support my senior citizen longboarding passion and caffeine addiction. 

Until I get the revised version of God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder back in print (both paper and electronic forms), I'll probably spend less time writing original posts for this blog. Maybe I'll continue to share excerpts from the rewritten book.

Feel free to laugh at me. I do so myself. Here's how the introduction reads now. Can't recall how different it is from the original. Perhaps not much. I made more changes to other chapters.

Spirituality is liberal, religiosity is conservative

Thanks to Steve for letting me know about a study that confirms what seems intuitively obvious. 

People become more politically liberal immediately after practising a spiritual exercise such as meditation, researchers at the University of Toronto have found.

"There's great overlap between religious beliefs and political orientations," says one of the study authors, Jordan Peterson of U of T's Department of Psychology. "We found that religious individuals tend to be more conservative and spiritual people tend to be more liberal.

"Inducing a spiritual experience through a guided meditation exercise led both liberals and conservatives to endorse more liberal political attitudes."

Here's a few other excerpts from the newspaper story.

The researchers confirmed that religiousness was associated with political conservatism, while spirituality was associated with political liberalism. These associations were in turn due to the common values underlying these orientations: conservatism and religiousness both emphasize the importance of tradition, while liberalism and spirituality both emphasize the importance of equality and social harmony.

..."Spiritual experiences seem to make people feel more of a connection with others," says Hirsh. "The boundaries we normally maintain between ourselves and the world tend to dissolve during spiritual experiences. These feelings of self-transcendence make it easier to recognize that we are all part of the same system, promoting an inclusive and egalitarian mindset."

 

Think less, sense more. Stress relief made simple.

Here's some good advice from Daniel Bor, a cognitive neuroscientist, in his book "The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning." 

After enumerating some oft-heard ways to reduce stress (get enough sleep, exercise regularly, etc.), Bor says:

But eclipsing this list in the fight against stress is one simple mental exercise: meditation. This is often written off as being too esoteric and not sufficiently scientific, but it's been shown to profoundly help virtually any mental ailment, whether the person has a psychiatric condition or is merely suffering from the stresses and strains of everyday life.

There needn't be anything mystical to meditation. Although there are hundreds of different varieties, in my view meditation is at its most powerful in its purest, most basic form: An ideal meditation is one where you try to be as aware as you can of as little as possible.

We can focus on the world with our attentional magnifying glass set in two broad modes: We can mainly attend to the thoughts, ideas, facts, and so on that relate to other mental events or what our senses are picking up; or we can simply attend to our senses directly, passively absorbing the experience without thoughts.

We may be on a mountaintop and feel a calm, profound awe as we attend entirely to the delicate beauty of the vast snowcapped peaks surrounding us. Or we could enter a very different experiential mode and try to calculate the volume of each mountain as a mathematical exercise, infer what the name of each mountain is from various clues, and recognize the different geological features of the rocks around us.

In one state we have an open, quiet, passive perspective. In the other, we have a narrower, chattering mind, which isn't nearly so aware of our sensory experiences. This quieter sense of beauty is closely related to the so-called meditative experience.

Spending 20 minutes or more with nothing to do may sound pointless and tedious, but for those who try it, boredom, strangely, never seems an issue. It's as if, by intensely focusing attention continuously on the darkness of your closed eyes, a blank wall, or something equally minimal, you are telling your brain that this object is utterly fascinating.

...Over years of practice, regular meditation seems to permanently change the prefrontal parietal network, such that it becomes more pliable and efficient in its activity. And, again in direct contrast to what happens in depression and anxiety disorders, long-term meditation shifts the see-saw battles between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex firmly in the prefrontal cortex's favor: The amygdala becomes far less likely to activate, probably because the prefrontal parietal network is now so good at stepping in and taking control.

There is even evidence that long-term meditation increases the thickness of the prefrontal cortex, helping to protect against the natural thinning of this part of the brain in old age. At the same time, two months of meditation is sufficient to shrink the size of the fear-creating amygdala in previously stressed individuals.

