Church of the Churchless

Know when to step back, to reassess, to go in a different direction

As I make my way through Maria Konnikova's book about learning poker, "The Biggest Bluff," I keep my eye out for insights by this Ph.D. psychologist that pertain to a churchless way of life.

Below are some passages I read this morning that are pertinent to those who are wondering whether they should stick with a religion, spiritual path, or mystical teaching that no longer seems to make sense.

Konnikova speaks of the sunk cost fallacy. Basically, it means that you keep on doing something because you're invested in it. The investment could be money, but it also could be psychological, mental, emotional. 

You're reluctant to give the thing up even though if you had to do it over again, you wouldn't want that thing. But those sunk costs make you think that you need to hold on, even though this is irrational, as in the saying "Don't throw good money after bad." A Wikipedia entry on this subject offers an example:

In an everyday example, a person may purchase a ticket to a baseball game and find after several innings that they are not enjoying the game. Their options at this point are:

• • Accepting the waste of money on the ticket price and watching the remainder of the game without enjoyment; or
  • Accepting the waste of money on the ticket price and leaving to do something else.

The economist will suggest that, since the second option involves suffering in only one way (wasted money), while the first involves suffering in two (wasted money plus wasted time), option two is preferable.

In either case, the ticket-buyer has paid the price of the ticket so that part of the decision should no longer affect the future. If the ticket-buyer regrets buying the ticket, the current decision should be based on whether they want to see the game at all, regardless of the price, just as if they were to go to a free baseball game.

Many people, however, would feel obliged to stay for the rest of the game despite not really wanting to, perhaps because they feel that doing otherwise would be wasting the money they spent on the ticket.

They may feel they have passed the point of no return. Economists regard this behavior as irrational. It is inefficient because it misallocates resources by taking irrelevant information into account.

With that introduction, here's excerpts from Konnikova's book.

Why not exercise some creative thinking in what my journey is going to be?

I am too married to what it is all "supposed" to look like, and not critical enough of the fact that I simply made some decisions earlier on with incomplete information -- and now that I know more, I should change course. No one is telling me to quit poker, merely to reassess where I am.

But somehow I convince myself that swerving wouldn't be a demonstration of my adaptability and flexible thinking. Instead, it would be a hit to my reputation, a demonstration of failure, of a lack of ability.

It's the classic sunk cost fallacy in action: you keep to your course because of the resources you've already invested. 

I've written about it many times. Only it seems that when it comes down to it, I don't quite apply it to myself, right now. In my mind, sunk costs are supposed to be physical. Somehow it doesn't occur to me that they can also be intangible. 

An accurate self-reassessment would have shown that I was nowhere near ready to take on what I had planned, and that the bigger blow to my reputation might actually be proceeding with my set course. No matter.

It's easy to spot sunk costs in others. This person held on to their investment too long. That CEO didn't switch his management strategy in response to a new market environment. That company didn't recognize that their star product was going obsolete.

In yourself, it can become more difficult -- especially when you're dealing not with a concrete action but rather a lack of action.

One of the most important lessons of poker strategy, intimately connected to self-assessment, is this: sometimes, it's the hands you don't play that win you the title. We remember the hero calls. What about the hero folds? What you don't do rather than what you do -- that can be greatness.

The art of letting go can be the truly strong one. Acknowledging when you're behind rather than continuing to put good money after bad. Acknowledging when the landscape has shifted and you need to make a shift yourself as a result. 

It happens all the time in our lives. We find ourselves in an appealing situation -- and then we hold on to it for dear life, even when any objective outside observer would tell us that the appeal is long gone. We start at a promising job, only to be stymied in promotions over and over -- yet we cling to the notion that the job is great.

We embark on a promising relationship, only to find that we have less and less in common with our partner -- yet we forge ahead, refusing to admit that what seemed so right is now wrong.

Sometimes, the most difficult thing of all is to stop playing. All too often, we stay in a hand long after we should have gotten out.

...In 2018, Kaitlin Woolley and Jane Risen demonstrated that people will often actively avoid information that would help them make a more informed decision when their intuition, or inner preference, is already decided. 

They will, for example, avoid learning how many calories are in an attractive dessert, or how much they will be paid if they choose to take on a boring task instead of a more exciting one. Part of them knows that the information might mean they need to change their decision, so they choose to ignore it.

...Never feel like you have to do something just because it's expected of you -- even if you're the one who expects it of you. Know when to step back. Know when to recalibrate. Know when you need to reassess your strategy, prior plans be damned.

RSSB guru asks good question: "How do you know I'm not a fraud?"

Back in 2006 I wrote a post called "Who is the guru?" In it I said this about the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

Gurinder Singh is fond of saying, “How do you know that I’m not a fraud?” and “Maybe I just have the gift of gab.” Devotees consider statements like these to be Zen-like pointers toward his divinity. But who knows? Maybe he’s pointing toward his humanity without being able to explicitly speak of who he directly knows himself to be.

I don't know if the guru has continued to say those words. But I was reminded of them yesterday when I responded to an email sent to me by a disillusioned RSSB devotee who asked me some questions about my previous involvement with the organization and Gurinder Singh.

In part I said:

There are thousands of religions in the world. There’s no demonstrable evidence that any of them is objectively true.

 

If such evidence comes along, I’d seriously consider believing in that religion. Absent that evidence, I consider all religions to be false, including Sant Mat/RSSB. There rarely is a way to prove that something doesn’t exist, so the burden of proof rests on those who claim that something does exist. We can’t be 100% sure about anything, of course. All we can do is pursue truth and evidence as honestly as possible, recognizing it always is possible that we could be wrong.

 

...All religious leaders sound convincing, but that doesn’t mean they are speaking the truth. Every good salesperson sounds convincing. But we still need to think for ourselves to make sure the product they’re selling really is as good as they say. Same applies to people trying to sell us on a religion.

 

...Soon after Gurinder became the guru he was fond of saying things like, “How do you know I’m not a fraud?” and “How do you know whether I just have the gift of gab? (of speaking persuasively) Those are still good questions. He’s now been viewed as God in human form by his followers for thirty years. I suspect that Gurinder either actually believes he is a mystical adept, or he has had so much practice acting as if this is true he now puts on a convincing show for his followers.

