I get a mysterious package. Ideas about it welcomed.

Almost everybody likes a good mystery. I sure do. My fiction book reading is almost entirely in the genre of spy/espionage/counterterrorism novels, which involve a lot of intrigue.

So I thought I'd outsource to readers of this blog the contents of a mysterious package that arrived in the mail yesterday. If you have an idea about the meaning of what was sent to me, share it in a comment on this post.

Here's the envelope I got.  What caught my attention right away was the address and return address both being my address. My razor-sharp mind concluded, Whoever sent this to me doesn't want to be identified.

(CIA, I'm waiting for your call recruiting me as an intelligence analyst.)

Inside the envelope was a book. A book that I wrote back when I was an avid member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a guru-centered spiritual organization with headquarters in India.

It was the first 1999 edition of the book, whose central theme was the karmic rationale for vegetarianism.

I thumbed through the pages, looking for any markings or messages. Nothing popped out at me. Of course, I know that spies can encode information in a microdot as small as a period, but I'm not about to inspect every period with a magnifying glass.

(Ooh, just remembered that I should have worn gloves, since a deadly nerve agent could have been put on the book. Looks like I won't be hearing from the CIA after all.)

In addition to the book, the package contained two wooden crosses, one kind of large and the other very small.

The larger cross has "Jerusalem" on the back. The small cross has "Jerusalem" on the front. No way to tell, of course, whether the crosses actually came from Jerusalem.

The tracking number showed that the package was mailed from Nashville, Tennessee. 

Like I said, a mystery. Someone spent $10.30, plus the cost of the book and the crosses, to send me a message. But I don't know what that message is.

Naturally the thought came to mind that the sender is a Christian who thinks I need some Jesus in my life. Maybe the fact that after the book's title page, there's this Bible passage, shows I could be receptive to this.

Be not deceived;
God is not mocked:
for whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap.
      GALATIANS 6:7

But if this was a proselytizing message, why not say so directly? And why mix together a book I wrote about karma and vegetarianism with two Christian crosses? 

Anyway, its nice to know that someone seemingly cares enough about my (nonexistent) soul to go to the trouble of sending me the package.

Like I said, if anyone has a theory about what the contents mean, share your idea in a comment.

Comments

[Arun Marwah]

I have your book, this same one, in my collection. i am a vegetarian by choice. Three or four times in my life, i tried my hand by eating Boiled chicken leg once in the flight to Toronto. I was served this despite mentioning before the flight to the airline my being a vegetarian. I ate it out of curiosity, just to know why people were crazy for meat. I did not like the taste at all. Once or twice i ate different meat and meat curry again, but i disliked it even more. I could not understand why people were so crazy about eating flesh of a hapless, weaker four legged animal who loved his life as much as we do. I used to eat eggs because my mother forced them on all her children, despite being a initiated RS disciple herself. I quit eating eggs too after i got married.

Regarding why someone secretly sent you your book, i have no idea. Maybe, a devout christian wants you to come back to christianity.

[Brian Hines]

Arun, I completely agree with you about the taste of meat. At least, for us vegetarians. I haven't tasted meat in the 52 years I've been a vegetarian. I guess if I was starving to death, meat would taste good. But like you, I never feel any desire to eat meat. When I'm behind someone in a grocery store checkout line who has packages of meat, it just looks horrible to me. Dead flesh wrapped in plastic.

Regarding the package sender wanting me to come back to Christianity, that would be a long comeback. I went to Catholic church when I was ten and younger, but when I resisted getting confirmed as a Catholic, my mother let me make up my own mind. Plus, the Mass was in Latin back then, and the pews were hard wood with a lot of kneeling. As a kid, I envied my Presbyterian friends who got to go to Sunday School where they colored images of Jesus.

[Arun Marwah]

Hello Brian! Your experience and mine as far as eating meat proves we were not born to eat flesh of animals.

One striking thing about the package that you received, it is very dirty. It is dirtier than any packet that i have received all my life!! America is supposed to be cleaner than India, atleast and it is.

[Arun Marwah]

In last ten years i have noticed that lot of people amongst Hindus and Sikhs, both high caste and low caste are changing religion and embracing Christianity. Most are doing it to get Visas and jobs in western countries and USA. Christianity is on the upswing and the person who sent christian symbols to you probably did it for the same reason, to bring you back to Christian fold.