Compassion starts with yourself: be kind to your own crap

Last night I watched part of a video that Netflix suggested I'd like to stream to my TV -- "Louis C.K.: Live at the Beacon Theater." I enjoyed his style of ironic/cynical comedy. Often he reminded me of me.

Like when Louis C.K. said that he believes in being kind to people. He gets pleasure out of knowing that he believes this. Doesn't mean that he actually does kind things, compassionate things, caring things. He just enjoys the feeling of believing that these would be good things to do, were he ever to do them.

I can relate to this.

I'm a better person inside my own mind than I am in observable reality. At least, I think I am. How can I be sure? There's no way for me to get outside myself and view myself as others see me. And even if I could, then I'd be seeing myself through their eyes. 

Maybe more objective than my own. Maybe not.

Anyway, I seem to be stuck with my own crap -- the mixed-up blend of good and bad, kindness and uncaring, compassion and who-gives-a-shit, etc. and etc. that inhabits the 100 billion or so neurons I fondly call "me."

How to deal with it... that's the question. I like the approach Shauna Shapiro talks about in "Does Mindfulness Make You More Compassionate?" 

The monk explained to me that mindfulness is not just about paying attention, but also about how you pay attention. He described a compassionate, kind attention, where instead of becoming frustrated when my mind wandered, I could actually become curious about my mind meandering about, holding this experience in compassionate awareness. Instead of being angry at my mind, or impatient with myself, I could inquire gently and benevolently into what it felt like to be frustrated or impatient.

...I think it is important to clarify, however, that self-compassion doesn’t mean we are always filled with happiness and lovingkindness. Simply put, what it means is that our awareness of what’s happening is always kind, always compassionate. So even if I’m feeling angry or frustrated, I am embracing my experience with a compassionate awareness. When we begin to welcome our experience in this way, we are better able to be with it, see it clearly, and respond appropriately to it—and, research suggests, we’ll be strengthening the skills that help us extend compassion toward others.

In this way, I like to think of mindfulness as a big cooking pot. I put all of my experiences into this pot. This pot is always kind, always welcoming, even if the stuff I put into it is not (e.g., anger, sadness, confusion). I cook all of it—the pain, the confusion, the anger, the joy—steadily, consistently holding it in this kind, compassionate pot of mindfulness. By relating to my experiences in this way, I am better able to digest and receive nourishment from them, just as when you put a raw potato in a pot and cook it for many hours, it becomes tasty and nourishing.

I also liked how Shapiro takes a simple non-preachy, non-religious approach to being nice to other people. It isn't about being virtuous; it's just common sense.

Another way that mindfulness cultivates compassion is that it helps us see our interconnectedness. For example, let’s say that the left hand has a splinter in it. The right hand would naturally pull out the splinter, right? The left hand wouldn’t say to the right hand, “Oh, thank you so much! You’re so compassionate and generous!” The right hand removing the splinter is simply the appropriate response—it’s just what the right hand does, because the two hands are part of the same body.

The more you practice mindfulness, the more you begin to see that we’re all part of the same body—that I as the right hand actually feel you, the left hand’s pain, and I naturally want to help. Mindfulness cultivates this interconnectedness and clear seeing, which leads to greater compassion and understanding of the mysterious web in which we all are woven.

It's wrong to say "those who know, say not." There, I said it.

I really liked my response to something a commenter on a recent post said.

This isn't terribly surprising, since I usually like what I say. After all, there's not much point to saying stuff that makes me feel "I shouldn't have said that." Occasionally that happens. Usually, though, what I say is something I want to say.

So like most people, I've got no problem with saying. There's a time to say. And a time not to say. Thus I replied to the commenter this way:

david r, how can you be sure that "Those who know, say not. Those that say, know not. This is what experiencing God in reality is all about."

I assume you got that idea from somewhere. It isn't original. The Tao Te Ching says something very similar. So someone said "those who know, don't say." Yet they said that. I guess we shouldn't believe them, since if they said it, this shows they don't know what God is all about.

