Church of the Churchless

Ugh. Brady Breeze says fumble recovery in Rose Bowl was "gift from God."

Well, obviously my 2004 request to God for no more sky-pointing in televised sports events was met with deaf divine ears, probably because God doesn't exist, so has no ears (nor anything else, of course.)

Because here's Brady Breeze, safety for the Oregon Ducks football team (number 25), lifting his eyes skyward, along with his right hand, following his recovery of a fumble by the Wisconsin punter which he ran in for a touchdown.

Being a big Oregon fan, living as I do in Salem, about 60 miles north of Eugene, the home of the University of Oregon, naturally I was thrilled by Breeze's touchdown. And with the nail-biting 28-27 win that Oregon came away with, even though it seemed that Wisconsin outplayed Oregon for most of the game.

But when it came time for Breeze to make some remarks after he was named defensive player of the game, I wish he had kept his questionable theologizing to himself.

Breeze said on ESPN that the fumble recovery was a "gift from God." He then went on to use the word "blessings" several times in the rest of his remarks.

Hmmmmm.

I deeply doubt that Wisconsin players, and their fans, consider that Breeze scooping up the ball for a touchdown was a divine dispensation from God.

Assuming that God exists, for the sake of argument, it seems extremely unlikely that God would look down from heaven and decide that Oregon needed a break at that point of the game, so God made the Wisconsin punter drop the football so Breeze could recover it.

Of course, religious believers typically don't engage in this sort of reasonable logic. They just like to thank God for good things that happen to them, choosing to ignore the fact that often one person's good fortune is another person's bad fortune. 

For example, a believer might say "thank you, God" when a car pulls out of a parking space at just the right time for them to pull into it. Meanwhile, a person in a car behind them is disappointed that they have to keep on looking for a parking space. And both people could be devout Christians.

Here's an idea: religious believers should stop talking about what God does or doesn't do for them, since they have no idea whether (1) God even exists, and (2) what God is up to assuming God's existence. 

Will they act in accord with that good idea? Of course not. But that won't stop me from continuing to criticize sky-pointing and thanking God for fumble recoveries.

Best wishes for an ordinary New Year

Here's my New Year's wish for visitors to this Church of the Churchless blog, myself, and indeed, everybody.

Be ordinary. Do ordinary things. Feel happy in your ordinariness.

I say this because now that I've reached the wise old age of 71, I've realized that overlooking the ordinary that's right at hand for some supposedly extraordinary thing that's around a corner has some serious drawbacks.

One reason is what I talked about in a post last month, Why you should be happy today, right now, no matter what.

Be happy today, right now, at this very moment and every following moment.
Why? Because our future contains only three possibilities. 

Tomorrow, or the next moment, could be better than right now.
So be happy! Life will look even brighter soon.

Tomorrow, or the next moment, could be worse than right now.
So be happy! Enjoy life in this more pleasant present.

Tomorrow, or the next moment, could be the same as right now.
So be happy! Life has brought you some stability. 

I'd like to die with a smile on my face. Problem is, I don't know when I'm going to die. Few people do, aside from those condemned to death, those who commit suicide, and a few other types of predictable deaths. 

Since my life, as is true of almost all other lives also, mostly involves experiencing ordinary things with my ordinary self, it figures that being happy with ordinariness offers the best chance of dying with a smile on my face.

Or at least, with an effort to smile. And if even that isn't possible, with neither a smile nor a frown, but an expression of acceptance.

Another reason is that ordinary things bring considerable pleasure when they are enjoyed for what they are, rather than feeling that we're missing out by not pursuing something extraordinary. 

Here's an excerpt from a 2018 post, "Happiness lies in ordinary things." This is a quote from a TIME magazine essay by Meg Wolitzer in a special issue about the science of emotions. 

At this point, being happy is about having the space to appreciate the ordinary things that do in fact make me "happy," though at first glance they might not be seen that way. 

An absence of chaos; an absence of phone calls with disturbing news; an absence of business emails that up-end your day and demand attention right then and there; no acutely ill parents; no fragile children calling shakily from college.

Being able to sit down with a glass of wine and some really good, tiny little olives with your husband; having a nice meal with your kids that's not rushed or fraught.

These seem like small things, perhaps pedestrian things, but I protect them fiercely, knowing that on the other side of an imaginary wall waits the possibility that all of them will soon be gone and that something terrible will replace them.

But I no longer quake in fear.

I used to think that happiness was something a person was so lucky to find that, like Lord Voldemort (a.k.a. He Who Must Not Be Named), it should never actually be mentioned. Now, with happiness taking on a new, modest cast, the fear of losing it is smaller too.

You might think: Good god, woman! This isn't happiness. Happiness has wild colors and flavors; it involves bodies draped across a bed, or things that come in gift wrap. Or even, once in a while, Carvel. Don't you want any of that?

Of course I do.

But being allowed to enjoy some of the more modest pieces of my life happens right now to be my own personal Carvel; my own dachshund, gift-wrapped present, snow day and secret lover. Perhaps for most of us -- or anyway, for me -- happiness has gotten smaller over time, becoming endlessly and exquisitely refined, though somehow never diminished.

Lastly, I'm continually impressed by the marvelous grace and courage of ordinary people. There's no need to look for heroes anywhere else but next door. I'll offer up two examples from my ordinary life.

Here's a Facebook post from a woman I've known here in Salem, Oregon for many years. She's one of the sweetest, gentlest people I've ever come across. When she was diagnosed with lung cancer, even though she'd never smoked, this was a big shock to me and her many other friends.

Yet yesterday she wrote:

What a year! 13 months ago I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. I haven’t written about it because I know that many deal with worse, and the world is beset with larger problems than what I face.

But, at the end of 2019 I’d like to share what these harrowing months have taught me.

Despite pain and fear, illness and uncertainty, 6 hospital trips, harsh chemotherapy, infections, being too sick to work - or sometimes even to eat - I have learned gratitude for each and every day. Maybe this is surprising, maybe it isn’t.

I have been amazed at how many have been generous to me, and how many have been kind to me. How many have donated time, resources, advice and food. THANK YOU, thank you!

Also - I can’t remember ever enjoying each day more, or feeling more gratitude for the multitude of sights and sounds, large and small, that make up my life. I can’t remember ever appreciating more the wonders that each day brings.

Scans show the cancer is growing, but I mostly feel pretty good these days, and keep hope alive. While my prognosis is not what I want, I understand that ultimately we all have the same prognosis.

I celebrate knowing you! I wish you a happy and meaningful 2020!

Those words are more inspiring to me than anything I've read in a religious book, or heard from a religious person. They're the words of an ordinary person dealing with their troubles in an amazingly courageous way.

Then, my wife came home a little while ago from her New Year's Eve stint as a volunteer dog walker at our local Humane Society. She told me about a man on her shift who "walks" dogs even though he is in a wheelchair.

This can be difficult for him even on nice days, since some dogs are strong pullers on their leash, so can take him for an unwanted ride before he can get them under control. Today it rained heavily for much of the dog-walking shift. 

He didn't have a jacket with him, so even though my wife helped him find a jacket he could borrow, it wasn't waterproof. And his knees got soaked anyway from sitting in his wheelchair while walking dogs in the rain. Yet this man is one of the more dedicated dog walkers.

An ordinary man. Doing an ordinary thing. Yet in such an admirable way. 

I aspire to being as good a person as the woman with stage 4 cancer, or the man who walks dogs with a wheelchair. I have no interest in emulating saints, gurus, holy men/women, or any other religious personage.

I just want to learn from ordinary people who are able to live their lives with love, peace, acceptance, and courage.

I agree with Alan Watts. Except when I don't.

Below is a quotation from Alan Watts that someone emailed to me, asking what I thought of it. I've shared my response after the quotation, but I want to add on a few additional thoughts that came to mind after re-reading what Watts said.

I completely agree with Watts that there's a time and place for fully immersing ourselves in the lush sensuality of the world without putting on unnecessary coverings of thoughts, concepts, abstract ideas, and such.

Likewise, a warm bath or hot sauna feels best when completely naked.

But note my use of the word "unnecessary." Sometimes it makes sense to think while we're engaged in sensing the world. And sometimes it doesn't. Also, there are gradations of thinking, from mild to intense.

So it depends. There's no way to specify what "it" and "depends" refer to, because people are different; situations are different; so many other things can be different. 

In the first paragraph, Watts speaks of "giving up the attempt to make sense of the world in terms of any fixed idea or intellectual system."

YES! On this I heartily agree with Alan Watts.

Which means that what Watts says below can't be taken in any fixed way, nor can what I say in this blog post, nor can anyone else's ideas about anything. All we can do is do our best in any given situation. 

As one of my elementary school teachers, Eleanor Marshall, liked to say: Do your best. Angels can do no better.

Here's the quote from Watts:

Atheism in the name of God is an abandonment of all religious beliefs, including atheism, which in practice is the stubbornly held idea that the world is a mindless mechanism. Atheism in the name of God is giving up the attempt to make sense of the world in terms of any fixed idea or intellectual system.

It is becoming again as a child and laying oneself open to reality as it is actually and directly felt, experiencing it without trying to categorize, identify or name it. This can be most easily begun by listening to the world with closed eyes, in the same way that one can listen to music without asking what it says or means.

This is actually a turn-on, a state of consciousness in which the past and future vanish (because they cannot be heard) and in which there is no audible difference between yourself and what you are hearing. There is simply universe, an always present happening in which there is no perceptible difference between self and other, or, as in breathing, between what you do and what happens to you.

Without losing command of civilized behavior, you have temporarily "regressed" to what Freud called the oceanic feeling of the baby, the feeling that we all lost in learning to make distinctions, but that we should have retained as their necessary background, just as there must be empty white paper under this print if you are to read it.

When you listen to the world in this way, you have begun to practice what Hindus and Buddhists call meditation, a re-entry to the real world, as distinct from the abstract world of words and ideas.

If you find that you can't stop naming the various sounds and thinking in words, just listen to yourself doing that as another form of noise, a meaningless murmur like the sound of traffic. I won't argue for this experiment. Just try it and see what happens, because this is the basic act of faith of being unreservedly open and vulnerable to what is true and real. ~Alan Watts

And here's what I said in my email reply.

I sort of understand what Watts is saying here, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. 

We adults are not babies. We can’t regress ourselves back into a baby-like state where we lack words, concepts, and such. I can’t look at my coffee mug without thinking, “I just drank coffee out of it.” Viewing it simply as a blueish object with a semi-circular thingie on one side seems exceedingly backward and counter-productive.

It’s a coffee mug with a handle.

Sure, I enjoy going on dog walks and doing Tai Chi with minimal thinking. But minimal doesn’t mean non-existent. In the back of my mind there’s an awareness of where I am and what I’m doing that involves words and concepts. I see no problem with this.

I read a lot of books about neuroscience. There’s no such thing as “pure awareness.” The brain is actively engaged in making sense of the senses, so to speak. Our past experiences with something inform how we view that something now. This isn’t a problem. It’s a feature of how the human brain makes sense of reality.

In my view, we shouldn’t be trying to regress ourselves into an infantile state. Instead, we should use our current adult consciousness as a springboard to become wiser, more compassionate, kinder, more caring.

That said, I should have noted in my response that Watts spoke of listening to our verbal inner dialogue "as another form of noise, a meaningless murmur like the sound of traffic."

This is close to my understanding of what mindfulness practices teach, though Watts is more extreme in his disavowal of concepts and thoughts. There's nothing wrong with thoughts. There's nothing wrong with concepts. There's nothing wrong with the words we speak inside our head. 

(Most people do this. However, I've read that some people lack inner speech, substituting images, intuitions, and such for words spoken to ourself.)

My problem with what Watts said in the quotation above is that while he claims that his goal is to be "open to reality as it is actually and directly felt," seemingly he wants to ignore the reality of thoughts, concepts, and abstract ideas when they are directly felt within one's brain. 

Mindfulness means being open to everything we experience. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Thoughts and thoughtlessness. Emotions. Sensory impressions. And so much more. Our goal is to be as non-judgmentally aware as possible of what is within and without us.

This leads to living life more vividly. It doesn't mean that we welcome everything that happens, or give up our hopes for our life to change in certain ways. It simply means that, as Watts correctly said, we open ourself to reality as it is.

Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God?

It's Christmas day here in the United States. Seems like a good time to put up a poll about Jesus' divinity. Finally, a post from an Oregon blogger will settle the question! (In my dreams.) 

Feel free to leave a comment on this post if you want to expand on your poll answer, which is anonymous, of course.

 

 

Belonging is what we long for

I'm not religious now. But I used to be. 

What turned me off about religions was how divisive they often are. Each religion has its own theology, its own rituals, its own moral codes. 

I got tired of feeling special. I got tired of feeling different. My spiritual quest now is to find common ground, to come to grips with whatever universal human yearning leads people to seek solace in religions.

Today I started reading a book about how psychedelic entheogens -- psilocybin, peyote, mescaline, LSD, and I'd add marijuana in a sense -- can produce a sense of divinity that is common to other varieties of mystical experiences.

The second chapter of Entheogens and the Future of Religion featured a transcript of an extemporaneous talk by Brother David Steindl-Rast that he gave at a 1984 gathering of scientists and religious thinkers at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

I liked how Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, spoke of belonging as being what we all long for. Sure, as you can read in the passages below, he gives the term "God" to that to which we absolutely belong. 

Since I'm an atheist, I prefer "cosmos," "universe," or "world." But what's important isn't the word used to describe what we long to belong to, because there's no end to those words.

Family. Neighborhood. Friends. Nation. Lover. Humanity. Planet. Ecosystem. Life.

So many words, all pointing to a sense of belonging, of connectivity, of interrelationship. There aren't any bounds to belonging, because we can feel that we belong to all kinds of entities, with "God" being a traditional way of expressing the grandest sense of belonging (though again, cosmos or existence is equally grand).

Here's what Steindl-Rast says about belonging in his talk.

I thought I would briefly sketch how I see the relationship between spirituality and religion and theology -- all terms that have been tossed around here. In my understanding of it, and from the particular perspective from which I come to it, it all starts with our mystical experience.

This is one point where I would question how John Perry meant his statement. I wrote it down and tried to capture it verbatim: "It is impossible to convince the general public that there is such a reality as a mystical experience."

Now I question that.

I have had the opportunity to address all kinds of "general public." Some of them were most unlikely to be convinced offhand that there is such a thing as a mystical experience, let alone that they themselves had one. But I have never come across a group in which the majority could not be led to realize that they had had a mystical experience.

In fact, I am convinced that our typical awareness as humans, our human consciousness, is based on the mystical experience, i.e., the experience that we unconditionally belong. This is my way of expressing the essence of a mystical experience: an overwhelming sense of unconditional belonging. 

I would be very interested in hearing how some of you express the same thing from different perspectives.

I always try to speak about it in common human language, in terms that anybody can understand. First, I get people settled and willing to listen, willing to look at themselves. 

Then I ask them, "Does it make sense to you that before you are aware of anything else, you have a sense of belonging? Not necessarily before in time, but ontologically. Is that sense of belonging not the basis of your awareness that you are and who you are? 

Almost everyone says "Yes." That is enough for me.

...In some respects it is easier to speak about these things without using the term "God." It lends itself to too many misunderstandings. But if we want to use it as a kind of shortcut, it is in the context of our mystical awareness that "God" comes in.

For anyone who uses that term "God" will agree: God is the one to whom we absolutely belong. We are back at that sense of belonging. 

Before you fill this notion of God with anything else, you can say, those who use the term "God" correctly mean by it the reference point of our sense of belonging. But with this sense of belonging goes a sense of longing. Check that out against your own experience.

Here this whole thing comes in motion. This is something I cannot explain further. It is an experiential fact. We long for that to which we most deeply belong. Poets have expressed this very beautifully. T.S. Eliot says:

We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and knew the place for the first time.

That is Home. Home is where one starts from. This tension of belonging and longing constitutes the dynamism of our inner quest.

Christianity Today editorial about Trump also applies to religious leaders

During the fifteen years I've been blogging away here at the Church of the Churchless, I've mentioned the evangelical magazine Christianity Today twice in my posts -- here and here. 

Not surprisingly, in both cases I disagreed with what Christianity Today had to say. 

But yesterday Christianity Today published an opinion piece whose conclusions I heartily agree with. Namely, that President Donald Trump deserves to be impeached and removed from office for his immoral behavior.

Way to go! It's great to see an evangelical standing up for what most Christians supposedly believe in: honesty, respect, truthfulness, selfless service, dedication to a cause greater than oneself. 

Trump, of course, embraces none of those qualities. For him it's all about me, me, me. 

Unfortunately, quite a few religious leaders also fail to live up to the standards of their chosen religion. Yet when their misdeeds come to light, often there are attempts to either cover up their bad behavior or excuse it through some shaky rationale.

I've boldfaced parts of the opinion piece that appealed to me the most and reflected larger themes about how members of a religion should view those who fail to live up to the moral code of their faith.

Trump Should Be Removed from Office

It’s time to say what we said 20 years ago when a president’s character was revealed for what it was.

Mark Galli  December 19, 2019

In our founding documents, Billy Graham explains that Christianity Today will help evangelical Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith. The impeachment of Donald Trump is a significant event in the story of our republic. It requires comment.

The typical CT approach is to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible. We want CT to be a place that welcomes Christians from across the political spectrum, and reminds everyone that politics is not the end and purpose of our being. We take pride in the fact, for instance, that politics does not dominate our homepage.

That said, we do feel it necessary from time to time to make our own opinions on political matters clear—always, as Graham encouraged us, doing so with both conviction and love. We love and pray for our president, as we love and pray for leaders (as well as ordinary citizens) on both sides of the political aisle.

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president.

We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.

This concern for the character of our national leader is not new in CT. In 1998, we wrote this:

The President's failure to tell the truth—even when cornered—rips at the fabric of the nation. This is not a private affair. For above all, social intercourse is built on a presumption of trust: trust that the milk your grocer sells you is wholesome and pure; trust that the money you put in your bank can be taken out of the bank; trust that your babysitter, firefighters, clergy, and ambulance drivers will all do their best. And while politicians are notorious for breaking campaign promises, while in office they have a fundamental obligation to uphold our trust in them and to live by the law.

And this:

Unsavory dealings and immoral acts by the President and those close to him have rendered this administration morally unable to lead.

Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president. Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency.

If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?

We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. So we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due, to try to understand their point of view, to see the prudential nature of so many political decisions they have made regarding Mr. Trump.

To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.

Mark Galli is editor in chief of Christianity Today

What if God existed, but life after death didn't?

I think the question I asked in the title of this blog post is an excellent one. After all, most religious people believe in these two things.

(1) God exists
(2) Life after death exists

So what if only the first proposition was true? Would religion have such a hold over billions of humans if God was real and so was the finality of death?

Meaning, no life in heaven. No life in hell. No life after reincarnation. No life at all after we humans take our last breath.

I strongly suspect that religiosity would lose a large part of its appeal if the world's religions didn't have theologies along the lines of (1) and (2).

Which points to the seeming fact that while religious people talk a lot about their love of God, actually much of that love is based on a feeling of "If I do what God likes, such as worshipping her and obeying her commandments, then God will give me good things -- like a pleasant life after death."

Part of what got me to thinking about this was a conversation I overheard in a grocery store checkout line this week.

The checkout employee was telling a customer that the past few days had been tough for her. I didn't hear all the details, but apparently a friend, or relative, was in a car accident that led to them losing their legs. The checker then said:

I guess God had a plan for them that didn't include going back to Him now, but rather losing their legs.

In other words, it wasn't their time to die. Yet when they eventually do, God will welcome them. I can certainly understand the appeal of this faith-based belief, since it provides meaning to what otherwise would seem to be a senseless accident.

And I have no doubt that billions of people around the world find it easier to live their lives by believing that God is watching out for them and will take care of them after death.

However, just because a belief makes us feel good doesn't mean it is a pointer to something real. In many countries young children get a lot of joy out of believing in Santa Claus. Which, of course, is how atheists like me view God -- as a nice idea that doesn't have any foundation in reality.

Placebos work because the human mind is highly suggestible. Religious belief is akin to a placebo, since it has no active ingredients, yet provides benefits to many who imbibe it because they believe it works.

 

Science rocks at comprehending the universe

When has somebody using the faith-based method of religion made a spectacularly accurate prediction about how reality behaves? Never. Not ever. 

But people using the tools of science have done just that. This is one reason, among many, why science rocks and religion sucks. 

I've finished the marvelously informative and entertaining book about calculus, Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe, that I've written about previously here and here.

Below is an excerpt from the final chapter, where Steven Strogatz, the author, discusses how amazing it is that calculus can be used to make predictions about reality that are as precise as one in a hundred million.

Religion has no choice but to bow down at the feet of science and admit that when it comes to comprehending the mysteries of the cosmos, there's a clear winner. And it sure isn't religion. 

Behold what Strogatz has written. I find this hugely more appealing than any religious text, since I've seen the light and decided that I much prefer truth over fiction, facts over falsehoods, open-minded inquiry over faith-based blind belief.

By wielding infinity in just the right way, calculus can unlock the secrets of the universe. We've seen that happen again and again, but it still seems almost miraculous. A system of reasoning humans invented is somehow in tune with the harmony of nature.

It's reliable not just at the scales where it was invented -- at the everyday scales of ordinary life, with its spinning tops and bowls of soup -- but also at the smallest scales of atoms and at the grandest scales of the cosmos. 

So it can't just be a trick of circular reasoning.

It's not that we're stuffing things into calculus that we already know, and calculus is handing them back to us; calculus tells us about things we've never seen, never could see, and never will see. In some cases, it tells us about things that never existed but could -- if only we had the wit to conjure them.

This, to me, is the greatest mystery of all: Why is the universe comprehensible, and why is calculus in sync with it?

...The first example [of the eerie effectiveness of calculus] takes us back to where we started, with Richard Feynman's quip that calculus is the language God talks. The example is related to Feynman's own work on an extension of quantum mechanics called quantum electrodynamics, or QED for short. QED is the quantum theory of how light and matter interact.

...More important, it's the most accurate theory anyone has ever devised... about anything. With the help of computers, physicists are still busy summing the series that arise in QED, using what are known as Feynman diagrams, to make predictions about the properties of electrons and other particles. 

By comparing those predictions to extremely precise experimental measurements, they've shown that the theory agrees with reality to eight decimal places, better than one part in a hundred million. 

This is a fancy way of saying that the theory is essentially right.

It's always hard to find helpful analogies to make sense of such big numbers, but let me try putting it like this: a hundred million seconds equals 3.17 years, so getting something right to within one part in a hundred million is like planning to snap your fingers exactly 3.17 years from now and timing it right to the nearest second -- without the help of a clock or an alarm.

There's something astonishing about this, philosophically speaking. 

