RSSB training produces zero results in satsangis

I always enjoy getting emails from people who used to be churched, and now are churchless.

Usually I hear from initiates of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), as that was the "church," Eastern religion variety, I belonged to for 35 years.

Recently I've gotten two messages from former satsangis, as RSSB initiates often are called, using an Indian term. Each warmed my heart, since the emails described how the people realized that the RSSB dogma didn't match up with truth.

One person included a nicely caustic observation about RSSB satsangis.

I have pointed out that you could compare Satsangis to Navy Seals. They train every day by meditating, they eat only certain things. Eventually, you should see some form of result. All I have seen are fat lazy Navy Seals. That training produces zero results. In fact I think it creates more psychological disorder.

You won't get much of an argument from me about that. My main caveat regarding the Navy Seal analogy is that members of this elite American military group actually do train hard every day. 

But RSSB initiates, not nearly as much, especially when it comes to meditation, which is supposed to be done for 2 1/2 hours a day. 

However, most satsangis do seem to stick to a vegetarian diet, along with not drinking alcohol or using recreational drugs. And quite a few attend the equivalent of RSSB church services every week, satsangs.

So you'd think all this religious activity would produce some positive changes in RSSB initiates, even if their meditation didn't match up to the ideal. I agree that those changes often aren't apparent, which makes the "fat lazy Navy Seals" analogy an apt one.

I also agree that many satsangis end up more psychologically screwed-up after years of RSSB practice. My theory about why this happens is that the RSSB teachings are highly dualistic. 

Satsangis are supposed to make their top priority leaving this physical world behind and supposedly rising to higher regions of reality. This fosters an over-attachment to the RSSB guru, and under-attachment to family members, friends, and other loved ones. 

Thus rather than being of service to people in your immediate surroundings, many satsangis prefer to travel long distances to perform "seva" (volunteering) for RSSB, such as building or maintaining the centers where RSSB meetings are held.

Often this leads to an unhealthy attraction to their chosen religion, RSSB, since that focus takes time and energy away from being a good spouse, parent, friend, companion, or whatever to people who previously were near and dear to the satsangi.

In December 1977 I went to India for two weeks around Christmas. I'd been initiated into RSSB in 1971 and had never seen my guru, Charan Singh, in person. I was married with a five year old daughter. I'd gotten a temporary appointment as a manager with Oregon's State Health Planning and Development Agency and was waiting for it to become permanent.

My wife, Sue, wasn't happy with me going to India, given our circumstances. It cost quite a bit to get there. We'd gotten Celeste, my daughter, her first real bicycle. Sue wanted me to be home for Christmas. But I chose to put my devotion to RSSB above my devotion to family.

It turned out that I had an amazing two weeks in India, a time with Charan Singh I'll never forget. And after I got home, I ended up getting a permanent appointment to the manager position. But I readily admit that perhaps spending Christmas with my wife and daughter would have been as memorable as going to India, though I doubt it. Regardless, I put my relationship with RSSB above my family duties.

I also believe that the RSSB teachings lead initiates awry by emphasizing the Five Deadly Sins of lust, anger, greed, attachment, and egotism -- which actually are normal aspects of being a human, so long as they aren't engaged in to an extreme.

This causes many satsangis to be hyper-conscious of engaging in "bad" thoughts and actions, sort of like Christians who fear the Devil leading them astray. Not mentally healthy, for sure.

Comments

[Arun Marwah]

You are right Brian. I saw no changes in my father who has been following the cult since 1955!!!! In fact, he used to be a better person before than what he is now.

[Sage]

I wonder how hard it is for others to deconstruct from all the conditioning they've imposed on themselves.

There is so much dogma and issues that one might just be tempted to become a social recluse who does nothing but practices emptying their minds.

But then again, things in life don't really have any value apart from what we grant them. Like- if you were homoromantic and couldn't experience gay love all your life, so what?

[Appreciative Reader]

"I have pointed out that you could compare Satsangis to Navy Seals. They train every day by meditating, they eat only certain things. Eventually, you should see some form of result. All I have seen are fat lazy Navy Seals. That training produces zero results."

Heh, that observation's both humorous and also, at the same time, insightful and entirely valid. It's a valid question: What results do RSSB types demonstrably arrive at?

Going veg is a plus, in my book. I think eating animals is gross, and barbaric; and in any case, the environment thing. But no, that doesn't qualify. This is what you do, not a result. Like if you do 100 push-ups every day, what result do you get from that? If the one and only result is that you "do 100 pushups every day", that and nothing else at all, then neither is that grammatically speaking a "result" per se, nor is it at all a worthwhile use of your time, if literally it meant you're getting nothing out of it but the pushups themselves.

So, very valid question: What exactly are the results to this regimen these guys follow? Demonstrable results, I mean to say, clearly evidenced results?

It would be cool if any RSSB type who's reading this would volunteer to attempt an answer. Might make for interesting reading. As it is, I'm thinking, like Brian's correspondent does, and like Brian does as well, that the result's a big fat zero.

Very good question, that.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR
You wrote
"So, very valid question: What exactly are the results to this regimen these guys follow? Demonstrable results, I mean to say, clearly evidenced results?"

What we have in the post Brian Ji provided are the anecdotal results of a few disgruntled people. I wonder what condition they are in today.

It is simply a matter of doing what you have done, AR, and take a broader look, perhaps by having devout Satsangis provide their own anecdotal results.

There is a large body of evidence from the medical sciences of the effects of different forms of meditation that indicate huge benefits, including healing your own DNA.

Personally I've known many RSSB Satsangis who have lead very important and helpful careers as physicians, engineers, scientists and business leaders. And many who have lead very small but balanced and kind lives of devotion and practice.

I have not known any Satsangis as a failure. It is true some gain weight over the years, like most people. Some have the health issues that one normally sees with aging.

But notably, I've known a few Satsangi athletes, runners, weight lifters and yoga instructors who maintained their regimens, meditation and health, throughout the decades, even into their nineties. These all were initiates from their youth. And they still look absurdly healthy, young and trim even in their eighties and in one case her nineties.

Indeed the Satsangis who introduced me to the path were raw food vegetarians at the time and in picture perfect health.

Indeed the original owners of Amy's Vegetarian made vegetarian diet possible anywhere in the world for vegetarians.

All these folks I refer to came to the path of their own volition, as Americans interested in self-improvement and spirituality. Those proclivities were supported by their spiritual practice.

Their political views spanned the entire political spectrum, from liberal to libertarian. Yet we all were and are friends on a platform of shared spirituality. No one expects any of us to actually "know" who the Master really is, but each has had internal experiences and their share of inner wealth that keeps them going, smiling, through all the events of life, with balance and poise. Those Indian American Satsangis I have known have been uniformly brilliant professionals, equally in earnest on education and career always doing their family and their Master proud.

Intellectually the vast majority of Satsangis I've known have maintained very high levels of cognitive functioning. Many are writers, lawyers, artists, film makers, actors.

I lived in Los Angeles during my youth so when I was initiated I had the opportunity to find many initiates in the entertainment industry. You see the influence of their work in many affirmational films, such as The Day The Earth Stood Still, Brainstorm, Star Trek the Motion Picture, even the original version of Lost Horizons. Satsangis have been behind the scenes in Hollywood for a very long time.

Now as to the disgruntled Satsangis. You would have to know their state of mind before accepting initiation to have any hope of adequately assessing the effect of spiritual practice on their lives and behavior.

It's all relative.

And people are vastly different.

From my view the effect on people's lives of being practicing Satsangis has been incredibly positive.

But as with any school, any profession, any sport, your mileage may vary.

[Eric Robinson]

Good questions as always Brian….

I left the cult about 1991 after about 20 years of ‘trying’. But I still meditate whatever that means, am still interested in spirituality (YouTube vids of interesting characters…). I have friends who left the cult but still “meditate”.

I do use the 5 names, not because I attach any relevance to them but because it seems a bit better than repeating “I am a donkey”

But I do this because it just feels good. I used to read Spiritual Gems a lot by Sawan Singh, because he was saying over and over again that to enter the laboratory you do have to accept a first principle, as in Euclidean geometry.

And there were many references to these inner regions.

Here’s the problem:
The nature of the mind…. It is a very slippery and subtle eel.
You can sit meditating trying to control the mind, which you do to some extent, but then it switches to another level where you have to be very alert to recognise that it’s still doing its work just below the surface.

Before I went to India (1970), in fact when I was about 20 seven years before that, I was dabbling in yoga, and in the middle of the night (well 2am) I lit a candle, visualised the flame, blew it out, and sat there visualising… after a bit I started leaving the body. (Hell’s Teeth ! You are not supposed to mention inner experiences, but this was well before all this sant mat nonsense.
The more i concentrated the more I was leaving my head….and the concentration was just like pressing with your thumb: the more you press the greater the concentration.