[Dungeness]

@ Brian [ if anyone has a theory about what the contents mean, share your idea in a comment. ]

Saving a soul (even if the poor bloke thinks he's devoid of one) is a dirty job,
but clearly someone feels he must do it. The Soul-Saver had been spying on
you likely for years I suspect, noted with dismay your descent into atheism, and
felt the time had come to act. He's sent a coded message with a stern warning
to repent and added Exhibit A of your downward trajectory: that unspeakable,
evil book. To help cleanse you of the last vestiges of sin, you must find a place
of reverence in your home for the larger cross and keep the smaller one with
you at all times.

Smile, thank him for his concern silently but add: "I'm a spy who's already come
in from the cold."

[Appreciative Reader]

Hm, that does sound like a nice, well, mystery! Actually we can have fun with this, trying out resolutions off of different genres, especially with sci-fi, as well as, and as you say, crime fiction. Like, another version of you, maybe,in a parallel universe, reaching out to you, like Matthew McConaughey’s character in that lovely Christopher Nolan movie, Interstellar? Or … well, I suppose we could go on an on in that vein, or maybe think up some nice convoluted crime/thriller idea.

But the most likely solution? That would be what you yourself suggest, and Arun Marwah and Dungeness as well: Some Christian fanatic trying to get you to see the light, and junk your heathen ways (RSSB, atheism, it’s all the same!) and accept Jesus into your heart and your life.

Except, I’ll add some further (and obvious) details and/or alternatives that come to mind:

(1) This Christian used to be an RSSB follower.

(2) He/she is not of very recent vintage. After all they do possess a first edition copy, published back in 1999. Definitely middle-aged, perhaps elderly.

(3) Of course, an alternative to #1 and #2 would be that this is the very religious, very Christian offspring of someone who answers to #1 and #2, in which case the sender themselves may actually be quite young, and they may not themselves be an RSSB acolyte. (Or of course it could be the case that someone else gave them an old copy of the book, in which case the sender would answer to #1 above but not to #2.)

(3) He/she seems somewhat fixated on you, to have gone to all that trouble. That would indicate that they know you personally, even if casually; or it could be that your book has had a particularly strong impact on their life, like maybe they turned to vegetarianism after reading it.

(4) Almost certainly they’ve read your blog, perhaps even commented here. (Unless, again, they’re personally acquainted with you, and know of your views on religion not so much from reading your blog as from personal interactions with you.)

(5) And, yes, here’s one last idea: your correspondent need not necessarily even be Christian at all. It could well be someone who’s an RSSB follower, and who is trying to warn you that your turning away from RSSB, and your atheism, and particularly your activism, via your blog, against RSSB superstitions, these all may come back and bite you --- karma and so forth, as set out in your own book there. The passage from the Bible would, in that case, indicate that this is someone who’s spent a great deal of time poring over the Bible, and indeed may at one time have been a Christian, who’s subsequently converted to RSSB, and who still finds inspiration in the words of the Bible that they know so well. (Of course, the cross would be a weak point as far as this theory #5. I don’t know, a red herring thrown in deliberately, maybe? I really don’t have any very plausible explanation as far as that, except for, and like I said, deliberate misdirection.)

----------

Two further observations, one that should puff you up, and one somewhat sobering:

The puff-up first: This is definitive proof, Brian, that you’re a bona fide celebrity now! Well okay, a very niche kind of celebrity, but a celebrity nonetheless. You’ve actually acquired an honest-to-goodness creepy-crawly stalker here! (Well okay, only a from-the-distance stalker, but still.)

And the sobering thought also centers around that same stalker aspect. Absolutely, this is fun, this sort of thing! On the other hand, it is also definitely somewhat creepy. Absolutely, this is a kind of stalker-lite thing we’ve got going here. Someone whose screw is definitely somewhat loose, even if only ever so slightly, for them to have done what they did. If they’re content to send you that one cryptic warning from afar, then that’s all well and good. But in as much as this is someone who’s probably not entirely fully 100% sane, one would hope that they have no plans of going any further, maybe continuing with sending letters and packages to you (once is kind of fun, but more would be definitely creepy), or maybe more direct measures.

Not to push you to panic, Brian, absolutely not! Absolutely, it’s we who’d be treading less-than-fully-sane conspiracy-theory ground ourselves if we started seeing deep sinister nefarious plots around just that one single innocuous if mysterious package sent by post. Probably it’s all no more than just a joke, if a somewhat weird and creepy joke. But since we’re brainstorming ideas, it bears pointing out that …possibility, as well.

If it ends with this, then fine. But if there’s further letters, packages, phone calls, whatever, then it might be prudent to be on one’s guard, maybe even have a chat with your local police. Because you never know, with religious nut jobs.

