Church of the Churchless

Osho Robbins' "Crime of the Century" at a RSSB Haynes Park satsang

Following is a report Osho Robbins sent to me of what happened after he used his phone to record five minutes of audio at a meeting of Radha Soami Satsang Beas in RSSB's Haynes Park center in England.

It's long, so you'll need to click on the continuation link to read the full tale. Here's some definitions of a few words Robbins uses in his report. "Satsang" is a spiritual talk. "Baba Ji" refers to the RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. "Sevadar" is a volunteer. "Seva" means volunteer service.

What I find most interesting about this saga is how it illustrates the dangers of religious rigidity and dogmatism. The problem with Robbins using his phone to record part of a talk could have been handled smoothly in a few minutes if the Radha Soami Satsang Beas volunteers had acted like normal human beings rather than religious robots.

Instead, their fanaticism led them to believe that a rule against audio recordings was an edict from God, since the RSSB guru is believed by devotees to be God in Human Form. So RSSB volunteers (sevadars) often become irrationally fanatic about carrying out their assigned tasks.

As weird as this may sound to non-religious people, it's much as if Jesus returned to Earth and asked some devout Christians to serve him in certain ways. Is there any doubt that they'd obey with gusto, viewing this as service to God?

The downside, of course, is that since it's virtually certain God doesn't exist, bad things are done in the name of religion for purely human reasons. As you will read below, the RSSB volunteers Robbins encountered were willing to lie, cheat, and steal in the name of service to their guru.

This makes it wholly believable that other volunteer sevadars were willing to do even nastier stuff, as has been alleged by two people who claim that associates of the RSSB guru made death threats against them (see here and here). Thus I find what happened to Osho Robbins consistent with the attitude of a disturbingly large number of RSSB devotees.

Whatever I'm asked to do, if the order comes from the guru, or flows from the guru's directives, I'll do it, whether or not I have to act unethically or wrongly.

Read on...

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"Crime of the Century"

Osho Robbins caught red handed recording 5 minutes of satsang of the English speaker before the Q&A session. Charged with two offences: bringing phone into the tent and recording 5 minutes of audio. Case heard informally and further evidence fabricated to add another offence: threatening to kick a sevadar in the “nuts”.

Result: made to wait 3+ hours for his phone to be returned

Sentence: Unlimited Ban from ALL satsangs worldwide until further notice.

It’s an ordinary Friday morning at Haynes Park. It's the start of the National satsang programme. Osho Robbins is about to discover what happens when you “break the rules” at RSSB. 

It started with a crime - that Osho Robbins committed. Let's call it "The Crime of the Century".

He recorded the english speaker before Baba Ji's satsang for 5 minutes.

Well technically it was two crimes:
1. Taking the phone in to the satsang hall (many do it - but it's against the rules)
2. Recording the English speaker for 5 minutes. Not sure why this was an issue as it was not even Baba Ji’s voice that was recorded

A quick perusal of You Tube will show that  Baba Ji’s satsangs have not only been previously recorded by others but also been uploaded onto You Tube. So this was really a “non-offence” compared to the actions of those who uploaded all those audios of the satsangs.

Let's start at the beginning.

Osho Robbins arrived for the Friday satsang. He went to the back of the tent. Mobile phones are not allowed, but no big deal is made of the matter and there are no sevadars searching or even caring if anyone takes their phone in. 

There must literally be hundreds of them in the tent. Not a single person asked Osho Robbins if he had a phone on his person.

Osho Robbins had his mobile phone with him, turned into airplane mode. The purpose was to be able to stay in contact with various people at the end of the satsang.

As it happens, the English speaker was saying some interesting things, so Osho Robbins decided to press the “record” button, not knowing that all hell was about to break loose.

So pause for a moment and use a little logic.

What is so horrendous about that? He decided to record it so he could listen back to it later. How exactly is that going to be a problem for anyone else on the planet? 

Seriously, why would it be anyone’s concern? Did anyone get hurt? Is it a security risk? It's not even the voice of Baba Ji, but the speaker before the satsang, and it's for his own private listening after the satsang. By no stretch of the imagination can this be considered a major issue.

Yes, technically “the rules” were broken – but no harm was done to anyone. As you will see later, the sevadars will commit much bigger crimes as the events unfold. To name a few: 

Lying, deceit, forcing another sevadar to lie, stealing the phone and illegally keeping hold of it for approximately 5 hours.

As Osho Robbins was recording, the phone fell on the floor and a sevadar pounced on him, "Ah - you have a mobile phone”. He asked Osho Robbins to step outside the tent while he went to get “backup". 

So Osho Robbins stepped outside. What happened next was more like what you might see in a movie, than in a spiritual satsang. The sevadars seem to think it was a major crime to break the rules. Osho Robbins said "I will delete the files in front of you".

"No - give us the phone and WE will delete them, we have to make sure we delete them all."

Saying that, they snatched the phone from Osho Robbins and deleted the files. Not satisfied, they wanted to know if the files had been uploaded to the cloud.

"What cloud?" Osho Robbins asked, wondering why they are taking things so far over 5 minutes of audio recording that was not even of Baba Ji. They checked and decided it had not been uploaded, but kept hold of the phone, despite Osho Robbins asking for his phone back.

By then a more senior sevadar turned up and asked the classic question:  "Do you know who I am?" Osho Robbins replied quite honestly, "I have no idea."

Obviously the "sevadar" had delusions of grandeur, the exact opposite of what seva should be about. And he obviously had a short-term memory problem, and kept forgetting his own name, hence the question, "Do YOU perhaps know who I am?"

Osho Robbins resisted the temptation to tell him "You are the ONE" or "Best to ask Baba Ji”.

The sevadar handed the phone to the senior sevadar. For clarity, we will call this senior sevadar, sevadar #2. Remember this is the one with delusions of grandeur who keeps forgetting “Who he is”.

Osho Robbins calmly asked for his phone back.

The ego-filled sevadar #2 refused to return the phone, saying it would go to the "IT Dept" to get checked. and be returned at the end of the satsang. This was ridiculous behaviour and also illegal. There was no audio of Baba Ji so why the big drama? 

Osho Robbins explained that he was there with his cousin who also had a child with him as well as his wife. And since he did not want to waste their time, he (Osho Robbins) would leave Haynes Park immediately if that is what it would take to get his phone back.

For some reason the sevadar #2 would not agree to this reasonable request. That would have been the most reasonable way to resolve the matter.

"It's my personal property. I would like it back now please and if you want me to leave, I will leave Haynes Park immediately." said Osho Robbins, clarifying his position.

"You will get it back after the satsang." insisted the sevadar with delusions of grandeur.

"No - I want my phone back now, please" insisted Osho Robbins "and I will leave Haynes Park. It's my property and you have no legal basis to keep it or tamper with it”.

There was no raising of voices, no threats by anyone. However, Osho Robbins was simply firm in his request to be given his phone back, which was a very reasonable request, especially as he was offering to leave the site and wait outside Haynes Park. 

"I do have the right to retain your phone" replied the sevadar, "You broke the rules and recorded the satsang and now your phone will be examined”.

It is indeed unfortunate that Osho Robbins had to resort to the legal position to ask for his legal rights to be upheld, but it seemed there was no other alternative. The sevadar #2 clearly had no respect for his legal rights.

The sevadar #2 put the phone in his pocket and now the lies began.

Mindfulness meditation is much better than mystical mumbo-jumbo

I've meditated every day for about fifty years, starting in 1970 when I was in college and began studying yoga with a crazed Greek guy whose Christananda Ashram blended Christian and Hindu philosophies in a decidedly weird fashion (for details, see here). 

After giving up on the Greek yoga teacher, for the first 35 years of so I followed the meditation practice enjoined by the Indian religious organization I belonged to at the time, Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

It had a strong mystical bent, being focused on concentrating one's attention totally within the mind/brain, with the aim of detaching consciousness from this physical world and entering higher regions of supernatural reality.

All that now strikes me as highly implausible and unappealingly dualistic. 

So I've embraced a Buddhist style of Vipassana/Mindfulness meditation. Mainly I follow my breath, sometimes counting breaths, and sometimes simply being aware of my breathing and other perceptions.

I also enjoy listening to guided meditations by Sam Harris via his Waking Up iPhone app (plus Tamara Levitt's Daily Calm).

From his books, I'm aware that Harris has had considerable training in Dzogchen, a Tibetan form of Buddhism. So I assume that his Waking Up meditations reflect that philosophy to a considerable degree.

I found today's guided meditation to be insightful. Nothing special or new, really. What Harris said just appealed to me.

As is common with Buddhist meditation teachers I've listened to via the Internet, Harris started off by suggesting meditating with eyes closed, then becoming aware of the breath. After a few minutes, he said something like, "If you've been captured by thought, bring your attention back to the breath."

There's nothing wrong with thinking, of course. Obviously it's an essential part of being human. However, i agree with Harris that it's the automaticity of thought which is the problem. Or, if "problem" is too strong a word, perhaps "issue" is a better term.

Thoughts do tend to repeat. (I almost added "like a broken record," but likely many people haven't experienced a scratched record playing the same part over and over, a fairly common occurrence in my record-playing youth.) 

And those repeated thoughts do have a certain automatic quality to them. It's as if the mind is stuck in a certain pattern, based on prior experiences, where habitual thoughts spring up unbidden. That wouldn't be a problem, or issue, if the thoughts were productive.

Often, though, and maybe even usually, unbidden thoughts aren't necessary or useful. They just seem to be the mind talking to itself. And since I obviously am myself (same is true of you), this inner dialogue is kind of weird.

Just imagine if our thoughts could be amplified and broadcast to people around us. Much of the time they'd view us as stangely as passers-by react to a homeless person with mental problems who is chattering away on a street corner, making very little sense.

So today Harris suggested that if we can markedly reduce the automaticity of thought, what's left are perceptions and emotions. Meaning, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, along with the feelings that arise within us. 

