Church of the Churchless

Turban tying and Bollywood dancing at World Beat Festival

As a change of pace from our usual Church of the Churchless programming, I wanted to share what I did yesterday: attend the opening day of the Salem World Beat Festival, as I do every year.

It's difficult to draw profound philosophical messages from a highly enjoyable celebration of multiculturalism. But that won't stop me from trying.

After I got back from the festival, I shared photos and videos that I'd taken in an Adobe Spark web page. You can peruse them by clicking below.

 

Obviously -- but sometimes the obvious needs mentioning -- there was zero evidence of God or anything supernatural at the World Beat Festival. People simply were having a good time in this oh-so-physical natural world. 

Which is where each of us spends all of our time.

I say this with confidence, because no one alive is dead. (Logic rocks!) Thus anyone who has a spiritual experience does so via a physical body and brain. Even a near-death experience is just that: near to death.

So yesterday I ate Yakisoba noodles and vegetables for lunch at the festival. I drank strawberry lemonade. At the Sikh booth I saw how turbans are tied. Drumming was taking place in the African area. An Arab booth sat peacefully next to an Israeli booth.

In the evening, my wife and I went back to the World Beat Festival to see DJ Prashant and his Jai Hoi Dance Troupe perform on the main stage. Here's a video I made of one of their numbers.

Prashant was adept at getting us audience members out of our seats to attempt some Bollywood dance moves he taught us. My wife took a video of me doing my best to follow along.

It may not look like it, but we've taken many ballroom dance lessons. Bollywood dancing is way different, obviously. I hugely enjoyed learning some moves, though.

As noted in the web page I made, if any Mumbai movie producers specializing in Bollywood films are looking to cast an old guy from Oregon who becomes an unexpected Bollywood star, get in touch. Who knows what I'm capable of if I get more than one dance lesson?

RSSB involved in controversial land deal

Someone sent me a link to an Indian Express story, "Mystery deepens over Pune land deal as Chandrakant Patil defends his actions." 

It mentions Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a religious organization in India that quite a few visitors to this blog are interested in for various reasons. 

Just as Patil claimed that the temple trust had obtained the charity commissioner’s permission to convey the land to the Radha Saomi Satsang Beas (RSSB), a non-profit organisation, in 1998, Jayant submitted official papers in the House to show that in 1963, a local tribunal had ruled that this land wasn’t a private land. Incidentally, records show that the Pune collector had disallowed the transaction, objecting to the charity commissioner’s permission as well.

On February 19, 1998, the temple trust, through its power of attorney holder N S Chhabria, has assigned the land to RSSB, which later approached the collector and the divisional commissioner for regularisation after officials objected to it.

Patil admitted that on August 22, 2008, then divisional commissioner Nitin Kareer, who is now the principal secretary (Urban Development), had argued that the trust had violated terms of allotment, and had ordered the regularisation on the condition that the Nazrana (fee) levied by the government is paid. His order stated that RSSB had then submitted an indemnity bond declaring willingness to pay the fee.

But Patil claimed that this had been submitted “under protest”. On December 15, 2018, when the RSSB approached the collector’s office for permitting non-agricultural activity and issuing the NA (non agriculture) certificate for the land, this was turned down, with the collector’s office pointing that the Nazrana for the regularisation of the original breaches was yet to paid.

l find all this difficult to comprehend. Maybe someone who is more familiar than I am with land use law in India (in other words, just about anyone) can figure out what's going on here, and why such a fuss is being made of it.

Give up the illusion of body and mind being different

Here at the Church of the Churchless we worship truth.

I love truth. I sprinkle truth on my cereal every morning. I rinse with truth when I take a shower. I brush with truthpaste three times a day.

That's why I adore science and dislike religion. And why I'm enjoying Susan Blackmore's new book, "Seeing Myself: The New Science of Out-of-Body Experiences" so much. 

Blackmore, a British psychologist, is a spiritual but not religious sort of person. As she notes in the passages from the final Who am I? chapter in her book (which I read first, because the title drew me in) that I've shared below, science and Zen have been her twin passions.

I've read several other books Blackmore has written. I like how she uses her own subjective experiences to cast light on objective neuroscientific understandings of how the mind and body work.

Of course, the mind is the brain in action, and the brain is part of the body, so mind is brain is body. One thing, not several things.

But dualism is how most people see themselves. They wrongly believe in an immaterial soul/mind/consciousness something-or-other than inhabits the body, distinct from physicality.

Blackmore's focus in this book is on out-of-body experiences, or OBEs. The first chapter, Leaving My Body, is a detailed description of her OBE, which she misinterpreted for quite a few years, until the truth dawned on her. Blackmore writes:

I was just nineteen when everything I thought I knew was overthrown and my life changed direction. If I had imagined a future in some sensible university job, that was now impossible for I was determined to understand what had happened to me. 

For just a couple of hours I was no longer confined to a slow, heavy, physical body but escaped through a tunnel into a world of flying, exploring the world from outside my body and finally entering the mystical experience of oneness, of unity with the universe.

...I had never heard of tunnel experiences, and the phrase 'near-death experience' (NDE) had not yet been invented. So I jumped to my own conclusions. I was sure that my spirit had left my body and would survive after death. I was convinced that telepathy and clairvoyance must be possible and that ghosts were real. 

I became determined to devote my life to parapsychology and to prove all my closed-minded lecturers wrong.

I failed; of course I failed. The conclusions I had jumped to so quickly were ill-thought-out and superficial. But never mind. The vivid memories of those few hours kept driving me on. 

Nearly half a century later I can look back and see how my intellectual life has been shaped, pushed and pulled by the experience, and how my spiritual life might never have begun had I not found myself disappearing into selflessness without having a clue what that was.

So Blackmore changed her mind. She gave up a false belief in the supernatural and mysticism, choosing demonstrable truth over comforting illusion. 

Here's excerpts from her final Who am I? chapter.

I was surprised, long ago, when my Zen teacher kept going on about the importance of the body... I suppose I thought the body was unimportant, to be transcended or overcome by the mind. Surely, I might have thought, this meditation training is about the mind, isn't it?

Aren't I supposed to practise and practise and practise until I can see clearly through all the mess and worry and fear and hatred and horribleness of my own mind? Enlightenment, if such a thing exists, is surely nothing to do with the itch on my knee or the heaviness of muscle, bone, and subcutaneous fat, is it?

How my ideas have been forced to change -- for two intertwined reasons. One is the science that has transformed our understanding of human nature; the other is the ancient practices of Zen which, curiously enough, have the same effect.

For most of my life I thought these two were separate disciplines; the science was my work and Zen was a private matter, almost a hobby. Yet as it turns out they both lead in the same direction: they both take 'me' down from its pedestal and show it in quite a different light.

...Paying attention clearly and steadily to what is here right now banishes the tangly wool and disarms the slithery monsters. All those disparate thoughts, emotions and worries that otherwise keep running in our heads float through one vast space and seem to lose their power.

This is called 'one mind' or 'one-pointedness' and is quite different from our usual harried, messy confusion. The world comes to seem more and more real and immediate. Body, self and world come together. They are all the same stuff -- there is no longer a conscious me looking out at a real physical world but just all of this -- whatever it is.

This is the slow change from duality to non duality; from a world in which minds inhabit bodies towards one in which minds and bodies are fundamentally the same; from a world in which 'I' am in control of 'my' body towards one in which decisions just happen because they must.

This is a radical change and a scary one. But we can cope!

We can give up our childhood dualism; give up the idea of a unified and continuing inner self who is the wielder of free will and the subject of our experiences, and accept the scary view that neuroscience provides. Just as we have given up thinking of the earth as the centre of the universe, so we can give up our very natural but false intuitions about ourselves.

...Modern children learn about brains at a young age but they still seem to imagine a 'me' whose brain it is and who is helped along by its clever powers.

...Many adults think like this too -- believing that 'I' am the feeling, thinking person in charge. In this way we turn our self into a supreme conscious entity  living in, owning and controlling our bodies. It is no surprise, then, that having an OBE [out of body experience] seems to confirm this ready illusion: 'I' have left my body so I must be an independent thinking and feeling soul.

The reverse may also be true, that throughout the ages OBEs have inspired the idea of the soul. Either way, it's a quick jump to the false belief that the supreme conscious entity called 'me' can leave its bodily shell behind and go travelling. But it cannot: nothing can leave the body in an OBE because there is nothing there that could leave.

To call something an 'illusion' is not to say that it does not exist, it means that it is not what it seems to be. My self seems to be a continuing conscious entity, a subject of experience and possessor of free will, but this is not true. The self is a representation or model of something that does not exist -- but the model itself exists.

...Modern science says the same [as Buddhism]. In one sense there is a self -- or, rather, lots of different selves. They are useful mental models of a continuing conscious entity. In another sense there is no self because these models are ephemeral constructions that arise and fall away, change and decay, and no such continuing powerful and unified conscious entity actually exists.

...We have come a long way from believing that an OBE proves the existence of a soul or a conscious 'me' that can abandon its body and live on without it. Instead, we find that our notions of self and consciousness have been, and are being, transformed. What seems so wonderful to me, after all these years, is OBE's can now contribute to that transformation.

For me it's been a long journey. 

As Metzinger says, 'For anyone who actually had that type of experience it is almost impossible not to become an ontological dualist' and I did. Like so many others who have OBEs I jumped to the obvious conclusion that my soul or astral body had left its physical shell and could think and feel and travel without it.

It has taken a lot of thinking, experiencing, meditating and science for me to travel from that dualism to its utter rejection -- to seeing the duality of body and mind, or physical and mental, as a feature of the way we model the world, not of the world itself.

I no longer think that my soul left my body; that my astral body separated from its physical shell to travel on the astral planes or that my deep and unforgettable experience has anything to do with life after death. Thanks to decades of science and philosophy I have a far better idea of what happened to me during those special few hours back in 1970.

I am alive here and now in a vivid and colourful world.

Stuff happens

Here's what I'd call a guest post, if I wasn't the guest, since I wrote it for my HinesSight blog a few days ago. There I called it, Stuff happens. Things fall apart. Such is life. But "Stuff Happens" is a fine title all by itself.

Enjoy. Unless you don't. Which is fine, since stuff happens.

Sometimes the most obvious things about life need to be talked about.

It's easy to overlook them not in spite of their obviousness, but because the familiar tends to fade into the background, while new stuff grabs our attention.

