Church of the Churchless

I'm told that the RSSB guru said I'm good, or am a good soul

Today I got this message from someone who, unlike me, still attends the satsang meetings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, the India-based religious organization that I belonged to for 35 years, before RSSB and me parted our ways.

Baba Ji refers to the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

I heard today from someone who said “Baba Ji said that Brian Hines is good (or a good soul).” I am not sure which or maybe both, because his English is a little hard for me to understand.

I told this person, Ah. That's nice.

I said that because it was indeed nice to hear this unsubstantiated rumor. For even though I've been critical of Gurinder Singh's business dealings while the RSSB guru, and I have problems with other aspects of his stint as guru, I don't feel any personal ill will toward him.

During the period I was writing three books on behalf of RSSB, I met with Gurinder Singh occasionally and found him a pleasant competent person to deal with. We also exchanged letters and I was pleased to perform security seva (volunteer work) during some of the guru's visits to the United States and British Columbia.

It isn't that I spend much time, or any time, really, wondering whether Gurinder Singh has a favorable opinion of me. I simply felt good when I heard that reportedly the RSSB guru thinks I"m good, or am a good soul.

I prefer the former, since I no longer believe that I have, or am, a soul. 

The broader issue here, I guess, is whether it ever makes sense to say that someone is bad. Or, I suppose, good. For it seems to me that most people, and this might even include all people, try to do the right thing insofar as it appears to them.

Of course, there's no doubt that some people do terrible things: murder, rape, torture, and so much else that's despicable. But we can harshly criticize the doing of those things without calling the person who does them "bad" or "evil." 

Good and bad are words that imply a choice in how we act. I'm deeply skeptical that free will actually exists. More likely is that we all are simply acting in accord with what complex and difficult-to-discern causes both inside of us and outside of us have determined that we must do.

So I don't look upon myself as being a good person, or a bad person. Sure, I feel that by and large I'm a decent human being, but I'm well aware of my defects and shortcomings, which are numerous.

At any rate, I'm pleased that the RSSB guru supposedly looks upon me positively. Though I don't mind being argumentative and confrontational, I prefer to get along with other people whenever possible, even when we disagree.

More on why mindfulness is better than mantra meditation

It goes without saying, but I'll say it regardless, that my Church of the Churchless blog posts reflect what I find interesting and what makes sense to me. 

If you disagree with a post, naturally that's wonderful. You're you. I'm me. We're different people, so we're going to look at some things differently. Maybe a lot of things differently. 

All I can do is explain myself as best I can, while all you can do is explain yourself as best you can in comments on my blog posts -- should you choose to do that.

So here's another try at explaining why I view mindfulness as being better than using a mantra, either in meditation or outside of meditation, which is what I did for the 35 years I embraced a mantra when I was devoted to the spiritual practice taught by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

I'll start by sharing what a friend said to me recently. She was meditating in the evening before going to bed. She likes the idea of oneness (as do I) and was getting frustrated with how her busy thoughts were keeping her from the inner quiet that she thought was needed to feel a sense of oneness.

Then a realization came over her: oneness means accepting everything, including her thoughts. Thus by viewing her thoughts as unwelcome, she was moving further away from oneness, while accepting them would bring her closer to oneness.

That happens to be a basic tenet of mindfulness, which typically is defined along this line: "a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations."

A mantra, on the other hand, generally is used as a means to stop thoughts other than the repetition of the mantra. 

That can be a way to practice concentration, a laudable aim. But it comes with a cost, since obviously when the mantra is the focus of attention, that leaves the mantra-repeater with less of an ability to focus on other things, both outside in the world and inside their mind.

In the case of RSSB, this was taken to an extreme. The mantra was composed of the five names of supposed rulers of supernatural regions of reality. By repeating these "Five Holy Names," the idea was that the consciousness of the meditator would leave behind the physical world and enter a higher one.

Thus this is an example of a mantra being a world-denying technique. RSSB disciples also were supposed to repeat the mantra as much as possible during the rest of the day outside of meditation, so long as they didn't have to concentrate on other things.

The "so long as" echoes what I've been saying in both my previous post on this subject, and this one. By its very nature, a mantra prevents us from paying full attention both to things out there in the world, and to things in here in our mind.

Imagine having an intimate conversation with someone who, while you're talking about something important to you, is mentally repeating a mantra instead of closely listening to you. If their mantra is "God," they're saying God, God, God... with their inner voice rather than focusing on you and what you're saying.

Aside from being impolite, this shows that a mantra can divide us from the reality both outside and inside us. It isn't quite like a child yelling at a parent "I can't hear you! I can't hear you!" as they stick their fingers in their ears after being told it's time to get ready for bed.

But it's damn close to that. I know, because like I said, for 35 years I did my best to repeat my RSSB mantra when I didn't have to concentrate on something else during my time outside of mediation. 

I'll admit that during the latter part of those 35 years I repeated the mantra less and less, since by that time I'd come to realize that repeating it was distancing me from other people, nature, and many other things.

That said, I understand why a mantra appeals to people. It's a simple way of meditating. It's easy to repeat a mantra. If you want to stop unwelcome thoughts, a mantra can be an effective way of doing this.

However, I've come to view a mantra as being akin to the hard style martial arts I embraced for about 13 years during my karate phase. It can knock down thoughts and feelings with a sort of brute force. Often effective, it isn't very elegant.

Mindfulness, on the other hand, is more difficult to learn than mantra meditation. It's akin to soft style martial arts like Tai Chi, which I've been practicing for the past 19 years. Mindfulness accepts whatever is present in reality, gently dealing with feelings, thoughts, and other things that need redirecting not through force, but by welcoming them as they are, then altering their direction with minimal exertion.

Again, though, you may disagree. This is just my experience.  

The "magic" in magical moments comes from our own mind

After including a quote in a previous blog post about how we construct the environment in which we live, thanks to how the human brain functions, I got to thinking about the implications for magical moments.

We all have them, though it's difficult to say whether there's much agreement between people as to what constitutes a magical moment. Here's some examples from my life, using my own intuitive definition.

Birth of my daughter
Catching big waves on Maui with my boogie board
Marrying my wife
Seeing Janis Joplin perform in person 
Taking mescaline with a friend in the Sierra Nevada mountains
Spending two weeks in India with the guru who initiated me

Since I'm writing this post on my churchless blog, I'll use the last example as a focus of my discussion about what makes a moment seem magical.

For a long time -- I went to India in 1977 because I wanted to see Charan Singh, my guru, face-to-face, having been initiated by a proxy in 1971 -- I believed that what made those two weeks at Dera Baba Jaimal Singh in the Punjab so magical was the atmosphere emanating from the guru.

However, this doesn't make much sense. 

As I wrote about back in 2005 in "Did I see God in first class?", my wife didn't find seeing Gurinder Singh, Charan Singh's successor, to be at all magical, even though devotees of the guru undoubtedly did.

Psychedelic researchers speak of the importance of set and setting in determining the nature of a LSD (or similar drug) experience. “Set” includes the personality of the individual; “setting” includes cultural views about what is real. If someone with a devotional frame of mind joins a group like RSSB that affirms the divinity of a guru, then this person may very well see God sitting in first class. I, on the other hand, just saw an Indian man.

My wife, Laurel, joined me in Palm Springs a few days later. She was more interested in shopping and sunshine than attending the bhandara, but I did talk her into going to two RSSB meetings. At one of them she got to sit in the front row, just a few feet away from the stage where Gurinder Singh spoke and answered questions—a highly favored spot to devotionally-minded disciples.

Afterwards Laurel said to me, “He just seemed like a regular person.” I couldn’t argue with her. I believed then, and still do, that Master Gurinder Singh is uncommonly intelligent, insightful, well-spoken, charismatic, and inspiring. But I had no reason then, nor any now, to assert that he is God in human form. I’ve stopped being concerned with the level of divinity someone else possesses, and now am almost exclusively focused on getting in touch with my own hypothesized higher self.

So I now see magical moments as being akin to a happy moment, sad moment, exciting moment, boring moment, or any other kind of moment where someone's frame of mind generates the adjective before "moment."

Sure, there has to be a substantial outside reality in a moment. It's a mistake, though, to view external circumstances as producing the magical aspect of a moment, because different people will view those circumstances differently.

My wife saw an Indian man sitting on a stage. Many of his devotees saw a guru who is God in Human Form. Big difference. I highly enjoyed catching big waves that would scare someone who wasn't used to doing this. Big difference. I found Janis Joplin's singing and overall style really appealing. Others with a different musical taste wouldn't like her voice. Big difference.

Thus it's wonderful to experience a magical moment. But almost always the credit for the magic should go to the brain of the person having that experience, not to the external circumstance.

My daughter Celeste is a much better skier than I am, or my wife is. I remember us going with Celeste to ski on Mt. Hood here in Oregon many years ago. Celeste talked us into taking a lift up to the highest point on the mountain, where we'd never been before.

When we got off the lift, I instantly realized that the snow was much more akin to a sheet of ice. Celeste took off down the steep slope, turning with ease, giving every sign of having a magical moment up there on a sunny cold day with such a beautiful view.

Me, all I could think of was "I hope I don't break a leg" as I gingerly made my way down, snow-plowing in an inelegant fashion. My daughter and I shared the same external circumstance, but for her it was magical and for me it was terrifying. 

Shabnam Dhillon's "usual address" belonged to RSSB insiders

Someone just sent me information regarding the house in England shown on Shabnam Dhillon's death certificate as her "usual address." 

She was the wife of the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), Gurinder Singh Dhillon. Since RSSB headquarters are in India, it was a surprise to me to see that an English house was shown as Shabnam's usual address. 

The person also sent along a Google description of when an inquest is performed after someone dies, which happened in this case.

A coroner must hold an inquest if:

• • the cause of death is still unknown
  • the person might have died a violent or unnatural death
  • the person might have died in prison or police custody

Here's the home ownership information. It appears that the Dhillon family didn't own the house that was Shabnam Dhillon's usual address. This shows the connection between the Dhillons and wealthy RSSB devotees.

A land registry search on the address quoted reveals it belongs to:

Rahendra (DOB Oct 1961) and Sunita Naidoo (DOB April 1965). Bought in May 2001 for £500,000.

Both are dental surgeons. Both are connected to RSSB (chairperson) of the charity.

https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/1013061/trustees

Shows Sunita Naidoo as chairperson for RSSB charity.

Company RSSB Southall Limited  shows Sunita Naidoo as director since 2010 (address is Haynes Park, a RSSB center in England).

Company info is here: 

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03551429

This company is also related (RSSB is parent company). Sunita Naidoo is director

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/06558863/officers

Doesn't lead to anything sinister - but it's always rich people involved with the guru. 

If the inquest knew that she was due to appear in court and that her appearance would be hugely detrimental to RSSB and the guru, I am sure the inquest would look at this in a different light.

Here's Shabnam Dhillon's death certificate (wife of RSSB guru)

Having been an active member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) for about 35 years, I follow goings-on with RSSB when they come to my attention. That includes news involving the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

On November 26, 2019 I wrote a blog post, "Shabnam Dhillon, wife of RSSB guru, has died." I included a Business Today story about her death which said in part:

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.

On October 14, 2022, last month, I wrote another blog post about her death, "Shabnam Dhillon's death leaves questions unanswered." Here's one question.

I'm pretty sure that there never has been any description of what the post-surgery complications were. So that's one question.

...Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that an autopsy was performed, and her body was cremated in early December of 2019. It'd be interesting to see Shabnam Dhillon's death certificate (if that's what they're called in Great Britain) to learn exactly what the complications were that caused her death.

If any reader of this blog lives in Great Britain and is willing to obtain a copy of the death certificate, please do so and email me a scan of it.

After I made that request, someone figured out how to get a copy of the death certificate and left a comment with that information. I managed to set up an account with the General Register Office and ordered a copy of Shabnam Dhillon's death certificate. 

It came yesterday. Here's a scan. My comments are below.

The death certificate says that she died at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. It looks like Luton is close to London, so the Business Today story mentioned above had that more or less right.

It's a bit curious that her usual address is shown as 6 Church View, Clapham, Bedford, Bedfordshire. That's the most expensive property in the area (I want to say zip code, but that's a USA term). I thought the RSSB guru and his wife were usual residents of India. 

Her occupation is Housewife, Wife of G S Dhillon, Spiritual Master. 

The death certificate was registered by Emma Whiting, Senior Coroner for Befordshire and Luton. An inquest was held on April 23, 2020, about five months after Shabnam Dhillon died. According to Wikipedia, an inquest is held when a death is sudden or unexplained. 

Whiting's conclusion was that she died after developing septicaemia following a complicated medical procedure. 

It seems that she went to England for a revised bariatric surgery. Bariatric surgery makes changes to the digestive system in order to help someone lose weight. 

Naturally it's sad when a 57 year old woman dies. I find it especially sad that Shabnam Dhillon died because she wanted to lose weight via surgery. I'd envisioned her going to England for treatment of a medical condition.

Though I guess she did have a medical condition of sorts, since the 2019 bariatric surgery was "revisional," which I gather means necessary to fix a problem with the original surgery.

Lastly, all the time I spent as a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas taught me that the RSSB guru is viewed by devotees as having mystical knowledge akin to that of God -- since the guru traditionally is seen as God in Human Form.

There are many stories of previous RSSB gurus saving their disciples from harm by intervening in some way. That obviously didn't happen in this case, since the wife of the RSSB guru traveled to England for surgery and ended up dying from multiple organ failure.

I no longer believe that the RSSB guru is anyone special. So I just see this as an unfortunate death caused by a surgical mishap. But those RSSB members who believe the guru can save them from misfortune should remember that Gurinder Singh Dhillon wasn't able to save his own wife.

Meaning, in my view, he's just an ordinary human being like the rest of us. That makes his wife's death sad, not anything with spiritual significance beyond the usual meaning of an untimely death.

Why I find mindfulness so appealing after 35 years of religion

Having given up on organized religion, an Eastern/Indian variety, after 35 years of embracing the lure of returning to God by traversing supernatural realms, I've become enamored of mindfulness.

(See here and here for some previous blog posts explaining why.)

Before making another attempt at this, this is how a book I'm reading, and enjoying, "The Mindful Way Through Depression," describes mindfulness.

As we said toward the end of the preceding chapter, mindfulness is the awareness that arises from paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally, to things as they are. It's a way of shifting from doing to being so that we take in all the information that an experience offers us before we act.

Being mindful means that we suspend judgment for a time, set aside our immediate goals for the future, and take in the present moment as it is rather than as we would like it to be.

It means we approach situations with openness, even if we notice that they bring up feelings such as fear. Being mindful means intentionally turning off the autopilot mode in which we operate so much of the time -- brooding about the past, for instance, or worrying about the future -- and instead tuning in to things as they are in the present with full awareness.

It means knowing that our thoughts are passing mental events, not reality itself, and that we are more in touch with life as it is when we allow ourselves to experience things through the body and our senses rather than mostly through our unexamined and habitual thoughts.

This is a wonderful balance to how religions typically view life, which definitely includes the religion I was a part of for those 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

The present moment isn't valued highly by religions. Neither are the body and senses. Nor is looking at things as they are rather than as they're hoped to be. Or giving up judgment.

For over three decades I accepted (with gradually increasing doubts, admittedly) that the purpose of life wasn't to be found in this physical world, but in leaving material existence and entering higher domains of reality beyond the physical.

So what RSSB taught basically was an anti-mindfulness: fill your mind with thoughts of God, the guru, and returning to the supernatural realm of Sach Khand; reject your weaknesses, often summarized as lust, anger, greed, attachment, and egotism; continually judge yourself to see if you're living up to the other-worldly standard of the RSSB teachings; look upon everyday life as an illusion not meant to be taken seriously, since your genuine divine form of existence lies elsewhere.

When I broke away from my religious dogmatism, it felt wonderfully refreshing to simply look upon myself as a human being having a human experience. Yeah, I realize that if you've never been religious, you're probably thinking, "Well, duh, why'd it take you so long to realize something so obvious?"

Good question. But not one that I spend a lot of time pondering.

The past is gone. I try to learn from my past mistakes. However, since they didn't seem like mistakes at the time, I do my mindful best to stay focused on the present rather than dwelling on what could have been if I'd done something differently in the past.

In no way do I claim to be proficient at mindfulness. I regret things that I've done. I worry about things that might happen to me in the future. I judge myself. I judge other people. Still, learning about mindfulness has helped me tone down all that.

I've learned that whatever I may think about reality, including the reality of my own life, the actuality of reality often turns out to be quite different.

So being open to surprises, to new information, to fresh insights, to being wrong -- that feels wonderful after so many years of erroneously believing that I knew what life was all about, including cosmic secrets that one day I would be privy to thanks to my initiation by a RSSB guru.

Now I look upon myself as an ordinary person living an ordinary life. After 35 years of religiosity, that feels absolutely extraordinary to me.

Shabnam Dhillon's death leaves questions unanswered

Today I was reminded of the death of Shabnam Dhillon, the wife of the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, after someone posted this comment on one of my blog posts.

Have tried to post a picture of Shabnam and Gurinder Singh Dhillon - the same picture is with the article below:

https://www.bhaskar.com/punjab/jalandhar/news/shabnam-wife-of-former-ranbaxy-promoters-mamie-and-dera-beas-chief-gurinder-singh-dhillons-london-126151220.html

A picture speaks a thousand words ... The Happy Couple NOT. The questionable timing of Shabnam's death. Her body was cremated. Will the truth ever come out?

Here's the photograph.

The timing and circumstances of her death are indeed curious, leading to questions. 

Shabnam died on November 27, 2019. A Business Today story that I quoted in a blog post about her death said:

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.

I'm pretty sure that there never has been any description of what the post-surgery complications were. So that's one question.

It's also perplexing why her husband, the RSSB guru, reportedly carried on with his previously scheduled program in New Delhi just two days after his wife died. That's a really brief mourning period. 

The timing of her death raises other questions, since Shabnam was part of the financial scandal involving her husband. I wrote several 2019 blog posts that mentioned Shabnam Dhillon.

June 10, 2019. Delhi High Court orders recovery of money from RSSB guru

RSSB chief Gurinder Singh Dhillon, wife Shabnam Dhillon, sons Gurkirat and Gurpreet and daughter-in-law Nayan Tara Dhillon are among the 56 entities from whom Delhi HC has ordered recovery of monies Singh brothers-Malvinder & Shivinder-owe to Daiichi. Money will also be recovered from former Religare chief Sunil Godhwani and brother Sanjay Godhwani, according to the Delhi HC order. [part of a Business Today story]

November 8, 2019. RSSB guru and his family make up reasons to avoid court appearance

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.

...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. 

November 17, 2019. Here's an example of Dhillon family connections to shell companies

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. [excerpt from The Indian Express story]

November 18, 2019. RSSB guru's 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.

On November 27, 2019, Shabnam Dhillon died in a hospital following surgery on November 20. Now, naturally it could be a coincidence that her death occurred 13 days after she was supposed to appear at a hearing before the High Court of Delhi regarding fraudulent transfers of large amounts of money.

But the timing of her death definitely raises questions.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that an autopsy was performed, and her body was cremated in early December of 2019. It'd be interesting to see Shabnam Dhillon's death certificate (if that's what they're called in Great Britain) to learn exactly what the complications were that caused her death.

If any reader of this blog lives in Great Britain and is willing to obtain a copy of the death certificate, please do so and email me a scan of it.

UPDATE: Someone searched for Shabnam's death certificate in the UK and couldn't find one. The comment they left on this post is below. I Googled the question of whether India requires a death certificate for a citizen who dies abroad. Answer is possibly, since it isn't clear on this web page whether both a medical report and death certificate issued by a hospital are needed, or just one of these. 

Shabnam Dhillon died in National Health Service Hospital Bedford that is generally open to UK tax payers only free of charge. Believe she was originally operated in a private paying institution somewhere else and upon complications transferred to larger national health service hospital Bedford where she died. It is normal for visiting overseas persons to be treated in small private paying hospital for specific illness and in case of complications private individuals transfer to larger general hospital as emergency (which appears to be the case here). I have applied all relevant searches on Her Majesty,s Register office but there appears to be no ideath certificate record of Shabnam Dhillon recorded in United Kingdom. Link attached.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FZovwK0ZEAUoLbm-3bx1IBsxy35IAqWE/view?usp=sharing

I'm quoted in a story about RSSB center in New Zealand

I just got a link to a Newsroom story by Cass Mason about a new Radha Soami Satsang Beas center in New Zealand. Here's a screenshot of how the story starts out, along with a PDF file of the story. Below I'll share critical mentions of RSSB in the story, along with mentions of an interview Mason did with me. 
Download Sect sets up home at Ihumātao stonefields

This is the concluding part of the story. I found the final paragraph amusing, though not surprising. Baruch ter Wal won’t comment on allegations of the RSSB guru's involvement in financial fraud, but he’s fine with ascribing motivations to me that don’t fit with reality.

That’s to be expected, since RSSB faithful can’t conceive that someone could find the guru and the RSSB teachings lacking after 35 years of serious devotion to meditation and the other RSSB vows. Instead, my leaving the group must be my own failing.

However, the group is not without its controversies. 

While RSSB’s previous gurus have maintained a low profile, Singh Dhillon has made the news in India for allegations about his involvement in financial scandal.

Singh Dhillon is alleged to have siphoned funds relating to the sale of multinational pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy Laboratories - owned by Singh Dhillon’s cousins, brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh - to Japanese global healthcare company Daiichi Sankyo in 2008. 

An affidavit signed by Malvinder Singh in 2019 accused Shivinder of transferring Singh Dhillon more than NZD$100 million in fraudulent loans through shell companies controlled by Singh Dhillon, his family and close associates, money which was then used to buy real estate. 

“Shivinder initiated these actions and permitted siphoning and malfeasance of funds with the ulterior motive of gaining control of the seat of the spiritual head of RSSB, which was promised to him by Dhillon in lieu of the financial gains,” the complaint says. 

He alleged any attempts at recovering the money were met with death threats. 

“Gurinder Singh Dhillon has threatened the complainant through his lawyer Ferida Chopra that if he did not agree to the demands of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, he would be eliminated by persons from the Radha Soami Satsang,” the complaint said.

The Economic Offenses Wing of the Delhi Police summoned Singh Dhillon to court seeking explanation around funds transferred to his and his late wife's bank accounts following the accusations from Malvinder.  

Singh Dhillon and his family members were among 55 people eventually ordered by the Delhi High Court in 2019 to repay 6,000 crore rupees - or nearly NZD$1.3 billion - to the Singh brothers’ flagship holding company RHC Holding as part of a directive to third parties to compensate Daiichi, which alleged non-disclosure of crucial information during the 2008 sale. 

Asked how RSSB might reconcile these allegations, which have not resulted in any charges against Singh Dhillon, with its principles, Baruch ter Wal says the group doesn’t feel it needs to respond. 