Then I thought what if I don’t return ?
Well, I wasn’t ready for that so came back. But that left such an impression on me that it ended up in mystics and India and that’s where sant mat came in. Perhaps I just met the wrong master ? (Charan Singh: I was impressed with him and met him several times, but he never gave me much guidance on the internal stuff.)

And here’s the thing: if I had left, and it was nice and cuddly and blissful, but I still liked here, then I would want both ‘dimensions’…

So I’ve given that up
And I still like to meditate.

And to do my bit in this world too. And if I can help anyone out of their anxiety that seems worthwhile.
Trouble is we may find some discontent with our lot and want to “move house”, but it’s better not striving too much and letting it all work through on its own, if you can.

Whatever.

But my complaint is that these ‘ere gurus promise something which is not achievable… and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if GS (the RSSB Gurinder) is no better at this this than some of us.

I was initiated (what the hell (yes hell !) that means !!) in 1973 and my basic principle from the very start was what Swami Ji (Agra) said:
“Unless I see with my own eyes I do not believe the words of the guru”

Chapeau !

I did a bit of writing in my Wordpress blog (see link), relating to a wonderful experience I had (more than once) where I tuned in so much so that I saw the structure of creation as being just like a pyramid, very broad at the bottom, and narrowing as it gets higher and higher, culminating in the point at the top.
The base is creation in all its multi-faceted guises, impossible to understand and fathom, and the top is just one-ness.

Trouble is the mind needs illustrations such as this to make sense of it…

Hoping everyone to have peace and calm, and a nice outlook on everyone else.

Eric
Ps - if you have the patience to read the blog the bit relevant is towards the end:

“And here we are in May 2022”

[Eric Robinson]

the blog is at :

Some pretty boring stuff in there but go to the end where the section is “And here we are in May 2022”

https://wordpress.com/post/ericrobo.wordpress.com/1150

[Spence Tepper]

Here is what Somerset Maugham wrote in The Razor's Edge, in 1944, about a young man he came to know who was pursuing spirituality, Larry Darrell. He have Larey a fictitious name, but he was a real person.

"This book consists of my recollections of a man with whom I was thrown into close contact only at long intervals, and I have little knowledge of what happened in between. I suppose that by exercise of invention I could fill the gaps plausibly enough so as to make my narrative more coherant; but I have no wish to do that. I only want to set down what I know of my own knowledge. "

Keep in mind Maugham was an avowed Atheist. Something might be there, he acknowledged, but not God by any common definition, nor life after death.

And yet, here is what he wrote about Larry, a real human being he had met and come to know.

"He is without ambition and had no desire for fame; to become anything of a public figure would be deeply distasteful to him;....
... But it may be he thinks that a few uncertain souls, drawn to him like mouths to a candle, will he brought in time to share his own glowing belief that ultimate satisfaction can only be found in the life of the spirit, and that by himself following with selflessness and renunciation the path of perfection he will serve as well as of he wrote books or addressed multitudes. But this is conjecture. I am of the earth, earthy; I can only admire the radiance of such a rare creature, I cannot step into his shoes and enter into his innermost heart as I sometimes think I can do with persons more nearly allied to the common run of men. "
The Razor's Edge, Somerset Maugham

This is, to me, what it means to truly be an appreciative atheist capable of understanding with their heart what is impossible to fathom or accept with the mind

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Eric!
You wrote
"I saw the structure of creation as being just like a pyramid, very broad at the bottom, and narrowing as it gets higher and higher, culminating in the point at the top.
The base is creation in all its multi-faceted guises, impossible to understand and fathom, and the top is just one-ness."

My experience is the exact opposite of yours..
Or maybe like an hour glass.

In meditation we become one point, yes, like rising to the top of a mountain. But then, as we rise, we enter larger and greater places, so that this entire creation is merely the drop in the ocean of reality that is a drop in another, higher, finer ocean of brighter light until the greatest and highest is an Infinity of nothing, through immense darkness emerging into a greater light and love. And yet the basis of everything. Entirely contained in the smile of a baby.

We have impressions. That is all. That is the only thing distinguishing one from another. A handful of impressions. You could call them jewels. Or scars. But beyond those layers we are all connected and part of a larger Truth.

[googlecash]

A powerful argument that RSSB really needs to come to an end. That religious organization and its guru aren't serving any positive purpose to the individuals who belong to it or to society at large. The RSSB teachings have resulted in endemic crime, drug use, homelessness, and civil disorder, body mutilation (even of their children, sexual and gender ideation dysfunction, depression and hopelessness.

You could say RSSB is in a really blue state. What else to call such a breakdown in wholesome human development but a blue state?

On a serious note, RSSB initiates are by and large exceptionally happy and content people. I invite anyone to compare a visit to an RSSB Satsang. They will marvel at its serene organization, the friendliness of the participants, and that no dues are ever requested. The message in these satsangs is all about overcoming one's shortcomings and the resulting contentment that comes from such probity.

Dear reader, if you've never been to an RSSB Satsang, please go and see for yourself if it matches the description given here. See if you agree with the author's claim that RSSB initiates are "psychologically screwed up."

Some people bridle at any form of authority. The feel authority is wrong, freedom is good, restraint is fascism, and talk of God is evil. More freedom brings more happiness. Whatever you think and do is mentally healthy. Do as thou wilt. That is their creed, and they never tire of preaching it. But they can't explain why so many millions of people belong to RSSB, and why it accounts for so much service to not only the organization but to the poor. And again, at no cost.

I've been a student and participant of countless spiritual groups since the 1970s, and have concluded there is no other religious organization that can even match what RSSB does and stands for. RSSB has bettered the lives of millions. And because we can compare the standard of living of the average Satsangi vs. the legion of people who've been undone from society's blessing of selfishness and hedonism, it's a fact.

[Appreciative Reader]

Hi, Spence.

That some RSSB followers might be doctors or lawyers or engineers, that's a non sequitur. But sure, if you could show that RSSB types are statistically more likely to be successful than regular folks, then sure, you'd then have a striking correlation ----- even if not necessarily causation, not even then, for obvious reasons (only a certain kind would be drawn to this in the first place). But can you even actually show such correlation, such numbers, at all?

Agreed to your other point, though. Agreed, there is indeed conclusive evidence that meditation carries health benefits, generally speaking.

As for Maugham, I've got both his Razor's Edge and Of Human Bondage, both very old copies, from my grandfather's library, first read when visiting during holidays from school. (Razor's Edge is a sturdy hardback, but Human Bondage is a paperback, kept carefully, but the pages are loose-ish, and come off unless you handle it very carefully! ---- as is often the case with old books, especially if they happen to be paperbacks.) At that impressionable age, I remember being very taken with Razor's Edge, and particularly impressed by the Larry character. I still think it's a cool book. But, all of that said, it's fiction. That thing about referring to a real person in the foreword, is probably no more than a conceit, just a literary device, I should think. Unless you've read Maugham as having stated otherwise, elsewhere? (Not that it matters, really. But I'm curious, generally speaking, given that book and my associations attached to it.)

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Appreciative
Whether meditation is beneficial is a personal matter also. For me, it is a source of happiness. There has been no event in my life that more meditation has not brought into balance, and given me the strength to proceed in a most helpful and happy way.

Some such as Brian Ji have had a different experience. You see it isn't cause and effect but interaction with who you are.

Your own practice will yeild its own evidence. To consider another path in search of something greater is already to commit yourself to examine and then experiment with at least one or more other approaches.

When Brian Ji writes that lust, anger, greed, attachment and pride are normal human experiences to some normal degree I would have to agree. But when we are in the throes of emotions we often behave in ways that later we wish we hadn't. We say we weren't thinking, we were moved by passionate emotions. This has been a great source of harm to the world.

Meditation helps assure that we are thinking more clearly and less under the influence of lower brain functions, more at the calmer executive functioning level. That is one of its major benefits.

As for Somerset Maugham 's writing of Larry, it's clear he has been informed by the experience of such personalities that seek in spirituality something greater than the base drives of most people. And Maugham, though an Atheist, can't help but admire such motivation and personal commitment.

Larry is the entire morality of the Razor's Edge. As for Maugham's claim in the introduction that Larry is indeed a real person, he has never written such in any of his stories and novels before or after. Throughout the book when referring to himself he is Mr. Maugham.

