Church of the Churchless

All religions are not alike. Radha Soami sects are wrong about "shabd."

I'm always (well, usually) glad to admit when I've been wrong about something.

So I'm pleased to say that during my true believing days, which stretched into over 30 years, I was decidedly wrong about the world's major religions having a common denominator.

Namely, an all-pervading conscious spiritual energy known in India as shabd. Various "Radha Soami" sects claim it is possible to return to God by connecting one's individual soul-consciousness with this universal divine-consciousness -- which manifests as inner sound and light. 

Wikipedia says:

Shabd is referring to spiritual current which can be perceived in meditation as inner light and sound. Yoga is referring to the uniting of our real essence (soul) through an inner listening with focused mental concentration (surat) upon an inner sound (shabd) which it is maintained emanates from Radhasoami the Supreme Being. It is therefore taught as the unchanging and primordial technique for uniting the soul with the supreme being via the power of Shabd.

Following the practice of meditation under the guidance of a spiritual teacher who is himself in contact with Shabd, is considered of paramount importance.

Pre-requisites for successful achievement of the meditation practice are a lacto-vegetarian diet, abstaining from drugs and alcohol, and maintaining a pure and moral lifestyle.

Now most people, religious or not, would find the description above to be at odds with the teachings of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, and even Hinduism. 

To offer up some examples, Christians believe in the divinity of Christ, obviously. They don't meditate "under the guidance of a spiritual teacher" unless they're in some sort of a cult. Buddhists don't believe in a Supreme Being, nor in a soul. Islam and Judaism don't promote vegetarianism, though some members of these religions may choose to be vegetarian on their own.

And certainly adherents of the world's major religions would never go to their church, temple, mosque, or wherever and hear someone preaching the glory of shabd as the "unchanging and primordial technique for uniting the soul with the supreme being."

Yet some (and maybe all) of the Radha Soami sects claim that their "shabd yoga" spirituality is part of the core of every religion, even if this isn't widely recognized. 

To which I now say, bullshit, though I used to say "so true." Radha Soami followers have to stretch religious scriptures to the breaking point to find mentions of shabd in them.

To them the Gospel of John supposedly praises shabd because of the words, "In the beginning was the Word." But "Word" is a translation of the Greek "Logos," and one would be hard-pressed to connect the Indian notion of Shabd with the Greek conception of Logos as it is used in the Bible. 

In some recent comments on a Church of the Churchless post, there's a debate about the universal nature of Radha Soami teachings. 

As you should be able to tell from the above, I'm in agreement with "RS Sceptic," who wrote:

The notion that SHABD is some kind of universal truth and the way of all religions is a myth propagated by radha soami. It is not true. All religions are not the same. They don't all teach shabd yoga. Once you believe this then you think sant mat is the only way and only truth. It is not. And by the way I am not saying this because I hate rssb or anything like that. It is a simple observation.

Yes, all religions are indeed not the same. And it is very rare to find any argument about this. When have you heard a Christian, say, claim that every other religion agrees with the central tenet of Christianity? This would be a ridiculous assertion.

Actually, the world's major religions revel in their differences, not their similarities. Each claims to have some special understanding of the cosmos that the others lack. So we'd have to believe that the followers of Radha Soami sects somehow comprehend other religions more accurately than members of those religions themselves.

I can't accept that. Nor can I accept that shabd is a common denominator of every religion. 

 

How an atheist can find "spiritual" inspiration

A few days ago I was talking with somebody about finding "spiritual" uplift without believing in God or any other supernatural entity.

I put that word, spiritual, in quotation marks because I no longer consider that there's some sort of other-worldly spirit or soul. Not in me. Not in anybody else. Not in the cosmos.

Yet I'm still attracted to the notion of spirituality. In a thoroughly secular sense.

Meaning, well... it's all about meaning.

Whatever inspires us to carry on through tough times; whatever propels us forward on our life journey when we're not sure if we can take another step; whatever makes us willing to sacrifice for a cause greater than our self; that is what I talking about when I speak of spirituality these days. 

It's the eff in ineffable. We recognize it in ourselves because it's at the core of our being. But it's damn tough to describe to someone else, being so intimately related to our wordless sense of purpose. 