US-based author Brian Hines was a member of RSSB for 35 years. Since leaving in 2002 he has become an outspoken critic, particularly about what he sees as hypocrisy within the leadership. 

He describes RSSB as “stranger than your usual religion”, drawing on a study by American psychiatrist and former Harvard Medical School teacher Robert Jay Lifton to make his point. Namely, that the outfit fits the bill for the three criteria Lifton defines as making a cult: a charismatic leader followers must not question; ‘thought reform’ or indoctrination; and exploitation of members. 

“Followers of RSSB believe their leader is a living god. He’s considered an infallible being and his commands are to be carried out without question.”

Doubts about teachings are heavily discouraged and followers are told the human mind is considered to be “the agent of a negative power”, he says.

Hines also says devotees are expected to commit vast amounts of time, energy and money - though this is not enforced - to the organisation, which operates strictly as a top-down hierarchy. 

Ter Wal says members are not encouraged to donate, and while they are made aware of opportunities to volunteer, that too is optional. He also says the nature of RSSB’s way of life can lead to retrospective negativity.

“The lifestyle is quite rigorous, so if you become disillusioned, you could look back at 10 years and go ‘Oh shit, I wasted 10 years of my life, I could have been out there earning money and watching Andrew Tate videos’. And so you could get resentful about that, and feel like ‘I was brainwashed’ so the teachings are the teachings and if you fall out of love with them then you could say it was groupthink ... which comes with the territory.” 

RSSB guru mentioned in Business Standard story of Singh Brothers financial misdeeds

Recently India's Business Standard published a good overview of Malvinder and Shivinder Singh's financial problems -- a story I've been following here at the Church of the Churchless because the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is implicated in the fraudulent behavior.

And there's nothing I enjoy more than pointing out the pitfall of religious belief and having blind faith in the people who lead them. Well, of course there are other things I enjoy more. Carrot cake, for one.

But spiritual hypocrisy deeply irks me, as when Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru, preaches that returning to God should be the primary aim of human life, then spends his own life raking in hundreds of millions of dollars for himself and his family in a questionable fashion.

Below is the Business Standard story. I've boldfaced the mention of Dhillon. Here's some blog posts I wrote that pertain to what's said in the story about the RSSB guru. I'm also sharing a related PDF file.

https://hinessight.blogs.com/files/fortis-fraud-may-exceed-2-000-crore-says-sfio.pdf
https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2019/02/another-story-about-gurinder-singh-dhillons-financial-wrongdoing.html
https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2018/09/investigations-of-financial-illegality-circle-closer-to-rssb.html
https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2019/03/why-gurinder-singh-dhillon-is-a-lot-like-donald-trump.html
https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2019/06/whats-next-for-the-rssb-gurusingh-brothers-scandal.html

Before we get into the details of the current case, let's learn some history. In the 1980s, Parvinder Singh inherited Ranbaxy from his father, Bhai Mohan Singh, a wealthy contractor who hailed from Rawalpindi. What had started out as a small pharma business in Amritsar had by then grown into an empire. At a time when most Indian drug-makers were looking inwards, Parvinder decided to take Ranbaxy into international markets. By the time he passed away in 1999, he left behind a global pharma major.

And, the way in which Parvinder’s sons, Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, squandered away the empire in subsequent years has become the stuff of corporate folklore. According to reports, Malvinder and Shivinder squandered away Rs 22,500 crore over the span of just one decade.

So, what are the particulars of the case in which the latest orders have come? Former Ranbaxy promoters Malvinder and Shivinder Singh have been accused of concealing information about wrongdoings at Ranbaxy when they sold a majority stake in it to Daiichi Sankyo, a Japanese firm, in 2008. In 2016, the Singapore tribunal awarded Daiichi Rs 3,500 crore in damages. In 2018, Daiichi Sankyo approached the Indian Supreme Court with the allegation that the Singh brothers were diverting funds using a number of shell companies to avoid the payments. Daiichi had also approached the apex court to stop a deal between Fortis and Malaysia-based IHH Group. As part of the deal, the IHH Group was set to acquire a 30 per cent stake in the Fortis group for 1.1 billion dollars with an open offer of 26 per cent stake. While the deal was signed in August 2018, the SC stayed the IHH open offer in December that same year.

But, this too is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg since there are several other cases against the Singh brothers. In October of 2019, Malvinder and Shivinder were arrested by the Economic Offenses Wing of the Delhi Police for allegedly diverting money and causing losses to the tune of Rs 2,397 crore. The allegations were related to Religare Enterprises Limited, or REL, a company that was once led by the brothers. They were accused of diverting money from Religare Finvest Limited, or RFL, an REL subsidiary. According to the allegations, the brothers and other REL officials took loans in RFL's name and then diverted the money to other firms.

In 2019, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, or SFIO, was also probing their role in an alleged fund diversion at Fortis Healthcare. After its initial probe, the SFIO had said that it believed that the fraud could be to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore. The Securities and Exchange Board of India and the SFIO suspected that the Singh brothers had diverted public money from Fortis Healthcare to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the head of Radha Soami Satsang Beas and other religious bodies.

Long before the recent wranglings, there was also the episode with Dinesh Thakur, the whistle-blower who put Ranbaxy in the dock. Thakur joined Ranbaxy in 2003. But, in 2005, Thakur quit and waved a red flag about alleged violations and irregularities at the pharma company. Thakur ended up working with US authorities to expose the fraud and even filed a lawsuit to hold Ranbaxy accountable. Eventually, Ranbaxy pleaded guilty to making fraudulent statements to US regulatory authorities about how it tested drugs at its Indian plants. The firm had to pay $500 million to resolve the civil and criminal violations.

It remains to be seen if the recent developments will be the final chapter of their downfall, or whether more skeletons might tumble out of their cupboard. What we know for sure is that Malvinder and Shivinder Singh have all but destroyed the legacy of their grandfather Bhai Mohan Singh and father Parvinder.

Finally, some news about the Singh Brothers/RSSB financial scandal

It's been quite a while since there's been any news about the financial scandal involving brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), and others connected with RSSB such as Sunil Godhwani. 

Here's screenshots of a story in The Times of India that was published yesterday. I'll comment on the story below.

It's difficult to understand why, exactly, the Singh brothers were jailed. In 2019 I wrote about how the Supreme Court had issued a contempt decree against them, but didn't enforce it. Here's part of what I said in that blog post.

Not being familiar with Indian legal language, which differs some from what's used here in the United States, I'm assuming that "reserved its order' means that for now Malvinder and Shivinder Singh aren't being served with a contempt of court order, even though they haven't paid the Rs 3,500 crore [$507 million] arbitration award to Daiichi Sankyo.

So it appears they're being given more time to come up with the money, though the story goes on to say that the Supreme Court justices weren't happy with the progress made by the Singh brothers on this front.

The "baba" who duped the Singh brothers, according to Malvinder Singh's attorney, is Gurinder Sigh Dhillon -- who allegedly siphoned off Rs 6,300 crore from companies once controlled by the brothers. That's $913 million.

It looks to me, from the last paragraph in the excerpt above, that Malvinder wanted the court to order the sale of properties owned by the Dhillon family (and maybe others also) that were bought via the siphoned/fraudulently-obtained Rs 6,300 crore worth of money.

But the court said, "No, you sell the properties on your own."

Much, if not most, of the above-mentioned money went into real estate investments made by the Dhillon family. Another Business Today story, "How Singh brothers got into trouble -- bit by bit," includes mentions of the RSSB guru and his role in the downfall of the Singh brothers business empire. Here's excerpts from the timeline.

It still appears that Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru, is responsible for financial fraud. At the moment Dhillon is akin to Donald Trump: people close to him have been indicted and jailed, while so far the guru hasn't been held to account.

But this situation could change, though I've heard that the legal system in India doesn't always hand out justice fairly or in a timely manner. (Same is true in the United States, but India reportedly is more prone to legal favoritism.)

In June 2019 the RSSB guru was among those ordered by the High Court of Delhi to repay money owed to the Singh brothers that could then be used by Malvinder and Shivinder to pay the award to Daiichi.

The guru and his family owed a lot, $842 million -- which is an outlandish amount of money for a guru who is considered to be God in Human Form and preaches about the need to make god-realization the top priority in life.

For other people, I guess. Gurinder Singh Dhillon seems to view making money through means fair or foul as his top priority. 

 

How the RSSB teachings preserve the illusion of a "perfect master"

Religions evolve in accord with a sort of cultural natural selection.

If a religion is obviously false, not being able to back up its claims with demonstrable evidence even though that evidence supposedly is there for all to see, then it won't take long for people to reject the religion and it dies out.

So many religions rely on a claim that only after a believer dies are they able to know the truth of the faith that they followed while alive. That's an easy way out of the "where's the evidence?" problem.

But what's a religion to do when the divine being at the core of the faith is a human who looks just like everybody else, yet is believed to be God in Human Form possessing all of the powers of the Almighty? How does the religion reconcile the human's outward averageness with their supposed inward godliness?

Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is an India-based religion led by a guru who is considered to be just that: God in Human Form. I was an active member of RSSB for 35 years, so I'm familiar with the techniques this religion uses to deflect pointed questions about the guru's divinity.

Here's some examples that I've taken from a book published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas, "Philosophy of the Masters (Abridged)" by Sawan Singh -- the RSSB guru from 1903-1948 who often is called the Great Master. So what he says has a lot of RSSB credibility.

My comments on the excerpts from the book (pp. 221-233) are in italics. 

To know a Master or to understand His real significance or reality is, in fact very difficult. To do this, discerning eyes like His own are necessary. Only a Godman can know a Godman. How can a person, who is confined in the case of the body, realize the Lord's glory? Unless we are as great as he is, we cannot understand Him.

OK. But the guru has, or is, a body just like everyone else. So how is someone able to know that the RSSB guru is God inside while being human outside? There's no way to know, it appears, unless someone becomes God in Human Form just as the guru is supposed to be. Nice way of making sure that no ordinary mortal challenges the divinity of the guru.

Unless the Lord or the True Being is Himself kind to a person, that person will not recognize the Guru as Guru. Unless the perfect Master, who is Truth incarnate, reveals himself, one cannot recognize him. Even if the Master should live next door, an undeveloped person would not know him. Very often, the members of a perfect Master's own family fail to recognize his stature.

Here too, we see that the RSSB teachings claim that no one can tell that the guru is perfect, Truth incarnate, unless the guru chooses to reveal himself. If that doesn't happen, the guru appears like an ordinary person, even to members of his own family. Again, this serves to deflect doubts about the guru's godliness, since if you have doubts, it's because the guru hasn't been kind to you.

A perfect Master can, with a single glance, find out one's inner condition. He then instructs us according to our condition. When anyone visits him he can see the visitor's inner condition as if that person were encased in transparent glass, but he keeps it a secret.

Ah, so the RSSB guru supposedly is all-knowing as regards a visitor's inner condition, yet doesn't reveal what he knows. Kind of like a magician who says, "I could show you this amazing trick, but I'm not going to, so you'll have to believe that I'm doing it even though there's no sign I'm doing it."

The perfect Master in an incarnation of the Lord. Just as the Lord communicates His teachings to the Saints without the agency of speech, similarly, the Saints impart their message to their disciples by means of internal experiences, and without the use of speech.

So the RSSB guru appears like an ordinary person to everyone who he chooses not to reveal his godly nature to, and the guru also teaches his disciples internally without the use of speech. Pretty crafty. Easy to understand why so many look upon the guru as a normal human being.

With perfect Masters it often happens that seekers after Truth have no need to put questions during discourses. They get answers to their questions without asking them.

Wow, it gets even better. Not only are the answers given by the guru communicated without speech, so are the questions. This means that when the guru is just sitting with disciples, wordlessly doing nothing. that's when everything is going on. If you're gullible enough to believe that.

Despite the fact that he is all-powerful, he does not boast that he can do anything out of the ordinary. He always says that it is the Lord who does something, or that it is being done by his Sat Guru. Truly, a fruit-laden branch bends humbly.

Thus it doesn't go any good to ask the guru if he is God in Human Form, because he won't admit that he is anything but ordinary. Yet as we've seen, if the guru appears ordinary, RSSB teaches that this is because the guru hasn't deigned to be kind to the person who sees him that way. 

He does not perform miracles like a juggler to please his audience. Although he is all-powerful, he keeps his powers hidden. But he does sometimes use them if he is so disposed. His disciples are always benefitted by his grace.

Hmmmm. The RSSB guru doesn't perform miracles to please an audience, so that's why no one sees him doing miraculous things. However, sometimes the guru does do miracles to please himself. So the RSSB teachings have it both ways: if you don't observe any miracles, that's what the guru wants; if you do observe a purported miracle, that's also what the guru wants.

Whenever Saints and holy men appear, they sometimes create an atmosphere which is not liked by the worldly-minded people. They do so, so that the slaves of the world and worshippers of mammon, who often gather round them like flies, may leave them, and the real seekers may not suffer. They intentionally provide some cause for criticism so that only the deserving will come to them.

This is probably my favorite RSSB ploy to prop up faith in the guru's Godman stature, no matter what the guru does. If the guru appears to act badly, as the current RSSB guru (Gurinder Singh Dhillon) has done, this is because he wants to make sure only the deserving will come to him and stick by him. And of course, if the guru acts in a good way, this shows his divinity. So whether the guru is bad or good, this shows he is a perfect Master. 

Reminds me a lot of how Donald Trump's devotees view their political master. He can do no wrong, because even when he seems to do wrong, there's a good reason for his actions.

Best way to change someone's mind is to let them change it on their own

I've read another chapter in How Minds Change, by David McRaney.

This one is called "Deep Canvassing," as opposed to the shallow sort of canvassing that I've done occasionally where you knock on the door of a person you want to encourage to vote in a certain way, have a brief chat with them, and hand them a brochure about your favored candidate.

Deep Canvassing is the brainchild of a California group, the Leadership LAB (stands for Learn Act Build), which is the political action arm of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the largest LGBTQ organization on earth.

The LAB wanted to change opinions about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other people with a queer identity. Through a lot of experience knocking on doors in southern California and having fairly lengthy conversations with people, they evolved an approach to changing minds that research has shown to be effective even with just a single conversation.

(See here and here for stories in the Atlantic and New York Times about that research.)

Below are excerpts from the Deep Canvassing chapter that provide a pretty good overview of what was found to work, and not to work, in changing minds. Basically, providing facts or arguing with someone rarely is productive. Encouraging the person to think about their own thinking -- that's the way to change a mind.

Naturally my own mind wondered about how that applies to this Church of the Churchless blog. After all, since 2004 I've been encouraging people to be spiritually independent rather than a follower of an organized religion, mystical path, or form of spirituality.

Since regular commenters on this blog run the gamut from avid religious believer to fervent atheist, over the years I've observed that by and large, trying to convince someone to alter their frame of mind regarding religion/God/spirituality may be interesting and entertaining, but almost always fruitless.

My own conversion from religious believer to skeptic was along the line of what the LAB folks found, albeit slower. The change in my outlook didn't come from any outside pressure. It evolved organically over quite a few years as, bit by bit, I came to see things differently as regards the guru-led organization I was a member of for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

If someone had come to my door during the time I was a RSSB devotee and told me that I'd be better off leaving the group, I would have shut the door in their face. Instead, Laurel, the woman I married in 1990 after getting divorced from my first wife, would simply ask questions about RSSB, some of which I had difficulty answering.

I didn't have a dramatic change of heart about RSSB in the same way the LAB has found that attitudes to LGBTQ people can sometimes alter significantly after a single meaningful conversation. Probably this is because religious beliefs tend to be more complex and more central to a person's identity than how they feel about gays.

But my many talks with Laurel about our spiritual beliefs (at the time she followed a New Age channeler, which caused me to question her about him) seemed to help sow some seeds within my mind that eventually sprouted into me changing my mind about RSSB.

Here's the chapter excerpts. The "I," of course, is the author, David McRaney.

I couldn't shake the idea that I, too, was probably one conversation away from changing my mind about something, maybe a lot of things. But I also recalled how many conversations I'd had that only made my convictions stronger.

I thought about the truthers and all the conversations they had in New York. I wondered what made these interactions different. 

In the training after the videos, Laura handed things over to Steve, and I got my first clue. He opened by telling the crowd that facts don't work. A serene man with a gentle and patient spirit, Steve put away his persistent smile and raised his voice to address the audience on this point.

"There is no superior argument, no piece of information that we can offer, that is going to change their mind," he said, taking a long pause before continuing.

"The only way they are going to change their mind is by changing their own mind -- by talking themselves through their own thinking, by processing things they've never thought about before, things from their own life that are going to help them see things differently."

He stood by a paper easel on which Laura had drawn a cartoon layer cake. Steve pointed to the smallest portion at the top with a candle sticking out. It was labeled "rapport," the next smallest layer was "our story," and the huge base was "their story."

He said to keep that image in mind while standing in front of someone, to remember to spend as little time as possible talking about yourself, just enough to show that you are friendly, that you aren't selling anything.

Show you are genuinely interested in what they have to say. That, he said, keeps them from assuming a defensive position. You should share your story, he said, pointing to the portion of the cake that sat on top of the biggest layer, but it's their story that should take up most of the conversation.

You want them to think about their own thinking.

The team tossed out lots of metaphors like these. For instance, Steve later said to think of questions as keys on a giant ring. If you keep asking and listening, he told the crowd, one of those keys was bound to unlock the door to a personal experience related to the topic.

Once that real, lived memory was out in the open, you could (if done correctly) steer the conversation away from the world of conclusions with their facts googled for support, away from ideological abstractions and into the world of concrete details from that individual's personal experiences.

It was there, and only there, he said, that a single conversation could change someone's mind.

...Steve would tell me later that they had learned over many conversations that reasons, justifications, and explanations for maintaining one's existing opinion can be endless, spawning like heads of a hydra. If you cut away one, two more would appear to take its place.

Deep canvassers want to avoid that unwinnable fight. To do that they allow a person's justifications to remain unchallenged. They nod and listen.

The idea is to move forward, make the person feel heard and respected, avoid arguing over a person's conclusions, and instead work to discover the motivations behind them. To that end, the next step is to evoke a person's emotional response to the issue. 

...I nodded, still unsure why facts and logic were such a bad idea.

Steve explained that after thousands of recorded conversations they had found that battling over differing interpretations of the evidence kept the people they met from exploring why they felt so strongly one way or the other.

People could remain in the logic space doing battle with the canvasser's facts for hours and never leave, safe and unable to tap into why those facts evoked such powerful feelings. The LAB tried arguing the facts for years, and it had long proved a waste of time.

"Doing this work has taught me that people make their decisions about issues like this, in their life and when they're voting, at a really emotional, visceral level," said Steve.

"What I envision when I'm standing in front of a voter is that people have this intellectual, logical reasoning process. That's one part of how they process the world and make decisions. But they have this almost entirely separate emotional reasoning process which is based on feelings and things they've experienced."

Steve said they used to hand-hold people and try to walk them through why certain facts should be compelling, why they should obviously change their minds, but his hunch now is that it will never work. 

A canvasser's reasoning can't be copied and pasted into another person. The facts that matter to them probably won't matter to the other person at all.

How minds change. It isn't by brute force.

Since I started this blog in 2004, I've been trying to change the minds of religious believers in the direction of being less dogmatic, judgmental, and rigid.

In this endeavor I've been guided mostly by my own experience and intuition. So when I saw a book review in the July 2 issue of New Scientist about "How Minds Change: The new science of belief, opinion, and persuasion" by David McRaney, I was interested to see what the book is all about.

After all, how many of us have changed our mind about something after someone started screaming in our face that we were wrong, they were right, and we needed to start thinking like them?

In my case, exactly never. So these passages from the review rang true to me.

McRaney spends time with former members of the Westboro Baptist Church in the US, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America", learning how they came to disavow their vitriolic beliefs and become more beneficent to others.

The answer, he finds, isn't willing people to come around to your point of view, but letting them realise the folly of their ways.

...The concept -- that, with more knowledge, long-held hypotheses can be disproved -- isn't likely to be news to New Scientist readers. But it doesn't make McRaney's book any less interesting.

Indeed, his writing is a tonic for those who might scratch their head at how others could be so nonsensical as to distrust vaccines, believe the Earth is flat or subscribe to any other number of conspiracy theories.

It helps shift perceptions from the unhelpful attitude of "this person is stupid and beyond help" to "this person has a different frame of belief, and they can be encouraged to think more deeply about the issue."

Because that is the big discovery of those Californian campaigners and the neuroscientists behind them: simply shouting facts at disbelievers doesn't change their minds, rather it entrenches their belief -- as anyone who has tackled a tricky dinner table conversation will know.

Instead, to change minds, you have to not change minds at all. You have to let people come to their own conclusions -- though, of course, you can help them get there by posing the right questions.

Makes sense. 

When I got remarried in 1990, my second wife, Laurel, didn't share my belief at the time that the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) was God in Human Form. Though she made no attempt to dissuade me from belonging to this India-based religious organization, Laurel would ask good questions.

Such as, how can you be sure the guru is God in Human Form? I'd basically reiterate the RSSB teachings, which came down to an unconvincing "I have faith that this is true and by following the instructions I was given at initiation by the guru, hopefully one day I'll know for sure." 

If Laurel had been been confrontational, I would have become more defensive than I already was, hardening my religious conviction rather than softening it. 

Her questions, though, slowly seeped into my mind, along with other ways that gradually brought me to doubt that what I wanted to be true, actually was. So in the end I came to my own conclusion that I needed to distance myself from the organization that I'd been a devoted member of for 35 years.

That conclusion, though, was the result of all kinds of influences.

My meditation experiences. Books I'd read. Discussions with other RSSB members. Learning more about the guru. Giving talks on behalf of RSSB that required me to ponder which parts of the RSSB teachings seemed reasonable, and which were difficult to believe.

I think it's easier to help someone with changing their mind when you have a genuine relationship with them. This is why counseling can be effective at resolving a personal problem, while reading a book generally isn't. 

On this blog, as is the case with social media in general, most people only know each other as existing in cyberspace, not physical space. This makes it more difficult, though not impossible, to pose questions that will help the other person see things differently, and not be even more determined to look upon those things in the same way.

Appreciative Reader, a frequent commenter on this blog, is quite skilled at this. He's adept at questioning assumptions of other commenters without being excessively confrontational.

For example, recently someone claimed that consciousness has to exist after we die, because nothing existent can be destroyed. Sure, that's a tenet of matter/energy. It changes form, yet still exists. But Appreciative Reader pointed out the obvious.

Since consciousness almost certainly is a product of the brain, then when the brain and body die, changing form into the constituent atoms, consciousness, like life itself, no longer exists -- just atoms do, which become new entities. 

A few cogent questions and observations revealed the hollowness of a belief that consciousness is eternal. I'm not sure if any minds were changed, but they might have been.

