Delusion of imagining you're an instrument of the divine will

Here's a right-on illustration by L.K. Hanson. I saw this on a Facebook post yesterday. The person who shared it said that Hanson's work appears in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

When people talk about being a special instrument of the divine will, I'm reminded of Garrison Keillor's description of his fictional Minnesota small town, Lake Wobegon, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

In the world of fundamentalist religion, all the believers are especially attuned to God's will. Which can't be, given how different religions typically are from each other. But their delusion works for religious believers, since it allows everybody to be above average when it comes to knowing what God wants.

Even crazier, of course, are the smaller number of fundamentalists who go a step further up the above average scale by claiming they actually communicate with God. Or, at the height of grandiosity, purport to actually be one with God in some respects. (Sometimes, in every respect.)

In a blog post called "My strange RSSB initiation story" I related how in my last year of college a bunch of us got involved with a crazed Greek yoga teacher we called Yogiraj who tried to meld East and West by establishing his Christananda Ashram.

After we confronted him about how he'd used his initiation into Radha Soami Satsang Beas by Charan Singh to create his own personal Sant Mat philosophy with him as the guru, he told us that Jesus actually was his best divine friend.

One day, after the store closed, we got up the guts to confront Yogiraj. What a scene it turned out to be. I still remember it well.

We were standing near the back of the store, us six in a semi-circle facing Yogiraj. We told him about our doubts -- that what he was teaching at the ashram had been copied from RSSB and wasn't the real deal.

Yogiraj's reaction was fiercely intense.

Those Greek eyes blazed with anger. "Charan Singh isn't my guru!" he yelled. "Christ is my guru! He talks to me! He tells me what to do!"

That was enough. With those words it all became clear. We knew that Yogiraj went on his own retreats down in his basement, doing god knows what. What it was, we now realized, was him getting face time with Christ.

More accurately, what he imagined to be Christ. (Christians, of course, would disagree with my skepticism.)

Looking back, while we were correct to view Yogiraj as delusional to believe that he was chatting with Jesus Christ, it's strange that we were so unquestioning of the RSSB teaching that the guru was God in Human Form.

Maybe the difference was that Yogiraj flatly stated that Jesus, the supposed Son of God, was telling him what to do, while the RSSB gurus generally have been more reticent to say that they communicate with God -- though they're fine with the RSSB books that say the guru is God's emissary to the world.

Anyway, the Bertrand Russell quote is as apt today as when Russell said it. More so, in fact. These days both Democratic and Republican presidents are fond of ending speeches with "And may God bless these United States of America."

If God exists (a gigantic "if"), wouldn't God bless every country equally? I no longer believe in God, but if I did, I sure wouldn't consider that God is a Christian, Muslim, Jew, or any other religion. It seems clear that religions are made by humans, and God is also, almost certainly.

Comments

[Appreciative Reader]

Igtheism is a reasonable enough route to atheism, except of course it is unexamined and to that extent random, that is to say rational only by happenstance.

I admire your own approach to spirituality. The deep interest in the subject; the willingness to put in 100% effort to actually validate the particular technique selected; and most importantly the courage to reject that which has, on trial, been shown to be wanting. (Which last is what you'd done with this Yogiraj person; and then again with GSD specifically and RSSB generally.)

That, I hold, is the only way to reliably arrive at a rationally defensible worldview. Like I said, igtheism leads to the same place ulimately, and following a much shorter route; so in a sense it is a distinction without a difference; but that igtheism also leads to rationality is merely a matter of happenstance.

Yes, one does wish the US would grow out of this infantile obsession with God. It is very troubling that is not just the out-and-out dribbling whack jobs like Trump and his imbecile kind that go in for it, but also the more reasonable mainstream kind. You can't turn anywhere without running into a fool of a theist, unfortunately. Which is dangerous, because a President uttering "God bless the US of A" is not exactly secular, is it. Arguably a US President invoking God in war isn't all that different from a crazed terrorist warlord in the Middle East invoking Allah for that same war. Not a happy state of affairs.

[Upyourgame]

The present generation has forsaken belief and faith for atheism and instead worships a scientific- pagan ideology. I challenge anyone to deny that they aren't deeply unhappy and confused people. The drugs, the gender disfunction, the crime, the slavish devotion to technology, the affinity for communism.

This is this blog's umpteenth categorical declaration that belief and faith are bad. Yet, the author never spells out just how and why it's bad. If something is indeed bad, baleful, or harmful, it follows that evidence could be put forth. Actual evidence, quantified evidence, we never get that. Just another declaration. "I was in RSSB for 30 years!"

So what if you were in RSSB for many years? Here's what we know about RSSB: a wasteland was turned into a large thriving community through faith and belief. Millions of people are members, and to date, the number of disaffected members is extremely few.

How few? Given that this blog is virtually the sole world forum for anti-RSSBers, and only a couple of people frequent it tells the story.

[Dungeness]

@ Brian [ Looking back, while we were correct to view Yogiraj as delusional to believe that he was chatting with Jesus Christ, it's strange that we were so unquestioning of the RSSB teaching that the guru was God in Human Form. ]

Excuse me a moment I need to wipe away the mirth of a "High Priest" portrait
still echoing from the adjacent thread. Ok, I'm more serious now.

You have to give RSSB gurus credit. They don't emerge from the basement
with an impassioned confession to channeling Jesus from an RSSB guise.
Okay, they don't explicitly gainsay RSSB's GIHF tenet. But, that's for the
disciple to affirm for himself by what he experiences within, not accept it
blindly other than as an starting premise demanding proof. In fact every
RSSB claim lies within that framework. As GSD famously said, "How do
know I'm not a fraud?" Otherwise, you'll always wonder what really goes
on in the "basement".

[Back from the dead]

Up yourgame says
“ The present generation has forsaken belief and faith for atheism and instead worships a scientific- pagan ideology. I challenge anyone to deny that they aren't deeply unhappy and confused people. The drugs, the gender disfunction, the crime, the slavish devotion to technology, the affinity for communism.”

I see this in the youth all around me. Disturbingly depressed and anxious generation

[777]

You are NOT an instrument
You are the Divine Will totally

777

Read Simone deBeauvoir s "Nobody is immortal"
to understand how horrible it would be Not to die!

The only psychological way is the RSSB way
To realize What You are and always were

How else an Almighty Eternal Being could fill eternity in a way that makes sense.
Accumulatin LOVE all the time

[umami]

North Carolina company fires atheist and agnostic employees for refusing Christian prayer circles.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10969235/Two-workers-sue-North-Carolina-company-FIRED-not-attending-prayer-meetings.html