The differential equations and integrals of quantum electrodynamics are creations of the human mind. They are based on experiments and observations, certainly, so they have reality built into them to that extent. Yet they are products of the imagination nonetheless. They are not slavish imitations of reality.

They are inventions.

And what is so astonishing is that by making certain scribbles on paper and doing certain calculations with methods analogous to those developed by Newton and Leibniz but souped up for the twenty-first century, we can predict nature's innermost properties and get them right to eight decimal places.

Nothing that humanity has ever predicted is as accurate as the predictions of quantum electrodynamics.

I think this is worth mentioning because it puts the lie to the line you sometimes hear, that science is like faith and other belief systems, that it has no special claim on truth.

Come on.

Any theory that agrees to one part in a hundred million is not just a matter of faith or somebody's opinion. It didn't have to match to eight decimal places. Plenty of theories in physics have turned out to be wrong. Not this one. Not yet, at least. No doubt it's a little bit off, as every theory always is, but it sure comes close to the truth.

I urge that Santa Claus be impeached

If you think I'm tough on religious leaders, check out what I wrote about Santa Claus in my HinesSight blog post, "Santa Claus must be impeached." 

I credit my wife, Laurel, with coming up with the concept for our 2019 Christmas letter. Then I researched the grounds for impeachment and came up with four excellent reasons.

There are more, of course. For example, I deeply doubt that Santa Claus is abiding by minimum wage and workplace safety laws in his present-making workshop staffed by elves.

Open Thread 27 (free speech for comments)

Here's a new Open Thread.

I appreciate that off-topic comments have been going in a previous Open Thread. As noted before, it's good to have comments in a regular blog post related to its subject, and it's also good to have a place where almost anything goes in regard to sharing ideas, feelings, experiences, and such. That place is an Open Thread.

Leave a comment on this post about anything you want to talk about. Remember that I'm moderating comments, so it could take a while for your comment to be published. Almost every comment submitted to an Open Thread will be approved. Personal attacks on someone are an exception. Argue with ideas, not insults.

Though I haven't been doing too well on this, I'll try to remember to always have an Open Thread showing in the Recent Posts section in the right sidebar. If one isn't showing, I've added an Open Threads category in, naturally, the Categories section. You can always find an Open Thread that way.

So if you're a believer in some form of religion, mysticism, or spirituality, this is where you can put your "praise God," "praise Guru," or "praise _______" comments.

Reminder: no trolling, flaming, or off-topic'ing in comments

A recent burst of comment activity in trolling, flaming, and off-topic'ing (new word!) leads me to once again remind visitors to this blog of its commenting policies. 

That link, which is echoed in the Commenting section of the Navigation bar at the top of the page, replaces another post that said the same thing, but in a less detailed fashion. 

I've copied in the commenting policies below. If you submit a comment and want it to be approved, be sure to read what follows closely and follow the policies. 

Regarding irrelevant off-topic comments, it will be obvious from the title of a post and what is said in the post what a relevant on-topic comment is.

Here's an example of what it is not: in a previous post about changing one's mind I mentioned Donald Trump in passing as an example of how I came to accept the reality of his election after a few days.

A commenter then left a lengthy comment about how wonderful Trump is. I didn't approve it, because the comment was wildly off-topic, since it had nothing to do with changing one's mind.

So Ii you're religious, view this as the Six Commenting Commandments. Otherwise, the Six Commenting Rules.

You're welcome -- even more, encouraged -- to leave comments on Church of the Churchless posts. Some of the most interesting writing on this blog comes from other people, not me, Brian the Blogger.

All I ask is that comments be in accord with the following policies. Otherwise a comment probably will be deleted or edited.

(1) No personal attacks on me or other commenters. Challenge the message, not the messenger. Best: You're wrong, because... Semi-OK: You're a fool, because... Not-OK: You're a fool.

(2) No extreme obscenity. Write as if you were in a congenial coffeehouse discussion group, not a high school locker room after your team lost the game in the final seconds. Mild swear words are fine. But goddamn it, don't go over the top.

(3) No rants about the uselessness of this blog. If you're a religious believer, I can understand why this blog could make you angry. Solution: don't read it. If you need to vent, leave a comment on my "I Hate Church of the Churchless" anti-site, not here.

(4) No commercial or religious spam. Advertising, in a comment or a URL, obviously isn't acceptable. Neither are lengthy quotations from a religious scripture, or preachiness. See #5 below.

(5) No irrelevant comments. Please stick to the subject matter of a post in your comment. If you want to talk about something else, leave your comment in an Open Thread, email me with a blog post suggestion, or use the Google search box in the right sidebar to find a previous post on this blog concerning your "something else." (Note: Open Thread comments also should adhere to the policies above.)

(6) No trolling. On the Internet a "troll" is someone who tries to disrupt normal discussions through various annoying behaviors. Here's some ways to recognize a troll. Best response to them: no response. Their sad lives thrive on attention, so ignore them.

Lastly, one of my pet peeves is how uncourteously many people behave on the Internet. "Flame wars" aren't productive, so try to keep your cool if you disagree with what somebody has said.

I agree with Wikipedia's take on Flaming: 

An Internet user typically generates a flame response to other posts or users posting on a site, and such a response is usually not constructive, does not clarify a discussion, and does not persuade others. Sometimes, flamers attempt to assert their authority, or establish a position of superiority over other users. Other times, a flamer is simply an individual who believes he or she carries the only valid opinion. This leads him or her to personally attack those who disagree. In some cases, flamers wish to upset and offend other members of the forum, in which case they can be called "trolls".

Yes, I've changed my mind about spirituality. That's a good thing.

Today a commenter on one of my blog posts said something astoundingly obvious -- that what I write about now is different from what I wrote about five or ten years ago.

Well, duh...

I'm constantly changing, as are we all. I learn, grow, evolve, change my mind, look upon things differently. 

Since I've published a book that consists of Church of the Churchless posts from the early years of this blog, 2004 to 2006, I'm well aware of how my approach to spirituality has changed since then.

If you read Break Free of Dogma, and naturally everybody should, you'll see that I've added a short introduction to each post that talks about how I look now at what I wrote back then.

That's because my own journey of breaking free of religious dogma was a gradual affair.

I can liken it to dismantling a Belief House that was built up over my 35 years of being an active member of a India-based religious organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

It took me quite a while to figure out what parts of that Belief House still appealed to me, and what parts needed to be demolished because they didn't fit with my current understanding of reality.

Earlier this year I wrote "Changing your mind is a superpower. Use it." Here's excerpts.

I have a superpower. But unlike those with superpowers who inhabit the pages of comic books and the screens of movie theaters, my astounding ability is available to everyone.

It's called changing your mind. 

I'm sure you've used it  -- many times. After all, we change our minds about countless things during the course of our lives. For example, I've changed my mind about my...

Politics (Used to be conservative, now I'm a liberal).
Cars (I've gone from a 57' VW bug to a 2017 VW GTI, with many other makes in between). 
Marriage (Got divorced, then remarried).
Profession (Earned a master's in social work, then went into health planning/research).
Eating (Loved meat until I became a vegetarian in 1970).
Residence (Grew up in the country, then lived in cities, now back in the country again).
Religion (Was Catholic for a while as a child, then a believer in an Eastern religion, and now an atheist).

So how is changing your mind a superpower? After all, everybody does this, all the time. True, but since we're so used to changing our minds, it's easy to overlook how marvelous this ability is.

First, to change your mind you need to have one.

Rocks don't have minds. Nor do stars. Living beings, though, have various sorts of minds. We humans have a powerful one. Other primates, ditto, though to a lesser degree. Plants have some sort of cognizance, but probably not a mind. Computers are very adept at certain tasks, yet so far lack what we would call a "mind."

Thus people are able to learn, adapt, modify our thinking, feeling, intuition, and such.

Because very little of human behavior is controlled by instinct, we have the capacity to transmit knowledge between people and across generations. We can read Plato and understand a great mind that lived thousands of years ago, thereby altering our own.

One of the best things about being able to change our mind is how good it feels, and how freeing it is. 

...I'm not saying that change is always welcome, or even tolerable.

That isn't what I mean by changing your mind being a superpower. Sure, it is possible to reduce anxiety, fear, suffering, and such by altering one's thoughts and feelings, but I'm not aware of anybody who can remain completely unmoved by severe pain, disappointment, or loss. 

What is possible, though, is altering our psyche to embrace a new reality, even though it may be unwelcome. That's a superpower in and of itself -- the ability to say "This is...," no matter what those three dots stand for.

Here's some examples of what I mean.

On this blog I've been writing quite a bit about the legal, financial, and ethical troubles involving the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), Gurinder Singh Dhillon. I was a member of RSSB for 35 years, so I like to use this organization as an example of how religions can be wrong, and do wrong, since I'm so familiar with it. 

(If I'd remained a Catholic for 35 years, then became an atheist, likely I'd be using Catholicism as an example of bad religion.)

Fairly frequently commenters on my blog posts about the Dhillon family's alleged criminality will say something like, "Brian, when it turns out that the guru did nothing wrong, you're going to be unable to accept this." 

That really isn't true. 

Because I'm adept at changing my mind, if the Indian legal system ends up exonerating Gurinder Singh Dhillon, I'll accept that reality with very little trouble. In the same fashion, back in November 2016 it took a few days for me to fully accept that Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States.

But it didn't take long for my mind to adjust to a new reality.

Now I'm hoping Trump will be a one-term president. If that doesn't happen, and he is re-elected, I'll be disappointed. However, I won't deny that this happened. (I do worry, though, that Trump won't be able to accept the reality of a 2020 defeat.)

I'll end by noting that even though I'm used to many varieties of religious craziness after 15 years of regularly writing here on the Church of the Churchless, it still surprises me when a commenter expresses extreme surprise at how I could have changed my mind about the validity of the RSSB teachings after being a member of the organization for such a long time.

Often I'll ask them how many things they have changed their mind about during their lifetime. Have you stuck with the same job, same car, same residence, same friends, same political views? Almost certainly not.

There's something about religion that encourages a rigidity of mind that isn't nearly as evident in other areas of life. Members of some religions, like Mormonism or Scientology, will shun people who leave the religion. Yet if someone changes their mind in a way that leads them to join the religion, that's not only fine, it's marvelous. 

For many fundamentalists, mind-changing is a one-way street. It's great if you convert to their religion, yet horrible if you deconvert.

Strange? Yes.

But since just about every religion believes that it, and it alone, is privy to the eternal ultimate truth of the cosmos, this encourages true believers to denigrate anyone who embraces that religion, then chooses to leave it. I guess changing one's mind makes those fundamentalists fearful that their chosen faith really isn't true.

Which, almost certainly, it isn't.

I feel good about having changed my mind to realize this. It's much more pleasurable to accept reality as it is, or at least as it appears, than to cling to a rigid way of thinking that no longer makes sense to me.

I'm feeling the fear and sharing my Tai Chi video anyway

As the title of a book says, Feel the fear and do it anyway. So I'm taking that advice and sharing a video I made today of me doing a Tai Chi form.

Watching the video was fear-inducing, or at least anxiety-inducing, because I do my best to avoid looking at myself in the lengthy mirror that's on one wall of the room where I've been taking Tai Chi classes.

But since we've been learning the Compact form -- which lives up to its name by not requiring much space to do it in -- I figured it would be a good opportunity to stick my iPhone on a tripod and make a "selfie video."

Maybe this will turn out to be a shortcut to ego-loss and consequent enlightenment, because I found it interesting (and somewhat disturbing) that how I've been visualizing myself doing the Compact form from the inside of my head is rather different from how my iPhone video shows me.

Which is typical, of course. Our self-image may not bear a lot of resemblance to how others see us. 

Anyway, I'm glad that I made the video. After watching my first video attempt, I changed some things in the next attempt. Slowed down some. Corrected a few moves that I got wrong the first time around.

Tai Chi, of course, is founded on Taoist principles such as yin and yang. This is one reason I enjoy Tai Chi so much. It's got a built-in philosophical foundation. But that makes it much more subtle than the hard style (karate, basically) martial arts training I did before Tai Chi.

Yin and yang, soft and hard, alternate throughout a Tai Chi form. This is easier to feel than to see. And it helps explain why, even after 15 years of taking classes three times a week, I still consider myself to be a semi-beginner in Tai Chi. Again, the moves in Tai Chi possess way more subtlety than, say, a karate punch or kick.

And they're performed at a slower pace, which magnifies missteps, stumbles, and such.

I should note that my instructor, Warren Allen, emphasizes the martial/self-defense aspect of Tai Chi to a much greater extent than most Tai Chi teachers, given his extensive background in hard style martial arts before he embraced Tai Chi.

if this video looks less flowing and soft than you'd expect Tai Chi to appear, that's one reason. Another reason is that I have a long ways to go before I'll feel that I've begun to master Tai Chi.

Heck, I'm only 71, a youngster in comparison to the 80 and 90 year-olds who are venerated in the Tai Chi world. (And they started learning Tai Chi at a much earlier age than I did.)

 

Indian Express story describes paradox of the RSSB guru

Today a commenter shared a link to a story by The Indian Express that profiles an Indian religious organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, and the guru who leads RSSB, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. (See below.)

The story doesn't break new ground, but it is interesting nonetheless.

What struck me is the contradiction between a quote from volunteers who guard the gates of the RSSB headquarters as they tried to explain why bags, mobile phones, and cameras have to be deposited before entering the headquarters, “you leave the material world outside as you journey to your inner self,” and the fact that Dhillon and his family are reported to have received hundreds of millions of dollars from various sources during the guru's stint as RSSB guru.

By all accounts, Dhillon is heavily involved in the material world, as is his family.

So it's a paradox that RSSB wants visitors to lay aside material possessions before entering the Dera headquarters, even though Gurinder Singh Dhillon is deeply involved in financial machinations that include accusations of fraud committed by Dhillon, his family, and close associates.

Here's the story.

Somewhere between Jalandhar and Amritsar on the Grand Trunk Road, a long, winding path breaks off and stops at an imposing gate, one of half-a-dozen entrances to the headquarters of Dera Baba Jaimal Singh, known more commonly as Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a sprawling commune on the banks of the Beas river.

Much like its 65-year-old head Gurinder Singh Dhillon, “Babaji” or “Master” to 20 million followers across 90 countries, the dera is fiercely private. Devotees guarding the gates tell you to deposit bags, mobiles, and cameras before venturing in. The rationale, the volunteers often say, is that “you leave the material world outside as you journey to your inner self”.

But, for some time now, the outside world has been threatening to intrude into this closed universe, with Babaji, the presiding deity of the town, and his family thrust into the ugly legal battle between Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, former promoters of Ranbaxy. All the dramatis personae in the case are related to the dera — former dera head Charan Singh is the maternal grandfather of the Singh brothers, while Dhillon, whom he eventually chose as his heir, is Charan Singh’s sister’s son.

It all began with Japanese drug maker Daiichi Sankyo,which had bought the Singh brothers’ 34.82% stake in Ranbaxy in 2008 for $2.4 billion, filing a case in the Delhi High Court in 2018. It alleged that the Singhs had siphoned off over Rs 2,000 crore from their companies through loans to Shimal Healthcare and Prius Real Estate. Dhillon’s wife Shabnam was earlier listed as a director with Prius. But Prius told the judge that the firm was neither owned by the Singhs, nor was it a downstream company of theirs.

Nearly four months later, elder Singh brother Malvinder wrote to the Economic Offences Wing, accusing the dera spiritual head of working in “collusion and connivance” with Shivinder to cause “wrongful loss” to him and the shareholders of RHC Holding Pvt Ltd, a firm he once jointly owned with his younger brother.

Malvinder also alleged that the dera chief was “threatening” him to sign a settlement, freeing the Dhillons of any financial liability. His affidavit in the Supreme Court this year also claims that over Rs 6,000 crore in loans and advances are to be recovered from “various” individuals and companies, including Prius and the dera chief himself.

Dhillon had taken over as the fifth chief of the Beas dera in 1990, after the death of Charan Singh, a lawyer who had headed the dera since 1951. It’s said that Dhillon was home from Spain, where he worked, for the birth of his second son when Charan Singh passed away and he learnt of his anointment as dera chief.

The elderly gatekeepers on volunteer duty at the dera’s newest three-storey outpost still remember the day Dhillon became dera chief. “Babaji was a young man, all of 36, with a trimmed black beard,” recounts Mahender Singh, who owns a cloth shop in Kaithal and joined the dera in 1984.

A R Rajwade, a retired mathematics professor who lives next door to the Dhillon family mansion in Sector 8, Chandigarh, recounts seeing Dhillon as a young man on his bike. “His father Gurmukh Singh, an affluent landlord from Moga, built this house.”

Dhillon’s mother Mohinder Kaur continues to live in the house after his father passed away in the Nineties. Dhillon’s wife Shabnam, 58, who used to divide her time between the dera and the homes of her sons Gurpreet and Gurkeerat Singh, in Singapore and London, respectively, passed away on November 27 following complications after an abdominal surgery in London. She was cremated at the dera.

Dhillon’s friends, who call him “Moga”, also recall his love for bike drives, and Beatles and Paul Anka. “He studied at Sanawar while I was at Bishop Cotton School in Shimla. We became friends when he joined B.Com at Panjab University,’’ says retired Punjab and Haryana High Court Justice S S Saron.

Under Dhillon’s 29-year tenure, the dera has grown in strength and now has over 5,167 satsang centres across the country and over 500 abroad. The dera headquarters at Beas in Amritsar district is a self-contained ‘city’, with an air strip, a CBSE-affiliated school, apartments, an industrial area, a shopping mall, and a network of underpasses for the smooth flow of traffic.

The dera is run by the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) Trust, a non-profit society headed by a secretary with the dera chief as its patron.

On any given day, 15,000-20,000 come for daily satsang at the dera, with the number rising to several lakhs when the dera chief is addressing it. This summer, the dera hosted five lakh people for a satsang with Dhillon. Besides 15 sheds that can house 8,000 to 12,000 people each, there are dorms, serais or guest houses and apartments for visitors. The biggest of the satsang halls is spread over 80 acres and can accommodate five lakh people. The parking area within the campus can hold 50,000 vehicles.

The dera also boasts one of the world’s largest single rooftop solar facilities. Inside the township is an industrial area where the sewadars make everything, from paver blocks and tiles to furniture and grilles. “There is nothing we get from outside,” says J S Sethi, a retired chief engineer and secretary of the Trust since 2005.

Like with deras elsewhere in the state, the Radha Saomi sect depends heavily on volunteers or jathas to keep the giant dera machinery running. The volunteers are spread across the dera — men and women, who come in as per a pre-determined schedule every day.

The Beas railway station has been taken over this Tuesday evening by dera volunteers who have come to receive a jatha from Hoshiarpur. A batch of volunteers sweeps the station while waiting.

Soon, the jatha arrives and its members head to the two buses in the parking area. “We come here from Hoshiarpur on the 19th of every month. This month, we have been assigned the dera’s sanitation department,’’ says Satnam Singh, a farmer.

With the rapid expansion of the dera have come attendant controversies, the case of alleged fund diversion involving the Singh brothers only the latest.

In 2016, when the Akali-BJP government was in power in the state, former Patiala AAP MP Dharamvir Gandhi took a round of five adjoining villages and claimed that he had come across marginal framers who had been allegedly forced to sell their land to the dera at throwaway rates.

“I got to know that the dera administration is acquiring land through deceit and in connivance of local revenue officials,” says Gandhi, who raised the issue in Parliament.

Though a probe was initiated, nothing came of it. Dismissing Gandhi’s allegations, Sethi says the dera pays compensation at the rate of Rs 2.5 lakh a marla against the market rate in these parts of Rs 40,000 a marla.

Dhillon himself has rarely commented on any controversy, adding to his reluctant godman image.

“He hates being photographed,” says a former follower, who claims to have left the dera because he found it “too austere”.

This month though, Dhillon finally broke his silence on the Ranbaxy allegations, denying RHC’s claims of “huge receivables” from him and his family. Instead, he accused the Singh brothers of owing him over Rs 70 crore that he had loaned to them in 2011.

Mention the case to Sethi of the RSSB Trust and he bristles. “The RSSB has not taken a single paisa from the Singh brothers, you can check our records. Neither the dera nor Babaji like giving clarifications. We believe that ultimately the truth will come out.’’

Mindfulness is calculus made spiritual

OK, I'm wading into some deep philosophical waters here, given the title of this blog post, because I only took one semester of calculus in graduate school, and then only because I was forced to by the powers-that-be in control of the Portland State University Systems Science Ph.D program.

I found calculus to be difficult. By contrast, I've gotten back to reading an engaging book by Stephen Strogatz about calculus, Infinite Powers, which I blogged about back in August, noting that it had some spiritual aspects.

This morning, reading a chapter on "The Vocabulary of Change" before I meditated, I was struck by how mindfulness practice -- which basically involves focusing on what's going on here-and-now versus there-and-then -- resembles what Strogatz calls the Infinity Principle. 

Here's how Strogatz described this in the chapter I read today. 

Notice that we are using the Infinity Principle here -- we are trying to make a complicated curve simpler by chopping it into infinitesimal straight pieces. This is what we always do in calculus. Curved shapes are hard; straight shapes are easy, even if there are infinitely many of them and even if they are infinitesimally small. Calculating a derivative in this way is a quintessential calculus move and one of the most fundamental applications of the Infinity Principle.

In his book, Strogatz uses a graph of the length of days to talk about how an underlying mathematical function, in this case the complex motions of the Earth as it revolves around the sun, is used to produce a graph such as the one below that I found via some Googling.

What struck me is that while it's impossible to derive a mathematical function of life, we all have the feeling that our life consists of ups and downs. 

Our most significant "up," of course, is the moment of our birth. And our most significant "down" is the moment of our death. But in-between those moments we experience a wide variety of joys and sorrows, triumphs and disappointments, pleasures and pains.

It's natural to view the present moment in the context of both remembered previous ups and downs, and of imagined future ups and downs. However, this makes more sense when something is genuinely cyclical, as is the case with the amount of daylight (vertical axis in image above).

In our own life, it's often difficult to predict what is going to happen next. And our memory of what's happened in the past is prone to errors, since we tend to remember most clearly the Big Moments in life, not the Ordinary Moments -- even though the latter are much more common than the former.

So there's a lot to like about mindfulness, which I've noted is my current approach to meditation. 

Calculus can deal with curves such as those in the image above because it divides them into an infinity of straight lines. Similarly, mindfulness helps us to deal with the ever-changing circumstances of our life by guiding us to focus on the small things that are happening at this very moment, rather than the largeness of our actual past and potential future.

I'm not saying that mindfulness in any way takes away ups and downs, or pleasures and pains. But just as a portion of a curved line looks almost exactly straight if it is zoomed in enough, so are we able to look upon our life with more equanimity if we're able to be mindful of what is actually occurring to us -- versus what we hope will occur, or are worried will occur.