So here's a few obvious truths about life:

-- Life is finite. It comes to an end for every living being. Including us humans.
-- Life is uncertain. We can hope for the best, but sometimes the worst happens.
-- Life is about caring. We care, because what we're concerned about is finite and uncertain.

I've been reminded about these truths by reading a fascinating book by Martin Hägglund, "This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom." It's over 400 pages long. Yet Hägglund's core concepts are quite simple, three of which I shared above.

Now, I realize that many people believe in eternity, being religious. There's a lot of talk about eternity in this book. I'm going to ignore that subject, other than to say that Hägglund argues persuasively that even if eternity exists, it isn't something desirable.

At the very least, and I think this point is virtually inarguable, the life each of us is living now is in no way eternal, nor perfect (eternity presupposes a certain perfection, since nothing changes in eternity).

Thus whenever we care, whenever we exert ourselves to nourish and protect what we love -- whether this be a person, animal, cause, object, or whatever -- we do so because the object of our caring is finite, and it could fall apart if we don't act to help keep it together. Of course, it might fall apart anyway, even if we act.

Again, in no way is this news to anybody. It just bears repeating.

One reason this is necessary is that most of us have a strong desire to look on the bright side. Usually when I go grocery shopping, as I did today, a clerk will say something to me like, "So how's your day going? Got anything exciting planned later on?"

There's a social expectation that I'll answer in some positive fashion. It would be jarring to tell the clerk, though honest at times, "My day is going like crap. I've got nothing planned other than to hope tomorrow will be better." 

I'm not suggesting that we bare our souls at the checkout counter, since these brief chats while our credit card is being processed aren't the right time to share our most intimate secrets. Still, I've found that being as honest as possible often leads to a more interesting conversation.

Sometimes I'll respond to "How's your day going?" with "Fine, so long as I don't listen to the news. Then I get anxious and depressed." This is an exaggeration, though not hugely so. It usually elicits a reply like "I hear you. I feel the same way."

We're all in this finite life together. The boat of our body and mind is going to sink one day.

Keeping it afloat, and in decent working condition, for as long as possible, requires a lot of attention from ourselves and many others: friends, relatives, doctors, teachers, all of the people who interact in such complex and fascinating ways in the society that surrounds us.

To mix metaphors, no one is an island. We're all connected. We're all dependent. We're all caring. We're all in need of care.

A one-page article in the current issue of TIME magazine makes some of the same points that Martin Hägglund makes in his big thick book.

Here's some excerpts from "Tell kids the truth: hard work doesn't always pay off." It was written by Rachel Simmons, author of Enough as She Is: How to Help Girls Move Beyond Impossible Standards of Success to Live Healthy, Happy and Fulfilling Lives.

The humbling, brutal, messy reality is that you can do everything in your power and still fail.

... Instead of allowing our kids to beat themselves up when things don't go their way, we should all question a culture that has taught them that feeling anything less than overwhelmed means they're lazy, that how they perform for others is more important than what actually inspires them, and that where they go to college matters more than the kind of person they are.

The point is not to give our kids a pass on working hard. But fantasizing that they can control everything is not really resilience. We would be wise to remind our kids that life has a way of sucker-punching us when we least expect it. It's often the people who learn to say "stuff happens" who get up the fastest.

(I wrote a post on my Church of the Churchless blog about Hägglund's book, "What sustains us is caring in time, not detachment in eternity.")

A thirteen year old blog post that still rings true to me

About a month ago I started working on a book that will be a compilation of my favorite posts from the early years of this blog, 2004-2006. 

Most days I try to find some time to re-read the blog posts that I've chosen, correcting typos, deleting links, and adding a brief introduction that describes how I feel about the post now.

I just came across a post from January 2, 2006 that I still like a lot. Well, actually I still like all the posts I've written on this blog, but I like some more than others. 

Here it is:
---------------------------------

Tell yourself your spiritual secrets
January 2, 2006

It’s a new year. Time to tell yourself your secrets. Especially, your spiritual secrets. I’m sure you have them. Almost all of us do.

You’re sitting in church, temple, mosque, meeting hall, your own living room. Praying, meditating, singing, listening to a sermon, reading your holy book. And from your psyche’s secret chamber a barely audible whisper comes.

It’s your own voice. 

But you don’t want to listen to what it is saying. The voice is telling you a secret. Something that is true but rarely spoken to yourself. Not openly. Not directly. Only in whispers.

Which usually are met with a “shush.”

Quiet down, secret chamber. I don’t want to hear what you’ve got to tell me. Maybe later. Not now.

And yet, the memory of the whisper is more vivid than a recollection of the loudest shout. Once you’ve heard it speak even once, you can’t deny the secret that you don’t want to tell yourself.

I don’t believe in God. (Or Jehovah, Allah, Buddha-nature, the Guru, whoever). 

I no longer am inspired by the Bible. (Or the Talmud, Koran, Dhammapada, Adi Granth, whatever.)

I’m tired of these meaningless rules. (Or rituals, rites, vows, commandments, whatever).

Maybe you’ve never had such thoughts. Maybe you’ve never had any doubts about your faith. Maybe you’ve never wondered if your innermost spiritual beliefs were much different from the beliefs you present to the outside world.

Maybe. But I doubt it. 

We’re all atheists, deep down, for who among us has experienced God directly? The truth is that we don’t know. Our faith in the divine is a pebble resting on the edge of a dark abyss of doubt that we’re deathly afraid to approach.

That whisper coming from our psyche’s secret chamber is an invitation to kick the pebble over the edge and find out what, if anything, will keep it from rolling all the way down into nothingness. 

That whisper is the most honest voice we’ll ever hear, yet we do our best to shut it up.

It’s always struck me as strange that so many people, including myself, say that they want to fathom the secrets of the cosmos, yet are reluctant to lay bare their own secrets.

Seekers of secrets should start their search close to home: within themselves. When we don’t even want to know the truth about ourselves, how can we lay claim to knowing the truth about the ultimate reality of God?

My bet, or gamble, is that if God exists, He, She, or It resonates with truth (I’d say “rewards” but that sounds too anthropomorphic). Hypocrisy is out of tune with divinity, which to my mind reverberates to the rhythm of oneness.

Thus when I break down the barrier between what I really believe and what I tell myself I believe, this unitary truth-telling effort brings me closer to God, not farther away. Such is my hypothesis, anyway.

There’s a lot of energy locked up in secrets. 

Telling your spiritual secrets to yourself is empowering. You don’t need to also let the world know about them. However, I’d suggest that the more your outward life reflects your inward self, the less stress you’ll feel.

Acting out an artificial role is more difficult than playing the part of who you naturally are. In the latter case you have to keep remembering what your spiritual stage name is and what lines you’re scripted to speak.

“Praise Jesus.” “I believe!” “God is great.” “Blessed is the compassionate Buddha.” “Guru’s grace is always there.”

So often we speak untruths, albeit with good intentions. 

It’s what other people in our religious organization want us to say. Or what the organization itself demands be spoken to keep harmony in the ranks. We’re reluctant to rock the boat with the swaying that accompanies the speaking of a secret.

“What?! You don’t believe in _____ any more? What’s wrong? What’s happened to you? How did you come to lose your faith?”

My answer: You’ve got it backwards. I’ve found my faith. Faith in honesty. Faith in telling the truth to myself. Faith in letting secrets out. Faith that sincere doubt is better than hypocritical belief.

I could be wrong about all this. But at least my error will be mine, not borrowed from a holy book. I’m tired of keeping secrets. Especially from myself. 

RSSB and other religions play on peoples' egos

Below is an interesting comment from Ned that he just left on my recent post, "The arrogance of believing you're a chosen one, RSSB variety or otherwise." 

I agree with Ned. We all want to feel worthy. But religions preach about how fallen and sinful their devotees are, then boost their ego by telling them they are "chosen people."

He's absolutely correct when he says that a core teaching of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, the Indian religious organization led by a guru I once belonged to, is how special and chosen RSSB initiates are.

This isn't something devotees make up. They're told it over and over in books and talks.

For example, a children's book that I once owned (believe it is called Journey of the Soul) shares the RSSB teaching that souls used to reside with God, but were sent to this lower region of creation for some reason. Nine-tenths of the souls were happy to go.

One tenth weren't, because they wanted to stay with God.

That one tenth supposedly now is being brought back to God through initiation by a Perfect Living Master, or God in Human Form -- which is how the RSSB guru is described.

Can't get more special than that, though I'm sure Jews, Christians, Muslims, and members of other religions would disagree. Here's Ned's comment.

Georgy wrote: "Some ppl have more of an ego than others - some think they are better and special - but that’s precisely what the guru is trying to help you overcome. The Nazis also thought they were special, as have most of the biggest c**nts in history, that’s the one thing they all have in common."

The Masters teach that they have come to bring certain souls back to Sach Khand. Not everyone; only those who are tired of this world and ready to go home. That means that initiates are separate from the rest of humanity. They are special because everyone else is still happy stuck in the cycle of re-birth, but the initiate has this realization that there is a better world and they know the Way.

You can find this statement over and over in Sant Mat. So the idea of being special and chosen is not due to egotism. It is part of the teachings of Sant Mat. It actually plays on that person's ego.

What spirituality and religion is selling is self-worth and belonging. As social animals, we all need that. The problem with most paths is that they start with the premise that you are somehow inferior and alienated.

You need to believe something, do something, or know something in order to become worthy. Religious leaders and spiritual teachers play to the most vulnerable in our society because of their backgrounds-- people who already feel like nobody cares and nothing they do matters.

And the "worst c*nts in history"-- authoritarian regimes-- all played that game. The Dear Leader is perfect and beyond reproach, to be worshiped, loved, feared. They gave everything to the party and the movement, and so should you.

Self-interest gets put down a lot in spiritual circles, but I think we all are running on it-- even the most altruistic. It feels good to help others; there is this idea that you are a good person.

People who suggest you eradicate your ego only see that as a better way you can serve their interests. If you follow self-interest far enough, though, you see that we are all interdependent on each other. So then acting in a way that only serves you and harms others isn't in your best interest. "A rising tide lifts all ships."

The arrogance of believing you're a chosen one, RSSB variety or otherwise

Not long after I started this churchless blog, I wrote a post called "Bursting belief bubbles."

In it I talked about feeling really special when I still belonged to Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) and believed I'd been chosen by God and the guru for a spiritual journey only available to a few.

I used to believe in belief. It felt good to believe that my religious beliefs were better than other peoples’. I recall standing in line at a movie theatre, feeling exactly like someone standing in line at a movie theatre, when I remembered to do my guru-given mantra.