This puts us into closer contact with the only reality that is known with certainty to exist: this world, this universe. We can perceive it directly, whereas there's no demonstrable evidence that supernatural realms exist anywhere but in the imagination, fantasies, and illusions of the minds of religious believers.

What about intentions, though? Aren't these necessary to perform the many actions we need to engage in each day? Brushing our teeth, going to work, cooking dinner, writing emails, and so much more. And aren't thoughts like "I've got to wash the dishes" essential for action?

Well, the way my mind works, and likely yours is similar to mine, a thoughtless intention almost always precedes an action-related thought. For example, when I write, like I am right now, an intuitive image of what I want to say comes before the words that I use to express that intention.

Thus it seems highly probable that each of us could go on a "thought diet" without losing any of the functionality of our mind/brain. While thoughts appear to be highly useful when, say, a difficult problem needs to be addressed, likely we could ditch many or most of our daily thoughts and still function just fine.

The reason being two-fold.

One, many thoughts fall into the automatic category, being repetitive habits of self-talk that serve little or no purpose. Two, often thoughts interfere with actions that we're already skilled at. This is reflected in the oft-heard sports commentary, "She's playing out of her mind."

Meaning, highly skillfully, without the distraction of unnecessary thoughts.

This is readily apparent in basketball games where the score is tied near the end of a game, and a player goes to the free throw line. When the player is loose, smiling, and joking with his teammates, it sure seems like a made free throw is more likely than when a player grits his teeth, stares fixedly at the basket, and looks like he's trying really hard. 

Life is too short to spend it unduly stressed, tense, and worried. I love to say to myself, Relax and Let go. Or, I simply relax and let go, which is even better.

Deep thoughts about a typo in my new book

I'm eager to write about a newfound typo in my recently published book, "Break Free of Dogma," for a couple of reasons. One is that this gives me another chance to plug my book, which is prominently displayed at the top of the right sidebar. 

Also, I've got some deep thoughts about the typo that I just discovered in the book. It came to light today after I gave some copies of the book to my fellow Tai Chi students.

Handing a book to Jeremy, I told him that several of the mini-chapters refer to Tai Chi, such as the last one. I turned to that page, reading aloud the mention of how our Tai Chi instructor, Warren, reacted when I wore a t-shirt with the Chinese symbol for Wu, which indicates negation or nothing.

I was shocked to see that rather than saying I wore it to my Tai Chi class on Monday and today, in the book it says boon Monday and today.

Wow. The original blog post had "on," but when I copied the post content into a Pages file, autocorrect must have changed "on" to "boon." I then proceeded to proof read the manuscript at least three times, failing to see the typo each time.

This is common in human perception.

For example, our eyes don't faithfully reflect what is out there in the world, as a mirror would. Instead, the brain actively makes predictions about what it expects to see, filling in aspects of reality in surprising ways -- such as by eliminating the blind spot with surrounding images. 

Some process in our brains interpolates the blind spot based on surrounding detail and information from the other eye, so we do not normally perceive the blind spot.

I expected to read "on, in part because I'd written the blog post that became a chapter in my book. So my brain failed to recognize the "boon" typo.

The lesson is that we can't always trust what we believe we're perceiving, because the brain often fails to show us what is really there.

A classic experiment along this line is a video of a person in a gorilla suit walking through some people passing a basketball back and forth. When an onlooker is asked to count the number of times the basketball has been passed, typically they fail to notice the "gorilla."

Expectations play a large role in perception. This is one reason I'm deeply skeptical about tales of mystical experiences. Almost always these reflect whatever religious teaching the person embraces. Muslims rarely, if ever, have a vision of Jesus, but Christians do.

Likewise, followers of a guru will claim they had a vision of him or her, not a vision of the Buddha or Krishna.

Thus almost certainly mystical visions are produced by the mind of the person having the vision, since otherwise we'd have to accept that a supernatural realm is populated with every conceivable religious entity that has appeared to devotees of the thousands of world religions.

I came to recognize the typo in my book. But most religious believers never realize that they are creating their own inaccurate images of their chosen faith. 

So just as it makes sense to have several people proofread a book, something I chose not to do, claims of a mystical vision need to be examined extremely closely and skeptically, since chances are that vision has been fashioned by a human mind, not an actual divinity.

If God is beyond thought and language, then shut up if you're religious

I'd like to rephrase in a more blunt fashion what I quoted Donald Hoffman as saying in yesterday's blog post. Here's Hoffman.

If a system of thought, religious or otherwise, offers a claim that it wants taken seriously, then we should examine it with our best method of inquiry -- the scientific method. That is taking it seriously.

Some topics -- such as God, the good, reality, and consciousness -- have been claimed to transcend the limited scope of human concepts and thus the methods of science. I have no quarrel with someone who claims this and then, being consistent, says no more about these topics.

But if one does say more, then "What can be said at all can be said clearly" and probed with the scientific method.

And here's my blunter rephrasing:

If you believe that God, or anything else supernatural, is so ineffable it's beyond thought and language, then, please, shut the fuck up and don't say anything to the rest of us about what can't be talked about.

On the other hand, if God, or anything else supernatural, can indeed be discussed in thought and language, then be prepared for some damn tough questions about what evidence you have for your belief.

Do you get it, religious believers? You can't have it both ways.

Meaning, you can't blather on about God, soul, spirit, karma, heaven, astral regions, mystical powers, or any other sort of supernatural shit if you claim that all this stuff lies beyond the domain of human concepts, thoughts, and language.

Just be silent. Keep your ineffable experience to yourself.

Because believe me, there's nothing more boring than to have someone drone on about their supposed experience of God or something else divine, then have that person respond with "It was a personal experience" when asked to provide evidence of its existence.

Guess what?

Everything anyone experiences is personal. There's no such thing as an impersonal experience. But it's possible to talk about personal experiences when what's been experienced exists in a realm of shared reality. 

For example, yesterday my wife and I went on a bike ride at Black Butte Ranch in central Oregon with my daughter and granddaughter that involved stopping for a photograph in front of Black Butte. You don't have to take my word for it. Here's a photo. (I don't like to smile much, or at all, in photos because I don't like my smile.)

But no one really knows what my experience of the bike ride that included a stop to feed carrots to horses grazing in the Big Meadown was like. Yet obviously I don't go around claiming that everyone should do what I just did, and have the same experience that I did.

So why do religious believers talk endlessly about how everyone should love Jesus, follow the teachings of Muhammed, embrace a living guru, or whatever? I have much more evidence to support my experience of Black Butte Ranch than any believer has about a supposed supernatural experience.

The difference between us is that I know that my experience was of a genuine reality, so I feel no need to try to convince others that what I experienced was real. On the other hand, religious believers like to blab on, and on, and on about things that there is no evidence for -- except in their own minds.

This is why they should shut their mouths unless they're prepared to present persuasive evidence that what they experienced is true. Please, don't bore those of us who like to exist in reality with your fantasies. Look, I'm fine with fantasies, so long as they are acknowledged as such.

That's what every book of fiction is: a fantasy of the author's mind. Ditto for every movie other than documentaries, or every piece of art that isn't a photograph. I have no problem with people sharing supposed supernatural experiences if they admit that there's no reason for anyone else to believe that the experience was of something objectively real.

But as Hoffman said, once you claim to be able to express your religious experience of a supernatural reality in words or concepts, be prepared to have skeptics like me try to tear apart your arguments. Reality is too precious to be diminished to someone's personal fantasy.

Science is our best method of knowing reality

Here's a basic fact: science is well-suited to understanding the nature of reality.

Religion, on the other hand, is a very poor way of knowing reality. So religious belief must bow down to the scientific method if a believer makes a claim about God, soul, spirit, heaven, life after death, or some other supernatural subject. 

Below are excerpts from a book that I've finished reading, "The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes." In a concluding chapter, Donald Hoffman, the author, makes some great points about the primacy of science in separating fact from fiction. 

Because we humans are prone to so many perception and thinking errors, science uses debate, arguments, and reason to distinguish flimsy dogma from solid truth. 

I especially liked how Hoffman demolishes the viewpoint that because some aspect of reality supposedly is beyond the bounds of language and concepts, beliefs about this ineffable something-or-other have to be accepted by other people. Wrong. If something is outside of language, nothing can be said about it.

Including "this is true." Meaning, if someone claims to have experienced the ineffable existence of God, they should say nothing, because there's nothing that can be said about God. 

On the other hand, if this person wants their belief to be adopted by others, then they've entered into the realm of science. Present your arguments for the existence of God. Show us your evidence for God's existence. Engage in debates with people who disagree with you. Refute arguments for the non-existence of God.

Here's the excerpts from the "Community" chapter of The Case Against Reality.

Science, like philosophy and religious practice, is a human endeavor. It is not infallible.

Each of the many attempts to demarcate, from first principles, science from pseuodscience remains, at best, controversial. What science offers is not gold-standard beliefs, but a potent method for winnowing beliefs that derives its power from the way it engages with human nature.

We are a species that argues.

Experiments show, and evolutionary theory explains, that we reason best when we argue for an idea that we already believe, or against the idea of another that we disbelieve. We did not evolve our ability to reason in order to pursue the truth. We evolved it as a tool of social persuasion. 

As a result, our reasoning is plagued with foibles, such as a bias toward information that supports what we already believe. The scientific method exploits all of this.

Each scientist argues for her idea, and against contradictory ideas of other scientists. In this argumentative context, our reason is at its sharpest: each idea garners the best support of reason and evidence its proponents can muster, and each endures the best impalement by reason and evidence its detractors can counter.

Add to this sharpening of reason the demand that ideas be precise -- mathematically precise, when possible -- and the phoenix of science arises from foibles of human nature.

Science is not a theory of reality, but a method of inquiry.

It orchestrates the better angels of our nature to promote reason, precision, productive dialog, and an appeal to evidence. It curbs our proclivity for the vague, deceptive, dogmatic, and imperious. Inquiry into any question that captures the human imagination -- including meaning, purpose, values, beauty, and spirituality -- deserves no less than the full benefit of this orchestration.