As a final observation, Strogatz uses Usain Bolt's record-breaking 100 meter dash performance in the 2009 World Championships as an example of how small ups and downs are largely meaningless when looking at a curve that is smooth at a larger scale. He shares a graph based on laser guns that tracked Bolt's speed hundreds of times a second.

The little wiggles on the overall trend represent the ups and downs in speed that inevitably occur during strides. Running, after all, is a series of leapings and landings. Bolt's speed changed a little whenever he landed a foot on the ground and momentarily braked, then propelled himself forward and launched himself airborne again.

...To me, these wiggles hold a larger lesson. i see them as a metaphor, a kind of instructional fable about the nature of modeling real phenomena with calculus. If we try to push the resolution of our measurements too far, if we look at any phenomenon in excruciatingly fine detail in time or space, we will start to see a breakdown of smoothness. 

...Yet if what we care about are the overall trends, smoothing out the jitters may be good enough. The enormous insight that calculus has given us into the nature of motion and change in this universe is a testament to the power of smoothness, approximate though it may be.

in the same way, mindfulness requires an appropriate level of resolution. Our life shouldn't be viewed in such excruciating detail as to miss the big picture, nor in such a broad scope as to miss the reality of what is actually happening at any given moment.

New Yorker story about Modi's India is disturbing reading

Having been an active member of an India-based spiritual organization for 35 years, I have a fondness for that country. (Including its food!) 

I've spent a lot of time with Indian people. I've visited India twice. Heck, I even volunteered to write a book about the karmic rationale for vegetarianism, Life is Fair, which is still being sold by the group I used to belong to, Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

But I've paid much more attention to Indian spiritual philosophies than to Indian politics.

Sure, I'm aware that Narenda Modi became the Prime Minister of India, and that he's a Hindu nationalist. That's worrisome to me, since Modi seems to bear some resemblance to our President Trump -- which isn't a compliment.

Since I'm a subscriber to The New Yorker, a terrific publication, a few days ago I got an email about stories in the upcoming issue. This one caught my eye. I've shared some excerpts from the lengthy story below.

It's disturbing reading for a variety of reasons: such as, how Muslims are being treated in Kashmir and elsewhere; how Modi and his political party are intimidating journalists; Modi's involvement in the killing of Muslims.

Of course, there are two sides to every story. But The New Yorker is known for quality writing and accurate journalism, so I'm confident that this story is quite truthful.

Download Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi’s India | The New Yorker

UPDATE: Here's a comment I left after other people have commented on this story.
---------------------------------
So I've seen several mentions of "fake news" from commenters on this post, but no one has pointed out what, specifically, is fake or untruthful in this New Yorker story. I have zero patience for people who cry "fake news" but can't back up that claim with facts.

Show your facts, if you have them. If you don't, then stop calling this well-researched and well-written story fake news. If you like that Modi is a Hindu nationalist, that he's been involved in mass killings of Muslims, that he attacks Indian journalists, that he's doing bad things in Kashmir, that he's requiring Muslims in India to prove that they are citizens -- that's fine.

I disagree with your view, but at least you're recognizing facts. What I find most distasteful is claims of "fake news" that aren't backed up with "true news." Share links to reputable sources that rebut what the New Yorker says. Or stop with the fake news claim.

...The change in Kashmir upended more than half a century of careful politics, but the Indian press reacted with nearly uniform approval. Ever since Modi was first elected Prime Minister, in 2014, he has been recasting the story of India, from that of a secular democracy accommodating a uniquely diverse population to that of a Hindu nation that dominates its minorities, especially the country’s two hundred million Muslims. Modi and his allies have squeezed, bullied, and smothered the press into endorsing what they call the “New India.”

...Muslim-Hindu harmony was central to the vision of India’s founders, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, who laid the foundation for a secular state. India is home to all the world’s major religions; Muslims constitute about fourteen per cent of the population. As the British Empire prepared to withdraw, in 1947, Muslims were so fearful of Hindu domination that they clamored for a separate state, which became Pakistan.

The division of the subcontinent, known as Partition, inspired the largest migration in history, with tens of millions of Hindus and Muslims crossing the new borders. In the accompanying violence, as many as two million people died. Afterward, both Pakistanis and Indians harbored enduring grievances over the killings and the loss of ancestral land. Kashmir, on the border, became the site of a long-running proxy war.

...After the riots, Modi’s government did almost nothing to provide for the tens of thousands of Muslims forced from their homes; aid was supplied almost entirely by volunteers. Asked about this, Modi said, “Relief camps are actually child-making factories. Those who keep on multiplying the population should be taught a lesson.”

Although some Hindu rioters were arrested, just a few dozen were ultimately convicted. Mayaben Kodnani, a B.J.P. minister, was the only official to be punished significantly; she was convicted of murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy. When Modi’s government later came to power in Delhi, she was cleared of all charges.

In the following months, there were indications of substantial government complicity. According to independent investigations, the Hindu mobs had moved decisively, following leaders who appeared to have received explicit instructions. “These instructions were blatantly disseminated by the government, and in most cases, barring a few sterling exceptions, methodically carried out by the police and Indian Administrative Service,” concluded a citizen-led inquiry that included former Supreme Court justices and a former senior police official.

...India’s female journalists are often subjected to an especially ugly form of abuse. The threats that Ayyub received were nearly identical to those sent to Gauri Lankesh, a journalist and book publisher from the southern state of Karnataka. Like Ayyub, Lankesh had reported aggressively on Hindu nationalism and on violence against women and lower-caste people.

She had also published Ayyub’s book in Kannada, the predominant language in the state. “We were like sisters,” Ayyub told me. In September, 2017, after Lankesh endured a prolonged campaign of online attacks, two men shot her dead outside her home and fled on a motorbike.

Neha Dixit, who has done groundbreaking reporting on the B.J.P., told me that she receives death threats and sexual insults constantly: “Every day, I get three hundred notifications, with dick pics, and with conversations about how they should rape me with a steel rod or a rose thornbush or something like that.” For Dixit and other targets of these campaigns, it is especially galling that the abuse is apparently endorsed by prominent Modi allies.

Ayyub showed me a tweet about the porn video from Vaibhav Aggarwal, a media personality who often speaks on behalf of the B.J.P. It read, “U want to dance in the Rain, get all wet & not want to then have pneumonia”—a suggestion that she deserved whatever abuse she got. In June, the fake Ayyub quote about child rape was retweeted by a prominent B.J.P. member named Ashoke Pandit. The quote, which originated in English, was translated into Hindi on a Facebook page for the so-called Army of Yogi Adityanath—admirers of the B.J.P.’s Chief Minister in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

...As Modi consolidated his hold on the government, he used its power to silence mainstream outlets. In 2016, his administration began moving to crush the television news network NDTV. Since it went on the air, in 1988, the station has been one of the liveliest and most credible news channels; this spring, as votes were tallied in the general election, its Web site received 16.5 billion hits in a single day.

According to two people familiar with the situation, Modi’s administration has pulled nearly all government advertising from the network—one of its primary sources of revenue—and members of his Cabinet have pressured private companies to stop buying ads. NDTV recently laid off some four hundred employees, a quarter of its staff. The journalists who remain say that they don’t know how long they can persist. “These are dark times,” one told me.

...Modi’s government has targeted enterprising editors as well. Last year, Bobby Ghosh, the editor of the Hindustan Times, one of the country’s most respected newspapers, ran a series tracking violence against Muslims. Modi met privately with the Times’ owner, and the next day Ghosh was asked to leave. In 2016, Outlook ran a disturbing investigation by Neha Dixit, revealing that the R.S.S. had offered schooling to dozens of disadvantaged children in the state of Assam, and then sent them to be indoctrinated in Hindu-nationalist camps on the other side of the country.

According to a person with knowledge of the situation, Outlook’s owners—one of India’s wealthiest families, whose businesses depended on government approvals—came under pressure from Modi’s administration. “They were going to ruin their empire,” the person said. Not long after, Krishna Prasad, Outlook’s longtime editor, resigned.

...A feeling of despair has settled in among many Indians who remain committed to the secular, inclusive vision of the country’s founders. “Gandhi and Nehru were great, historic figures, but I think they were an aberration,” Prasad, the former Outlook editor, told me.

“It’s very different now. The institutions have crumbled—universities, investigative agencies, the courts, the media, the administrative agencies, public services. And I think there is no rational answer for what has happened, except that we pretended to be what we were for fifty, sixty years. But we are now reverting to what we always wanted to be, which is to pummel minorities, to push them into a corner, to show them their places, to conquer Kashmir, to ruin the media, and to make corporations servants of the state. And all of this under a heavy resurgence of Hinduism. India is becoming the country it has always wanted to be.”

Why the RSSB guru has broken an initiate's heart

Here's a comment on a recent blog post from Alexander Black that I found to be moving. People put a lot of faith in the morality of gurus and other spiritual leaders. When a leader acts badly, it causes pain among those who trusted them. (I corrected a few typos in the comment.)

As an initiate of Gurinder Singh it breaks my heart how he has lost the moral high ground by getting so deeply involved with the Singh brothers’ illegal and criminal financial dealings.

As Satsangis we seek to find the spiritual truth by practicing meditation every day. Isn’t it equally important to seek the truth of our guru’s character and moral conducts? If the guru is not aligned with the truth how can he be true?

A spiritual guru should be the epitome of truth and the unshakable example how to conduct ourselves in life and on the spiritual path.

Before their initiation seekers must spend a year in probation. They test themselves to make sure that they can follow the dietary requirements as well as the high moral standards that the teachings prescribe. This is meant to be serious business and a lifetime commitment.

Baba Ji is not only the RSSB master but he is also a disciple of his master, Charan Singh. As a disciple he made the same commitment to stay true to the teachings as we did.

There is sufficient proof of Baba Ji's shady financial dealings for those who bother to investigate. The Indian public records speak for themselves.

Why presume that Baba Ji was given the 61,83,013 shares of Religare Enterprises as a gift by the Singh brothers. Don't the teachings of RSSB recommend not to accept favours or gifts? According to the teachings favours and gifts create further karmic debts that bind us to this creation and make us spiritually bankrupt.

In Baba Ji’s and his family’s case we are talking about millions of dollars worth of “gifts” or perhaps "loans" - we don't know which, because there was only a verbal agreement between the parties involved. The high moral standards of the RSSB teachings clearly do not apply to Baba Ji, the “true” guru.

At a question and answer session a woman sitting in a wheel chair came to the microphone. She was hoping to get some sympathy from master regarding her condition. She explained to Baba Ji how hard life was for her in a wheel chair and if it wasn't for her friends who bought her ticket to India, she would not be here.

Baba Ji told her that in India people with total paralysis paint with their mouth to make a living and he suggested to the questioner that once she returned home she should get a job and repay her friends for the ticket to India.

So a ticket to India must be repaid, says Baba Ji, but USD1.25 million borrowed by him from filmmaker Sheetal Talwar must be forgotten.

We soon lose faith and respect for those leaders who do not walk the talk. By keeping our guru on the pedestal no matter what, we give up our power of discrimination.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon

"Don't know" is a great thing to keep in mind

All of us are prone to making mistakes with our minds. That comes with being human. Nobody sees reality as it is, because there's no way to tell what as it is means, since every conscious being views the world through their own set of perception filters.

But there's ways to come closer to the truth about reality.

Basically, we need to accept true things as being true. Like global warming, gravity, and the honking of geese.

And we need to to accept false things as being false. Like Donald Trump's claim that he didn't want the Ukraine president to announce an investigation into a political rival in exchange for getting military aid and a White House visit.

In between the poles of true and false there's something else: don't know. 

I love those two words. I wish everybody on Earth adored them also. If they did, the world would be filled with much less dogmatism, holier-than-thou self-righteousness, and rigidity.

Don't know is ubiquitous, because few things (maybe zero things) can be known with 100% certainty. This is the way of science, and of wise everyday life. 

We can be highly confident that something is true or false, but there's always at least a tiny bit of don't know lurking in the shadows. Facts might pop up that would change our point of view, where "our" encompasses both an individual's ideas and an entire culture's way of looking at the world.

Today I listened to a guided meditation by Jeff Warren on my Calm iPhone app that focused on the benefits of embracing don't know.

It's a great thing to keep in mind during a meditation session, because those words lead us toward a sense of openness, or beginner's mind. 

Of course, most religious people hate don't know, because they wrongly believe that they know. About God. About heaven. About life after death. About divine messengers.

They do their best to cover up their truthful lack of knowing with false certainty in a holy book or holy person. Not surprisingly, this leaves them less likely to actually know, since a feeling of don't know is what impels us to learn, explore, try new things.

Don't know also is an aid to peace of mind.

After all, most of us find ourselves worrying about unwelcome possibilities that often don't come to pass, or if they do, aren't as bad as we thought they'd be. So telling ourselves, don't know, can be comforting. Rather than being sure a dental appointment, for example, will be dreadful, we can truthfully say, don't know. 

Which doesn't mean that things will turn out fine. Often, they don't. But it's better to be disturbed by a nasty present-moment reality, than by worries that precede that reality by hours, days, weeks, months, or even years. 

And usually we don't know how long a bad situation will last, even though our anxious mind may be thinking, it will never end. 

If you want to know more about how Jeff Warren looks upon don't know, there's a 41-minute talk on this subject on his web site. I just came across it, so haven't listened to the talk yet. I'm confident that the talk contains a lot of wisdom.

But I don't know for sure.

 

 

Great comment about RSSB truth-telling

Here's a comment by "j" on a recent blog post about Gurinder Singh Dhillon's involvement in a financial fraud investigation that I heartily agree with. 

Truth needs to be spoken. Journalists, in India and elsewhere, do a good job of revealing truth, by and large. Yes, sometimes they make mistakes, as do we all.

But the stories in the Indian financial press about the RSSB guru's alleged role in financial fraud have been almost entirely accurate, and I've been pleased to share them on this blog. I'll continue to do so. 

Sure, I know that some devotees of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, the religious organization headed up by Dhillon, dislike news that puts the guru in a bad light. The truth shines equally in all directions, though. We shouldn't ignore a truth just because it makes us feel uncomfortable.

In that ignoring way lies dogma, blind belief, and intolerance. Let's be open to truth wherever it may lead. This is "j's" comment, which starts with a quote from another commenter.

"Brother with respect one simple question to all of you. Why all of you are passing your judgements without having a strong evidence or proof , if u have so then why u are wasting ur time here, if have go to the concerned authorities and if not then dont shout and keep ur mouth shut and watch all that happening like a respected spectator. This i request to both who are in favour of dera and to those who are not.Thnx"

Another appeal from the RSSB sangat (my brothers?) to cease and desist from making any online comments about RSSB.

How many people outside RSSB know that 20 or so years ago, this organization's current guru banned any discussion of RSSB on the web? The ban has never been lifted, and the prejudice against any criticism of RSSB has been deeply ingrained in the sangat's culture.

I'm guessing that the same people who are "horrified" at critical comments about RSSB have no problem reading other news sites about events in India and across the world. I'm also guessing they're not writing to these media sites and imploring their brothers there to keep mum and just observe events dispassionately.

Let's be frank. No one here is accusing the RSSB gurus of anything that isn't based on evidence. I don't see any of the wild and lurid accusations against Gurinder here that you tend to find on some Sikh sites.

What we're commenting on is public record: 2 separate parties have accused Baba Gurinder Singh Dhillon of taking huge sums of money and refusing to pay it back. I believe the diversion of the Beas river is also a matter of public record.

If you believe as your Guru does that commenting on those matters of public record is indecent and unseemly, that's your right. But you apparently forget that not all of us here are followers of your guru, and we don't agree with you or him that silence is the best policy.

RSSB guru is being shielded by Indian agencies, says Malvinder's attorney

This accusation has been made before by attorneys for Malvinder Singh, and it was made again last Tuesday, November 26. Here's a LiveMint story about the latest turn of events in the ongoing saga of how a guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, appears to be deeply involved in financial fraud.

I'll comment on this development following the story.

NEW DELHI : Delhi High court on Tuesday heard arguments on Enforcement Directorate’s plea for custodial interrogation of former promoter of Fortis Healthcare Malvinder Singh and former Managing Director of Religare Enterprises Sunil Godhwani in a money-laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of funds of Religare Finvest Limited (RFL).

Advocate Ramesh Gupta appearing for the respondents said the agency is not honest with their investigation.

“They have searched and seized the documents. I have joined the investigation whenever they asked of me. They are not touching the baba with whom 2000 crore is already there. They just want my confession. They want to know where the money is parked. I have nothing to do with those companies." He argued.

“They have arrested me only. They did not arrest the other accused. They want to shield Gurinder Singh Dhillon." He further added.

On the other hand, it was argued by standing counsel Amit Mahajan that there are 22 companies where 2300 crore has been transferred and there is an enormous material which needs to be confronted with the accused.

“I am trying to unearth the crime and trace the proceeds." He said.

The court will now hear further arguments on Wednesday.

The ED had arrested Singh and Godhwani on 14 November, following which their custody with the ED was extended twice. On 23 November, a Saket court rejected the ED's plea for extension of custody and remanded the two to judicial custody till 7 December.

ED had moved the Delhi high court against the trial court’s order.

Singh and Godhwani are accused of laundering money, punishable under sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

In December, Religare Enterprises and its subsidiary filed a complaint with the corporate affairs ministry alleging misappropriation of funds worth ₹2,230 crore of the company and its units.

The complaint also alleged that illegal issuances and redemption of preference shares led to undue gains of approximately ₹290 crore to promoter groups.

OK, it's good that the counsel for the Enforcement Directorate, which I've been told is sort of a cross between the FBI and CIA agencies in the United States, is trying to "unearth the crime and trace the proceeds." 

What's puzzling is why it is taking so long.

After all, follow the money is a given in financial fraud crimes. It's extremely difficult to believe that Malvinder Singh and Sunil Godhwani broke laws and engaged in a complicated scheme of round-trip loans going to shell companies without the cooperation, if not the connivance, of those who ultimately ended up with the money and controlled the shell companies at one time.

This isn't akin to someone robbing a bank and then giving the money away to a relative without that person knowing where the money came from. It's akin to someone robbing a bank with the assistance of someone who worked at the bank, with that employee than ending up with the money.

Malvinder and his attorney are asking a good question: why aren't the authorities focusing more on the people who were the ultimate beneficiaries of the money that was siphoned from Fortis and Religare?

This appears to be Gurinder Singh Dhillon, his family, and close associates.

Numerous stories in the Indian financial press have traced the flow of money into their pockets. And the High Court of Delhi has ordered the Dhillon family to repay money owed to Malvinder and companies once controlled by the Singh brothers so a $500 million settlement can be paid to Daiichi Sankyo.

Maybe the wheels of Indian justice are turning slowly, but in the right direction.

However, there's reason for concern that because the Dhillon family has friends in high places, and the millions of followers of the RSSB guru include some fanatical people who would do anything for the guru, possibly including committing violence in his name, there's been pressure on the Enforcement Directorate to go easy on Gurinder Singh Dhillon. 

Hopefully that isn't happening. Or if it is happening, it won't succeed.

This is a high profile case that has gotten worldwide attention. It would make India look bad if a guru was allowed to make off with hundreds of millions of dollars without legal consequences. This would send a bad message to companies thinking of investing in India. And it would leave the boards of Fortis, Religare, and Daiichi Sankyo justifiably enraged.

I'll end by citing a June 2019 post, "RSSB guru identified as beneficiary of fraudulent funds," where I quoted from a Business Today story that described filmmaker Sheetal Talwar's accusations that closely mirrored those just made by Malvinder's attorney. Here's some excerpts.

NRI film producer Sheetal Vinod Talwar has submitted to Sebi that Radha Soami Satsang chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family allegedly benefited the most from Religare's Rs 2,300 crore fund diversion. Sebi's forensic audit via probe agency MSA Probe Consulting had identified diversion worth Rs 2,315.09 crore.

...Talwar has told Sebi that even though its Religare investigation via forensic audit firm MSA concluded fund diversion and large scale irregularities and illegalities, the probe did not lift the corporate veil to disclose the ultimate beneficiaries of the diversion.

Advocates & Solicitors Kartikeya & Associates-representing Talwar-have submitted to Sebi on 29 May, 2019 that, "...the persons who have benefitted the most and/or on whose instance the said illegalities and irregularities were and/or have been committed have yet not been identified. Please note that the persons and/or the shadow promoters of REL, RFL and their other group companies is one Gurinder Singh Dhillon (GSD/Babaji) and his family".

...Talwar's complaint to Sebi has also levelled a grave charge of a serious conflict of interest among Religare's then board  members. "...the fact that the companies shared common directors to the GSD family as well as were all run by GSD followers eg.

Just a quick review would point to the fact that during the diversion of funds, Vitoba, Platinum and Devera entities to which fund were diverted would reveal that Yuvraj Narain Gorwaney alias Mithu is on the board of these companies-not only is Yuvraj...the secretary of RSSB, he also sits on the board of Logos Holding along with GSD and Shabnam Dhillon. Many such associations exist between the entities named and GSD family."

Lessons about thankfulness from our dog

Our oldest dog, ZuZu, died last month. I'm still grieving. So when I looked through my previous Thanksgiving Day blog posts (a holiday here in the United States), it seemed fitting to share a 2013 post, "Our 14 year old dog teaches me about thankfulness."

That dog was Serena, shown above in her younger days on a bank of the Metolius River in central Oregon. Here's most of what I said in the blog post I wrote about her when Serena's health was fading.

She doesn't look like she did in her younger days. But heck, who does? Surely not me. Being almost fourteen, Serena is something like 100 years old in dog time.

Serena is a Shepherd/Lab mix (her sisters looked like black labs; we were thrilled to get a kind-of German Shepherd-looking dog with a laid back Lab personality -- great combination). Her back legs are weak, a common trait in aging Shepherd canines.

Yet she still can go on a mile walk every evening with me and ZuZu, her four year old sister-dog. Not literally; they just look somewhat alike.

Serena chugs along, uphill and downhill, across two creek bridges, around a neighborhood lake, through grassy fields. I fired up an iPhone GPS app a few days ago. We meander along at an average of 1.8 mph. Hey, not bad for a 100 year old. 

Her pooper, which may not the precise veterinary term for what controls her bowel movements, isn't working very well.

Most mornings we get up to find roundish firm dark "presents" in the room where Serena and ZuZu sleep. A tiled room, thankfully, because some days the poop is mushier. Which, in case you're worrying, is all I'm going to say on this subject.

Because its my Thanksgiving Day thankfulness thoughts about Serena that are important. I'm grateful that she's helped me realize the importance of, so to speak, sniffing the heck out of life every single freaking day. 

No exceptions. 

I used to look upon our evening dog walk much differently. That was when both Serena and I were younger, when it seemed like an endless stream of dog walks lay before us. 

If Serena paused too long to smell something, inhaling the scent of what, to a dog, at that moment, is the most fascinating thing in the world, I'd get impatient.