Instantly I thought to myself, “I’m special. I’m unique. I’ve got a spiritual practice known to only a few.”

I stood straighter. I looked at the spiritually impoverished human beings around me with proudly compassionate eyes. “Ah, I have something they don’t. How fortunate I am not to be them.”

Now I pray, “God, whatever or whoever the hell you are, burst my belief bubbles and lead me not into self-righteousness. Blessed be reality.”

Several recent comments left on this blog by Amar reminded me of how I felt back then. He makes some similar points about his involvement with RSSB. 

Here's one of Amar's comments.

GSD refers to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the current guru of RSSB, who is enmeshed in a massive financial fraud scandal involving hundreds of millions of dollars (the rupee equivalent, since the guru lives in India). Seva means volunteer work or service. So a sevadar is a volunteer. 

To everyone who has opinions on this, it's great that we can all communicate on a platform Brian has provided. We don't all agree on each other's perspectives, which is okay. Let's just remember to be open to all possibilities if we can.

Here's what I've been thinking on today, and it helped bring back into focus why I feel the way I do.

I do feel betrayed on the one hand. I feel taken aback at the comments here also, because I used to think the same way. Very humbling to view my own arrogance and pride in being included as one of the chosen ones.

So, it's not the fraud, the court orders, the filings by Malvinder on the scale of the money distributed apparently without his knowledge, or the complete silence from GSD. It's that he is involved in it. Doesn't matter how much complicity/money involved: it's the fact that he's involved in it.

It looks like it's become an obsession to build properties and purchase land for the sake of putting up buildings, for the purpose of doing seva. Gives him an excuse to get out of India and travel. Why not build one large complex in each continent and be done with it? Why have so many?

It's like an addiction to being a massive landholder. But that's just my take on it.

The inaccessibility, the arrogance, the expectation of having lavish accommodations not only in renovating his own place at the Dera (which only a handful of people can actually go into, and is apparently really over the top), but at all the other locations around the world.

While most of the sangat sleep on the ground or in the large metal sheds at the Dera, while he and his good friends sleep in air conditioned upscale bungalows, eat separately, and have everything done for them. Sevadars are sevadars, regardless of their position. Right?

There's a saying that goes,"Sometimes you get too big for your own britches." Maybe RSSB has gotten too big for it's intended task.

Another comment by Amar delves into some specifics of how the RSSB seva system works. It's indeed strange that a practice intended to inculcate humility leads to so many inflated egos.

There are many people who have stood guard during GSD's official visits abroad, including me. There's nothing humiliating about it. At the time you feel privileged for the honor. Writing books or giving satsangs, or any other seva is considered a privilege. With this privilege comes arrogance, entitlement and ego.

I found myself doing it or becoming aware of it and it made me sick. A lot of people have it, and a few don't.

One example of this is that all sevadars have to park away from the main hall. But hey, if you're in the "Management Team", you can park right next to the main doors. Some even have the balls to park in the handicap spots because they don't want to have to walk the extra 20 feet.

Once you understand the behind the scenes antics of the senior sevadars at these RSSB locations, you find nepotism.

Majority of these individuals don't get rotated in the seva rotation. It's created a a kind of class system within the sevadars. If you have a degree or high education, you certainly can't put them out in the scorching heat to park cars or do pat downs.

What nonsense! When they can't find any higher educated individuals to man the "cushy" seva's they go down the totem pole to the next group of people. Kind of like the Hindu caste system... Brahmins, the Khatriya's an so on.

If you've been coming for seva for years but don't meet the invisible criteria, then you get called next. Of course they deny this, but when you get up close and hear the discussions and see it in action, it's there. Believe me or not. Just putting it out there.

Here's a third comment from Amar that starts off with some great advice.

Everyone's gonna die one die. That's the only guarantee. We don't need a mystic to tell anyone that.

Live a good, honest, happy life. Be active and engaged with an open mind, and the world becomes a fascinating place to explore.

Those that feel they are better than the rest or entitled to special treatment because of their job title or seva position, even the guru, are not acting in good faith with their own Self.

When there are "senior" sevadars visiting an RSSB site, they are put up in the "guest" quarters, given special lunches and dinners and special treatment. If all sevadars are equal, why the special treatment? If a sevadar travels from across the country, he doesn't get a special breakfast, or lunch, he eats with the rest of the sevadars at the common eating location. These others don't.

If everyone is equal, then why special parking, special eating, special lodging?

This permeates all the locations RSSB is located. It starts with the guru getting specially built, sound proof houses on the sites, with special meals, and driven in fancy cars. Only those trusted to be in the near vicinity are allowed. So this trickles down to the board members, Reps and Chairman of the board across North America.

The entire sangat sees this, but these "higher ups" are oblivious to the perception this creates. This is that RSSB caste system I mentioned before.

UPDATE: Amar just left this comment on his comments. Naturally I had to share it. But otherwise I'm not commenting on his comment about his comments. But if you want to comment on either his comments, his comment about his comments, or my decision to not comment on his comment about his comments, comment away.

Just to follow up on Brian's compilation, that this is what I've experienced and seen myself. If you're lucky and in an area that doesn't have this vibe around it, consider yourself blessed and move along with your journey. I've been exposed to all sorts of people over the years from different places of different seva rank, and they're all the same.

Ego is tough nut to crack.

Where there are humans, there will be the mind and the mind is a bitch to control. We all fall prey to it at some point. I've seen GSD get pissed and get angry at his accommodations. They weren't set up properly. We all get angry. We all get disappointed, and egos will be bruised. But if we choose to follow a perfect living master, then the bar gets set high. That's where we can get into trouble.

GSD says this often, don't put me on a pedestal.

Everyone thinks he's trying to be humble, but I think he's being honest. He's trying to tell everyone he's not what they think he is. He's just like us, in a seva that he probably wished he never took on. But I guess when you get dealt with a mind blowing ego swelling seva like that, you have to play along and maybe it just consumed him.

At any rate, I'm moving on and there is no hatred from me on GSD, just disappointment.

Malvinder Singh's message to the RSSB guru is moving

At the end of the attachments to the criminal complaint filed by Malvinder Singh against his cousin, Gurinder Singh Dhillon (the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas), there's some messages that are both moving and enlightening -- as they cast light on the complicated financial scandal involving the Singh brothers, the Dhillon family, and others.

I'd looked at these quickly when I wrote a blog post about the criminal complaint. Today I read them more thoroughly. I've made screenshots of several messages from Malvinder to make it easier for other people to read them.

To begin with, in May 2018 Dhillon agreed to settle his debts if Malvinder and Shivinder (Malvinder's brother) would submit an accounting of what is owned to them by the guru and his family.

Then, below is a letter addressed to the RSSB guru, whom Malvinder ("Malav") refers to with the honorofic, Babaji. This alone is interesting, since Malvinder is both a relative of Dhillon and also an initiate of his. 

You can read how Malvinder addresses Gurinder Singh Dhillon with the utmost respect, even capitalizing You and Your, seemingly in the same way "God" is capitalized by religious believers.

Malvinder is desperate to resolve the financial difficulties that are causing him so much distress. In response to Dhillon's request for the liabilities owed, Malvinder describes what Dhillon and his family need to pay.

(Two other messages I've shared that follow describe the problems involving Dhillon and his family in more detail, as does the criminal complaint itself, of course.)

Presciently, Malvinder recognizes that various investigations into financial wrongdoing have the potential to be very dangerous to the Singh brothers, the Dhillon family, and others involved with shady loans. 

He presents a way forward that, in his view, would resolve the problems. Perhaps not completely, but largely. Here's the message to Dhillon.

Later, Malvinder turns his attention to the three companies named in a SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) report detailing fraudulent transactions, after apparently failing to get a response from Dhillon to his July 12 message. 

What's significant here is that Malvinder draws a connection between (1) the fraudulent money diverted from RHC (Religare) and Fortis to the three companies named in the SEBI report (Best, Fern, Modland), and (2) who ended up with the fraudulent money -- Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family.

Several commenters on this blog have been trying to make a big deal out of the fact that the first SEBI report didn't mention Dhillon, his family, and close associates as being involved in the fraud.

However, Malvinder's criminal complaint names Dhillon, et.al., as does his messages below, where he makes it clear that the Dhillon family owes money to the three companies, and those companies owe money to Religare and Fortis. Thus this establishes a clear link between the fraud described in the SEBI report and the ultimate beneficiaries of that fraud.

Pankaj apparently was in charge of Best Health Care, based on his email address.

A second message was sent on November 28. Malvinder is even more desperate now to be paid the money owed him by the guru and his family, which totals $158 million just for funds diverted from the Best Group of companies.

What's disturbing in all this is how Malvinder's relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, who he also considered to be his father figure and spiritual advisor, was so uncaring and unresponsive to Malvinder's entreaties.

Not exactly how one would expect a guru who is considered by devotees to be God in human form should act. In fact, it isn't even anywhere close to how a decent human being should act.

It must have been difficult for Malvinder to decide to file a criminal complaint against Dhillon, given how close they once were and how much trust Malvinder once had in the RSSB guru. But Gurinder Singh Dhillon ignored Malvinder's repeated requests for the guru to pay back the money that was owed to him and the companies he once controlled.

So whatever befalls Dhillon, he deserves it. At the moment the Dhillon family has gotten their assets frozen by the High Court of Delhi, which then will be sold by the Court. Whether they also will face criminal punishment remains to be seen.

RSSB sells NYC building for $26 million

For a change of pace on this blog from news about the massive financial scandal the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, is involved with, here's some news about a massive real estate sale of property owned by RSSB in New York City. 

Maybe Radha Soami Satsang Beas has started to raise cash to keep their guru in the lavish lifestyle that he's become accustomed to.

After all, reports in the Indian financial press indicate that in recent years Dhillon and his family were the beneficiaries of up to a billion dollars in shadowy and sometimes fraudulent unsecured loans.

But now the High Court of Delhi has frozen the assets of Dhillon, his wife, and children, with the intent of garnishing those assets (forcibly selling them) so his cousin, Malvinder Singh, can recover the money owed to him -- which Malvinder needs to pay a $500 million settlement to a company that successfully sued Malvinder and his brother.

It's a tough life, being a spiritual guru in India these days. Sure, in the days of the Buddha all you needed was a loincloth and begging bowl. Now private jets and expensive homes all over the world are necessities for Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

Hopefully the $26 million will keep him happy. For a little while.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru who doesn't pay his debts unless a court forces him to

 

Blind faith prevents defenders of RSSB guru from seeing reality

It's not surprising that devotees of a guru who is considered by them to be God in human form, despite any evidence he possesses any divine qualities, are unable to recognize the reality of the massive financial fraud Gurinder Singh Dhillon is deeply enmeshed in.