Dibloggenes explains the universe in a mere 1,070 words

Here's the second comment from Dibloggenes that I've elevated to the profound status of a Church of the Churchless blog post. (I can hear the typing of Dibloggenes as he redoes his resume to include this newfound honor; the first elevated blog post is here.)

I admire any and all attempts to explain the universe, especially when they clock in at a sparse 1,070 words. The Bible, Newton's Principia, and Darwin's Origin of Species are all much longer. And, without the occasional bursts of humor that make Dibloggenes' treatise more sparkly than it would otherwise be.

One reason I like what follows is that it mentions the One so often. If your interest in the One is stimulated by Dibloggenes, clearly your best move is to buy my book, "Return to the One: Plotinus's Guide to God-Realization." I can't guarantee that the One will be pleased with this, but I sure will be.

Enjoy...

And now, as previously threatened: The Universe Explained for Dummies. These are my own conclusions to date, subject to revision at any time. They have been abbreviated to allow the reader less of a commitment to follow along. I have placed these under four topic headings to make it easier to dismiss large chunks of my thinking at one fell swoop.

THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM
1) In a universe that requires material (or attenuated material) bodies to manifest the limitless creative urge of the One, by necessity this involves conflict, i.e., the introduction of the no longer unitary awareness. This is a concomitant of the polarities we see everywhere, and that have been philosophized about for 3000 years, give or take.

2) We are steeped in the appearance of “individuation.” This is prior to individuality, which is a showing forth of those tendencies we associate with personality. Individuation is simply the atomizing of everyone and everything into constituent parts. Our senses report at a level in normal consciousness that what we perceive is real, but actually it is an abstraction. If we could see at the energetic level ( more than a few claim this ability) we would understand foreground and background, player and play are really all just one.

3) Human beings have truly made God in man’s own image. Believers are so wedded to the idea of a personal God that they are horrified at the suggestion this may not be true. Test it yourself: you’ll find folks are more gracious to quiet atheism than they are to a quiet belief in an impersonal deity. And what is that, but no more than the One, the unitary consciousness, that which precedes any individuation at any level, conceivable or not.

FROM THAT FLOWS
A personal God is a god...

1) Who is free to pick winners and losers; 2) to have chosen people and nations as His main squeeze; 3) to appeal to as if He were deaf and dumb to our needs; 4) who will remain forever an enigma to us as the problem of the origin of evil is one that monotheism never has been able to satisfactorily scrape from the bottom of its shoe.

Instead, think Universal/Unchangeable/Immutable Law. This Law subsumes all lesser laws, known and unknown, on all levels of manifested existence. Magic is the conscious or unconscious understanding and application of the Law, either in white (selfless) or black (selfish) flavors. The vast majority of humankind practice gray magic throughout their life, alternating between white and black as their lower faculties buffet them.

The One IS the Law; the One is A collective dynamic, for lack of a better term, that is inexorable in its workings. All justice, all mercy, all vengeance, all indifference are contained within it in exquisite balance. Appealing to It is pointless, as it already has done the math and set in motion the sequence of events most conducive to the ends of the One. When miracles happen after prayers are made, it is because the faithful harnessed the Law, albeit without their knowing it.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF EARTH LIFE?
Assuming there IS a purpose, I propose it is the conscious re-integration of the faux individual personality into a unfettered experience of unity with the One, an oceanic immersion that overwhelms our sense of isolated individuality. Sound familiar? Sure it does; it’s been preached by esoteric schools and natural mystics for thousands of years. It also dovetails nicely with the idea if we are looking for the anchor that keeps us in the world’s harbor, look to individuation. Examine it, turn it to and fro and really understand what it is...and what it is not.

Our individuality, from life to life, seems to be as substantial as leaves, twigs and grass that are swirled together in a stream by the various eddies and vortexes. This flotsam comes together due to obeying certain laws of fluid dynamics, but there is no substantial reality to this observed instance. It may drift downstream, or break up before our eyes.

Was it real? Yes. What was the purpose? None we may discern. What happened to the wreckage when it dissolved? Went their separate ways, perhaps to reunite, perhaps never to be in contact again. Why would we care if “we” don’t continue since the vast majority of humanity have no recollection of anything more than early childhood. The cases of seeming recall of a previous life is more interesting as it brings into focus the question, “What is doing the remembering here?”

TORA! TORA! TORA! DERA! DERA! DERA!
How do the above conclusions pertain to the value of participating in Sant Mat, and RSS Beas flavor? I believe the Audible Lifestream is an authentic account of how humans may experience a direct connection with the Law, that foundation and organizing principle of all creation.

For anyone who cares to spend the time assaying the world’s esoteric literature and reports of mystics, it appears to me to be a foregone conclusion that concept is a more or less accurate representation of a phenomenon foreign to all but a relative few.

However, for those few, I do not doubt the authenticity of that experience. In fact, how we choose to engage with this Word—when once we are made aware of it—is the crux of the question of participation in the most important activity we will ever undertake in this life.

Do we need a guru to connect us to it? Some gurus say yes, some gurus say no. What is the appropriate response if we believe our Contact may not be of the caliber we assumed was required? The truth is, each one of us by necessity must own our beliefs. Who calls us, who is worthy, what sect or branch do we trust, why am I feeling shaky on this path?

We can’t escape the need to erect a superstructure of beliefs, whether they originate within ourselves, are influenced by the thinking of others, or blindly follow someone who claims insights that we don’t possess. Those who claim no religious beliefs have expressed their own beliefs. This is an unavoidable and inevitable outcome. The question is, what will be our response to it?

If you’ve read this far, please use the code VISINE 2022 upon checkout to help with the eyestrain you are probably experiencing. Have a great Sunday!

An entertaining message about RSSB from Dibloggenes

I love to get emails from people who are having doubts about the religious organization I belonged to for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). When a message is written in an entertaining fashion, I doubly love that email.

Here's what someone who wants to be known as Dibloggenes had to say to me, along with my response.

For those who aren't familiar with some terms in the message, Gurinder Singh Dhillon is the current RSSB guru who has been in a lot of controversy. Tara was a frequent commenter on this blog some years back who was a well-informed and eloquent critic of RSSB and Dhillon. Kal is how RSSB refers to the Devil, or Negative Power. Charan Singh appointed Dhillon to be the successor guru before Charan died.

Hello, Brian:

As these things are wont to do, I came across your Church of the Churchless blog re Gurinder Singh Dhillon one day after I decided to try reconnecting with satsang after 20+ years of non-involvement. Does the Lord loveth a cheerful heart or what?

 

I think if I had read material like this when I was still participating it would have been shattering, but at this stage, I am 100% on-board with the Theosophists: "There is no religion higher than Truth."

 

I am fine with discovering my inclination to return either was 1) a blinding flash of spiritual illumination that you, Tara and Kal are trying hard to derail, or, 2) a wholly unproductive idea that confirms the value of my long-ago separation from the fold.

 

A couple of questions, if you would indulge me:

• • Is there a page that covers your journey away from RSSB?
  • What are your thoughts now, if any change from the blog posts I saw of a couple of years ago?
  • Do you think it is worthwhile for others to still post and respond on your blog re these topics or do you feel everything has been said that is germane, and one either stays or bails?

I immersed myself in all the back and forth chatter that your blog offered and I will say, at this point, my default position is this is not a case of the guru picking his nose/huddling in a hut with a nubile young woman/asking a disciple to eat a corpse, all to dissuade the unworthy lukewarm.

 

My draft opinion is that, as those in this lineage predicted, RSS Beas has become a religious institution, heir to all the foibles that entails, and that it no longer should be looked to for spiritual guidance or comfort.

 

Not to excavate everything now, but the most troubling thing to me that a rogue guru calls into question is an almost infinite regression of perfect saints and their judgement/insight.

 

If Gurinder is not kosher, so to speak, that means Charan didn't have insight re a worthy successor, and if that's the case, you just keep running back in the hall of mirrors for the whole line. If you're going to claim an uninterrupted line of perfect gurus, you can't have this kind of seeming corruption of the teachings in the leader. Who's guarding the gurus?

 

My thinking is now to continue as I have in the intervening decades and simply chart my own course, reflect on the words of the best who have come before, and avoid the third-party risk that trusting someone who claims spiritual intermediation brings along with the promises made.

 

A sincere thanks for posting your thoughts on this, at least to me, important topic...and also to Tara, in absentia. Like Jamie Dimon, you're doing God's work : ))

 

Well, I really like the idea that I'm doing God's work by promoting an atheist point of view on this blog, since that would show what I've always suspected -- that God doesn't believe in herself. 

 

But after consulting another form of divinity, the Great God Google, it appears to me that I shouldn't be compared to Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, but to Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs.

 

LONDON (Reuters) - The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has attracted widespread media attention over the size of its staff bonuses, believes banks serve a social purpose and are doing “God’s work.”

Regarding the questions I was asked by Dibloggenes, this was my response.

 

I’ve written a lot about my journey away from RSSB. One attempt is here, which includes some links to previous attempts:

 

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2019/03/my-definitive-answer-to-why-i-left-radha-soami-satsang-beas.html

 

My attitude toward RSSB hasn’t changed in the past few years. I give RSSB little thought, writing about it mostly only when someone else brings it up, or there’s some news in the Indian press about Gurinder’s financial and other troubles. 

 

As I sometimes observe, if I was a lapsed Mormon, I’d be writing about what I didn’t like about the Mormon Church. Since I spent 35 years as an active RSSB member, I use RSSB as an example of what can go wrong with religion.

 

Good question, whether everything has been said on my blog that is germane. Probably. But since I’m addicted to blogging, and I enjoy sharing my thoughts about philosophy, science, neuroscience, and all that, I keep on with this blog, which I started in 2004 — about a thousand years in blog years.

 

The cast of characters keeps changing, meaning the frequent commenters. Strangely, or maybe not, many of those commenters are fervent RSSB devotees. I’ve stopped trying to understand why.

Examples of RSSB guru's authoritarianism

Since there's currently some comment discussion about whether the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is an authoritarian who believes he can do whatever he wants, being considered God in Human Form by devotees, here's links to some blog posts I've written about questionable activities during the reign of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the current RSSB guru. There's more posts, but this is a good sample.

(I keep adding to the list as I think of additional blog posts I've written over the years that pertain to this subject.)

Malvinder's criminal complaint casts light on RSSB guru's role in financial fraud
Devastating criticism of Gurinder Singh Dhillon by a RSSB insider
Delhi Police financial fraud charges point to RSSB guru's involvement
Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru, accused of making death threats
Sheetal Talwar talks about death threat made from RSSB satsang office
Sheena's "Memoirs of a Seeker" throws light on Gurinder Singh Dhillon
Bloomberg story shows Gurinder Singh Dhillon's shady business dealings
RSSB guru appears to have lied about his financial problems
Shocking tale of a punch in the face at a RSSB meeting
RSSB guru and his family ordered to repay up to $842 million
RSSB fined $484,000 after Haynes Park death
Gurinder Singh Dhillon ignores sexual abuse of a child

Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru

I respond to a B.S. comment about my 52 years of meditation

UPDATE: Spence Tepper has apologized to me for his ridiculous attempt to claim that my 35 years of daily meditation while a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, usually for several hours a day, amounted to "nothing." Good for Spence. He recognized how wrong he was.

Hopefully from now on he will realize that my approach to meditation is the wise one: don't challenge someone's personal experience in meditation, but DO challenge any claim that this experience proves the existence of a supernatural realm beyond the physical.

Spence doesn't like my skepticism toward his brand of religious fundamentalism. I've pointed out to him that his proselytizing comments are being left on a Church of the Churchless blog, not a Church of the Churched blog. For 18 years I've criticized religious fundamentalists who want others to believe in their dogma without any evidence. I sure won't stop now.

One of the joys, if that's the right word, of having a churchless blog for the past 18 years is that I get a lot of first hand experience responding to religious fundamentalists who, for reasons known only to them, like to leave judgmental comments on a blog devoted to spiritual independence.

Here's a latest example, a comment from Spence Tepper today which was so ridiculous, I figured it deserved to be elevated to a blog post so its absurdity could be on fuller display. My responses to Tepper are in bold italics. 

Hi Brian Ji
You wrote
"Hope this clarifies things. Demanding proof of someone who, say, claims to have experienced the divine sound and light that creates and sustains the cosmos is fully warranted."

Exactly. And that's why there is the meditation.

Had you conducted the practice with any discipline at all you would have your own evidence first hand.

Wrong assumption #1. I was initiated by Charan Singh into the practice of meditation as taught by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) in 1971, after first learning to meditate from a yoga teacher while in college.

I diligently followed the RSSB meditation instructions for 35 years. Never missed a day of meditation. Mostly I meditated for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours a day. When I was working and had a young child, it was more difficult to do the prescribed 2 1/2 hours. So I had plenty of discipline in my meditation. You shouldn't make assumptions about someone else's meditation experience.

Also, hope you realize that RSSB stresses that initiates shouldn't talk about their meditation experiences. I'm OK with this being done, since I've done it myself. But you, like me, are breaking a RSSB rule.

You could have said," Yes, I saw the blinding light and have been able to reproduce it at will. Then I saw the sun, then the moon. I'm convinced it is simply the brain gaining access to signal directly outside the visual nervous system....but why the sun, why the moon? I'm still investigating to try to see where these images may have come from. They are far more intense than memory, especially when I can take time to look at them, even approach them... "

You could have developed a real theory around real information.

I did develop a real theory around real information. Based on my 35 years of RSSB meditation experience, and countless (almost) conversations with other members of RSSB about meditation, I've come to the conclusion that while some people report seeing scenes of supernatural regions of existence beyond the physical, almost certainly these don't reflect an objective reality but rather are subjective emanations of their brains, since there is no demonstrable evidence of those supernatural regions other than subjective reports.

Now all you have is the second hand evidence of the founders of every religion. And of every mystic who ever lived and documented what they went through.

Utterly false statement. There are lots of different approaches to meditation. What I experienced during my 35 years of RSSB meditation was very close to, if not exactly, how Buddhist and Taoist teachings describe meditation. I felt my self slipping away, probably because I don't have or am a self. I felt a sense of unity with all things, probably because everything is interdependent. Mystics have all sorts of different experiences. I don't really consider myself a mystic, but I've certainly had mystical experiences that are very difficult to describe in words.

Yes it evidence. And yes it deserves to be evaluated. But the only way to do this objectively is create the conditions to recreate the experience in your own lab and then you may test it as millions of others have done and are doing every day, with any way you like, including testing your own hypothesis about the causes.

You failed to do this.

Not true. I conducted the experiment of meditation, RSSB style, for 35 years. I've written a lot on this blog about what I found. Use the search box in the right sidebar to find those posts. Your fundamentalist attitude prevents you from realizing that different people can meditate and have very different meditation experiences. There isn't one right way to meditate, and there isn't one genuine meditation experience. If you believe there is, you're hugely mistaken about what meditation is all about. 

Let me be more pointed, Brian Ji.

You didn't have to reproduce the entire journey.

Again, you're assuming there's only one journey people take in meditation. Actually, people have all kinds of different journeys. 

Any part of it would have been fine. But what you report is zero.

Not at all. Every day I meditate, continuing to the present -- today -- I have a decidedly-nonzero meditation experience. Just because it isn't your experience doesn't make it any less meaningful or valid for me. 

That's practically impossible.

It's very possible. You should get out more and talk with other people about their meditation experiences. Since I did so much public speaking for RSSB, wrote three books on behalf of RSSB, and was the secretary of our local group for many years, as noted above I've talked with lots of people about meditation. Again, a Buddhist or Taoist would find my meditation experiences perfectly compatible with their spiritual outlook.

Anyone with a minimum of self-discipline can conduct any of a variety of meditation methods and at least watch their thoughts.

I've done that, and much more, for 52 years of daily meditation. It's astounding how you believe that, without ever having met me or knowing me in person, somehow you believe that you're privy to what I've experienced in meditation. How do you think you know this? Obviously it isn't possible. 

They could at least report what was happening to their body as they did so... And as they worked to gain some control, some level of mastery.

Geez, unbelievable. All of your own meditation sure hasn't affected the Judgmental part of your brain. I could ask, "Spence, how could you do so much meditation and end up such a religious fundamentalist with an exaggerated sense of your own divinity?" Oops, looks like I did just ask that.

They could at least notice the change in their thinking during meditation. And even learn how their brain reacts to different thoughts, how simran works, how distraction alters your level of consciousness wakefulness, and how focus raises it to observe more thoughts, their seeds and their destination all at the same time.

Been there. Done that. For 52 years.

But you report zero.

Wrong.

Not only does that make no sense at all. It is downright suspicious.

And not in any way scientific.

So there is no point in leaping to conclusions when you have not made the least effort to note just exactly what happened and to report it here for peer review. Then we can discuss what is going on within.

Why? I'm preaching the gospel of spiritual independence on this blog. I don't view meditation the way you do, as a way of demonstrating how evolved meditation has made me. I see meditation as a form of mental exercise and relaxation, in much the same way I view physical exercise. Tai Chi helps me understand what my body can do. Meditation helps me realize what my mind can do.  

As to what others report, they are reporting what happened to them, not for you to take second hand, but to note as their guide, testable reference points. Your own experience from your own effort is all that matters.

Hey, I agree with your last sentence. So why did you write this lengthy comment, most of which goes against what you just said?

The other testimony is meaningless to you because clearly you didn't take it seriously. Sorry to be so blunt.

I'm sorry to be so blunt in return, but you're totally wrong.

But you are being less than candd to suggest that 35 years x 365 days x 2.5 hours was spent entirely unconscious.

Wrong again. Amazing how many times you can be wrong in one blog post comment. I was awake and aware for virtually every moment in my 52 years of daily meditation. Sure, occasionally I fell asleep, but that was fairly rare.

31, 937.5 hours...

That's not meditation. It's sleep.

And what you just said isn't an intelligent observation. It's bullshit. 

Cognitive dissonance is alive and well in commenters on this blog

It's amusing to observe how much work some religious believers who comment on my blog posts go to in defending an obvious fact. 

A recent example is me stating in several blog posts that the notion of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) guru being God in Human Form, or GIHF, is a central RSSB tenet. How can you have a "Path of the Saints" without a saint?

The whole rationale behind the RSSB teachings is that God manifests in the form of a Perfect Living Master (PLM) to guide souls back to Him, because otherwise God remains an unseen, unheard, unknown entity beyond the bounds of time and space.

Today "Appreciative Reader," a commenter who almost always makes a lot of sense, wrote a comment that made me think, right-on. I've shared it below. The blog post the comment was left on is "RSSB teachings: 'The perfect Master is the Lord in human flesh'."

The quotations in the comment below come from another commenter, Spence Tepper. I'll observe that Charan Singh, a previous RSSB guru, said "We're unable to look at simple things in a simple way," or words to that effect. I no longer agree with a lot of what Charan Singh taught, but I heartily agree with that sentiment.

As Appreciative Reader says, it's a simple fact that RSSB teaches that the guru is God in Human Form. Anyone who can't recognize that in a simple way is willfully ignoring reality.

"The belief in GIHF isn't actually encouraged by the Masters, as you see here."

Ha ha ha, back playing cat and mouse, are we? Regardless of what's said *here*, GIHF/PLM has been referenced, as a core teaching, plenty of times *elsewhere*, as Brian's amply shown, and as you've agreed with him already; and indeed, as you've admitted to me as well, and what's more even put forward a conjecture about why they have done it. So no, it isn't true that belief in GIHF isn't actually encouraged in RSSB. Quite the contrary.

"Here is what Maharaj Charan Singh said about this in answer to a question: ...In the beginning we should just take him as a preacher or a teacher or a guide. And when we go in, we will realize what he does for us. We automatically see what he is. In the beginning we are just to take him as a guide, as a friend, as a leader, somebody to put us on the path. Then we ourselves will realize more and more why we need him..."

That's complete, utter BS. Sure that's what MCS says here, but had that been what RSSB is actually doing, then like I'd said they'd simply have actually walked the talk, and actually taught that the master is simply a teacher, and left the initiate to find out for himself what there is to find out. They wouldn't have taught that the master is GIHF, in that case.

You can't have it both ways. You can't, at the end of a long chase, after finally having been cornered, buckle down and admit that RSSB teaches GIHF/PLM; and after I ask, then after a few further rounds of the chasing-the-tail routine, finally buckle down again and put forward your conjecture about why it is RSSB teaches GIHF/PLM; and then after all of that suddenly change tacks and try to present a random quote and basis that quote try to claim, afresh, all over again, that RSSB does not actually teach GIHF.

That's simply trying the old cat-and-mouse routine all over again, that carousel ride I referred to in my first comment in this thread.

Brian had been wondering why you, and a few others following your lead, are trying to claim that RSSB does not teach GIHF/PLM, when it is plain as day that they do. The answer, I conclude, from all of these exchanges, is cognitive dissonance plain and simple.

As I've clearly shown here, RSSB teaches blind faith in essence exactly as the monotheisms do, despite the vow-not-vow thing. That's exactly what my last comment to you was about. To admit that would be to show up RSSB in an unflattering light, as a purveyor of woo; to admit that is to back oneself into a position there can be no defending against rational criticism; therefore the kneejerk reaction is to try to slide off to a different position, even if that position isn't quite based in reality.

Hence these incessant sidebars, and changing the subject, and verbal feints and tricks galore, in these threads. I hope the latest round of rinse-repeat-afresh cat-and-mouse, where after all is said and done you try yet one more time to claim that RSSB does not teach GIHF/PLM might break through that cognitive dissonance and, just perhaps, impinge on an awareness trying desperately to keep its eyes blinkered.

On the other hand, maybe not: because that is the nature of this animal, this cognitive dissonance thing. Fascinating.

RSSB teachings: "The perfect Master is the Lord in human flesh"

Recently I wrote two blog posts about the notion of a guru being God in Human Form. First, I said that this makes no sense. Then I said that Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) does teach that the RSSB guru is God in Human Form. 

Since some regular commenters on this blog are familiar with the RSSB teachings, I was surprised with the pushback that second post got. Even though I'd provided quotes from two previous RSSB gurus saying that, indeed, the RSSB guru is God in Human Form, for some reason this obvious fact was being denied by a few people.

So here's even more definitive proof. I've given away almost all of my RSSB books, but I kept a 1973 first edition of "Philosophy of the Masters (Abridged)" by Sawan Singh, a RSSB guru who often is called the Great Master. 

Understand: I'm not saying that this section below, which was titled Master is the Lord, is true. After 35 years of being an active member of RSSB and writing several books for the organization, I now have big doubts about the RSSB teachings.

Instead, I want to lay to rest any doubt that the RSSB guru is considered to be God in Human Form. Sawan Singh makes this crystal clear. If the current guru, Gurinder Singh, is teaching something else, that could be because he doesn't believe in the RSSB teachings, as I noted in another blog post.

