Yah, man! I'm featured in the Jamaica Gleaner

A couple of firsts for me today: first time I've used Yah, man in a blog post, and first time I've read a piece about me in the Jamaica Gleaner. 

Thank you, Glenville Ashby for making both possible. 

Dr. Ashby is a columnist for the Gleaner who came across my Church of the Churchless blog somehow or other (i've forgotten the how that he told me). 

He got in touch with me by email. Then, a few weeks ago, we talked by phone about my religious past and non-religious present. 

Here's a link to the Gleaner story, "Church of the Churchless: A Home for Former Believers," that was sent to me by Dr. Ashby. 

Nicely done, Glenville. Our phone connection was OK, but not great. And I enthusiastically jabbered on about all kinds of stuff, which must have made it difficult to take notes. 

An excerpt from the piece:

We are well aware that many are repulsed and disillusioned by religion because of the violence and death that surround it.

But many have also abandoned their faith because of the unfulfilled promises found in sacred literature, many of which are delivered as truth by religious leaders.

Brian Hines' story is one such example. Hines is an author, scholar, and a man worn by his indefatigable search for spiritual truth.

His quest, spanning nearly four decades is not unfamiliar. He recalls his youthful, college days in the 1960s, when the counter culture of sex, rock and roll, and psychedelic drugs held sway. It was a period that welcomed the 'God is dead' philosophy.

"Experiencing a drug-free high was my goal, the Oregon resident said. I remember being initiated by a Greek yoga master who practiced an eclectic blend of Christianity and Eastern philosophy." A theological disagreement led to his departure from that yoga master, but his thirst for knowledge never abated.

Hines was introduced to an Eastern-based mystical organisation called Surat Shabd Yoga, translated, 'Union with the Essence of the Absolute Being.'

Like most mystical philosophies, it promised direct experience with the divine. Soul travel demanded a disciplined, near ascetic life. "I used a mantra (a sacred word that is repeated mentally), that was given to me when I was initiated by Sri Charan Singh. I meditated on a daily basis, sometimes up to two hours on a given sitting," Hines confided. He also went to India on spiritual retreats.

But the much-touted inner experiences: the sounds and lights of God eluded him.

"Losing faith in any spiritual group does not happen instantaneously. It's a process," he continued. "When my breaking point was near, I remember asking my guru to show me a sign, something tangible to convince me that I was on the true path. But it never happened, at least not in a dramatic sense. I may have had subtle experiences, but how do I know if it's authentic or just the brain or my mind at work?"

Comments

[Spence Tepper]

Brian, you wrote:

" I may have had subtle experiences, but how do I know if it's authentic or just the brain or my mind at work?"

How indeed? This is what repetition, stability and testing is all about, Brian.

You practice, and test the perceptions you gain from that practice of controlling the senses.

Then you can see for yourself.

If you can't tell perception from imagination, how is it you can accurately pour a cup of coffee?

Or walk in a straight line?

Or recognize that a headache is an ache and not your imagination?

Or do any of the remarkable things with remarkable accuracy using the very flawed human body and mind?

What an odd comment. You contrast Authentic with the work of your brian, or mind, as if the latter two aren't.

Guess what, your ability to imagine is in part how your brain creates a perceptual landscape for you every microsecond. Your brain is patching together pieces into a whole, and your imagination has a big part to play in that.

Yet these are the only tools you have to help you interpret perception. Indeed you must use their capacity to think to reason and, yes, to imagine, in order to understand everything else, and with much less direct data.

And using these you can open up more subtle perceptions, just like an athlete learns to understand and control amazing subtleties in their proprioception.

Well, that dismissal of the human experience outside of your own personal experience is the prejudice of Atheism.

Brian, if you must use your mind to discern facts from fiction by applying test criteria, that is also the case with every other perception.

We can do these great things because, while our senses are flawed, they receive a continuous flow of data.

Whatever you can achieve in meditation, opens up new channels of perceptual data to test. Repeatedly, because that's the only way you can test it. It is the fact of that flow of data that allows our senses to get such an accurate conditioning and build a model of things that allows us to control those things.