I believe what he wrote about this also precisely because he goes to great lengths in the introduction to contrast this story as non-fiction with his other works that are indeed fiction, and contrasts his role as an author creating events with his decision here only to document what has happened and not to add any invention, and then at the end of the book to explain again why he chose to record these events.

But for whatever reason, Maugham, an avowed and staunch Atheist chose to write, in the closing years of his life, an affirmational story about a young man who chose to devote his life to spirituality. What Atheist would choose to make their hero a person committed to spirituality?

Think about this for a moment, AR. Whatever the answer, Maugham himself becomes a hero for doing this. Because, like Christ's tale of the good Samaritan, Maugham makes someone who holds a belief he is directly opposed to as the story's hero.

And to me, that makes Maugham a model of what it means to be a true Atheist in the most affirmative philosophy of life.

[Dungeness]

@ Eric: [ But I do this because it just feels good. I used to read Spiritual Gems a lot by Sawan Singh...
And there were many references to these inner regions. Here’s the problem:
--- The nature of the mind…. It is a very slippery and subtle eel.
--- You can sit meditating trying to control the mind, which you do to some extent, but then it switches to
--- another level where you have to be very alert to recognise it’s still doing its work just below the surface.
]
That's exactly what mystics caution about and why our mind is such a formidable foe. But,
what's subtlest leaves a trail that mindfulness can follow as long-time meditators say.
Personally, I suspect rapid advancement isn't possible without creating an atmosphere
of trust and affection for the teacher/guru/master inside too.

Or, absent that, irreverence! Question. Complain. Joke. It's just as effective as donning
some imagined religious piety in talking to a "holy" person. In the end, words don't matter
as much as an enduring resilience. This level of engagement and intensity hones our radar
against the mind's back channel commentary as well. We start to hear a mind's whispered
doubts/ fears and their power is gone.
(I'll end, my tone is getting open-threadish, isn't it...)

[Spence Tepper]

Now as the the 'TRAINING' part of RSSB:

The quality of meditation varies daily. But the effect is unmistakable.

We are often looking for concrete answers in meditation, looking for higher mind when meditation's greatest strength is improving our well being and mental and physical health by reconnecting us to our source, and cleaning and nourishing those connections.

It is a better functioning mind that yeilds better answers. The very fact that we want specific answers points to the necessity of a restart and reset, which meditation performs beautifully.

The restart / reset can be done in minutes or hours. But the longer version generally does a deeper job of cleaning and nourishing. And it feels blissful. That is a great state of mind to tackle any and all worldly challenges. From a place of powerful peace and clear thinking that brings forth new insights and answers.

This is not divine in the sense of a black and white truth. This is human in the sense of helping our brains function better and more harmoniously through an age old practice of simple devotion and awakening love in our heart.

[Appreciative Reader]

"But the effect is unmistakable."

Really? That's exactly what Brian's correspondent is asking, and echoing him/her Brian, and echoing the both of them I as well. What evidence, Spence, where?

Can you actually spell out, backed with evidence, in what way the RSSB types tend to be different than regular, non-RSSB folks, as a result of their meditation etc?

-------

(Sure, it's been generally proven that meditation, in general, provides benefits. Agreed, as far as that. But that's neither here nor there. That's like saying that physical exercise, done right, is beneficial for us. Brian's correspondent raises a very apt analogy: Navy Seal boot camps, and their ongoing training regimen. You can, by examining Navy Seals, and comparing them with regular folks outside, the demonstrable difference between the levels of fitness and reflexes between the two. How does that play out with the RSSB follower? In what way, exactly, are they *demonstrably* served by their meditation and diet and all of that?)

[um]

@ AR
>>In what way, exactly, are they *demonstrably* served by their meditation and diet and all of that?)<<

They are NOT ...
as the teachings are not aimed at ANY social, cultural, physical or mental benefit,

The goal according the teachings is to free the soul from its attachements of the world, body and mind and bring it to its source.

Anybody that tels otherwise is a ...... LIAR

That said there might be collateral benefits related to the practice as is with children that have to walk or ride a bicycle for a couple of miles to fo to school

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Appreciative
You ask
"Can you actually spell out, backed with evidence, in what way the RSSB types tend to be different than regular, non-RSSB folks, as a result of their meditation etc?"

Given the variety of individuals in any large organization that is very difficult without substantial analysis. When you find such data let me know, I'd like to read it.

We do know that people in formal religions do enjoy longer life and better health overall than those who are not active in a religion. And we know meditation has tremendous benefits overall. Most of that data is only available for large scale studies. We can only infer from those and add our own anecdotal reports. Brian has added his, and I have added mine, as you can see above.

The data you ask for is also not available to support the claim Brian Ji makes.

I do not make a claim, only share my experience.

My own experience and relationships with Satsangis indicates there area many who have thrived fully from the benefit of the Path.

And of course you are most welcome to do as Googlecash suggests and attend some Satsangs, meet other Satsangis and see the diversity for yourself, feel the and collect some of that all important experience.

[Appreciative Reader]

"They are NOT ...
as the teachings are not aimed at ANY social, cultural, physical or mental benefit,

The goal according the teachings is to free the soul from its attachements of the world, body and mind and bring it to its source."

..........I take you point, um.

"That said there might be collateral benefits related to the practice as is with children that have to walk or ride a bicycle for a couple of miles to fo to school"

..........And evidence for that kind of thing is what I understand Brian's correspondent to have been asking about, and found lacking.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You wrote
"The goal according the teachings is to free the soul from its attachements of the world, body and mind and bring it to its source."

Yes, agreed. But who has been emancipated without making amends for the harm that have done to others in this life?

Who has been freed while causing great harm to others in this life?

Who has been able to leave this place turning their back to those in need at their doorstep?

Who has been unattached while imposing themselves upon others, stealing from others in this life?

Who had found freedom from the chains they themselves forge daily in denial?

Who had freed their soul without acknowledging and freeing themselves of their own addictions?

Anyone who says these things are unrelated is truly a liar and only deceives themselves. But that can't last for long. Their own conscience will catch up to them in its own time.

[Appreciative Reader]

"Given the variety of individuals in any large organization that is very difficult without substantial analysis. When you find such data let me know, I'd like to read it."

..........Heh, you're flipping that right back at me, Spence. It's the one making a claim that's called on to present their evidence, not the other way around. (Although more on that further down this post/comment.)

----------

"We do know that people in formal religions do enjoy longer life and better health overall than those who are not active in a religion. And we know meditation has tremendous benefits overall. Most of that data is only available for large scale studies."

..........Like I said: Areed, already, but that's neither here nor there.

----------

"I do not make a claim, only share my experience."

..........Fair enough, Spence. I went back and re-read your comment just now, that I'd quoted from in my preivous comment; and, while given the context of this thread I'd taken you to have meant this in the sense that Brian's correspondent did, but equally that might apply to you merely, and separately from Brian's article and Brian's correspondent's letter, discussing your own general experiences in general terms; as indeed you clarify now that you did. In which case, sure, no claim made, and therefore no evidence called for to be presented, obviously. No issues, cheers.

[um]

@ AR

You see AR all this stuff related to eastern culture came to the west in 1965 and was first introduced by people with relationships to communities the like of Rosicrucians and the power flower characters.

The last group was also in living a life that could easily end up in hospital or graveyard.
On being initiated they had to give up the use of all mind altering stuff and live a traditional moral life.

So the bilateral benefit of their choices for RSSB was that they had to change their life.
and prevented them from ending up in material and mental missery.

[Appreciative Reader]

Hm, true, agreed, um.

If RSSB requires one to eschew alcohol and drugs, then even if one follows those strictures out of blind faith, and even if that does not bring one any of the grand benefits promised, but still, merely ensuring that one no longer abuses drugs and alcohol is, in itself, a plus. In most cases an incidental plus, and not really signficant; but sure, in some cases probably a life-alterning plus, and in a few cases maybe even a life-saving plus. Yep, agreed.

[um]

@ AR

Just inform yourself. I do not know about the states etc but here in Europe and many with whom I came in contact with RSSB were all "consumers"... hahaha....
As I wrote the one of the two mainstreams between 1965 and say 1975, the "founding fathers" of the european Sangats were almost all students, and hippies.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR
Brian Ji's post makes the claim
"RSSB training produces zero results in Satsangis".

This sounds like the result of scientific research.

But it isn't. It is a conclusion without any controlled study or survey behind it.

But the post remains valuable anecdotal evidence.

It's just the anecdotal reports of those Brian Ji has chosen to accept as factual.

He and you are well aware of other's reports, mine included, of very positive results.

So, the claim is an unsubstantiated one from the perspective of science.

But, and here is the more important thing. Those disgruntled Satsangis' experience is just as real and factual as the other accounts of extreme benefit.