I don't understand how "those who know" and "those who say" are related in the fashion you seem to believe in.

For example: dancing is something you do, something you experience, something that can't be described in words. I know this. I'm just an average dancer, but I've done a lot of ballroom dancing, in a lot of styles. I've seen a lot of excellent dancers much better than me.

And I've heard them say lots of things about how to dance. There isn't any conflict between them (1) knowing how to dance really well, and (2) being able how to talk about dancing, including instructing people in how to dance better.

Every dancer knows the difference between talking about dancing and dancing. I assume you believe that every God-seeker knows the difference between talking about knowing God and knowing God. Why is it that you believe you can't do both?

Not at the same time. At different times.

Again, this is not an astounding idea. Every dancer, like every skier or every skateboarder, knows that you can't talk and think about what you're doing while you're doing it -- if you want to really do it. Doing requires an immersion in the activity that talking and thinking interfere with.

But this is the case with every activity.

So why is knowing God any different? Why can't someone have an experience of knowing God, and then later talk as best he/she can about that experience? Everyone knows the difference between direct experience and talking about experiences. Again, dancers sure do. Skateboarders sure do.

So what reason do you have for believing that only when it comes to God, is it impossible to both experience God and later say something about that experience?

I wasn't implying that it is truly possible to experience God.

Maybe it is. More likely, it isn't. I was just arguing that if it is possible, I don't agree with the oft-heard assumption that anyone who says something about their experience didn't really come to know what God (or ultimate reality, for the nontheistic) is all about.

Picking up my well-worn copy of the Tao Te Ching translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English, I found that the first few lines speak about this saying/naming/knowing issue.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name. 

Okay. This is totally consistent with my point.

There's a difference between what we say about Tao or God, and what Tao or God is in itself. Pretty obvious, really.

Such is the case with everything. I can guarantee that no matter how many wonderful things someone says about me -- and feel free to do this -- the sum total of all those sayings won't add up to the feeling I have of being "me." 

After all, I know myself subjectively from the inside.

All the words that can be used to describe me are attempts to name discrete features of me that are evident from the outside. Another "philosophical translation" of the first lines of the Tao Te Ching by Roger Ames and David Hall seems to reflect this notion.

Way-making (dao) that can be put into words is not really way-making.
And naming (ming) that can assign fixed reference to things is not really naming. 

Interestingly, both translations make clear that the named and the nameless are essentially co-equal. 

These two [named and nameless] spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.

These two -- the nameless and what is named -- emerge from the same source yet are referred to differently.
Together they are called obscure.
The obscurest of the obscure,
They are the swinging gateway of the manifold mysteries. 

Now, the Tao Te Ching is just words.

I'm a big admirer of Taoism, and an avid Tai Chi practitioner (Taoism expressed in motion, some call it). But I'm not about to claim that the Tao Te Ching expresses any sort of unique understanding of reality.

I'm just arguing there's no way the Tao Te Ching can be used to bolster a belief that "Those who know, say not. Those that say, know not." Saying and not saying in Taoism are just two different things. Both valid. Both real. Both expressions of the same source.

Which is mysterious. 

I pretty much agree with what Alan Watts says in "Taoism: Way Beyond Seeking."

So the Taoist, in common with the Hindus and the Buddhists, is a great advocate of intellectual silence. Mind you, one doesn't say that the intellect is a bad thing, or that one should be an anti-intellectual. Not at all.

Thnking is just as much a part of the process of nature as a web woven by a spider is. The spider weaves the web to make a net for flies, and the mind weaves a net for catching the universe. And that is fine, but there is something more to the universe than the net made for catching it.

But in order to find this something else, you must temporarily stop using the net, just as, if you want to hear what other people have to say, you have to stop talking. And if you want to talk, you must also know what you are talking about.

In other words, if words represent the real world, then you must be open to the real world in order to translate it effectively into words. But we are not taught to do that. Most of us think compulsively all the time.

That is to say, we carry on a perpetual interior conversation, because we are afraid that if that conversation were to cease, we too would cease. And, in a way, we would.