I've boldfaced passages that relate most closely to the guru is God in Human Form teaching, and a related concept -- that no one can know God without being initiated by a Perfect Living Master. Shabd is a supposed divine energy that manifests as sound and light.

Back in 1970, when I first learned about the RSSB teachings, I viewed the following as an exciting invitation to undertake what's been called the Journey of the Soul. Now, though I wish it were true, I see little reason to consider that it is. Further, the idea that there's only one way back to God, that possessed by RSSB, strikes me as cult-like, since this is a claim that all religions are false except RSSB and related Sant Mat teachings.

Here's what Sawan Singh says. Or as his name is shown in the book, Huzur Maharaj Sawan Singh Ji.

The perfect Master is the Lord in human flesh. He is the Shabd personified, "the Word made flesh." Unless we are familiar with the human Master, how can we realize His subtle form, which is the Shabd? The Shabd and the perfect Master are the two means of taking the soul to its original Home.

No one but the Master can reveal the secrets of Reality, and without Him no one can gain release from the bondage of mind and Maya. No one can meet the Lord except through the Shabd, and it is only the Master who can connect the soul with the Shabd. This is the only purpose of their manifestation in this world.

Human beings are endowed with the gifts of intelligence and discrimination to a far greater extent than all the other creatures in this world. All other creatures are, therefore, not worthy of our devotion. Actually, devotion to them would pull us down.

The relationship between beings of the same species has a great deal of power in this world for creating love and attraction. We are on the physical plane, and we can only love one who is also on this physical plane. We are human beings and we should love only a human being.

We have not seen the Lord. How can we offer our love to Him? In other words, it is clear that in order to love the Lord we must love Him through one of his manifestations. Such a man is the Master.

The question arises, why should a man worship another man? The answer is that there is a great difference between one man and the other. A Master has assumed the form of a man, but he is not an ordinary man. Internally He is always in conscious contact with God.

To our limited understanding, the Master may appear to be finite. Actually, he is Infinite. He is the medium for attaining God-realization. He is the medium for taking us from the physical to astral, from astral to causal planes, and even further up -- stage by stage -- to the Unlimited Power above, by means of his instructions and discourses. 

If one were to assert that he worships and contemplates on the form of God, which is omnipresent, it can be said that at the most he contemplates on the form of a vacuum or of the ether. Besides, it is not visible to our sense of sight and it will not be helpful in awakening in us the currents of spirituality.

A Master has two forms. Externally he is a human being; but internally he is, in fact, God. He is in the form of a human being outside; but he is God in man, or God plus man. He has contact with human beings on one side, and with the Lord on the other.

From this point of view he has two aspects. One is that of a human being, and the other is that of God. His real form is Shabd. Shabd creates the physical body and dwells in it. "And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."

A Master is the medium through which individuals are connected with God. In other words, God, Shabd, and Master are three different forms of the same Lord. If we offer devotion to Shabd in the physical form, which is the Master, we are then immediately connected with the Lord inside. 

Devotion to the Master is, in fact, true devotion to the Lord.

A study of the ancient history of India will reveal that in prior ages education was imparted by the Masters in places far removed from human habitation, and the student was wholly occupied physically, mentally and spiritually in the service of his Master. Later this type of education began to disappear slowly and in its place idol worship started.

In the present age, such rendering of service to the Master has altogether disappeared except in the case of a rare few. Now God Almighty, in His abundant Grace, has sent His own Incarnations into this world to preach the doctrine of Master-Disciple Service. This tradition of Master-Disciple relationship continues today.

The perfect Master or Sat Guru has a very clear inner vision and can at once see who is fit for this Path. Those that are ready are accepted. He, in His grace, chooses them and makes them followers of the Truth.

When our soul grows weary in its search for the Lord, and is anxious to return to its home, when our eyes long to see the Lord and we hunger for Him, then, in order to fulfill our intense desire, He incarnates as a perfect Master or Sat Guru. 

In order to release the seekers from their bonds He himself comes as a redeemer. He gives the seekers instructions according to their development, and connects them with the Lord.

The secrets of spirituality, or of the practical means by which the soul can become united with the Lord, are given out by a living Master only. This teaching is imparted through an unspoken language. There is no spoken language by means of which it can be imparted. Religious books merely give a few hints about the ascent to the spiritual regions.

The scenes witnessed by the soul with the help of the Master in the subtle regions cannot be fully described. The books, being inanimate, cannot help the soul in its ascent. In the writings of the Saints there is a reference to internal experiences.

The bliss of these experiences can be had by internal progress and not otherwise. It can be achieved through the Sat Guru only. It cannot be had by reasoning. Holy books and scriptures describe it to a certain extent only; but it cannot be experienced except through a living Master.

Sometimes the RSSB guru sounds like he doesn't believe the RSSB teachings

Sort of weirdly, in a recent post, "RSSB does teach that the guru is God in Human Form," atheist me was arguing that the teachings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), my spiritual home for 35 years, say that the RSBB guru is God's right hand man (no female gurus yet) while some current members of RSSB were arguing the opposite -- that the guru is just a regular human like everybody else.

This perplexed me for a while. 

Then I came up with a theory. Being an ancient 73 years old, I was initiated into RSSB way back in 1971 when Charan Singh was the guru. He died in 1990, appointing Gurinder Singh as his successor. So my formative years as a member of RSSB were in the days of what I've called Sant Mat 1.0.

(Sant Mat means the path of the saints; Radha Soami Satsang Beas is part of the contemporary Sant Mat movements.)

In that original Sant Mat philosophy as taught by RSSB, there's absolutely no doubt that a central tenet was that the RSSB guru was God in Human Form, just as Jesus is considered to be in Christianity. In fact, several RSSB books relate the New Testament to the RSSB teachings. 

More: the RSSB teachings v. 1.0 also clearly said that it isn't possible to return all the way to God, a realm known as Sach Khand, without being initiated by a Perfect Living Master, another way of saying God in Human Form. This was noted in the quotes from RSSB gurus prior to Gurinder Singh that I included in the above-mentioned post. 

But in 2006 I wrote a post called "Sant Mat, version 2.0."  Here's what I said.

I’m wondering if there’s been a new release of Sant Mat, a north Indian spiritual philosophy centered around the need to follow a God-realized guru. It certainly seems that way from the remarks of several Church of the Churchless commenters.

Maybe version 2.0 has superceded the original Sant Mat that I was initiated into thirty-five years ago, and which I’ve written about in two books distributed or published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

Though now I’ve been called “Beas’ most articulate critic” (and not only by myself), I still have a genuine fondness for Sant Mat, a.k.a. Radha Soami teachings, and I want to be sure that I’m keeping up with the latest theological developments.

So if you’re a member of RSSB, help me out here. Am I wrong in assuming that the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh, has updated the Sant Mat philosophy? Since Gurinder Singh doesn’t write anything for publication, nor allow his talks to be recorded, nor permit attendees to take notes about what he says, it isn’t easy to make a comparison between the original Sant Mat teachings and the new guru’s version.

But here’s the impression that I get from hearing Gurinder Singh speak four times, spending two weeks at the Dera in India eight years ago, and reports I’ve gotten via this weblog and other sources about what he’s said more recently.

Sant Mat v. 1.0
--The guru is God in human form
--The guru is perfect, possessing God’s divine qualities
--God has chosen certain souls to return to Him
--God delegates the guru to initiate these “marked souls”
--Without initiation by a perfect guru, God-realization is impossible

Sant Mat v. 2.0
--The guru is a human who is seeking God, just like us
--The guru is imperfect, just like us
--Whether we want to pursue God-realization is up to us
--The guru is a spiritual guide, not a savior
--There are many paths to God, not just Sant Mat

This is just an off-the-top-of-my-head summary of several seeming differences between the old and new Sant Mat (or more accurately, RSSB) philosophies. However, if I’m even halfway right about v. 2.0, then kudos to Gurinder Singh. For this is a considerably improved Sant Mat, being closer to a science and further from a religion.

However, I’m a bit skeptical that either the RSSB organization or formal teachings really have changed to this extent. My take is that Gurinder Singh’s breath of fresh spiritual air is being diluted by those RSSB’ers who are either unwilling or unable to understand that this 2006 version isn’t your grandfather’s Sant Mat.

For example, a friend told me that when he went to India he’d hear Gurinder Singh say “We are all gods” when asked if the guru indeed was God. After the meeting ended my friend would ask other attendees what they thought of that rather heretical utterance. Most of them didn’t know what he was talking about. They only had heard what fit with their v. 1.0 conception of Sant Mat.

The winds of change may be blowing, but not in the mind of the typical RSSB initiate. Which isn’t surprising, given that Gurinder Singh has been so reticent to write or speak on the record. The current guru likes to say that he has nothing to add to the historical Sant Mat teachings, so the old books, tape recordings, and videos still serve as the official RSSB party line.

I could be wrong (naturally), but in my more optimistic moments I sense an increased openness in RSSB. This supposedly mystical organization has been heading down the road of becoming a hidebound religion, but maybe Sant Mat v. 2.0 will fix the dogmatic, fundamentalist glitches that are keeping this mystic philosophy from being a true spiritual science.

We can only hope.

After 16 years, now I'm not as positive about RSSB as I was in 2006. But I'm still interested in the apparent mismatch between what Gurinder Singh says in his talks and Q&A sessions, and the original RSSB teachings that I was exposed to for so many years.

It's as if the RSSB guru doesn't believe in some key parts of the RSSB teachings. I have no problem with that, since I'm a big believer in changing one's mind when it comes to religion and spirituality. In fact, in 2011 I suggested that Gurinder Singh has gone further and now has embraced Sant Mat v. 3.0. 

The roots of RSSB are traced back to Shiv Dayal Singh ("Soamiji Maharaj"), who taught from the 1850s until 1878. After him, a lineage of RSSB gurus continues to the present day. So for over 150 years, 1850 to 2000 or so, there was a consistent RSSB teaching.

This is obvious to those of us of the Charan Singh era who repeatedly read all the RSSB books ever published, including Shiv Dayal Singh's Sar Bachan. I'm not aware of any guru who made a significant change to the RSSB teachings until Gurinder Singh in the early 2000s. And then only verbally, since the current RSSB guru hasn't written any books as the previous gurus did.

So the past 15-20 years have been an aberration. I'm not saying Gurinder Singh is a RSSB heretic, though from what I've heard, sometimes he can sound that way. Which to me is a good thing, since I like heretics.

Again, my big insight, which I guess will sound obvious, is that members of RSSB in the Gurinder Singh era have been exposed to a considerable different version of the RSSB teachings than those of us who were part of the Charan Singh era. 

The mystery of Julian Johnson's death at the Dera in 1939

Recently I heard from someone who asked if I had read a book about the death of Dr. Julian Johnson. Johnson wrote "The Path of the Masters," a book about the philosophy of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based spiritual organization headed up by a guru.

I told the person that I wasn't familiar with the book about Johnson's death and asked if the person could summarize it. With their permission, here's what I received. I did some minor editing and added a few links.

Dear Brian,

The extremely short version is that the Dera tried to cover up a crime that happened there and by doing so ruined the life of a man who was innocent. Paul Pezoldt spent his whole life living with this heavy cloud over his head. 

 

Here is my summary of the book. It is a bit long but the book is far more detailed.  

 

It is The Mystery of Dr. Johnson’s Death: A Scandal in the Punjab by David Christopher Lane. The book tells the story about the death of Dr. Julian Johnson at the Dera in India which the RSSB is curiously silent about. Dr. Johnson wrote the book Path of the Masters.

 

Johnson never finished the book as he died on January 25, 1939 before it was published. But how he died is still a bit of a mystery today. There were three major rumors about his death:

 

The first was that a young mountaineer named Paul Petzoldt murdered him at the Dera.
The second was what most satsangis get told, that he just fell, hit his head and died.
The third is what outsiders think, that there were dark occult forces that killed him.

 

It’s a complicated story as eyewitnesses are dead and all they had to go on was some documents and memoirs of those now deceased. (All copies of these documents are printed in the book.)

 

At the time Johnson lived at the RSSB headquarters, the Dera, in the Punjab with his master Sawan Singh, who was called the Great Master. The book recounts how he became a follower of the guru. Johnson met his wife Elizabeth Bruce in India as she was at another ashram following another guru and had become despondent with them.

 

She then joined Johnson at the Dera and also became a devotee of Sawan Singh. Bruce was in her mid thirties at the time. She was a herbalist and a nurse who assisted Johnson at the hospital he formed at the Dera.

 

They used to summer in Kashmir due to the weather. In 1938 that is where they met Paul, a young mountaineer who at the age of 16 had already scaled one of the highest peaks in Wyoming USA. The reason he was in India at the time was he had just finished a route up the K2 mountain with a team of mountaineers.

 

He and his team split as they were hiring a bus to go through Afghanistan and Iran but there was no way Paul could afford to join them. Paul, although sceptical, had a deep interest in spiritual matters. Eventually Johnson invited him to work as his assistant at the Dera.

 

At the end of that summer Paul came down to the Dera. Paul's wife never saw him for months. Arrangements were made for her to join him. Paul's wife was Catholic. In her accounts of staying at the Dera, she reported about liking Johnson and the Great Master but Johnson's wife Elizabeth had been cold.

 

At the time in the Dera, there were only a handful of westerners. It was Johnson and his wife, a older man named David Elliot and an American couple with the surname of Rimstone. Also, there was Bhagat Singh, a lawyer, who in 1938 was considered that he was going to be Sawan’s successor. He attended to all the legal work of the master.

 

Paul was intrigued but he was not convinced of the philosophy. According to Paul’s wife’s recollection, he did not stick to the diet and also drank whiskey on some nights. He had also kept a loaded shotgun in the kitchen to shoot the rabid dogs that came to the Dera. Nobody else there would kill them for fear of bad karma so Paul was the one who did it.

Paul’s wife had become sick from nausea at the Dera which was not uncommon for newcomers to India. She was too sick to get out of bed.

 

For some unknown reason, Paul and his wife suspected Elizabeth’s cooking as Elizabeth was feeding them different food than what she was feeding the others. They even suspected Elizabeth was poisoning her.

 

On that fateful winter’s night at the Dera, there was an argument that broke out between Elizabeth and Paul or Elizabeth and Paul's wife. The accounts of what transpired differ.

 

The reason for the heated arguments is either about the raising of the kundalini or Elizabeth’s cooking.  In Paul's version, he made a bad crack in poor judgment. He was interested in mysticism and the kundalini. He commented that he wondered if you kick someone in the butt if it would help raise the kundalini. This remark was supposedly what sent Elizabeth into a rage.

 

The other account is that it was Paul's wife who said the same remark which made Elizabeth mad. The other version is that Paul picked up a plate of food to take to his wife and Elizabeth tried to stop him and wanted him to give it to a servant to take to his wife. He then turned and told her that he would take it himself and she got into a rage.

 

But what transpired out of the argument was this: Elizabeth screaming that she was going to kill Paul. She picked up the shotgun and pointed it at Paul. Paul pounced on Elizabeth to take the gun away from her. Singh the lawyer and Elliot for some strange reason attempted to stop Paul from taking the gun from Elizabeth.

 

Johnson either also attempted to stop Paul at the time or was trying to pacify Elizabeth in this commotion.

 

Paul allegedly in one version of the story tried to punch Elliot to get him off him and missed and hit Johnson by mistake who fell and hit his head. The other version is Paul managed to get away from the men and ran out and collided with Johnson and he fell and hit his head.

Johnson was put onto the couch where he died from his injuries at about one am.  After the incident, the lawyer went to Paul and his wife and convinced them Paul should plead guilty to a charge of hurting someone (similar to manslaughter). He claimed that it would be better for Paul, otherwise they would put a case against him. So he concocted a story leaving out the part that there was a shotgun involved and an argument.

 

The police came and arrested Paul on charges of culpable homicide. His plea of guilty had stopped any help from the courts for his case. He pleaded guilty to simple hurt, meaning he would face at least one year in jail.

 

The story gets even muddier. Paul states the reason he pleaded guilty is because of the lawyer Singh. He said this was because Singh did not want the Dera to have bad press and word getting out to foreigners. This he saw as damaging and could stop the cash flow from foreigners. He was also at the time thinking he would be the next guru.  

Paul, while under arrest, then contacted the US consulate and sent a lawyer and some members to investigate what had happened. The Rimstones then told the consulate official that Elizabeth had picked up the shotgun to shoot Paul.

 

Elizabeth then confessed to the official that she had picked up the gun but she knew it was not loaded.  The information about the shotgun would not have come out if the US consulate had not investigated and questioned the witnesses.

Paul then changed his plea to innocent and the court found him innocent because of the conflicting statements from the witnesses and the information about the weapon.

Strangely, the Dera then paid for Paul and his wife to take a lavish trip, including visiting Europe on the way back to the USA. Plus they gave his wife a gold bracelet as compensation for the trauma they had experienced.

 

Bhagat Singh the lawyer died a few years later, so Sawan Singh then appointed Jagat Singh as the next RSSB guru. The Rimstones also left India and went back to the States. Elizabeth and Elliot were the only ones left at the Dera. Elizabeth spent the rest of her years close to the Great Master and then died from dysentery.

 

What is also interesting is that Lane adds a transcribed letter that Johnson wrote that was never published. In it, Johnson recounts an encounter where he met Jesus.

 

He said Jesus was a tall, thin man with dark hair and light eyes. He said he told him his mother had become much higher spiritually than him. He also told Johnson that he was higher spiritually than him (Jesus). He also said that he had married Lazarus’s sister Mary during his life. (No wonder RSSB never published the letter.)

RSSB does teach that the guru is God in Human Form

Since I was a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization, for about 35 years, wrote several books for RSSB, and did a lot of speaking on behalf of RSSB, obviously I'm very familiar with the RSSB teachings.

So when I saw this comment appear on a recent post about the idea of a guru being more than human, it struck me as astoundingly wrong. (GIHF refers to God in Human Form.)

Clearly Karim Rahmaan knows very little about the RSSB teachings. So I'm pleased to correct him.

I can easily do this because because in the course of writing my first book, God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder, which ended up being sold under the auspices of RSSB even though it was published commercially, I took copious notes on certain subjects from every book sold by RSSB at the time (early 1990s).

Here's quotes regarding the RSSB guru and his relationship to Shabd, otherwise known as the Sound Current, which is believed to be the power that creates and sustains the cosmos. All of these quotes come from books written by one of the RSSB gurus (name in parentheses).

The True Form of the Guru is Holy Sound, and in that form the Guru permeates every hair on your body and is seated within you. (Sawan Singh, Spiritual Gems, p. 220)

The Master is only one -- Shabd -- and whosoever initiates you will project himself from that Shabd, because the Source is one. All Masters are one, which means the Shabd is the Master... Your real self is the soul, and the real self of your Master is the Shabd, the Word. (Charan Singh, Die to Live, p. 213)

The body is not the Master. The Master is that Power, that Shabd, manifested in human form; but the form itself is not that Power or Shabd, which is the real Master. Through the body we are in touch with the Shabd. Masters are nothing but the waves of the ocean of the Lord. (Charan Singh, The Master Answers, p. 65)

There is no difference between the Master and the Sound Current inside. The Sound Current is your Master. Every human being needs a Master who is in the human form, to connect him with the Master, the Sound Current inside. (Charan Singh, The Master Answers, p.216)

The Master is the beach of the limitless ocean of the consciousness of the Lord. (Sawan Singh, Philosophy of the Masters Volume 3, p. 122)

However virtuous a man may be, he cannot, by his own efforts alone, contact the Sound. Unless the Master gives him the gift of the ray of life and initiates him, he cannot contact the Divine Sound. At the time of initiation by the Master the soul becomes fit for being connected with the Shabd... The Master 'injects', as it were, his consciousness and light into the soul of the disciple at the time of initiation. (Sawan Singh, Philosophy of the Masters Volume 5, p. 17 )

The Shabd or divine Music is the perfect Master. The Shabd is indistinguishable from the Supreme Lord. It is a conscious current of that great power which created the universe and which fully pervades it. All the universe emanated from this Shabd. (Sawan Singh, Philosophy of the Masters Volume 5, p. 66)

The Master, so to say, is the bulb is which the electric light is made to appear... The Sat Guru is the place where the sun of Reality rises. (Sawan Singh, Philosophy of the Masters Volume 5, p. 173)

The Lord is hiding behind the garb of the Saints and speaks through them. (Sawan Singh, Philosophy of the Masters Volume 5, p. 185)

True Masters bear the same relation to the Lord as the waves bear to the sea. Huzur Maharaj Ji [Sawan Singh] used to explain this by giving the example of a large number of radios lying in a room but not connected with either a battery or electricity. Under those conditions you may tune as much as you like, but you can never hear the news from any station. Similarly, Masters are radios who are connected with the Lord. (Charan Singh, Spiritual Discourses, p. 171)

So it's absurd to claim that the RSSB teachings don't clearly say that the guru is God in Human Form. This is a central tenet of both the RSSB teachings and the broader Sant Mat philosophy. 

I was totally correct when I wrote in the above-mentioned blog post:

Again, I'm talking here about gurus who are viewed as being more than human, as possessing some sort of divine quality, as having attained knowledge of a supernatural realm beyond the physical. I'm not talking about a "guru" who is merely a meditation teacher or a moral guide.

Of course, just because the RSSB teachings say that the guru is God in Human Form, this doesn't mean that the RSSB guru actually is the closest thing to God than God herself.

My point is simply that any attempt to make the guru into just a regular human being (which I believe is the truth) is at odds with what the RSSB teachings say the guru is. And that claim is so grandiose -- that a human can possess the consciousness of God -- it deserves to be subjected to serious criticism.

Sure, religions make all sorts of claims. But to elevate a living person to the same level as God, that is especially dangerous, since it encourages a special sort of fanaticism on behalf of the guru who is believed to be God in Human Form.

The idea of a guru being more than human makes no sense

Sometimes the obvious escapes us because our mind has been distracted with other stuff. This just happened to me.

I was idly thinking about what I should write about in tonight's churchless blog post, remembering that my previous post was about how to prove that a guru is a fraud.

What suddenly struck me was the simple reason why this is so difficult: believers in a guru typically consider that he or she is qualitatively different from other humans. 

Meaning, the guru isn't just someone with some special talents, abilities, and traits. That's true of lots of people. Sports stars. Talented actors. Brilliant scientists. Masterful politicians. Amazing musicians. So many other examples.

No, a guru often is viewed as being more than human, possessing some sort of special attribute that makes them stand apart from other people. 

The weird thing is that whatever this attribute is, it isn't apparent.

If a dozen people were put in a room and the goal was to determine which person was a guru who, say, was God in Human Form, there's no test, examination, questions, or any other means that would distinguish the guru from the others.

The guru wouldn't be more intelligent. Or more wise. Or more ethical. Or more kind. Or more eloquent. Or more anything. 