 

This morning I did some additional reading in a book about a woman's pursuit of becoming expert at poker, "The Biggest Bluff" by Maria Konnikova. In her Reading Myself chapter, she has some interesting observations about understanding (or reading) the motivations of other people at a poker table that pertain to the question of who the RSSB guru really is.

God? Or a fraud?

Basically, it's complicated -- in poker or elsewhere in life -- because we humans are complex beings. Here's an initial step at understanding, or reading, as described by Konnikova.

Frank Lantz has developed a poker concept that he calls "donkey space" about the dynamic between two expert players who understand the game at a high level and are playing a heads up match -- that is, one on one. There's perfect theoretical play, which is unexploitable by any opponent, and then there's adjustment to that play based on your opponent's strategy.

...You watch them act and react over multiple situations and you try to adjust based on that behavior, to be maximally profitable against that particular person.

But now, if your opponent is good, they realize what you're doing -- and they adjust in turn. It may even be the case that they moved to this particular spot in strategy space on purpose, Lantz points out, so that they now exploit you better. They've given up equity for a little bit to then kick you once you've moved.

"I call this donkey space because a donkey is a fish, a player who is not playing perfectly," Lantz explains. "But these two people are like fighter pilots, maneuvering around each other, because in a dogfight, what you want is to be on your opponent's tail. That's where you can shoot them." He continues, "You're doing barrel rolls and triple flips, and you're constantly trying to outmaneuver this other person."

So that's one lesson from poker, which I suppose most of us already know, at least intuitively. There are layers upon layers of possible deception. 

A guru says, "How do you know I'm not a fraud?" The person hearing this has to decide what to make of those words. Is the guru being honest? Is he admitting to being a fraud without outright saying this, making it into a question rather than a statement? Or is the guru casting the responsibility onto his devotees to find the truth about himself, which could be a positive thing?

But there are more complex possibilities. The guru knows he is a fraud, so he sounds like he is admitting this, knowing that most of his devotees will refuse to believe it and rather view his words as manifesting a divine humility that shows his godliness, not his fraudness.

Here's another factor Konnikova talks about: the importance of knowing yourself if you wish to know other people.

I've been so busy focusing on reading the motivations in play for other people that I forgot to factor in myself. 

...Through careful observation, you not only have to learn how to tell the difference between your faulty intuitions and real data, but understand how to exploit what you've seen -- and how to know if you're being exploited in turn.

That last part is the one I seem to have momentarily forgotten. I've been so busy reading others that I've missed the step of stopping to read myself. Blake can only tell me what I'm giving off physically [at the poker table]. He doesn't have enough to go on to unravel my inner psychology and understand the internal tug-of-war that may be governing my actions.

...In turning my mind to tells and reads at this stage in my learning, I may have missed a crucial step: the first person you have to profile -- psychologically, not physically -- is yourself.

Great point. When it comes to gurus, why does someone want to believe in them so much? What need is being fulfilled by embracing the notion that a guru is God in human form when there is no evidence of this? Why is blind faith so attractive in the realm of religion when so much care goes into not being taken advantage of in one's worldly life?

Gurinder Singh Dhillon

 

Let everything be just as it is

Here's part of what Sam Harris said yesterday in a guided meditation on his Waking Up app that I listen to most mornings, along with a guided meditation by Tamara Levitt on my Calm iPhone app.

What would this moment be like if there truly was nothing missing, and nothing to do? Nothing to improve. Nothing to wait for.

What if this is it? Is there any sign that it is insufficient? Is there any sign of its imperfection?

Is there something you’re trying to accomplish? Simply relinquish all effort to try to improve experience in this moment.

Let everything be just as it is. 

Give up all effort. Simply notice whatever appears, grasping at nothing, pushing nothing away. 

Just realize everything is in its own place. And everything is all there is in each moment. 

Isn’t everything enough?

There’s always just consciousness and its contents as a matter of experience. 

See if you can recognize this. 

Now, one thing that came to mind is that seemingly there's a considerably difference between (1) letting everything be just as it is while I'm sitting peacefully in a chair, headphones on, listening to a guided meditation, and (2) letting everything be just as it is while, say, I'm sitting in a dentist's chair having a tooth drilled into. 

Or having some other painful, unpleasant, or disagreeable experience. 

It's unclear whether Harris meant for his words to apply to all sorts of moments, rather than just peaceful moments. I have a feeling that he did mean just that, since later in the guided meditation I recall him saying that it is important to blur the distinction between formal meditation and activities of everyday life.

And it would indeed be strange if the advice above about pushing nothing away only was relevant to pleasurable experiences where there would be no inclination to push something away.

So I believe that Harris is pointing toward something universally applicable, as difficult as it may be to envision simply noticing whatever appears without trying to grasp at something or push something away. If we've got a painful headache, doesn't it make sense to push it away with an aspirin, or whatever?

Sure it does. I don't think Harris is espousing an extreme fatalism where no effort is made to improve our condition or that of others. Rather, he seems to be talking about a view of life that, as his app puts it, involves waking up. 

The question is, waking up to what? Having listened to a lot of what Harris has to say, and having read each of his books, here's some ideas about what he's asking us to wake up to.

-- The present moment, which by definition, can't be changed. It simply is what it is.
-- The interdependence of everything in existence. Emptiness, to use a Buddhist term.
-- The passing nature of reality, notably including our own thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.
-- Our lack of free will, even though most of us consider that we possess it.
-- Our incessant habit of dividing realty into good and bad, based on our own subjectivity.
-- Our constant desire to find something new and better.
-- The lack of evidence for an enduring self. A "me" separate and distinct from experience.

I'm not saying that what I just wrote actually reflects what Harris is getting at. This is just how I look upon his words that I shared at the beginning of this post.

If you have different ideas about Harris' meaning here, leave a comment with your own viewpoint. The screenshot below is from the Waking Up web site.

My talk about the One at a RSSB National Satsang Weekend

It's a discovery! Not of buried treasure, unfortunately, but of a post I wrote for my HinesSight blog a few months before I started this Church of the Churchless blog. 

I came across a link to it while looking through early churchless posts to include in a second book of post compilations. Since there has been recent discussion about oneness on this blog, I figured it would be good to share this May 2004 post.