So, the Taoists speak constantly of being thoughtless, of having an empty mind, so that one can communicate with the real world without distortion. 

The illusory self loves to make up stories

Who are we? Is there both an "I" and a "me" inside my head? Where do my stories about myself come from? Is it possible to live without a coherent life story?

Great questions. So it didn't take me long to reply to this email with a "Sure, Alex, I'll put up a post about the video."

Hi Brian,

I'm writing from the Institute of Art and Ideas, where we organise a philosophy and ideas festival called HowTheLightGetsIn in May every year. All the debates at the festival are filmed and released over the course of the following year and I thought a video we released recently might be of interest. 

It's called 'Life Story' [ http://iai.tv/video/life-story  ], and it's a debate with psychologist Bruce Hood in conversation with Galen Strawson and Marya Schechtman on the nature of the self and the narratives we create to explain our self to ourselves. Hood argues in particular that the self is a construct, a framework of false coherency but that in simplifying it enables us to make decisions in an otherwise over-complex world.

I know that you blog on the subject occasionally and so wondered - if the video appeals - whether you might be able to make a post about it on Church of the Churchless?

All the best, Alex

I enjoyed the 41-minute video. Watched and listened to it while puttering around in the kitchen last night.

It won't win an Academy Award for production values. It's just a simple recording of how three intelligent, thoughtful, well-spoken people with different ideas about the "self" made their pitch for a certain point of view, and answered three questions: 

(1) Do we require narratives for experiences?
(2) Can we control our life stories?
(3) Do we need an observer?

My favored answers:

(1) Yes. Even if we think we're totally "in the now," this presupposes a conscious entity with a history of certain life experiences that now make it possible to experience the present moment in a certain way.

(2) Sort of. Each of us constructs a life narrative which puts ourselves at the center. Not surprising, since it is our life being narrated. This is largely beyond conscious control, but by focusing on certain plot lines to the exclusion of others, we can make the story turn out a certain way. 

(3) No. However, the brain produces the illusion that "I" am observing "my" life from some sort of detached perspective. Thus we make our subjectivity into something objective. Or rather, we try to pull off this impossible task.

Given my steadily-increasing admiration for neuroscience, I found that psychologist/neuroscientist Bruce Hood made the most sense. (I've blogged about Hood's book in Key to self-knowledge: knowing you don't have a "self" and Truly "living in the moment" would be horrible.)

I liked how Hood referred to actual facts about how the brain works.

By contrast, Strawson tended to answer questions by starting with a quote with some writer or philosopher. "So what?" I'd think. It's easy to find quotes supporting any sort of idea, including notions that are demonstrably wrong.

Stylistically and substantively, Schechtman was in between the two men, though closer to Hood than to Strawson. 

You can click on the six Jump To images beneath the full video and watch portions of the debate. The last two, Theme Two and Theme Three, were particularly interesting to me. I really liked the interchange between Hood and the moderator for a minute or two after the 38:30 mark.

I felt like I easily understood what Hood was saying. "I" am the brain. "Me" is the brain. "Self" is the brain. Whatever we feel that we are, it's the brain doing its thing. I got a sense that Hood couldn't understand why this simple proposition, which almost certainly is true, was so difficult to grasp by the questioner.

Probably because our sense of being a self separate and distinct from the body/brain is such a strong illusion. Read Hood's interview with Sam Harris. This isn't new news. Just newly evidenced news.

The reason that the status of reality cannot be applied to the self, is that it does not exist independently of my brain alone that is having the experience. It may appear to have a consistency of regularity and stability that makes it seem real, but those properties alone do not make it so.

Similar ideas about the self can be found in Buddhism and the writings of Hume and Spinoza. The difference is that there is now good psychological and physiological evidence to support these ideas that I cover in the book in a way that I hope is accessible for the general reader. 

There's more, and less, to reality than we believe

We humans are mavelously anthropocentric creatures. Of course, our two dogs are marvelously caninecentric creatures. All they know about the world is what their dog brains are able to perceive. 