Gurus stand out only because other people say, "He or she is a guru." So it's virtually impossible to prove that a guru is a fraud, because there is no way to tell the difference between a non-fraud guru and a fraudulent guru.

Again, the reason is that there's no way to tell the difference between any sort of guru and other humans.

I'm reading a story in The New Yorker about a talented big wave surfer from Hawaii. He has many videos showing how he not only can surf giant waves, but can do tricks on them in pretty much the same way other surfers do tricks on much smaller waves.

There's no problem identifying this person as a big wave surfer. But there's a big problem identifying a person as a guru. 

Again, I'm talking here about gurus who are viewed as being more than human, as possessing some sort of divine quality, as having attained knowledge of a supernatural realm beyond the physical. I'm not talking about a "guru" who is merely a meditation teacher or a moral guide.

That sort of guru is firmly in the category of other teachers and guides, a normal human being with a talent that can be conveyed to others. 

Since the other sort of guru, the God in Human Form variety of guru, has no attribute that sets them apart from other people, it's no wonder that they typically get the title of Guru in one of two ways. Either they are anointed as guru by another guru, or they start calling themselves a guru.

Pretty good game. It fools many people. No talent required.

All you need to set up shop as a guru is the title, which you can give to yourself or inherit from a previous guru. Then money, prestige, and power can be yours if you play your guru cards properly.

While some may call you a fraud, there's no way for them to prove this, since there is nothing that distinguishes a guru from a non-guru other than the fact that people have chosen to believe that one of them is a guru and one isn't.

How is it possible to prove the RSSB guru is a fraud?

A few days ago I got a message from someone who said this in her email regarding Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the India-based religious organization headed up by a guru that I belonged to for 35 years.

I am not a member, my close friend has been a member for 5 years and I started to research it as I wanted to know more. That’s how I found your blog. Some of the things I’ve read are alarming and I found even the information on the RSSB official website disturbing.

 

My friend is very set on the organisation, and the master. I have tried to show her various posts regarding other peoples bad experiences and she is adamant that they’re all lies. 

 

I would love to be able to find some sort of evidence that shows this master is a fraud but it would have to be more than peoples experiences. Is there any information you could share with me which might help to open her eyes?

 

I am just someone who wants to help my friend, she is very vulnerable and I strongly believe she has been swayed during a time when she was fragile. 

This was my response.

 

Probably there’s no evidence regarding the guru that would convince your friend he’s a fraud. Someone has to come to that conclusion for themselves.

 

There’s plenty of evidence on my blog and the Internet, but true believers in RSSB just explain it away. The basic problem is that disproving the existence of something can be very difficult.

 

Is the guru God in Human Form? There’s no evidence of this, but of course there also isn’t any evidence disproving it. God works in mysterious ways, say believers. Even if the guru does bad stuff, that could just be God’s mysterious way — making hundreds of millions of dollars in a shady fashion, for example. Here’s one of many news stories.

 

https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/corporate/story/pay-up-singh-brothers-dues-in-30-days-delhi-hc-tells-rssb-chief-dhillon-wife-ex-religare-chief-godhwani-231660-2019-10-09

 

I’ve written a lot about the guru in the “Radha Soami Satsang Beas” category of my blog. One post included 27,000 words shared in comments on my blog from a RSSB insider who revealed a lot about the inner workings of RSSB and the guru. See:

 

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2018/07/devastating-criticism-of-gurinder-singh-dhillon-by-a-rssb-insider.html

 

I singled out financial dealings in this post:

 

https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2019/03/rssb-gurus-shady-financial-dealings-were-known-on-this-blog-5-9-years-ago-1.html

 

But again, if your friend doesn’t want to open her eyes to all this, the blog posts and newspaper stories won’t make any difference. Keep trying, though. Eventually your efforts may help her see the reality of RSSB.

RSSB guru in poor health, cancels satsangs for six months

Today someone left this comment about the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. (Quite a few people who visit this blog have an interest in him, being either currently associated with RSSB or having done so in the past, as I was for 35 years.)

Well, it appears RSSB has finally updated their website. All satsangs in India and abroad have been cancelled, including the dera effective immediately until end of November. The update says GSD has been told to rest for his health. Sounds serious if he's cancelled the next 6 months of satsangs and initiations. Hope he recovers quickly from this.

I visited the RSSB web site and confirmed this is true. Here's a screenshot. Baba Ji is a term of respect for the RSSB guru.

It seems a bit strange that more information about the guru's health wasn't communicated. Yes, usually health and medical care is a private concern. But in the case of a public figure, it makes sense to share more information publicly. Maybe this will be done at some point.

God can be an imaginary friend, even if you're an atheist

Recently I heard from a woman who has distanced herself from the Indian religious organization I was a member of for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

Her family is still very much into RSSB, so she asked me some questions about how I adjusted after being, like her, initiated by the RSSB guru and then coming to see that the RSSB teachings no longer made sense.

Here's one of her questions, along with my response. "Babaji" refers to the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

Question for me: I find myself saying when I need help (to myself) Babaji help me- and then I realise that I don’t believe in him anymore and I don’t believe in god either- do you think there’s some sort of universal energy around us? 

My response: I wish there was, but I don’t think there is. But I could be wrong. Like you, I don’t believe in the RSSB gurus or in God. But I still talk to my guru, Charan Singh, and also to God. Life can be difficult. I like having imaginary friends.

To me it’s like watching a compelling TV show or reading a good novel. I can believe the show or novel is real and get all excited about what’s happening, even though I know that both are made up and aren’t real.

In the same way, I like to pretend at times that I believe in guru/God, just because it makes me feel better to do that, and I enjoy telling my problems to my imaginary friends, since my wife can get tired of hearing me complain about the same things after so many years of marriage (32 years).

Like I said, I don't find anything unusual in talking to someone who isn't real as if they could actually hear you. This isn't so different from sports fans yelling at the TV in a bar, exhorting their team to win the game.

 

Or me getting so nervous about what's going to happen in the Israeli spy thriller "Tehran" that I'm watching on AppleTV+. I realize that Tehran features actors, not real spies. But when there's a cliffhanger at the end of an episode, I can hardly wait to see if the woman who plays an undercover agent in Iran is going to succeed in her mission.

 

So it's no big deal for atheist me to lie in bed and say to myself, as I'm drifting off to sleep, "Hey, God, how are you doing? I doubt very much that you exist. However, if you do, it'd be great to get to know you. Feel free to pay me a visit, either while I'm awake or in a dream. And if you could do something to fix the sciatica in my right leg, that'd be great. Good night."

 

I talk in a similar fashion to Charan Singh, the RSSB guru who initiated me (by proxy) in 1971. I used to carry on a one-sided conversation with Charan Singh when I was a RSSB believer and thought it likely that the guru actually did reside within a corner of my consciousness, where he could guide me as need be.

 

Now I find that to be extremely unlikely.

 

However, occasionally I still have some things to say to Charan Singh, just because it makes me feel good to have him as an imaginary friend, along with God. This seems absolutely fine to me, since I'm well aware that an imaginary friend is much different from a real friend. 

 

 

RSSB training produces zero results in satsangis

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

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

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

One person included a nicely caustic observation about RSSB satsangis.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Under the Banner of Heaven" a compelling story of religion gone bad

Having just written the title of this of this blog post, the question that comes to mind is whether there's ever a compelling story of religion gone good. 

In my current atheist frame of mind, the answer is no. But during the 35 years I was a believer, Eastern religion variety, I would have said, "Of course there is, my chosen faith."

Problem is, everyone who buys into a religion thinks the same way. Their faith is absolutely great, almost faultless. It's those other faiths who give religions a bad name.

My wife and I have started watching Under the Banner of Heaven on Hulu, which is based on a true crime story involving the Mormon religion. The first episode shows the grisly murder of a woman and her child.

At first the husband is the prime suspect. But it doesn't take long for the Utah detectives on the case to realize that a lot more is going on involving a very large Mormon family. (Is there any other kind? Mormon tend to have many children.)

Several things struck me about what we've watched so far.

One is how religion does bind people together strongly. This can be good or bad, depending on the nature of the religion. When Allen, I think his name is, brings his girlfriend to a gathering of his Lafferty family, everybody there greets her warmly in a decidedly Mormon fashion.

They do so because she's introduced as a devout Mormon.

That makes her part of the religious club to which they all belong. So there's much talk of Heavenly Father this and Heavenly Father that. (So far, it appears Mormons don't use "God" very much, preferring "Heavenly Father.")

I used to enjoy this feeling of belonging when I was a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an Indian religious organization headed up by a guru. I knew that I could go anywhere in the world and be warmly welcomed at a meeting of the group, especially if I said some magic words.

Not "Heavenly Father." Rather, "Radha Soami." That was an all-purpose greeting of the group. Also, a way of saying thank you with hands folded. Or a way of ending a talk. Kind of like Aloha, I guess. 

During the many years I was the secretary/leader of our local RSSB group, my phone number was listed as a contact person for the organization. My wife, Laurel, wasn't a satsangi, as members of RSSB were called. 

Often when the phone rang and it was a RSSB initiate on the other end, Laurel would hear "Radha Soami." She'd then say, "Hello." Typically the other person would repeat, "Radha Soami." Laurel would keep saying "Hello" until she heard "Hello" in reply.

I thought this was great.

Every religion has some cult-like aspects. Radha Soami was used as a phrase in much the same way the Mormons in the show we're watching would say Heavenly Father. It marked you as part of the in-group.

But my wife wasn't part of RSSB, though she supported me during the time I was a member of RSSB. So people didn't know what to think when they'd phone my number and hear "Hello" rather than "Radha Soami."

Of course, this wasn't a big deal. It just indicated how every religion has ways to tell the difference between those who belong to that faith and those who don't. Mostly those ways don't cause any real problems.

It'll be interesting to learn, as we get further into Under the Banner of Heaven, what caused some members of the Mormon religion to murder the woman and her child.

I suspect those who did this ghastly deed were under the sway of an extreme cult-like frame of mind, as opposed to the usual "normal" religious cult-like attitude.

 

Zen'ish adage: when you're sad, be sad; when you're happy, be happy

Whenever I have a Grand Intuition about something that really is obvious, I'm never sure whether (1) I deserve to be honored in the Great Hall of Enlightened Beings or (2) laughed at for not realizing sooner what I should have understood long ago.

(Personally, I'll go with #1, but I can't argue with someone else who favors #2.)

The core of today's Grand Intuition is the title of this blog post: When you're sad, be sad; when you're happy, be happy. It's an emotional echo of some familiar Zen sayings.

Chop wood, carry water. 
When hungry, eat. When thirsty, drink. When sleepy, sleep.

Probably what got me to pondering this today was a slightly delayed reaction after listening to part of an interview on Sam Harris' Waking Up app yesterday. Harris spoke with a woman who said that equanimity was a central pillar of spiritual practice.

I didn't listen long enough to learn what she meant by equanimity. I'm assuming that this refers to remaining in a more or less steady calm emotional state no matter what happens to you: good things, bad things, neutral things.

This is in line with what the Sant Mat teachings I followed for thirty-five years as a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based spiritual organization, taught.

Lust. Anger. Greed. Attachment. Egotism. 

Those were the five deadly sins RSSB books and speakers warned against. Each has an emotional component. And in my current state of mind, each seems perfectly fine to me. They're simply a part of being human.

Sure, it makes sense to keep emotions within certain bounds. But those bounds are pretty damn loose. 

For example, lusting after someone you find attractive is how relationships, and marriages, often get started. Forcing them to have sex is out of bounds. Otherwise, lust is a natural feeling. Ditto with anger, greed, attachment, egotism, and every other feeling/emotion.

What I realized today more clearly than ever before was how, even though I'm no longer overtly religious, I still carry around vestiges of the religious teachings that were such a big part of my life for over three decades.

One vestige is how I've been considering that meditation and mindfulness were supposed to help me not get very upset when something went wrong in my life, nor unduly attached to the pleasure I feel when something goes right in my life.

In other words, I'd bought into that whole equanimity thing, albeit semi-consciously. 

Suddenly it hit me that life would be a whole lot simpler if I took a different approach. Be sad when I feel sad. Be happy when I feel happy. Be angry when I feel angry. Be ________ when I feel _________.

Again, not crazily emotional. Not emotional in a way that harms anyone. Just honestly emotional, embracing whatever I'm feeling at the moment without wondering, "Is it OK to feel this way?"

Yeah, it sure is OK. In fact, I've been feeling especially good today, because it feels like a weight has been lifted from my emotional shoulders. For a long time, more than 50 years, I've felt a need for self-improvement.

Simply being the person I already was -- not good enough.

I needed to meditate every day, read spiritual books, write spiritual books, improve how I related to other people, be kinder, more loving, less prone to negative emotions, you know, all that stuff the self-improvement/spiritual realization proselytizers tell us is necessary to truly be a Decent Human Being.

Which mostly is bullshit. Yes, if someone has a serious psychological problem that prevents them from functioning well or being satisfied with life, that points to a need for improvement.

But the notion that we need to become anyone other than the natural human being we already are is entirely false. When you feel good, feel good. When you feel bad, feel bad. Likely neither feeling will last very long. Embrace each while it lasts.

No pressure to become your "higher self." For one thing, there's no high or low when it comes to being human. For another thing, you aren't a self. You're simply you. 

Thoughts on the Sant Mat teachings

Today I got this message from someone who wants to be referred to as Godot. They are still dedicated to the spiritual philosophy of Sant Mat that I embraced for thirty five years.

But they have problems with the direction Radha Soami Satsang Beas has gone since the death in 1990 of Charan Singh, the guru who initiated this person and myself.

My thoughts on the teachings of Sant Mat.

In 1972, I received Nam. The Path is inside, and meditation has been my focus. When Charan Singh passed away in 1990, I was not concerned that he had left this world.  During his lifetime, he used to advise us not to run after the physical form of the guru.   

I have known satsangis who have not seen the guru in the flesh, and felt no urgency to do so. The organization has never been of interest to me, I’ve gone for years without attending Sant Mat group meetings. 

Around the time I was Initiated, I bought a number of Sant Mat books, and still have them. After 50 years, I can say that the time I have spent in meditation has been the best investment of time in my life.  

I spent about five weeks in the physical presence of Charan Singh. At no time did he say or do anything that indicated he was under the sway of the mind and senses. I am disillusioned by the nepotism of anointing his nephew as his spiritual successor. 

I am further disillusioned by developments/events since 1990 until now. It looks as if rssb.org has regressed into a cult. As I remember Dera Baba Jaimal Singh Ji, it was a small ashram dedicated to the teachings of Sant Mat.   

In the past few years, newspapers have described rssb.org as the most powerful sect in India - not a compliment.

Life is a journey, not a destination. The Path is within. The technique of meditation we are given at the time of Initiation takes us back to our source. 

"My only advice is that whatever we may do and in whatever circumstance we may live, our meditation should be our main concern, and this should never be sacrificed to anything of this life.”     
         -- Charan Singh

Some thoughts about Shivinder Singh and his wife

Here's a message someone sent to me about Shivinder Singh, the brother of Malvinder Singh and a relative of Gurinder Singh -- the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a religious organization based in India. Charan Singh was the previous guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

There was a recent article in India Today that describes how Shivinder Singh’s wife was conned out of 215 crore rupees by a man who posed as a high government official. He told her he could spring her husband from jail where he has been in custody for a quite a while. This brings forward quite a few questions. 

If she is the daughter-in-law of God in Human Form, why would she bribe a government official when God is her father-in-law? If she thought she was bribing a government official, shouldn’t she also be in jail? Last I heard, this is illegal in India. 

215 crore is around 30 million dollars. That would certainly be a good faith gesture for paying off the debt that landed Shivinder in jail in the first place. He told the courts he would cooperate and pay his debts but it looks like he is hiding his cash. I imagine the courts took notice of this and are wondering where the rest of the loot is.  

If we are supposed to obey the laws of our country, why is he hiding his money rather than doing what he promised when initiated into the Radha Soami faith? 

He is Charan Singh’s grandson and was raised by Charan Singh’s daughter. The entire family had the great boon of the “company of the saints” yet raised two crooks whose greed knows no bounds. Charan Singh used to say if you put a good man with a gang of thieves he will soon become a thief himself. Did all of this start when they came under the influence of their guru and mentor, Gurinder Singh?

I am not sure what happened here because I still have a lot of faith in Charan Singh’s  good character and spiritual attainment. I guess I don’t have any choice but to live with the cognitive dissonance. 

Next time I will look for a guru like Bhagat Singh though, I expect it will take some time to recover. 

I give away eight boxes of books. And a lot of fond memories.

I woke up yesterday morning with a fresh insight: time for the books to go. Not just the small box of giveaway books that had been sitting on a table in my bedroom for quite while. 

Also, the boxes of books that had been languishing in the storage space above our carport for much longer, about fifteen or twenty years, I can't remember exactly.

Those books had a lot more sentimental value, which might explain why I hadn't thought of donating them before, even though I'd glance at the boxes every time I climbed up the dropdown ladder to get something out of the crawl space.

(Aptly named, since you have to crawl around on the sheets of plywood placed over the rafters, there not being nearly enough room to stand up.)

The eight boxes that I took this afternoon to the Friends of the Salem Public Library for their annual book sale mostly contained books that I'd used as research for three books I've written: God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder; Life is Fair; Return to the One.

Each was written in the spirit of seva, volunteer service, during the time I was a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a guru-centered religious organization with headquarters in India.

So the boxes of books were sort of like a mental archaeological excavation. They contained mostly fond memories of a period in my life when I held considerably different spiritual beliefs than I have now. I took photos of the boxes before I put them in my car.

The bottom box in the photo above contained some of the books I'd used in research for my first book, God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder. I started to write it not long after Gurinder Singh Dhillon became the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas following the death of Charan Singh, the guru who initiated me in 1971.

I'd never even had a high school physics class, even though the book was about the relation between mysticism and the New Physics (quantum mechanics, relativity theory, etc.). It took years of reading, note taking, pondering, writing, and re-writing before the book was published by Threshold Books.

Radha Soami Satsang Beas had agreed to buy several thousand copies to resell at a low cost, which sweetened the deal enough for Threshold Books to agree to publish the book -- which they found appealing because I'd included so many Rumi quotes, and Threshold was a Sufi-oriented publisher.

Having developed a writing relationship with the folks in charge of books published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas, my next book project was Life is Fair. This effort was even more meaningful to me, since I was told that Charan Singh had wanted to have a little book describing the karmic rationale for vegetarianism that he could hand out to people. 

When I was asked if I wanted to take on the project after it had stalled with other people attempting to write such a book, it took me about one millisecond to say "Yes! Absolutely." Being able to fulfill a wish of my guru before he died was a dream come true. Hey, maybe my meditation sucked, but I felt like I could write a book about karma and vegetarianism.

At times that feeling seemed like a fantasy. There were so many changes of direction and rewrites, I almost lost hope. Almost. Eventually I went to India to finish the book at the RSSB headquarters and it ended up being published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas. One of the pleasant parts of writing Life is Fair was finding cartoons to illustrate some key points in a humorous manner.

I spent a lot of time at the marvelous Powell's Books in Portland, an hour's drive north of where I lived in Salem, sitting on the floor of the Humor section, thumbing through cartoon books featuring Calvin & Hobbes, Dilbert, and other comic strips.

Today I couldn't bear to let the cartoon books I'd bought go when it came time to unload the box they were in onto a library cart. Those were the only books I took home with me. I looked at a few pages and started laughing, then figured that while my spiritual/philosophical views have changed considerably, my love of humor hasn't.

The bottom box above mostly held books I'd gotten for my research into Plotinus, a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher. After Life is Fair was completed, I wrote Gurinder Singh and asked him if there were any other books I could write for Radha Soami Satsang Beas. He replied that they'd like to have a Mystics of the West series and listed some possibilities. Plotinus was one of them.

I'd heard about Plotinus but knew next to nothing about his philosophy. So even though Plotinus is notorious for being one of the most difficult Greek philosophers to understand -- his Enneads are full of confusing passages -- I dove into the deep waters of Plotinus and read every book about him in English, along with every translation of the Enneads in English. 

Return to the One was quite a writing journey. After several years of work, just as with the other two books I despaired that I'd ever reach a satisfactory endpoint. But I refused to give up, telling myself that if I had to write out the book on paper bags and leave them strewn on park benches, that's what I'd do. (Yeah, unrealistic and kind of dramatic, but writers have strange ways of getting through dark periods.)

In the end, Return to the One wasn't published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas for reasons I've talked about in other blog posts. A sticking point was that the RSSB publishing department wanted me to include a quotation from Charan Singh at the beginning of each chapter. I wasn't willing to do that, since this was a book about the philosophy of Plotinus, not a book about how that philosophy could be seen as relating to the RSSB teachings. So I published the book on my own. 

Anyway, I feel good about sending those eight boxes of books off to the Friends of the Salem Public Library. It was time to let the books go. I like to think that they'll end up with people who enjoy reading them as much as I did. They're filled with notes and highlighting. So whoever buys them will see what I found important, which may be quite different from what they think is important. 

Lastly, a (very) minor miracle. The eight boxes fit into the not-very-large back of my Subaru Crosstrek.

Courageous criticism of Gurinder Singh Dhillon

Today "Natasha" left three comments on a recent blog post, "RSSB guru standards have sunk a lot since Charan Singh's time." RSSB stands for Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an organization currently led by Gurinder Singh Dhillon, often abbreviated as GSD.

I admire people like Natasha who speak truth to power. Here's what was said in the three comments. It takes courage to stand up against people like Dhillon, especially in a country like India where religious zealots often treat critics harshly. RS is a shorter way of referring to Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

I have RS friends in India that say the lower caste members of RS say that GSD only meets with rich people. He only appoints rich people from higher castes to positions of authority. This is common knowledge of the lower caste members of RS who do seva at the Dera. Their kids get denied admission to the Dera school but no one will admit to that. And they don’t get the same level of care that higher caste RS sevadars or westerners get. They say the only reason the officials protect GSD from legal troubles is in order to get the votes from his followers. This is common knowledge in the Punjab. Westerners are so naive with what they believe about the guru. The caste system is alive and well at the Dera.

And many of them believe his wife was murdered to keep him and his sons from going to prison. In the Punjab this is very common behavior from powerful people. They have also little respect for women.

Westerners can’t speak to the kind of person GSD is because they don’t know the Punjabi culture. They don’t know how he behaves in Punjab and with officials. They don’t spend anytime with him and don’t know him on a personal basis. They only know what they are told by high caste members of RS. If Americans lived among the poor people in Punjab they would understand what he is really like and they would know what people think of him here. He just another powerful guru who says what people want to hear but does only what is in benefit for him. This is very common with gurus. I don’t understand how westerners can serve someone they don’t know. And they don’t know him at all.

