Comments on Church of the Churchless posts

Comments are often the best part of a blog post. This is how blog visitors get to communicate with other visitors and the author of the post.

Recently TypePad, which hosts this blog, added some new comment features. Here's the best one: you now can subscribe to a comment feed.

If you're not familiar with Internet feeds, here's an overview. Basically they're a way of keeping up on what's happening with a web site or blog without actually visiting the site/blog.

The comment section of every Church of the Churchless post now begins with: "You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post."

If you click on "comment feed," you'll be taken to some options for subscribing to a feed for that comment. Once you've subscribed, you can use that option to keep track of new comments without going to my blog.

I've tried out a couple of the feed readers. My favorite is Google Reader. It's free, easy to use, and supported by the TypePad comment feed. Here's a quick tour of Google Reader.

I'm no expert on feed readers, but I've learned a few things in the brief time I've been using Google Reader.

--It can take a while for a feed, like a new comment on a blog post, to show up. Maybe several hours. Google Reader periodically checks for new content. The more popular a web site or blog is, the more often it checks.

--Clicking the "refresh" button doesn't mean Google Reader has gone out and checked your feeds for new content. It just means that Google Reader has checked it's regularly scheduled scan of the sites/blogs.

--The first time you add a feed, likely quite a few posts, comments, or other content will show up on Google Reader. The number of new items is shown in parentheses, like (11), after the name of the feed on the home page.

--When you've looked at the items on a feed, click the "mark all as read" button. That will make the feed name disappear from the column on the left side of Google Reader. Don't worry. This is good. When there is new content, the feed will reappear with the number of new items shown, so you won't waste time re-reading stuff.

The TypePad comment feed feature also worked well for me in Microsoft Outlook, the email software. When I clicked on "Outlook," a feed for that comment was added in the "RSS Feeds" mail folder.

New comments didn't show up automatically in my email inbox, but when I clicked on the item in the "RSS feeds" folder, the comments showed up. Almost instantly after they were posted.

So if you want to know ASAP when a new comment has been added to a post, Outlook seems to be the way to go -- compared to Google Reader, at least.

Lastly, TypePad also has added a feature that is good or bad depending on how you look at it. The number of comments shown on one "page" of a post now is limited to 50. To see more, you have to click on "More comments."

On a few posts this will make it a bit more difficult to read the most recent comments. But if you subscribe to a comment feed for a post, as described above, this won't matter.

Comments

[nitish dadhwal]

no comment

[laurel]

Your entry on the whole sarah palin thing caught my eye--then the "letting go of god"--i think i may have found some REAL people here! it is quite late as i'm writing this but i definitely plan to come back and read everything you guys have offered here...i love how god and humor are catagorized right next to each other on the Catagories side bar...ah, as it should be. shalom

[Rajinder Singh]

These humans throwing stones on holy people are
like sins on the earth. They are shameless,
ignorant,illiterate, act stupid even they are not,
have no place on earth. They have no value in
society. They are broken and trodden with no
end in sight.Even Guru does not have any time and
energy to impart them to correct. They are not
even worthy to be put in jails because even their
also they will not improve.

[Sparrow]