Hey, Serena, I'd think, get a move on; I've got other things to do than watch my dog obsess over a clump of grass that, to my impoverished human senses, looks utterly meaningless.

Now, though, our walks have taken on some of the quality of the Zen "Enjoy the Strawberry" parable.  

The meaning of living fully in the present moment, neither retreating to the past nor anticipating the future, is wonderfully illustrated by a Zen parable about a monk being pursued by a ferocious tiger.

The monk raced to the edge of a cliff, glanced back, and saw the growling tiger about to spring. The monk spotted a vine dangling over the edge of the cliff. He grabbed it and began shinnying down the side of the cliff out of the clutches of the tiger.

Whew! Narrow escape.

The monk then looked down and saw a quarry of jagged rocks five hundred feet below. He looked up and saw the tiger poised atop the cliff with bared claws. Just then, two mice began to nibble at the vine.

What to do?

The monk saw a strawberry within arm’s reach, growing out of the face of the cliff.

He plucked it, ate it, and exclaimed, “Yum! That’s the best strawberry I’ve ever tasted in my entire life.”

If he had been preoccupied with the rock below (the future) or the tiger above (the past), he would have missed the strawberry in the present moment.

I'm thankful when Serena stops to taste her canine equivalent of a strawberry. My dog-expert wife tells me that dogs experience dementia just like people do.

But I prefer to think that when Serena suddenly stands still, staring off into the distance for no discernible reason, she is drinking in the present moment. Just as I should always be doing. As we all should be.

Because even though I'm appeciative that Serena's advancing age and deteriorating health have helped remind me that I'm in the same sinking mortality boat she is, it shouldn't take a 14 year old dog to remind me that we'll never know when the last time will come. 

Probably it won't be very long before Serena and I take our last evening dog walk.

There's a good chance I won't know which one it is. So I want to look upon every walk as our last walk. I want Serena and I to enjoy it like the best strawberry (or chew stick) either of us has tasted in our entire life.

The older I get (I'm 65 now), the more I realize there is only one way to cheat death: making the most of every moment. Not in a frantic skydiving, tango in Buenos Aires, howl at the moon fashion (though there's nothing wrong with this).

In the sense of being present, in the present. 

Serena is. Dogs always are. Serena doesn't know she's old and getting ever closer to dying. She just knows that when her nose senses an enticing odor, it needs to be attended to.

Shabnam Dhillon, wife of RSSB guru, has died

I just received this message from someone. Babaji refers to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. It's a sad day for the Dhillon family and the millions of RSSB devotees. I'm no longer one of them, but I share in the sadness of Shabnam Dhillon's death. 

UPDATE: Below is a message from Radha Soami Satsang Beas about Shabnam Dhillon's death. And there's a hindustan times story about her passing.

Second update: There's a Business Today story about Shabnam Dhillon's death.

Shabnam Dhillon, wife of Radha Soami Satsang Beas head Gurinder Singh Dhillion, has passed away in London. She was 57 years old.

According to a statement before Delhi High Court, Shabnam went to London on November 12 for treatment of gastric troubles. She and other members of the Dhillon family had been summoned to appear before the court in person in relation to the Daiichi Sankyo case.

As per the filing, Shabnam had undergone abdominal surgery in United Kingdom on November 20. She later developed some complications post surgery. She breathed her last at an England hospital at 3:00 am IST.

Shabnam is survived by her husband Gurinder Singh Dhillon and two sons, Gurpreet Singh Dhillon and Gurkirat Singh Dhillon. Both of them run businesses in Singapore and England, respectively.

Reports suggest that Gurinder Singh Dhillon will carry on with his three-day programme from Friday to Sunday in Delhi. He will also visit Dubai for a two-day event scheduled for December 2 and 3. Shabnam's mortal remains will reportedly be brought back to Radha Soami Dera at Beas after December 3 for the last rites.

Why you should be happy today, right now, no matter what

Here's a guest post from myself. It comes from one of my other blogs, HinesSight, where I called it My iron-clad argument to be happy right now, no matter what.

Not surprisingly, what I wrote makes a lot of sense to me.

After all, one of the greatest gifts we can offer to others is our own happiness. Why? Because it's much more pleasant to be around a happy person rather than someone who isn't happy.

Also, life is much bigger than we are, as is the world we live in. We can hope for certain things from life, from the world. We can do our best to work to make those things happen. But there's no guarantee we'll be successful.

So we can't wait for life to give us what we believe we need to be happy, because we might end up waiting for a very long time, and maybe until our last breath.

Happiness has to be felt right here, right now. Read on...

Periodically my brain comes up with cosmic conclusions that feel ever so right to me. For example, on my Church of the Churchless blog I've written about how back in 1968 I had a convincing realization that the universe is a paper bag turned inside out. 

If this doesn't make sense to you, I recommend ingesting a psychedelic, mescaline, since that substance was responsible for the paper bag turned inside out insight. Which, I readily admit, didn't last very long in my psyche.

On the other hand, my current cosmic conclusion arose while I was in a normal state of mind (leaving aside the vexing question of what "normal" means in relation to anybody's mind, mine or anyone else's).

It pertains to happiness and goes like this.

Be happy today, right now, at this very moment and every following moment.
Why? Because our future contains only three possibilities. 

Tomorrow, or the next moment, could be better than right now.
So be happy! Life will look even brighter soon.

Tomorrow, or the next moment, could be worse than right now.
So be happy! Enjoy life in this more pleasant present.

Tomorrow, or the next moment, could be the same as right now.
So be happy! Life has brought you some stability. 

Now, I readily admit that what I've just written isn't exactly a groundbreaking idea. Few, if any, ideas are. We humans have conjured up so many thoughts in the course of human history that it is very tough, if not impossible, to come up with a completely fresh one.

But these ideas about happiness were new to me. At least, in a certain sense.

As I have for almost all of my life (can't remember my earliest child years), I spend a lot of time worrying about the future and fretting about the past. 

I hope that I'll be happier tomorrow. I regret that I wasn't happier yesterday. Somehow today, the present moment, has a way of being shunted aside by my mental time travel into the future or past. 

Which is crazy, since if there is any time I'm going to be happy, obviously it is now... or never.

By "never" I don't mean that if I'm not happy right now, I never will be. Rather, I mean that when happiness is felt, it is in the present moment, since this is all that exists for us.

Further, we don't know what will happen in the future. We also don't know with a whole lot of accuracy what happened in the past, since our memories are faulty and decidedly selective. 

(Once I had an email exchange with my ex-wife about some details of our divorce after several years had passed since our breakup. I was surprised at how different my recollection of what went on differed from hers, probably because each of us had come to view ourselves as the "good guy/gal" in the divorce and so had come to focus on memories that supported that view of things.)

So this argues for being as happy as possible right here, right now. We don't know what awaits us. It could be better, worse, or the same as what is in our life currently. 

Given that uncertainty, embracing happiness in the present moment makes a heck of a lot of sense, even though it is difficult to give up habits of worry, anticipation, hopes, regrets, and such.

A few days ago I shared my cosmic conclusion about happiness with Aujene, a LifeSource Natural Foods employee who asked me "how's your day going?" prior to checking out my grocery purchases. I took the opportunity to share my happiness ideas.

It was encouraging that after I gave Aujene the basics of what I've written above, she said "that's so close to what my mother always told me."

Which goes to show, as noted above, that my insight is no way original. But more importantly, it seems to contain some valid wisdom that's been expressed in many different ways by many different people.

Open Thread 26 (free speech for comments)

Here's a new Open Thread.

I appreciate that off-topic comments have been going in a previous Open Thread. As noted before, it's good to have comments in a regular blog post related to its subject, and it's also good to have a place where almost anything goes in regard to sharing ideas, feelings, experiences, and such. That place is an Open Thread.

Leave a comment on this post about anything you want to talk about. Remember that I'm moderating comments, so it could take a while for your comment to be published. Almost every comment submitted to an Open Thread will be approved. Personal attacks on someone are an exception. Argue with ideas, not insults.

Though I haven't been doing too well on this, I'll try to remember to always have an Open Thread showing in the Recent Posts section in the right sidebar. If one isn't showing, I've added an Open Threads category in, naturally, the Categories section. You can always find an Open Thread that way.

So if you're a believer in some form of religion, mysticism, or spirituality, this is where you can put your "praise God," "praise Guru," or "praise _______" comments.

RSSB guru and his family ordered to submit financial information

Thanks to commenters on this blog who shared links to these stories, here's additional reporting in the Indian financial press about the financial fraud saga involving the Singh brothers and their cousin, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

Neither story appears to be good news for Dhillon and his family.

They've been ordered to submit income tax returns, bank statements, and balance sheets related to financial transactions that, according to the High Court of Delhi, concern money owed to Malvinder Singh and public companies once controlled by him.

This seems to show that authorities view it as likely that the Dhillon family does owe money that needs to be repaid, perhaps on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars. The RSSB guru has claimed that he doesn't owe anything. That's possible, but unlikely.

The other story speaks of emails "connected with proceeds of crime" that are being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate. Since Malvinder Singh has accused the RSSB guru and his close associate, Sunil Godhwani, of criminal fraud in siphoning off money into shell companies controlled by the Dhillons, tracking who ended up with the money obviously is key to that criminal complaint.

Defenders of the guru claim that Malvinder Singh is the person who orchestrated the massive financial fraud. This makes little sense, though. 

Why would Malvinder set up a complex maze of financial transactions through many shell companies if his goal was to steal money from the companies he once controlled? And why would Malvinder want the Dhillon family to be directors of the shell companies?

Further, if Malvinder committed financial fraud, why would he make a criminal complaint last February against Dhillon, his family, and Godhwani? The complaint would draw attention to Malvinder by legal authorities, which seemingly isn't what someone engaged in financial fraud would want.

Here's the Business Today story.

Delhi high court Saturday ordered the RSSB chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family members to submit their income proofs as part of Daiichi Sankyo case proceedings. The court asked the family to furnish their income tax returns, bank statements and balance sheets before the court within four weeks

"The garnishees who are disputing the liability of judgment debtors shall file the Income Tax Returns, bank statements and balance sheets for the relevant year to show how they have reflected the relevant transaction in their income tax return," the court order said.

"The judgment debtors shall also file the Income Tax Returns, bank statements and balance sheets for the relevant year to show the transaction between the judgment debtors or their related companies and garnishees. These documents be filed within a period of four weeks," it added.

Also Read:Delhi court seeks action report on Malvinder Singh's complaint against brother Shivinder, RSSB chief Dhillon, Sunil Godhwani

Meanwhile, Saket Court Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav rejected further enforcement directorate (ED) custodial interrogations of former Ranbaxy promoter Malvinder Singh and former Religare Chairman Sunil Godhwani. Malvinder and Godhwani will be sent to judicial custody and the concerned order is awaited on the same.

Malvinder and Sunil Godhwani are presently in the custody of the ED for interrogation in a money laundering case lodged by the agency in relation to the alleged misappropriation of funds of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL).

In February this year, Malvinder had filed a complaint in his personal capacity with Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing claiming that his brother and other accused had colluded to cheat him.

Also Read:Daiichi case: 6 days to deadline, RSSB chief Dhillon & family back off from court appearance; cite 'surgeries', 'satsang' as reasons

Malvinder had named Shivinder, Dhillon, his wife Shabnam Dhillon, sons Gurpreet and Gurkirat, daughter-in-law Nayantara Dhillon, Sunil Godhwani and his brother Sanjay Godhwani, and others in his complaint. He had blamed the accused of wrongly taking control and misappropriating funds of RHC Holding Pvt Ltd, the holding company of the Religare group.

In his complaint, Malvinder had blamed Shivinder of siphoning off funds "with the ulterior motive of gaining ultimate control of the seat of spiritual head of the RSSB which has been promised to him by Dhillon in lieu of this financial gain to himself".

Malvinder had also stated that Shivinder had "unilaterally signed a purported "family settlement" with Dhillon agreeing to absolve him of all wrongdoing whatsoever and agreeing that no liabilities or legal proceedings or criminality would be attributable to Dhillon". He further said that Dhillon had been "threatening him from time to time to sign the same settlement".

Also Read: Recover money from RSSB chief Dhillon & family to pay Singh brothers' dues to Daiichi: Delhi HC

And here's The Economic Times story.

A Delhi court today disposed of a plea to extend custodial interrogation for ex promoter of Ranbaxy Malvinder Singh filed by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED).

The court after considering “rival contentions” and having gone through the application and status report, opined that further custodian interrogation is neither “required” nor “warranted”.

The ED had filed an application in a Delhi court seeking five days further custody of Singh, in a money laundering case lodged by the ED in relation to an alleged misappropriation of funds of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL). The ED told that court that new facts have emerged after interrogation and during the course of interrogation emails dump of accused and other key management persons have been received which are “voluminous” and are under investigation.

The ED also told the court the e-mails have data connected with proceeds of crime and that Singh is required to be confronted with the e-mails. It further pointed that during their course of investigation, it has summoned two directors of companies “where proceeds of crime” has been transferred. “Three people have been called to join investigation who are required to be confronted with accused persons. It is therefore submitted that further custodian interrogation of the accused is required,” the ED said in its plea.

Manu Sharma, the counsel for Singh vehemently opposed the extension of the custody, submitting that the laptop of Singh was seized in August and there was no justification as to why he was not confronted with those emails earlier. While the ED said that these are fresh emails recovered on November 15, the court while rejecting the plea, remanded Singh to judicial custody till December 7.

The Enforcement agency, on November 14, had arrested Malvinder over charges of misappropriation of funds in RFL.

Malvinder and his brother Shivinder Mohan Singh, the erstwhile promoters of Religare Enterprises Limited (REL), are facing charges of cheating, criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust. EOW had picked up the two and ex CMD of REL Sunil Godhwani last month.

The case was registered on the complaint of a senior Religare manager. It was alleged that the company and its subsidiary RFL were cheated and properties worth “hundreds of crores have been misappropriated, siphoned off and diverted through a labyrinth of financial transactions”. The Singh brothers had, in collusion with the co-accused, “orchestrated the financial scam in or around 2016”, the complaint said.

Court seeks update on criminal complaint against RSSB guru and others

Below are two stories in the Indian financial press relating to the criminal complaint filed in February 2019 by Malvinder Singh against his cousin, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. (A Bloomberg story said that an investigation had been opened.)

Malvinder's lawyer requested that the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing provide a report on what actions have been taken on the complaint. A court has ordered that this happen by December 12.

I've been wondering about the status of the complaint, since the High Court of Delhi has ordered Dhillon and his family to repay money owed to the Singh brothers and companies once controlled by them. That's a non-criminal order related to money that reportedly went into the pockets of the Dhillon family through shell companies once directed by themselves and their close associates.

But unanswered so far is this question: Was Gurinder Singh Dhillon involved in a criminal conspiracy to obtain funds siphoned from public companies?

Some commenters on this blog have theorized that because Dhillon is a well-known religious leader with millions of followers, and has friends in high places, there's a potential of a cover-up by Indian authorities of his role in this financial scandal involving large amounts of money.

Hopefully that isn't the reason for the lack of observable progresss on Malvinder's criminal complaint.

Since India wants to be a welcoming place for foreign investment, it wouldn't look good if a guru was let off the hook by Indian authorities for bad reasons -- the only good reason being that after a thorough investigation, there wasn't evidence that the RSSB guru and his family did anything wrong.

Here's a Business Today story on this subject.

Delhi's Patiala House court has sought details from Delhi Police about the action taken on complaint by former Ranbaxy promoter Malvinder Singh against brother and co-promoter Shivinder Singh, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon, former Religare Chairman Sunil Godhwani, and others.

In February this year, Malvinder had filed a complaint in his personal capacity with Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing claiming that his brother and other accused had colluded to cheat him. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purshottam Pathak has instructed the police to file the action taken report by December 12, the next date for hearing.

Malvinder had named Shivinder, Dhillon, his wife Shabnam Dhillon, sons Gurpreet and Gurkirat, daughter in-law Nayantara Dhillon, Sunil Godhwani and his brother Sanjay Godhwani, and others in his complaint. He had blamed the accused of wrongly taking control and misappropriating funds of RHC Holding Pvt Ltd, the holding company of the Religare group.

ALSO READ: Daiichi case: Supreme Court holds Singh brothers guilty of contempt of court for violating order

ALSO READ: Shivinder Singh likens Malvinder Singh to 'Bhasmasur'; Malvinder says brother's 'sanyas' fake: NCLT filings

In his complaint, Malvinder had blamed Shivinder of siphoning off funds "with the ulterior motive of gaining ultimate control of the seat of spiritual head of the RSSB which has been promised to him by Dhillon in lieu of this financial gain to himself".

Malvinder had also stated that Shivinder had "unilaterally signed a purported "family settlement" with Dhillon agreeing to absolve him of all wrongdoing whatsoever and agreeing that no liabilities or legal proceedings or criminality would be attributable to Dhillon". He further said that Dhillon had been "threatening him from time to time to sign the same settlement".

Malvinder and Sunil Godhwani are presently in the custody of Enforcement Directorate for interrogation in a money laundering case lodged by the agency in relation to the alleged misappropriation of funds of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL). He will remain in ED custody till November 23.

And here's an Economic Times story.

A Delhi court today sought an action taken report from the Economic offences wing (EoW) of the Delhi police on a complaint filed by former promoter of Ranbaxy Malvinder Singh against Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the head of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). Malvinder had in February filed a complaint in EoW against Dhillon among others for allegedly siphoning off proceeds from the sale of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd.

Malvinder’s lawyer Manu Sharma today approached the court with a plea that there has been no headway in the case filed in February. “So far no action has been taken by the police on the case, in an effort to shield this man. We approached the court today with a grievance that there has been no headway in the case so far. The court has sought action taken report form the police,” Sharma told ET. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purshottam Pathak has asked the police to file an action taken report by December 12, which is the next date of hearing.

Singh, in his case had also accused his brother Shivinder, the family members of Dhillon including his wife Shabnam Dhillon, his sons Gurpreet and Gurkirat and daughter-in-law Nayan Tara Dhillon and his former associates Sunil and Sanjay Godhwani of conspiring to misappropriate the funds of RHC Holding Pvt Ltd, the company that owned assets of the group and has sought ₹8,742 crore from the accused in compensation.

In his complaint has had said that Singh repeatedly reached out to Babaji, as Dhillon is called, to “resolve" financial matters.

He had mentioned that both brothers had given financial advances to the guru--directly to his entities and family and were invested at his directions.

Malvinder Singh has said in his complaint that his younger brother Shivinder permitted the “siphoning" off of funds with the “motive of gaining ultimate control of the seat of spiritual head of the RSSB" which has been promised to him by Dhillon in lieu of financial gain to himself.

Malvinder is in the custody of ED following a money laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of funds of Religare Finvest.

Nationalism is bad. Religious nationalism is worse.

I live in the United States. Misguided religious people call it a Christian nation. They're wrong. Likewise, misguided religious people in India call it a Hindu nation. They're also wrong.

I got to thinking about religious nationalism after reading the first part of Arjun Sethi's testimony regarding Jammu, Kashmir, and minority rights in India. Maybe Sethi is exaggerating how bad things are getting in India, but even if what he says is only partly true, that's still really disturbing.

Here's an excerpt from what Sethi wrote.

In 1947, India created a constitutional republic based on the principles of secularism and pluralism. The founders hoped this framework would hold the nation’s rich diversity together and ensure that India would never inflict on others the brutality inflicted on them.

Yet today, Hindu nationalist mobs roam India, targeting Muslims, Dalits and Christians, sometimes forcing them to recite Hindu slogans. Security forces have forced Kashmiris to lick dirt off the road for refusing to utter national mottos.

Hindu nationalism isn’t new to India, but it is on the rise. It’s rooted in the belief that India is a Hindu nation, and that Hindus, who make up 80% of the population, should enjoy a privileged status and exercise majoritarian rule. This ideology is amplified by the RSS, a male only, volunteer, paramilitary organization. Its earliest leaders referred to Christians and Muslims as “internal threats” and compared India’s Muslims to “Jews in Germany.”

The BJP is the political wing of the RSS, and Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, its national leader. Modi trained with the RSS at the age of eight, and recently told a crowd of RSS supporters that he was proud to be a member. Amit Shah, Modi’s second in command, has called undocumented Muslim immigrants “termites” and vowed to “throw them in the Bay of Bengal.”

Modi is forging a new India, where non-Hindus are second class subjects with limited rights. India is often called the world’s largest democracy, but democracies only work if people can speak, associate, and protest freely. Democracies only thrive if they safeguard civil liberties and minority rights. Today, India more closely resembles an authoritarian regime than a pluralistic republic.

Nationalism itself is a very limited point of view. In a recent issue of New Scientist, there was an interview with British astronaut Helen Sharman. She said:

When you look down on the Earth, you can't see the political boundaries. Politics means absolutely nothing because you're seeing the natural world. When you're zipping around in low Earth orbit, in 92 minutes you've gone completely around the Earth.

So instead of it being this huge place that you can apparently do anything to that's really robust, it's actually a very tiny place where everything is affecting everything else.

We're all part of the Earth and the Earth is as much part of us as we are of it. I am angered by the fact that we are apparently destroying the very thing that's given us life, as opposed to what we could be doing, which is living symbiotically.

What's crazy is that I'm pretty sure people in every country on Earth consider that their small part of our tiny planet is the very best part. The same holds true for the 50 states in the United States. I've rarely, if ever, seen residents of one state saying "Where I live is horrible."

(I say this as a resident of Oregon -- which obviously is the very best state. Yet somehow people manage to live in North Dakota and like it there, which baffles me.)

Don't get me wrong. I love the United States.

But in no way do I consider it to be the greatest country on Earth, nor do I consider myself to be a nationalist in any sense. The United States has strengths, and it has weaknesses. This country has accomplished some marvelous things. It also has done some horrible things.

The same is true of every other country, including India.

So I don't understand the appeal of nationalism, since it defies logic, facts, and common sense. Nationalism is akin to the extreme fanaticism of fans who consider that their favorite sports team can do no wrong, so if it loses a game the referees must have made bad calls or the other team cheated.

That said, at least nationalists identify with an entire nation. When a modifier is put before "nationalists," as in "religious nationalists"  or "white nationalists," something bad becomes even worse, since now one's loyalty isn't to their country, but to just a portion of it.

Recently I had a great conversation with someone who, like me, had come to doubt the religious faith that they'd embraced for many years.

Along with their marriage partner, they're raising their children in a religiously open-minded fashion, trusting that the children will be able to choose which religion, if any, makes sense to them -- as opposed to indoctrinating them into believing that a certain religion is the Only True Way.

I told this person that to me, forcing a child to believe in a certain religion is as bad as forcing a child to accept a certain form of politics.