RSSB guru standards have sunk a lot since Charan Singh's time

Writing recently about how the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), Gurinder Singh Dhillon, threatened people whose village is involved in a property dispute with RSSB, got me to thinking about how different things are guru-wise compared to the time Dhillon's predecessor, Charan Singh, headed up the organization.

I was initiated by Charan Singh in 1971. He died in 1990. So for nineteen years I was exposed to how Charan Singh handled being guru.

This included two weeks in 1977 I spent at the Dera, RSSB headquarters in India, when I got to hear him speak and answer questions in English at evening meetings along with having two brief personal interviews with Charan Singh.

Plus, I read all of his books numerous times, listened to cassette tape recordings of him speaking and answering questions, and repeatedly watched several RSSB videos made during the time Charan Singh was guru. 

There was never any doubt in my mind that Charan Singh was a deeply warm, friendly, honest, humble, sincere, compassionate person. Let's leave aside the question of whether he was God in Human Form, as the RSSB teachings say.

Charan Singh was an exemplary person. He fulfilled his duties as RSSB guru with grace. The only "scandalous" talk I ever heard about him was that he had disciples bypass India customs through some scheme involving watches, if I recall correctly.

The fact that I can't remember this very well shows that it wasn't a big deal. 

Compared to what Gurinder Singh Dhillon has been accused of, it's absolutely nothing. I have no problem recalling most of the scandals the current RSSB guru has been enmeshed in, though I may have omitted some in this 2020 post, "RSSB guru's life should be closely examined."

Here's an excerpt from that post, which nicely sums up why I think it makes sense to pay close attention to how Dhillon has been behaving. In short, not very well, especially compared to previous RSSB gurus.

Dhillon is a public figure. He is the leader of a religious organization with millions of followers. He is shown in You Tube videos that are viewed by many.

And Dhillon also has been the subject of many stories in the Indian financial press regarding the involvement of the guru, his family, and close associates in a financial scandal where allegedly hundreds of millions of dollars were illegally siphoned off from companies once controlled by the Singh brothers, who are relatives of the guru, into shell companies and unsecured loans to the Dhillon family.

Here's a sampling of blog posts I've written about the questionable activities of the RSSB guru.

Malvinder's criminal complaint casts light on RSSB guru's role in financial fraud
Devastating criticism of Gurinder Singh Dhillon by a RSSB insider
Delhi Police financial fraud charges point to RSSB guru's involvement
Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the RSSB guru, accused of making death threats
Sheetal Talwar talks about death threat made from RSSB satsang office
Sheena's "Memoirs of a Seeker" throws light on Gurinder Singh Dhillon
Bloomberg story shows Gurinder Singh Dhillon's shady business dealings
RSSB guru appears to have lied about his financial problems

It is easy for a guru to appear all spiritual, loving, and trustworthy when he or she is sitting on a stage, surrounded by fawning followers, with nobody asking tough questions about the guru's personal life outside of his religious duties. 

But none of us is only who we are at our best public moments. There's much more to us that only comes to light in private moments. Knowing the full picture isn't important when it comes to most people we know.

For example, I don't need to know the private life of my doctor, hair cutter, plumber, or electrician, because this isn't relevant to my relationship with them. However, in the case of a guru who is considered to be God in Human Form by his devotees, a trusted spiritual guide with upstanding morals, it definitely is highly relevant how the guru behaves in his private life.

I just spent an enjoyable four days, Monday through Thursday, watching every prime time minute of the Democratic National Convention. It didn't feature just the public side of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It also showed lots of details about their personal and private life.

That's the only way to understand who a politician really is. And it's also the only way to understand who a guru really is. You can't claim to be a "perfect" guru if in your personal life you're doing some decidedly imperfect things.

So if you're a member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, ignore the admonition to not be interested in the guru's personal life. Sure, usually a person's private life should be off-limits to public scrutiny. But not when a person occupies an important public role, like wanting to be President or Vice-President of the United States.

In that case, as in the case of a guru who supposedly is a highly elevated spiritual being capable of guiding people back to God. it makes sense to get to know the entire person, not just their public persona.

Description of Gurinder Singh Dhillon "secret" video

I've gotten a description of the video shared in a recent blog post where Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) in India, is talking in Punjabi. 

Apparently Dhillon is threatening those who live in Waraich, a village that is next to the boundary wall of the RSSB headquarters in the Punjab known as the Dera. Reportedly Dhillon was instrumental in acquiring the land of Waraich and the villagers filed a petition in the Punjab high court that made Dhillon angry.

The guru visited the village gurdwara (Sikh temple) where a local person made this video. Even though Dhillon and previous RSSB gurus used to be against India's caste system, in the video Dhillon says "mei ve jatt da put haa mera pind bhindranwale de naal hai," which means "I am son of jatt [upper caste and very aggressive in nature] and my village is next to Bhindranwale's village."

A Britannica article says that Bhindranwale was a "Sikh religious leader and political revolutionary whose violent campaign for autonomy for the Sikh state of Punjab and armed occupation of the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) complex in Amritsar led to a violent and deadly confrontation with the Indian military in 1984." The article about him concludes with:

In July 1982 he moved to the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) complex in Amritsar. He gathered a considerable following of like-minded Sikhs and stockpiled weapons. In early June 1984 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered Indian troops to attack the complex, and, in the fighting that followed, several of its buildings were heavily damaged. According to the government authorities, hundreds of people were killed in the action, including Bhindranwale. Other reports (notably from Sikhs) put the death toll considerably higher, possibly as many as 3,000. For many Sikhs, he died the death of a martyr.

Assuming this summary is correct, and I have no reason to believe it isn't, it sure seems like Dhillon is acting very unlike an enlightened guru in the video. His mention of Bhindranwale appears to be a threat directed at the villagers, implying that Dhillon can be as tough as Bhindranwale was.

Great Zen advice: be natural, not intentional

During the 35 years I was an active member of an India-based spiritual organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), I observed a lot of unnatural behavior. 

I did this myself, though not to the degree that I observed in many others. They would put on what they thought was a virtuous demeanor, though from what I could see, it just looked fake, artificial, pretentious. 

The RSSB teachings decried the "five deadly sins" of lust, anger, greed, attachment, and egotism. So some members of the group took this to mean that they should look as if they had overcome these supposed character defects, even if in reality they still possessed them.

I came to feel that I'd rather be in the presence of an honest sinner than a hypocritical saint.

It was aggravating to talk with someone who wasn't really there, because their mind was split between attending to our conversation and monitoring whether they were coming across as the exemplary RSSB disciple that they wanted others to see them as.

Today I read the Communication chapter in Shunryu Suzuki's book, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind." It was a breath of natural fresh air, compared to the often artificial atmosphere I experienced at RSSB gatherings.

Here's excerpts from the chapter.

When you listen to someone, you should give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinions; you should just listen to him, just observe what his way is.

We put very little emphasis on right and wrong or good and bad. We just see things as they are with him, and accept them. This is how we communicate with each other.

Usually when you listen to some statement, you hear it as a kind of echo of yourself. You are actually listening to your own opinion. If it agrees with your opinion, you may accept it, but if it does not, you will reject it or you may not really hear it.

...A mind full of preconceived ideas, subjective intentions, or habits is not open to things as they are. That is why we practice zazen [meditation]: to clear our mind of what is related to something else.

To be quite natural to ourselves, and also to follow what others say or do in the most appropriate way, is quite difficult. If we try to adjust ourselves intentionally in some way, it is impossible to be natural. If you try to adjust yourself in a certain way, you will lose yourself.

So without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, to express yourself freely as you are is the most important thing to make yourself happy, and to make others happy. You will acquire this kind of ability by practicing zazen.

Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense.

...So we should be concentrated with our full mind and body on what we do; and we should be faithful, subjectively and objectively, to ourselves, and especially to our feelings.

Even when you do not feel so well, it is better to express how you feel without any particular attachment or intention.

So you may say, "Oh, I am sorry, I do not feel well." That is enough. You should not say, "You made me so!" That is too much. You may say, "Oh, I am sorry, I am so angry with you." There is no need to say that you are not angry when you are angry.

You should just say, "I am angry." That is enough. True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another.

A message from a disillusioned RSSB initiate

UPDATE: I should have noted in the original post that I strongly support Covid vaccine mandates, so have no problem with a religious group having vaccinated and non-vaccinated people sit in different locations. That protects the vaccinated, who are still at a small risk of getting Covid, from those who aren't vaccinated. 

It always makes me feel good to hear from someone who has come to see the downside of belonging to a religious organization.

Today I got this message regarding the organization I belonged to for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), which is headquartered in India. Gurinder Singh Dhillon is the RSSB guru.

Hi Brian, I hope that you’re well.

I ran across your site a few years ago and was at the time, perplexed by why someone would move away from RSSB in that fashion. I remember your book ‘Life is Fair’ well and have a copy of it - great book.

Anyway, I’ve been visiting your site more recently for some inspiration and support really. I am now at the final tipping point to breaking away from RSSB for good.

The organisation has become massive, with definite hierarchies despite the suggestion that all seva [volunteer service] is equal, and GSD’s [Gurinder Singh Dhillon's] financial dealings/misdemeanours are of great concern.

There is no contact with the Master who is so far removed from the average initiate. He is entirely unapproachable. Hell, if you write him a letter you simply get a cut and paste response from a sevadar [volunteer]. He obviously has no idea of the real struggles initiates are facing and he is presumably not interested in them.

He is treated like a celebrity and possibly gets a real kick out of this. Is he a true living Master? Does he really give a shit? I have doubts in that regard.

Of particular concern currently is the treatment of vaccinated vs unvaccinated initiates. Those who are vaccinated get to sit at the front near the Master while others get relegated to the back of the hall. World-wide one cannot do seva unless vaccinated. Apartheid much?

People who have dedicated countless years and much effort to seva have been entirely sidelined with instructions from those in ‘power’ who throw their weight around all with of course, the promise that it is all being done with love. Not good.

Further, NRIs ]Non Resident Indians] can only be initiated at the Dera with a vaccine passport. He is now trying to force every initiate into becoming vaccinated. While I am neither for nor against the vaccine, I am pro choice (but I have chosen not to take it).

In a spiritual organisation there should be no divisions, but he is fueling them. Considering his dealings with big pharma - is there a link here to the vaccines? Just a thought. The churches and mosques (certainly locally) are not taking this route. There, everyone is welcome. And that should be the case with RSSB - if it were truly non discriminatory.

There are a great number of disillusioned initiates out there. With the most recent developments they’re dropping off the path at an alarming rate.

We live in interesting times.

It took a while for this person to give up on RSSB

Yesterday I got this message from someone who said it would be fine to share what they said, but not their name. I always feel good when I hear that someone has benefitted from my blog posts.

I've told this person that I don't know what has happened to tAo. His comments were indeed interesting. But change is inevitable, including who comments on this blog. 

Hello Brain , how u doing n hope u r doing great at ur end. I am ________, initiated by Baba Gurinder Singh G in 2003. I am 45 years old now. I born and brought up in Orthodox Rssb family , my great grand father initiated by baba sawan singh g in year 1922 , my grand father spent 26 years in sewa at dera after getting retirement from punjab police as an officer , he was dera resident and died in dera .

I have been reading ur blogs on site church for churchless since year 2010 . I didn't like ur views at first . But after a year or more I found some reality in ur writings . I read all of ur rssb blogs twice or may be thrice with all comments on that .

I gave up my faith on baba g and rssb in year 2019 with very heavy heart , I had my own reason's for living the rssb faith with no hard feeling's. Actually I never had a pure faith or belief on rssb I was just keep going with it as told by my family and being told or preach by in weekly satsangs . I am very emotional person and feel guilty deep inside me for living the path , my heart says guru is true but my brain says Big No . 

I like ur blogs . I enjoy to read the comments also specially by tAo , Spence , osho , Tuscon , jesse , Jen etc. 

I missing tAo , why is he not commenting any more ,is he okay ? He is much experienced person regarding cult , I would love to hear about him from you , that's the reason also I'm mailing you. 

 

I like ur blog , please keep going , my best wishes always with you.

 

Regards , ___________

I'm asked how to adjust to life after leaving RSSB

Here's a message I got recently from someone who has left the India-based religious organization I was an active member of for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). My reply to this person follows the message.

"baba ji" refers to the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. "Seva" means service, volunteering. "Satsangi" is a RSSB initiate. "Satsang" is a RSSB meeting.

Hi Brian,

I came across your blog a while ago and it has been instrumental in helping me question my beliefs. My family is satsangi and I was raised in it. I think you and I had a similar loyalty to the path.  I would attend seva every weekend and sometimes in the weeknights too and was heavily involved in the regional and national satsangs when baba ji would come.  I always considered myself a satsangi; however, for seven years I was very deeply entrenched in the satsangi way of life.  For those seven years, my life revolved around seva, satsang and satsangis to the point that I sacrificed my non-satsangi friendships for the sake of the rs path.

10 years ago, I moved to a different city where I didn’t have access to the teachings.  The sangat was small, I attended a few satsangs but I didn’t put in the same amount of effort.  Now, 10 years later, I am slowly realizing that the path isn’t for me.  The financial scandal pretty much ended any hope for reconciliation, especially when I read on your blog that baba ji said he has diabetes and can’t attend court yet was holding satsang on the same day.  It is always preached that we need to be the best representatives of the guru so we do not bring shame to him.  What about him bringing shame to us?  How is he being a good representative of us? He also preaches about ‘haq halal di kamai’ or earning an honest living.  It is all so hypocritical.  

The worst part is, the fear is still there.  I’m typing this, but will something horrible happen to me now?  Will I go blind because I’m rejecting the guru?  I know it’s ridiculous, I’m a rational person, yet these wayward thoughts that have been programmed into me since I was 5 years old keep popping up and I don’t know how to shut them up.  There isn’t any guilt, I’ve been freely telling my family and close friends that I’m not binding myself to arbitrary restrictions anymore and I do truly think it’s a sham centred around cashing in. I’m still a vegetarian since that’s my own morality but I’ve pretty much stopped asking about ingredients at restaurants and do have a drink when I feel like it.  By all outward appearances I am untangling myself from the situation but inwardly, there is a smidgeon of fear that I can’t seem to erase.

At the end of the day, I’m not overly angry but more so disappointed and very very sad.  It is just so sad, I can’t believe it.  I feel as though I’m in mourning.  I guess the reason I’m writing to you is because you are so far ahead of me in this journey.  Did this happen to you?  How did you ‘unlearn’ the programming?  It seems you bought into the teachings as much as I did, maybe you can give me some advice on how to deal with this.

Thanks for your blog Brian.  I know you get a lot of flack for it, but it was instrumental in helping spur my critical thinking of the path.

This was my reply.

Thanks for your message. It makes me feel good to hear from people like you who find some value in my Church of the Churchless blog. 

Yes, I was very loyal to Charan Singh, who initiated me. Gurinder Singh, not quite as much, though I certainly did a heck of a lot of seva after Gurinder became the RSSB guru. 

 

Here’s some thoughts about how to adjust to life after RSSB.

 

(1) It takes time. To me it’s a lot like going through a divorce, something I did after 18 years of marriage. I loved my first wife. But we grew apart. At first I thought about her a lot, wondering if there was anything we could have done to save our marriage. Now I’ve been remarried for 31 years to a woman I love even more. And my first wife is happy with the man she has found. 

 

Likewise, it’s natural to spend considerable time thinking about your RSSB years, since this path meant a lot to you for quite a few years. That isn’t time lost. It’s time gained, since you’ve learned a lot about yourself, how you view spirituality, and such. Now I rarely think about my first wife, since I’m happy with my current wife. I also rarely think about RSSB now, except when I use it as an example in one of my blog posts. 

 

So my advice is to let your adjustment to breaking away from RSSB happen naturally. As the days, weeks, and months pass, you’ll find yourself feeling more comfortable not being involved with RSSB.

 

(2) Regarding fear, I don’t think this can be a productive basis for spirituality. Isn’t love much more important? What kind of god or guru would punish you for deciding to deconvert from a belief system? Certainly not any god or guru deserving of devotion. 

 

Yes, the RSSB literature contains references to nasty stuff that happens to disciples who stray from RSSB after being initiated. But almost certainly these are superstitions, written by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. And I speak as someone who wrote several books for RSSB. I did a good job with the books. However, I didn’t have any special mystical knowledge. Nor do, in my opinion, the authors of other RSSB books.

 

If it gives you some comfort, I broke away from RSSB around 2004. Seventeen years later, I haven’t noticed any bad things that have happened to me beyond what happens to everyone, like health problems as I’ve aged. 

 

(3) Keep in mind that nothing is 100% certain. That’s a scientific perspective, since science always is open to having hypotheses or theories revised or even overturned. Thus there’s a chance RSSB is correct in how it views reality, just as there’s a chance that any of the other thousands of world religions and mystical paths is correct. 

 

What you and I have done is increase our chances of learning the truth about God, life after death, and all that. Speaking for myself, what I do every day is spend a minute or two talking to God and the guru who initiated me, Charan Singh. 

 

I say something like, “Hey God/guru, I’d like to know you. I’d like to learn from you. I don’t know how to find you, assuming you exist. So it’s up to you to reach out to me. I’m here. Pay me a visit in my consciousness. Or if you want to prove that you exist in a physical manner, feel free to manifest a new Tesla in my driveway. Then I’ll really believe in you.” (I’m hoping God/guru have a sense of humor.)

 

Just because you have given up on RSSB doesn’t mean you have given up on searching for meaning, or on opening yourself to a possible supernatural reality. When I got divorced, I didn’t give up on women. I just gave up on a particular woman, and then found a different woman who was a better fit for me.

 

Likewise, the only reason you might feel like you’ve lost something is the strong devotion you had to RSSB still lingering in your mind. As I said, this is natural. You should feel good about that devotion. Just turn it in other directions now.

 

There are lots of things, people, causes, and such to be devoted to. Or to love. There’s nothing special about the devotion you gave to RSSB. What matters is devotion itself, not where it is directed. Every religion wants its followers to put the religion first, or at least above most other stuff in life. That’s crazy. Only you can decide what is most important to you now. Trust yourself.

 

Hope this helps at least a little bit. 

 

     — Brian

I now consider that I was a cult member for 35 years

Though for 35 years I was a member of an India-based religious organization headed up by a guru who was considered to be God in Human Form by his devotees, I didn't consider myself to have been in a cult.

But this morning I read these passages in the book I've been writing about recently, Jonathan Rauch's The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth.

Cults -- religious, Marxist, Trumpist, and others -- enmesh their adherents in infinite, impenetrable loops of self-reinforcing beliefs. They encourage and often require their members to isolate themselves from outside ideas and authorities.

...Inside the cultic bubble, every question has an answer, every implausibility an explanation, even if the answer is a change of subject or the explanation that you cannot believe your own eyes and ears.

"Well, damn," I thought, "given this reasonable definition of a cult, it does seem like I was in one." Namely, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a branch of Sant Mat (path of the saints, roughly translated).

Here's some reasons why I say that, referencing what Rausch says above.

Impenetrable loops of self-reinforcing beliefs. Here's an example. The guru, being divine, knows what is best for the disciple. That might mean inner progress through meditation that leads to visions of supernatural realms of reality. Or it might mean a lifetime of sitting in darkness and silence during the required several hours of meditation a day.

So whatever happens in meditation fits in with the RSSB teachings. There's no way for the disciple to say "this isn't working," because the guru knows what is supposed to happen to that person, not the person themself. Further, there's a prohibition of telling others about your spiritual progress, or lack thereof. Hence no possibility of learning from other people whether they're getting the promised results.

Isolate themselves from outside ideas and authorities. Faith in the guru is considered a requirement to make progress in meditation. Early on in the current guru's tenure, Gurinder Singh Dhillon said discussing the RSSB teachings on the Internet shouldn't occur. So he told RSSB disciples to isolate themselves from ideas that didn't come from official RSSB sources.

I ended up being fired as a speaker at RSSB meetings because I'd starting writing about RSSB on this blog. The reason that was given was that my blog posts were making people feel uncomfortable. Thus I was viewed as an unwholesome "authority" because I wasn't spouting the party line 100%, even though I'd written several books for RSSB and had been an authorized speaker for many years.

Every implausibility has an explanation. Ask why the RSSB gurus don't perform miracles if they're God in Human Form and you'll be told that the Big Man Upstairs has decreed that saints are forbidden to perform miracles because if they did, lots of people would want to be initiated by them in order to return to God, which would markedly reduce the number of souls in the physical creation, and that isn't supposed to happen. (RSSB believes in reincarnation.)

That's pretty much the same reason why the RSSB gurus forget people's names, make mistakes, get sick, and generally act like Non-Gods in Human Form. They have to disguise their divine nature or everybody on Earth would want to follow them.

What would be wrong with that, you may be thinking. Well, RSSB has the answer. When God created the physical universe, 90% of souls who were hanging out with God were eager to see what physical reality was all about. But 10% had to be dragged kicking and screaming into this universe.

Those 10% are destined to return to God after being initiated by a Perfect Living Master, which the RSSB gurus are despite not appearing perfect. So it's impossible for everybody to be God-realized, because most people on Earth are part of the 90%. OK, but how can you tell the difference between a 90% person and a 10% person? Ah, only the guru can tell. Which is why only some people end up following a RSSB guru, because they're part of the lucky 10%.

I could give more examples. But you get the picture. Of the cult I used to belong to.

Why should anyone else believe what you believe?

Well, the responses I got to my previous post, "Objective reality is validated by the reality-based community," were underwhelming. 

Not really surprising, since I said:

The question I'd pose to those who hold a mystical, religious, or intuitive view of reality is this: what alternative to Rauch's approach below do you suggest for determining the nature of objective reality?

Meaning, it is easy to criticize reason, rationality, facts, science, open discussion, criticism of propositions about reality, and such. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to come up with a better approach than the Constitution of Knowledge.

Read what follows.

Then, if you disagree with some of what Rausch says below, leave a comment on this post describing the nature of your disagreement. Others can then submit their own ideas. This is how knowledge is gained: by a reality-based community willing to engage in the social pursuit of truth.

No one could suggest a better approach for gaining knowledge than a reality-based community willing to engage in the social pursuit of truth.

So in this post I'm going to take a different approach, with the goal of convincing those who hold a mystical, religious, or intuitive perspective that there isn't any other valid means of gaining knowledge of objective reality.

Note that I said "objective reality." Obviously we all gain knowledge of subjective reality just by being ourselves. Every experience each of us has is subjective, since it isn't evident to other people.

There's no way anyone can put a thought, emotion, perception, or any other content of consciousness on a table and say, See, this is my experience.

Thus a basic assumption here is that there are almost eight billion subjective human realities, one for each person on Earth. Yet there is only one objective shared reality. Rausch writes:

The main idea of the Constitution of Knowledge, as we have seen, is that reality is what we know, not what you or I know. No purely personal belief can be knowledge, no matter how much merit you or I might think it possesses.