Since I'd written a book about Plotinus' teachings, Return to the One, it was easy for me to talk on this subject.

Not lost in translation (May 30, 2004)

This morning I gave a 45 minute talk to the 500 or so National Satsang Weekend attendees at the Science of the Soul Center here in Petaluma, California.

No, I’m not a member of a cult, no matter what my wife says (jokingly, I should emphasize, just as I fondly call her “infidel” with a smile on my face). Aside from my talks, Laurel chooses not to attend meetings of my spiritual group, for reasons I can completely sympathize with.

I look upon spirituality as a science that investigates whatever may lie beyond the physical reality with which we are familiar now. So I resonate to the “science” aspect of the Science of the Soul. But other members take much more of a religious approach, believing that the mere fact of being accepted as an initiate by the Master who heads the organization makes you a Special Soul, marked for salvation while people like my wife are doomed to a lesser quality afterlife.

Today I couldn’t resist making some remarks about this annoying attitude.

I said that scientists the world over are united in their search for the truth about materiality. A physicist doesn’t care if a colleague comes from another country, another culture, another religion, another whatever. All that matters is their common commitment to unraveling the laws of physical nature through the scientific method.

So science unites people.

Strangely, most religions and spiritual paths divide people, even though they claim to be devoted to the one God, or the one metaphysical reality. Thus, I observed, it is strange that a materialistic enterprise, science, is a unifying force on our planet, while a supposedly non-materialistic enterprise, religion, is a divisive force.

My main theme was the One.

This is the best term for God, I argued, because it most clearly reflects an almost universal tenet of mystical philosophies: beneath all the manyness without and within us lies the ineffable, formless ground of being. Call it God. Call it the One. Trace anything in creation back to its source. There is the One.

Since the One is everywhere and everything, though also separate from everywhere and everything (statements like this are what make mysticism mystical), we too are the One. But this won’t be evident to us until we get rid of all the manyness that obscures our oneness. Meditation is the scientific practice that, theoretically, brings this about.

(I say “theoretically” because the practice is darn difficult to practice, for me as for most other people).

Yet meditation needs to be supported by a person’s whole approach to life. If this is divisive, as when someone thinks they are part of a special group that has a special claim to special spiritual knowledge, that attitude isn’t going to lead this person closer to unity. I think I got this point across pretty well, though it wasn’t my main emphasis. Mostly I talked about Plotinus’s teachings concerning the One and how we are able to return to this ultimate reality.

This was the first time I’ve had a talk translated.

Because many older members of the Science of the Soul group were born in India and don’t speak English well, 45 minute talks given in English get a 15 minute translation into Hindi (or maybe Punjabi, I don’t know which). The translator jotted down five or so pages of handwritten notes while I was talking, came out on stage and sat down next to me after I was done, and proceeded to summarize what I said.

It was sort of fun to listen to the cadences of a language I can’t understand, other than a few words. There were lots of “paramatmas,” which I’m pretty sure means God, or close to it. Heaven knows how some of my slang-infested English got translated, and whether “Stoic” means much to many of the traditional Indians—who also dress traditionally.

Laurel and I love the colorful attire of the Indian women, all the saris in every color of the rainbow. And the Indian food served at lunch and dinner brought smiles to our stomachs. All in all, a pleasant multi-cultural weekend, different sorts of people coming together in pursuit of the One.

Blind belief feels good, but isn't a reliable guide to truth

Here's a nice "guest blog post" from Osho Robbins, who emailed it to me yesterday. I like what he has to say. I"m continually amazed at how people can believe crazy stuff that has no basis in fact, reason, or demonstrable evidence. 

They've just heard it from somewhere and embrace it because it feels like it could be true.

That's incredibly lazy. It also is why there are so many defenders of Trump's countless lies, so many people who feel that masks aren't effective in combating the spread of the coronavirus, so many deniers of the reality of human-caused global warming.

I came across this video.

A few things stand out. 

 

1. The caller, like many people, doesn’t have a clear understanding of meanings of words and just guesses and makes it up. 

 

2. The caller, again like many people, is just going by their feelings, but feelings, while they might seem to be important to the individual, are not a reliable path to truth. You can feel many things, it doesn’t make it the truth. I might for instance trust someone because I feel they are truthful. It doesn’t make it true, even though it might feel like it. 

 

3. When pushed to reveal “how and why” they think “it’s God” that is doing or responsible for XYZ, there is no logical answer the caller can give. 

 

4. Another huge logical fallacy that is common among believers is the appeal to authority. For example “I believe God does everything because it says so in the Sikh Granth sahib.” 

 

The truth is “so what?” 

How do you know it’s true? 

The answer again is because of trust and blind belief. 

 

This explains why so many people continue to believe everything that Gurinder Singh Dhillon [an Indian guru] says simply because he says it, regardless of how absurd the statement is. The hidden belief is “If the guru says it, it HAS to be the truth." The Sikh has a belief “if it’s written in the Granth ahib, it HAS to be the truth because the Granth sahib is the word of god.” 

 

To challenge those underlying core beliefs normally brings a robot-like response like “Everyone knows that the Granth sahib is the word of god” or yet another quote. 

 

Once you take away the “quote proof” and the “everyone knows” proof, and similar, suddenly the person realises they have no foundation. This is extremely uncomfortable, hence people avoid it at all costs. 

 

Those core beliefs are their comfort blanket and they will not let them go. Not ever. Because their whole life depends on them. 

 

Take away those beliefs and they cannot continue to live unconsciously anymore. 

 

That is why they fight for those beliefs so vehemently. 

 

The first glimpse of truth comes only when we question our core beliefs and it’s not comfortable at all. 

Dalai Lama says, "We must listen to scientists."

Hey, I can dream. It'd be great if our science-denying president, Donald Trump, and his fact-phobic Republican colleagues would pay attention to what the Dalai Lama said in the most recent issue of TIME magazine.

Oh, plus religious people who embrace prayer and faith over positive action and reason. The Dalai Lama is speaking to them also. I've boldfaced the parts of what he said that I particularly liked. 

These are timely sentiments from the Daiai Lama, since the United States is experiencing the highest levels of COVID cases since the pandemic began, and Trump, along with some clueless Republican governors, is ignoring public health experts. The Republican Governor of Georgia has even forbidden cities in that state from requiring masks be worn. Astounding, but true.