Wouldn't it seem decidedly weird if a parent read bedtime stories to a seven-year-old about how being a member of a particular political party is the only way to participate in politics? And once a week, that child had to attend meetings where the views of that political party were discussed?

Yet all over the world, people brainwash children into believing that a particular religion is the Only True Way, which is even crazier than brainwashing children into believing that a particular political party is the Only True Way, since there obviously is solid evidence that political parties exist, while there is zero demonstrable evidence that God or anything else supernatural exists.

Hopefully India will evolve from its attraction to Hindu nationalism and realize that it makes no sense in a pluralistic society for a government, or a political party, to embrace a certain religion to the exclusion of others, including, of course, the religious non-belief of atheists.

RSSB guru'a wife deeply involved in real estate deal

This is a follow-up to yesterday's blog post, "Here's an example of Dhillon family connections to shell companies." Someone just sent me a PDF file of an analyst's 2014 report on a company owned by Shabnam Dhillon, the wife of the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

Download SGGD-Projects-Development-PPMLD_335Cr-Rationale-9May2014

The company, SGGD Projects Development Pvt Ltd, is one of the 56 entities, many or most controlled by the Dhillon family, that the High Court of Delhi has ordered money to be recovered from.

A screenshot of part of the report shows how deeply Shabnam Dhillon, and the Dhillon family in general, were involved in high stakes financial dealings -- at the same time Gurinder Singh Dhillon was preaching about the need to live a pure and simple life in which spiritual advancement should take precedence over acquiring great wealth.

Here's an example of Dhillon family connections to shell companies

Recently I received a message from someone who replicated part of the research that journalists with the Indian financial press have been doing in connection with the financial scandal involving the Singh brothers, their guru cousin (Gurinder Singh Dhillon), and close associates of the Dhillon family.

I'm sharing what this person learned by delving into public business records for several reasons.

One, it's interesting. Two, it shows what lies beneath the many stories published by the Indian financial press, which some defenders of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas guru wrongly call "fake news." Three, it points to the fact that if this much can be learned by an ordinary citizen or reporter, investigative authorities in India surely are able to learn much more.

As background to what you'll read below, Luminous Holdings is one of the 56 entities the High Court of Delhi has ordered that money be recovered from, so the Singh brothers can pay a $500 million settlement owed to Daiichi Sankyo after it was found that the brothers failed to disclose information about adulterated drugs in the course of Daiichi buying Ranbaxy, their pharmaceutical firm.

Here's an excerpt from a September 2018 blog post I wrote about a The Indian Express story that mentions Luminous Holdings.

According to a source privy to the development, some senior members of the sect recently asked Dhillon about his reaction to various news reports regarding the Singh brothers. The source said that Dhillon told these members that he has answers to all the questions that have been raised and he will give the answers himself at an opportune time. Dhillon told the senior members that spiritual and business aspects of our lives are separate and that devotees should focus on the former and not get diverted from it.

The RHC Holding as well as the RSSB did not respond to the queries sent by The Indian Express. Another source — involved with RSSB’s corporate dealings — added that Dhillons have been in business with Singh brothers for a very long time. “Take the example of Luminous Holdings, which was set up in 2002, and has Babaji himself as a director. Moreover, his wife Shabnam Dhillon is the other director of this company,” he said.

According to documents with corporate affairs ministry, Luminous Holdings had a long term borrowing of Rs 6.5 crore as on March 2017. Of that, around Rs 4.4 crore came from Delhi-based Fern Healthcare. In June, a probe by law firm Luthra and Luthra found that Singh brothers moved about Rs 475 crore from Fortis to various private companies. Fern Healthcare was one of them.

Thus it isn't surprising that it is taking investigators in India quite a while to understand the complex web of financial transactions, many of them fraudulent, that involve companies once controlled by the Singh brothers and the Dhillon family. The message that I received deals with only one small strand of this web.

Read on... (As noted above, Shabnam Dhillon is the wife of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru.)

Hey Brian, hope you're well. Sharing some of my recent findings. I've conducted some research into the shell companies, purely out of curiosity :)

zaubacorp.com is a reliable directory/website where you can find out details about Private Limited Companies. All of which are public domain information made available at Ministry of Corporate Affairs website (Government-owned).

 

http://www.mca.gov.in/mcafoportal/showEnquireDIN.do

 

Shabnam Dhillon is registered with Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). Their DIN is 00995960.  [Director Identification Number (DIN) is a permanent number assigned to Directors of registered companies]

 

The following link will show only one company associated with Shabnam Dhillon, but if you register on this website (free) you can see historic data of associations (now that's a gold mine for some investigation IMO).

 

https://www.zaubacorp.com/director/SHABNAM-DHILLON/00995960   Attached screenshots show past associations.

 

Came across this interesting company "LUMINOUS HOLDINGS PRIVATE LIMITED"  guess who are the Directors? Check the 2nd attachment. GSD [Gurinder Singh Dhillon] himself is one of them but his DIN is in an inactive state, means he is no longer listed as a director on any of the shell companies.

 

Clearly, they are trying to remove any links to Dhillon family to shell companies, as you can see most of the current Directors are recently appointed 2016-19. Unfortunately for them, there are a lot of services like zaubacorp.com where you can find historic data too.

 

You are probably aware of most of these companies, I just wanted to share what I came across. I'm closely watching how the local media (mostly English, financial press) is covering this whole fiasco. One thing is very clear, GSD is way deep into this whole shebang. And they're doing whatever it takes to cover up any traces. 

This is the screenshot of the current and past directors of Luminous Holdings. You can see that the two current directors took over on May 4, 2019, the day Gurinder Singh Dhillon ceased to be a director. His wife, Shabnam, ceased to be a director a few days later, on May 9, 2019.

And I believe the following screenshot is a list of past companies Shabnam Dhillon was a director of.

Note that Prius Real Estate, Prius Commercial Projects, and Sharan Hospitality are some of the companies in this Business Today graphic of how money flowed into the pockets of the Dhillon family from companies once controlled by the Singh brothers. 

So any claim by the RSSB guru that he and his family didn't receive any money from RHC Holding, Fortis, and other Singh brothers' entities almost certainly would be false.

 

Story about Gurinder Singh Dhillon and RSSB casts light on legal problems

Check out an excellent lengthy story about a guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) organization that he leads, and the financial scandal the Dhillon family and his close associates are connected to.
Download Gurinder Singh Dhillon — the music & film-loving Radha Soami head at heart of Fortis crisis

The reporter who wrote ThePrint story, Nandita Singh, emailed me with questions, which I responded to in writing. Unfortunately, I didn't proofread my reply closely enough and left out a word, "no," in the quote included in the final paragraph of the story, where I meant to say "no wrong."

Here's some excerpts from the story to whet your appetite to read the whole thing, which presents a balanced view of Gurinder Singh Dhillon and Radha Soami Satsang Beas. I've added "no" in brackets in the final paragraph.

Interestingly, the reporter had her phone taken away after she snapped a photo at a RSSB center, just as happened to someone else in the United Kingdom who recorded some audio at a RSSB gathering. If RSSB doesn't want to be looked upon as a cult, its members should stop acting so fanatical.

...But outside the cocoon of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) ashram in Bhati, Chhatarpur, the spiritual organisation’s moral messaging is becoming increasingly hard to believe.

The century-old spiritual organisation’s head, 64-year-old Gurinder Singh Dhillon, is at the centre of one of India’s most high-profile business fiascos this year.

In October, former billionaire brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, now on the verge of bankruptcy, were arrested by the Delhi Police economic offences wing (EOW) for allegedly causing a loss of Rs 2,397 crore to Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL), a subsidiary of Religare Enterprises.

Eight months prior to that, Malvinder, the embattled business tycoon and former Ranbaxy, Religare and Fortis promoter, had filed a criminal complaint against his younger brother Shivinder, claiming that he conspired with a number of close associates to siphon off Rs 2,700 crore from their family’s holding company (RHC Holdings).

The money, Malvinder alleged, was transferred into the bank accounts of “Guruji” Dhillon and his associates in the form of loans made through a complicated network of smaller corporations, and used, in part, to expand the sect’s real-estate empire.

This allegedly included the purchase of 2,60,000 sq ft of prime real estate in Delhi (near Select Citywalk Mall), 80,000 sq ft of property in Ahmedabad, 500,000 sq ft in Noida, three farmhouses in Asola, and 8,71,200 sq ft in Gurgaon, Live Mint reported.

The tale only gets murkier, with Malvinder alleging that Shivinder had an ambition to one day head the powerful RSSB. Both brothers were Friday held in contempt by the Supreme Court, in another case involving the sale of Ranbaxy to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo.

...How is a spiritual guru related to all this? Dhillon is cousin to the Singhs’ mother, and assumed a father-like role for the boys after their own passed away in the late 1990s.

The well-connected Babaji succeeded the Singh brothers’ maternal grandfather (his uncle) to become the guru of the popular sect in 1990. He was informed about the succession after a long flight, a close associate says, while he was dressed in jeans.

After the allegations surfaced, Dhillon denied owing any money to RHC Holdings, even after the Delhi High Court ordered him and 54 other associates, including his family, to cough up Rs 6,000 crore as repayment.

But now, while maintaining his debt-free innocence, Dhillon has finally owned up to financial transactions between him and the Ranbaxy brothers.

In a 12 November affidavit, the RSSB chief finally said the Singh brothers had approached him in 2010 to buy more rights in REL. To do this, Dhillon says, the brothers spent a reported Rs 440 crore through RHC on his behalf, adding that he “would not be made liable to repay any amount or interest”.

...This isn’t the first time the RSSB has come under public scrutiny for suspected illegal activity. For years, the rapid expansion of its real-estate empire has been at the centre of land-grabbing allegations, with the Delhi Forest Department officially filing an affidavit before the National Green Tribunal in 2014.

In the 350-page affidavit, the RSSB is described as an “illegal occupant” squatting on 174.98 acres of forest land in Asola Mines, Chhatarpur — where the Bhati ashram is. Further, the Delhi Forest Department believes that the dera, along with spiritual slums that sprung up next to it, are damaging the ecology of the Delhi ridge, the lungs of a city throttled by pollution.

The RSSB denies all allegations, stating that the land was bought by them, and they were willing to furnish the paperwork when asked.

...As the success stories of Fortis Healthcare Ltd and Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) unravel, what appears to be at the faultline of the Singhs’ fall from grace is this very interconnected network of influential kin that initially helped them, and the RSSB, grow.

“I’m strongly inclined to believe the reports in the Indian financial press that Malivinder and Shivinder trusted Gurinder (Dhillon) as a father figure and spiritual adviser. But also, a business adviser,” says Brian Hines, an American who was a member of the sect’s US community for 35 years.

“Babaji’s influence over the affairs of Religare was ubiquitous — he pulled most of the strings,” the family associate adds.

“The relationship between Malvinder, Shivinder, Sunny (Sunil Godhwani) and Babaji wasn’t a secret at all, they would constantly be together and very visibly so. In fact, everyone would say ‘Religare is Babaji’s’, says the associate.

...Even in Hine’s experience at the commune, the “RSSB is a highly top-down organisation”. “The guru makes decisions and lower-level people implement them under his close supervision,” he says.

The sewadars describe Babaji as being “someone who talks in a way that everyone can relate to… but whom you can’t access easily”, a believer in Delhi who did not want to be named says.

...“As in all religions, the true believers are fanatical,” adds Hines. “I know, because I get so many comments on my blog posts telling me I must stop writing about Gurinder because he is God and can do [no] wrong. I ignore them, of course. I’m sure journalists get the same sort of angry insults.”

RSSB guru and his family told to provide evidence of no liabilities to Singh brothers

In addition to stories I shared in two other blog posts about today's developments in the High Court of Delhi case involving the Singh brothers and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, below is another story from The Indian Express.

The court is turning up the heat on the Dhillon family and others who, according to the Singh brothers, owe money to them that would enable Malvinder and Shivinder to pay a $500 million settlement to Daiichi Sankyo, a Japanese firm that got the settlement after it bought a pharmaceutical firm owned by the Singh brothers that had undisclosed problems with adulterated drugs.

As you can read below, this is the way a legal system should work. Both sides have to present facts and evidence that support their assertions, then a decision is made as to who has the best case.

What's interesting here is that the RSSB guru is considered to be God in Human Form, or at least a divine being, by his devotees. So for 29 years, since Dhillon became the guru, he has had little experience with people questioning him. Dhillon is used to fawning admiration, by and large.

Now, though, Daiichi Sankyo and RHC Holding, the two corporations that consider the Dhillon family to be sitting on large amounts of money that belongs to them, don't care about Dhillon's spiritual credentials. They just want their damn money!

So it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

As the story says, the RSSB guru and others have four weeks to provide documentary evidence that they don't owe money to the Singh brothers. Further, the "garnishees" named in the High Court order are obliged to answer questions from Daiichi Sankyo.

On February 5 the High Court will have a hearing where, seemingly, the conflicting truth claims of the various parties will be sorted out. 

Here's The Indian Express story.

The Delhi High Court Thursday directed companies and persons who allegedly owe monies to former Ranbaxy promoters Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh to provide documentary evidence — including income tax filings, bank statements and balance sheets — to support claims that they have no pending financial liabilities towards the brothers.

The HC direction potentially opens Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family to further scrutiny, as Dhillon had — in an affidavit filed with the HC on November 12— claimed to have returned all the money he had borrowed from the Singhs and that, instead, the brothers owed him over Rs 70 crore.

The court also allowed Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo to send questions related to these transactions to over 50 such firms and individuals, or garnishees. They will then have to compulsorily answer those questions. Justice J R Midha has also asked the garnishees to submit documentary evidence if they contest claims of loans made to them by RHC Holding Pvt, a firm controlled by the Singhs.

Daiichi on Thursday also claimed that the garnishees had not complied with all earlier court orders to disclose “all their dealings and transactions” with the Singh brothers, their family members, and the firms controlled by them. The HC has given the garnishees four weeks to file said the affidavits. Daiichi is seeking over Rs 3,600 crore in damages from the Singhs for allegedly concealing information regarding wrongdoing at Ranbaxy when they sold it to Daiichi for $4.6 billion in 2008.

Financial deals with Ranbaxy brothers, admits Beas sect head

RHC Holding had, in October, told the HC that its subsidiaries had “huge receivables” from Dhillon and his family. The RSSB head, however, has denied these claims. Instead, he has alleged that the holding company is yet to pay him over Rs 70 crore, loaned to the Singhs upon their request in 2011 after his sons sold some of their shares in Religare Enterprises.

“In summary, over the course of 2011-2015, out of the surplus of Rs 103.5 crore with Respondent No. 19 (RHC) … the Deponent (Dhillon) and his family drew only Rs 29.38 crore, leaving a balance surplus of Rs 74.12 crore,” Dhillon said in his affidavit. “These amounts have never been repaid,” he added. Dhillon has also alleged that the Singhs used bank accounts owned by his family to conduct circular transactions over Rs 600 crore, the purpose of which was “unknown” to them.

A group of companies comprising Best Healthcare, Fern Healthcare, Modland Wears, Best Health Management, Devera Developers, Vitoba Realtors and Adept Lifespaces, “from time to time … moved money between themselves”, the affidavit read.

“These transactions essentially involved transferring money from one subsidiary to a bank account of the Deponent and/or his family members and then transferring the same money, either on the same day or shortly thereafter, to another subsidiary of the group or usually to Respondent No. 19 itself,” it stated.

“The transactions carried out by Respondent No. 19 resulted in GP (Gurpreet Singh Dhillon) and GK (Gurkirat Singh Dhillon) receiving funds from various companies controlled by Respondent No. 19, which were immediately transferred to Respondent No. 19 and/or other companies controlled by Respondent No. 19,” Dhillon’s affidavit added.

Between 2011 and 2016, RHC’s subsidiaries had transferred Rs 292.91 crore and Rs 428.59 crore, respectively, to Dhillon’s sons Gurpreet and Gurkirat. Of this, Rs 291.70 crore was transferred back from Gurpreet’s account and Rs 427.78 crore from Gurkirat’s account to RHC or one of the other subsidiaries, the affidavit claimed. Queries sent to RHC and Dhillon’s lawyer remained unanswered by press time on Thursday.

High Court delays hearing involving RSSB guru and others to February 5

Here's another story relating to the involvement of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, in irregular financial transactions. 

Today's Economic Times story casts more light on the affidavit submitted by Dhillon in response to a High Court of Delhi order. Yesterday I shared another story on the same subject.

As you can read below, Dhillon admits that his sons participated in suspicious "round trip" transfers of money between RHC Holding and shell companies controlled wholly or in part by the Dhillon family, where money would be paid and repaid so rapidly, it didn't show up on accounting statements until this was eventually discovered.

Another interesting aspect of the story is that it answers a question in an earlier post today following the arrest of Malvinder Singh by India's Enforcement Directorate. What happened to the November 14 hearing of the High Court regarding this matter? The last paragraph of the story below says:

The court that took up the matter today asked the other garnishees to file their affidavit to the court registrar by 18 December. The next date of hearing is February 5.

So Dhillon and his family will have to answer more questions about their involvement in this financial scandal. The RSSB guru is challenging the financial records of RHC Holding.

Dhillon has categorically denied liability to repay the said amounts and also denied the validity or correctness of the ledgers annexed in the RHC affidavit. “The said ledgers were never shared with the deponent or his family members and the same are denied for lack of knowledge or even otherwise,” it added.

"Denied for lack of knowledge" seems like a weak excuse. And now the Dhillon family isn't denying that they received fraudulent funds. They're just denying that they have to pay the money back.
Download Radha Soami chief admits to financial dealings with Singh brothers - The Economic Times

Chief of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) Gurinder Singh Dhillon has admitted of his financial dealings with the Singh brothers though he denied of “any liability” towards RHC holdings Ltd, promoted by Malvinder and Shivinder Singh. In an affidavit filed before the Delhi High court on November 12, Dhillon has disclosed about the financial transactions between RHC holdings Ltd and his family members dating back to 2006.

The court had in October ordered Dhillon along with his wife Shabnam, sons Gurkirat and Gurpreet and daughter in law Nayan Tara to deposit the amount owed to RHC holdings pvt Ltd in connection with the execution of Rs 3500 crore arbitration award won by Japanese form Daiichi Sankyo against former Ranbaxy promoters. While in his plea Dhillon had told the court that RHC Holding has made false claims. The court in its order had then asked the Dhillons to file relevant documents related to their dealings and transactions with the garnishees and their related companies.

The Dhillons are among 55 individuals and entities ordered by the court to pay over Rs 6000 crore owed to RHC holding in connection with the settlement of a dispute to Daiichi Sankyo’s acquisition of Ranbaxy laboratoriesNSE 5.63 %.

According to a 74 page affidavit filed in the High Court, Dhillon has said that in 2010, RHC holdings Ltd (respondent 19) through Singh brothers had approached him to assist them in subscribing for the rights issue, suggesting that they would finance Dhillons to subscribe to the rights issue. Dhillon has said that it was agreed that he and his family members would not be made liable to repay any amount or interest. “It was also agreed that upon the shares being sold or disposed of if the price realised was below the subscribed price, then the entire amount would be shared 50:50” between RHC and Dhillons family who had subscribed to the shares”.

He has claimed that in view of the “complete trust” and “close family relationship” between the families, they did not record any agreement and the arrangement was based “purely on mutual oral understanding and agreement”. “In fact at that time the local bank accounts from which the transactions were taking place were looked after by respondent No 19’s team,” it said.

On the basis of “verbal agreement” in February 2010, RHC transferred Rs 219 crore each to his sons, which was then used to subscribe to the rights issue, resulting in an allotment of 61,83,013 shares of REL to each of his sons.

According to the affidavit, Dhillon has disclosed that his sons sold off some shares in 2011 which they had purchased in 2006. The rest of the shares, according to Dhillon’s affidavit were “pledged to the lenders in connection with loans taken to facilitate share purchase transaction for the benefit of Malvinder and Shivinder. The pledges were invoked and the shares were sold at a substantial loss,” it said. Resultantly, the family doesn’t own REL shares, he claims. Dhillon has said that RHC had surplus funds of his sons of Rs 103.50 crores and it was agreed that the amount would be repaid to the Dhillons as and when required.

He has also disclosed that RHC devised such a mechanism that transactions essentially involved transferring money from one subsidiary to a bank account of Dhillons and then transferring the same money either on the same day or shortly thereafter to another subsidiary of the group or usually to RHC holdings Ltd.

“The transactions carried out by Respondent 19 (RHC holdings) resulted in Gurpreet and Gurkirat receiving funds from various companies controlled by Respondent 19 which were immediately transferred to Respondent 19 or to other companies controlled by Respondent 19,” It said.

In fact, he has claimed that over the course of 2011-2015, out of the surplus of Rs 103.5 crores with RHC he and his family drew only Rs29.38 crores, leaving the balance surplus of Rs 74.12 crores. “Thus an amount of Rs 74.12 crores continues to be due from RHC holdngs Ltd”.

According to his affidavit, “no amounts are payable by his, his wife and his daughter in law to any of the entities named in the RHC affidavit.

Dhillon has categorically denied liability to repay the said amounts and also denied the validity or correctness of the ledgers annexed in the RHC affidavit. “The said ledgers were never shared with the deponent or his family members and the same are denied for lack of knowledge or even otherwise,” it added.

The court that took up the matter today asked the other garnishees to file their affidavit to the court registrar by 18 December. The next date of hearing is February 5.

Malvinder Singh arrested by Enforcement Directorate, leaving questions unanswered

Well, the Bollywood'ish financial fraud drama involving the Singh brothers and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, has taken another turn -- with more curves in the legal road seemingly lying ahead.

A story in The Economic Times (below) says that India's Enforcement Directorate has just arrested Malvinder Singh and Sunil Godhwani, who previously was the guru's right hand man and personal financial adviser. 

Previously Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, along with Godhwani, had been arrested by the Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of the Delhi police. So now they've been re-arrested by an organization that investigates money laundering and other illegal financial acts.

It sounds from the story that one purpose of the new arrests is "custodial interrogation." This makes sense, since there are important questions remaining to be answered in this case.

(1) Malvinder has told the High Court of Delhi that the $500 million or so owed by the Singh brothers in a settlement related to the sale of their pharmaceutical firm, Ranbaxy, resides in 55 entities (people and shell companies), including the Dhillon family. The High Court had ordered these entities to repay the money. A High Court hearing was supposed to be held today on this. So far there's no word if it happened. If it didn't, why not?

(2) The story below says that money went to various persons, then siphoned off. Previously progress seems to have been made on tracing the money flows. Likely this will continue under the Enforcement Directorate. Pretty clearly, Malvinder and Godhwani didn't engage in fraud for their own benefit, since the money didn't end up with them.

So it's important to learn who ended up with the money, and who orchestrated the financial fraud. Malvinder's lawyer has called for the arrest of the RSSB guru. Reportedly Dhillon, his family, and close associates ended up with most of the illegally siphoned money.