...A corollary is that members of the reality-based community accept that, despite their diversity, they are all exploring aspects of one reality. The Constitution of Knowledge does not require them to see the world the same way or to agree on facts.

In fact, it only works where people see the world differently and disagree on facts, so that they can test their ideas and surmount their biases.

Its unique capacity, however, is to force individual differences toward social convergence. It does so by requiring persuasion, which in turn requires that we try to account for our differences by comparing them.

Science has made astounding progress in the past several hundred years by doing just that. By and large, scientists the world over agree on the knowledge gained from the scientific aspect of the reality-based community.

By contrast, religious believers and mystics have made essentially zero progress in arriving at a common spiritual knowledge. The same questions are being debated today as were being debated hundreds or thousands of years ago.

Why? One obvious reason is that there's no persuasive evidence that a supernatural realm exists. Thus there's no way to test propositions about what that realm consists of, since almost certainly it exists only in the subjective minds of individuals.

Consider the religious belief system that I used to accept, that of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a form of Sant Mat, an India-based religiosity that claims Perfect Living Masters can guide their disciples back to God by connecting them to the shabd, or Sound Current, the power that activates the cosmos.

That'd be amazing if it was true. But how would it be possible to determine the truth of RSSB or Sant Mat?

It can't be by accepting someone's claim that they're experienced divine light and sound. Hallucinations of that sort are commonplace. Psychedelic drugs can produce those phenomena. People can be mistaken. People can lie. People can fool themselves.

No matter how strongly someone believes in a religious, mystical, or supernatural tenet -- whether this belief is held by a small number or billions -- the question remains, Why should anyone else believe what you believe?

Christians believe Jesus is the Son of God. Muslims believe there is no God but God and Muhammed is His prophet. Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, plus adherents of thousands of other religions all have their own unique beliefs.

Atheists and agnostics are skeptical about all of those beliefs. For good reason, because there is no reality-based community in the realm of the supernatural. Again, almost certainly this is because that reality doesn't exist.

Yet suppose you're someone who has had such a profound experience of a supernatural reality that you feel the need to speak your truth to others? (A number of those someone's leave comments on this blog.)

Again, why should I or anyone else believe you? 

It can't be because you've done the experiment of meditation, or whatever you want to call it, and the rest of us haven't. I haven't done any quantum mechanics experiments nor genetics experiments, but I accept the scientific knowledge in these areas.

I do so because there is a reality-based community -- researchers, journals, conferences, peer review, universities, government agencies, science writers, etc. -- that's skilled at assessing the validity of scientific propositions.

If a single scientist claims this or that is true, no one should believe them. Yet if their claim survives careful scrutiny by the reality-based community, there's good reason to believe them. At least until the claim is debunked.

With religious and mystical claims about the supernatural, so far none have become validated knowledge. 

Not miracles. Not ESP. Not life after death. Not astral projection. After thousands of years of attempts by humans to find proof of the supernatural, there's so little to show for this search, we might as well round it off to zero. 

The reason is that what Rausch says in his book is correct. 

By extension, the empirical rule also dictates what does not account as checking: claims to authority by dint of a personally or tribally privileged perspective. In principle, persons and groups are interchangeable. 

If I claim access to divine revelation, or if I claim the support of miracles which only believers can witness, or if I claim that my class or race or historically dominant status or historically oppressed status allows me to know and say things which others cannot, then I am breaking the empirical rule by exempting my views from contestability by others

...You have to check your own claims and subject them to contestation from others; you have to tolerate the competing claims of others; you have to accept that your own certainty counts for nothing; you have to forswear claiming that your god, your experience, your intuition, or your group is epistemically privileged; you have to defend the exclusive legitimacy of liberal science even (in fact, especially) when you think it is wrong or unfair.

No, communion isn't about the body and blood of Jesus

I speak from experience as a lapsed Catholic when I say that communion involves swallowing a wafer and some wine, not the body and blood of Jesus.

OK, that experience was brief, since after I had my first communion, thankfully my mother let me decide whether to continue on to be confirmed as a Catholic -- which I definitely didn't want to do, since the black-clad nuns were scary, the mass was in Latin, the wood we had to kneel on was damn hard, and my Presbyterian boyhood friends got to enjoy their more pleasant Sunday School while I was listening to a priest drone on in a language I couldn't understand.

The thing with religions is, they all seem really weird to anyone who isn't a believer in that particular faith, while to those who embrace a religion, mostly it makes great good sense to them.

So as difficult as it is for me to recall in my current atheist frame of mind, for 35 years I was a member of an India-based religion led by a guru who was considered to be God in Human Form. Yeah, that's weird.

Equally weird were the teachings that the guru planted his "radiant form" in the consciousness of the disciple at the time of initiation; that radiant form guided the disciple all the way back to God; the reason initiation was necessary was because the Eastern equivalent of the Devil had stood on one supernatural leg for like forever, earning him a gift from God to keep souls trapped in this physical world where he could control them until a God in Human Form rescued some of them; and a whole lot of other strange stuff besides.

Which means, I used to accept religious teachings that equaled or surpassed the dogmas of Catholicism when it came to difficult-to-believe'ness. (I didn't really believe in all of them, yet I overlooked the most bizarre teachings in order to embrace the more reasonable ones.)

But now I'm a critic of that Eastern religion, and so feel comfortable also being a critic of Catholicism. Which is why I read an opinion piece in USA Today, um, today, called "Catholic truth on Communion belongs in public square."
Download Catholic truth on Communion belongs in public square - USA TODAY

I could tell from the title that I wasn't going to agree with it. Prediction fulfilled!

The woman who wrote the piece, Katrina Trinko, says that it is perfectly fine that bishops are laying the doctrinal groundwork for President Biden, a devout Catholic, to be denied communion because he favors abortion rights.

For some reason the bishops aren't going after the many Catholic Republican politicians who favor capital punishment, which also is a Catholic no-no. 

Trinko is upset that so many Catholics don't accept everything that their religion says is true -- a quality that endears me to those independently-minded people.

But as a Catholic, I’ve been stupefied by the news coverage and punditry, which lacks awareness of what the Catholic Church teaches, what the Eucharist is and, yes, what it means to be a practicing Catholic.

In a way, I’m not surprised. Polls regularly show a gulf between the values of many American Catholics and the teachings of the Catholic Church. For instance, more than two-thirds of American Catholics support legalized samesex marriage, according to a 2020 Gallup survey. Fifty-six percent of American Catholics agree with Biden and Pelosi, backing abortion being legal in most or all cases, per a 2019 Pew Research Center survey.

And when it comes to the Eucharist, plenty of Catholics aren’t even aware what the Church teaches, namely that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Jesus. Only half of Catholics know what the Church teaches, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center poll, which also found that 69% of American Catholics don’t believe the Eucharist is the real presence of Jesus.

Well, duh, of course the Eucharist -- the supposed transformation of bread and wine into Jesus' body and blood -- isn't real. It's just bread and wine. In fact, there's no persuasive evidence that Jesus even existed, much less that he was a divine being. 

Yet the urge to believe in unbelievable stuff runs deep in the human mind. Thousands of years of cultural indoctrination in religious mumbo-jumbo has caused the brains of billions of people to embrace dogmas that make no sense and have no basis in fact.

Again, I've been there and done that. 

The guru who initiated me way back when in 1971 would bless food that then became sacred to his followers. Occasionally people would bring some of it back to this country after seeing the guru in India.

Then they might share it with other disciples. I recall the time I got a small bag of guru-blessed treats (could have been rice cereal; can't remember exactly). Before I meditated I'd carefully pick out two or three bits of whatever it was and savor it as the mystical treat I believed it to be.

If I dropped some on the floor, no problem. I still ate it.

This wasn't like believing that the blessed food was the body and blood of the guru, but it was close, since we initiates of the guru considered that somehow the food contained the guru's essence.

I'm glad to have given up that idea, along with the other crazy stuff I used to accept. Hopefully someday many more that 69% of American Catholics will stop believing that what's consumed at communion is the real presence of Jesus.

Shivinder Singh's bail revoked to uncover conspiracy hatched by him

It's been quite a while since there's been any news about the financial scandal involving the Singh brothers (Malvinder and Shivinder), their relative Gurinder Singh Dhillon (guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas), Sunil Godhwani (who used to be the guru's close advisor), and others.

But a few days ago this story appeared in The Economic Times. Similar stories ran in some other publications. 

It's good to see that the Delhi High Court revoked the bail that allowed Shivinder Singh to stay out of detention, a goal being to uncover the conspiracy hatched by Shivinder and to trace the funds that were siphoned off from Religare Finvest Ltd.

Previous news stories have indicated that Dhillon and his family received some of those funds, which naturally raises the question of whether the guru was part of the conspiracy. This case has been under investigation for a long time. It looks like it will continue to be investigated.

Here's screenshots of The Economic Times story.

Update your beliefs often as new information comes in

Every morning I read another chapter of Julia Galef's The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't, the subject of two previous posts (here and here).

I really liked her "How to Be Wrong" chapter.

Along with most people, I don't enjoy finding out I was wrong about something. But it's a heck of a lot better than continuing on in my wrongness, which keeps me from learning a more complete truth about that thing.

Below you can read excerpts from that chapter.

They're in three sections, dealing with changing your mind frequently, the ease of saying "I was wrong," and viewing beliefs as needing updating rather than being proven wrong or right.

After each section I'll provide an example of how I changed from being a firm believer in an India-based religious organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), to becoming an open-minded atheist.

(1) Changing your mind frequently.
Changing your mind frequently, especially about important beliefs, might sound mentally and emotionally taxing. But, in a way, it's less stressful than the alternative.

If you see the world in binary black-and-white terms, then what happens when you encounter evidence against one of your beliefs? 

The stakes are high: you have to find a way to dismiss the evidence, because if you can't, your entire belief is in jeopardy.

If instead you see the world in shades of gray, and you think of "changing your mind" as an incremental shift, then the experience of encountering evidence against one of your beliefs is very different.

If you're 80% sure that immigration is good for the economy, and a study comes out showing that immigration lowers wages, you can adjust your confidence in your belief down to 70 percent.

It may later turn out that study was flawed, or further evidence may come out showing that immigration boosts the economy in other ways, and your confidence in your belief may go back up to 80 percent or even higher.

Or you may find additional evidence about the downsides of immigration, which could gradually lower your confidence even further below 70 percent. Either way, each adjustment is comparatively low stakes.

This is pretty much how I gradually came to have increasing doubts about whether the teachings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas were true.

I always had taken a scientific approach to meditation and spirituality. I liked how RSSB also was termed the "science of the soul." So I never considered that this religion was absolutely, positively, 100% true because scientific truths always are open to being modified or proven wrong.

I viewed the RSSB teachings as a hypothesis, an experiment to be conducted within the laboratory of my consciousness. As years, and then decades, went by, I revised my estimate of how likely it was that the RSSB teachings were true.

Because I hadn't started at 100%, but more like 90%, it felt comfortable to reduce that probability downward as I learned more and more about RSSB and had meditation experiences that failed to confirm the science of the soul hypothesis. 

(2) The ease of saying "I was wrong."
A friend of mine named Andrew was surprised when one of his colleagues accused him of never admitting he was wrong. In response, Andrew pointed out two recent occasions on which he had been wrong and readily acknowledged it -- in the company of that very same colleague.

The colleague, whom I'll call Mark, was surprised in turn. He replied, "I guess that's right. Why did I have the opposite impression?" Mark was silent for a minute, reflecting.

Then he said, "You know... I think it's because you never seem embarrassed about it. You're so matter-of-fact, it almost doesn't register to me that you're admitting you were wrong."

It's true. I've seen Andrew acknowledge he was wrong many times, and it usually sounds something like this: "Ah, yup, you're correct. Scratch what I said earlier. I don't believe it anymore." It's cheerful, straightforward, nonchalant.

Mark's implicit assumption was that changing your mind is humbling. That saying "I was wrong" is equivalent to saying "I screwed up" -- something you confess with contrition or sheepishness. Indeed, that's the standard way of thinking about being wrong.

...Scouts reject that premise. You've learned new information and come to a new conclusion, but that doesn't mean you were wrong to believe differently in the past.

I can't say that my shift from embracing RSSB teachings to viewing them as likely being wrong went as smoothly as Andrew's nonchalant manner of acknowledging being wrong.

However, I've never viewed this change as being anything to be ashamed or regretful about. As I've pointed out on this blog many times since I started it in 2004, I've experienced many other shifts in my beliefs.

To offer an example, for eighteen years I was married to a woman who I loved a lot at first, and then not so much. After our divorce, I remarried. Now I've been married for thirty-one years to a woman I loved soon after I met her, and continue to love now.

Similarly, I worked as a health services researcher and planner for quite a few years. Then I realized that I just didn't care anymore about the field that once was so important to me, and moved in a different direction.

Changing our beliefs isn't always easy. But it's less difficult if we hold on to those beliefs lightly enough that we aren't devastated when our beliefs change.

(3) Updating beliefs.
Even the language scouts use to describe being wrong reflects this attitude. Instead of "admitting a mistake" scouts will sometimes talk about "updating." 

That's a reference to Bayesian updating, a technical term from probability theory for the correct way to revise a probability after learning new information.

The way people use the word updating colloquially isn't nearly so precise, but it still gestures at the spirit of revising one's beliefs in response to new evidence and arguments.

...If you at least start to think in terms of "updating" instead of "admitting you were wrong," you may find that it takes a lot of friction out of the process.

An update is routine. Low-key. It's the opposite of an overwrought  confession of sin. An update makes something better or more current without implying that its previous form was a failure. 

This is a nice way of looking upon mistakes. Rather than thinking "I was wrong," we can say to ourselves "I've updated how I look upon this."

Over the years I've been asked by many RSSB devotees how I could possibly have been so wrong about the religion that meant so much to me for such a long tine. I don't understand this perspective.

As noted above, it wasn't that I went from 100% certainty to 100% doubt. I started at maybe 90% certainty that the RSSB teachings were true and steadily updated that probability, mostly downward. So I feel no need to admit "I was wrong" because I never considered myself to be absolutely right.

My iPhone has lots of apps. Almost every day one or more of them get an update. I don't view the maker of the app as having screwed-up when they release an update. Rather, I appreciate that now the app should work better than before.

In much the same way, every day I learn something. I assume this is true for you also. My wife and I enjoy our Apple TV device. We stream a show with it most evenings. 

Until today I was pleased with the device, which I bought five or so years ago, can't remember exactly when. Then I read a review of the updated Apple TV device with an improved remote.

That made me better realize the drawbacks of the device we have now. So this afternoon I ordered the new Apple TV.

I wasn't wrong to have bought the one we have now. I just updated my belief about how good that one was.

You have options. In religions. In everything else.

I'm continuing to enjoy my reading of Julia Galef's The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't, the subject of my previous post. 

Her core idea is that motivated reasoning, where we ignore what's true because our motivation is to preserve our current belief structure, leads to a soldier mindset aimed at defending our beliefs from that unwelcome intruder, reality. 

By contrast, a scout mindset values truth-seeking through accuracy motivated reasoning. Our goal is know what is really there, not what we hope is there, what we'd like to be there, or what others want us to believe is there.

One of the appealing things about a scout mindset is how it provides us with way more options than a defensive, protect-my-beliefs at all costs soldier mindset. 

In her "Why Truth is More Valuable Than We Realize" chapter, Galef speaks of tradeoffs.

We trade off between judgement and belonging. If you live in a tight-knit community, it might be easier to fit in if you use soldier mindset to fight off any doubts you have about your community's core beliefs and values.

On the other hand, if you do allow yourself to entertain those doubts, you might realize you're better off rejecting your community's views on morality, religion, or gender roles, and deciding to live a less traditional life.

Easy to say. Often not so easy to do. 

I regularly get emails from people who are encountering resistance from their family when they express doubts about the religion they were brought up in.

For example, the organization I was a member of for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a guru-centered religious group headquartered in India. Traditional Indian families tend to be close-knit and hierarchical.

If a child decides to head off in a different religious direction after becoming an adult, they can be made to feel guilty, like they're doing something wrong and letting down their parents. 

This is unfortunate.

Family bonds are important, but not if it means someone has to live a lie, pretending to believe in something that no longer appeals to them. Wise loving parents understand that their children, along with everyone else, have to find their own way in life.

Feeling like you have no options is an indication that you've fallen into a soldier mindset dominated by motivated reasoning.

It's difficult to imagine doing something different when you're encased behind a high thick wall of firmly held beliefs. Questioning their validity would entail peering over that wall and trying to determine how true those beliefs really are.

If they're found to be deficient in truth, you might need to find a way to get over the wall of your beliefs and explore new territory that reflects reality more fully. 

There's no reason why you can't remain close to family and friends who choose to remain within the belief structure you've left behind. But sometimes there's a price to be paid for being independent: ostracism, criticism, shunning.

Everybody has to decide whether truth is more important than getting along.

But the way I see it, if someone is willing to ditch you for going your own way, they were never really your friend. Genuine friendships, genuine family relationships -- they're based on something much deeper than shallow beliefs. 

Notably, love. 

A message from someone who woke up to RSSB deception

Getting a message like this one makes me feel like all the work I put into this Church of the Churchless blog is worthwhile. 

RS stands for Radha Soami. RSSB stands for Radha Soami Satsang Beas, the India-based religious group I belonged to for 35 years. Gurinder Singh Dhillon is the current RSSB guru.

         Dear Brian

I pondered upon your website quite a few years ago, and I thought this guy has lost it. He has lost the 1 valuable thing in life, the guru...

 

Fast forward to now.  I have been RS follower and initiate of gs dhillon for over 20 years.

Rssb is such a net, that once inside, its very hard to escape...and luckily I have realised that this large establishment is not going to get me God realisation. 

 

Never in history has any saints had large institutions and millions of followers and they achieved God.

 

I was attached to GS dhillon and thought guru knows best.  The teachings are good, but how can anyone teach and not have practiced or experienced anything, have any effect on us.

 

I am really sad that I wasted 20 years of my life thinking I was special, the chosen one...and its still very hard to get the establishment out of my head.

 

I wonder how you feel, you also left after a long time, and up till now, what thoughts or attachments crop up in your mind? How do you overcome them?

 

One thing i told my parents is that don't worry, study other things, if this is the true real master, then we have no worry, apparently he will fulfil his duty and come at death....

I tell the above to my mum, so that she can wake up, and understand that she has nothing to lose by exploring other ideas.

 

It's very difficult for a rs follower to come out of this.

I don't criticise the current guru or the following, just upset and sad that nothing was achieved.

 

I feel something went wrong long time ago, after the first 2 gurus, the first 2 had no large establishment or large monies involved, and from sawan singh, a large institution was created....what I am saying is maybe the path started of correct and got corrupted later on.

 

Thanks for reading my story.

Satan and Kal

Here's a guest blog post from Bob Russo, who sent this essay to me a while back. I recently discovered it in the depths of my email inbox, liked it, and asked Russo if it would be OK to share it on Church of the Churchless.

He said, "sure." Enjoy some thoughts about Satan and Kal. "Kal" is how the so-called Negative Power is viewed by an Eastern religion, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a branch of Sant Mat.

Growing up within the crystalline and dualistic (heaven and hell; Jesus and Satan) landscape of Catholicism and having the Pope to look to for spiritual direction (as a representative of Christ on earth), it was just one hop, skip, and a jump from that world to Radha Soami (Guru path). 

The only difference between the two was that I now had a Perfect Living Master to guide me out of Satan’s (Kal’s) world to Sach Khand (True Land) above.   

So what we have in both systems is the unruly hands of some “negative power” whose goal is to lead the spiritual seeker astray. 

This concept of a negative power or satanic force goes back thousands of years to Ancient Judaism and probably beyond that. Yet, apparently more strident than any “satanic” temptation is the use of this concept by religious leaders and spiritual groups to ingest fear into the minds of sincere individuals and thus control them. 

It’s the same ole problem, reaction, solution scenario that we see played out time and time again under authoritarian religious organizations, which RSSB is certainly one of. They identify YOUR problem and of course, as part of their modus operandi, have the solution.      

Consequently, during a recent trip to Shambala bookstore on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, I couldn’t help being drawn to a book entitled The Origin of Satan, by Elaine Pagels.

What made this book a must read for me was its historical overview of Satan from Judaism through early Christianity, and, IMO [in my opinion], seeing a blending together of adversarial roles he/she played (or plays) in both religions and with Kal’s role in Sant Mat.  I suspect the concept of a negative power or entity found its way to Northern India from the Middle East.  

Without going into too much detail, it appears that Satan may have evolved from being part of God’s Grand Hierarchy and his loyal servant, as in Sant Mat (Radha Soami path), to one opposed to God in his/her entirety in early Christianity (the fallen angel set apart from God). In Judaism, Satan’s role was to obstruct human activity, that is, to create chaos, misfortune, conflict, and to test the soul’s loyalty to God (see story of Job).       

During my years in Sant Mat, whenever mention was made of the hapless condition of the world, with its wars, hunger, and plagues, it wasn’t long before someone would comment or read something from an RSSB book on not expecting more from Kal’s domain.  

In RSSB, Kal is responsible for humankind’s screwups and misfortunes as we see with the Satan of Judaism (since Kal is the ruler of the three lower worlds). And as such, continues to confuse humankind as it helplessly and aimlessly drifts about with no direction in sight (until the Perfect Living Master comes to the rescue).    

According to RSSB theology, once an individual gets initiated the situation changes because although Kal rules the world, anything that happens to the Satsangi (followers of the Radha Soami path) is supposedly the amiable work of the Master. 

IMO, this whole thing is very confusing, because if an earthquake strikes and both Satsangis and non-Satsangis are injured, then who do we claim is responsible for the earthquake, the Master or Kal?   

Now, with the development of Christianity, Satan evolved into an evil entity completely opposed to God as seen in the New Testament where Satan was held responsible for the arrest and execution of Jesus.  And, the Jews unfortunately, were labeled as agents of Satan for having played their fateful part in Jesus’ death.

(We can effortlessly glance into history to see the results of this horrific prejudice that has cost the Jewish people countless lives and hardships over the past two millennium). Thus, a major rift grew between this new religious movement called Christianity (which had a lot of Jewish members), and the Jewish people, particularly the Judaic religious ruling class.   

Now, as Christianity grew, most people were looking for “rules” and guidance on how to be true Christians. Thus, an “orthodox” branch of Christianity made firm headway among this new religion, and as such, became institutionalized with its various do’s and don’ts, priests, and bishops. This new branch of Christianity (which evolved into the Catholic Church), ultimately labeled any other branch of Christianity and all other religions for that matter, as evil products of Satan.   

Certain members of this orthodox branch, such as Tertullian, whom according to Pagels, was a convert from Carthage in Northern Africa around 180 C. E., denounced all those who deviated from the “majority” or orthodox teachings as heretics. 