Why not deny our best chance to better understand?

...If a system of thought, religious or otherwise, offers a claim that it wants taken seriously, then we should examine it with our best method of inquiry -- the scientific method. That is taking it seriously.

Some topics -- such as God, the good, reality, and consciousness -- have been claimed to transcend the limited scope of human concepts and thus the methods of science. I have no quarrel with someone who claims this and then, being consistent, says no more about these topics.

But if one does say more, then "What can be said at all can be said clearly" and probed with the scientific method.

Can science describe who we are? I think so, in the sense that we can, by the scientific method, evolve and refine theories of who we are. But if science cannot describe who we are, then imprecise natural languages such as English certainly cannot describe who we are.

We have no better means of crafting explanations than the scientific method. An explanation that descended from on high, but could not be tested and debated, would be no explanation at all.

Let's take a break from "message board" commenting

As I've noted before, and surely will note again, I try to strike a balance in my comment moderating between keeping comments on-topic (of the blog post they're associated with) and free-floating comment conversations, which sometimes veer into "message board" sorts of frequent back-and-forth talk.

Things have gone too far in the message board direction, with an excessive amount of personal attacks, insults, and such. So if someone's comment hasn't been approved today, don't take it personally. This is just my way of bringing back an added dose of civility, respect, and relevance in comments.

I just added a new Open Thread post where comment standards are less strict. So please keep "message board" sorts of interactions there, and personal insults to a minimum. If your argument depends on calling someone else an insulting name, consider whether you even have a reasonable argument.

Open Thread 23 (free speech for comments)

Leave a comment on this post about anything you want to talk about. Remember that I'm moderating comments, so it could take a while for your comment to be published. Almost every comment submitted to an Open Thread will be approved. Personal attacks devoid of substantive content are an exception.

Though I haven't been doing too well on this, I'll try to remember to always have an Open Thread showing in the Recent Posts section in the right sidebar. If one isn't showing, I've added an Open Threads category in, naturally, the Categories section. You can always find an Open Thread that way.

So if you're a believer in some form of religion, mysticism, or spirituality, this is where you can put your "praise God," "praise Guru," or "praise _______" comments.

Reality is here and now, not there and then

If we aren't in touch with the reality of what is actually present before us, right here and now, there's little point in conjecturing about what might be, there and then.

This is my main problem with religiosity.

Like a magician, religions do their best to distract our attention from what is really going on, so they can astound us with supposed miracles: A rabbit popped out of a hat! A woman was cut in two! is similar in kind to God so loved the world he sacrificed his only begotten son! and Heaven awaits those who have faith!

Atheists like me have seen through the trickery.

We're no longer willing to play the God Game. We have no patience with those who promise salvation after death. We recognize the con job being promulgated by religious leaders who lust after money and power while hypocritically preaching worldly detachment and humility.

Today I went on a bike ride with my daughter and granddaughter at a resort in central Oregon, Black Butte Ranch. Near the end of the ride we pedaled across the Big Meadow, which is both big and a meadow. 

You won't find truth like that in any religion. 

A fenced area adjacent to the bike/pedestrian path contained a bunch of horses and their foals. Some of them came to the fence to be fed, either with grass or tastier morsels. A woman had planned ahead and brought a bag of baby carrots. She kindly gave some to my granddaughter. Which ended up in the mouth of a horse. That was real. Very real. I saw it happen. 

You won't find truth like that in any religion.

Look, I've done more than my fair share of theorizing, philosophizing, and fantasizing about what might lie beyond this physical world. It was fun, and I still enjoy dipping my toe into this sort of maybe, could be, perhaps. 

But my passion is this world, this time, this place. Hopefully those who read these words are similarly immersed in the reality of here and now. That's the treasure which keeps on giving, not supernatural dreams.

Here's a few photos of what I experienced today.

My daughter, in black, and my granddaughter, in grey. Plus a horse in light brown.

The horse enjoying a baby carrot.

A foal lying in the grass.

Two other foals either playing dead, or taking a nap in the warm summer sun. 

"The Case Against Reality" seems more right than wrong

It's rare that I find it difficult to put down a non-fiction book because I'm so eager to read the final chapters and grasp the author's concluding arguments.

Such was the case, though, with The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes, by Donald Hoffman. I hadn't planned to spend so much time reading the book this morning, but I carried on until I'd read all but a technical appendix.

Hoffman's Big Idea is this: evolution selects for fitness, not truth. If a living organism perceives reality well enough to be able to pass on its genes, that's what evolution is all about. Or at least, mostly about. In shorthand, FBT, Fitness Beats Truth.

Another acronym Hoffman uses a lot is ITP, the Interface Theory of Perception. Here's a paragraph that encapsulates key ideas in the book.

Perception is not about truth. It's about having kids. Genes that fashion perceptions that help us raise kids are genes that may win the fitness game and elbow their way into the next generation. The FBT Theorem tells us that winning genes do not code for perceiving truth.

ITP tells us that they code instead for an interface that hides the truth about objective reality and provides us with icons -- physical objects with colors, textures, shapes, motions, and smells -- that allow us to manipulate that unseen reality in just the ways we need to survive and reproduce. 

Physical objects in spacetime are simply our icons in our desktop.

This Big Idea strikes me as being more right than wrong. Which means that I agree with most of what Hoffman says in his engrossing book.

Still, a Publisher's Weekly review had some key words that reflect how I see The Case Against Reality. "Intriguing but overreaching treatise."

I'm a believer in objective reality. So I resonated with Hoffman's contention in all but the final chapter that objective reality exists. For example, he writes:

According to the FBT Theorem, if selection shapes perceptions, then perceptions guide useful behaviors rather than report objective truths about an independent world. Something exists independent of us, but that something doesn't match our perceptions. This feels difficult to understand because of our penchant to reify our interface. 

Hoffman notes that a Maserati certainly seems real. It can be seen, and touched with eyes closed. However, Hoffman says:

It proves nothing. It suggests, but does not prove, that there is something objective. But that something could be wildly different from anything you perceive. 

When you open your eyes, you interact with that unknown something and create a visual icon of a Maserati. When you close your eyes and reach out your hand, you create a tactile icon. The same is true for all the other senses.

OK, that seems reasonable.

There's an objective reality, but all sentient beings perceive it differently. We humans view reality in one fashion, while other species view it quite differently. An ant, bat, dolphin, and eagle all have their own way of looking upon the world, as would, almost certainly, aliens from a galaxy far, far away.

I certainly agree that there is no one way, or preferred way, to perceive reality. Evolution has led each species here on Earth to possess different reality interfaces, in Hoffman's language. So the icons that populate these interfaces also are going to be unique.

No two people perceive the world in exactly the same way, and certainly no two species do. Hoffman appears to be on solid ground when he says this in his Preface:

The purpose of a desktop interface is not to show you the "truth" of the computer -- where "truth," in this metaphor, refers to circuits, voltages, and layers of software.

Rather, the purpose of an interface is to hide the "truth" and to show simple graphics that help you perform useful tasks such as crafting emails and editing photos. If you had to toggle voltages to craft an email, your friends would never hear from you.

That is what evolution has done. It has endowed us with senses that hide the truth and display the simple icons we need to survive long enough to raise offspring. Space, as you perceive it when you look around, is just your desktop -- a 3D desktop. Apples, snakes, and other physical objects are simply icons in your 3D desktop.

Those icons are useful, in part, because they hide the complex truth about objective reality. Your senses have evolved to give you what you need. You may want truth, but you don't need truth. Peceiving truth would drive our species extinct. You need simple icons that show you how to act to stay alive.

Perception is not a window on objective reality. It is an interface that hides objective reality behind a veil of helpful icons.

However, Hoffman casts independently existing objective reality aside in his final chapter. I found this intellectually dubious. He spends nine chapters arguing that evolution has fashioned interfaces for determining what is useful for us, fitness-wise. So what we perceive is objective reality filtered through both a species-specific interface and our personal interface.

(A blind person, for example, has a decidedly different interface than a sighted person.)

Then, in chapter 10, Hoffman casts objective reality aside. Or at least, objective reality that is independent of conscious agents. He writes:

"But," you might object, "didn't you earlier define 'objective reality' as that which exists when no one observes? And don't conscious experiences exist only when some agent observes? Haven't you contradicted yourself when you propose conscious realism, and claim that objective reality consists of conscious agents?"

Indeed, for sake of argument, I adopted a notion of objective reality that is accepted by most physicalists. Then I used evolutionary assumptions that are also accepted by most physicalists to make the case against physicalism and its notion of objective reality.

Now that I have presented that case, I am proposing a new ontology, and with it a new notion of objective reality in which conscious agents, with their experiences and structures, are central.

Well, I think his original ontology was stronger. Somehow Hoffman ends up arguing that "Objects, shapes, space, and time reside in consciousness. If the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be annihilated." 

That's a huge argument to make in the concluding pages of a book where Hoffman argued quite differently up to that point. Understand: he isn't saying that living creatures perceive space and time from their own unique evolutionary perspective. Rather, he claims that there is no such thing as space and time absent a conscious observer.

He may be right. Perhaps the universe was just sitting there doing nothing for billions of years after the big bang, waiting for conscious observers to bring it into being.

But how did conscious observers come to exist if there was no space and time for evolution to work its magic? This strikes me as a major flaw in Hoffman's replacement ontology. His final two paragraphs sound way too New Age'y for my tastes.

What is spacetime? This book has offered you the red pill. Spacetime is your virtual reality, a headset of your own making. The objects you see are your invention. You create them with a glance and destroy them with a blink.

You have worn this headset all your life. What happens if you take it off?

That said, I still hugely enjoyed his book. Again, it seems much more right than wrong. Check out his TED talk, and I think you'll agree.

More evidence of Hindu nationalism in India

It's amusing how some commenters on a recent blog post where I shared an opinion piece about India trampling on the rights of people in Kashmir (who are mostly Muslim) are claiming that Hindu nationalism is "fake news." 