The conclusion is correct for them. But not by any means all Satsangis.

And from a spiritual perspective, they may have gained also without knowing how.

So, it's information. We are thankful these folks came forward with their narrative. That is highly valuable.

It isn't only important to know that Teslas are the safest vehicles on the planet, and the safest of these cars are the ones with full driving assistance.

It is also important to know when they fail, so that we can learn from those failures.

But to take those failures as indicative of the Tesla's safety would be fake news.

Because Teslas are the safest cars on the planet.

For example, Toyota's overall safety record is 38 deaths per million cars.

Subaru Legacy (their safest car). Is about 12 deaths per million cars.

Toyota Camry is about 34.

Chevy Malibu is 61.

And Tesla is 0.25. That's one fatality for every four million cars.

[um]

@ AR

In the personal correspondence at hand it is stressed at length that the aim of the teachings and the practice is not related to any worldly imaginable goal.
His signature, being a lawyer by profession, is the guarantee.

If you ore anybody else would take the troubles to go through the available Q and A sessions could convince himself also from that truth ... that sant mat is not interested in anything other than SURAT-SHABD_YOGA

This has nothing to do what my personal relationship is with this "MAT" or path.

[Appreciative Reader]

"RSSB training produces zero results in Satsangis".

This sounds like the result of scientific research.

----------

No, it sounds like direct observation. Which Brian's correspondent explains it is.

This is straightforward. I mean, I don't see how he/she could have made it any plainer and clearer, than with the very apt analogy they employ there. Say someone you know joins a training program, and start spending two-and-a-half hours at the gym every day, as well eating a very restricted diet. If after a year or two of this you find them waddling around with a huge beer belly and more chins than God equipped man with, then you'd rightly point out that there's no evidence of that training program bearing any merit. Wherupon, should someone want to defend that program, it is then incumbent on *them* to produce evidence and/or otherwise show how that program demonstrably helps them.

Agreed, you yourself provide, in yourself, anecdotal evidence of the opposite kind. And that's cool.

What remains now is to ask, How many of RSSB practictitioners show positive results, like you do, and how many don't. If the numbers of those that don't is overwhelmingly large --- as I suspect is the case, basis what I've heard said here time and time again (but of course I don't actually know this myself, and independently of what I've heard said here) --- then it is reasonable to ask what's up with that.

And as far as your own instance, I'm not sure that actually qualifies as bona fide evidence in favor of RSSB, you know. I don't mean I'm doubting your accounts of your experiences, what I'm referring to here is your description, that you'd shared in the past with me, of having these experiences well before you ever came across RSSB. So that I don't see how you can have the credit for that go to RSSB.

(There's the additional question of whether these experiences actually qualify as benefit, in any objective sense. But I'm not going to get into that question here for now, and simply accept for the sake of argument, and accept for our current purposes, that all of that is indeed good and beneficial. But like I said that still leaves us with asking why we'd necessarily credit RSSB for that; and also asking why your garden variety RSSB follower does not report similar results --- again assuming that the fact that they don't is itself true.)

I suppose the only way to get some objective data on this would be to poll RSSB members about their experiences. Except, I've no clue how one might possibly validate those responses --- that is, should x% of respondents actually report having experiences, then how on earth do we verify if they're even reporting this correctly?

So that a less direct means of going about this validation might be to look at the incidental health benefits that meditation has on the mind and body, and that you yourself keep talking about --- and that I agree with, because that is actually evidenced fact. So then you look at RSSB practioners, and see if indeed they are healthier than average, given the vaunted benefits that meditation confers on people, and given that these guys (and gals) are out meditating a whopping 2 hours + a day. And then, should you find that these guys are no more healthy than the average Joe, well then that counts as evidence disproving the efficacy of the RSSB regimen.

Which is a lot of words, and lots of discussion, to basically make the same point that Brian's correspondent does succinctly by employing that brilliant analogy of his about Navy seals.

[Appreciative Reader]

Hi, um.

Agreed, with what you say here in your last comment. As Julian Johnson's book makes clear, RSSB meditation is aimed at liberating the practitioner from the prison, as he puts it, and not to make the stay within the walls of the prison more palatable. So that the the only yardstick by which one ought to be evaluating them is the prison walls thing ---- which, well, I need hardly go on, because clearly that's a dead end.

Therefore, one proxy for objective evaluation might be to look at incidental markers. In which context see what I just said, in my comment addressed to Spence just now.

There lies the brilliance of Brian's correspondent's analogy. Of course, like most/all analogies the correspondence isn't a perfect one-to-one, in that the Navy Seals' training is directly geared towards making them fitter and quicker and with better reflexes, so what you're testing for by observing them is the primary focus of their training --- focusing for now just on that side of it, and ignoring, for the sake of simplicity, other goals of Navy Seal training like strategizing, and firearm training, and so on and so forth. While here, in case of RSSB, by looking at how healthy these guys are, we're basically testing for an incidental effect of their "training", not the primary thing. To that extent the analogy breaks down. But still, and despite that, it is still a great analogy, and provides us a great proxy to arrive at some objective measure --- as Spence, who keeps talking about the health benefits of meditation (and I agree with him as far as that much) should agree.

----------

Anyway, not to beat this to death. The short point is, going by the evidence, and as discussed above, RSSB seems to come up short. But I admit that in so saying I'm going not by first-hand observation of RSSB practitioners, but second-hand reports from Brian's correspondent, from Brian himself, and generally from others. Should anyone be able to produce evidence to the contrary, then sure, I'm happy to correct my impression on this.

[um]

@ AR

It is strange to me, that people insist finding clues, evidences, outcomes, results
etc when on forehand they could know it is not there.

It is as strange as measuring the qualities of a sport team on the fact whether they read books or not...... an after finding that the score low on book reading that they must be a miserable sports team.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR
You wrote
"This is straightforward. I mean, I don't see how he/she could have made it any plainer and clearer, than with the very apt analogy they employ there. Say someone you know joins a training program, and start spending two-and-a-half hours at the gym every day, as well eating a very restricted diet. If after a year or two of this you find them waddling around with a huge beer belly and more chins than God equipped man with, then you'd rightly point out that there's no evidence of that training program bearing any merit."

Only if you dismiss the evidence of others. If there were no other evidence such a claim might be warranted. But ignoring conflicting accounts, such a claim is unwarranted.

You may say" thirty people reported no results. Fifteen reported negative results " And add" There have been sixty other accounts of very positive results... That are commensurate with typical findings in meditation research. "

Or, more practically, title the blog"Two more Satsangis report negative results they have observed in other Satsangis."

Dismissing evidence you don't like is not balanced.

That is plain. If shouldn't require a debate, AR.

Acknowledge the various testimony you have heard. Simple enough.

Or stick to the logic you have claimed time and again. A sample of two is not enough to draw a conclusion.

When you use high standards of reason your shouldn't throw them out to defend a favorite opinion.

You wrote
"there is no evidence of merit."

That's false. There is anecdotal evidence for and against. A controlled study hasn't been conducted yet, hence, no conclusion can be drawn.

But the evidence for benefit is in every supportive testimony you have already read, posted right here over the years.

One can dismiss these accounts just as readily as the others. Or accept them all as different anecdotal reports.

I'm surprised AR to see you abandon reason when it doesn't support your view.

[Spence Tepper]

Two more points AR
The millions of professionals, doctors, lawyers, scientists on the path for years from different cultures would be a great source of evidence. They choose freely to continue their practice.

You could speak to some of them at any Satsang. How has this practice affected your daily life, health and outlook?

And I suspect that even a poll of Church of the Churchless comments over the years would be another source, if you could extract the accounts of the Satsangis themselves about their own conditions.

In Brian Ji's accounts he refers to an observation of others, but not the account of the Satsangis about their own actual health changes.

So, lets get serious about answering that question.

Brian Ji, let's start a thread on the subject... How has initiation into RSSB affected your health, happiness and outlook? Did you come to the path of your own choice? How do you view that decision today? The testimony can't be about your uncle Fred or anyone else. Just you.

This might not be the best place to get an unbiased sample, but it's a start. And it will be more information than you have today.

[Appreciative Reader]

um, you may not have appreciated the point of that incidental marker.

The direct, primary aim of RSSB meditation, like you rightly point out, is other-worldly. And therefore outside of any question of objective validation.

But it is a fact that meditation, rightly done, confers benefits to both mind and body. And it also a fact that RSSB initiates are enjoined to commit to the 2.5 hours of meditation a day --- that's some heavy-duty lifting right there. So that it would be logical to expect to see those incidental benefits, if truly these guys are actually putting in their 2.5 hours a day, and regardless of the primary, other-worldly claim.