Reading irrational comments on this blog from people afflicted with blind faith, I feel like I'm viewing a murder trial where a defense attorney repeats over and over, "Members of the jury, his fingerprints weren't on the murder weapon, so you must find my client not guilty."

OK. That one fact is true.

But the DNA of the accused was found next to the bloody body of the murder victim. Video evidence shows the accused entering the victims's home at the time of the murder, and leaving soon after. Witnesses in neighboring homes heard the victim shout the accused person's name, "Derek, stop, put the knife down!" 

In any important situation, reasonable people want to look at all the evidence, all the facts, when trying to understand what's going on.

However, religious believers and others with rigid minds start with a conclusion -- like "The guru is innocent of any wrongdoing" -- then desperately search for any information, no matter how feeble, that supports their desired conclusion.

Case in point, a commenter on this blog who doesn't have the courage to use her actual name in comments, but goes by "Anon." She's been frantically trying to excuse Gurinder Singh Dhillon (GSD), the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas in India, from the wrongdoing he's been accused of. 

Here's a recent example of Anon's refusal to look at facts that don't support her blind faith that the guru is a Perfect Living Master, so couldn't have committed financial fraud.

Spence I don’t need to reply to your livemint article as dungerees just did. Like he said it’s based on anonymity and an email they received. I have the most recent Sebi report on fortis which came out after this article was written and it makes no Mention of master. End of story.
https://www.sebi.gov.in/enforcement/orders/mar-2019/order-in-the-matter-of-fortis-healthcare-limited_42418.html

Another commenter, Amar, demolished Anon's twisted thinking in his own comment.

Anon, you explained away the court's decision. Typical and what I would expect. Keep on keeping on, you have just proven exactly what most people here have determined. Doesn't matter if it slapped you in the face, the truth is meaningless. You don't get brownie points for writing what you're writing.

Anyone with an ounce of selectivity and impartiality would recognize that hmm, there might be something there, might I'm going to have to wait and see what comes next. You can't even do that. So that makes your analysis irrelevant.

In science, you look at all the inputs, make observations, analyze, then conclusions and recommendations.

So we're at the inputs, observations and analysis stage. Conclusions will be forth coming and we can speculate. That's how a normal person evaluates and responds to input. We do it when shopping for the family, to voting in the next leader of our nation. You're doing it selectively.

Again, I'm not trying to change your mind. You're just dismissing everyone except GSD. You're even throwing his own wife and kids and daughter in law under the bus to exclude GSD. That doesn't help your defense of GSD because you're showing extreme bias by not even considering anything.

That's dangerous. It's not about me or anyone else trying to be right. It's about you admitting that it could be. Even if it's just a 5% percent chance, you won't admit it. That's where you lose credibility. You think everything can be explained away.

When the next shoe drops for these people, we'll all wait for your brilliant explanation as to why it doesn't apply to GSD. Spencer has elaborately explained in great detail for anyone to understand. Your bias and blind faith won't allow you to see what's in front of your face. Not even one, single piece of report or finding.

You epitomize the mindset of anyone steeped in blind faith and dogma. Good luck to you, this back and forth with you is futile. Have a nice life and deep down, I wish it were as you say, but most of us live in the real world and we have to look at the facts and rule of law. What you describe goes against that.

The first investigative report of SEBI, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, came out in October 2018. Another report came out in March 2019. 

Yet somehow "Anon" considers this the "end of the story" because the reports didn't mention the name of the RSSB guru, just the names of Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, the guru's cousins, along with the names of shell companies. Well...

(1) Malvinder has filed a criminal complaint with the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police against his brother (Shivinder), Gurinder Singh Dhillon, other members of the Dhillon family, and their close associates. The complaint alleges conspiracy to commit financial fraud and a death threat made by the guru's attorney. (Click here for a blog post I wrote about the complaint.)

(2) Sheetal Talwar, a filmmaker, has filed a criminal complaint with the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai Police alleging that associates of the RSSB guru made a death threat against him after he sought repayment of a million dollar loan he'd made to Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

(3) Religare, a public company that lost money in the financial fraud, has filed a complaint with the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police against Sunil Godhwani, the guru's right hand man, and others. The complaint seeks tracing and restitution of the fraudulently siphoned money that went into shell companies, and then into the pockets of the Dhillon family and their associates.

(4) One of the shell companies cited in the Religare complaint is Prius Real Estate. A story in the Indian financial press based on several credible sources shows that the Dhillon family were directors of Prius Real Estate at the time the fraud occurred. 

Subsidiaries of RHC Holding had lent funds to Prius Real Estate Pvt. Ltd, previously owned by Dhillon’s wife, Shabnam Dhillon, and his close associate Yuvraj Narain Gorwaney, two people familiar with the developments said. The same entity was later owned by Dhillon’s confidants—Rajveer Singh and Gurpreet Sodhi. However, the entity has now moved to two trusts, Jamuntree and Grace Trust.

“When the money went from RHC to Prius Real Estate, it was owned and controlled by the Dhillon family and these decisions were directly taken by Sunil Godhwani as he was running RHC," one of the two people close to Malvinder Singh and his brother said on condition of anonymity.

(5) Sunil Godhwani, who to my understanding has served as the treasurer or financial officer of Radha Soami Satsang Beas and has close ties to the RSSB guru, has been charged with criminal conspiracy by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police, along with the Singh brothers and others.

(6) The High Court of Delhi has ordered that money be recovered from Dhillon and his family members, along with about 50 other people and entities, many of which had been controlled by the RSSB guru, his family, and close associates.

(7) Sheetal Talwar, through his attorneys, has informed the Securities and Exchange Board of India that Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family were both the major beneficiaries of the fraudulent funds, and involved in the conspiracy to illegally siphon the funds from public companies. 

Talwar has told Sebi that even though its Religare investigation via forensic audit firm MSA concluded fund diversion and large scale irregularities and illegalities, the probe did not lift the corporate veil to disclose the ultimate beneficiaries of the diversion.

Advocates & Solicitors Kartikeya & Associates-representing Talwar-have submitted to Sebi on 29 May, 2019 that, "...the persons who have benefitted the most and/or on whose instance the said illegalities and irregularities were and/or have been committed have yet not been identified. Please note that the persons and/or the shadow promoters of REL, RFL and their other group companies is one Gurinder Singh Dhillon (GSD/Babaji) and his family".

This blog is all about truth. The truth about God. The truth about religions. The truth about gurus. The truth about science. In the largest sense, the truth about reality. 

Some sources of truth are more valid than others.

When it comes to the truth about the RSSB guru's involvement in financial fraud, it makes sense to trust these sources more than devotees of the guru who are desperate to excuse his wrongdoing: official investigators in India, journalists with Indian financial publications, court rulings, insiders with direct knowledge of the fraud.

Usually, understanding the truth about a complex situation requires the broadest possible perspective. Facts should be collected from a broad spectrum of sources. But as noted above, not all sources are equally valid. So assessing the trustworthiness of where information about a subject you're interested comes from is all-important.

Keep this in mind when you read comments on this blog about any subject. Some commenters, like Amar, are sincerely dedicated to truth. Others, like Anon, are dedicated only to defending their personal views.

Thus trust those who base their conclusions on a wide collection of facts, not on those who present a narrow set of facts designed to support their pre-determined conclusions.

Religious faith explains illogical devotion to RSSB guru

Why do otherwise intelligent and reasonable people lose touch with reality when religion is involved?

I've been wondering about this whenever I read comments on this blog from fervent defenders of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas who is deeply involved in financial fraud totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

They ignore obvious facts. They offer up ridiculous excuses for inexcusable behavior. They keep repeating falsehoods even after the truth has been repeatedly pointed out to them.

Today I read further in Martin Hägglund's excellent book, "This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom."  (Which I wrote about here recently.)

In his Responsibility chapter, Hägglund discusses at length Soren Kierkegaard's discussion in his "Fear and Trembling" of the Old Testament story of Abraham and his son, Issac. Somehow Abraham was willing to kill his beloved son because God wanted him to.

Basically, Hägglund argues that Abraham was motivated by religious faith, not secular faith. In my previous post I included some quotes from his book that explain the central difference between these kinds of faith. 

Secular faith is committed to persons and projects that may be lost: to make them live on for the future. Far from being resigned to death, a secular faith seeks to postpone death and improve the conditions of life. As we will see, living on should not be conflated with eternity.

...The object of religious faith, by contrast, is taken to be independent of the fidelity of finite beings. The object of religious faith --  whether God or any other form of infinite being -- is ultimately regarded as separable from the practice of faith, since it does not depend on any form of finite life.

So it seems clear that those who attempt to excuse the RSSB guru of all wrongdoing, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, are acting much like Abraham.

Because the guru is considered by devotees to be God in human form, their religious faith  is separable from any and all actions in this finite world that Gurinder Singh Dhillon might take, no matter how wrong those actions might be. These devotees have blind faith in the godliness of the guru.

Here in the United States, President Trump famously said during his election campaign, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."

This sounds a lot like religious faith. It also sounds a lot like the RSSB devotees who apparently would forgive any actions of their guru, no matter how despicable.

Here's some additional excerpts from Hägglund's book that I read today. They cast additional light on the distinction between religious and secular faith.

Religious faith, by definition, doesn't care about other people, or anything else on Earth. Like Abraham, those in the grip of religious faith are willing to sacrifice anyone and anything, including their own secular sense of right and wrong, in the name of an imagined eternity.

Thus religious faith is dangerous. It leads people to kill, torture, maim, hurt, do anything that they envision their God or godlike human commands. Caring, love, compassion -- these are characteristics of secular faith, which I'm proud to embrace.

Hägglund describes these two sorts of faith:

Religious faith: 

Moreover, the inwardness of religious faith disarms the real risks of objective uncertainty.

A marriage is objectively uncertain in the sense that it can actually break and leave me shattered. Eternal happiness, however, is objectively uncertain in the sense that it can neither be proved nor disproved.

As long as I keep faith in eternal happiness, it cannot be taken away from me, since the only criterion for its existence is my own faith that it will be given to me. 

No external criteria can refute my hope for eternal happiness, and nothing external to my own will can force me to give it up. Eternal happiness cannot be given to me by the finite, but for the same reason it cannot be taken away from me by the finite. 