We must act as one to preserve our world

This planet is our only home. Environmental experts say that over the next few decades, global warming will reach such a level that many water resources will go dry. So ecology and combatting global warming are very important.

For example, my country, Tibet, is the ultimate source of water in Asia. Rivers including Pakistan’s Indus, India’s Ganges and Brahmaputra, China’s Yellow River, as well as the Mekong, flow from Tibet’s plateau. So we should pay more attention to the preservation of Tibetan ecology. This is not only for the interest of 6 million Tibetans but all people in this region.

In the past, when I was flying over Afghanistan, there were clear signs that what used to be lakes and streams were already dry. I feel that Tibet also may become like that soon. Regarding Tibet’s political matters, I have already retired. But regarding Tibet’s ecology and very rich culture, I’m fully committed.

We human beings have these marvelous, brilliant minds. But we are also the biggest troublemakers on the planet. Now we should utilize our brains with compassion, and a sense of concern. This is why one of my commitments is promotion of deeper human values.

From birth, we rely on others, particularly our mothers. From then, each individual’s existence entirely depends on a community, because we are a social animal. Community is the source of our happiness, so we must take care of the community. So now, in modern times, the concept of humanity is one community. East, west, north, south: everyone is interdependent.

The modern economy has no national bound­aries. Therefore, now we need a sense of oneness of all 7 billion human beings. In the past, many problems were created because of too much emphasis on our differences, such as nationalities and religions. Now, in modern times, that thinking is out of date. We should think about humanity, about the whole world.

We must listen to scientists and specialists. Their voices and knowledge are very important. And religious people should pay more attention to scientists rather than just pray, pray, pray.

In the ancient Nalanda Buddhist tradition, which we Tibetans follow, everything is investigated and not accepted by faith alone. If through reasoning we find some contradiction, even in Buddha’s own words, then we have the right to reject them. From childhood, I was always engaged in a lot of debate. Our thinking was based not in faith but reasoning.

Buddha himself was not born in a palace but under a tree. He attained enlightenment under a Bodhi tree. When he passed, it was under a tree. One of the rules during our monsoon retreat is that we should not cut down anything green. So this shows that Buddha himself paid attention to green issues.

Hours, minutes and seconds: time never stands still. We also are part of that nature. The past is important, but already past. The future is still in our hands, so we must think about ecology at the global level.

Do you think this person likes me? Hard to tell.

It's sometimes said that love can masquerade as hate. If so, whoever wrote this comment on one of my blog posts really loves me. Oh, so sweet. Makes my day. (But I decided not to publish the comment, since it goes against the blog's commenting guidelines.)

Shame poor Brian defending his pathetic flock of denial driven derelict delinquency. You are the miserable little coward you dumb little asshole creep. No wonder your blog site has steadily degenerated into a pathetic little ass wipe between your godforsaken psychophant collection of irrelevant disgruntled groupie goons, and anyone who has the guts and temerity to speak outside of your narrow little gutless narrative of insidious and unscrupulous cowardice, has either left of their own accord or have been silenced by your gutless little megalomaniac tendency that you feign in your attempt to promote your lousy miserable useless inadequacy as the pathetic irrelevant egocentric punk you are behind your veil of vile arrogance. You're a lousy piece of insignificant trash and those with some inherent insight know it, the pity is you don't.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon says we already are One

Here's a message that Osho Robbins sent me. He said it'd be fine to share it as a blog post. Since I wrote a book called Return to the One, naturally I'm interested in notions of the One -- which appeal to me more than dualistic religious teachings.

Hi Brian

Finally a Q&A session that makes it clear - there is no journey - we are already ONE.

4 mins 30 secs in there is a 2.5 minute clear exposition in which Gurinder Singh Dhillon says:

 

1. We feel separated from the father - but the separation is not there.

2. We are working towards a certain understanding (of oneness) / experience.

3. It's not about "working towards something." 

4. We dont have to go anywhere - we dont have to do anything.

5. We just need to experience it (oneness) within ourself.

6. So we are not actually separate.

7. We have created that separation (i.e. a perception ONLY) when we see ourselves as the physical body. 

8. The moment you see yourself as the SOUL (i.e. ONE) then you will never see yourself as separated.

9. We are as separated from the lord as a ray of light is separated from the sun - we are separated from the ocean of the lord as much as a drop of water is separated from the ocean.

10. So that is more in our MINDSET - we need just to FEEL that divine essence within ourself, and that will take care of this question of "separation" and "wanting to go back" or "achieving something." We are (already) there.

11. When he gave us human birth - we are there.

12. We come into life seeking to understand what it is to be human - the moment we learn what it is to be human - the merger will take place automatically.

 

However, how does repeating 5 holy words get us to a greater understanding? Greater understanding can come by contemplating on the nature of ONENESS and time/space and the meaning of eternal, which is exactly what the Japji of Guru Nanak explains.

 

Japji then defines the exact meaning of TRUE / REAL.

 

Aad Sach, jugaad Sach, hai bhi sach, nanak hosee bhi sach

translation: TRUE in the beginning, true, TRUE throughout all time,

TRUE now, TRUE forever and eternally.

 

All it's saying is: the ONE is beyond all time and space. (eternal)

and the JAP at the end means : think / contemplate

 

If you do this, it will dawn on you that YOU are not eternal, and that YOU will die (the YOU means the body) and that there is something (call it God or the ONE) that is the opposite to you - it does NOT die nor is born because it is outside of time.

 

If you DO this - i.e. contemplate - it's quite possible that you will UNDERSTAND the nature of us versus ETERNAL, and that we are not real - only the eternal is real.

 

Now that's not really a God - it's just a contrast between us (who die) and ETERNAL. The gurbani then says that eternal is your TRUE nature because it cannot be anything else (because all else is untrue). Only the TRUE exists - the rest (bodies) is MAYA (illusion) and MAYA is defined as everything that is NOT eternal.

 

Now that is just a simple true statement that cannot be refuted. It's made of definitions - not beliefs.

 

Once you accept these definitions - the rest all falls into place, nothing to argue over. 

 

You cannot say "I don't believe in the ONE" because it doesn't require belief. It is a definition. That which is beyond time and space is called the ONE by definition.