Actually, Hindu nationalism is real, and dangerous in the same way that Christian nationalism in the United States is. For more evidence, here's a New York Times story, "India Plans Big Detention Camps for Migrants. Muslims Are Afraid." Excerpts:

NEW DELHI — More than four million people in India, mostly Muslims, are at risk of being declared foreign migrants as the government pushes a hard-line Hindu nationalist agenda that has challenged the country’s pluralist traditions and aims to redefine what it means to be Indian.

The hunt for migrants is unfolding in Assam, a poor, hilly state near the borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh. Many of the people whose citizenship is now being questioned were born in India and have enjoyed all the rights of citizens, such as voting in elections.

...But the governing party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not backing down. Instead, it is vowing to bring this campaign to force people to prove they are citizens to other parts of India, part of a far-reaching Hindu nationalist program fueled by Mr. Modi’s sweeping re-election victory in May and his stratospheric popularity.

...Among Mr. Modi’s critics, events in Assam and Kashmir are Exhibits A and B in their conviction that the prime minister is using the early months of his second term to push the most forceful and divisive Hindu nationalist agenda ever attempted in India and to fundamentally reconfigure the concept of Indian identity to be synonymous with being Hindu.

Many Indians, on both sides of the political divide, see Assam and Kashmir as harbingers of the direction Mr. Modi will take this nation of 1.3 billion people in the coming years.

No lions? Then relax. Especially if you're a zebra.

I've been saying "No lions" to myself quite often the past few days.

Not because there aren't any lions in my life, because there also aren't any elephants, black holes, or starfish in my immediate vicinity, and I don't go around commenting on their absence via my inner thoughts.

Rather, recently I started reading Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, a book by Robert M. Sapolsky. First published in 1994, it's been updated regularly, with the current 3rd edition coming out in 2004.

Naturally I checked the index under "ulcers" to see if Sapolsky talks about the research that implicates H. pylori bacterial infections and non-steroidal inflammatory drugs like Aspirin and Advil in the formation of stomach ulcers. Not surprisingly, he does.

So contrary to what was thought for a long time, stress isn't the primary cause of ulcers. However, stress is a risk factor for ulcers, and can make them worse and more difficult to heal, according to the Mayo Clinic.

My interest in the book comes from my desire to worry less and enjoy life more.

I agree with my psychotherapist wife (now retired) that worrying can be productive if it leads us to recognize potential or actual problems that we can do something about.

But as Sapolsky notes early on in his book, modern life for us humans tends to be filled with stress that bears little resemblance to that felt by a zebra being pursued by a hungry lion, or to that felt by a hungry lion desperate to find food needed to survive. Instead, we often worry about things that are far removed from clear and present dangers.

That's why I've started saying "No lions" when I find myself getting worked up by thoughts or feelings that aren't connected to a genuine problem that I can do something about. 

I combine those silently-spoken words with a mental image of zebras grazing peacefully on an African savannah. Of course, I'm aware that my carefree zebra-mind can, just as with actual zebras in the wild, be jolted into full alert by an actual problem at any moment.

Which comes with being alive. A problem-free life doesn't exist. Our only choice is how to deal with problems, not whether they're going to appear.

The genius of Sapolsky's book title, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, is that it points to a truth that zebras intuitively understand, but we humans have a lot of trouble grasping. Namely, problems should only be a source of stress when they actually exist.

If there's no lion in sight, go back to grazing. If a lion appears, run. Then go back to grazing. Worrying about lions isn't going to make lions disappear.

For zebras, there's no way to guarantee a lion-free life. Similarly, there's no way any of us can guarantee a problem-free life. Something is going to go wrong before too long, guaranteed.

Cars break down. Bodies fall prey to disease. A nasty email gets inadvertently sent to the person being complained about. Our job demands too much of us. Family members are fighting. A beloved sports team has a nasty losing streak. What we care about most gets a yawn from politicians. Noisy neighbors make it impossible to sleep.

Etc. Etc. Etc. 

That's why I enjoy saying "No lions" when my mind conjures up a problem that is imaginary rather than real. I should be saving my energy for dealing with genuine problems in my life, just as zebras go back to grazing after a lion attack because they need to be able to cope with the next appearance of a lion.

Sure, it's wonderful that we humans can envision a future or past that doesn't actually exist. This enables us to plan, learn, create, and so much more. But that capacity also leaves us prone to stress, anxiety, worry. We often find it difficult to let go of a problem that has already occurred, or to stop thinking about a potential future problem.

Since I'm sharing this post on my Church of the Churchless blog, I want to add that religious beliefs can also be a non-existent lion that leads to stress. 

People worry about their afterlife even though there is no solid evidence that life after death exists. Ditto for sin, whether God is pleased with us, and a host of other sources of worry that lack any demonstrable foundation. No zebra spends its day anxiously wondering, "Am I doing the right thing?"

And neither should we, without good reason.

Life is too short to spend it in a state of concern over supernatural imaginings. Be concerned about real problems in the real world. There's no lack of them. Don't add on extra religiously-inspired worries that almost certainly are non-existent. 

RSSB volunteers punch someone in the face at Haynes Park

Hypocrisy is rampant in every religion. When love is preached from the pulpit, hate often is in the minds of believers. When humility is set forth as a virtue, egotism frequently is on actual display.

Here's an example from Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an Indian religious organization led by a guru that I belonged to for 35 years before I saw the light and deconverted.

What follows is the tale of a frequent commenter on this blog, Osho Robbins. He's a bit of an iconoclast, since he enjoys going to RSSB meetings, including those where the current RSSB guru (Gurinder Singh Dhillon) is speaking, where sometimes Robbins engages the guru in a spirited question and answer session.

But Robbins doesn't subscribe to the traditional RSSB teachings. At any rate, recently he went to the RSSB center in England, Haynes Park, where he was treated in a decidedly un-loving fashion by a bunch of RSSB volunteers, or sevadars. 

In fact, he got punched in the face by one of them, as you can read below. 

What I find interesting about Robbins' Haynes Park adventure is what it says about Radha Soami Satsang Beas. Where did these volunteers/sevadars get the idea that it was OK to act like jerks? From higher-up in the organization, of course. 

The RSSB guru has been accused of making death threats, either directly or through RSSB associates, not once, but twice (see here and here). So I guess punching someone in the face is mild, by comparison. Still, this episode makes me glad I'm no longer involved with RSSB.

Robbins alludes to the fact that devotees of the RSSB guru are absurdly attached to their seva, volunteer work.

Because the guru is considered to be God in human form by the RSSB teachings, service to the guru is viewed as service to God. So members of RSSB take great pride in being allowed to perform volunteer work, often becoming inordinately rigid and dogmatic about their assigned task.

Here's three recent comments from Osho Robbins. I've separated them by dashes. "Baba Ji" refers to the RSSB guru. "Satsang" is a spiritual talk.

BIG news coming up about Haynes Park satsang. I attended Friday and Saturday. In two days I managed to hear exactly zero minutes of Baba Ji's words.

On the Friday it was because certain sevadars took my phone and refused to return it.  I specifically said "I wish to leave Haynes Park immediately and would like my property returned to me immediately."

They said I could have it after the satsang. I explained that I am not staying, but am leaving immediately. Still they refused. So I said I would calk the police as this was theft of my phone.

I did in fact call the police exactly as promised. The police explained to them that they have no right to hold onto my phone without my permission.

Anyway, finally got my phone back at 3pm and was told that I am "banned" from Haynes Park and all satsangs. As far as I know, nobody is banned from attending public satsangs. But I guess there is always going to be a first.

Oh I forgot to mention the most important part. I did take the phone into the tent despite the notices. Guilty as charged.

I did also record about 5 minutes of the English speaker who did the satsang before the Q&A.  Because he seemed to say some interesting things. Once again, guilty as charged.

Two major crimes that gave the sevadars permission, in their mind, to keep hold of my phone despite my request to have my phone back as I wish to leave Haynes.

One sevadar was forced to tell a lie in order to keep his seva. The sevadars don't care about what is "legal". They have their own rules that are above the law. Why? Because they said so.

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

The sevadar who originally “clocked me” was asked what happened.

Now the thing was, I’d spoken to him while I was waiting for my phone and he was an okay guy. In fact he started feeling bad for taking the phone and wished he hadn’t. He was very fearful of losing his seva.

So when asked to say what had happened, I was surprised when he said  “I don’t want to say it.... “ I naturally asked “ what exactly don’t you want to say, just say it.”

He then said that I had threatened to “kick him in the nuts”.

Not a phrase I would ever use. Naturally I denied it. The sevadar then said “I would rather believe my sevadar than you”.

Of course it was just too obvious what was going on. I had seen the sevadar have a meeting with this higher up sevadar just a few minutes earlier. So he had obviously told him to tell this lie when asked if he wishes to keep his seva.

So that sevadar said it hesitatingly because he was clearly having a conflict about if he should lie in order to save his seva.

If it was me, I would have simply spoken the truth and handed the sevadar my badge and walked away with a clear conscience. To me, that would be the only course of action possible. But that’s because I would not be desperate to keep my seva.

Someone who is desperate to keep his seva can be bribed. Of course if I was desperate, I too could be bribed.

So the sevadar lied to save his seva, and that was predictable and there was a brief moment when he could break out, that would change his life. Stand for truth instead of lying.

It’s not “wrong” as such. He only did what he was programmed to do. Neither is the higher up sevadar “wrong” as he too was only doing what he was programmed to do.

Liars lie. Thieves steal. It’s the way their life has programmed them. So even in the midst of all this happening against me I am saying it was all inevitable and unavoidable. Each person is acting according to the way they are programmed including me.

So all this was all happening perfectly, despite the fact that at that moment it was not in my favour.