(3) Why is it taking so long for this case to be resolved? Yes, it is complex, involving numerous people, corporations, shell companies, and investigative organizations. But it sure seems like skilled forensic accountants could have figured out the money flows by now, since some details of the financial fraud activity have been reported in the Indian financial press.

I'm wondering how cooperative some central actors in the fraud have been, notably Sunil Godhwani. Given his close connections to the RSSB guru, is he refusing to testify about his role in the fraud, who orchestrated it, and why it was committed?

Here's today's The Economic Times story. 

The ED on Thursday arrested former Fortis HealthcareNSE -0.35 %promoter Malvinder Singh and former CMD of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) Sunil Godhwani in a money-laundering case related to alleged misappropriation of funds of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL).

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) took both the accused in its custody inside the Tihar central jail here, where they are currently lodged in a case filed by the Delhi Police in relation to the alleged scam.

A court here was informed about the development by the agency's lawyer, Nitesh Rana, who urged it to issue a production warrant against the accused for seeking their custodial interrogation.

The court, however, directed that the accused be produced before a metropolitan magistrate in the central jail itself since trial prisoners are not being produced in the Saket District Court, either physically or through video-conference, due to the ongoing lawyers' strike.

"The court is informed that accused Malvinder Mohan Singh and Sunil Godhwani are lodged in central jail numbers 8 and 7 respectively at Tihar Jail. Accordingly, the applications filed by the ED be put up before the concerned duty MM, Tihar jail tomorrow, i.e, November 15, for disposal in accordance with law," Special Judge Sandeep Yadav said.

Both Singh and Godhwani are accused of laundering money, punishable under sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the ED said.

They were in judicial custody along with Singh's brother Shivinder and two others -- Kavi Arora and Anil Saxena -- in a case filed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police.

RFL is a group firm of REL, which was earlier promoted by the Singh brothers.

According to the ED, both the accused, along with others, transferred an amount of approximately Rs 1,000 crore to various persons from entities linked to the corporate loan book and finally, the money was siphoned off.

The agency started its investigation in the matter on the basis of a case lodged by the Delhi Police.

Malvinder (46), Shivinder (44), Godhwani (58), Arora (48) and Saxena were arrested by the Delhi Police's EOW for allegedly diverting the money and investing in other companies.

The EOW registered an FIR in March after it received a complaint from RFL's Manpreet Suri against Shivinder, Godhwani and others, alleging that loans were taken by them while managing the firm but the money was invested in other companies.

"They put RFL in a poor financial condition by disbursing loans to companies with no financial standing and controlled by them. The companies to which the loans were disbursed willfully defaulted in repayments and caused a loss to RFL to the tune of Rs 2,397 crore," the police had alleged.

RSSB guru admits to financial deals with Singh brothers

A commenter on this blog recently shared a link to this story in The Indian Express. It's a prelude to the November 14 hearing before  the High Court of Delhi, where parties who allegedly owe money to the Singh brothers (Malvinder and Shivinder) have been ordered to appear as part of the $500 million settlement award to Daiichi.

Download Financial deals with Ranbaxy brothers admits Beas sect head | Business News The Indian Express

l found it sort of curious that Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru, filed an affidavit admitting to being part of an illegal financial transaction just two days prior to the High Court hearing. It's also interesting that reportedly the guru has said that he didn't receive any money from anyone but his parents, since it appears that Dhillon was a beneficiary of the deal described below. 

THE HEAD of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, has, for the first time, admitted to financial transactions between himself and ex-Religare Enterprises (REL) promoters Malvinder and Shivinder Singh.

In an affidavit filed with the Delhi High Court dated November 12 and reviewed by The Indian Express, Dhillon admitted that the Singh brothers had in 2010, through RHC Holding (a company controlled by the brothers), approached him and his family to subscribe to a rights issue of REL that was not fully subscribed “at that moment”. A part of the rights issue was funded by RHC and the Singh brothers, who Radha Soami sect head admits to financial deals with Ranbaxy brothers spent a total of Rs 440 crore on the transaction.

“It was suggested by them (Malvinder and Shivinder Singh) that they would finance the deponent (Dhillon) and his family to subscribe to the rights issue. It was agreed that the deponent and his family members would not be made liable to repay any amount or interest in respect of the said finance management since it was being done at the behest of RHC, Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh,” Dhillon has said in his affidavit.

“It was also agreed upon that the shares being sold and/ or disposed of, if the price realised was higher than the subscribed prices, the upside would be shared 50:50 between RHC and the members of the deponent’s family (Dhillons) who had subscribed to the shares,” he added.

He goes on to admit that his sons, Gurpreet Singh Dhillon and Gurkirat Singh Dhillon, were given possession of over 61 lakh shares each through the subscription.

“On the basis of this verbal agreement, on 11.02.2010, Respondent No. 19 (RHC) transferred Rs 219.5 crore each to GP (Gurpreet) and GK (Gurkirat), which was then used to subscribe to the rights issue, resulting in an allotment of 61,83,013 shares of REL to each of GP and GK. The entire transaction was handled by Respondent No. 19’s team,” said Dhillon.

Dhillon has claimed that as the two families were then in a “very close relationship”, they did not record any written agreement. He has absolved his family members from any involvement in the financial transactions carried out by him. He, however, distanced himself from allegations of fund diversion by claiming that the brothers, as well as RHC had “deliberately” avoided giving a clear picture of all transactions between them as it would show “that nothing whatsoever is owed by the deponent (Dhillon) and his family members” to RHC or any of its subsidiaries.

The transactions alleged by Dhillon are in violation of Securities and Exchange Bureau of India (SEBI) norms on promoters’ role in rights issues of companies.

The religious sect head also states in his affidavit that in 2006, he had, on behalf of his sons, purchased REL shares worth Rs 12.50 crore. Of this, Rs 6 crore was loaned to Gurpreet and Gurkirat by RHC. A further sum of Rs 35 crore was taken out by his sons as loans for personal purposes, but was subsequently returned in 2011, Dhillon claimed in his affidavit.

Queries sent to RHC and Dhillon remained unanswered by press time Wednesday.

Earlier, Malvinder Singh had, in an affidavit to the High Court and Supreme Court, alleged that Dhillon and persons associated with him had diverted close to Rs 6,000 crore from RHC. The monies were loans and advances given by RHC and the Singh brothers to companies such as Prius Real Estate, as well as to Sunil Godhwani, and Dhillon, Malvinder Singh had claimed in his affidavit.

In October, based on the submissions made by Malvinder Singh, the Delhi High Court had asked all the 55 garnishees to deposit the money they owed to the Singh brothers and RHC, within 30 days. The court had also asked Dhillon and his family members to be personally present in the court on November 14. Garnishees are companies that owe money to RHC, which is currently locked in litigation with Japanese drug-maker Daiichi Sankyo.

Daiichi has alleged the Singh brothers concealed information regarding wrongdoing at Ranbaxy when selling the firm to it in 2008 and is seeking over Rs 3,600 crore in damages from them.

Claims to absolute truth lead to abuses of power

Sam Harris conducted an interesting interview with Buddhist heretic Stephen Batchelor (I consider that word to be a compliment) and shared it on his Waking Up iPhone app.

Here's my transcription of a part of the interview where Batchelor talks about abuses of power in religious or spiritual organizations. I think he's correct that hierarchical institutions make it easier for wrongdoing to take place by those at the top.

And I also agree that claims to knowledge of ultimate truth by a religious leader also lead to abuses of power. This is what Batchelor said. There may be a few small errors in my transcription, but I've got it almost entirely correct.

Well, there's many different ways we could approach this. And one way I'd like to approach it off the top of my head is to think of it as really a function of a different kind of human institution. Let me just restrict myself to Buddhism.

Institutions in which you find, in a way, the greatest number of incidents are the institutions that are the most feudal and hierarchical. And as you said yourself, you have it more in the Zen and Tibetan and less in the Theraveda.

Well, the kinds of societies that these particular three traditions come from rather make my point. 

If you have a society that honors a kind of absolute relation of power between a feudal lord and underlings, or a king and the subjects, and you model your monastic institutions, probably quite unconsciously, on that structure of power, then you give people, individual men almost entirely, extraordinary power over others.

And when you have a theocratic tradition like in Tibet, with notions of enlightenment that are, frankly, superhuman, and these are projected onto these men who have all this power, you have a very unbalanced relationship between the teacher and the student.

I'm not trying to explain this away by saying it's all about the institutions and the individuals have no responsibility. Of course the individuals have responsibility for their acts. But I cannot fail to see that part of the problem lies in the structures of power in which people operate.

And the Roman Catholic church might strike us as slightly similar in its organization.

You see, any claim to absolute truth, which many Tibetan and other Zen Buddhists will claim, is a claim to absolute power. To me the split into the relative truth and the ultimate truth, which is so widespread in Buddhism, also is a doctrine that underpins and legitimizes a particular structure of power. 

The lama or the roshi or the monk who has gained insight into these deep spiritual traditions and so forth, that person has access to God, essentially, and thereby carries the authority and the power in the eyes of their followers, to God himself. I find that to be a situation where, almost invariably, abuses of power are going to take place. 

Stephen Batchelor

Good overview of Singh brothers/RSSB guru financial mess

This LiiStudio story is about a month old, but I'm sharing it because it provides good background material on the fascinating drama surrounding the Singh brothers and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

There are numerous strands in the tangled web of this tale of fraud, loans gone bad, and deceit.

Hopefully some of the strands will be made more clear in the upcoming November 14 hearing of the High Court of Delhi involving those responsible for payment of a $500 million award to a Japanese company that bought the Singh brothers' pharmaceutical firm.

Below I've highlighted in red mentions of the RSSB guru, since many people who visit this blog are interested in how the Dhillon family fits into these cases.

The key questions that remain to be answered in this mess appear to be these:

(1) Who were the ultimate beneficiaries of the money that was fraudulently siphoned from Religare and Fortis into shell companies? There's reason to believe that these beneficiaries included members of the Dhillon family and their close associates. This is relevant to the Daiichi award, since the Singh brothers, or at least Malvinder, are claiming the money needed to pay the award resides with other people.

(2) Were those beneficiaries involved in the financial fraud? If so, they could be charged as co-conspirators.

(3) Does the Dhillon family need to repay the hundreds of millions of dollars that reportedly went into their pockets from the Singh brothers following the sale of Ranbaxy? Was this a gift from the Singh brothers or a loan?

(4) Assuming the Dhillon family owes money to the Singh brothers, do they have the requisite assets to repay those loans? Documents required by the High Court of Delhi seemingly would answer this question.

New Delhi: Malvinder Mohan Singh and his youthful brother Shivinder Mohan Singh, former promoters of pharmacy firm Ranbaxy, hospital chain Fortis and monetary companies agency Religare, have been this week arrested by the Financial Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police for allegedly dishonest and inflicting a lack of Rs 2,397 crore to Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL), a subsidiary of Religare Enterprises.

The police additionally arrested former Religare Finvest MD Kavi Arora, in addition to ex-group CFO Anil Saxena and MD Sunil Godhwani.

The Singh brothers have been as soon as profitable businessmen who featured on Forbes’ listing of billionaires, working India’s main pharma firm. However they’re now in police custody, with a number of instances of dishonest and fraud, and allegations of siphoning cash utilizing a fancy internet of firms.

Whereas their present arrest is for alleged fraud associated to Religare Finvest, they’ve two extra investigations pending towards them. One is an allegation of siphoning round Rs 472 crore from Fortis Healthcare, whereas the opposite is about preserving Japanese drug main Daiichi Sankyo in the dead of night whereas promoting Ranbaxy to it that a US drug regulator was probing the agency. A Singapore tribunal had handed a Rs three,500 crore award in favour of Daiichi, which the Singh brothers are but to pay.

Who’re the Singh brothers?

Malvinder and Shivinder are grandsons of Bhai Mohan Singh, a businessman from Rawalpindi who settled in Delhi after Partition.

Bhai Mohan Singh took over the debt-ridden Ranbaxy from his cousins Ranbir and Gurbax Singh. Mohan Singh’s son Parvinder drove the agency to the highest of the Indian pharmaceutical business.

Parvinder’s sons Malvinder and Shivinder each graduated from Duke College’s Fuqua College of Enterprise within the US, and formally took over the corporate after Parvinder’s dying in 1999. They bought it to Daiichi Sankyo in 2008 for Rs 9,576 crore.

In accordance with officers, with the cash obtained from Ranbaxy’s sale, the brothers spent Rs 2,000 crore to repay loans, invested Rs 1,750 crore in Religare, and put Rs 2,230 crore in Fortis.

The remaining Rs 2,700 crore was reportedly transferred to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, head of the religious sect Radha Soami Satsang Beas, and his household.

The Religare Finvest case

In accordance with officers within the EOW, the Singh brothers, who have been in “absolute control” of Religare Enterprises Restricted (REL) and its subsidiaries, put Religare Finvest Restricted (RFL) in poor monetary situation by distributing loans to firms having no monetary standing, which they themselves managed.

“These companies then wilfully defaulted on repayments, causing a loss to RFL to the tune of Rs 2,397 crore,” an official defined.

In November 2016 and January 2017, RFL invested Rs 750 crore as fastened deposits within the Lakshmi Vilas Financial institution (LVB).

In July 2017, RFL reportedly found that LVB credited the proceeds of the deposits to RFL’s present account, and in addition debited an quantity of Rs 724 crore with out preserving RFL within the loop.

When RFL discovered in regards to the transfer, it instantly contacted the financial institution and in addition despatched authorized notices to the financial institution to re-institute the FDs, stating it had not given any go-ahead to dissolve them. Following a authorized discover, the financial institution agreed to revive the FDs.

5 months later, in December 2017, RFL reportedly obtained a communication from the financial institution, stating that loans amounting to Rs 532 crore and Rs 174.eight crore got to 2 firms held by the Singh brothers — RHC Holding and Ranchem Pvt Ltd respectively, factoring the FDs as collateral.

RFL then claimed that LVB didn’t ship it any info earlier than putting the FDs as safety towards the loans disbursed to the 2 firms.

RFL then filed a swimsuit within the Delhi Excessive Courtroom towards the financial institution for voluntarily placing the FDs as a assure towards a mortgage that it was not conscious of.

“RFL stated it had not executed any documentation for putting the FDs towards any loans that were wrongfully disbursed to the two companies controlled by Singh brothers,” an official defined.

RFL additionally made a proper criticism on this regard to EOW, and a case was registered. Following this, the Reserve Financial institution of India positioned LVB beneath its immediate corrective motion framework.

The Daiichi-Ranbaxy case

Malvinder and Shivinder have additionally been accused of siphoning funds via a fancy “web of companies” by Daiichi Sankyo, which additionally alleged that the brothers hadn’t disclosed the US drug regulator’s probe towards Ranbaxy on the time of sale.

Daiichi has additionally claimed that ANR Securities, RHC Holding, Ranchem and Malvinder maintain Prius Actual Property, wherein they put funds amounting to Rs 1,429.50 crore via debentures.

Daiichi additionally alleged that the brothers fraudulently diverted a sum of Rs 1,407.33 crore in Shimal Healthcare (which they personal collectively) via debentures and desire shares, and that this firm was additionally used to divert funds to different entities.

A debenture is a long-term bond or an unsecured mortgage issued by an organization with out pledging an asset, whereas desire share is a share which entitles the holder to a hard and fast dividend.

Daiichi is but to get well the Rs three,500 crore awarded to it by a Singapore tribunal, and has urged the Delhi Excessive Courtroom to connect the Singh brothers’ properties to get well the dues.

Case involving Fortis Healthcare

One other case entails Fortis Healthcare, which, in February this 12 months, had written to market regulator Securities and Trade Board of India to provoke authorized proceedings towards the brothers and get well Rs 472 crore, which have been allegedly taken out of the corporate via inter-corporate deposits to companies linked to them.

An inter-corporate deposit is an unsecured borrowing by corporates from different company entities. A company agency having surplus funds can thus lend to a different in want.

In October 2018, SEBI discovered the diversion of those funds to be “fraudulent” and directed Malvinder and Shivinder to repay this quantity, together with extra curiosity, to Fortis by January 2019. The brothers, nevertheless, did not make these funds.

What the brothers have mentioned in courtroom

Malvinder’s lawyer Manu Sharma informed a courtroom Friday that it was ‘Baba’ Dhillon, not his shopper, who was the beneficiary of the transactions.

“They don’t go after that person to whose doorstep the money leads because he’s heading some great religious organisation,” Sharma mentioned in courtroom.

Sharma additionally mentioned his shopper didn’t have a “single penny”.

Nonetheless, Shivinder, who has not engaged a lawyer, has mentioned he would “cooperate with the investigation and follow whatever order the court gives”.

How will the High Court of Delhi treat the RSSB guru?

What do you think will happen to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, when the High Court of Delhi has a hearing on November 14 involving those ordered to repay money owed to the Singh brothers and companies they once controlled, so a $500 million award can be made in connection with the sale of a pharmaceutical firm to a Japanese company? 

Dhillon and his family are part of those who have been ordered by the court to prepare documents showing their assets, though the Dhillon family has been excused from attending the hearing in person. The RSSB guru claims that he and his family owe no money.

Yesterday I wrote a blog post about using "inference to the best explanation" to deal with questions both in science and everyday life. So if you like, use your personal inference capabilities and leave a comment about your best prediction of what will happen to the RSSB guru and his family on November 14 when, to my knowledge, the hearing will be.

Here's a few possibilities to get your inference juices flowing. My inference is #3, but naturally I could be wrong.

(1) The High Court says that Dhillon and his family owe no money at all.

(2) The High Court says that Dhillon and his family owe some money, but not a lot.

(3) The High Court says that Dhillon and his family owe a lot of money, like hundreds of millions of dollars.

(4) The High Court says that Dhillon and his family owe a lot of money, and engaged in illegal activities. 

Gurinder Singh Dhillon

Inference to the best explanation is a wise approach

In the course of reading books about modern science, I frequently come across an appealing phrase: inference to the best explanation.

I like the sound of it. It makes sense to me. It's a foundation of both the scientific method and how we deal with issues in everyday life.

Defining this approach in any detail can lead into some tricky philosophical territory that I'm not much interested in. This article summary from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is good enough for blog post purposes.

Inference to the best explanation is the procedure of choosing the hypothesis or theory that best explains the available data. The factors that make one explanation better than another may include depth, comprehensiveness, simplicity and unifying power. According to Harman (1965), explanatory inference plays a central role in both everyday and scientific thinking.

In ordinary life, a person might make the inference that a fuse has blown to explain why several kitchen appliances stopped working all at once. Scientists also seem to engage in inference to the best explanation; for example, astronomers concluded that another planet must exist in order to account for aberrations in the orbit of Uranus. However, despite the suggestiveness of cases like these, the extent to which we do and should rely on inference to the best explanation is highly controversial.

Highly controversial? Well, maybe to professional philosophers. Choosing a hypothesis that best fits the available data seems not very controversial to me.

Here's two slides from an academic presentation on this subject that I came across via some Googling.

"Comic relief" is a good way of describing how I've come to look upon supernatural religious claims. They're akin to the notion of tracks in the snow being made by a trained monkey wearing snowshoes. Possible, but highly improbable. 

Likewise, it's possible that God exists. It's possible that life after death is a reality. It's possible that consciousness is immaterial rather than being produced by goings-on in the brain. But each of these possibilities is highly improbable, given the evidence.

Thus they don't pass the Inference to the Best Explanation test. Other hypotheses do: God is a fantasy. When we die we're dead and gone forever. Consciousness is produced by the brain.

But here's the beautiful thing about taking a scientific approach to reality.

An open mind is able to adjust to fresh facts with ease. If somehow solid evidence appeared for the existence of God, life after death, or the immaterial nature of consciousness, I'd have no problem changing my mind on these subjects. 

Even more, I'd joyfully change my mind, since I think it'd be great if any or all of those things were true.

How many religious believers, though, can honestly say the same thing? I suspect, not many. Meaning, what if undeniable evidence surfaced that the foundation of their religious faith was false? Could they give up their religious belief as easily as I could surrender my atheism?

I doubt it.

This is the difference between open-minded atheism and closed-minded religiosity. Every atheist I know -- and I know a lot of them -- is open to the possibility of a supernatural side to reality. However, my experience is that most religious people are so attached to their chosen faith, they have great difficulty imagining giving it up.

I'll end by saying that engaging in inference to the best explanation isn't necessary, or desirable, in many areas of life. For example, our personal likes and dislikes. We don't need reasons for liking or disliking broccoli; or rap music; or New York City; or watching baseball; or countless other things.

That said, I feel that we still need to keep an open mind to our own predilections, what appeals to us, because we can surprise ourselves.

For example, I've been pondering a replacement for my much-beloved 2017 VW GTI for quite a few months. I enjoy automobile "window shopping." Reading car reviews and watching You Tube reviews is a pleasure for me. Because I'd driven a Mini Cooper S for five years prior to the three years I've driven the GTI, I'd been focused on other small, fast, fun cars.

Yet I'd paid attention to other subcompact cars such as the Subaru Crosstrek. My "inference," so to speak, was that even though I'd never driven a Crosstrek, I wouldn't like it, given its underwhelming engine. 

However, the more I pondered my driving wants and needs, the more I realized that a Crosstrek could make sense as a GTI replacement. After a test drive, I wrote a post on one of my other blogs, "Here's my pitch to be in a Subaru commercial." Excerpt:

Today, though, I drove the GTI to Capitol Subaru to test drive a 2019 Crosstrek Limited. I adore small cars. I'd studied the Crosstrek because I liked its subcompact size and all-wheel-drive (it's just eight inches longer than the decidedly small GTI). 

However, I couldn't get past the reviews that talked about the underpowered Crosstrek engine and lack of driving excitement. A few days ago something changed in my psyche, though.

I began thinking to myself, Maybe at the age of 71 I've had enough of fast cars that handle great. Perhaps it's time for a new phase in my car life. 

A few days ago I put in an order for a 2020 Crosstrek. I waited a while after the test drive to make sure that my change of automotive heart wasn't an impulsive fling. It wasn't. I'd changed. I'd altered my personal inference to the best explanation of what car I wanted.

Such is life. When we're open to change, to fresh facts, to surprising ourselves about what we value and believe.

RSSB guru and his family make up reasons to avoid court appearance

Wow. Big news regarding the Singh brothers/Dhillon family financial scandal drama.

After being ordered by the High Court of Delhi to appear before it on November 14, along with other parties involved in what appears to be fraudulent transfers of funds that now prevent the Singh brothers from having enough money to pay an award related to their sale of a pharmaceutical firm, the family of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, has made up some marvelously unbelievable excuses for not being able to make the court hearing.

This is more evidence that Dhillon and his family have done something wrong.