 

You cannot argue with a definition. 

 

So I can understand that contemplating on this can lead to a deeper understanding and then you can get insights. But simply repeating the scripture or repeating 5 holy names cannot get anywhere.

 

The gurbani even has a verse that says "Ram Ram sab koi kahe" - everyone says "god, god" by saying that he doesn't manifest. Yet still the religious person follows these rituals of repeating some words hoping for a miracle. This is the very thing the gurbani is preaching against. 

 

CONCLUSION

Gurinder Singh Dhillon is clearly saying that ONENESS is the reality and we have to realise it. There is nothing to do or attain.

 

It's not an attainment - but just a realization of what already IS the case. A realisation that this ME is a false identification with the body and that my true identity is the ONE which means there is no individual - no separation, only ONE.

 

That is what the gurbani says about dropping the haumi (ego) or sense of "I")

 

This notion that you are already there does not fit in with the RSSB path of effort and trying to achieve and intense meditation.

 

This is more a "drop all the doing" and just realise you are not the body. It's a deeper understanding of the nature of eternity. 

 

Anything that enhances the sense of a ME doing something (meditation or seva) is part of the delusion that keeps me stuck in maya and identified with a separate self so cannot possibly help in the realisation of the oneness.

 

A person sitting down and meditating is obviously trying to attain something, so he obviously believes he is separate and has to meditate to merge.

 

Yet GSD is saying clearly that he is already the ONE. So the old teachings have to be dropped.

Youthful vitality is mine now that I have the not-so-secret Five Rites

The cosmos must have a wonderful message for me. Or so I like to believe. Consider this chain of events, each of which appears completely normal, but which taken together leave me with the key to an ancient Tibetan practice of longevity.

Cosmic message #1: I notice a book mentioned in a recent issue of New Scientist, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor. Amazon offers next day delivery, so I get the book rapidly.

Cosmic message #2: After a few days of reading Breath, and trying out some of the initial breathing exercises, I arrive at the "Exhale" chapter. There i learn about a booklet written by Peter Kelder in 1939 that supposedly was based on esoteric stretches called the Five Tibetan Rites. 

Nestor is properly skeptical about Kelder's claim that he learned the Five Rites from a Colonel Bradford (not his real name) who uncovered them in a Tibetan monastery. Nestor writes:

Kelder described these techniques in a slim booklet titled The Eye of Revelation, published in 1939. Few people bothered to read it; fewer believed it. Kelder's yarn was likely fabricated, or at minimum grossly exaggerated.

However, the lung-expanding stretches he described are rooted in actual exercises that date back to 500 BCE. Tibetans had used these methods for millennia to improve physical fitness, mental health, cardiovascular function, and, of course, extend life.

Cosmic message #3: The universe delivers the Five Rites to my doorstep! All I had to do was revisit Amazon, search for "Peter Kelder Five Rites," pay $9.99, and behold, a copy of Ancient Secret of the Fountain of Youth is mine. It even has a foreword by Bernie Siegal, M.D. and testimonials from pleased readers. 

Being 71, I like this one:

"I not only feel younger, but am told by people who know my age (seventy-three) that I look twenty years younger. My doctor, who is fifty-eight, complained that although he jogs fifteen to twenty miles per week, I look younger than he does. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to halt the aging process."
       -- Jack Smithson, Grass Valley, CA

Me, Me, Me! -- I want to halt the aging process! (As an aside, I had a girlfriend in high school who ended up going to a private school in Grass Valley; clearly this is another sign from the cosmos that this book will transform my life.)

This morning I tried out the first four stretches/Tibetan Rites. I could do the first three without much trouble. The fourth is tough. The fifth looks part of the Sun Salutation that I've been doing as part of my yoga routine for many years.

Kelder's book describes the Five Rites in just a few pages. They're also many places on the internet, such as this HealthLine page. And naturally there's You Tube videos. The one below has amassed 2,362,000 views.

The woman demonstrating the Five Rites is easy on the eyes, so I'll be studying her form closely as I try to master the stretches as well as my senior citizen body allows. (Note that you have to watch the video on You Tube, so click on the link that appears after the play arrow is pressed. The ads are annoying, but can be skipped after a few seconds.)

Flow is key to poker, and also to life

I'm reading a fascinating book about poker, "The Biggest Bluff." The author, Maria Konnikova, has a Ph.D. in psychology from Princeton after graduating from Harvard.

So she's obviously smart. But she knew nothing about poker until she decided to learn the game under the guidance of Erik Seidel, a poker champion with tens of millions of dollars in earnings.

That would make for interesting reading all by itself. What makes this book much more intriguing is how Konnikova's background in behavioral science enables her to discover important life lessons as she starts to play poker with the goal of entering the World Series of Poker in just a year's time.

Here's excerpts from the Texting Your Way Out of Millions chapter that I read this morning. Having practiced Tai Chi for sixteen years, with about a dozen years of hard style (karate) martial arts experience before that, I can relate to what Chewy says below. Chewy got his nickname by always having a stack of chewy bars on the table next to him when he played poker. 

This is the first time I am seeing him in person, and what I notice right away isn't the beard or the hair or the washed-out sweats. It's the poise with which he carries himself at the table. His posture is perfect. Both hands rest lightly on the felt, long fingers perfectly quiet, resisting the rustle of chips or flip of cards.

His gaze is even and intense, absorbing the whole of the room. He's the embodiment of focus. When I glance at him two hours later, the only thing that has changed is the size of the stack of chips in front of him. It has tripled.

...The image of Chewy sitting, Zen-like, amid the clinking chips and flashing phones and constant call of "Drinks, beverages" from the cocktail waitresses walking around the tables doesn't leave me. I ask him if we could meet and talk about his approach to poker. I'm hoping some of that unruffled poise may transfer by osmosis.

He agrees, and I soon find myself in a nondescript Starbucks, doing my best to get to the heart of his aura. Is that intensity of focus a conscious decision or a sort of by-product of his personality? Is it natural or learned, cultivated or coming easily?

I'm not surprised to hear that there's nothing easy about Chewy's ability to summon what seems like infinite focus. Yoga is just the beginning of his practice -- and, he says, it's not quite enough. 

