You could be a fundamentalist satsangi if...

Here's another early (July 13, 2006) blog post that I came across while selecting Church of the Churchless posts to be in my next book. It rang true to me when I wrote it, and still does. Enjoy.

I enjoyed reading “Top ten signs you’re a fundamentalist Christian.” That stimulated me to jot down my own list for Satsangis, a.k.a. followers of the contemporary Sant Mat movement.

It’s a work in progress. If you're acquainted with this philosophy, feel free to add on to the list via a comment, if you like.

I need to point out that when I say “you,” a few years ago I could have said “I.” For I know whereof I speak with this list, having been a fundamentalist Satsangi myself for many years.

Now I’ve seen the light. And I like to believe that as a result I’m closer to the light.

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

(10) You have never had a profound mystical experience yourself, and you don’t know any other initiates who have had one. But you’re convinced that this is the highest mystic path.

(9) You believe that rites and rituals are useless for attaining God-realization. Yet you go to satsang every Sunday, folding your hands and saying “radha soami” when you walk in the door.

(8) You consider that engaging in pilgrimages and visits to holy places are pointless religious practices. However, the trip you took to India to spend time at the Dera was a highpoint of your spiritual life.

(7) You feel the guru’s loving presence keeping you company throughout the day. However, when you aren’t thinking about the guru or doing the practices he enjoins, you aren’t aware of him. You never wonder, “If someone is only here when I imagine him, is he real?”

(6) You look down on deluded intellectuals, Vedantists, and jnanis who believe they can think their way to God-realization. You know this isn’t possible because you read thoughts in a Sant Mat book that said just that.

(5) You feel terrible if you don’t read the label on a box of cookies and inadvertently eat some egg whites. You never give money to street people, no matter what condition they’re in, because that would be interfering with their karma.

(4) You have worked diligently for years toward merging your soul with God’s spirit, establishing a direct personal relationship with the divine. However, if an impulse or intuition comes to you that isn’t given a thumbs-up by the Sant Mat books, you’re afraid it’s a trick of the “negative power.”

(3) You are grateful that you’ve broken free of traditional religious dogma that required you, without evidence, to have faith that a dead Son of God will save your soul after you die. Yet the only difference is, now you have the same unfounded faith in a living Son of God.

(2) You are committed to expanding your circle of love, compassion, and selfless service beyond the narrow confines of sectarianism. But almost all of your friends are satsangis. And you believe that it is much more important to perform seva for the guru at a local, regional, or national satsang center than to volunteer at a nursing home.

(1) You are absolutely sure that you’re on the direct path of light and sound back to God. Except, you have never seen the light. Or heard the sound. But that doesn’t matter, because the Bible tells you so. Oops, did I write “Bible”? I meant to say “Guru.”

Comments

[Sonia]

I had no idea #5 was an actual thing with Satsangis. I’m constantly interfering with people’s karma. 😂 But what’s the difference between that and dishing out food at the local soup kitchen!?!? Strange logic.

Also, #3 is weird too because people expect “their” Master to continue looking after them after their master has passed away.

I got played. I’m still getting played. That’s what my personal wisdom tree told me this evening in a little 1:1 with the cosmos. 🙄

[Um]

IDEALITER ……!!!!

Following spiritual path, is a way of life; not something that can be added to the life one already has., something that can be done for a couple of hours a day and than to be fotgotten.

It is to be compared with entering a monastery, the like of the Cartusians.

They too, do everything normal people do outside the monastery besides for them, everything they do the whole day long is centered around their vocation.

That vocation is tested mostly during a period of 2 years, in which they together with a personal mentor, try to figure out if that vocation is genuine.

The reason is, that if those who come with ulterior motives, are allowed to stay not only harm themselves but also others and even the very welfare of the whole community.

https://www.chartreux.org/en/carthusian-way.php

[Dungeness]

@ (3) You are grateful that you’ve broken free of traditional religious dogma
@ that required you, without evidence, to have faith that a dead Son of God
@ will save your soul after you die. Yet the only difference is, now you have
@ the same unfounded faith in a living Son of God.

Ah, but the mystic does require evidence... while alive, not dead.
If the practice -- whether mindfulness, bhakti, etc -- isn't confirmed,
mystics reccomend it be jettisoned for an alternative approach.

The problem often is harboring expectations of the kind of proof
we'll experience. Were there sights and sounds that transported
us to instant bliss, or signs of the material fulfillment we yearn for,
or maybe we've been visualizing harmony with a disagreeable
partner, etc., etc. If they don't manifest, we bail.