Or was it? It was only against me if I am desperate to step this “calamity” from happening

But it’s seriously not a calamity. I was actually quite happy watching all this unfold. It was entertaining watching how it all happens. Only if I have no agenda. In this case I have no agenda, because I don’t care in the slightest about being “banned” as such.

I can’t be hurt by banning me. The sevadar picked on the wrong guy. I just find the whole thing entertaining. Gives me something to write about.

Of course I am not going to “stay banned”. I am going to test this to see what happens next. I am going to see how far this corruption at the top goes.

Obviously the higher up sevadar has a hold on the lower down sevadar that enables him to force him to lie. So the lower sevadar chose that path because he was desperate to save his seva.

There is no free will here. Nobody can break free unless he stops caring to save his seva. The higher up sevadar is just as bound because he wants me to be banned at any cost. Each is doing whatever they are doing to get the outcome they want.

Drop the outcome and it becomes a game. That’s why I found the whole thing entertaining and laughable. Including “me”. I am also part of the entertainment. If I stop, the entertainment stops.

That too is an option. I can stay banned. I am not desperate to go to satsang. My spiritual future is not in satsang. If it was I would be begging him not to ban me.

And that is what is getting to that sevadar. He wants power over everyone. He has it over the Sevadars because they want their seva. He thinks he got “a result”. But he has no idea what that result is yet. Neither do I.

That’s the only thing that makes it worth playing. Because in reality nobody including me is doing anything here of any real significance. It’s all a divine joke that we all take our personal agenda so seriously.

As I walked away from Haynes Park, I was with my cousin. He had patiently waited two hours after satsang for me. I had made it clear to the sevadars that I had a lift with someone to come to Haynes and he has a child with him. I don’t want to put him out.

They probably thought I was lying. But I wasn’t. I have told the truth from beginning to end. I have no reason to lie. I confessed my “big sin” openly from the start. I lied about nothing.

That’s what gives this whole thing credence. I have no agenda that would make me lie. I won’t lie for any outcome because I am not desperate for any outcome.

Am I bothered about “being banned”? Not in the slightest. Just as I had no care in the world when I was banned as a speaker,

My cousin asked me if I was upset about being banned from satsang. “Upset? Do I look upset?” I am about as upset as when I was banned from being a speaker.

In fact I will be the only person who has been banned from both giving satsang and attending satsang.

This “satsang” thing clearly “has it in for me” or so it seems. I hope you all find it as entertaining as I do. Because it’s about to be upped up a notch. I don’t let sleeping dogs lie.

I like a little entertainment. Hey maybe the baba is doing exactly the same, just a thought.

Stay tuned as the next episode unfolds. This was Friday. Saturday was a whole new day with a whole new adventure. Just like every episode of batman I watched as a child ( the one with Adam playing Batman).

“ Tune in tomorrow to see what happens. Same bat-time same bat-channel”. But don’t take it literally as “tomorrow” and call me a liar when it doesn’t happen tomorrow.

Till next time,. Over and out from “The ONE”.

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

The full story is coming soon. It gets much much more interesting. Ends up in premeditated assault. Instigated by the sevadars.

And when I am saying I want to leave Haynes Park, six people grab me physically and take me where nobody can see and physically assault me by punching me in the face.

They think nobody will find out but don’t realise the power of truth. I am known by many of the old satsangis. I don’t tell lies. If I say it - it’s the truth regardless of if it works against me. And people who know me know this

I am not a violent person. Okay I did accept anami’s challenge to combat in jest . That’s about the extent of any violence in me. Whereas the sevadars in question might have a history of violence, who knows.

The matter will go all the way to the top to the guru himself. I have more than enough support to do this from satsangis who know me and my father and family.

Don’t forget, my father was one of the early uk satsangis from 1963.

-------------------------
UPDATE: New comments from Osho Robbins. "Hukam" means divine order or command.

RSSB is meant to be a spiritual organisation and is also called Science of the Soul. I for one have always seen it that way right up to this incident.

Last Sunday, before the national satsang, Babaji said to me in the Q&A that everything always happens “in hukam” and I agree.

This too is in hukam. Nothing happens outside of hukam. Not even this. It was hukam that I get punched in the face. Obviously “The ONENESS” wants to stir things up for me. The Oneness is welcome. Let’s see what unfolds.

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

There was zero resistance and zero retaliation from me during the entire two day episode. When the punching in the face incident happened I was on the way leaving Haynes Park, and my brother in law saw me leaving.

But the volunteers in question stopped me from leaving and then carried out the premeditated attack.

If anything they will be shocked at my level of nonviolence because apart from asking them to let me go, there was no other resistance from me. Six or seven guys onto one defenceless member of the sangat.

There was no reason for the attack as I was on the way out of Haynes Park. Hardly a sign of great bravery to attack a defenceless person who already wants to leave.

Of course if questioned they may lie but I can prove my position, that I was already leaving. This was a totally unprovoked attack to show me that the sevadars in question had the power to ban me. “Egos on steroids” is all I can say.

Hindu nationalism, Modi, and Kashmir

I make no claim to being an expert on either the history of India or current happenings in this vast, complicated country.

But news stories I've read about India's crackdown on Kashmir, which historically has enjoyed a large degree of independence, certainly are disturbing. As is the rise in Hindu nationalism, which bears some disturbing resemblance to the cries of fundamentalist Christians in the United States, "This is a Christian nation!" 

Which is untrue. Just as it is untrue that India is a Hindu nation.

At any rate, I just came across a Washington Post opinion piece by Kapil Komireddi, "The Kashmir crisis isn't about territory. It's about a Hindu victory over Islam." Here's how it starts out:
Download The Kashmir crisis isn’t about territory. It’s about a Hindu victory over Islam.

For two weeks, Kashmir, India’s sole Muslim-majority state, has existed in a surreal state of nonexistence. Since a presidential decree abolished the state, revoked its autonomy and partitioned it into two federally administered territories, the Internet has been shut down, cellular networks have been disabled, and even landlines went dead. Public assembly is banned, and citizens are under curfew.

A soldier has been stationed outside every house in some villages. Eight million people have been cut off from the world — and from one another. Pharmacies are running out of medicine, households are low on food, and hospitals are clogging up with injured protesters. Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, insists that all this is for the good of the Kashmiris. India’s grip on Kashmir has seldom been stronger. Its hold on Kashmiris, however, has never been more threadbare.

Modi’s sudden takeover in Kashmir is the fulfillment of a long ideological yearning to make a predominantly Muslim population surrender to his vision of a homogeneous Hindu nation. It is also a way of conveying to the rest of India — a union of dizzyingly diverse states — that no one is exempt from the Hindu-power paradise he wants to build on the subcontinent. Kashmir is both a warning and a template: Any state that deviates from this vision can be brought under Delhi’s thumb in the name of “unity.”

Obviously Modi has lots of support of India, so many people would disagree with Komireddi's view of what's going on with Kashmir. Here's a discussion of his book, which in the view of the author of this piece is correct in some regards and out the mark in other regards.

Fortis files suit to get money that reportedly went into Dhillon family pockets

Today a commenter on this blog shared a link to a Business Standard story that can only be read in its entirety by subscribers.

But since it deals with a subject that's I've written about frequently -- the financial scandal involving the Singh brothers and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas -- I'm sharing a screenshot of the abbreviated story.

Scroll down for my take on it. Rs 520 crore is about $72 million, with Rs 403 crore being about $56 million.
This action by Fortis was anticipated back in May, as discussed in a LiveMint story, though the current amount Fortis wants to recover is higher now. 

The impact on the RSSB guru and the rest of the Dhillon family is unknown at this point.

What should concern them is that theyve been named as the ultimate beneficiaries of the money that flowed in a fraudulent fashion from Fortis into shell companies, then reportedly into the pockets of the Dhillon family.

Here's a flow chart from a Business Today story that shows this.

Though Fortis has filed a civil suit, if recovering the money that went into the shell companies, then apparently to the Dhillon family, results in evidence of wrongdoing by the Dhillon family and their associates, it seems there's a decent chance of criminal charges being filed at some point.

Video of Brian Hines talking about his Break Free of Dogma book

I just uploaded a video to accompany the Amazon listing of my recently-published Break Free of Dogma book. Here's the You Tube version.

Remember: this book is a great gift for the spiritual-but-not-religious person (or people) in your life. Which naturally could include you.

 

My "Break Free of Dogma" book is live on Amazon

Today's visit to our mailbox was both exciting and a bit scary. I knew that Amazon would have delivered a print copy of my new book, Break Free of Dogma, which consists of 93 posts that I selected from the early years of this blog, 2004-06. 

But even though the cover and interior design files uploaded without a hitch, I couldn't be sure the book would look as good as I expected until I ripped open the Amazon package.

Delight! Here I am, doing the obligatory author-selfie thing.

I chose to have a painting of my mother when she was sixteen in the background, with her looking over my shoulder, because she was a huge book lover who would have enjoyed my book, being a spiritual-but-not-religious person herself.

There's both paperback and Kindle versions of the book available on Amazon. Even if you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll enjoy the posts that I selected for Break Free of Dogma. 

Each continues to speak to me, even after so many years. Because my views have changed considerably since 2004-06, I preface each churchless "sermon" with a brief comment from my current perspective.

Re-reading the posts several times in the course of fashioning the book, I was inspired.

Hopefully others will be also. As I say in the Introduction, each of the 93 short chapters is just a few pages long, so if a post isn't appealing, the next one is right around the corner.

If you read my book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon.

Osho Robbins talks with Gurinder Singh Dhillon

Osho Robbins is a frequent commenter on this blog who enjoys asking the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), Gurinder Singh Dhillon, probing questions.

Me, I'm not into gurus anymore. But I realize that many people who visit this blog are interested in what Dhillon has to say. So below is what Robbins shared in several email messages.

Since I was a member of RSSB for thirty-five years, I'm familiar with the organization's traditional teachings and books. Thus I was struck by a seeming contradiction in what Robbins says below.