To put it plainly: If these (incidental) benefits, that meditation brings to mind and body, are found lacking in RSSB initiates, then the clear conclusion is that these guys aren't actually doing the meditation that they're supposed to. (Or, if they are, then that might raise doubts about the nature of the technique they are taught. And so forth.)

It's a secondary, proxy measure. Your analogy of testing football players' reading skills has nothing to do with this, because their training has nothing to do with reading skills, not even indirectly.

----------

Okay, here's an example. Say you're training two-and-half hours every day at swimming. So, how do I test your training program? Obviously by seeing how well and how fast and how long you can actually swim.

But suppose for some reason I can't test your swimming directly. Maybe there's no swimming pool available. And I still want to validate the training program.

Well then, one proxy measure, entirely totally incidental, might simply be to test how well you run. Now your training isn't about running at all; but in as much as it must have built up your endurance significantly, by having you swim two-and-a-half hours every day, to that extent you ought to be able to run both faster and with greater endurance than your average person who does not do any significant physical exercise at all. (You'll need to control for lots of things here, but let's leave all of that out for the sake of simplicity.)

Or, instead of running, one might even simply look at your general health. You'd expect someone swimming two hours a day to be very fit, certainly more so than average.

And if that turns out to not be the case, then that rightly raises questions about the efficacy of the swimming training program, even despite not having tested for swimming per se.

So that it behooves those who might want to defend that program to produce evidence, in terms of this indirect measure, to make their case; or else to clearly and plausibly explain this discrepancy.

----------

Anyway, like I said: Enough sound and fury here over the proverbial nothingburger. I'm going to spare this poor equine any further physical abuse.

[Appreciative Reader]

I don't know what else to say, Spence. I don't think I can make it any plainer.

I see you don't respond to my pointing out that your experiences pre-date your RSSB initiation, and in that way disqualify you as a candidate to generally judge RSSB by.

I don't see why so many words should be needed. That short pithy paragraph by Brian's correspondent ought to have been enough.

Do RSSB initiates in general report better physical and/or mental health than average? Brian's correspondent thinks not. Brian himself, clearly, thinks not. I do not present my observations, because I have none. What about you, then? Would you say that you've found the average RSSB initiate physically and mentally healthier than your average non-initiate? It's a simple question.

If you claim that that is so, then sure, I'll do you the courtesy of believing you, no less than I believed Brian's correspondent, and indeed Brian himself. But you do realize that you haven't once come out and actually said that clearly. So let me ask you directly: Do you actually claim that, that your personal experience of RSSB initiates has been that they are healthier than average non-initiates (after informally controlling for extraneous factors ----- so that if you've got a sample of RSSB initiates that you're considering, who on average have post-graduate qualifications and a middle-to-upper-middle range income or higher, then don't compare that group with a bunch of non-initiates that may be ill educated and/or otherwise very differently situated.

Go ahead, add your own testimony, by all means, to Brian's correspondent's, and Brian's as well, about your personal observation of RSSB initiates vis-a-vis people at large, as far as this incidental marker. If your observation is at odds with theirs, then fair enough, we'll then call for others here, who are familiar with RSSB, to bring forth *their* testimony. Or, pending that, we'll declare the question open.

I don't see why you're complaining about unfairness without actually having presented any contrary testimony at all. (And again, this isn't about you personally. I've already clearly shown how you don't qualify, at all. What I'm asking about is your impression of other RSSB types that you know and have observed, vis-a-vis people at large, after informally controlling for extraneous parameters.)

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um and AR
Here is what Great Master wrote
"Your worries and cares are Master's worries and cares. Leave them to Him to deal with. Having become carefree, your business is to cultivate His love. He is not going to let you drift. You will go up."
From Spiritual Gems letter 117.

These are very measurable claims. In my case, carefree in His care, yes, absolutely. I treasure the carefree times I give everything to Him.

On a scale of worried to carefree, 1-5 I was at 2.5 when I took initiation and over the years that has changed so that now I'm 4.4 most of the time. And those blessed moments at 5, indescribable.

It's an ordinal scale but useful.

Yes you can survey anyone on these outcomes.
Were you left to drift?
Were you able to give your cares to your Master?
Did your Master handle things for you when you did so?
What was your anxiety level before initiation?
And today?

Easy questions any Satsangi with even a couple of years on the path can rate.

[um]

@ AR

Light on Sant Mat.
Letter 137
starts out with:

you must have been told at the time of initiation that we seek Nam [ Surat Shabd Yoga = connecting the soul with the inner sound] ... NOT ...for any personal gain or worldly advantage, but for Spiritual uplift and to secure liberation.

All discussion of this path in other terms, terms realted to worldly advantages, is, seen from within these teachings, futile, sheer nonsense and twisting around

You see AR , what happens within a given concept, tale, drama can be approached from within the concept or from without.

Outside RSSB and part of another tale, concept, meditation is evaluated on bases of measurable results in this world as is done for example by TM and affiliated schools.

But the teachings of RSSB do not speak about them as they are not part of their goals and system of measuring progress. Moreover, as every system, concept, drama, has an answer for questions raised, worldly well being is a matter of karma and karma is beyond the power of will. Efforts too, are not only explained in terms of karma, but also in terms of divine grace and will.

As I wrote, you can if you like ask yourself the question of reading books contributes to better results as sporters.

Tm claims that a certain amount of TMers in a neighbourhood will lower the crime rate in their neighbourhood ... and use that criterium for ALL sorts of other meditations

With a hammer as a tool many different tasks can be done

[Appreciative Reader]

eww, no, none of that faff.

Just go with the parameters we've been discussing all along, so far, these incidental markers built around health, that you yourself so often bring up. Don't suddenly try to shift goalposts this late in the game, and most certainly not to these airy fairy nothings that aren't even goalposts at all.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR
You asked
"Would you say that you've found the average RSSB initiate physically and mentally healthier than your average non-initiate? It's a simple question."

Absolutely. But that's just my opinion. The only real evidence I have is my own experience.

Hence the utility of polling Satsangis, not about their opinion of other Satsangis. That's practically useless, second hand at best. But about their own experience. That has some validity. It's first hand.

As I wrote earlier, it's not cause and effect but interaction with who and what you are and the practice.

The outcomes on health and well being are absolutely important.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
Great Master also wrote in Spiritual Gems
"In the same way the Master aims at reforming His disciples and curing them of their bad habits and wicked seeds so that the spirit may shine in its purity."
Ibid letter 21

Research questions :
Did the practice help you overcome any bad habits?
Did the practice help you overcome any hurtful behavior?

Regarding leaving family and running off to India from letter 30
"If you work hard on the path you need not come to India. The Radient Form of the Master will appear before you inwardly, talk to you and answer all your questions."

Did that happen?

So simple. Very practical.

Now to your point Um, from letter 36
"The knowledge is within you and it is from within yourself that you are to find it. Books give the description and inducer you to go within, but do not give the experience and knowledge. Description of a thing is not the thing."

Research questions
Did you find answers within yourself?
Were they any good?
Did you gather any knowledge within from your practice?
Did anything you learned have practical application in living a kinder, more helpful life?
Did any of those answers help you manage your responsibilities, including for the care of your body and will being?

The elements of the path can be measured individually and in survey.

[um]

@ Spence

Your answer makes me laugh ...

It is an unrealistic generalization of your own personal life.

Not only the churches have to close their doors in Europe but the amount of local initiates is dropping year by year since 1990.

In the meantime the sound of frustrated followers is growing louder and louder

You see spence I have nothing to say about these teachings and their teachers and I somebody tells me that he found happiness, following and practicing these teachings, I just happen to believe him. I will not question anything nor suggest anything. He tells me that he speaks daily wiyh his inner master, I just hear what he says and will not argue with him at all.

What matters to me is what this person does with his individual experience in the public domain.

So yes I believe what you write about your experiences and how you feel about it and even that you believe, based upon that personal experience it is within the reach of all human beings .... but than it matters what you do with that believe in the public domain.

So I am not interested in You nor your personal experiences, but how you behave in the public domain.

[Ron E.]

There seems to be a great reliance with seekers to look for and revere those who they see as masters and gurus and generally people who are perceived as being able to offer – whatever it is that the seeker craves. It is part of the human lot to gravitate toward someone who offers the truth, perhaps through a mysterious person who offers exactly what we think we are looking for. Yet the reality is that most of us are probably looking for some sort of certainty, some sort of continuation away from the anxiety and fears of our impending demise.