He is also a kung fu and tai chi practitioner.

"The element of flow that yoga does, typically through vinyasa, is different in kung fu. It's more approached in kind of a tai chi qigong series. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that." I have no idea what tai chi qigong is, but it seems natural that military discipline would hold part of the answer.

"It's really simple," he explains. "Tai chi just means energy movement, and qigong means energy pulsation. It's just mostly standing form, just movements. The idea is, you're letting your body freely flow in such a way that each movement is determined by the previous movement. So it can be an endless flow, continuous movement where the functionalities maintain."

Each movement is determined by the prior: there is no preset plan; just a way of constantly reacting to the moment. Of course, that approach necessitates focused attention. An Edward follows the plan. A Chewy follows the flow.

And flow is how he sees the entirety of the game.

"There is a flow to poker, to the way the events unfold," he says. "I sort of look at it in a macro sense similar to tai chi. It's all about the movement of energy. Take even simple boxing. If I jab, jab, jab, jab, jab, jab and do no blocking, I"m going to get taken out. Someone's going to kick me or something. You have to be tactful in your movements, strike when it's right to strike, block when it's right to block, move when it's right to move."

And to do that, it's not enough to just watch your own energy. You have to keep track of the entire table. The energy flows between players.

"Everything in poker is always some sort of flow of energy, where whoever can apply the right amount of pressure and allow the right amount of retreat will win. If you find that balance, it's really nice. That's what will allow for success," Chewy says.

The idea seems solid, to be sure. But how to attain it in practice? Chewy, it turns out, also has an incredibly Zen attitude toward losing. Like Dan Harrington, he firmly believes that losing is essential to learning how to win -- but the atttitude toward loss is a very different one.

Where Dan views it as a way of teaching yourself strategic lessons and analyzing your game, finding your mistakes and plugging your leaks, Chewy sees it in more cosmic terms. When he loses, he sees the loss as part of a larger pattern.

"Maybe in the big picture of life, beyond what we can see immediately in this moment, we weren't meant to win that hand because some other stream of events had to transpire for us to be successful," he says. It's the same idea of flow, of one event causing another in a seamless succession of ripples whose pattern you have no way of predicting in advance.

Philosophically, it's a powerful way of viewing life. ("Poker is exactly like life, but with instant karma," Chewy remarks.)

One death is unbearably sad -- 132,218 is beyond imagining

How the United States has managed, and mismanaged, our Covid crisis response occupies a lot of attention. Just about every conversation includes some variation of "How are you coping?"

It's the most frequent topic on cable TV. Also, local television news.

Yet I worry that we're ignoring what to me is a vital thing to focus on: the infinite treasure that is life. Which has a flip side: the unbearable sadness of death.

Naturally I look upon this from my own perspective. A 71 year old man. An atheist. Someone who doesn't like the idea of his own inevitable death and has felt the primal fear of non-existence. 

But even if you're a young religious believer who is comfortable with dying, I believe we could agree on this. The life each of us is living now is infinitely precious, because it will never come again.

Each moment is a unique one-of-a-kind. It won't ever recur. Once gone, that's it.

For me, human life as a whole has the same quality. I don't believe in life after death. I don't believe in reincarnation. I don't believe in heaven or hell.

What I believe with great confidence is that each of us needs to pay rapt attention to our current life experience, since there is no guarantee that after our last breath we will ever have even a single second of conscious awareness.

From this point of view every death is unbearably sad. It represents a snuffing out of a person's loving and living; their thoughts and emotions; their hopes and fears; their memories and hopes.

I don't see any way to balance the rich plentitude of earthly existence with the stark nothingness of death. The two don't belong in the same equation. There is no common denominator that connects life and death. They inhabit different dimensions of reality.

Still, we all have experienced death. Not our own, obviously. That of others. Friends, loved ones, relatives, strangers. Death surrounds us, though it remains a mystery that no one in the long history of humanity can say, "I've been there and done that."

Near-death experiences are just that, near.

Thus when I hear glib talk from national leaders like President Trump and Vice-President Pence about how even one Covid death is too many, but we should feel grateful that only 132,218 people have died from Covid so far, rather than the two million that supposedly could have died, I want to scream at the TV.

You fucking idiots! You say that one death is too many but you're OK with 132,218. That's insane!

I fear that as the weeks and months go on with the spread of the Covid virus in the United States continuing virtually or entirely unabated, we Americans are getting used to hundreds of people dying every day (the past few days it's been almost a thousand).

I don't ever want to get used to anyone dying needlessly, much less hundreds or thousands. Yes, I realize death comes to everyone, and thousands of people die every day from all causes in the United States. 

However, there's something unique about Covid deaths, since they are largely preventable, and we're not preventing them -- unlike many other advanced nations that have gotten their death rates much below ours.

Every day the Oregon Health Authority sends out an email message with the most recent case and death count for my state. They give a bit of humanizing detail to the deaths. Here's the deaths reported today.

Oregon’s 221^st COVID-19 death is an 85-year-old woman in Benton County who tested positive on May 31 and died on June 28, at her residence. She had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 222^nd COVID-19 death is a 55-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on June 22 and died on June 28, at his residence. He had underlying medical conditions.

Oregon’s 223^rd COVID-19 death is a 91-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on June 18 and died on July 5, at her residence. She had underlying medical conditions.

Oregon’s 224^th COVID-19 death is a 36-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on June 3 and died on July 7, at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center. He had underlying medical conditions.

"Underlying conditions." But they were alive with their underlying conditions before the Covid virus infected them. Each was a living, breathing person. Until they weren't. 

Each of these deaths is sad. I don't want to rank order them by their degree of sadness. Still, when I see a 36-year-old person die from Covid, I can't help but feel more of a sense of loss than with the 91-year-old just above him in the list.

One day, hopefully, the Covid crisis will be behind us.

Hopefully we'll be left with an increased sense of compassion for our fellow human beings, and a vow to do our best to never again let a pandemic run roughshod over our country. Or to elect leaders who allow this to happen.

May I accept reality as it is (if only Trump would)

For quite a while I've enjoyed a loving-kindness form of meditation where I contemplate these words, repeated twice more with "May you..." and "May all...."

May I be happy.
May I be safe.
May I be healthy.
May I be at peace.