On the one hand, Dhillon told Robbins that what's important is what the previous RSSB gurus said and what the scriptures say. On the other hand, Dhillon said the guru is only a guide and a teacher.

But that isn't what the traditional RSSB teachings proclaim, including the "scriptures" -- if that is taken to mean the books describing the teachings of the preceding gurus.

Those teachings say that the guru is greater than God, because the guru takes souls back to God, being God in Human Form. The radiant form of the guru (meaning, a supernatural form) guides the disciple through higher regions of reality all the way to Sach Khand, or "heaven."

So it seems to me that the current RSSB guru is trying to have it both ways.

He doesn't claim to be any sort of divine being, yet he refers people to the traditional RSSB teachings -- which DO say that the guru is divine. Even more, those teachings speak of the Perfect Living Master, Dhillon being the current occupant of that title.

I'd find Dhillon to be more believable if he simply said that the traditional teachings are wrong. Anyway, read on for the most recent interchange between Osho Robbins and the RSSB guru.

Today I went to Haynes Park. It’s a week before the national satsang. It was a great opportunity to openly discuss various points without being rushed. I had a very interesting dialogue that answers a lot of points raised by participants in the discussions at Churchless. 

 

Firstly, the notion that “He claims this and that” has to be quashed. If you all wish to validate a claim, ask the person directly, instead of conjecture. 

 

At one point, I said “but YOU say ..........” and he interrupted me. “No, it’s not what I say. I am nobody to say anything. Just see what the previous gurus said and what the scriptures say.”

 

He also said “Please, let’s be clear. I cannot erase your karmas, I cannot do anything for you. I can only guide you and the rest is up to you. The guru is only a guide and a teacher.”

 

Clearly he doesn’t claim to be a “perfect living master” with all the notions that go with that title. 

 

He is making his position clear. If anyone wants to project their beliefs and notions onto that, it’s okay as long as they realise they are making that contribution. It’s their notion, not his. 

 

He also spoke a lot about “going beyond good and bad” and that it has to be your own experience, not something you heard or read. 

 

So the conclusion from this is clear: GSD [Gurinder Singh Dhillon] claims to be a human being. His position is a guide and a teacher. He makes no other personal claims of grandiose. He claims no special powers. He doesn’t claim to be “God in Human Form”.

 

Of course anyone can project anything they choose. It’s a free world. However I am reporting what I heard first hand from the man himself. 

 

Regarding the issue of the money transactions. My view (and it’s just my view as I was not there) is that he is a human being. When did he ever say “I cannot do any wrong”?

 

Wrong and Right are human made up concepts. One society considers the same thing to be “wrong” that another society says is “right". One obvious example is “halal meat.” Sikhs specifically consider it “wrong”.

 

As a human being, if we happen to be in business, not everything is going to be above board. There is corruption inherent in all of society. Anyone who says there isn’t is living in an ideal world that doesn’t exist. 

 

We have a president with serious corruption allegations against him. Doesn’t make him an “evil” person. 

 

All this only becomes an issue if you first project the status of “perfection” onto the guru. And when he fails, he is now condemned for not being perfect. 

 

Reminds me of a conversation I had with David Lane in London long ago about Charan Singh in the video “Satguru”. 

He feels sleepy, probably jetlag, while giving darshan at Wembley. The sangat thinks “Wow, the Surat is being pulled up by the shabd”.

 

David said “He is just jet lagged and feels sleepy. I can’t lose my faith in him as I only consider him a human being”. First you project perfection onto a person then complain when he shows he is not “perfect”. Nobody is.

 

I also addressed the topic of the master coming at death

 

Me: You ask people to meditate but then take away the reward (guru coming at time of death) so now it becomes nishkaam because no reward.

 

GSD: Forget about me. The previous gurus and the scriptures say that the creator will come and take care of his souls, but will we recognise him?

 

Me: But no god can come because there is only the ONE.

 

GSD: Yes that is true, again its words. No god will come because he has already come. He is ever present. He doesn’t come and go. But at our level we cannot understand this, so scriptures and gurus use the language we understand. In reality no guru comes or goes, it’s a figure of speech.

 

Me: Kabir says, Jab hum hoti tab him nahin. So the meeting never happens. Either I am or god is, never together. No meeting

 

GSD:  Yes, that is true once you realise that it is all the play of the ONE. We don’t do anything, he is the doer. But at this level, and until we realise for ourselves, we continue to act

 

His perspective is that although the ONE is the truth, we have to start with where we are, otherwise we cannot understand.

 

Hence the reason he says “meditate” and also says the meditation is just to tire you out until you surrender. He says the meditation will not get you there, but do it without any desire for reward. Nishkaam.

 

Which is impossible to do because we always seek the reward. So it’s a method to take you beyond the ego. 

 

Osho Robbins

 

Gurinder Singh Dhillon

Calculus is cool. Spiritual, even. Infinity rocks.

Astoundingly, I'm enjoying a book about calculus, Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz. The subtitle is the reason: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe.

Hey, I'm all in on having the secrets of the universe revealed to me. Especially when the cost was a mere $16.52 to have Amazon deliver the book to my doorstep. 

I started this post with the word "astoundingly" because I was forced to take a calculus class in the first year of my Systems Science Ph.D. program studies way back when. (I completed the course work, but then gave up on being called Dr. Hines, as appealing as that prospect was.)

All I remember about the class was that I didn't like it. I passed, but I can't recall a single deep philosophical statement about the universe during that enforced dive into the equations of calculus, introductory variety.

I've only read 25 pages of Infinite Powers, yet already I'm fascinated by calculus -- because Strogatz, a Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell, is both an excellent writer and a talented expositor of this difficult subject. 

Here's a sampling in Strogatz' own words of what's intrigued me in the few pages I've perused so far. (The headlines are mine.)

Calculus is key to modern civilization.
Without calculus, we wouldn't have cell phones, computers, or microwave ovens. We wouldn't have radio. Or television. Or ultrasound for expectant mothers, or GPS for lost travelers. We wouldn't have split the atom, unraveled the human genome, or put astronauts on the moon. We might not even have the Declaration of Independence.

The universe is mathematical. 
For reasons nobody understands, the universe is deeply mathematical. Maybe God made it that way. Or maybe it's the only way a universe with us in it could be, because nonmathematical universes can't harbor life intelligent enough for us to ask the question.

In any case, it's a mysterious and marvelous fact that our universe obeys laws of nature that always turn out to be expressible in the language of calculus as sentences called differential equations. Such equations describe the difference between something right now and the same thing an instant later or between something right here and the same thing infinitesimally close by.

Calculus expresses the universe's operating system.
To put this awesome assertion another way, there seems to be something like a code to the universe, an operating system that animates everything from moment to moment and place to place. Calculus taps into this order and expresses it.

Infinity is what gives calculus its power.
Calculus succeeds by breaking complicated problems down into simpler parts. That strategy, of course, is not unique to calculus. All good problem-solvers know that hard problems become easier when they're split into chunks. The truly radical and distinctive means of calculus is that it takes this divide-and-conquer strategy to its utmost extreme -- all the way out to infinity.

Instead of cutting a big problem into a handful of bite-size pieces, it keeps cutting and cutting relentlessly until the problem has been chopped and pulverized into its tiniest conceivable parts, leaving infinitely many of them. Once that's done, it solves the original problem for all the tiny parts, which is usually a much easier task than solving the initial giant problem.

The remaining challenge at that point is to put all the tiny answers back together again. That tends to be a much harder step, but at least it's not as difficult as the original problem was.

Even the quantum world bows down to calculus. 
Admittedly, some aspects of our ever-changing world lie beyond the approximations and wishful thinking inherent in the Infinity Principle. In the subatomic realm, for example, physicists can no longer think of an electron as a classical particle following a smooth path in the same way that a planet or a cannonball does.

According to quantum mechanics, trajectories become jittery, blurry, and poorly defined at the microscopic scale, so we need to describe the behavior of electrons as probability waves instead of Newtonian trajectories. As soon as we do that, however, calculus returns triumphantly. It governs the evolution of probability waves through something called the Schrodinger equation.

It's incredible but true: Even in the subatomic realm where Newtonian physics breaks down, Newtonian calculus still works. In fact, it works spectacularly well.

Completed infinity is the original sin of calculus. 
Should we take the plunge and say that a circle truly is a polygon with infinitely many infinitesimal sides? No. We mustn't do that, mustn't yield to that temptation. Doing so would be to commit the sin of completed infinity. It would condemn us to logical hell.

...Like the biblical original sin, the original sin of calculus -- the temptation to treat a circle as an infinite polygon with infinitesimally short sides -- is very hard to resist, and for the same reason. It tempts us with the prospect of forbidden knowledge, with insights unavailable by ordinary means.

The sin of dividing by zero.
All across the world, students are taught that division by zero is forbidden... The root of the problem is infinity. Dividing by zero summons infinity in much the same way that a Ouija board supposedly summons spirits from another realm. It's risky. Don't go there.

...The transgression that dragged us into this mess was pretending that we could actually reach the limit, that we could treat infinity like an attainable number. 

...In the context of chopping a line into pieces, potential infinity would mean that the line could be cut into more and more pieces, as many as desired but still always a finite number and all of nonzero length. That's perfectly permissible and leads to no logical difficulties.

What's verboten is to imagine going all the way to a completed infinity of pieces of zero length.

That, Aristotle felt, would lead to nonsense -- as it does here, in revealing that zero times infinity can give any answer. And so he forbade the use of completed infinity in mathematics and philosophy. His edict was upheld by mathematicians for the next twenty-two hundred years.

Infinity is a dangerous temptress. 
Somewhere in the dark recesses of prehistory, somebody realized that numbers never end. And with that thought, infinity was born. It's the numerical equivalent of something deep in our psyches, in our nightmares of bottomless pits, and in our hopes for eternal life. 

Infinity lies at the heart of so many of our dreams and fears and unanswerable questions: How big is the universe? How long is forever? How powerful is God? In every branch of human thought, from religion and philosophy and science and mathematics, infinity has befuddled the world's finest minds for thousands of years.