I don't know who wrote ‘The Reluctant Hero’ but Dustin Hoffman’s character where he is talking to his son about truth, expresses it so :- “Well, the thing about life is, it gets weird. People are always talking about truth. Everybody always knows what the truth is, like it was toilet paper or something, and they’ve got a supply in the closet. But what you learn, as you get older, is there is no truth. All there is is bullshit, pardon my vulgarity, layers of it, one layer of bullshit on top of another. And what you do in life like when you get older is, you pick the layer of bullshit that you prefer and that's your bullshit, so to speak.”

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
Why would you be interested in how anyone behaves in public?
In public I own my experience.
In public you condemn that voice.
And then your nihilism:
"Not only the churches have to close their doors in Europe but the amount of local initiates is dropping year by year since 1990."

Um, do you think this means anything about the human condition? People are actively finding their inspiration where they can reach it.

If you don't care, then why comment?

But surely your are trying to say something.

What exactly eludes me.

Every human being is on their own path. They are believing their experience and pushing forward. They are having visions of progress and working towards that.

Atheism is actually a part of that, an important stage. It is actually the opposite of your view. It is an affirmation of life itself.

The book written in you, Um, is intact. It is more important than any written path or system. If you believe what Great Master wrote.

But if not, others are finding that truth within every day without any help from you or I.

Your view of the world is Nilistic. And mine Optimistic.

So long as trees and people grow so it will be.

[Appreciative Reader]

My goodness, this has gotten more involved than I'd bargained for.

I've left my desk, and am on my phone now, so I'll keep it brief, and limit myself to just one post for now, and address the both of you here.

-----

@um: What you're doing here is effectively claiming that RSSB meditation is bereft of the incidental physical benefits that other forms of meditation, including mindfulness, demonstrably do. I withhold my personal opinion, since I have none. But do the others, who are acquainted with RSSB meditation, agree?

-----

@Spence: Ah, so your testimony is that you've indeed found the average RSSB initiative healthier, physically and mentally. Fair enough. Sure, no reason why your observations should carry any less weight than anyone else's.

I guess a poll here might kind of sort of act as somewhat-proxy for a more rigorously random and/or representative sample, agreed. I'd suggest polling about others, not oneself, because every data point can then itself be a summing up of many data points. If you want self-reporting, then you'll need a far larger sample, much larger than our little band can possibly put together, even assuming wide participation from the regulars here.

And in any case, you, Spence, don't count, given your pre-RSSB experiences. Because we don't know if your particular results might owe to those, or to your subsequent RSSB thing.

[um]

@ Spence

Did the practice help to over come bad habits etc?

I would not know how to answer that question.
To be blunt it sounds stupid in my ears to ask these questions.

In the past someone suggested to meditate, when an storm of anger would approach me. I did heed his words, to find out. and indeed I calmed down. But within, 5 minutes returning to the place of "ceremony" I exploded as never before.

Did I ever see the radiant form?
No I did not and I only know of Idians that they have these experiences frequently as I explained a couple of days before.

Nor did I ever saw a light or heard a sound.

Did I found answers due to practice?
That too is a stupid question and the answer is No
The same holds for the questions that followed..

But psychological I have come to understand quite a bit and looking at those that are on the path, and that I have known for decades, they have not changed at all. I am not going into detail but maybe Brian will speak up about his experiences in the management of the sangat and whether the practise of these people have made them better human beings.

Strange enough, I have come to experience many a thing Huzur said about the workings of the human mind as being true meaning I verified them in my own life.
I also came to understand the teachings as far as the public domain is concerned and how they speak to the mind, to be true.

He is right in what he said about the reach of personal freedom, will and effort.

Meditation has to be done with love and devotion, not mechanical
The pull must come from within
etc etc as I have written about these things time and again
And that if these things are nit there there is nothin one can do.

And I have known nobody in the sangat of several hundreds that can answer your question in the affirmative. Most of those I worked with as sevadar for decades, have left the path

[Accidental Reader]

I don't think those questions cut the proverbial mustard, Spence. That's just faff.

I agree with um, that ideally we'd need to test for the primary goal.

But I agree with you that, since that isn't possible, then next best is to go for indirect markers. But no, such faff, such airy fairy questions, are much too subjective. I'd suggest going for hard markers, like physical and mental health (or even, to keep it free of faff, just physical health).

And again, for reasons already explained, I prefer going for opinion about others, rather than self-reporting. Basically because that will let us cover a larger base, a larger sample, if indirectly. And when it comes to something like physical health, I guess the observations might well hit home, by and large.

[um]

@AR
>>What you're doing here is effectively claiming that RSSB meditation is bereft of the incidental physical benefits that other forms of meditation, including mindfulness,<><

No I did not write that nor suggested it

Let me ad something AR:
In this world the consciousness uses the senses and the mind etc as a carrier.
In the interior the consciousness uses light or sound as a carrier.
Some schools stress the use of sound and others the light.
That said all will see light and hear sounds but they discard one in favor of the other.

So yes, the meditation of RSSB could wel have measurable effect on followers but nobody pays attention to it.

[um]

@ Spence

As a final word:
He wrote me
"His invisible hand is always guiding you"

In visible .. certainly ... hahaha
Was I guided .. how could I see that??? ... hahaha

I feel we better stop this discussion at least I will do my best in that regard as it becomes borring

[um]

@ Spence

You asked me questions.
Let me ask You a question.

Were are the 10 stone doors located in the interior?

[um]

And Spence

Pleace do read letter 297 and from that letter the long paragraph on page 302 that starts with the words; "Now that you have ....

That speaks about how to behave in the public domain and how to treat people like me ... hahaha

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR
You wrote
"And in any case, you, Spence, don't count, given your pre-RSSB experiences. Because we don't know if your particular results might owe to those, or to your subsequent RSSB thing."

Many people came to the path having had mystical experiences, AR

Let's try this a third time.

Not cause and effect but interaction between practice and proclivity.

As to a proper study that has any validity at all, a basic opinion survey of Initiates will at least get an accurate picture of their self-perceptions. Judgments of others are filled with attribution bias and hopelessly flawed.

What you are referring to when you site hard measures would be a couple of studies that can only be made on individuals. You could take a random control and study group and measure them on a variety of health metrics, both physiological and psychological. Also you could measure them on measures of education and economic status, political orientation, etc.

There are no hard spiritual measures, as Um alludes to. But it is much more practical to determine the effect of the practice and /or participation in the organization on the state of the person with the above measures. This is what questions related to the writings of the saints on the effects of practice.

That isn't faff as you wrote. Self-reports of well being are very useful hard measures. They are just some of the measures of all being, certainly not they biometric ones, but of self-perception of well being. And your perception of your mental health is in fact an indicator.

For example, if the vast majority of Satsangis rate their happiness much higher than others using a standard scale of happiness (yes, several exist and have been vetted) , that alone tells you something important.

Is the average body weight of Satsangis lower than the general public, or is their life expectancy longer? Those are also solid measures.

No single measure answers the question of the effect of practice.

Since Satsangis come in so many different ages types and cultures it may be useful to set up a block design where groups are compared to like groups in they general population: men over 50, women with a college education, etc. These factors help control for a number of extraneous variables that make it difficult to have an apples to apples comparison of group scores.

Lacking a rigorous study, a simple survey is a great start. Normally that would include exploratory questions such as "what effects has practice had on you? And on your family? What brought you to they path? What keeps you on it? " This would give a clue as to what actually we should be looking at to measure effect.

This is if one is serious about making truthful assessments of practice and participation.

At some point a longitudinal study would be appropriate where a group of new initiates are surveyed in a variety of details and tested at regular intervals over several decades. But those are very expensive.

An online anecdotal series of narratives is a great start, and Brian Ji already has some of those here. I humbly suggest that with a little more open minded interest and structure we could begin the "Initiate project" and ask folks to answer some questions and share their narratives, not so much to prove a point, but to explore and learn a little more from each other.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
Thai you for your candid answers.
The reason a survey of individuals would be best is precisely because my perception of Satsangis, my experienced of them is quite different from yours. And I suspect our personal experience has a lot to do with what we see in others.

That people shared their spiritual experiences with me in confidence only means that to me Satsangis do have such experiences and regularly.

What Great Master wrote about going within and having Master there and available was both a strong desire of newer initiates, a lifelong effort by others, and generally the reward for such effort among most of the middle aged Satsangis I knew. It was common practice to encourage the younger by telling them not to expect anything, and just learn to be badly. But it was the inevitable reward for any prolonged effort.

So, since my experience is so nearly opposite that of yours and a few folks here, I can understand the views that your experience and Brian Ji's and those who wrote to him must be the general situation.

It is not. The vast majority of Satsangis are on the path. They include adults who make up their own minds every single day.