----------

Incidentally, although as you say the package was mailed from Nashville, Tennessee, that needn’t imply that that’s where our nut job --- sorry, mysterious correspondent --- lives. Depending on just how nutty they are, and to what lengths they’ve gone over this, they may have simply gone visiting there, and posted it from there, adding a further layer of obfuscation; or else simply got friends or kin who do live there to post it for them.

[Appreciative Reader]

"...why mix together a book I wrote about karma and vegetarianism with two Christian crosses? ..."

..........That's a tricky question!

We've two possible answers for this so far. One is what Dungeness suggested; and the other is my misdirection hypothesis (as part of my outlier suggestion, of some RSSB type pissed off with the unrelenting atheism and unrelenting anti-RSSB ideas that get thrown around on here, and falling back on Biblical quotes more from habit and past association).

Of the two, definitely, Dungeness's theory sounds way more plausible, than mine does.

This does sound the more probable option: that some Christian nutjob's out to change your heathen ways (that is, your former RSSB faith, as well as your current atheism), and bring you back to the cross and to Jesus.

----------

Okay, I must stop thinking about this already, because all manner of weird hypotheses keep on springing to mind! Here's another one, that occurs to me just now as I type this:

(#6, following on the five from my earlier comment) Do you have any enemies, someone who thinks you've wronged them? Because if you do, then this person --- who, let's say, subscribes to free-form, eclectic woo --- sends you the Karma book as cautioning you that wrongs done (as they perceive it) will eventually come home to roost; and the crosses are some kind of voodoo hex or something?

(Yeah right. I know, that's like a super unlikely possibility! Except it did suddenly spring to mind, and insisted --- if ideas can be thought of as insistent, as they sometimes very much can be! --- on being aired here.)

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Brian
Take it as good will.

The book simply means this is a long time Satsangi in their sixties or seventies, and a symbol they agree with your views in that book, and respect them and you.

The crosses, for your home and personal travel, are to remind you of your destination, the true Jerusalem, where the lion lay with the Lamb, and that would be within.

[Tendzin]

If there's one fault to Sant Mat, it's its insistence on vegetarianism. Vegetarianism is neither a moral good or of any benefit to our health. More people die from vegetarian fare than from any other cause. We've been taught that it's better to base our diet on carbohydrates, and the result has been an epic increase in obesity, metabolic disorder and insulin resistance. These are all conditions that cause countless health disorders. which all go away on a low carb, natural (animal based) diet.

Sant Mat is simply wrong about meat eating. Worse, it goes so far as to claim that Jesus was somehow a vegetarian.

[umami]

Brian, here's what I imagine.

The sender is facing death and sorting through possessions. In death things return to their source.

It was a sentimental and poetic gesture. S/he became a satsangi thanks in part to you and that very volume. Rather than toss it away, s/he decided to return it to you, its source. The crosses are made of olive wood and probably from the Holy Land, a source of religion. The sending and return addresses are the same in the way that Consciousness is destination and source. (However, there was also the mundane consideration that you'd write an angry letter back. This way you couldn't and would have to contemplate the mystery!)

As an ex-er, s/he feels kinship with you but went a different way, back to Christianity. On a bucket list tourist pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine s/he picked up many such crosses for friends and family. S/he thought of you too and sent them as a tribute to the big influence you had on his/her life. S/he feels a little icky about sending Christian symbols, but these are special, even magical, and hopes you'll appreciate them in some way, as s/he appreciated Life is Fair. Here at the end of life s/he isn't completely sure about Christianity either but finds that it stirs more emotion than RS. Objects. If only RS had more objects, then s/he could FEEL it. "Touch! Objects, my passion but my prison! Give them away! Give them away!" Alas, it's too late for that.

[umami]

"Worse, it goes so far as to claim that Jesus was somehow a vegetarian."

Hey, Tendzin.

I have no idea, but there are others making that claim. Also that he trained in India, was a yogi, simulated death on the cross and returned to India.
https://ocoy.org/original-christianity/the-christ-of-india/

Documentary:
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1341329/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

[7]

You can still spend $1000
for thorough analyses

If it weighs so heavy on yr mind
Perhaps the lady knows you ; wanted some respons here

7

[Ron E.]

It’s quite common for people leaving their religion or cult to still have hankerings after some sort of truth. I suspect that Brian’s ‘well-wisher’ (if that’s what he/she is) knew Brian, or knew of him, obviously by having one of his books, and now, this person having found, in this case, Christianity sincerely believes it’s their duty to ‘help’ Brian to find this same ‘truth’.