Discrete and continuous become one. 
Consider how an old-fashioned analog clock differs from a modern-day digital/mechanical monstrosity. On the analog clock, the second hand sweeps around in a beautifully uniform motion. It depicts time as flowing. Whereas on the digital clock, the second hand jerks forward in discrete steps, thwack, thwack, thwack. It depicts time as jumping. 

Infinity can build a bridge between these two very different conceptions of time. Imagine a digital clock that advances through trillions of little clicks per second instead of one loud thwack. We would no longer be able to tell the difference between that kind of digital clock and a true analog clock. 

Likewise with movies and videos: as long as the frames flash by fast enough, say at thirty frames a second, they give the impression of seamless flow. And if there were infinitely many frames per second, the flow truly would be seamless. 

...So in everyday life, the gulf between the discrete and the continuous can often be bridged, at least to a good approximation. For many practical purposes, the discrete can stand in for the continuous, as long as we slice things thinly enough. In the ideal world of calculus, we can go one better.

Anything that's continuous can be sliced exactly (not just approximately) into infinitely many infinitesimal pieces. That's the Infinity Principle. With limits and infinity, the discrete and the continuous become one. 

Get real. Accept limits. Embrace continuous. 
From the beginning, calculus has stubbornly insisted that everything -- space and time, matter and energy, all objects that ever have been or will be -- should be regarded as continuous. Accordingly, everything can and should be quantified by real numbers.

In this idealized, imaginary world, we pretend that everything can be split finer and finer without end. The whole theory of calculus is built on that assumption. Without it, we couldn't compute limits, and without limits, calculus would come to a clanking halt.

If all we ever used are decimals with only sixty digits of precision, the number line would be pockmarked and cratered. There would be holes where pi, the square root of two, and any other numbers that need infinitely many digits after the decimal point would exist. 

Even a simple fraction such as 1/3 would be missing, because it too requires an infinite number of digits (o.333...) to pinpoint its location on the number line. If we want to think of the totality of all numbers as forming a continuous line, those numbers have to be real numbers.

They may be an approximation to reality, but they work amazingly well. Reality is too hard to model any other way. With infinite decimals, was with the rest of calculus, infinity makes everything simpler.

Three of my favorite mindfulness sayings

Last year I noted that "Mindfulness has become my meditation." That's been true for quite a few years.

For a long time, over three decades, I was a believer in a mystical form of meditation aimed at detaching one's consciousness from materiality and letting it soar into non-physical spiritual regions of reality.

Sounds good. But it was a fantasy. There's zero demonstrable evidence that supernatural domains even exist, with less than zero evidence (assuming that's possible) anyone has gained access to them. 

But this world is real.

Sure, there's valid doubts about how accurately the human brain is able to cognize physical existence, since our organs of perception, analysis, and understanding are unavoidably prone to errors. 

So we've got to deal with how the world appears to us, since there is no way of knowing what it is like from some sort of abstract outside perspective -- a topic Thomas Nagel discussed in his book "The View From Nowhere." (Which I haven't read, but plan to.)

Mindfulness meditation appeals to me because it seeks to see things as clearly as possible from within our inherent subjectivity. Every morning I listen to guided meditations via the Calm and Waking Up apps on my iPhone. Tamara Levitt does the Calm meditations, and Sam Harris the Waking Up meditations.

Recently I've also been listening to guided meditations that accompany the book "Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World." (They're on the publisher's web site.)

I recall that many years ago a comedian on Saturday Night Live who played a character called Father Guido Sarducci. One of his recurring jokes was the Five Minute University. 

Father Guido’s Five-Minute University aimed to teach students in five minutes “what the average college graduate remembers five years after he or she is out of school.”

In that spirit, here's some headlines, so to speak, of what I remember most from the three mindfulness apps/programs mentioned above. 

Calm. Tamara Levitt enjoys speaking in this fashion. Breathing in, know that you are breathing in. Breathing out, know that you are breathing out. This may sound trite, but for me it is the core of mindfulness practice. I say something similar frequently to myself.

When my mind wanders in my Tai Chi class, I tell myself, "While doing a Tai Chi form, know that you are doing a Tai Chi form." Ditto while driving my car. Or washing the dishes. Bringing mind and body into sync, attending to the same thing, is a powerful way of staying in touch with reality.

Waking Up. Sam Harris frequently asks the listener if in addition to being aware of the breath, say, there is a center to consciousness apart from that awareness. Meaning, I believe, a self or soul that stands apart from what awareness is conscious of. 

Looking for that center doesn't take long. Harris says it should last no longer than a snap of the fingers. Finding no such center, we're led to understand that an enduring unchanging self is an illusion, in line with Buddhist teachings. All there is, is a bunch of stuff happening within our consciousness.

Mindfulness book. I believe Mark Williams, a professor of psychology at the University of Oxford, and co-author of this book, narrates the guided meditations related to the book's eight main chapters.

I liked what he says in the Week Four meditation: Stillness is nourished when we allow things to be just as they are, right now, moment by moment, breath by breath.

This theme is echoed by Levitt and Harris. We aren't trying to change anything through mindfulness meditation. We aren't seeking to gain wisdom, be a better person, or grasp the secrets of the universe. We're simply trying to see things as clearly as possible.

Harris likes to speak about dropping back into the space from which awareness of this and that occurs. This is a powerful idea, because it makes it possible to be mindful of anything, really, including mindfulness itself. It's always possible to take a step back.

That isn't a distancing or denial of what we're experiencing, such as a painful emotion. Rather, I think Harris is correct when he advises that when something is bothering us, we should try to get closer to that feeling, to burn up with that feeling. 

He claims that this will allow us to get over the pain in moments, or at most, a few minutes.

Maybe.

I do agree with Harris that trying to change how we feel, as if we were a disobedient dog that needs training, is counter-productive. Better is to simply be acutely aware of how we feel, which rather counter-intuitively, helps the feeling to pass more quickly.

Dilbert on circular debating skills

I think the guy in the green shirt honed his circular debating skills by being a religious person who comments on my blog posts.

Fated to become who we are, each of us is marvelously unique

I'm fascinated by the subject of free will. Or more accurately, the lack thereof. 

As noted in countless (more or less) blog posts I've written about free will, the arguments in favor of determinism strike me as much stronger than a belief in some sort of magic free will fairy dust that, poof!, somehow makes it possible for us humans to transcend our genetics, experiences, culture, education, upbringing, and so much else that has caused us to become the person we are now.

My latest foray into this subject is Hannah Critchlow's book, "The Science of Fate: Why Your Future is More Predictable Than You Think." 

Critchlow doesn't focus much on free will, per se, but rather on specific examples of how factors outside of our control affect us.

So rather than taking free will on directly, as authors such as Sam Harris have done, she makes a case for fate by discussing how, for example, something so seemingly ethereal as love and sexual attraction can be persuasively explained by goings-on in the brain and body.

I've read almost all of the book and have been enjoying it. Here's a couple of passages from The Cooperative Brain chapter that I came across today. They provide a good overview of the book's central theme.

Namely, even though we're not really in control of who we are, what we do, and what happens to us, the astonishing complexity of the human brain assures that each of us is very much unique.

The latest neuroscience breathes new life into the concept of fate by situating it at the core of what we increasingly believe makes us who we are: our brain. It shows us that we are born with our behavioural propensities already sketched out.

Neurobiology and environment then work in tandem to to keep us inking in the lines of the sketch, finessing the detail in order to produce the full picture of our life.

In seven chapters we've been following the thread of an argument that goes something like this: the brain we are born with, the product of millennia of evolutionary forces, is subject to many species-wide characteristics but shaped by our unique genetic blueprint.

Our early years tend to cement our proclivities through considerable exposure to an environment that has typically been created by our parents, from whom we inherited those tendencies in the first place.

Given that our brains filter information on the basis of prior experience, our present and future reality is based on an avalanching amplification of what has happened before. 

We end up stuck in the version of reality that our brain has constructed, a simulation that has moulded itself to fit our expectations. Much of the time we dwell there quite happily but occasionally we feel its constraints or notice its glitches.

We are unhappy and can't shake the mood. We try to change a habit and may struggle for a while before giving up. Or we try to change somebody else's mind, which doesn't end well. We bump up against the constraints that govern our selfhood, other people's and our version of the world.

The experience can be frustrating. Misunderstanding, resentment and aggression may result. That's just human nature, you may say. We're fated to struggle with ourselves and each other, and most of the time we struggle in vain.

... During the course of researching and writing this book I've ended up convinced of something I hadn't entirely anticipated: that there's no such thing as human nature. Not really.

Yes, we share species-wide characteristics; sure, biology is deterministic at an individual level to a huge degree, but to say we are collectively this, that or the other is yet another over-simple model. It denies the glorious complexity and flexibility on offer to us as our brains, those billions of unique models of reality, encounter one another.

Our brains provide us with a fantastic paradox.

We are primed to seek out patterns in our environment; we comprehend the world by categorising, simplifying and making assumptions, based on what we have experienced before. This skill helps us to take shortcuts in information-processing, meaning we retain the phenomenal speed at which our brains can make calculations, judge situations and direct our decisions.

Yet it is precisely this architecture of the brain, its flexibility, its intricacy, its dynamism, that means every person on this planet is a true individual with the scope to exhibit such wide complexity of behaviours arising from the 100 trillion connections in their mind.

This ever-changing landscape of complex neural circuitry, which is driven to seek patterns, ironically means that attempting to categorise people by simplifying their behaviours to binary brackets is nonsensical, since the scope for variation in perceiving reality and complexity of thoughts and behaviours is so vast.

RSSB guru appears to have lied about his financial problems

A few days ago, in a blog post I shared a report of what Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas who has been accused of financial fraud and death threats, said in a talk in Petaluma, California recently.

This is part of what I was told:

A woman asked at the end of her questions, "Will you pay for your nephews 5 million" (something like that, I don't have a reference for that and I may not have heard clearly.) 