When this thing I'm calling spirituality is missing, life seems pointless.

So it's important for everyone, atheists as well as religious believers, to cultivate the seeds of spirituality so we aren't left with barren psychological soil that leaves us feeling dry, despairing, desolate, deserted.

Having experienced both religiosity and atheism at different times in my 68 years, I think believers in God have a somewhat easier time of it when it comes to spiritual uplift. After all, they can simply imagine their chosen divinity smiling down upon them, urging them on to embrace their religious practices with more fervor.

This is what a revival is all about -- being spurred to pursue a divine goal with increased energy and effort. 

So how can an atheist feel the same sort of spiritual uplift? What inspires a secular mind to pursue a godless life with the passion akin to a religious zealot? 

Tough questions, for sure.

I can only speak for myself, since there are more varieties of atheism than religiosity, given that each and every atheist finds meaning in a unique way. All Christians find satisfaction in a belief in Jesus, whereas each atheist seemingly roots their life in something different.

Ah, but there's a common denominator underlying the wild diversity of atheist spirituality: reality. 

By which I mean, really real reality. The reality of this universe, this galaxy, this planet. The physical reality that not only surrounds us, but is us. The reality we live and breathe every moment from our first breath to our last expiration. 

It is here that I find spiritual inspiration. 

When I deeply commit to embracing reality as it is, or at least as best I can understand it, that is when I feel the same kind of spiritual uplift that used to enervate me when I was a religious believer.  In both cases -- secular and religious -- I felt a strong drive to expand my capacity to grasp reality.

However, I now realize that in my true believing days I was driven toward an imaginary supernatural reality, not anything demonstrably genuine. My feeling of inspiration was real; the godly goal I was pursuing was false. 

So, yes, it is indeed possible for atheists to find spiritual inspiration. The source of that inspiration isn't difficult to find. It isn't far away. In fact, there is no distance between the inspired person and what inspires. 

Reality.

It is both what we seek and what is seeking. Pretty damn simple. And wonderfully inspiring.  

 

Tempting as it is to pray, health problems should be managed without God

I've got some semi-serious health problems. Meaning, they aren't fatal or debilitating. But they're damn annoying. The details aren't necessary to know for the purposes of this post, though I've blogged about what I'm going through here. 

It's been interesting to see how my atheist mind has been dealing with the stress I've been feeling.

Back in 2006 I wrote a couple of posts on the subject of turning to God during difficult times. The first was "Atheists in foxholes do exist." It concluded with:

Religious belief or faith is almost always individualistic. That’s a paradox, considering that humility and loss of ego usually is considered to be a religious virtue. It’s self-centered to believe that a God, guru, angel, Buddha, or whoever is going to bestow upon us the blessing of a miracle that isn’t available to all.

We are special. Divinity cares more about us than others. These beliefs underlie every intercessionary prayer. For if we merely wanted God to give us what is natural, normal, lawful, and regular, we’d merely say “thy will be done” (which, in my opinion, is the best prayer—if you feel the need to pray at all).

It’s better to let reality trump belief. Focus on what is happening, not in what you hope will happen. Focus on what you can change about reality, not on what you hope a higher being will change.

Even in a foxhole. Especially in a foxhole.

And here's an excerpt from the other post, "Yes, there are agnostics in dentist's chairs."

During my devotional days I’d try to adopt the attitude that a dental visit was God’s will, part of my bad teeth karma. I’d repeat the mantra given to me by my guru and do my best to enter into a relaxed “thy will be done” attitude.

Today I felt just as calm, cool, and collected. Yet the Brian whose mouth was open for well over an hour was an agnostic, not a believer. I felt no need to lean on a higher power. Reality was my mainstay.

“What has to happen is happening,” I told myself. “Accept it.” And I did. I found that it helped to focus on my one-syllable mantra, if only to keep myself from worrying about how much decay would be found once the malfunctioning crowns/bridge were removed.

However, what I'm going through now is much tougher for me to handle than a visit to the dentist (even for a root canal).

I'll be honest and admit that Atheist Me has occasionally laid in bed at night, when I feel the most anxious, and uttered some prayers to the God I no longer believe in. I've also called upon the Indian guru I no longer believe in to make an appearance in my consciousness.