Many white men for hundreds of years thought blacks and women were inferior. They convinced themselves of this by pointing to very slanted observations.

Same with Hitler's view of Jews.

Thinking can be slanted. Objective study helps cut through that with more objective information.To me that is also real enlightenment. The fact that blacks and women have equal rights, though that is still very much in process of implementation, is the hard evidence enlightenment is a fact. And we can all participate in it by our own objective inquiry to gather new data, and our commitment to acknowldge and examine all of it without bias.

[Spence Tepper]

Oops. Typo.
Should read "It was common practice to encourage the younger by telling them not to expect anything, and just learn to be happy and live in faith.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You wrote
"Spence

" Pleace do read letter 297 and from that letter the long paragraph on page 302 that starts with the words; "Now that you have ....

" That speaks about how to behave in the public domain and how to treat people like me ... hahaha"

Find the book within yourself Um. That's the only truth you will know and accept. If reading the bills helps you find that one, they have served a purpose. If those same bills are used to judge others that are a stone door blocking your way.

The Bible is much better read than thrown.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You asked
"@ Spence

" You asked me questions.
"Let me ask You a question.

" Were are the 10 stone doors located in the interior?

There are no doorways in my house. It is an open floorplan.

You are invited for coffee at any time.

[umami]

"Or, absent that, irreverence! Question. Complain. Joke. It's just as effective as donning
some imagined religious piety in talking to a "holy" person. In the end, words don't matter
as much as an enduring resilience. This level of engagement and intensity hones our radar
against the mind's back channel commentary as well. We start to hear a mind's whispered
doubts/ fears and their power is gone.
(I'll end, my tone is getting open-threadish, isn't it...)"

Dungeness,

Good point! Acting the part of disciple wears thin. You have to weave with your own fiber.

[Tim Rimmer]

Taking a slightly different tack, I’ll comment on two words Brian used that stood out in this post - ‘highly dualistic’ - not just dualistic, but highly so.

Perhaps it’s because in time people who give RSSB a fair go realise that it’s essentially a non-dual perspective that starts to dawn, and this does not gel with the teachings, which IMO, they have to ‘let go of’. This is certainly enough to create psychological disturbance, let alone all the potential guilt/dissatisfaction with not achieving goals etc…

Brian has not added a ‘because’ to his assertion, but leaves us to consider several generalised points and reflect on our own experience and observations (for me, now deep in the memory banks). A couple come to mind:
Brian comments on a seeming lack of compassion/sensitivity to others needs some satsangi types display - likely because they are steadfast rule followers and see themselves as ‘saved’ while others are seen as ‘worldly’.
As a follow-on, this also manifested as a distinct lack of interest/action in environmental/social justice matters. When you have a teaching emphasising that the world is a latrine and your job is to escape it, obviously one is not going to put in much effort to look after it. (And as the planet loses its capacity for life support this surely makes it harder to still down the associated mental and emotional angst, that’s affecting many these days).

I believe much of this can be traced to the key dualistic set up of several religions not just RSSB - the notion that this ‘soul’ thing is separated from God and needs to get back/be reunited.
Dogma says this is the case. A degree of experience and maturity can provide different realisations based on existing connection, and much less emphasis on struggling separation.

[um]

@ Spence

As for the ten doors in the interior.

That question was asked by a mystic to another mystic in the tradition of Sant Mat Gurus.

It is childish to answer it the way you did.

Probably you have difficulties in admitting that you simple said , do not know where these doors are located.

These people asked one another questions to verify where they had gone towarts Sach Khand and what they had witnessed.

Sant mat path is said to be a path in the interior layout the same for all, according the teachings and that makes it controllable

You claim to have gone all the way up in the interior so you must know what these "stone doors" refered to and where they are located.

[um]

As to letter 297 , page 302 of Light on Sant Mat, it says:

Now that you [Spence] have the key to the inner mysteries and have sarted so hopefully on the inner journey [Spence having gone as far as Sach Khand], what matters it to you[ Spence] how feverishly people [the like as Um and with permission AR a.o.] run about and how they are engaged [ the legion of frustrated practitioners after decades of practice].

They [ people like Um, AR, Brian etc etc etc] are working out their destiny.

It is allright to sympathize [ HELPING them, COUNSELING them] with them but you cannot interest them in higher things [ none of your counsals did help to change the mind of Brian, AR and others, not to forget the Uchi's that write here] before the time is right. { as said Spoence the pull mus come from within]

Even if you would talk to them of the Radha Swami Faith and appeal to them from the results of your own experoence { as you go on doing here] ... {which, of course is NOT PERMITTED} , they would not believe.

P.S.
As said Spence, It is not about these inner experiences, but about what you do with them in the public domain as is this blog towards others.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um;
You wrote:
"t is allright to sympathize [ HELPING them, COUNSELING them] with them but you cannot interest them in higher things [ none of your counsals did help to change the mind of Brian, AR and others, not to forget the Uchi's that write here] before the time is right. { as said Spoence the pull mus come from within]"

Yes, we agree on that. I'm not suggesting anyone seek initiation from Baba Ji. That's between Baba Ji and them. I don't represent RSSB and am happy not to carry that responsibility. But as for being a voice for my own experience, of course!

I'm happy to share what I know. Why not? My Master shared that with me. And he's fine with it.

I have no responsibility to take on disciples! I'm just a kid, a student. Still in school and loving it. I can speak whatever I like so long as I'm honest. No doors.

Even the large picture window was removed, so that the house and the garden, inside and outside are all part of the same. There isn't a door or window in the house. It's more like the Acropolis. Of course it's His place. I can go out and come in as I like. And at dusk, it's quite wonderful.

Join me here for coffee.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi UM:
You wrote: "That question was asked by a mystic to another mystic in the tradition of Sant Mat Gurus."
Are you claiming to be a Sant Mat mystic, Um?

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You wrote:
"You claim to have gone all the way up in the interior so you must know what these "stone doors" refered to and where they are located."
There was never a door in the place, Um. In this life, the whole house was like the acropolis. Open Concept. Outdoors and Indoors the same. Trick questions do deserve stupid answers, but here I've spoken honestly.

[um]

@ Spence

Instead of asking me questions you do know the answer, answer theat very simple question.
And if you cannot or will not, just speak up instead of being "funny" and play games

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You wrote
"Instead of asking me questions you do know the answer, answer theat very simple question."

You may have misunderstood. The questions I asked were generic for a survey of Satsangis, to gather some anecdotal information about their actual experience or perception of their experience. Not inner experiences, but experience as a Satsangi. Do they feel they have gotten anything out of the practice?

Then you remarked
"And if you cannot or will not, just speak up instead of being "funny" and play games"

As I mentioned above, I gave you an honest answer.

If you talking about a specific quote from a book please provide that quote on context here and I'll do my best to interpret it for you.

If you think Saints go around with an intelligence test of questions they put to other mystics that is plain wrong.

But please provide the quote in the item thread and we can discuss it together and with anyone else who would like to add their two cents.

[um]

@ Spence

You Spence are the one that claims to have traversed to path to Sach Khand in the interior.
You also claim that the path leading to Satch Khand is the same for every one
Travering that path you must have passed the "stone door"

The question is simple
Where are these stone doors located?

The disclosure of the information I have is not necessary for you to answer that simple question.

I

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
It would be so easy for you to simply show your quotation.
While I am all about disclosure, and Transparancy, you are all about secrecy.
Why do you think that is?

[um]

@ Spence

You just do not answer a simple question in a simple way.

You are the one that claims here to have daily inner experiences.
You are the one that claims to have traveled the path in the interior to its end
You are the one that claims that all can travel that path as you do

You that makes these claims are asked an simple question:

Where are the stone doors located that you have to pass in the interior in order to reach to the end?

Answering that qusimple question needs no other discussions unless you cannot answer and are not willing to say simple ... I do not know.

Answering that question Spence doesn't require anything outside you.

[Dungeness]

@um : [ Where are the stone doors located that you have to pass in the interior in order to reach to the end?]

Hm, could they be the stony hard doors of the heart... ( probably help
to have a friend and a chisel when you get stuck)

[umami]

swami umami answers: "Yes, well, very esoteric, you see. :::cough, cough:::. Very subtle. :::ahem::: To quote Winston Churchill, 'It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.' Human words can't... Parables... Metaphors... Many meanings... Perhaps you're not ready... So many variables... Winston Churchill, what a guy! :::cough:::"

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You wrote
"You are the one that claims to have traveled the path in the interior to its end
" You are the one that claims that all can travel that path as you do"

And you have claimed I have not.