Baba Ji [the guru] said (as I heard it) "I have some money from my parents and have not taken anything else from anyone." Then he said my life is open (or something like that).

If Dhillon actually said that he has not taken any money from anyone but his parents, and I haven't seen anyone deny this who was at his Petaluma talk, then the RSSB guru lied to his devotees.

There's plenty of evidence to support this, as I shared in a comment where I replied to someone who said she believed what Dhillon said. 

Nancy, to put it bluntly, Gurinder Singh Dhillon lied at the Petaluma bhandara. He definitely has gotten money from sources other than his parents. Lots of it. Here's some links that prove me right, and the RSSB guru wrong. You're very trusting. Also, gullible.

Here's part of the truth about how Dhillon got so much money.

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2019/05/fortis-seeking-money-that-ended-up-with-the-dhillon-family.html

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2019/03/rssb-guru-owes-almost-800-million-in-fraudulent-loans.html

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2018/12/singh-brothers-get-into-fight-over-loans-to-rssb-guru-and-his-family.html

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2019/06/delhi-high-court-orders-recovery-of-money-from-rssb-guru-and-his-family.html

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2019/06/malvinder-singhs-message-to-the-rssb-guru-is-moving.html

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2018/08/bloomberg-story-shows-gurinder-singh-dhillons-shady-business-dealings.html

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2019/06/rssb-guru-identified-as-beneficiary-of-fraudulent-funds.html

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2010/12/radha-soami-satsang-beas-guru-makes-250-million.html

If anyone needs more convincing that the RSSB guru lied, read this June 11, 2019 Medical Dialogues story

New Delhi: Bringing in a third party, the Delhi High Court has directed Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family along with other 56 entities to pay the recovery amount owed by Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh (Singh Brothers) to Japanese firm Daiichi Sankyo. According to a recent media report, the court has also ordered to recover the dues from ex Religare chief Sunil Godhwani and brother Sanjay Godhwani, besides, RSSB chief and the Dhillon family including wife Shabnam Dhillon, sons Gurkirat and Gurpreet and daughter-in-law Nayan Tara Dhillon.

The order comes following Malvinder Singh compliance that he can only reimburse $500 million (Rs 3472 crore) arbitration order against them, provided he can recover the money owed to him by RSSB chief and family. Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that the long dispute between the former Fortis Healthcare Ltd promoters, Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh had turned dramatic with allegations one after the other. Elder brother  Malvinder Singh had alleged that parts of the proceeds from the stake sale in Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd were used by the spiritual head of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon to purchase real estate.

Also Read: Malvinder Singh alleges spiritual guru invested Ranbaxy stake sale proceeds to buy real estate

The court is reportedly 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 high court instead of Singh brothers and their entities to whom it is owed.

With the present order issued on June 10, the court has increased the scope of people from whom the money owed by Singh brothers to Daiichi can be recovered to honour the arbitration award.

According to a report in Business Today, Daiichi has enforced an arbitration order in Singapore that directed the Singh brothers to shell out Daiichi $500 million towards alleged non-disclosure of crucial information during the sale of Ranbaxy Laboratories to Daiichi in 2008.

The flow of money from Singh brothers to entities were owned and controlled by RSSB chief, his family and associates. RoC filings and terms sheets say in a span of four years, 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 FHL into two group entities ANR Securities Private Limited and Ranchem Private Limited.

Afterwards, 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, reports Business Today.

Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is an organization dedicated to a process of inner development under the guidance of a spiritual teacher. 

Good simple comment policy

Perusing news about an upcoming VW crossover, I noted the Motor1 comment policy. Nice. I couldn't agree more. Hope Church of the Churchless commenters feel the same way.

Comment respectfully, please

Here's some reminders to those who leave comments on Church of the Churchless posts. I've been loose on these guidelines, because I support free speech. But I'm going to be a bit stricter from now on.

-- Try to comment on the subject of a blog post. If you leave an occasional off-topic comment, that's fine. But in general, off-topic comments should go in an Open Thread post.

-- This isn't a discussion forum. I realize that some commenters like to engage in lengthy, and often repetitive, comment conversations. Try to keep them brief. When you've made your point, and someone doesn't agree with you, move on. Stop arguing. Find another subject.

-- It's boring to insult people in a comment. Don't do it. Stand up for issues, ideas, concepts, and such that you feel need discussing. But don't insult other commenters, or anyone else. Criticize what someone says or does, not the person themselves. 

-- Brief quotations in a comment are fine. However, speak in your own words, mostly. For sure, don't include lengthy quotes from a supposedly holy book or scripture. Remember: this is the Church of the Churchless, not the Churched.

-- In general, be respectful. Be thoughtful. Be reasonable. Be factual. Be open-minded. Be flexible. Understand that we're not out to change minds. My goal for this blog is to give people an opportunity to make up their own minds.

Raids of Indian authorities circle closer to RSSB guru

Following up on my post earlier today about raids by the Enforcement Directorate, which enforces economic laws and fights economic crime in India,  a new story in the Indian financial press indicates that the raids are not only on Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, but on others.

One of those others is Sunil Godhwani, a close associate of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. Dhillon had Godhwani installed as the Managing Director and then Chairman of Religare, a company once controlled by the Singh brothers, who are related to the guru.

A criminal complaint filed by Malvinder alleges that Godhwani then conspired to fraudulently funnel money from Religare into the pockets of the RSSB guru, his family, and close associates. Separately, the new board of Religare filed a complaint with the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi police.

I shared a link to that complaint in "Family of RSSB guru at risk of charges of criminal conspiracy." That possibility looks more likely in light of today's Business Standard story that somebody shared a link to in a comment. Here's the start of the story.
Download ED raids multiple locations linked to ex-Religare promoters in PMLA case | Business Standard News

The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday raided multiple premises linked to erstwhile Religare promoters, brothers Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, and others in connection with a money laundering case, agency officials said.

They said the raids were conducted at seven locations in Delhi including those connected to the Singh brothers, ex-CMD of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) Sunil Godhwani, REL executives N K Ghoshal, Hemant Dhingra after an Enforcement Case Information Case (ECIR), the police equivalent of a case, was filed by the agency.

The ECIR has been filed under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after taking cognisance of a Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) complaint filed in December last year.

REL's subsidiary Religare Finvest (RFL) had filed the complaint with the EoW, alleging fraud and misappropriation of funds to the tune ofRs740 crore and had named the Singh brothers and others.

On their part, the Singh brothers had blamed Godhwani for the troubles faced by the group.

Seemingly one of the questions Indian authorities are seeking answers to is why Godhwani funneled money to shell companies controlled at the time by members of the Dhillon family and their associates, which apparently then was used to buy real estate by the Dhillons.

See my March blog post, "RSSB insider Sunil Godhwani charged with criminal conspiracy." Here's the last paragraph of that post.

Thus it sure seems like the Dhillon family is facing some additional legal challenges. They were owners of shell companies mentioned in the Religare criminal conspiracy complaint as having participated in the fraud, and the Dhillons also were recipients of the fraudulently obtained money.

 

Singh brothers in more legal hot water. RSSB guru mentioned.

Thanks to those who have shared links to stories in the Indian financial press about new developments in the financial fraud involving Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, along with Gurinder Singh Dhillon,  the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, and the guru's close associate Sunil Godhwani.

Here's a Business Today story. They say it's a developing story, so it's short at the moment.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Thursday conducted raids at the residences of former Ranbaxy CEO Malvinder Singh and his brother Shivinder Singh. The probe agency carried out the searches in connection with a money-laundering case.

According to ED officials, the raids were conducted after a case was filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The move comes amid the charges of alleged financial irregularities against the Singh brothers and the subsequent downfall of their businesses.

NDTV has a longer story. Excerpts:

NEW DELHI: 

Malvinder Singh and his brother Shivinder Singh, ex-promoters of pharmaceutical giant Ranbaxy, were raided today by the Enforcement Directorate in a Rs. 740-crore fraud case. 

"Two places were raided in Delhi including Malvinder Singh's home," an official said. The searches were carried out as part of a case filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the official added.

The brothers have been accused by Religare Finvest of fraud and misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs. 740 crore.

In December, a criminal complaint was filed by Religare Finvest Limited with the Economic Offence Wing of the Delhi Police against the Singh brothers. A case was filed against the brothers in May.

The Indian Express had a story on a different Singh brothers issue about a week ago. Excerpt below. I've boldfaced the part about the RSSB guru and Godhwani.

Using a web of offshore companies, funds were allegedly diverted from Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL), a company listed in India, into a Jersey firm that was solely owned by Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh. REL, which earned consolidated profits of Rs 92 crore on revenues of Rs 748 crore in 2007-08 turned into a loss-making firm in subsequent years with losses mounting to Rs 1,350 crore on revenues of Rs 2,586 crore in 2017-18.

The Singh brothers had a fallout with Sunil Godhwani, who was appointed by the brothers to lead their family office after Ranbaxy sale in addition to his role in Religare (of which he had become the CEO in 2001). Godhwani quit as Chairman and Managing Director of REL in July 2016, and stepped down as whole-time director in September 2017.

Later on, the two brothers fought, blaming each other and Godhwani for fraud. Malvinder alleged that loans were given to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the spiritual guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, to buy real estate.

It seems virtually indisputable that the last sentence is true. Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family did indeed use allegedly fraudulent loans to buy large amounts of real estate holdings, which later apparently lost value.

Yesterday in a biog post I shared something Dhillon is reported to have said at a talk he gave in Petaluma, California this week.

A woman asked at the end of her questions, "Will you pay for your nephews 5 million" (something like that, I don't have a reference for that and I may not have heard clearly.) 

Baba Ji [the guru] said (as I heard it) "I have some money from my parents and have not taken anything else from anyone." Then he said my life is open (or something like that).

That statement from the guru almost certainly is false. Dhillon and his family have taken lots of money from other people. The Indian financial press has written numerous stories containing evidence to support this.