Personally, looking at Brian's previous posting on the commentary of Chinese Painting, I don't think the 'well-wisher' need worry about Brian's soul!

[Tendzin]

@Umami

The claim that Jesus traveled to India was started in the late 1800s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_India_(book)

Most scholars -- ie virtually all scholars -- reject the notion. Interestingly, leaders in Sant Mat such as Rai Saligram and Sawan Singh uncritically accepted it. Charan Singh and Kirpal also bought the idea that the "real" Jesus taught Sant Mat, but Christians somehow corrupted the teachings.

The Jesus in India idea was also promoted by this guy, and his idea are also not accepted by actual scholars of biblical history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Notovitch

And this guy, who if my memory is correct was cited by Charan Singh as a reliable historian:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquarian_Gospel_of_Jesus_the_Christ

I also just learned that there was an Arthurian legend that Jesus visited Britain. This parallels Joseph Smith's claim that Jesus visited North America. The idea that Jesus wasn't a parochial figure is I guess understandable (for a variety of reasons which I won't get into here), but it's not backed up by any genuine evidence.

[umami]

"I also just learned that there was an Arthurian legend that Jesus visited Britain."

Tendzin,

Yes, sailed there on a trading ship with his uncle.
https://m.economictimes.com/jesus-did-come-to-britain-claims-book/articleshow/3114757.cms

Can anyone here converse with Jesus and settle all the speculation?

[Appreciative Reader]

Tendzin, given that so many people people readily believe that pigs sprout wings and fly around on full moon nights, why should it cause any surprise if one finds that some people also believe (the entirely fictitious but far less incredulous and far saner --- wrong, but saner --- hypothesis) that pigs were the direct forebears of dogs and that dogs evolved directly from pigs?

There are people who uncritically believe that God impregnated the virgin Mary, that God's son was born to said virgin, that said son was given to promenading not by the banks of rivers but actually *on* the water of the river, that that same son was a veritable distillery that could touch water and turn it to wine, that he could touch dead men and bring them back to life, and that he himself came back to life three days after he'd actually died.

Given that there are so many Jesus-worshipping half-wits walking around, is it any wonder that there might also exist some people might uncritically believe that this same Jesus "trained" in India and, afterwards, went back there to die? Or that he'd gone and lived for a while in Britain, or whatever other nonsense people think up and believe in? I mean, an India-and-Britain-faring Jesus is like a hundred thousand times more credible than the utterly impossible nonsense that people believe about him, right? I wouldn't be surprised if, when told that Jesus "trained" under Dumbledore at Hogwarts, people uncritically believed even that, given the astounding capacity people demonstrate in believing tall tales.

[Appreciative Reader]

"Can anyone here converse with Jesus and settle all the speculation?"

Hey, umami.

As far as questions of that nature, here's my take: Asking if Jesus ever went to India, or to Britain, that's a bit like asking, did Aragon ever have sex with Galadriel?

Sure, if you're talking about what Tolkien himself wrote, then the answer would be in the negative. But if you can point to some fan fiction where Galadriel romps around with Aragon while Celebon is away at his tree-castle, well in that case the answer would be an entirely legitimate "Yes". Even if that fan fiction were written fifty years after Tolkien himself died.

Given that we are, in any case, dealing with fiction here, it's basically a question of which particular fiction one favors, that's all.

[Tendzin]

@AR

I confess that I'm sometimes irritated with people who believe things I don't believe. But for a number of reasons, I don't lump them all into the Idiot Box. One being that many of these people are better human beings than I am by virtue of the moral formation their apparently ludicrous religion has provided them. One example would be Mormons, people of a religion that was created by a textbook cult leader, and yet it produces people who are probably better in most human ways than 99.9%.

By the same token, I see hoards of non-believers with no religious formation, and by my lights some of them are more intolerant than many religious myth-believers, and also more than willing to buy into the latest myth their progressive myth priestcraft hands down to them. In other words, removing religion from the masses makes them no wiser, no happier, no more useful to their fellows, and in fact often seems to lead to a reverse in the health of the commonweal.

Yet of course religion does promote nonsense, that can't be denied. And sometimes religion's nonsense is taken up by the secular priestcraft, as it now is in the virtues of vegetarianism. Both camps resort to myth making to sell this idea. The religious by claiming that Jesus "must have been" (Charan Singh) a vegetarian, and the secular by claiming that humans can thrive on a non-animal-based diet.