I don't get the feeling, though, that Serena and Zu Zu feel that their way of looking upon reality is the only way, or the best way. Whereas lots of people do.

One exception: when they're engaged in an intense sniffing project while we're on a walk and I tell them, "Come on, let's go!"; their bemused look at me speaks What an idiot -- why isn't he as interested in this great smell as we are??!!

Our dogs live in a world that is vastly richer in odors than I can imagine. Other animals have other sorts of superior senses. So do the instruments of science, which are able to discern aspects of reality totally hidden from everyday human perception.

Today, thanks to a relative's Facebook feed, I came across the wonderfully named I Fucking Love Science page (3,852,000 likes; wow, lots of people fucking love science). One post shared this image; click to enlargenfy:

Nicely put. Nothing is real except as our limited understanding of reality makes us believe it is so. Uh, oh... Beatles flashback. Strawberry Fields Forever. 

Let me take you down, 'cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out, it doesn't matter much to me.

...Always, no sometimes, think it's me, but you know I know when it's a dream.
I think I know I mean a 'Yes' but it's all wrong, that is I think I disagree.

Let me take you down, 'cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Whatever works.

To my Strawberry Fields mind this is a better meaning-of-life adage than "pursue absolute truth" or "figure out how things really are." There isn't any absolute truth. And we can't figure out really real reality. 

We've evolved to be the sort of human beings that we are because of whatever works.

To reproduce, find food, secure shelter, get along with other people who we need for survival. Our amazingly complex brains look upon the world uniquely, like no other animal. Maybe like no other form of consciousness in the cosmos.

Yet this shouldn't make us believe that we've got reality all figured out. Our minds are adept at understanding some things while being clueless about other aspects of the world that the Homo sapiens brain hasn't needed to comprehend in order to survive.

As the image above makes clear, science reveals facts about How Things Are that everyday perceptions have no access to. How would we know that visible light is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum without scientific experimentation?

I'm sympathetic to those who look upon mysticism, meditation, altered states of consciousness, and such as similarly revealing hitherto unknown features of the cosmos. 

Given how many mysteries of the brain and conscious experience remain to be fathomed, it seems almost inevitable that some pretty damn big surprises are going to be revealed. Remember how relativity theory and quantum physics gave us a markedly fresh way of looking upon reality not long ago. Other gasp-inducing revolutions in human understanding await.

Let's also remember rainbows, though.

There is both more and less to reality than we perceive. It is easy to be fooled into believing that we know something universal about the World Out There when actually what we're aware of is part of the much more limited World In Here (the confines of the human brain).

Wisdom is knowing the difference.

The secret truth gurus don't know (but scientists do)

In my life I've flown in both directions: toward mysticism as taught by gurus, and toward scientific understanding as taught by scientists. For a long time I felt like it was possible to meld the best of both worlds in an even-better combination.

Now, though, I feel like whatever mysticism claims to offer needs to be assessed from within the world of reality known to science.

Understand: I'm not saying that scientists are anywhere close to knowing what life, the universe, consciousness, and All That is all about. Mysteries abound. Maybe they always will, since it seems that most of the cosmos will forever remain outside the bounds of the space-time we humans inhabit.

However, I've become convinced that mystics who fail to embrace findings of modern science are even farther removed from knowing the truth about reality. Recently I blogged, "Spirituality without neuroscience is bullshit." 

For sure.

No longer is it possible for me to take claims seriously about how someone with an elevated consciousness can perceive the cosmos hugely more clearly than ordinary humans can.  

Usually such claims are founded on a dualistic soul-body (or mind/soul-body) notion. That is, consciousness can be aware of reality without the confounding influences of the physical brain. Supposedly some form of "pure awareness" perceives things as they are, not as they seem to the rest of us unenlightened beings.

Actually, those who talk this way are deeply deluded.

Mystically-inclined dualists who posit consciousness as being separable from the human brain don't grasp a truth that neuroscientists have revealed: there is much more to awareness and perception than what is apparent.