So that's how you know. You test it, you test those things that you can duplicate over and over and over again with a little effort. Just like a kid getting back on the bike he fell off of, to get that practice, to get into that groove and open the window to an entirely exhilerating new experience: riding a bike at speed!

Yah, the brain is limited. So why not work with it to open up perception? Why settle for belief?

Especially prejudices about other people and their experiences?

[Brian Hines]

What I meant by authentic is something that isn't purely within an individual's mind/brain.

"worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact" is one definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. There are other meanings, of course, such as an original: the painting is authentic because we know it was painted by Rembrandt.

But I was thinking of authentic as something real, fact-based.

So I see lights while meditating, and hear sounds while meditating. Both things have happened to me. The question is, what were these lights and sounds? Sant Mat, the spiritual philosophy I followed for many years, says that they are aspects of a supernatural reality beyond the physical.

OK, that's possible.

But I haven't found any proof of this, either in my own experience or that of anyone else. For example, no one who claims to be in touch with this higher supernatural reality knows anything special or unique about this physical reality. I'm not aware of any hitherto unknown facts about the universe that have been pointed out by someone supposedly privy to the Light and Sound.

Hope this helps you to better understand what I mean. Everybody has their own personal experiences. However, many experiences reflect what is happening within a personal mind/brain, not what is happening in objective reality that is shared by others.

[777]

These flashes might°° be entrances / exits
like the crooked tunnel with the Jhoti ( light ) at the end
presents itself as a little "floating" diamond ( or much less ) the first time
and even frequently until the meditator is accommodated
f i lost his fear / shocking effect - amazements : and it goes away )

(°° can be very simple too, like injuries )

You could have found that out while continuing your repetitions
like a pianist at age of 6 doing the exercises and later grebs the beauty

But much much more important than exercising is Love
because than these phenomenon start interference / resonance with your Love
which as a matter of fact triple@s the aspect of UN-explainability

How a pre adult will explain his first Love ?
It's not possible
Words will produce laughter at best, often hilarious laughter
So, Brian : Do you really want such ?

No - because you insisted many times , you will delete preaching
How would you call it otherwise

Explanations will never come from scientists because they reject?
specially when the beauties happen
So the best explanations will be described by people connected to more or less genuine religions
and depend on which of the 7 chakras practitioners are advised to concentrate during IN and OUTSIDE of their practices

I said outside in capital because under the right conditions ( for instance humility, love ) These "flashes" at a later state
can be seen the whole day, while with another aspect of your brain doing math, playing, conversation
Serendipities ALL THE TIME

777

[James]

Speaking generally here; but I don't think anyone will ever attain any contact or communion with the divine if their motivation from the start is to be "the chosen one" to receive the famous mystical experience. Also, it seems very human to believe that just because they can't do something, they then believe it can't be done, or in this case, doesn't exist.

[Brian Hines]

James, an ever better reason nobody ever will attain contact with the divine is that the divine doesn't exist. Meaning, a supernatural entity with some sort of "divine" qualities.

[James]

Maybe you're right, but there are plenty of past and present individuals who's experiences suggest otherwise.

[777]

-
According to James : plenty of past and present individuals

THEY are the Divine <3

Whatever hyper clever scheme HE is using,
it always comes out to bringing Love Home

777

[observer]

"... an ever better reason nobody ever will attain contact with the divine is that the divine doesn't exist. Meaning, a supernatural entity with some sort of "divine" qualities."

Putting religious and new age thinking aside, I wonder nowadays, are "we" those supernatural "divine" entities, existing in a multidimensional universe, suffering from extreme amnesia here on this planet and in most cases total denial, which then means actually blocking off the contact with and the reality of who we really are.

In meditation sometimes seeing flashing lights and hearing sounds or even experiencing in every day life some unusual phenomena we brush it away as some sort of malfunction of the brain.

One thing which seems to work is that a person's belief system will bring them proof of what they believe in and vice versa for a strong disbelief in anything other than this physical, so called reality, will probably close off any kind of metaphysical experience.

(Our multidimensional spirit observer probably shrugs and says okay do whatever you want, go your own way, you can contact me when you suddenly realise you want to wake up - lol)