Without exposing what's within through mindfulness, we remain
driven by desire, overwhelmed by elusive conflicted thoughts,
bullied by unrealizable benchmarks. We forget the stillness and
moments of insight the practice brings. We harken back to
those hidden agendas. We traffic in the "stuff" that keeps the
cage door locked.

[Spence Tepper]

If you've seen the light and sound, and know some folks personally who have also traversed it, does that make you any less of a fundamentalist? Not in the eyes of the blind cynic.

Do you catch yourself thinking....

"You are a fundamentalist of irrational blind faith if you don't agree with my logic and constrain all reason and rational discourse to my particular limited experience" ?

Then you are probably a blind cynic.

Do you occasionally think...

"You are a fundamentalist if you think science includes discovering anything we don't already know. If science hasn't proven it now, in the last 200 years of better science, nothing else will likely ever be proven to exist, including soul, spirit or other dimensions across time and space accessed in deep prayer and meditation. Those are just disfunctions of an unhealthy and damaged brain. "

If so, you might be a blind cynic.

Do you occasionally think

" that's just imagination or fantasy. It isn't real. "

Even though that is where all theory, inspiration and art, design and innovation including the scientific method comes from...

Then you are probably a blind cynic.

Which is ok. We need dreamers and we need cynics. We need believers and we need unbelievers.

But they need to respect the validity of each one's personal experience.

A blind cynic may have never been pulled up across the galexy in a shower of brilliant stars and the thunderous resonance of the music of the spheres. And that's ok.

And a fundamentalist might have. That's ok too.

If you can acknowledge others' different experience, of the fundamentalist and the cynic, as legitimate for them, without dismissing it, then you can also acknowledge the legitimate experience of blacks, jews, muslims, women, the disabled, the weak and poor, all as legitimate and worthy of respect.

When you dismiss anyone's experience, you lose a small part of your own humanity, since we are all part of the same creation.

[Spence Tepper]

Every writer that seeks to live from their work must publish and hope that others buy what they write.

They must appeal to people, or at least enough people, to agree with their thinking, their world view, or the fictional world they create. And not only agree but find it appealing. This informs all their work as a writer. It is their subtext, their desire and possibly their vanity. Please believe in me! Even in my fiction! And don't believe my competitors!

Of course it is all fiction.

We pick and choose what to call fiction and reality, but as far as the world view of the human mind it is all constructed. And good fiction is mostly realistic. Realistic human characters in realistic situations, with a few novel inventions to consider. Fiction that has no realism has little connection with an audience.

Every writer is trying to make converts. It's all they are doing. Even actors reciting fiction struggle to make their words and actions realistic.

So many writers and actors, it's a competitive world of writers and actors each trying to convince you to buy their brand.

And that's good. Folks have a choice what to believe in either as real or simply entertainingly realistic.

As for their own personal lives, people are looking for something symbolic and imaginary, a metaphor, to help them live. Their real life experience is too constrained to fully grasp it. The road is never clear. Folks pick a road, one in their imagination, they create it or capture it, or it captures them. And they follow it, until life confronts them with the fact that their imagined road and the world don't move in the same direction. And then they must adapt and invent another imagined road.

[Spence Tepper]

Every writer is a fundamentalist when it comes to their own works.

[Rashid]

Another point that can be added to the list:

Although you have not seen the light nor heard the sound despite rigorously practicing the two and half hour meditation daily over a considerable period of time, you do not compare notes with other Satsanghis as that is expressly prohibited.

[Old friend]

Hey Brian, I haven’t been here in a while, but I see there’s still the same type conversations as many years ago.

Can we now acknowledge these are still all opinions? Or do we consider these things people write here as facts? I mean, one of the things we criticize here about RSSB and especially GSD and satsangis is that they claim what they say are facts, when we here think they are baseless facts (ie opinions). But I see every post here doing the same. How are we better then?

So where are the facts?

Or do we claim we are just as good as RSSB and satsangis and GSD?

[manoj]

It's not hard to find facts about GSD a quick Google search, and all of the International Media outlets give full exposure in to the criminal lifestyle of the so called holy one. All hard facts. And it's about acknowledging the truth that you behold and not being manipulated by a selfish fake and fraudulent Guru and cult. No point dumbing yourself out, time to wake up to a new reality...it's a calling.