Lately, though, I've been experimenting with more of a catchall phrase.

May I accept reality as it is.

Perhaps this sentiment has become more attractive to me after three and a half years of suffering through the presidency of Donald Trump, who lies incessantly and wrongly believes that reality is something that can be bent to fit his own desires.

Like, to be re-elected. So Trump has taken to claiming that everything is going fine with the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, ignoring the inconvenient truth that cases have skyrocketed after states began reopening too soon.

But leaving Trump aside -- which is what American voters need to do in the November election -- there's still a lot to like about "May I accept reality as it is."

In a sense, it is a shortcut way of saying much the same thing as "May I be happy; May I be safe; May I be healthy; May I be at peace."

Most obviously, happiness and peace of mind have a lot to do with accepting reality as it is, rather than as we would like it to be. If there is no difference, or at least a minimal difference, between what is actually happening with our life and what we want to happen, then happiness and peace of mind are more likely to be ours.

When it comes to being safe and healthy, these appear to be more objective than happiness and peace of mind. So whether or not I accept the reality of how safe and how healthy I am seemingly wouldn't affect the actuality of my safety and health.

Even so, it makes sense that being firmly in touch with the reality of my current safety and health increases the chance that I'll be able to maintain or improve how safe and healthy I am. For example, if I haven't checked to see whether a smoke detector is working, my safety is at risk. Ditto if I'm unaware of my blood pressure and cholesterol level.

So on the whole I'm becoming a fan of May I accept reality as it is. Sure, I can quibble with myself about "as it is," since apart from the rigorous methods of science, reality appears differently to different people. Thus part of me prefers May I accept reality as it appears.

Either way, though, reality is our best friend and we should do our best to accept it. I just wish Trump felt that way. Thankfully, Joe Biden does, so there's hope after November.

Spiritual independence should be celebrated every day

Tomorrow, the fourth of July, is Independence Day in the United States. It commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence from Britain's King George on July 4, 1776. 

Here's another blast from my blog post past that I wrote on July 4, 2005. Some of my views have changed over the past fifteen years, but I still like the basic theme of this post.

Celebrate your spiritual independence

The fourth of July is when we in the United States celebrate our country’s declaration of independence from Great Britain. It’s also a good day for anyone in the world to celebrate his or her independence from Small-Minded Religion.

Religions don’t start out this way, though: small-minded. Without exception the source of each great religion can be traced to people who somehow were able to break the bounds of normal human consciousness and experience truths beyond the sphere of everyday existence.

Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Nanak, early Hindu sages: all shared with humankind a remarkably original revelation or philosophy. While culturally they necessarily followed in the footsteps of historical predecessors, their spiritual attainments broke new ground.

As is the case with mystics in general. It’s difficult to make contact with the divine. Reading holy books, worshipping in holy places, obeying holy men and women, carrying out holy works—these things are easy to do. They’re within the capability of almost anyone.

Such is the province of small-minded religion, where the limitless experience of great mystics is reduced to narrow confines. Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and their spiritual brethren refused to be constrained by the accepted religious teachings of their day. This is why they are called “great”: they stood above shallow traditions, possessing a vision that pierced the clouds of conventional wisdom.

In short, they were spiritually independent. But independence only grows well in the wild. It doesn’t thrive when transplanted into the rows and furrows of garden-variety religion, for the priestly classes consider spiritual independence to be a vice, not a virtue.

The strange thing, of course, is that the revered founder(s) of every religion possessed the very quality that “protectors of the faith” now assiduously attempt to stamp out in followers. Namely, an aversion to following. More precisely, an aversion to following any practice that doesn’t lead to direct experience of the highest truths.

Jesus overthrew the small-minded dogmas of the Judaism of his time. But when Meister Eckhart attempted to overthrow the small-minded conceptions of the Catholicism of his time, he was condemned by the Pope as a heretic. Thus spiritual independence becomes a vice after an original independent spiritual vision has become codified into a rigid theology of do’s and don’ts, rights and wrongs, approved truths and condemned heresies.

In my opinion, anyone who reads widely in the diverse literature of the world’s religions, and approaches these writings without preconceived notions of truth and falsehood, must almost necessarily come to this conclusion: There are many ways to the One, or God. For given the marvelous variety of spiritual and mystical experience, it must be that either (1) all but a few of those who report direct contact with the divine are deluded, or (2) divinity appears in a myriad of guises.

I lean strongly toward the second option. I find it extremely difficult to believe that only one person, or one religion, or one spiritual practice leads to the One. If ultimate reality is viewed as a mountain, with the highest truth lying at the summit, then many paths can be taken up the slopes. Only at the very top do the paths converge at unity; diversity otherwise marks the way.

So independence is the hallmark of genuine spirituality. An independent seeker of God, the One, allows divinity to reveal itself without constraints, without preconceptions, without manmade boundaries. There are no hard and fast rules in spiritual mountaineering; you make your way from where you find yourself, blazing your own trail—because your experience belongs to no one but you.

Certainly others can help support and guide you, but obviously they aren’t you. Only you can honor, preserve, protect, and, most importantly, expand, your spiritual independence.

Along these lines, as an addendum to this post I’ll share an excerpt from a 1974 essay, “Live Not by Lies,” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Writing in the Soviet Union shortly before he was arrested and exiled to West Germany, he speaks of spiritual independence in a much more political context.

But I liked how he spoke of the choice that must be made for truth or falsehood, spiritual independence or spiritual servitude, regardless of the consequences. The applicability to those who desire to be free not of political domination, but of religious domination, is clear (a seeming typo has been changed, “talk” to “walk”).

The fourth of July is when we in the United States celebrate our country’s declaration of independence from Great Britain. It’s also a good day for anyone in the world to celebrate his or her independence from Small-Minded Religion.

Religions don’t start out this way, though: small-minded. Without exception the source of each great religion can be traced to people who somehow were able to break the bounds of normal human consciousness and experience truths beyond the sphere of everyday existence.

Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Nanak, early Hindu sages: all shared with humankind a remarkably original revelation or philosophy. While culturally they necessarily followed in the footsteps of historical predecessors, their spiritual attainments broke new ground.