So I totally understand why believers in a divinity find comfort in feeling that their health problems have some spiritual purpose/benefit, are being overseen by a supernatural being, or will be ameliorated through the grace of a higher power. 

After all, if a nonbeliever like myself is tempted to appeal to God for help, obviously religiously-inclined people are going to look upon God as the Healer of Last Resort (or first resort, since some extreme believers reject medical treatment entirely -- even for their children, which should be considered child abuse).

Here's what I've found, though. 

As my favorite saying by Philip K. Dick puts it, Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away. 

Beautiful!

Reality is what sustains us. Reality also is what makes us suffer, pushing us down. Reality is all there really is. And that includes our thoughts, beliefs, imaginings, and such that only exist within our own minds.

Yet as Dick said, there's a difference between a reality that is only a mental belief, and a reality that continues to exist even in the absence of a belief about it.

When I'm physically hurting, that's real.

Praying to God might make me feel better about the pain, but prayer to an imaginary God isn't going to make the pain go away. More accurately, if the pain does go away, this will be due to the power of a person's mind, not the power of a supernatural being.

Thus I still use a mantra to help me get to sleep at night, and to relax during the day. But I no longer believe that the mantra has some mystical power, or is being sensed by a divine being. It makes me feel better, which is all I need.

Yes, I realize that prayer also makes religious believers feel better. That's why I said in my previous post:

Recently a couple of people have asked me, “What’s wrong with believing?” after listening to one of my rants about the power and glory of Faithlessness. It’s a question that is akin to the more basic query: “What’s wrong with feeling good?”

Because religious belief does make many people feel better. Yesterday on a cable news channel I saw an interview with a female doctor about the power of prayer. She said that she had a patient who now was almost totally paralyzed.

He told her that prayer and a belief in God’s goodness—that there was a divine reason or plan for what had happened to him—was sustaining him. Seemingly you can’t argue with that. Whatever works. 

That still makes sense to me. Whatever works.

And this will be different for atheists and believers. Atheists with a health problem can derive the same comfort from a secular practice as a religious person can get from a faith-based practice.  

When should a subjective spiritual experience be trusted as reflecting objective reality?

I love the title of this blog post, because it is such a damn fine question. During the thirteen years this Church of the Churchless blog has existed, I'd say that this question has been at the root of more posts and comments than any other existential issue.

After all, consider how relatively easy it is to assess the validity of (1) objective experiences of physical reality, and (2) subjective experiences of physical reality. 

As an example of (1), if someone claims that they saw a giraffe in their back yard, we've got to consider the circumstances. Perhaps they live in a part of rural Africa where giraffes are common. We'd then give some provisional credence to their claim, though it would be nice to have a photo of the animal, or at least of its footprints (chewed leaves high up on a tree would be additional evidence).

However, if the person lives in New York City, we'd be a lot more skeptical. Sure, it's possible that a giraffe escaped from a zoo or circus. This is very unlikely, though. If a photo of a giraffe in their back yard was provided as proof, we'd want to make sure that it wasn't photoshopped.

My point is that experiences of objective physical reality fall into an intersubjective realm. 

Most people have the basic five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell. Our individual sensory experiences certainly differ -- some can see or hear better than others, and wine tasters are said to be able to distinguish more tastes than the average person -- but by and large, if someone makes a claim about having some sensory experience of the physical world, there are ways to confirm how valid this claim is.

An astronomer who claims to have discovered an unknown planet in the far reaches of our solar system would need to provide some solid objective evidence that the planet actually exists in objective reality.

Moving to (2), on the other hand, purely subjective claims really can't be challenged. If we both see the same movie in a theatre, our experience of the objective images/sounds on the screen will be very similar, but our subjective reaction to the movie may be very different.

"I hated that film." "What? You must be kidding. I  loved it!" "No, I really hated it." 

Absent some form of sophisticated brain imaging, and maybe not even then, it is usually impossible to know whether someone is truthfully relating a subjective experience. Maybe my movie-watching companion actually liked the film, and is saying she hated it for some unknown reason.