Innocent people welcome the opportunity to tell their side of a story in court. Guilty people don't. Hopefully the court will look at the Dhillon family excuses with a highly skeptical eye, because those excuses make very little sense.

Here's two stories from the Indian financial press about this development. This is a Business Today story.
Download Daiichi case: 6 days to deadline RSSB chief Dhillon & family back off from court appearance

Six days before their scheduled hearing in the Delhi High Court in the Daiichi Sankyo case, the Gurinder Singh Dhillon family has backed off from personal appearance in court citing reasons ranging from "surgeries" abroad to "satsang commitments".

The court had asked RSSB chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family members, former Religare promoters Shivinder Singh and Malvinder Singh, former Religare chief Sunil Godhwani and his brother Sanjay Godhwani to be present at the court hearing on November 14. They were also asked to come up with all the required documents relating to the dealings.

While Gurinder Singh Dhillon said he had "satsang commitments" outside Delhi on the hearing day, his wife Shabnam Dhillon cited a scheduled gastric surgery at a UK hospital on November 20, saying she needed to travel to the country on November 12.

Indicating his inability to be present in court, Gurinder Singh also said he's "senior citizen, diabetic and cancer patient". Dhillon's son Gurkeerat said he had to accompany his mother to the UK for the treatment. His elder son Gurpreet said he's in Singapore. Dhillon's daughter-in-law Nayan Tara Dhillon cited her four-year-old son's hip implant treatment for her inability to be present in the court.

Interestingly, RSSB's Satsang schedule on its website shows no Satsang has been planned on November 14. The Rudrapur Satsang, which begins on November 12, ends on November 13. The question now is whether there are already any lookout notices against the Dhillon family and other 55 garnishees. And whether the court would prevent any of them from travelling abroad -- fearing escape.

Also read: SC take note! Singh brothers can pay off $500 million to Daiichi, provided the money is recovered

Daiichi had earlier enforced an arbitration order in Singapore that ordered the brothers to pay Daiichi $500 million towards alleged non-disclosure of crucial information during the sale of Ranbaxy Laboratories to Daiichi in 2008. Expanding the scope of people from whom the money could be recovered, the court in June had named 56 entities, including Dhillon, his wife Shabnam Dhillon and other family members, and Godhwanis, and ordered them to pay up Rs 6,373 crore worth of dues to Singh brothers so that they could honour the $500 million order to pay Daiichi.

On March 12, BusinessToday.In reported that Singh brothers could only pay the $500 million order against them to compensate Daiichi, provided the money owed to them by RSSB chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family was recovered. In his submission, Malvinder had maintained that he could pay Daiichi provided he recovered the money owed to him.

Also read: Recover money from RSSB chief Dhillon & family to pay Singh brothers' dues to Daiichi: Delhi HC

Besides the Dhillon family, the Delhi HC had also issued 'garnishee orders' -- an order that's issued against a third party to recover money to settle a debt or dues -- against 55 entities, including  Dhillon and RSSB associates' companies, including Prius Real Estate, Addon Realty, Payne Realtors SGGD Projects, Luminous Holding.

BusinessToday.In had also reported the flow of money that went from Singh brothers to entities owned and controlled by Gurinder Singh Dhillon, his family and RSSB associates. RoC filings and terms sheets had revealed that between 2011 and 2014, Rs 1,107.5 crore from the Rs 9,576 crore sale proceeds of Ranbaxy to Daiichi Sankyo was paid through various RHC group firms. Thereafter, this money was transferred to Prius Real Estate Private Limited controlled by Dhillon family associates and RSSB functionaries through optionally convertible debentures (OCD).

And here's an Economic Times story.

Radha Soami Satsang chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon along with his family members have cited various reasons seeking exemption from appearing before the Delhi High court on November 14.

The Dhillons in their Interim applications (IAs) filed before the court expressed their inability to appear before the court on the next date of hearing. While RSSB chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon has said that he has satsang commitments outside Delhi on that date and also he is a senior citizen, diabetic and cancer patient, hence he will be unable to appear before the court.

His wife, Shabnam Dhillon has said that she cannot appear due to a scheduled surgery in a hospital in UK on November 20 for which she needs to travel on November 12. Their son Gurkirat has said that he has to accompany his mother for the treatment.

While their second son Gurpreet Dhillon has expressed that he is in Singapore and has “critical work commitments” and is required to be personally present. His wife Nayan Tara on the other hand said that she cannot appear due to her four year old son’s medical condition, which needs "continuous care and attention”.

The court had in October ordered Dhillon along with his wife Shabnam, sons Gurkirat and Gurpreet and daughter in law Nayan Tara to personally present in the court on November 14, after Dhillon and his family members had said that they did not owe any money to RHC Holding Pvt Ltd, promoted by Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, following the court’s direction to deposit the amount owed to RHC holdings pvt Ltd in connection with the execution of Rs 3500 crore arbitration award won by Japanese form Daiichi Sankyo against former RanbaxyNSE 5.63 % promoters.

In his plea Dhillon had told the court that RHC Holding has made false claims and they did not owe any money to RHC Holdings Pvt Ltd. The court in its order then asked the Dhillons to “remain present in the court with relevant documents related to their dealings and transactions with the garnishees and their related companies.

The Dhillons are among 55 individuals and entities ordered by the court to pay over Rs 6000 crore owed to RHC holding in connection with the settlement of a dispute to Daiichi Sankyo’s acquisition of Ranbaxy laboratories.

The court while hearing the applications on Friday asked the garnishees to furnish their documents before the court. The requirement to appear before the court still looms as the court will take up the matter on November 14.

Justice JR Midha in his earlier order had also stated that these entities cannot “dispose of, alienate, encumber directly or indirectly, part with the possession of any assets, except in the ordinary course of business like payment of salary and statutory dues, till the next date of hearing.”

According to an affidavit filed by RHC Holding in April, entities including those controlled by the RSSB chief, his family and close associates, owed over Rs 6,000 crore to the company and other group entities of the Singh brothers. Malvinder Singh, one of the directors of RHC, had maintained that payment of an arbitration award related to Daiichi Sankyo’s acquisition of Ranbaxy could be made only if the money owed was recovered.

Leave a comment on this post if you want to share your opinion about the Dhillon family excuses for not being able to come to the November 14 court hearing. These are my takes on the excuses.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon. RSSB satsang schedule shows no meetings on the 14th. And somehow the senior citizen guru can travel all over the world giving talks to RSSB devotees, but is unable to go to a court appearance in Delhi. Highly unbelievable. 

Shabnam Dhillon. The guru's wife just realizes she has surgery scheduled for November 20 in the UK that she has to leave eight days early for. Must take days to check into the clinic or hospital. Highly unbelievable. 

Gurpreet Dhillon. The guru's son has "critical work commitments." However, the November 14 court appearance has been scheduled for quite a while, over a month I recall. Somehow Gurpreet can't do his critical work either before or after the 14th? Highly unbelievable.

Naya Tara Dhillon. I accept that her child has a medical condition. But I can't believe that a wealthy Indian family can't find anyone to care for the child during the short time needed to attend a court hearing. Highly unbelievable.

UPDATE: A commenter sent a link to a Times of India story that appeared in a newsreader. I wasn't able to find the story on the Times of India web site, but here's screenshots of the link. Looks like Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family don't have to attend the November 14 hearing, though they have to provide documents and be available by phone.

Stephen Batchelor on enlightenment and listening

Following up on my previous post about a charming little book by Stephen Batchelor and his wife Martine, which consists of talks they gave at a 2016 retreat in England based on the Korean Buddhist tradition (Son), here's some passages from What is this? that I resonated with in my pre-meditation reading this morning. 

I liked this take on enlightenment, which is very much in line with Zen teachings. Son, which means "meditation," is the Korean equivalent of the Japanese "Chan" and Japanese "Zen."

So once we let go of the idea that to be enlightened means to understand the nature of reality as it really is, or to gain some privileged mystical insight into truth with a capital "T" -- the way of thinking Deshan and other Son masters are trying to shake us free from -- then we shift into a practice that that is inextricably tied up with how we respond to life in each moment, which is the foundation for engaging with the world in an ethical way.

And I also liked this description of how listening can be a better way of describing what meditation, and life, is all about, than seeing is.

When you are asked to watch something carefully, what do you do?

You tend to narrow the focus of your attention onto the object, thereby letting it stand out in the wider field of vision, in order that you can look at it more precisely. What you're looking at is invariably something outside of yourself, 'over there' somewhere.

What often happens in meditation is that we fail to acknowledge the metaphoric nature of the visual language being used. Quite unconsciously, we adopt an inner stance or posture that mimics the act of seeing.

You might feel, for example, that when you're meditating there's a bit of you, in the back of your head somewhere, that's peering in on your body and breath and mental states. You've created a distance between an observer looking in and an object being observed.

But if you think about listening or hearing it's often completely the other way round. Rather than narrowing your attention on a particular sound 'out there', you open yourself up to allow the sound to enter you. 

When you listen to a piece of music in your living room, for example, what do you tend to do? Very often you dim the lights or close your eyes, then raise the sound so that it envelopes you. Then you relax and let yourself be completely receptive to the sounds that enter you from all around.

So the internal posture you assume is not that of a detached observer looking out onto something, but rather a completely vulnerable and open attention that allows sounds to stream into you from every direction.

Now that's a very different inner stance. Your physical posture might be the same, but your mental posture is the opposite to that of looking at something. 

...To think of listening in this way can help us better understand how to attend to what arises in response to the question 'What is this?'. In posing that question, allow yourself to be completely open to whatever you 'hear' in the pregnant silence that follows, without any hopes or expectations.

Metaphorically, you're waiting to hear a response rather than expecting to find an answer. The point of Son practice is not to look for an answer, or to see the nature of reality. Again, pay attention to the metaphors we use unthinkingly. 

You might find it helpful on our last full day together just to explore what it feels like in your body to be open to this question in the same way that you would open yourself to a piece of music or listen with total attention to the polyphony of the birds and wind outside, the occasional plane that flies overhead, the patter of rain on the windows.

Listen more carefully, and at the same time notice how that listening is not just an opening of the mind but an opening of the heart, a vital concern or care for the world, the source of what we call compassion or love, which brings us back into the world of relationships that we will be returning to tomorrow.

Life is a matter of material chance, not divine dispensation

The truth can be disturbing. Yet truth is immensely valuable. These two truths about truth present a dilemma to religious believers. They don't want to be disturbed, so they choose to accept falsehoods about reality.

By contrast, people like me who don't believe in religious fantasies are able to accept both truths about truth. We embrace disturbing facts such as the non-existence of God, no life after death, and the contingency of life on Earth.

That last fact is discussed by Buddhist skeptic Stephen Batchelor in an appealing little book that consists of talks he and his wife, Martine, gave at a 2016 retreat in England based on the Korean Buddhist tradition. 

I'm enjoying "What is this? Ancient questions for modern minds." Here's some excerpts from a talk Stephen Batchelor gave. His theme is how amazing existence is, even though no God designed the cosmos or is overseeing how it operates.

Yet today when I read popular books, listen to a radio programme or watch documentaries about the discoveries of the natural sciences, it often evokes in me feelings that might best be described as religious. I find the sheer scale and vastness of space and time overwhelming.

And I become acutely aware of the poignancy, the utter contingency of existence. 

Contingency means that, on the one hand, something arises contingent on other conditions, which, in turn, are contingent on yet other conditions, ad infinitum.

And, on the other hand, we make 'contingency plans' because we realize that what we prepare ourselves for might suddenly get thrown off course by circumstances we hadn't foreseen coming into play.

Such notions of contingency are very close, I feel, to what the Buddha meant by paticcasamuppada, usually translated as 'dependent origination' or 'conditioned arising'. Remember, in the early sutras the Buddha says that the person who sees such conditioned arising sees the dharma, and the person who sees the dharma sees conditioned arising.

So there's something very much at the core of the Buddha's teaching which has to do with waking up to what I would call the utterly contingent nature of experience.

...In terms of the cosmic timeframe, we are latecomers on the scene. The first human beings anatomically identical to us -- who, when naked, would have been indistinguishable from us -- first appeared somewhere between a hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand years ago. 

Which is really just the blink of an eye. And how long we will manage to remain here is anyone's guess.

The fact that all of this has happened seems entirely accidental and arbitrary. This is difficult for human beings to accept. We like to tell ourselves stories that explain how special we are. We invent concepts like 'God' to show how the story of life on earth was designed in such a way that would culminate in humankind, made 'in the image' of God.

The idea that humans could actually be a purely contingent and haphazard event we find deeply uncomfortable. We have an instinctive sense that we're so much more than just a pure accident, that there must be some reason for our being here.

Buddhists may not speak of God, but they nonetheless have developed theories of karma, which attempts to explain how over countless lifetimes we have been reaping the results of our previous actions that lead us to getting born in one place rather than another, and as one kind of creature rather than another.

This too explains why we exist; it provides reasons that we can get our heads around. It makes us feel that we are meant to be here.

According to classical Buddhist theory, this has been going on forever -- since 'beginningless time'. But the natural sciences simply don't back that up. We have emerged, it appears, out of purely physical conditions by random mutations and chance.

In principle, I see no reason why Buddhists should have an issue with this explanation of how life evolved; it accords well with the principle of conditioned arising. But I suspect many of them, like their theistic brothers and sisters, find this account rather chilling. It makes them uncomfortable.

If everything is the product of chance, rather than the moral consequences of our karma, it cannot account for the dignity and special opportunities of being human. 

But given what we now know from evolutionary biology, we have little choice, I feel, but to swallow the fact that these pre-modern explanations might simply be wrong. The fact is that we're here and, as far as we know, these material conditions alone are what gave rise to us being here.

Religious delusion is alive and well in India, as elsewhere

Here's a great example of how closed-minded religious believers are able to deny reality, an Economic Times story about how a spiritual leader is still trusted by his followers even after being convicted of rape and murder. 

This is how the story starts out.

SIRSA: Nothing has changed over the last two years for Baljeet Insaan. Her devotion to “pita ji” remains intact. She says prison bars cannot contain his healing effect. After all, she says, he cured her of cancer 20 years ago.

There are many like Baljeet who swear by Dera Sacha Sauda sect chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s “powers”, more so at the Dera headquarters on the outskirts of Sirsa in Haryana, even after his arrest and conviction for the rape of two followers and murder of a local journalist who exposed the scandal in 2017. Though followers at the Dera compound deny it, the Dera following has come down considerably.

But this has not deterred the present followers from looking towards the Dera for solutions to all their problems, including who to vote for.

An Economic Times story discusses the failed family settlement with the RSSB guru

Yesterday India's The Economic Times ran a story that restated facts that were already known about the attempt to reach a family settlement agreement between the Singh brothers (Malvinder and Shivinder) and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.
Download Shivinder singh : Singh bros' settlement sought to absolve Dera Chief of liabilities

It's a good summary of what went on. 

I suppose the story was published to provide some background prior to November 14, when reportedly the Singh brothers, Dhillon, and others involved in this complicated financial fraud saga will appear before the High Court of Delhi following an investigation by Indian authorities.

You'll read in the story that the proposed family settlement, which Malvinder refused to sign, would have absolved the guru of any liability raised by an government authority. So that must have been a concern back in the spring of 2018.

Singh bros' settlement sought to absolve Dera Chief of liabilities

Singh brothers undertook that they will "indemnify" the Dhillon family in the event of a liability.

Raghav Ohri

New Delhi: The Singh brothers of Ranbaxy had locked horns over a 'family settlement' that sought to absolve their 'Master' - Gurinder Singh Dhillon, head of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), and his family members of all of all the amount they allegedly owed to RHC.

Malvinder has placed before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) emails to establish that while he had protested against the settlement, Shivinder had not only agreed to relieve the Dhillons of all their liabilities, but also pressurised Malvinder to sign the deal.

A 'memorandum of family settlement' drawn on May 25 last year read that it was “not based on actual valuation of the assets and loans but had been arrived to preserve and maintain mutual respect, goodwill and harmony, and to avoid any future disputes between the parties”.

It read that Shivinder and Malvinder had assured the Dhillon family that they have “irrevocably and unconditionally released and forever discharged them from all past, present or future claims, obligations and liabilities in connection with payment of 10 loans”. It added that the Singh brothers undertook that they will “indemnify” the Dhillon family in “event of any liability raised by any government authority”.

Malvinder claimed that the objective of the settlement was to relieve the Dhillons from the RHC dues. He submitted Shivinder’s emails dated June 2, 2018 and June 19, 2018 to prove that Shivinder had promptly agreed to the settlement to appease Dhillon so that he could succeed him as the Dera chief.

Malvinder has produced an email dated July 12, 2018 written to Dhillon to show that he had objected to the settlement, and sought details of assets of Dhillon and his family to repay the creditors. In his email, he had sought Dhillon’s intervention to “come out of the critical life-threatening issues” being faced by them.

Referring to several criminal actions and liabilities of over Rs 10,000 crore towards RHC, Malvinder wrote, “Given the current situation where we have lost almost all our businesses/assets and are at risk of losing everything that we own due to various personal guarantees, etc, we are not in a position to repay all our existing liabilities. Today our survival is completely dependent upon support from you, and if there is any chance of our being able to come out of this mess, it will be only with your blessings and support.

Malvinder had stressed on the need for the details of assets to satisfactorily “resolve the outstanding financial matters between us (which is very important and critical from regulatory as well as legal perspectives)”. “In order to satisfy the regulatory scheinvestigations and our lenders and creditors, we need full details of utilisation of funds borrowed from private companies and assets acquired therefrom,” he wrote.

“This will be needed to satisfy the authorities and creditors that no funds have been siphoned off and all such funds have been legitimately deployed at your end. We will need details of all assets held by you, family members, entities under your control or influence to kill any allegations of siphoning off. We utilise the following assets which can be made immediately available to resolve some of the issues, including surplus from the sale of LRD assets, Westend and Chandigarh properties, Parklane property, Singapore property, Chhatarpur farmhouses, add-on recoverable, SRL shares held by Logos, and any other asset that could be made available in India or abroad,” the email read.

Malvinder added that the mode of the “utilisation and priority thereof be agreed jointly by all of us keeping in view the spirit of working jointly and resolving the most critical issues on priority”. He sought to settle and close all inter-group outstanding loans by acquiring the assets as part of a settlement document.

“The said document needs to capture that apart from above assets, there are no other assets held by you and your family directly and indirectly, and in case any other assets which may have been acquired from the funds borrowed from private companies are made available, the same shall be acquired by private companies in settlement of the dues. All of these are necessary in order to close the existing loans in the books from accounting and regulatory perspectives,” Malvinder wrote.

Earlier this month, the RSSB chief had told the Delhi HC that he and his family owe RHC Holdings no money at all. In the July l2 email, Malvinder sought repayment of LVB Bank dues worth Rs 750 crore to avoid criminal cases, Fortis ICDs (Rs 450 crore), dues to Indiabulls to avoid cheque bouncing cases — worth around Rs 200 crore (negotiated down from Rs 400 crore), repayments to Zee and SSG to keep LRD assets and group reputation intact (Rs 300 crore), dignity and add-on dues to Fortis of around Rs 50 crore. Put together, it came to Rs 1,750 crore.

Singh brothers turn on each other. RSSB guru in middle of the mess.

Today someone emailed me a link to a MSN story about the Singh brothers, Malvinder and Shivinder, and their tangled relationship with their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas in India.
Download Shivinder Singh likens Malvinder Singh to 'Bhasmasur'

Read on for the latest developments in this fascinating drama. It'll be interesting to see what conclusions Indian authorities draw after investigating the complex web of fraudulent financial transactions involving a bunch of individuals, public companies, and shell companies.

I've boldfaced the mentions of Dhillon and RSSB.

Shivinder Singh likens Malvinder Singh to 'Bhasmasur'; Malvinder says his brother's 'sanyas' was fake: NCLT filings


© Amal KS/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

Former Religare promoter Shivinder Singh, in his NCLT filing in July, called his brother Malvinder Singh 'Bhasmasur', a mythological demon, while saying that he was suffering from a personality disorders. He had also sought a "forensic probe" of RHC Holding.

Threatening to sue the younger brother, Malvinder, in his NCLT filing in August, said he deserved the right to sue his brother for making "scurrilous insinuations". He also alleged that Shivinder was trying to take favour from Radha Saomi Satsang Beas (RSSB) because he owed its money.

The hearings in the NCLT case will be held in December.

"MMS (Malvinder Man Singh) has turned out to be the mythological 'Bhasmasur' for the RHC group. Wherever he became head of a business — Ranxbaxy, Fortis, Religare, SRL Labs Ltd — he decimated the value to zero for the RHC group," Shivinder told the NCLT filing.

Notably, both of them are currently in jail as Delhi's Saket court had sent the Singh brothers and 3 others to judicial custody till October 31 in a fund misappropriation case related to Religare Finvest Ltd. The other three accused, former Religare CMD Sunil Godhwani, and former senior executives Kavi Arora and Anil Saxena are also in jail.

In their NCLT filings, both the brothers accused each other of large-scale fraud and corruption. Shivinder sought that Malvinder be removed as the holding company's director while urging NCLT to take over its board. He also asked the court to issue a restraining order against Malvinder from entering the RHC office and even communicating with any of its employees.

Malvinder told in his reply that Shivinder was hurling accusations to seek favours from RSSB as he wished to become its chief. He also alleged that Shivinder filed the suit against him only to stop RHC from demanding its money from Gurinder Singh Dhillon-led RSSB. He said Shivinder had done "large scale diversion of funds from FHL, RHC, REL etc to Dhillon (chief of RSSB) and the entities under his (Dhillon) control".

As per Shivinder's filing, he's a 50 per cent owner of RHC and had an established track record of value creation by building Fortis from scratch into India's second-largest healthcare chain and turning it into one of RHC's most valuable businesses before his retirement in 2015.

"The petitioner no. 2 (Shivinder) is of the firm belief that the continuous destruction of RHC's asset base can be arrested provided the 'Bhasmasur' is dislodged from the helm of affairs of RHC," said Shivinder's petition.

While denying that Shivinder was solely involved in building and running of FHL, Malvinder said: "...the Petitioner number 2 (Shivinder) had been actively involved in all businesses of the group including the Respondent no. 1 (Malvinder)." He said Shivinder was falsely claiming before all the investigating agencies, regulators and courts that he was under 'Sanyas' (asceticism) from the corporate world from January 2016 till late 2017.

Urging the court to punish him for perjury, Malvinder said Shivinder "continued as a director of all companies, listed/unlisted, in the group", and that he continued to draw Rs 43.5 lakh monthly salary from two key subsidiaries of Malvinder's company. He also said during his 'sanyas', Shivinder attended numerous board meets and used to draw all the perquisites from listed and unlisted companies, including all his foreign travels, his cars and household expenses.