I have been following the posts about Science of the Soul and Radhasoami at this website for a few months trying to glean information about aspects of Sant Mat that are not discussed in Satsang. I was initiated by Darshan Singh in the early 80s and was a devoted follower for many years---but after time I started having niggling doubts which caused me great anguish and soul searching. I was a Christian before I started following Sant Mat, and for a time, I tried to follow both paths, as Sant Mat always stresses that it is not a religion, but a scientific method for experiencing God. I found this to be totally unrealistic, and one day I found myself weeping because I thought I would have to abandon my first love which was Jesus. People on the Path had told me that Jesus was a "lesser" Master, and certainly was of absolutely no use in this lifetime due to the need for a living Master. I can't remember when I was more depressed. Finally I read Sar Bachan (sp?), and that book so appalled me, that I began to slowly disentangle myself from Sant Mat. This was difficult as my husband was a group leader, and was dismayed by my increasing doubts about the Path. I found that I could not live without faith in Jesus Christ, and became more and more depressed. Finally, I made the break and left Sant Mat, and returned to my faith in Jesus. Do I think Jesus is the ONLY way?---I put that thought on the shelf of "things-I-leave-to-God-to-sort", but given the number of holy people in other paths, I have a hard time believing that. One of the minor things that began to trouble me about Science of Spirituality, was the extravagant wealth of the Master (Rajinder Singh.) Although the preaching is about letting go of material things and focusing on the spiritual, he was living in a mansion, driving expensive cars, and draping his wife in diamonds, while many of his followers suffer in want. Followers rationalize that he earned this money, but why is he living such a blatantly materialistic life style while espousing non-materialism? I heard him once say that one did not need to worry about trashing the environment, because the quicker it was destroyed, the sooner the cycle of births and deaths could end, and the Golden Age could be ushered in (this is NOT an exact quote, but the gist of what was said during Satsang.) There seems to be a rationalization for any behavior or comment that is uncomfortable, and this troubles me. It also appears that Rajinder's son is slated to become the next Master which goes against Kirpal's own words that the mastership cannot be inherited. As of now, the succession has gone from Kirpal to his son, to his grandson, and perhaps in the future his great-grandson.

If anyone has any information about Science of the Soul that is not commonly known or discussed, I would be interested in hearing their stories. Especially from those that have chosen to leave the path for Christianity. I still have a great love and respect for the followers of Sant Mat (my husband is still very devoted, but has reluctantly come to terms with my change of heart), but I wonder how honest they are about their "inner experiences." I never had any that were anything spectacular (although the few ones I had were Christian in nature), but perhaps that is the reason for all the secrecy? Oh, and the teachings about chastity, even in marriage. They nearly ruined my relationship with my husband. How can they be healthy.

Anyway, I welcome any comments, positive or negative. I have found my home with Jesus. I am not "religious', but merely want to follow Christ and surrender all to Him. As far as what others want to do, I leave all that in God's hands. Those hands are compassionate and loving.

[777]

"" I leave all that in God's hands. Those hands are compassionate and loving. ""

That's perfect
He might have directed You to write what you wrote
and then find out that here in this blog amidst some
desperate screaming ,
are also the answers on all your questions

To give one answer on the chastity :
I do not know about what Kirpal required
but my Master Charan proposed already at the beginning
to not do worry
because in Real Sant Mat everything goes
automattically
A certain moment the disciple ( like the apostles ) start to hear the
Unstruck Music , and then all these attachments lose their importance
because one has little time for mundane stuff
Then there is no frustration at all

I wish you that God will
continue to guide as he did
in the midst of all your karma included
the 'level' of your guru

777

[Sparrow]

Hi Brian---This is Sparrow, and I posted a long entry about Sant Mat on December 22 that was put in the Comments section. How would I move it to the Radhasoami/Sant Mat Category? I am really interested in getting feedback to my questions that I posed in this post. THANK YOU!

[Brian Hines]

Sparrow, I'll make your comment into a post. That will give it considerably more exposure. I'll do this in a few days, when it comes time for my next Church of the Churchless post.

[dust]

Do the person's posting have inner experience with the initiating Master's?

[Liv]

Can you set up a way for readers to easily subscribe to your blog posts? I see you have a way to subscribe to the comments, but I'm interested in what you're writing. :)

[Brian Hines]

Liv, to my knowledge Typepad doesn't have an easy (or maybe any) way of notifying people when a blog has a new post published. But here's a suggestion. I use Feedly to keep track of blogs/sites that I follow. Mostly I use the Feedly app on my smartphone (iPhone). Feedly is free. You just search for the names of blogs/sites that you want to follow, add those to your Feedly profile after you've signed up, then you see a list of recent posts. Check it out:

www.feedly.com