It has nothing to do with anything in the external world, but is entirely a matter of my inward relation to my absolute telos. [ultimate object or aim]

Secular faith:

In contrast, secular faith necessarily remains vulnerable.

As long as you keep secular faith, you can be defeated by loss. Affirming your life-defining commitment as a parent -- and loving your child wholeheartedly -- does not protect you from the pain of conflict, the bereavement of broken hopes, or the possible devastation of losing your child.

On the contrary, it is because you are keeping faith with your child -- and holding on to your life-defining commitment as a parent -- that you are all the more vulnerable to these experiences.

Such vulnerability is the condition for any form of responsiveness to -- and responsibility for -- what happens to the one you love. By being devoted to someone who is finite, I have to be responsive to what befalls him or her, even if the events are adverse to my own hopes and desires.

I am committed to fight for him or her to live on and flourish, but also bound to recognize if and when there is defeat.

...Given that your relation to the past and the future depends on faith, you may be deceived by what you think is certain, mistaken by what you take for granted, and shattered by what you never expected. 

Your vulnerability to those risks is due to the existential commitment of secular faith. Because you are existentially committed to someone or something, you can feel the pain of being deceived, mistaken, or shattered.

What's next for the RSSB guru and Singh brothers scandal?

The massive financial scandal involving the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas and the Singh brothers, Malvinder and Shivinder, has been likened to a Bollywood movie -- albeit one whose ending hasn't been written yet.

If you browse through the posts in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas category of this blog, focusing on the posts related to this scandal, it'll soon become evident that this subject is complex. There are many actors in this drama, each playing their own unique role.

There's no way to accurately predict what will happen next.

I've summarized the broad scope of the scandal in recent posts, including this one. Because I enjoy legal intrigue, spy novels, and captivating mini-series on TV, I can't resist making some observations about how things could go from here. 

To do this, I need to envision the state of mind of the various parties involved in this scandal. What follows are my own views, obviously. Feel free to share your own perspective in a comment, if you like.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon. The RSSB guru is notoriously private. He hasn't made any meaningful public announcements about this scandal yet. He doesn't like photographs taken of him.

Yet the High Court of Delhi recently ordered that the financial assets of Dhillon and his family be frozen in anticipation of those assets being sold to recover money that ended up in the Dhillon family pockets through either fraudulent or decidedly irregular means.

I'm not familiar with how garnishment works in India.

But since the recovered money is going to help pay for a $500 million settlement that the Singh brothers owe to Daiichi (a Japanese corporation), it sure seems that both the High Court and lawyers for Daiichi are going to want to be sure that the Dhillon family reveal all of their financial assets: cash, homes, real estate holdings, etc.

Since Dhillon is viewed as God in human form by his devotees, this is quite a comedown for a supposed divine being. I've never heard of God being subject to a High Court ruling, but there's a first time for everything.

Singh brothers. They're first cousins once removed of the RSSB guru, but appear to consider him as "uncle." Previously Dhillon was a trusted elder advisor after their father died. Now their relationship with Dhillon is decidedly shaky, especially when it comes to Malvinder.

He's filed a criminal complaint against Dhillon, alleging conspiracy to siphon funds from companies once controlled by the Singh brothers, and also a death threat by the guru through his attorney. Malvinder also alleges that Dhillon tried to essentially sell his position as RSSB guru to Shivinder, if Shivinder forgave the shady loans Dhillon and his family got.

It's unclear what the status of the criminal complaint is, which is being investigated by the Delhi Police. I used to think that Malvinder might withdraw the complaint if Dhillon cooperated in returning his ill-gotten money, which totals hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now that the RSSB guru is being forced to liquidate assets by the High Court of Delhi, my suspicion is that Malvinder won't be willing to play nice with his cousin, even if he calls him uncle. 

Sunil Godhwani. He was the guru's right hand man and head of RSSB finances, to my understanding. Dhillon used his influence with the Singh brothers to get Godwahni installed as CEO of Religare, a company the brothers controlled at the time. In that position Godhwani orchestrated the fraudulent transfers of money to the Dhillon family and their close associates through shell companies controlled by those recipients of the money.

Godhwani was detained at the Delhi airport when he tried to leave the country shortly after he was charged with criminal conspiracy by the Delhi Police.

No one seems to know whether he is cooperating with authorities. If he chooses to talk, perhaps with the hope of getting lesser charges, this could implicate others in the conspiracy, possibly including the RSSB guru and his family. 

Since Godhwani is so close to the guru, he may choose not to say much. Of course, other people in Religare and the shell companies that participated in the fraudulent transactions may come forward who don't have any "spiritual" connection with the guru.

Board of Religare. What complicates things is that the High Court of Delhi has ordered that up to $500 million is to be recovered from over 50 entities, including the Dhillon family, their close associates, and the above-mentioned shell companies. As already noted, that money is earmarked to pay the settlement owed by the Singh brothers to Daiichi. 

But the new board of Religare, which doesn't include anyone associated with the guru or the Singh brothers, is behind the criminal complaint against Godhwani and others. Religare wants to get back the money that was siphoned out of its coffers.

Now, since reports in the Indian financial press indicated that as much as a billion dollars went into the pockets of Dhillon and his family, perhaps liquidation of their assets, along with the assets of others who got fraudulent money, would produce enough to both pay the $500 million to Daiichi and repay funds that Religare considers it has lost (not sure how much that is).

If that isn't possible, seemingly Religare would be more motivated to have those responsible for the fraudulent activity to be legally punished. Which could include the RSSB guru and his family, given that they were directors of the shell companies that participated in the fraudulent loan transactions.

Indian courts and government. It may not be a coincidence that the High Court of Delhi issued its garnishment order against the RSSB guru, his family, and others after the Indian nationwide elections were over. Religion plays a big role in Indian politics, so perhaps this is why the order came when it did.

Regardless, it appears that the Indian government and courts are taking this financial scandal more seriously than some thought it would, given the country's lengthy history of corporate sleaze. After all, India wants to attract more foreign investment.

News that a guru and his family were able to siphon hundreds of millions of dollars out of public companies without facing the consequences wouldn't be a good sales pitch to individuals or corporations thinking of investing in India. Thus I'm quite a bit more confident now that the wrongdoers in this scandal will be identified by authorities and receive whatever consequences they deserve.

Sheetal Talwar. Talwar is an Indian filmmaker who first came to notice in this scandal when he alleged that a death threat was made against him from the RSSB satsang office in Delhi after he tried to recover $1.25 million he'd loaned to Gurinder Singh Dhillon. 

Then Talwar popped up again in the news when he informed the Securities and Exchange Board of India that the guru and his family were the primary beneficiaries of about $329 million siphoned out of Religare via the above-mentioned fraudulent loans.

So Talwar is another actor in this drama, as is befitting his role as a filmmaker.

Would you buy the RSSB guru again?

There's an adage about buying and selling stocks that fits with buying into spiritual or religious teachings, especially those where the leader or guru is an integral aspect of those teachings.

If you wouldn't buy a stock at this price, you probably should sell it.

Here's another way of putting this: given everything you know about a company right now, would you still choose to buy the stock that you paid money for some time ago? If the answer is "No," you probably should sell the stock, even at a loss.

One reason buying and selling decisions with stocks are difficult is the same reason deciding whether to stick with a religion or spiritual path is difficult. Once we've bought into something, we get emotionally attached to it.

It hurts to admit that what we bought into no longer looks as attractive.

So we rationalize away the problems we're having with the religion or spiritual path, just as someone who buys a stock irrationally hopes that the price will go up, even though solid evidence shows it'd be best to sell the stock.

A recent comment on this blog by Amar makes some great points along this line in regard to the financial and other scandals involving Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of an Indian religious organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

Sumit, Kartik, and Kush, you have no idea what you're talking about. Would you, before following RSSB, have followed another guru who was embroiled in this type of a financial fraud scandal? I highly doubt it.

Please, look at this from a perspective as an outsider, like a spectator: clear glasses. Would you join a religion or philosophy if you did your homework and found this out about the leader, or his immediate family and high ranking sevadars? I think if you honestly use your sense of discrimination, you know what your answer would be.

I'm not saying the teachings are false or untrue, quite the contrary, I think they are good ideals and important ideals to live by. The individual professing and teaching these ideals should hold themselves accountable to the same standards, whether philosophically, or to the law of the land.

Now, though I like this comment a lot, I disagree with Amar's contention that the guru's scandals have no bearing on whether the RSSB teachings are true.

This would be the case if, like Christianity, the religious teachings were separable from the character and actions of any Christian alive today. To believers, Jesus saves regardless of the failings of Christian leaders. Which, of course, are many.

With the Sant Mat teachings of RSSB though, the guru is considered to be God in human form. The guru is the Jesus figure, the person responsible for returning a devotee's soul to heavenly regions from which it supposedly descended many lifetimes ago. The guru is the exemplar, the living truth of the RSSB teachings. No living guru, no teachings. 

Previously there were few scandals involving the lineage of RSSB gurus. Charan Singh, Gurinder Singh's predecessor, reportedly smuggled watches into India. That's nothing compared to what Gurinder Singh has done and been accused of.

Would initiates of Gurinder Singh Dhillon have bought into him and his teachings if they knew then, what is known now?

(1) The Delhi High Court has ordered the assets of the guru and his family to be frozen, so money (likely hundreds of millions of dollars) can be recovered from zero-interest loans they received.

(2) The Securities and Exchange Board of India has determined that those funds that ended up in the pockets of the RSSB guru and his family were fraudulently siphoned out of a public company into shell companies. 

(3) Those illegal money transfers involved "round trip" transactions that required the collusion of conspirators at both the public company and the shell companies.

(4) The RSSB guru, his family, and close associates controlled the shell companies that received the fraudulent funds. 

(5) Malvinder Singh, a relative of the guru, and Sheetal Talwar, a filmmaker, have accused the guru and his associates of making death threats against them. 

Does all this sound like something a God in human form would do? I guess it depends on someone's conception of God. To me, Gurinder Singh Dhillon seems like a deeply flawed person, not someone divine. 

Gurinder Singh Dhillon

 

 

RSSB deletes financial fraud stories from website

So much for openness and transparency. Here's a comment that was just left on this blog. GSD refers to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

Has anyone noticed that all the links to the news articles about the Singh brothers saga on RSSB website have been removed ....https://www.rssb.org/articles.html The question is Why ? Only a few weeks ago GSD had said in reply to a Q that RSSB is not involved and all the news articles are posted on their website.