My point here is that usually we take at face value claims about subjective experiences.

If someone tells me they felt at one with the universe after hiking to the top of a coastal mountain and seeing the sun set over the ocean, I'm not going to feel any inclination to challenge that assertion. 

Ditto if they went to a Taylor Swift concert and said it was a life-changing experience. "Great," I'd reply, thinking to myself, I doubt this would have been my reaction, but everybody's different.

So now we get to the tricky question. 

Objective physical reality really isn't very different for different people. Mostly we experience the objective world in similar ways. If this wasn't the case, intersections with red, green, and yellow lights would be filled with crashes, rather than with drivers almost always reacting to the same sensory inputs in a predictable fashion.

And I think we'd all agree that subjective reality is the opposite -- different people have different subjective experiences of the world. Now, since no one has access to any other person's subjectivity, we have to infer this. However, all of our relationships with people lead us to recognize that they typically view the world much differently than we do. 

What's perplexing is when someone claims to have had a subjective experience of an objective supernatural reality. (And believe me, this happens frequently in comments on my blog posts, so I'm almost perpetually perplexed.)

My main reaction to this sort of claim is to echo the oft-heard phrase, "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." 

Look, if someone says they have discovered some new aspect of physical reality, this is a really big deal. A new subatomic particle. A new planet. A new species. A new tribe (in the 1950s this was common to see in National Geographic; now, very rare).

Solid intersubjective proof would have to be provided of the claim. This is how science works. Also, everyday life. We don't believe that someone saw a space alien, Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness monster just because they said they did.

However, if someone takes LSD, or meditates intensively for years in a dark room, then claims to have had a marvelous epiphany of what the cosmos is all about -- nirvana! enlightenment! satori! -- I'm got no interest in talking them out of that claim.

How could I?

I had many LSD and other psychedelic "trips" in my college years. They basically were indescribable. I can say "walls melted into flowing colors," but those words don't begin to capture my memory of an LSD experience. And here's the important thing:

I'm not claiming that my subjective psychedelic experiences were of some objective reality. I had a unique experience of the world, but this was the same world that a "straight" companion would have experienced -- aside from purely internal non-sensory drug-induced experiences.

So when I hear that a person claims to have subjectively experienced a supernatural level of objective reality, my skeptical sensors go on full alert. I used to believe this was possible, but I've come to recognize the difference between believing and knowing.

Someone may be fully convinced that they've had an experience of a higher non-physical realm of reality. But without intersubjective evidence needed for knowledge, this claim should be viewed skeptically -- even by themselves.

I've meditated almost every day for over 45 years. For a long time I'd meditate for several hours in a dark room or closet. I've seen light. I've heard sounds. I've had profound experiences. But again, I don't claim they were of an objective supernatural reality. All I know is that my subjective self experienced such and such.

Like I said, this is a perpetual theme on this blog: in a comment people will claim to have experienced X, Y, or Z through meditation, the guru's grace, God's power, or whatever. 

I rarely respond to these claims.

I'm totally willing to accept that their subjective experience is real. However, this is the same as my being totally willing to believe that someone loved a Taylor Swift concert. A subjective claim doesn't require any validation. It is what it is: someone's inner experience of physical reality.

But when someone claims that they've had an inner, or subjective, experience of an unknown (to the rest of us) bit of supernatural reality, I'm not going to accept that claim without some solid demonstrable evidence. 

Objective reality seemingly should come with some objective attributes, even if these are far removed from everyday physical reality. I accept the evidence for a quantum realm, even though quantum phenomena behave very differently from things in everyday reality.

Scientists can show us the effects of the quantum realm, even though it can't be directly experienced by our senses. Most of our modern technology is based on quantum mechanics, so when my iPhone works, that's proof enough for me.

Where, though, is there any solid evidence of a supernatural realm? Short answer: there isn't any.

No one who claims to have experienced such a realm returns with miraculous powers, hitherto unknown knowledge, or anything else that points to a objective realm beyond the physical. 

All we have are stories, claims, beliefs, dogmas, and such.

I've got no problem with people who say they've had an experience of divinity. My problem is with people who want me, and others, to accept that their personal experience was of some objective reality.