[Appreciative Reader]

Hey, Tendzin.

My point was, the absurdity of some people saying and believing that Jesus was a vegetarian, pales in comparison with the absurdity of believing everything else that people believe Jesus was and did.

Which, admittedly, does not in the least take away from the absurdity of the former, agreed, absolutely.

But even here, even when we look only at those people who, like this Charan, apparently go around saying Jesus was a vegetarian, I'd say the absurdity of claiming to know Jesus's dietary preferences is, once again, eclipsed by the absurdity of their talking about Jesus as if they were talking of reality, as opposed to talking about fiction!

----------

And, as far as thriving on a non-animal-based diet, many actually do that, you know. I'm a vegetarian myself, but I fully concur with you that, looking only to heath, and ignoring ethical and environment issues, absolutely, an omnivorous diet is optimum. Nevertheless, and like I said, it is certainly possible to lead a good healthy life without resorting to eating meat, if one wants to; and indeed, if one is careful about testing and using supplements judiciously, then arguably one can actually "thrive" as well as the omnivore does.

But of course, as far as individual cases, sure, there may be people for whom an all-veg diet just doesn't work at all.

And in any case, and to repeat what I've already said, sure, if one is content to leave aside ethical and environmental considerations, and chooses instead to focus only on one's own health, then absolutely, an omnivorous diet is without doubt no worse than an all-veg diet, and very probably is actually much better.

..........Incidentally, you're very right, I did let my irritation get the better of me. I regret that. While it is true that many religious beliefs are literally half-witted, but it would be foolish to imagine that the people who harbor those beliefs are themselves similarly half-witted. Most times that is not the case, at all.

Which, of course, is a whole different discussion: Why so many otherwise sane and intelligent and even brilliant people, who often are in every other way entirely rational, are given to suspending their rationality when it comes to that one single isolated subject.

[Baba Land Grab]

Think you ended up better than Aditti ,wife of Shivinder Singh Grandson of your one time Guru Maharaj Charan Singhhttps://www.ndtv.com/india-news/ndtv-special-cash-for-bail-tapes-conman-sukesh-chandrashekhar-gypped-tycoon-shivinder-singhs-wife-2654758

[Uchit]

How ironic , the RSSB book " life if fair, cause and effect says it all". The snake works like this : the book will hook you in and then you will be reeled to read another book; then you get an introduction to a sheepish influencer who doesn't stop badgering u; you go to a satsang and think you are special as you have found a living Jesus , you start worshipping a so called guru , a fake guru - but this is nothing but satan in disguise. You Empower an organization that takes your power away. The best thing to do with this evil book is burn it and spread the word of the dangers and perils of the RSSB cult and the sickly leader Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

[Appreciative Reader]

Baba Land Grab, that's absolutely hilarious! Thanks for posting.

Although it was, like I said, hilarious, but one does, I guess, feel kind of sorry for those poor gullible idiots. They sure have had the silver spoon they were born with yanked rudely off of their mouth, and rammed home, and hard, in the opposite orifice!

-------

Actually, quite apart from the many interesting issues this individual case raises, there's this general aspect of this that I find very interesting. (Tendzin, if you're reading this, this kinds of ties in with [one part of] our discussion the other day.)

In a way what happened to Shivinder there doesn't surprise me. Here's this silly gullible dupe, who blindly swallows every little bit of the voluminous pile of bull shit he's been fed, about GSD, and about his RSSB faith, and about religion in general, and so forth. This gullible idiot, what else would you expect of him but that he should fall for something like this as well, and end up easy prey for every sharp conman out there? One feels sorry for him, sure, but one isn't in the least surprised.

What does surprise me is how, very often, exactly the opposite happens. What often happens is people like Shivinder, while they remains dupes of the peddlers of religion, nevertheless are very sharp in worldly matters, and are entirely rational, and skeptical even, as far as matters not related with their religion. Like we were discussing in one part of our exchange, that is the part that makes me very curious, how and why that should be so. This paradox, that is what I find very very curious.

This Shivinder joke, that Baba Land Grab has linked to, that at least is entirely understandable, and entirely what one would expect from people like these (these religious dupes, I mean to say).

[Spence Tepper]

It's funny how people argue about the physical existence of Jesus and ignore the beautiful words he spoke.

"37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”"

Matthew 26: 37-40

I think it is because to live to such a high standard is simply beyond most people. It can't be done without help. Hence faith, submission to that higher authority for strength. Hence these two commandments, and the genius behind them.