He accused Shivinder of protecting Dhillon from debts and "possible investigations and liability towards Daiichi (Sankyo)." The younger brother said Malvinder had sought Rs 1,000 crore from him to cede control of RHC. Demanding status quo on its assets and shareholdings, Shivinder asked the NCLT to appoint two independent directors and change account signatories.

The Singh brothers sold Ranbaxy to Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo in 2008 for Rs 10,000 crore. In 2013, Daiichi paid $500 as felony charges in the US for selling adulterated medicines, following which it filed an arbitration case against the Singh brothers.

I disagree with Stephen Batchelor about Buddhist truth claims

A couple of days ago I wrote, "I like Stephen Batchelor's take on Buddhism."

In that blog post I said that after I listened to the end of Batchelor's lengthy discussion with Sam Harris that Harris shared on his Waking Up iPhone app, I'd share anything interesting that I heard.

Well, what I heard Batchelor say in the last five minutes does strike me as both interesting and highly debatable.

Harris asked a good question of Batchelor: currently, what are your most important disagreements with Buddhist doctrine?

To his credit, Batchelor started off by saying that he can't stand dogmatic assertions by Buddhist practitioners. Since Harris had mentioned rebirth/reincarnation as a tenet that Batchelor probably disagreed with, I figured that Batchelor would agree with Harris.

Instead, Batchelor said he wasn't at all interested in the truth claims of Buddhism. Rather, what concerned him was: "How does your belief in reincarnation help you live better?" That was the central question for him.

OK. I can sort of understand where Batchelor was coming from. His focus is on practicality, not theology. If a religious belief has a practical benefit, then it gets a thumbs-up from Batchelor.

Not from me, though, not automatically.

If a religious belief isn't true -- and almost certainly rebirth/reincarnation is a fantasy -- that strikes me as a big argument against accepting it, no matter how it makes someone feel. Harris also sounded surprised at Batchelor's casual attitude toward the truth claims of Buddhism.

Sure, an argument can be made that if a religious person finds satisfaction in an untrue belief, and the belief helps them to live better, there's no harm in this.

I'd agree, so long as the belief remains private and personal. But this isn't how religious beliefs operate. They become dogmatic assertions that have real effects in the real world.

For example, reincarnation has been used as an argument for India's caste system, vestiges of which still exist in that country. (Maybe more than "vestiges.")

Likewise, a related belief in karma that extends over multiple lives can lead to an uncompassionate they deserve what they're getting attitude toward the less fortunate members of a society. So I hope Batchelor rethinks his view that it doesn't matter if a religious belief is true or not, so long as it appeals to the believer.

On a lighter note...

I like Stephen Batchelor's take on Buddhism

Over the years I believe I've read all of Stephen Batchelor's books about his somewhat heretical attitude toward Buddhism. Some blog posts about his books can be perused here, here, here, and here. 

Batchelor correctly argues that for Buddhism to make sense and be useful, its religious/supernatural aspects need to be set aside. 

Stephen Batchelor

So no karma extending over multiple lives, no reincarnation, no mythical entities inhabiting non-material realms of existence.

In this regard Batchelor agrees with Sam Harris. Both Batchelor and Harris have many years of experience with Buddhist meditation and teachings. So I've been enjoying listening to a lengthy discussion between Batchelor and Harris that is on Harris' Waking Up iPhone app that I subscribe to.

Today I heard an interesting dialogue about how they view enlightenment and the familiar Buddhist adage that life is suffering.

Because Batchelor and Harris largely agree on most things Buddhist'y, their exchange wasn't so much a debate, but an exchange of views, with each man trying to understand where the other was coming from, as the saying goes.

Harris is more into enlightenment as an end in itself, where that word basically means seeing through the illusion of a separate self or soul, and recognizing that everything we experience is an alteration of consciousness.

In his view, it is always possible to step back (a favorite Harris saying) and view an emotion, thought, or whatever as something that arises in consciousness, rather than a substantial entity -- thereby defusing the power of a disturbing or unproductive state of mind.

Batchelor agrees with the value of doing this, but prefers to speak about non-reactivity, as I noted in a blog post. 

In his book "After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age," Bachelor has some interesting observations about nirvana. Prior to saying that nirvana can be understood in one of two ways, as either the ceasing of reactivity or as freedom and independence from reactivity, he gave this view of reactivity:

We tend to regard the appearance of such a fearful world as a projection of our mental state.

But this reading of the situation is based on the cultural habit of interpreting experience psychologically. No matter how much we tell ourselves that the fearfulness of the world is just a projection, such reassurance does not significantly alter either how the world appears to us or how we feel about it.

From the perspective of a dharma practitioner, the task of "letting go of what arises" entails releasing one's grip on the whole picture: angry-me-facing-hostile-situation. 

Letting go is not simply a question of breathing deeply to calm my rattled mind; I need to cleanse the doors of my perception. This requires suspending the default habit of seeing the world as being hostile, desirable, or boring. One of the most effective ways of suspending that habit is to train yourself to comprehend the world as an infinitely suffering world.

Now, I don't claim to fully understand what Bachelor means.

However, I have at least an indistinct grasp of what he's getting at, and that's good enough for me. The way I see it, Bachelor doesn't view life as ever being free of suffering. But it is possible to lessen the impact of suffering.

Now, the differences between Harris and Batchelor in this regard are subtle. In large part they matter only to people like themselves -- so knowledgeable about Buddhist history, teachings, and writings, they can intelligently discuss the finer points of Buddhism.

That said, there was one area where I believe I understood Batchelor quite well, and agree with him to a greater extent than I agree with Harris.

Today I heard Batchelor say that individual enlightenment or ending suffering shouldn't be the final goal of a Buddhist practitioner. Instead, being a good ethical person should be. Thus our inner work should be viewed as a foundation for wise compassionate actions and relationships in our everyday life.

I see this as akin to a combination shot in pool, or billiards. You're striking a certain ball with the intention that it will hit another ball that's your primary interest.

Which isn't totally different from how Harris views things. He said that the more he can tone down or eliminate his worries, anxieties, fears, negative emotions, and such, the better his relationships with other people will be. Which makes perfect sense. It's much easier to be around someone loving and happy than someone angry and sad.

Thus what makes meditation important isn't only how it impacts how we experience the world. Equally important, if not more so, is how an inner realization affects our outer relationships.

If a spiritual practice isn't making us a better human being, it isn't serving a purpose.

This is clear when we consider how often supposedly enlightened or awakened people engage in bad behaviors. There's simply no excuse for devotees of these people to say things like, "It isn't possible to judge the behavior of an enlightened soul."

Sure it is. Are they honest, compassionate, loving, truthful, caring, generous, and so on? Are they acting like a normal good human being? If not, their so-called enlightenment or awakening is a fraud, bullshit. 

I've got a bit more of the Harris-Batchelor discussion to listen to. If I hear anything worth sharing in another blog post, I'll be sure to do that.

How the brain fools us into believing consciousness is immaterial

I love it! Because I loved The Matrix movie. There's something wildly appealing about our consciousness being deceived about the nature of reality in such a fashion that it is very difficult to escape the bounds of that deception.

The "it" that I'm loving is a book by Michael Graziano, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University. Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience is one of the best books I've read about the nature of consciousness, and I've read a lot of them.

Here's a 13-minute video where Graziano describes the key aspects of his Attention Schema Theory. 

And here's some excerpts from his book that provide a pretty good overview of the theory, especially if you watch the video first.

Graziano's approach explains why almost all people believe that they possess, or are, an immaterial consciousness. That just feels so real, so right, so immediately obvious. 

Which is exactly what the Attention Schema Theory predicts. A schema isn't the real thing. It is a simplified version of the thing. Evolution hasn't given us the ability to be aware of what the hundred billion or so neurons in the brain are doing.

Instead, the brain presents us with a view of the world, and of ourselves, that is functional, because it leaves out unnecessary details. Like, how the physical brain produces a metaphysical sense of consciousness and attention.

This passage describes why the Attention Schema Theory is believable. Covert attention refers to "a roving mental focus that can take in information apart from where the senses are pointed, like hearing sirens at a distance or recalling a memory." (from the book jacket)

In my view, the attention schema theory of consciousness has some inevitability to its logic. First, we know that the cortex uses covert attention. Second, we know that it needs to control that attention. Third, we know that the brain must have an internal model of attention in order to control that attention.

Fourth, we know that a detailed, fully accurate internal model is at best wasteful and at worst harmful to the process, and so, this internal model of attention would necessarily leave out the mechanistic details.

Therefore, and fifth, an attention schema would depict the self as containing an amorphous, nonphysical, internal power, an ability to know, to experience, and to respond, a roving mental focus -- the essence of covert attention without the underpinning details.

From first principles, if you had to build a well-functioning brain that had a powerful, cortical style of covert attention, you would build a machine that, drawing on the information constructed within it, would assert that it has a non-physical consciousness.

That cortical machine, of course, would not know that its subjective conscious experience is a construct or a simplification. It would take the nonphysical nature of conscious experience as a reality, because -- somewhat tautologically -- the brain only knows what it knows. It is captive to its own information. 

This passage describes why the attention schema in humans differs from that in computers, at least as they exist currently,

The human attention schema, having been shaped over hundreds of millions of years of evolution, has weird, biologically bumpy content.

It depicts attention as an invisible property, a mind that can experience or take possession of items, a force that empowers me to act and to remember, something that in itself has no physical substance but still lurks privately inside me.

The attention schema is more than a pointer to an object or a couple of lines of code. It builds a rich picture of attention and its predictable consequences. Build a machine with that kind of an attention schema, containing the weird, biologically messy lumps of the real one and you'll have a machine that can claim to be conscious in the same ways that humans do

No major technological hurdle stands in the way of an artificial attention schema. It is, arguably, the easiest and certainly the most circumscribed of all the components to build into the machine. 

And this passage gets at the objective nature of the Attention Schema Theory, in principle.

From the perspective of the attention schema theory, we can know, with objective certainty, whether a machine has the same kind of consciousness that people have. And direct personal experience is not the only way -- it's not even a very good way -- to know about one's own consciousness.

"Of course I'm conscious. I know I am, because I have a direct experience of it."

If that isn't the definition of a circular logic loop, I don't know what is. Consciousness is a direct experience. Therefore, the statement is tantamount to, "I know I'm conscious, because I'm conscious."

As I've said before, the machine is captive to the information it contains.

A particular internal model informs the machine that it has consciousness, and therefore it "knows" that it is conscious. The internal model informs the machine that its consciousness is without physical substance and forever private, and therefore it "knows" that its consciousness is unconfirmable by anyone else.

But an internal model is information, and information can be objectively measured. We don't need to rely on personal affirmation.

In the attention schema theory, to go about determining whether a machine is conscious, we should probe its innards to find out whether it contains an attention schema, and we should read the information within the attention schema.

We will then learn, with objective certainty, whether this is a machine that thinks it has a subjective conscious experience in the same way that we think we do. If it has the requisite information in that internal model, then, yes. If not, then no. All of this is, in principle, measurable and confirmable. 

A blog post from the past: Sant Mat cartoons

In the course of browsing through some old blog posts (I'm gathering material for another book based on my Church of the Churchless posts), I came across a fond memory:

"RSSB cartoons show lighter side of Sant Mat." Which started out this way.

While perusing a Christian web site that pokes fun at evangelical fundamentalism, today I suddenly thought Cartoons!

Back in 1999 I'd worked with a talented artist, Bart Goldman, on cartoons aimed at deflating the balloon of Radha Soami Satsang Beas seriousness (RSSB is a branch of Sant Mat).

Bart and I both were RSSB initiates. We met at a RSSB bhandara (large get-together), introduced by a mutual friend: Victoria, also an artist.

Several times Victoria leaned over to me and whispered, in a decided stage whisper, so Bart could hear, "He's very talented."

Since spiritual cartooning ideas had been running through my head, and my own artistic talent is limited to stick figures, I was eager to chat with Bart.

After some post-bhandara back and forth emailing, here's what Bart produced. I sent them off to RSSB headquarters in India but so far as I know, they haven't been published. At least, not all of them.

I give Bart most of the credit for the cartoons – unless you really like one of them, in which case it must have been my idea.

Here's one of the cartoons.

Head over to my original blog post to see the rest. (Click on a small image to enlarge it.)

Love hurts. But the pain of love also is pleasure.

Last Tuesday our older dog, ZuZu, had to be put to sleep. Which is another way of saying, euthanized. Tearfully, I was able to write about her last days on my HinesSight blog in It was a good day for our dog to die.

Of course, it wasn't a good day. Not really. I wanted ZuZu to live much longer. What I meant was explained in the first part of the blog post.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't want our beloved older dog, ZuZu, to die. But she did last night, put out of her misery by a dose of morphine at Salem's emergency vet clinic.

What made it a good day -- and now the tears are coming, as I figured they would when I set out to compose this blog post -- was how ZuZu and I got to have a pleasant day together yesterday, since she went downhill really fast, as I'll describe later on.

Monday ZuZu and I had come back from central Oregon a day before my wife and other dog, Mooka. So on Tuesday I didn't want to leave her alone when I went to exercise at the River Road Courthouse athletic club.

In the morning we'd had our usual walk through our rural property, across a creek, and along a community trail here in Spring Lake Estates. ZuZu seemed pretty normal at that point.

She was walking a bit less energetically than usual, which likely was a sign of what was to come. But when she spotted a squirrel, the old ZuZu came to life. Zoom! She raced ahead and excitedly stared into the branches of a tree the squirrel had escaped to.

I'm so happy that ZuZu was able to chase a squirrel on her last day alive. It was one of her favorite things to do. We also ran into some neighbors walking their dogs, so she got to greet them a final time. Nice.

What I'm most glad about is deciding to take ZuZu to the Minto Brown Dog Park after exercising. It was starting to drizzle. I thought about going straight home. But I thought, "ZuZu enjoys the dog park. I've got time. Let's do it."

Yeah, it's a cliche. Live every day as if it were your last. And usually it isn't practical, since we need to plan for future days. 

However, it's also true that we never know. When we will die. When a loved one will die. When a pet will die. I had no idea when I drove the short distance from our athletic club to the dog park that ZuZu would be dead in less than eight hours.

It's been tough. Really tough. I miss ZuZu a lot. That's the price of love: pain, when a loved one departs, or suffers, or otherwise tears at our heart. But it's a price well worth paying.

The day after ZuZu died, I opened the rear hatch of my VW GTI. What I saw brought more tears to my eyes, along with a bit of an inner smile.

The dog park I'd taken ZuZu to on the afternoon of her last day alive has an unpaved parking lot. When I picked ZuZu up to put her in the back of the car, her paws were dusty. This was the last time she rode in my car, since she was taken to the emergency vet clinic that night in my wife's car.

My first thought was, "I never want to wash off the paw prints." Yes, I know that will be necessary. Eventually. For now, I enjoy looking at the paw prints, because they remind me of ZuZu and of the good times we shared.

This is the reason I took her dog bowl and put it on a shelf in my office, along with a photo of ZuZu with our older dog at the time, Serena. A vase that was on the shelf graces the inside of the dog bowl. I did this after realizing that I had a couple of choices about how to deal with ZuZu's death.

Try to forget about it, or embrace it -- feeling the pain of love as acutely as possible.

I decided to go the embrace route. The first few days after ZuZu died I could barely bring myself to look at the dog bowl and the photo. I wondered if maybe it would be better to do the forget thing. But I can't forget ZuZu. I don't want to forget ZuZu.

Yes, love hurts. But a life without love isn't worth living. The death of a loved one hurts tremendously. Yet I'm glad that it does. The pain of love is also its pleasure.

RSSB guru and his family played large role in Singh brothers' downfall

Indian journalists continue to do an excellent job of reporting on the complex, Bollywood'ish drama of how Malvinder and Shivinder Singh's business empire disintegrated, in part because of their ties to a guru relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, who heads up the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) spiritual organization.

Here's some excerpts from a well-researched Outlook story. I've focused on the passages that mention Dhillon and his family, which are boldfaced. Keep in mind that Sunil Godhwani was the guru's right hand man, personal treasurer, and reportedly once managed the finances of RSSB.
Download Riches To Rags: How Billionaire Ranbaxy Brothers Malvinder And Shivinder Singh Landed In Jail

Of course, it is about money. But in the case of Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, the two Ranbaxy brothers and billionaire scions who ended up in jail, the narrative goes beyond a simplistic explanation. The sub-plots, which emerge larger than the main one, include personal tussles between family members—father-­son and sibling rivalries—besides ­intense friendships that led to ­greater animosities. Add to this the mysterious veil of spiritual power—both the quest for it, and efforts to retain it.

The story spans three decades, starting when the two brothers were quite young, and their father, Parvinder Singh, and grandfather, Bhai Mohan Singh, were alive. It takes numerous twists and turns, curls and loops, and one can lose track of the critical markers along the journey. It comprises hundreds of dubious deals—money transfers from listed companies to sha­dowy private firms. Each tran­saction includes dozens of sub-deals so there is minimal connection between the points at which it originates and where it ends.

Even the mastermind, if there is only one, is difficult to pinpoint. Sometimes, the needle of suspicion points at Malvinder, the elder Singh, who took the key decisions. At other times, Shivinder appears to be the perpetrator, given his aggression and ambition. In some cases, Sunil ‘Sunny’ Godhwani, who handled the personal wealth of the two Singh brothers, looks guilty. The cast of characters also includes several faceless bankers, senior corporate managers, company auditors and fin­ancial experts.

However, there is a big shadow lurking sometimes in the forefront, and sometimes in the background. This is the towering personality of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the spiritual head of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), which boasts of more than four million followers across the world. Gurinder Singh’s family members are allegedly active participants in the various firms inv­olved in the fraudulent deals—wife Shabnam, and two sons, Gurpreet and Gurkeerat. RSSB forms a common link between the various actors.

The cases against the Ranbaxy brothers are simple to understand. They all­egedly sip­honed off huge sums—one estimate puts it at Rs 10,000 crore—from the listed groups such as Ranbaxy, Fortis and Religare. They funnelled the money to their closely-held private firms. They retained a part of it, and shifted the bulk of the funds to other firms that were owned by Sunil Godhwani, Gurinder Singh and Shab­nam Dhillon, and Gurpreet and Gur­keerat Singh. Most of the money was used to buy real estate.

The loot was systemic, deliberate, in connivance with the bankers, financiers, and auditors, and against the interests of the investors in the listed companies. It was done over 12-13 years. The money was squandered as the values of the properties fell sharply during the ongoing crisis in real estate. When the scandals became public, each actor blamed the others. Malvinder found faults with Shivinder, Godhwani and the Dhillons; Shivinder with Malvinder and Godh­wani; the Dhillons with Godhwani; and Godhwani with the others.

“The notorious saga of Malvinder and Shivinder Singh seems to be at a conclusive stage and investigating agencies are tightening their grip on the pending cases,” says Sandeep Grover, partner, Ortis Law Offices. “At the same time, in a case filed by Japan’s Daiichi-Sankyo, which bought Ranbaxy in 2008, the Delhi High Court has asked the Singh brothers to reveal details of the assets transferred by them (from Ranbaxy, as alleged by the Japanese buyer).” The court has sought information from the other pla­yers like Gurinder Singh of RSSB.

...The two brothers sought ways to sell the company to a global player. In 2008, during the height of the global recession, Daiichi purchased the Singh family’s stake for $2 billion. It was a corporate coup. The brothers had found the perfect way to tide over a global financial crisis. They had emerged as the Kings of Cash. Finally, to bolster their personal wealth, the Ranbaxy brothers, according to a complaint by the Japanese buyer, illegally transferred Rs 2,900 crore from Ranbaxy to their private concerns.

By this time, the Singh siblings were close to RSSB, Gurinder Singh Dhillon and Godh­wani. The RSSB-Singh family proximity was decades-­old. Accor­ding to members of the sect, when Babaji, as Gurinder Singh is popularly known, shifted to Beas from Spain in 1990 to take over as the new head, the situation was complex. He was inexperienced, and there were int­ernal power struggles. Parvin­der, father of Mal­vinder and Shivinder, ­became Dhillon’s “biggest source of support”.

After Parvinder’s death, his two sons, who were deprived of their legitimate corporate power because of Brar, sought refuge and solace at Babaji’s feet. Sources contend it was the RSSB head, who caj­oled them to sell Ranbaxy. Godh­wani, a key member of the sect, became friends with the Singhs, or at least Shivinder, and emerged as their ­personal financial advisor. He helped them in moving the money out of Ranbaxy to personally owned ­companies, and take important ­inv­estment decisions.

The extent of proximity among these three families was evident in 2006. Malvinder and Shivinder transferred 13.5 million shares of a group firm, Religare Enterprises, to the two sons of Gurinder Singh, Gurpreet (6.25 million) and Gurkeerat (6.25 million), and Godhwani (1 million) at the face value of Rs 10 each. During the company’s IPO in 2007, these shares were allotted to public shareholders at Rs 185. The combined paper profits of the trio: a whopping Rs 227.5 crore. Godhwani was the head of Religare.

After the 2008 sale of Ranbaxy, three strands grew simultaneously. Publicly, the Singh siblings seemed like smart ent­repreneurs, who judiciously used the $2 billion from the Daiichi deal to grow their operations in hospitals (Fortis), and fin­ance (Religare). They had huge ambitions—they wished to build the largest hospital chain in the country, and open a bank. They became the darlings of the media and shareholders. Corporate obs­ervers felt they could do no wrong.

In private, away from prying eyes, the shenanigans continued. Massive amo­unts, raised as loans, were allegedly funnelled out of Religare and Fortis groups, and found their way to the private firms owned by the Ranbaxy brothers, Godhwani, and Gurinder Singh and his family members. One estimate is that Rs 2,300-2,700 crore was looted to buy commercial properties in various cities, including in Saket, New Delhi. Shabnam Dhillon, wife of the RSSB guru, was a dir­ector in some of the largest recipients.

...Malvinder, who claimed he got a death threat, said Shivinder, who wished to be RSSB’s next spiritual head, “bribed” the Dhillons. This was done by the transfer of loans raised by the three listed groups, Ranbaxy, Religare and Fortis, to the private firms owned by the Dhillons. Shiv­inder maintained that Godhwani had ­misused his powers as the manager of the Singhs’ personal wealth. The Dhillon family told the Delhi High Court that it had not ­received any money from the Singhs.

“These are meaningless allegations,” says a RSSB member. “There is no case of money laundering of the sect’s funds. RSSB’s money and assets are handled by a trust, and there can be no manipulation. Babaji’s name is being dragged into corporate scandals masterminded by others such as Godhwani, who bec­ame quite close to the Singhs in 2011.” Godhwani has largely been silent.

The courts will decide the destinies of these characters. The fall of the Ranbaxy brothers is a classic case of how hubris, conceit, hunger for money and over-­confidence can lead to a house of frauds. As quickly as it was built, it can fall ­instantly like a house of cards.