Check out my "Brain's 'dark energy' casts doubt on pure awareness" for some of the reasons why this is so. Here's additional scientific thoughts on the subject that I came across today in my reading of Patricia Smith Churchland's fascinating "Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy." 

On the general subject of dualism, Churchland in effect says: Show us what you've got, dualists; put up or shut up. But in a more courteous philosophical manner.

Dualism is implausible at this stage of our scientific understanding. In the business of developing an ongoing research program, dualism has fallen hopelessly behind cognitive neuroscience.

Unlike cognitive neuroscience, dualist theories have not even begun to forge explanations of many features of our experiences, such as why we mistake the smell of something for its taste, why amputees may feel a phantom limb, why split-brain subjects show disconnection effects, why focal brain damage is associated with highly specific cognitive and affective deficits.

In truth, dualism does not really even try. To be a player, dualism has to be able to explain something. 

Look: I really want my consciousness to be separable from my brain. Most people do. This is why religion is so popular.

It promises an afterlife following bodily death. Even though all of the evidence is that a brain is necessary for consciousness now, supposedly after we die our soul flies off into heaven, or wherever, living on as an ethereal something-or-other.

Nice story. I wish it were true. But as Churchland says, it almost certainly isn't.

The brain makes us think that we have a self. Does that mean that the self I think I am is not real? No, it is as real as any activity of the brain. It does mean, however, that one's self is not an ethereal bit of "soul stuff." 

But it is as real, for example, as the coherent neuronal activity that yields your capacity to walk or think about global warming or find your way back from a hike in the bush. Brain activity is an entirely real thing.

...Here, as elsewhere, scientific discoveries give us surprising new ways of looking at familiar phenomena. For brains, as well as for the stars, fire, and the heart, there is a reality behind the appearances, and the exciting thing is to figure out how to think about that reality in a way that improves upon the old ways.

In this century, modern neuroscience and psychology allow us to go beyond myth and introspection to approach the "self" as a natural phenomenon whose causes and effects can be addressed by science.

What I find fascinating is how mysticism and science basically have changed places.

Mystics used to be viewed as special people who have peeked behind the veil of appearances. Now, though, it is apparent that any dualistic form of mysticism which looks upon consciousness as being separable from the brain is very much caught up in the illusion of how the brain causes reality to appear to humans. 

Evolution has produced this veil of appearances. Only science is able to pierce the veil. Churchland says:

But one might say, that is not how I am used to thinking of myself. Why would my brain lie to me? Think of it this way. 

Fundamentally, your brain's task is to allow you to make your way in the world, and that means it needs to be able to make reasonably good predictions, and to make them in a timely manner. One's scheme of representational devices need not be the best possible in order to have practical and predictive value. It just needs to be good enough so that you can make a living, in the broadest sense of the term.

In particular, for most of the business of surviving on the planet, the details of how the brain actually works need not be explicitly known by the brain. ...For much of the business of everyday life, human brains can manage without such categories as "neuron," DNA, "electrical currents," and so on.

Lastly, I want to put another nail in the coffin of the belief in "pure awareness" or "perception without thought." This is one of those beliefs founded on the brain's ability to hide from conscious awareness what is going on behind the neuronal curtain. 

It simply isn't true. Repeat: not true. There is no such thing as an experience unmediated by complex goings-on within the brain. Churchland tells us how it is:

The logic of the situation, however, is this: nothing follows about the metaphysical uniqueness of the mind from the existence of discriminable simples, i.e. judgments made without consciousness of the computational antecedents. 

First, absolutely all knowledge involves some neural processing prior to conscious recognition that something is an X or a Y. This is so whether the cognition pertains to the mind or to the body, whether one is aware of a stimulus as hot or as lasting for seconds or as looming towards you. 

There is no such thing as unprocessed perception. 

...That one cannot articulate how the discrimination was made is simply explained by the fact that there is a vast amount of nonconscious neural activity to which one does not -- and perhaps cannot -- have conscious access.