As is the case with mystics in general. It’s difficult to make contact with the divine. Reading holy books, worshipping in holy places, obeying holy men and women, carrying out holy works—these things are easy to do. They’re within the capability of almost anyone.

Such is the province of small-minded religion, where the limitless experience of great mystics is reduced to narrow confines. Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and their spiritual brethren refused to be constrained by the accepted religious teachings of their day. This is why they are called “great”: they stood above shallow traditions, possessing a vision that pierced the clouds of conventional wisdom.

In short, they were spiritually independent. But independence only grows well in the wild. It doesn’t thrive when transplanted into the rows and furrows of garden-variety religion, for the priestly classes consider spiritual independence to be a vice, not a virtue.

The strange thing, of course, is that the revered founder(s) of every religion possessed the very quality that “protectors of the faith” now assiduously attempt to stamp out in followers. Namely, an aversion to following. More precisely, an aversion to following any practice that doesn’t lead to direct experience of the highest truths.

Jesus overthrew the small-minded dogmas of the Judaism of his time. But when Meister Eckhart attempted to overthrow the small-minded conceptions of the Catholicism of his time, he was condemned by the Pope as a heretic. Thus spiritual independence becomes a vice after an original independent spiritual vision has become codified into a rigid theology of do’s and don’ts, rights and wrongs, approved truths and condemned heresies.

In my opinion, anyone who reads widely in the diverse literature of the world’s religions, and approaches these writings without preconceived notions of truth and falsehood, must almost necessarily come to this conclusion: There are many ways to the One, or God. For given the marvelous variety of spiritual and mystical experience, it must be that either (1) all but a few of those who report direct contact with the divine are deluded, or (2) divinity appears in a myriad of guises.

I lean strongly toward the second option. I find it extremely difficult to believe that only one person, or one religion, or one spiritual practice leads to the One. If ultimate reality is viewed as a mountain, with the highest truth lying at the summit, then many paths can be taken up the slopes. Only at the very top do the paths converge at unity; diversity otherwise marks the way.

So independence is the hallmark of genuine spirituality. An independent seeker of God, the One, allows divinity to reveal itself without constraints, without preconceptions, without manmade boundaries. There are no hard and fast rules in spiritual mountaineering; you make your way from where you find yourself, blazing your own trail—because your experience belongs to no one but you.

Certainly others can help support and guide you, but obviously they aren’t you. Only you can honor, preserve, protect, and, most importantly, expand, your spiritual independence.

Along these lines, as an addendum to this post I’ll share an excerpt from a 1974 essay, “Live Not by Lies,” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Writing in the Soviet Union shortly before he was arrested and exiled to West Germany, he speaks of spiritual independence in a much more political context.

But I liked how he spoke of the choice that must be made for truth or falsehood, spiritual independence or spiritual servitude, regardless of the consequences. The applicability to those who desire to be free not of political domination, but of religious domination, is clear (a seeming typo has been changed, “talk” to “walk”).

COVID reality is kicking Donald Trump in the butt

Reality can be harsh. And always, truthful.

That's why reality is feared by religions and politicians alike. At least, religious believers and politicians who have a vested interest in denying facts because the truth is inconvenient for them.

There's nothing positive that can be said about the COVID crisis here in the United States. According to a story I read in today's newspaper, the United States has 4.3% of the world's population but has suffered 25.5% of the COVID-19 deaths.

Why? 

Largely because we have a president who is utterly incompetent to manage a Little League team, much less a nation's response to a pandemic. Months ago Trump said that COVID was going to go away on its own. He repeated that lie today. 

Fortunately, facts don't lie.

Currently there are more new cases being reported than at the previous height of the pandemic in April. At Trump's urging, states reopened their economies before public health experts said they should. In fact, before White House's own reopening guidelines said they should.

Trump wanted a strong economy ASAP to bolster his reelection chances. However, his poll numbers have been dropping as the number of COVID cases has been increasing.

Americans aren't as dumb as their president. They realize that the COVID crisis in this country has been made much worse by Trump's habitual inability to listen to experts who know more than he does about a subject, and to act in accord with that wise advice.

Here's how the United States compares to the European Union, which has a population roughly comparable to ours.

The United States and the European Union have comparable population sizes, but the trajectories of their COVID-19 outbreaks have been vastly different. Data recently released by the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that while there are around 4,000 new COVID cases in the EU each day, the United States is now recording over 40,000 new cases of the virus each day.

At least 11 US states broke records for the number of new cases reported over the past week. And while some politicians in the US have ascribed the difference to discrepancies in testing, a close analysis shows that the United States and the EU are conducting roughly the same number of tests per million people. Here's a look at the seven-day rolling average of new COVID cases in the EU and the US since March.

In the European Union science is broadly accepted by national leaders, while the United States suffers under the inept leadership of  a president who refuses to wear a mask in public, disparages people who do wear a mask, and said as recently as today that COVID will go away on its own one day.

No, it won't. That's a fact. 

COVID-19 is an especially dangerous virus. It is transmitted easily from person to person. It damages many different organs in the human body, not just the lungs. Unlike the flu, a COVID infection can leave a person debilitated for months. Check out this story by Portland's KGW News about a woman who is still suffering from an infection she got sick from on March 15.

I'm not saying that everything is fine here in Oregon, where I live. It isn't. The chart above shows that cases have been increasing since Governor Brown relaxed stay at home orders, allowing businesses to gradually reopen.

But unlike Trump, Brown listens to public health experts. She learns on the job. She changes her mind when fresh facts replace outdated ones. Masks have been advised in Oregon, but not mandatory, in indoor public places until recently (aside from a few counties, including mine, where COVID cases were higher).

Now, though, Governor Brown is requiring the wearing of masks in indoor public places everywhere in Oregon, with some exceptions for children and people unable to wear a mask because of a medical condition. That's leadership, since masks are proven to be effective in slowing the spread of COVID. 

(Not convinced? See here, here, and here.)

Like I said, the only good thing I see coming from the COVID crisis in my country is that Trump finally is being held to account for his failure to acknowledge reality. That's sort of worked for him when the truth of a situation can be disguised by lies. But death and disease don't respond to lies.

So the steadily increasing COVID cases and deaths testify to the ineptness of the Trump administration's response to this crisis. I'm confident that voters will keep that in mind when, hopefully, they kick him out of office in November.