This person is correct. The Bloomberg story is gone. Can't remember if there were others related to the RSSB guru's financial fraud involvement. And I'm not completely sure the story was from Bloomberg. 

UPDATE: Here's a screenshot of the RSSB articles page as it looked last night. The articles are shown with the most recent first,  so the Bloomberg story used to be on top, or near the top.

But here's a link to a Bloomberg story I wrote about that describes the guru's shady business dealings that now have caused the High Court of Delhi to seize assets owned by Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family. Quite a downfall for a guru whose organization publishes a book called "Honest Living."

Note: I believe the Bloomberg story was written before investigators in India (SEBI) wrote a report showing that the money loaned at zero interest to the Dhillons came from fraudulent loans, with the money siphoned from public companies.

Why the RSSB guru is responsible for financial fraud

We're conducting a psychological experiment on this blog. How is it possible that devotees of an Indian guru are unable to recognize the facts about his involvement in financial fraud involving hundreds of millions of dollars?

Comments on numerous blog posts based on reports in the Indian financial press show that denial is alive and well in the minds of those who want to believe that the guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, is a "perfect living master" rather than a money-hungry Indian guy who has been using his position as head of Radha Soami Satsang Beas in enrich himself and his family.

Some core facts are clear:

(1) The Securities and Exchange Board of India has determined that funds were fraudulently siphoned out of  a public company into shell companies. 

(2) Those illegal money transfers involved "round trip" transactions that required the collusion of conspirators at both the public company and the shell companies.

(3) The RSSB guru, his family, and close associates controlled the shell companies that received the fraudulent funds. 

(4) The Dhillon family and their close associates used the fraudulently-obtained money, in large part or entirely, to buy real estate and the High Court of Delhi has ordered that this money be recovered from the RSSB guru, his family, and other entities.

There's additional disturbing evidence, including a criminal complaint filed against Gurinder Singh Dhillon, and allegations of death threats involving Dhillon (see here and here). 

So how is that people associated with RSSB are having so much difficulty recognizing these facts? A couple of excellent comments on a recent blog post help explain why.

Here's what Amar wrote. GSD refers to Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

For you Westerners that are having trouble understanding the Eastern/Indian mindset, let me fill you all in.

GSD's sons and wife, are not only his family, but they consider him their guru first, family relation second. There is a double bond there that we can never understand.

They will do as he asks. Gurpreet and Gurkirat only have the money because the two Singh brothers dispersed shares of the company in their names, convenient since it would look bad if they put it in GSD's names. This was probably the only legal thing they did in all this.

Other high ranking satsangis that were on the boards of these shell companies had to sign off on the fund transfers because that's all these companies were setup for. So they were complicit in it.

To imply that GSD was caught up in it and didn't know what he was getting into because his sons, wife, or other high ranking board of directors in these 50 plus companies were doing things behind his back is laughable. If you know anything about GSD, you will know that he has his hands on this type of stuff. To imply he wasn't aware of this is insulting to anyone's intelligence.

Someone/some people had to come and say to him, "I've got a plan...an idea." None of this can happen to this level of involvement without his input. It's impossible. His own sons and wife would not have acted without his knowledge. It's not something that happens to this scale in an Indian family. Especially this one.

So get your heads out of the sand and look at the High Court orders, the SEBI Findings. And It's not over yet.

The High Court Garnishee order clearly states that all 56 entities must repay the monies back to the High Court to cover the $500 million dollars.

GSD's name is in the list. His son's names are on the list. His wife's name is on the list. The other names mentioned on the list are RSSB high ranking people. The companies mentioned on this list are shell companies which have all or some of these people as directors.

Legally they are all culpable. Fraud was committed and that has been proven. This was not a business. It was money laundering/siphoning from a publicly traded company.

There is more to come on this for sure. We can only speculate on that, but what has transpired here is legally processed and matter of history. The only question I still have and doesn't make sense to me is why the Singh brothers would do this to their own company.

And here's what Mr. Curious wrote:

Hi Dungeness,

As the head honcho, Gurinder's ultimately accountable for the illegal siphoning of funds to RSSB and his family (whether or not he knew about/ordered it). That's why he is among those implicated.

That said, it's extremely difficult to believe he knew nothing about this.

Long-time initiates, however, will have a much easier time with this. They've spent years/decades cultivating more far-fetched beliefs (Master will claim me at death, he is planted at 3rd eye center, he flies through [supernatural] regions at will, etc.), and are well-practiced in suspending critical thinking. I don't think any amount of evidence will change their hearts over night; it will take time.

That said, I can't understand how initiates who claim "GIHF" is an all-knowing being can now claim he doesn't even know what's going on in his own family. No doubt, some family secrets can be kept a long time (an affair years ago, etc.) but hundreds of millions of dollars are a hard thing to hide.

As a former initiate (different teacher), I can empathize with those who are having their faith shaken here.

I don't have any glee at the expense of the initiates. However, I am always gleeful when a hypocrite/abuser of power is brought down. Especially in India where justice has historically not been served. And yes, Gurinder is a hypocrite of the highest order. Per the RSSB literature, he supposedly lives off the fruit of his own labor.

OK, if your labor is fraud, that may be true.

My own former teacher was similarly a hypocrite. He taught the virtue of celibacy (except for reproduction), but he himself was accused of sexual misbehavior with several female initiates (and admitted to transgressions in 1984). I didn't stop being an initiate because he had sexual urges, but because he proved himself to be a hypocrite/liar (while claiming to be the keeper of truth).

It's important to believe in something, but one should never give up their power to another fallible human being (except the wife, I guess).

What pisses me off is not that Gurinder is fallible (we all are), but that he goes around giving sermons/lessons on values he knows nothing about and takes advantage of people who are in a vulnerable state. It's no secret that most initiates come to the path in a sorry state.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon

Delhi High Court orders recovery of money from RSSB guru

BIG NEWS regarding the financial fraud saga involving the Singh brothers and Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a religious sect in India with millions of followers.

The High Court of Delhi has ordered that money be recovered from Dhillon and his family members, along with about 50 other people and entities, many of which had been controlled by the RSSB guru, his family, and close associates. You can read the order via this PDF file:
Download Order 28-05-2019132578_2019

I'll make some "I told you so" comments following the Business Today story.

RSSB chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon, wife Shabnam Dhillon, sons Gurkirat and Gurpreet and daughter-in-law Nayan Tara Dhillon are among the 56 entities from whom Delhi HC has ordered recovery of monies Singh brothers-Malvinder & Shivinder-owe to Daiichi. Money will also be recovered from former Religare chief Sunil Godhwani and brother Sanjay Godhwani, according to the Delhi HC order.

BusinessToday.In had reported on March 12 that Singh brothers can only pay the $500 million order against them to compensate Daiichi, provided the money owed to them by RSSB chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family is recovered. In his submission, Malvinder has maintained that he can pay the arbitration order provided he can recover the money owed to him.

Also read: SC take note! Singh brothers can pay off $500 million to Daiichi, provided the money is recovered

Daiichi has enfored an arbitration order in Singapore that ordered the brothers to pay Daiichi $500 million towards alleged non-disclosure of crucial information during the sale of Ranbaxy Laboratories to Daiichi in 2008.

With this order, the Delhi HC has expanded the scope of people from whom the money owed by Singh brothers to Daiichi can be recovered to honour the arbitration award.

Besides the Dhillon family, the Delhi HC is issuing 'garnishee orders' against several Dhillon and RSSB associates' companies, including Prius Real Estate, Addon Realty, Payne Realtors SGGD Projects, Luminous Holding. A garnishee order is an order against a third party to recover money to settle a debt or dues.

Garnishee order prevents these entities from alienating any assets. The dues will now be paid to Delhi HC instead of Singh brothers and their entities to whom it is owed.

BusinessToday.In has reported the flow of money from Singh brothers to entities owned and controlled by Gurinder Singh Dhillon - the head of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas - his family and assocites of RSSB. RoC filings and terms sheets say between 2011 and 2014, Rs 1107.5 crore from the Rs 9,576 crore sale proceeds of Ranbaxy to Daiichi Sankyo was paid through RHC group firms RHC Holding Private Limited, Oscar Investment Limited, RHC Finance Private Limited and Fortis Healthcare Holdings Private Limited into two group entities ANR Securities Private Limited and Ranchem Private Limited.

Thereafter, this money was transferred to Prius Real Estate Private Limited controlled by Dhillon family associates and RSSB functionaries through optionally convertible debentures (OCD). The money invested in other Prius group entities called Prius Commercial, Payne Realtors, SVIIT Software and Sharan Hospitality whose preference shares worth Rs 875.53 crore were subscribed to by Prius Real Estate. Both the OCDs and preference shares were to be redeemed between August-November, 2018 at a hefty premium.

Delhi HC had concluded the hearing on May 28. The written order was issued on June 10.

Also read: RSSB chief Baba Gurinder Dhillon's associates threatened me with life, alleges filmmaker Sheetal Talwar

Also read: RSSB chief Dhillon beneficiary behind corporate veil in Religare fund diversion: Filmmaker Sheetal Talwar tells Sebi

Now, this story doesn't point out that the flow of money into the pockets of Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family occurred fraudulently through a conspiracy involving people both at the sending end (public companies) and receiving end (shell companies cited in the story).

The story does note that those shell companies were controlled by Dhillon family members and RSSB functionaries. So likely the RSSB guru and his family face additional legal problems.

I'm pleased that justice is being done in India. No one should be above the law, even if a person is considered to be God in Human Form, as the RSSB teachings proclaim Gurinder Singh Dhillon to be. 

It's also pleasing to be able to say I told you so to the many religious devotees who have been leaving comments on my blog posts about this financial fraud saga along the lines of "The guru can do no wrong" and "You're rushing to judgement."

Well, actually the guru has done wrong, and it isn't a rush to judgement to analyze stories in the Indian financial press.

It's been clear for many months that the fraudulent loans ended up in the pockets of the RSSB guru and his family, so it was only a matter of time before the Indian legal system would force the Dhillon family to repay the illegally-obtained money.

This shows the power of critical thinking.

I and others (such as Spence Tepper, a frequent commenter on this blog) could see clearly what was happening because our viewpoint wasn't clouded by religious fundamentalism. On the other hand, ardent devotees of the RSSB guru failed to recognize facts because what they believed about the guru was at odds with facts about the guru.

Lesson: be a devotee of truth, not of religion.