What a strange conversation that I don't experience something you describe as ten closed granite doors.

How odd that I experience expanse within expanse, below the atom and beyond the known creation.

Yet you insist, lacking any firsthand experience, these doors must be there.

I think it is you who should tell me more about them, if you insist they are there, and how you came to believe that.

Basically, I don't experience ten closed granite doors.

I have a different experience, Um.

Does that mean I don't have ten gates in this body as anyone else? No. I'm just like everyone else.

Does that mean I don't have the same chakras as anyone else? No. Same, as far as I can tell. I'm not focused on any but the tenth

I do believe the path to be the same for everyone purely on logical grounds. The human body is constructed of basically the same DNA, hence everything in it, for the most part, is a potential most anyone can develop.

That does not mean that I see every human being.

I might see a little more than you, as you have claimed you have had zero inner experiences.

But to extend that to having some psychic awareness of what you are talking about, the answer is no.

I might conjecture that your regenerate to ten stone doors ha a reference from a mystic to either the ten doors of the body (where we close most of those to help open the tenth door, at the eye center), or the ten spiritual centers/Chakras of the body.

That would be conjecture.

[Spence Tepper]

Now, Um...

All roads lead to Rome, as I've said before, Because we are basically the same in construction.

But each of those roads starts on a different place. You can say the roads are not the same at all. They go in different directions and start from different places. In fact many are nearly completely different based as they are on our different starting places, different experiences, and slightly different genetics. These things make for different lives.

So there will be different paths to personal and spiritual progress. Each path from that perspective, is unique.

From a very distant view, they are pretty much the same. But at any given time we are all in different spots.

Some will find themselves, of necessity, toiling away with shovel and pick axe to move inch by inch through one dark cave only to be met with another. It isn't ten doors but ten thousand for them.

And another, through fate, will be flown over all of it on nothing more than kindness and love. They will not even see any door at all, because their true Love removed all of all them, and in fact it was easier on both. The cost? Pure submission, pure devotion.

Um, let there be one heavy stone door only, the one to your past.

[um]

@ Spence

It was not need to spend so much words Spence.

You simply could have answered "I do not know of these doors."

[Spence Tepper]

Um,
I was just thinking on physical, Astral, Casual layers and how each of these has their own Chakras, and each interconnected.

Each Chakra is like a button inside other buttons, like an onion button! Each Onion button connects several layers of clothes. Like one button contecting through a hole in shirt, vest, jacket and overcoat. So there is a navel button on each of the bodies, and a throat button in each of the bodies, etc... Far more than ten in total.

This is why context is so important, Um. Please share your quote.

Now, as to their importance, compared to the Presence of the Lord? Zero.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You wrote
"You simply could have answered "I do not know of these doors."

That would not be correct. You will need to provide your reference quote in context for me to be sure of that.

You could have saved yourself all this also by doing so.

[um]

@ Spence

[um]

@ Spence

In not answering that simple question, where the stone doors are located, you made known what I wanted to know.

:-)

and ...

This is a public domain.

hahahaha

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You wrote
"In not answering that simple question, where the stone doors are located, you made known what I wanted to know.

" :-)

"hahahaha

Um, I've responded to every question you raised as best I could.

But you have not actually answered my request for that full quotation. Does it actually exist?

If you would please do so, you will be holding a spiritual truth above a petty slight. Your choice.

[um]

@ Spence

Alright .. you indeed answered the that simple question in a "spence" way

Hahaha

You could also have that answer answered in a simple way and as said, for doing so, you do not need extra information.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You replied to my request with
"Alright .. you indeed answered the that simple question in a "spence" way

"Hahaha

" You could also have that answer answered in a simple way and as said, for doing so, you do not need extra information."

But Um, you have not provided the quotation in context nor its source reference you claim to be Sant Mat mystics.

Use this opportunity to enlighten, not to remain secretive merely to denigrate.

I am easy to point a finger of blame to for I err many times a day.

But here you would rather make this your point than to enlighten with evidence of your claim?

Now you have claimed the detail of these granite doors was in fact the special knowledge one mystic queried of another to verify their mystic standing, as a sort of special secret password?

I honestly would like to read more about this, being entirely unfamiliar with, perhaps by faulty memory, of what you claim to be part and parcel of Sant Mat.

Hence my request that you provide the quotation you refer to.

If you read this someplace, please quote it here.

[um]

@ Spence

To answer that question you did not need extra information.
Otherwise I have nothing to add to it.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um:

You wrote
"To answer that question you did not need extra information.
Otherwise I have nothing to add to it."

So, your statement that the mystics used to question one another about the ten granite doors as a means of verifying each others' level of attainment (like a double secret passcode) does not actually have any written quotation from any Sant Mat text. Is that correct?

How about just exactly what those ten granite doors are? Do you have any written reference to back up your claim that this is common knowledge among Sant Mat Mystics? Or any detail what these are?

Just clarifying that you are speaking neither from direct personal experience nor from any written text....

I'm sure this didn't just enter your head (that's how I get stuff, Um, not to confuse the two of us)...

:)

[um]

@ Spence

You have had your chance.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Um
You wrote
"You have had your chance."

Here is your chance, Um. I've been handing it to you all along. The chance to prove I'm wrong. All you need to do is write out the quotation with source.

So simple. It's getting suspicious. You cited quotes before in your effort to prove I'm wrong. Now you've come out with the ten granite doors secret passcode, and frankly, I'm disappointed.

Now, as I said, I'm wrong about stuff several times a day, so no great news.

But you have called me a liar repeatedly and now can't back up your own claim.

You didn't need to call me liar, that was uncalled for.

Now you can't back up your accusation.

It's so petty, Um, but very typical.

You are wrong. But join the club, we all are.

Each one of us has been blessed with wealth of one kind or another, so no one should angrily acuse anyone falsely. Or at all.

Let's make this a teaching moment about that.

Would your Master condone the name calling?

[Spence Tepper]

By the way, Um, there are no repurcussions here. You haven't hurt my feelings. You are still my brother. And your Master still loves you too. Maybe there is the tiniest eye roll, but otherwise, no prob.

[um]

@ Spence

You gave all the answers ....there is nothing more to be exchanged.

[Sonya]

The whole Master worship thing is probably the creepiest part of RSSB.

The second (and laughably absurd) RSSB error is their teaching that God doesn’t judge you, he appointed someone to judge you. (Like God has others do his dirty work for him.)

Then of course the whole Cobra Kai no mercy approach that is taught by the current guru.

RSSB was never really on the right road from the start, but now it’s not even on a road.

Guru is not God. God is not what you think it is.

And don’t even get me started on the lunacy of the GIHF teaching, which is the only reason there’s a Dera in the first place. RSSB masters have to keep up the GIHF teaching in order to keep people expanding the Dera.

The GIHF teaching is how they keep the lights on so to speak.

[🤫]

Let’s not, and never say that we did.

[Dungeness]

@ Sonya : [ The whole Master worship thing is probably the creepiest part of RSSB.]

There's a mystic sleight-of-hand though. The stage actor on the dais is not the "Master".
What's worshipped is always to be found within... only inside individual consciousness.
The stage actor is just a master of his consciousness.

That mastery is what disciples in the cheap seats aspire to. Creepiness oozes in when
you confuse the stage actor's outer form with the divine consciousness within. Disciples
following a mystic path of mindfulness and devotion can elevate awareness and truly
realize the perfection of consciousness.

[ The second (and laughably absurd) RSSB error is their teaching that God doesn’t judge you, he appointed someone to judge you. (Like God has others do his dirty work for him.) ]

But "God" isn't a creepy dictator on a far away throne but just the totality of
consciousness. The laws were set up by that totality and each person in their
totality was a co-architect. The unrealized disciple has forgotten it and curses
Fate. The "Dirty Work" is however just grinding along per the architect's spec.

[Spence Tepper]

Worship is natural. We are built for it.

But our understanding that we can become enslaved by our own obsessions, and imperfections of our heroes leads us to reject any formal worship.

Unfortunately that doesn't help us overcome the tendency of the mind to worship other people and things. And to make excuses for doing so. We create heroes and villains all the time.

Worship is also a very powerful means to focus and calm the mind. And to integrate our conscious with our subconscious.

There is a great power to worship. Pick something or someone truly worthy.

Because if not, your mind will find objects of worship, like TV shows and fictional characters, new sites and clothes, new car, new house, new job, to obsess about, and waste the power of that capability in you.

[Sonya]

“That mastery is what disciples in the cheap seats aspire to.”

🤮 no thank you

[Dungeness]

"That mastery is what disciples in the cheap seats aspire to"
🤮 no thank you

Or jeer :)