I'm also surprised I'm not dead yet

I enjoy getting comments from readers of this blog, even those who want me dead. Can't resist making some observations on what Kaur said.

Looks like President Trump's oft-repeated "fake news" lie has made its way to India. On behalf of all rational journalism-loving Americans, I apologize for this export of ours.

Here's some real news. Actually, I started this blog in 2004 because Christian religious fundamentalists played a big role in re-electing George W. Bush as president. And, I'd come to see the downsides of all religions. 

Thanks for the compliment about me being shrewd. And for spelling it correctly. I don't use the word "shrewd" much and struggled to type it just now. But my blog isn't forced on anyone. So far as I know, everyone has to search it out. But if some higher power is forcing it upon people, let me know. That's a higher power I could worship (for an entirely selfish reason).

I'm surprised I'm not dead yet also. Of course, that's because I'm alive. When I'm not surprised, I assume I'll be dead.

If someone wants me dead, it sure seems like they could come up with worse ways of dying than a heart attack. How about flesh-eating bacteria? Or being hacked to death by a Saudi Arabia murder squad? Just some suggestions.

I've started working on a book that will be a compilation of some favorite posts from the early years of this blog. Those posts criticize several religions, including Christianity and Islam. I'm an equal opportunity critic of religious fundamentalism. I just tend to write the most about the religion I'm most familiar with, Sant Mat.

Regarding my narrow mindedness, actually I have a pretty wide brain. Can't remember my hat size, but it is quite large. At my last physical exam I don't recall any mention of an evil heart. I'll have to ask my doctor if I might have that diagnosis. 

What sustains us is caring in time, not detachment in eternity

I was wrong.

In my blog post about a review of "This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom," I said that because the book is over 400 pages, it would take me a while to write about it after I'd started reading "This Life" following my Amazon purchase. 

But here I am, writing about Martin Hägglund's book, because I'm loving it so much, I can't help but share my enthusiasm. For me, this truly is a life-changing book.

I'm understanding what life is all about in a clearer fashion. I'm acting differently toward the loved ones I'm in daily contact with, my wife and dog. I'm appreciating precious moments in my life with more passion, intensity, thankfulness. 

After reading the introduction and first chapter of "This Life," I'm resonating with Hägglund's central message. Expressed in my own words, it is that we all find meaning in the finitude of life, the uncertainty of life, the realization that what we love and value is precarious, so it needs our caring.

This is secular faith.

Hägglund says the following in his Introduction. I'm quoting him at length because this is a good overview of his viewpoint, which I heartily agree with -- and almost certainly will be writing more about.

Secular faith is committed to persons and projects that may be lost: to make them live on for the future. Far from being resigned to death, a secular faith seeks to postpone death and improve the conditions of life. As we will see, living on should not be conflated with eternity.

The commitment to living on does not express an aspiration to live forever but to live longer and to live better, not to overcome death but to extend the duration and improve the quality of a form of life.

...To have secular faith is to acknowledge that the object of our faith is dependent on the practice of faith. I call it secular faith, since the object of devotion does not exist independently of those who believe in its importance and who keep it alive through their fidelity.

The object of secular faith -- e.g., the life we are trying to lead, the institutions we are trying to build, the community we are trying to achieve -- is inseparable from what we do and how we do it. Through the practice of secular faith, we bind ourselves to a normative ideal (a conception of who we ought to be as individuals and as a community).

The ideal itself, however, depends on how we keep faith with our commitment and remains open to being challenged, transformed, or overturned.

The object of religious faith, by contrast, is taken to be independent of the fidelity of finite beings. The object of religious faith --  whether God or any other form of infinite being -- is ultimately regarded as separable from the practice of faith, since it does not depend on any form of finite life.

The most fundamental example of finitude in our historical moment is the prospect that the Earth itself will be destroyed. If the Earth were destroyed, all life forms that matter to us would be extinguished. No one would live on and no aspect of our lives would be remembered.

Yet, from the standpoint of religious faith, such an end of life is only apparent. Even if all forms of living on are terminated, nothing essential is lost, since the essential is eternal rather than finite. 

...For the same reason, climate change and the possible destruction of the Earth cannot be seen as an existential threat from the standpoint of religious faith. To grasp the existential threat to yourself and to future generations, you have to believe not only that life is finite but also that everything valuable -- everything that matters -- depends on finite life.

This is exactly what religious faith denies. If you have religious faith, you believe that all finite life can be terminated and yet what is truly valuable will still remain.

Now, part of what makes Hägglund's book so intriguing and important is that his critique of religious faith doesn't rest on an assumption that eternity, and the supernatural realm where eternity resides, is fantasy. Sure, this is extremely likely. But Hägglund persuasively argues that eternity/infinity simply isn't desirable.

Hopefully a couple of concrete examples will make this clearer.

Living as I do in Oregon, where much of the state is still quite wild and dangerous, every winter the local evening news will feature a story of climbers on Mt. Hood who either are lost or in serious trouble. Bad weather often makes it impossible for search teams or a helicopter to locate the climbers.

Timberline Lodge, whose name reflects the fact that it is the highest substantial structure on Mt. Hood, is where relatives and friends of the climbers congregate. 

In all the many years I've watched coverage of searches for lost climbers, I've never heard a loved one say, "It really doesn't matter to me if he (or she) lives or dies. After all, life is eternal." This shows, as Hägglund points out in his book, that what almost everybody cares about the most is living on, not an abstract belief in eternity.

But if the search team finds that the climbers have died, usually a relative is heard saying, "I'm confident that he (or she) is in a better place now." Well, not really -- because if the relative had been truly confident that life is eternal, not finite, they wouldn't have been crying before, and praying that the search will result in the rescue of their loved one.

This shows that even religious people embrace secular faith in their everyday life. And that this secular faith is at odds with their religious faith.

Hägglund shares quotes from C.S. Lewis, a devout Christian, where Lewis bemoans the death of his wife, saying that he doesn't want her to live on in heaven, he wants her to be living on with him here on Earth, and it is unbearably sad that this is impossible. 

ZuZu and me

Recently I shared a post, "Our dog likely is dying, but we had a good time today." This day, Friday, was another good day.

My wife had to go to Portland to meet her sister from Kentucky, who is visiting some relatives in Oregon. So I had the sole care of our dog, ZuZu. Given her late stage liver disease and precarious health, I do my best to always take her with me in the car. I want to spend as much time as possible with ZuZu, since probably she doesn't have much time left to live.

Knowing that her days are numbered makes me more aware that everybody's days are numbered.

You, me, every person and every animal and every other living thing on Earth. We just do our best to shunt that fact to the back of our minds, since the prospect of death is painful, given that everybody we love (which includes ourselves) is going to die one day.

After going to the pharmacy, returning some shoes, and buying some socks, I took ZuZu to the Minto Brown Dog Park. She still has enough energy to be enthused about the sights and smells of other dogs, and the humans who pat her when she runs up to them.

It was one of those Oregon days when the sun comes out, then it sprinkles for a while, then the sun returns. During a sunny spell ZuZu would walk for a while, then roll over on her back and wiggle back and forth in the grass. It's one of her favorite things to do, which includes me kneeling beside her and scratching her stomach and under her chin while she lies in the grass.

I've got tears in my ears as I write this.

I love ZuZu so much. I don't want her to die. I want to scratch her tummy in warm grass for a lot longer than I'm going to be able to. I felt an unbearable sadness at the dog park, at the same time I was feeling ever-so-grateful for another good day with ZuZu.

Such is secular faith.

I want to do everything I can to make ZuZu's remaining life as pleasant as possible, as, of course, my wife does, and her vet does. We know that while death is certain at some point for all living beings, length of life and quality of life largely depends on our caring.

It's painful to love. It's painful to care. But I wouldn't trade that pain for eternity. It would take too many words for me to explain why, and this post is long enough. I'll let Hägglund have the last words.

I am asking us to let go of a way of thinking that leads to a dead end, to recognize that the peace of eternity only resides in the grave.

Rather than try to become invulnerable, we should learn to see that vulnerability is part of the good that we seek. Thereby we can learn to see that our finitude -- and the finitude of what we love -- is not in itself a restriction.

Our bonds to finite life are not only what constrain us but also what sustain us, opening us to the world and to others.

RSSB guru identified as beneficiary of fraudulent funds

As has been evident to those of us who have been following the saga of the Singh brothers and Gurinder Singh Dhillon (the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas), the trail of money that was fraudulently siphoned out of public companies is leading right to Dhillon's pockets.

Here's a Business Today story that someone told me about today. It's short, so I've copied it in below. I couldn't resist boldfacing the parts that point to Dhillon's legal culpability in this financial mess. 

I've been wondering how long it would take until investigators in India would focus on the ultimate beneficiaries of the massive amount of money (about $332 million) this story says was diverted from Religare.

It's been widely reported that the Dhillon family used that money to invest in real estate deals that went bad, but so far the focus has been on Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, Sunil Godhwani, and others who orchestrated the fraudulent loans that ended up in shell companies controlled by Gurinder Singh Dhillon, his family, and close associates.

So it's good to see that Sheetal Talwar and his attorneys are telling SEBI, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, that the RSSB guru was the beneficiary of most of the illegally diverted $332 million, which means, almost certainly, that Dhillon also was part of the conspiracy to siphon off those funds from Religare.

Read on.

NRI film producer Sheetal Vinod Talwar has submitted to Sebi that Radha Soami Satsang chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family allegedly benefited the most from Religare's Rs 2,300 crore fund diversion. Sebi's forensic audit via probe agency MSA Probe Consulting had identified diversion worth Rs 2,315.09 crore.

Talwar's Vistaar Entertainment and Religare Enterprises were partners in India's first SEBI-registered film fund - Vistaar Religare. Earlier, in March, Talwar had approached the Economic Offences Wing of Mumbai alleging he was threatened with life after his lawyers pursued repayment of $1.25 million paid supposedly towards Dhillon's treatment abroad.

Talwar has told Sebi that even though its Religare investigation via forensic audit firm MSA concluded fund diversion and large scale irregularities and illegalities, the probe did not lift the corporate veil to disclose the ultimate beneficiaries of the diversion.

Advocates & Solicitors Kartikeya & Associates-representing Talwar-have submitted to Sebi on 29 May, 2019 that, "...the persons who have benefitted the most and/or on whose instance the said illegalities and irregularities were and/or have been committed have yet not been identified. Please note that the persons and/or the shadow promoters of REL, RFL and their other group companies is one Gurinder Singh Dhillon (GSD/Babaji) and his family".

Sebi's original investigation against alleged fund diversion at Religare Enterprises & Religare Finvest was triggered by Talwar's primary complaint to RBI (later forwarded to Sebi) dated 12 April, 2017. In his complaint, Talwar had informed RBI about alleged "irregularities and illegalities committed by the promoters and/or board of directors" of the two companies. RBI forwarded the complaint to Sebi which ordered the probe via MSA.

Talwar's complaint to Sebi has also levelled a grave charge of a serious conflict of interest among Religare's then board  members. "...the fact that the companies shared common directors to the GSD family as well as were all run by GSD followers eg. Just a quick review would point to the fact that during the diversion of funds, Vitoba, Platinum and Devera entities to which fund were diverted would reveal that Yuvraj Narain Gorwaney alias Mithu is on the board of these companies-not only is Yuvraj...the secretary of RSSB, he also sits on the board of Logos Holding along with GSD and Shabnam Dhillon. Many such associations exist between the entities named and GSD family."

Talwar is a National Film Award winning global film producer and angel investor. His first feature film 'Dharm' secured the National Film Award. It premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Talwar has produced films such as 'Rann' starring Amitabh Bachchan, 'Mausam' with Shahid Kapoor, 'Rakta Charitra' starring Surya. Among international films, he produced 'The Joneses' starring Demi Moore, the Martin Freeman starrer 'The Eichmann Show', 'Romans' starring Orlando Bloom.

Religious believers aren't happier than everybody else

Hard on the heels of a great blog post comment I shared a few days ago in a post of its own, here's another great comment that was left on that post. 

Nice! We've got a Great Comment Breeding Ground.

I heartily agree with everything "J" says below. This matches with my 35 years of going to meetings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas devotees, and talking with countless (almost) RSSB believers during that time.

As a wise RSSB representative used to say -- recall it was Roland deVries -- satsangis, meaning RSSB initiates, are just ordinary people. For sure. 

Here's J's comment. Sant Mat refers to the RSSB belief system.  Satsangs are RSSB meetings.

Hi Jen. I didn't mean to say that people in Sant Mat are unhappy, or that Sant Mat doesn't provide a relative sense of fulfillment to those who take it up. No doubt, people find meaning in Sant Mat, and right living, and meditation, and community.

These are all undeniably positive things.

But in nearly 40 years of going to satsangs of various Sant Mat groups, I haven't seen evidence that any group of satsangis are happier than people who follow other religions, or even happier than people who follow no religion.

Sant Mat makes the grandest claims for its meditation and masters, and yet we don't see sangats made up of people who exemplify truly exceptional serenity. They seem no more or less content than congregants at a Mormon worship service or a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

"Happiness" in respect to religious belief is admittedly hard to quantify.

While many people find a relative advantage in being believers in whatever path, there are many accounts of people who were ardent believers in this or that guru or religion, who lived the tenents of that path fully for decades, who felt they completely believed that their path or guru was the summit of the highest Truth, said they were fortunate to have found it, etc...and then one day, these ardent believers leave that particular faith, and say that they are much happier apart from it. And they never go back.

There are many such stories in all religions, including Sant Mat.

These former ardent believers found that their happiness wasn't genuine happiness, and that's because they ultimately discovered that their belief and devotion to their guru of path was actually slavery to an attractive but unrealistic ideal that conflicted with their deeper nature.

Ideals that conflict with our deeper beliefs always compromise our happiness.

What they took for happiness was the payoff they got from being true believers. Human nature is such that there's a huge pull to be yoked with an attractive ideal. We get a certain measure of satisfaction from fulfilling that instinct, but it's questionable whether that fulfillment is genuine happiness.

Many years ago a satsangi made an astute observation of his experience with his fellow RSSBers -- "satsangis often go around like they have this huge problem."

I concur, and would add that the typical satsang is really little more than a lament of  huge problems that Sant Mat theology puts upon its believers. Every RSSB satsang is an ode to how we are all failures but must keep trying to find a victory that no one dares speak of attaining.

Satsangis are sold on trying to realize an impossible ideal. The ideal is no doubt very attractive, wholesome, and "logical," but the ultimate unrealizability of that ideal has to create frustration.

Thoughtful criticisms of Sant Mat

Ned just left a comment on a recent post that was so thoughtful and well-written, I wanted to share his criticisms of Sant Mat right away.

Thanks, Ned. You expressed yourself beautifully. I heartily agree with the three conclusions in your comment:

I was initiated when I was a kid and hadn't had much to do with Sant Mat for a long time (decades).

I spent the last month doing an experiment, doing Surat Shabd Yoga meditation for long periods of time, reading the old literature, and so on. I also went to one of Ishwar Puri's talks. I really liked the talk and I liked him. What led to that experiment is another story.

For the most part, however, my conclusions about the Path haven't really changed. I could sum them up in three points:

(1) Creating levels of mystic experience is a block.

About 20 years ago, I had set aside all the stuff I had learned about inner planes from Sant Mat and Theosophy and started practicing Zen. I kept it real simple, just counting my breaths.

What I found surprising was that I had what I would consider my first legit spiritual experience.

And I think it was because I wasn't expecting anything. I wasn't waiting to see the Master or to fly around the astral plane. I also wasn't beating myself up for not having those experiences. The expectation and guilt go hand-in-hand.

(2) Believing in Perfect Living Masters is a form of spiritual authoritarianism.

There is an emotional and intellectual dependency that is quite damaging to a person. It is something that I still struggle with.

There are extreme examples of people being abused by gurus, but there are subtler problems. Like the belief itself that there are perfect people and you're not perfect, and no matter how hard you try you can't become perfect; the belief creates a neurosis that can show up in all sorts of weird and unhealthy ways.

The demand in Sant Mat, as with many religions, is that you need more faith. Master or God or Jesus will make you perfect if you just submit and obey. It is your selfishness and disobedience, that's the problem.

You don't become more perfect, just more dependent. This might be the oldest game in the book.

(3) Subjective experience is not proof of anything.

The atheist position is that they will not believe something unless there is empirical proof, which automatically eliminates most if not all subjective experience as a premise for belief.

This seems pretty simple and obvious, but for a person like myself who has been stooped in this kind of spiritual woo for most of my life, the idea is revolutionary. Not only does subjective experience not justify belief, it doesn't justify authority either.

Humility in spiritual and religious circles is about thinking less of yourself and more of God or Guru or whatever, but I think this is a false humility.

The scientist or secularist who reviews the facts and comes to the conclusion of what is probably true, with the understanding that their information and ability to analyze data is limited, comes to what I think is a sincere form of humility.

Which is that there is a lot more that we don't know than we do, and of what we do know is continuously up for revision. I don't know how much this has to do with Faqir Chand, but I've been wanting to say this for awhile.

Our dog likely is dying, but we had a good time today

Life is difficult. Sometimes really difficult. Like when someone you love likely is going to die soon. Our dog, ZuZu, is in the late stage of chronic liver disease.

Her vet has told my wife and I that ZuZu probably has weeks or months left to live, not years.

So the WillaMutt Strut event ZuZu and I went to today was poignant for me. (It's put on every year by the Willamette Humane Society, where my wife is a volunteer dog walker.)

Here's photos of what likely was ZuZu's last time at the event. She enjoyed herself, as did I.

I'm grateful for every moment I can spend with ZuZu. I'm also grateful for the fact that while we humans can grasp the concept of impending death, dogs can't.

Maybe it isn't eternity we long for, but quality time in this life

Is eternity really so great? I've always thought so. Well, not really for "always," since that would be the same as eternity, and I'm definitely not eternal. 

Rather, I meant for as long as I've been pondering death and the likely end of this one-and-only life we're all enjoying. 

After reading a review by James Wood in The New Yorker of a book by Martin Hägglund, "This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom," I ordered it from Amazon. 

Given that the book consists of 464 pages of quite intense philosophizing, I may not be writing blog posts about it for a while. So here's some excerpts from the provocative review. 

I've wondered about what kind of society would make the most sense in a world that had given up belief in an afterlife.

After all, if this life were considered the only life anyone would ever have, it sure seems like we humans would value the quality of this life considerably more highly than we do now.

Here's some glimpses of how Hägglund views this question. 

Once we seriously consider the consequences of life without end, the prospect is not only horrifying but meaningless (as the philosopher Bernard Williams argued years ago). An eternity based on what Louise Glick called "absence of change" would be not a rescue from anything  but an end of everything meaningful.

Hägglund puts forth his eloquent case: "Rather than making our dreams come true, it would obliterate who we are. To be invulnerable to grief is not to be consummated; it is to be deprived of the capacity to care. And to rest in peace is not to be fulfilled: It is to be dead."

...A liberal rabbi or pastor might object that Haaglund is unhelpfully hung up on eternity. Eternity is not at the heart of what people care about; they hardly ever spend time envisaging it. But Hägglund's central claim is that a good deal of what passes for religious aspiration is secular aspiration that doesn't know itself as such.

He wants to out religionists as closet secularists. When we ardently hope that the lives of people we love will go on and on, we don't really want them to be eternal. We simply want those lives to last "for a longer time." 

So his reply would probably be: Just admit that your real concerns and values are secular ones, grounded in the frailty, the finitude, and the rescue of this life. He makes a similar point in relation to Buddhism.

He is happy to welcome, as essentially secular, those popular forms of meditation and mindfulness which insist on our being "present in the moment"; but he chides as religious and deluded those doctrinal aspects of Buddhism which insist on detachment, release from anxiety, and an overcoming of worldly desire.

...But if we are to cherish this life, we have to treat what we do as an end in itself. "The real measure of value," Hägglund says, "is not how much work we have done or have to do (quantity of labor time), but how much disposable time we have to pursue and explore what matters to us (quality of free time)."

...And yet Hägglund's very vulnerability increases my regard for his project. I admire his boldness, perhaps even his recklessness. And his fundamental secularity seems right: since time is all we have, we must measure its preciousness in units of freedom. Nothing else will do. Once this glorious idea has taken hold, it is very hard to dislodge.

Hägglund offers a fulfillment of what Marx meant by "irreligious criticism," a criticism aimed at both religion and capitalism,  because both forms of life obscure what is really going on: that, as Hägglund puts it, "our own lives -- our only lives -- are  taken away from us when our time is taken from us."

We are familiar with the secular charge that religion is "life-denying." Hägglund wants to arraign capitalism for a similar asceticism. Religion, you might say enforces asceticism in the name of the spiritual; capitalism enforces asceticism in the name of the material.