What I found interesting is that the Greek translation for heresy (hairesis) is choice. Therefore, one who makes a choice is a heretic. 

Pagels mentions on pg.164 of her book that Tertullian insists that making choices is evil, since choice destroys group unity (which probably means less control and $ for the spiritual elite leaders).  She goes on to quote Tertullian as saying “that church leaders must not allow people to ask questions, for it is questions that make people heretics.”    

Since Satan was opposed to God, it becomes quite clear that Christians were involved in a sort of spiritual cosmic war between good and evil. They, of course, represented good, while all “unorthodox” Christians and pagans were viewed as agents of Satan.

Pagels writes on pg. 165, “Instead of admitting Christians into debates over the Scriptures, Tertullian says, ‘straight thinking’ (the literal translation of orthodox) Christians must simply claim the Scriptures as their own exclusive property’…but, how do heretics come up with such ingenious and persuasive arguments from Scripture?  Their inspiration comes, Tertullian says, ‘from the devil, of course, to whom belong the wiles that distort the truth’”.

How’s that for enforcing mind control? We can also see how “ownership” of the “truth” as “exclusive property” is a prized tool in controlling the masses!

Thus, although more subtle, IMO, the Radha Soami tradition, at least in Beas, has firm distain for any polemic or  “revealing” questions that may potentially uproot the reality or spiritual competency of the guru and/or the philosophy he represents (this is quite obvious to me from their response to internet discussions of RS and their letters to David Lane). 

And, as a friend mentioned recently, a ”true believer” will never ask the real questions while those that would are probably never going to be there to ask them in the first place.

Here we are in the year 2002, and we can still walk the streets of Dera or stroll along the freshly landscaped gardens of Petaluma or visit the cascading waters of Calvary Baptist College (formerly Murrieta Hot Springs) and what will we find in common among the members of each group? 

A firm belief that they, themselves, are the “chosen” ones, the lucky few who have God on their side while the rest of the world wallows in Satan’s nebulous and dingy shadow! For the Fundamentalist Christian, the cosmic war between good and evil is alive and well today while for the satsangi, this dreary epic is faced each day in meditation.    

Unfortunately, this dualistic outlook has created a split society or “them and us” mentality that has caused unimaginable pain, suffering, and death to countless individuals and unbearable hardship to innumerable families throughout modern history. 

And, this “split” is not limited to externals but has caused considerable mental anguish and cognitive problems to individuals living within a strict right versus wrong world.  

Another RSSB follower sees the light and leaves

I love getting deconversion stories from people who feel that this blog helped them in breaking free of religious dogmatism. Here's a message I got recently from someone who belonged to the organization I was a member of for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

Maharaji refers to the previous RSSB guru, Charan Singh. Gurinder refers to the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, who is enmeshed in a financial scandal. Sant Mat refers to the teachings of RSSB. Satsangs are RSSB meetings where the teachings are discussed.

I've taken out some personal identifying information.

Hi Brian,

I wish to thank you for finally giving me the support with your church of the churchless site. To break with the cult of the Gurinder gangster clan. Originally a follower of Maharaji initiated in 84. Ten years of desperately trying to follow the present gangster. Wondering what was wrong with me for not being able to love him or even understand his take on santmat.

I then drifted for a further 20 or so years. Now as I say a very painful severance for me. Keeping a weekly watch on your site, about 3 years ago I stopped going to the Satsangs and functions or even wanting to see him on his visits to _______. All the things that were recently brought to the front by the young lady in her recent posting and more had over the years disgusted me. Finally making me leave.

Leaving at first was a rather traumatic experience. But over the first year I realised I had not only left santmat but any belief in any deity behind. Not the liberation of my mythical soul that I had signed on for. But undoubtedly a sense of being a liberated human being .

I see all around me how people are being tricked into some cult or other whether a political ideology, a religious one or any scam at all.  And daily I just avoid it with a silent laugh at all the rubbish that is peddled around this planet. In the name of some god or ideology.  

Thank you again Brian.

I am ________ of ________ and happily proclaim I am out of and free of the Cult of Santmat.

New development in Singh brothers/RSSB guru scandal may not mean much

Today someone sent me a link to a November 12, 2o20 story in the Economic Times, "Sebi disposes of proceedings against 16 entities in Religare Finvest fund diversion case."

That person wondered if this meant that Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, had been cleared of wrongdoing in the complex financial scandal involving the Dhillon family and their relatives, Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, along with associates of the guru such as Sunil Godhwani.

I've copied in the Economic Times story below. It's difficult to know what to make of it. As far as I can tell, no other publication in India has written about this development. So my suspicion is that this doesn't clear Dhillon.

Here's my reasoning.

Based on previous reporting in the Indian financial press, the 16 entities named in the story appear to be mostly, and maybe completely, shell companies. Meaning, they weren't actually doing business, but rather served as pass-throughs for other purposes, legal or illegal. 

This Business Today graphic, which I've shared before, shows the reputed scheme in broad-brush strokes. Money siphoned from companies once controlled by the Singh brothers flowed into the shell companies, then into the pockets of the RSSB guru and his family.

So it makes sense that currently the shell companies would have few, if any, assets. After all, the SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) allegation was that the shell companies were used to move money around, not that the fraud consisted of transferring money into the shell companies and leaving it there.

Further, my understanding is that the management (directors) of the shell companies has changed since the purported fraudulent transactions took place. This also could explain why the 16 entities no longer are part of the SEBI proceedings. 

Currently there is nothing to investigate at the shell companies. Rather, the questions are: (1) Who ended up with the money that flowed through the shell companies? and (2) Who orchestrated these transfers of money?

Again, I'm just expressing my opinion here, since the story below is vague about what the SEBI action means in the context of the accusations against Malvinder Singh and Dhillon, who has been accused by Malvinder of masterminding the diversion of money. 

Note that the story doesn't say that SEBI has given up on recovering the diverted money from every entity (which I assume includes individuals) involved in this case -- just from the 16 entities, largely or entirely shell companies, mentioned in the story. 

So I doubt that this is the end of the scandal. Perhaps we'll learn more on November 26 when a bail hearing for Malvinder in regard to the money laundering case has been rescheduled. Malvinder and his attorney keep saying that Gurinder Singh Dhillon is the real culprit, not Malvinder.

Here's the Economic Times story.

Sebi disposes of proceedings against 16 entities in Religare Finvest fund diversion case

Among the 16 entities, the names of two entities have already been removed from the list by the regulator.

Markets regulator Sebi on Thursday disposed of adjudication proceedings against 16 entities for their alleged involvement in Religare Finvest's fund diversion matter.
The entities were alleged to have been involved in diversion of funds amounting to Rs 2,315.09 crore from the books of Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL), a subsidiary of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL), for the utilisation of promoters and promoter group entities of REL.

Shivinder and Malvinder Singh were promoters of REL.

Further, 14 names have been removed from the list of entities from whom REL and RFL were directed to recover the loan amount, Sebi said in an order.

Among the 16 entities, the names of two entities have already been removed from the list by the regulator.

Sebi, through an interim order in March 2019, had directed REL and RFL to initiate steps to recall all the loans, amounting to Rs 2,315.09 crore, extended directly or indirectly to certain entities -- including the 16 entities -- along with due interest, within three months.

The entities were also directed not to dispose of any of their assets or divert any funds, except for meeting expenses of day-to-day business operations, without the prior permission of Sebi, pending completion of the investigation and till further orders.

Subsequently, Sebi had confirmed the directions through an order passed in September 2019. However, the directions issued against two entities -- OSPL Infradeal Pvt Ltd and Bharat Road Network Ltd NSE 0.33 % -- were revoked.

Further, the names of OSPL Infradeal and Bharat Road Network were removed from the list of entities from whom REL and RFL were directed to recover the loan amount.

Pursuant to completion of investigation in the matter, Sebi, in an order on Thursday, revoked the directions issued through the interim as well as confirmatory orders against the 14 entities. The watchdog also disposed of the ongoing proceedings against all the 16 entities.

The other 14 entities are Platinum Infrastructure, Ad Advertising, Artifice Properties, Best Health Management, Devera Developers, Vitoba Realtors, Fern Healthcare, Modland Wears, Rosestar Marketing, Star Artworks, Tripoli Investment, Volga Management and Consultancy, Zolton Properties and Ranchem Private Ltd.

Through a separate order, the regulator has disposed of ongoing proceedings against three entities -- Best Healthcare, Fern Healthcare and Modland Wears -- in the Fortis Healthcare case.

It was alleged that the entities were involved in diversion of funds amounting to Rs 403 crore from the books of Fortis Hospitals Ltd, a subsidiary of Fortis Healthcare Ltd NSE -1.59 % (FHL) for the utilisation of promoters and promoter group entities of FHL.

The issue pertains to the affairs of FHL, which were being managed by the erstwhile promoters -- the Singh brothers. It was alleged that the Singh brothers had siphoned off the funds of FHL to promoter-related entities through layers of companies which were controlled by them.

Sebi, in October 2018, had directed FHL to recover Rs 403 crore, along with interest, from nine entities. The regulator had also directed the entities to jointly and severally repay the amount to Fortis Hospitals and FHL.

Besides, the entities were restrained from disposing of the assets pending investigation. The nine entities included Best Healthcare, Fern Healthcare and Modland Wears.

In its latest order, Sebi said it "revokes the directions issued vide the interim order read with confirmatory order against the... 3 noticees (viz. Best Healthcare Pvt Ltd, Fern Healthcare Pvt Ltd and Modland Wears Pvt Ltd ) and also dispose of the ongoing proceedings... against them".

How the RSSB guru was involved with Ranbaxy

If you want to know the truth about Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (an Indian religious organization), a great place to look is my compendium of comments left on this blog by "Tara" between 2010 and 2014. 

In 2018 I compiled the 27,000 words worth of comments into a post, "Devastating criticism of Gurinder Singh Dhillon by a RSSB insider."

The comments, though not entirely negative in regard to Dhillon, paint a different picture of the guru than devotees see when he sits on a stage and talks about spiritual subjects.

In a recent comment on this blog, someone raised the question of who orchestrated the sale of Ranbaxy, a pharmaceutical company controlled at the time by Malvinder Singh, a relative of the RSSB guru. 

I shared one of the comments by "Tara" that said it was Dhillon who advised on the sale. That got me to thinking it would be interesting to see what other mentions of Ranbaxy were in other comments by Tara.

I've shared all of those mentions below. They make for interesting reading, especially if the reader is concerned about how a guru supposedly focused on God-realization became so enmeshed in gigantic business deals and making he and his family hugely rich to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Enjoy... the comments are in reverse chronological order, so the most recent ones by "Tara" appear first.

Catherine, a few corrections : Parminder Singh died in Delhi in 1999 following a prolonged battle with cancer. His sons, Shivinder Mohan Singh and Malvinder Mohan Singh ( now known as the Singh Brothers ) succeeded him. Ranbaxy was always a professionally managed company in the days of Dr. Singh, but following his passing, many differences between the board and the promoters crept in.

 

Gurinder is said to have played his part. Malvinder Singh sought to muscle in after an eruption of disagreements with the professional CEO — D.S Brar, one of the oldest employees of Ranbaxy who was instrumental along with Dr. Singh in shaping the vision for Ranbaxy. Brar resigned in 2004 and it was all downhill for Ranbaxy from there. Malvinder Singh re-shuffled the board and took control. By the end of it — price wars, reduced profitability, debt and expiring patents got the better of Ranbaxy.

 

In mid 2008, the Singh Brothers decided to sell the family's 64% stake to Daiichi Sankyo in a deal that was too overwhelmingly overvalued to decline. In just months after their takeover, the Japanese realized that they were stung in the backside, and Malvinder Singh was politely told to leave. Read : http://business.rediff.com/column/2009/jun/05/malvinder-singhs-ranbaxy-report-card.htm

 

Please note that there was always some confusion about Dr. Singh's name : Parminder or Parvinder, you'll find half the articles on one name and the other half on the other. A short biography of Dr. Singh can be found here... Read : http://www.sikh-history.com/sikhhist/personalities/parvinder.html Gurinder affair with the Singh Brother's had already begun in 2006 with the inception of Religare, the financial services company that he mentored.

 

The sale of Ranbaxy gave Religare the shot of capital that it needed. Whatever transpired between them, it is quite clear that Gurinder's wealth was created by the opportunity that he found or was given to him — by the Singh Brothers. But, it is also important to note that Gurinder may have made a number of important and correct decisions for the Singh Brothers after Dr. Singh's demise.

 

Of course, selling the golden goose for ten thousand golden eggs is debatable, but with the valuation that Ranbaxy got, it would have taken an extremely conservative and competent man to say no and walk the company back to a second term of success. But then again, Gurinder's role as the family's Guru and business advisor, coupled with his own personal business agenda, was a bit too entwined to do any differently.

 

IMO, I think RSSB should seriously consider updating Gurinder's wikipedia information to include Religare. Unless of course, like everything else, he wants to keep 'em guessing !

-------------------------

Okay... Charan was a different man. He was not interested in Ranbaxy and the politics, and often told Parminder to manage his professional journey outside Beas. He was clear about his role as the head of RSSB and did not mix that with a side-business. His own son is working for Fortis today. Had Charan taken advantage of his proximity to Parminder, his sons would have been shareholders, three decades ago !

-------------------------

Nietzsche. Great ! You've made the effort to backtrack into Gurinder's current financial status and what you've stated sums up the facts very well. I'm relieved that what I've been harping about on the COTC ( that makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist in the process ) has some validation from an independent fellow blogger... :)

 

My additional thoughts are : Gurinder ordered the Ranbaxy sell-out, and as a faith policy, Shivinder and Malvinder do not over-rule anything HE decides. The final " go ahead boys " was given by Gurinder. I know this because the celebratory cheers resounded with a boisterous " Baba-ji does not make any mistakes ! " that came from none other than Sunil Godhwani, Baba-ji's right-hand man.

 

Before the news hit the press, everyone knew that a chunk of that booty would be pumped into Religare. Of course, Ranbaxy's health was generously inflated, but the sell-out was the best possible move from a financial standpoint — considering that the Singh Brothers made quite a mess of the succession when they inherited the company, which subsequently reflected in the company's performance over the years.

 

There was a joke in the corporates circles here that Parminder Singh was in a big shock in heaven when he learnt that Gurinder had advised his sons to sell Ranbaxy. His reaction was : " What ? Who the f*** is he ? " ( LOL ) This entire Religare affair that Gurinder's having with the Singh Brothers is in direct conflict with his role as a Guru, whether he's teaching 1.0 or 3.0. His insatiable appetite for wealth is sick, specially when there is no charitable initiative for the poorer sections of the Sangat that make up for ninety-five percent of his following.

 

IMO, Gurinder wants them to remain hungry and foolish otherwise they will not be interested in the salvation promise, which is why I think that Sant Mat 3.0 will never be introduced to the langar. You are absolutely right about the Mc-Donald's style of operations at Fortis. Also, the services they provide are the Micky-D's equivalent of fries and nuggets. It is all about the money, with little regard for ethical practice and human life.

 

But, it is interesting to note that post Ranbaxy, none of the Singh Brothers' businesses have been particularly profitable. It is too early to call, but Fortis is struggling. And, going forward, the competition will intensify. Religare is hemorrhaging under the acumen-devoid leadership of Sunil Godhwani and is showing no signs of recovering. Religare continually gets mini bail-outs from the huge cash reserves that the Singh Brothers are currently sitting on, but the well could dry-up in less than a decade if their current run continues.

 

It is also possible that Gurinder could make some bad ( not-so-GIHF ) decisions. Our comments here are forming a valuable archive for those who will seek to find out more, specially after the radical shift in the Sant Mat teachings. I like the Japanese quote, it applies to all of us.

-------------------------

Nietzsche. No ! No ! Lets get this straight. Analjit Singh has not become rich on the backs of his nephews — the Singh Brothers. He was Bhai Mohan Singh's youngest son and Parminder Singh's youngest brother. Following a family division in 1989, the pharma business ( Ranbaxy ) went to his older brother ( Parminder ) and he got the smaller Max India. Has since built it into $1 billion ( sales ) Max Group with interests in healthcare, insurance, clinical research and packaging.

 

Currently, his healthcare business ( Max Hospitals ) is the biggest competitor of Fortis Healthcare, which is the healthcare business of the Singh Brothers. They are business rivals and the two families have never had any commercial alliance with each other after they parted ways in the Charan Singh days. Of course, they have often dragged each other to court over petty disputes ( a small property or some section of Bhai Mohan Singh's will ) but it was Analjit who got the raw deal when his father preferentially gave Ranbaxy to his oldest son.

 

For more on Analjit, this article sums it up well : http://business.in.com/article/boardroom/analjit-singhs-futureproof-strategy/24072/1 Gurinder's two sons, Gurpreet Singh Dhillon and Gurkirat Singh Dhillon can be found on the Indian Billionaires Club on the website here : http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/87721-Billionaire-Club-Ranking.aspx

 

Okay friend, stop looking for Gurinder on that list ! He's way smarter than that. The legitimate money is in his sons' names who live in London. It is highly likely that the larger ill-legit amounts are off-shored safely in the private banks of Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

 

His sons lead a rather discreet life in London. Most of their friends do not even know who their father is ! I can't find the latest rankings where they are at 355 / 356, but this rating ranks them at 360 / 361 respectively. ( I'll tell someone to search it out and I'll post it later ! )

 

Another correction — Ranbaxy was not sold last year, it was in the June of 2008. Immediately after that ( in July ) the Singh Brothers formally changed the name of Fortis Financial Ltd. to Religare Enterprises Ltd. The name " Religare " was chosen / approved by Gurinder. ( The etymology of the word « religion » in latin : Religare, means to bind. )

 

What else ? Hmmm... Yeah, there is a ton of stuff on Ranbaxy's dubious business practices. They were quite infamous for their animal testing methods, that is fine, but the promoters followed a rigid spiritual path that did not permit mayo. Oops ! Gurinder is the only " relative " who is a business partner and has made big money with the Singh Brothers. The rest of them are high paid employees, like Charan's son Cuckoo who works for Fortis Hospitals.
-------------------------

Familial Ties / Religare: Gurinder is Charan's nephew (his sister's son) and back in the day, Charan had nothing to do with Dr. Parminder Singh's (his son-in-law) fortunes. Nimmie (Charan's daughter) had a rather turbulent relationship with her husband (Dr. Parminder Singh) and Charan was often involved in resolving their marital issues. Towards the end Nimmie and Parminder were living separately.

In Charan's guru-days, Gurinder was just another member of the extended family. The Grewal's (Charan's family) and the Dhillon's (Gurinder's family) were not very close, nor were Gurinder and Nimmie (cousins). But, Charan was always very fond of Gurinder, who was (at that time) a simple man from a modest financial background, dedicated to his Guru Uncle.

Gurinder was working at the Hyatt Regency, New Delhi (as an Assistant Food & Beverage Manager there) and his career wasn't exactly going places. It was Charan who lined up a job for him with the Bilani's in Spain and Gurinder would scour China / HK and other Asian countries for watch parts. From a job in a hotel to a billionaire businessman? Like they say, you've come a long way baby... :)

Dr. Parminder Singh was an industry captain and a visionary exemplar. A lot changed after his demise in 1999. His sons (Malvinder and Shivinder) were very young and inexperienced at the time, and Ranbaxy was being run by a group of professionals headed by D.S Brar (then MD & CEO, a non-family member) who was instrumental (along with Dr. Singh) in transforming Ranbaxy from a small Indian pharmaceutical company into a research-based global pharmaceutical major.

The disagreements over Ranbaxy's international expansion strategy between Brar and the family surfaced in 2002 and Brar exited before the end of his term, leaving what happened behind the boardroom doors a mystery. An analyst, commenting on the Ranbaxy succession planning issue, said - "The question, however, uppermost in most people's mind is: (that) does the decision reflect a tussle between the promoter and professional management in which the promoter eventually had his way." Initially,

Gurinder was just playing an advisory role to the Singh Brothers. Soon, that "advisory role" turned into a full-time consultancy of sorts and it was soon heard that Malvinder & Shivinder "don't make a move" without HIS advise.

That "HIS" was Gurinder - a backstage operator in Ranbaxy's succession that led to Malvinder quickly taking up the post of MD & CEO in what was once a professionally run company. In the months that followed, Gurinder and the Singh Brothers became inseparable when it came to taking business decisions. Then in December 2005, Gurinder announced to his family and close friends that he will not be giving business advise to any one after the turn of the year!

 

Who knows, maybe the Singh brother's thought of "including" him in some way and it was around that time Fortis was launched as a financial services company, which was then re-named Religare... (I can bet this name was Gurinder's pick, the definition of Religare is mentioned somewhere on the RSSB website in an essay with reference to religion and spirituality.)

 

Gurinder is very shrewd, it would take a very smart person to do what he is doing. Keeping everyone's faith while making a great deal of money is not something that all of us can pull off. Of course, he has an added advantage of playing "God" so he gets away unquestioned and unscrutinized. I doubt if Dr. Parminder Singh would have approved of any of this.

 

Charan Singh (Parminder's father-in-law) was not his business advisor! It is common knowledge that Ranbaxy and RSSB were separate entities during Charan's tenure - one was into the pharma business while the other was into the God business... In fact, Charan had his hands full with the politics within the Dera and wholly discouraged any kind of business association with himself or RSSB trust.

If you take a look into the Ranbaxy archives, there is no trace of Gurinder or any of his immediate family members being associated to Ranbaxy or to Dr. Parminder Singh and Nimmie Singh in any way - through employment, through shareholding, through inheritance.

The fact that one of Charan's two sons is working in Fortis today (you can confirm this on the Fortis website, his name is Jasbir Grewal aka Cuckoo) and has no shareholding in either Religare or Fortis clearly shows that Charan did not take advantage of his familial relationships, else shouldn't his son be richer than his nephew ( Gurinder ) today? I would also like to add here that Gurinder and his sons are the only family members who are shareholders in the Singh brothers' businesses. It is not like there is a consortium of familial relations managing these companies.

Relatives are employed, but share-holding has been reserved only for the Guru and his sons. I can tell you for certain that no uncle or aunt of Gurinder had gifted him the initial capital (millions of dollars) to invest in Religare. Gurinder comes from a humble past, and for those who think that he has hectares "farmland" it may be good to know a fact - Gurinder and his immediate family are not agricultural industrialists of Punjab. A few acres of wheat and mustard produce cannot buy pre-issued shares in a global financial services company!

If you read the Religare prospectus, the shares were transferred to his sons at a pre-issue price of INR 10 before the IPO was launched. Like I said in my earlier comment, I see no reason for the Singh Brothers to part with the shareholding if there wasn't something in it for them.

 

That is why, IMO, the RSSB trust-funds cross-holdings with Religare is not such a smokin' conspiracy theory after all. I do not think that Gurinder and his family are directly siphoning out money from the RSSB trust. However, there is an institution in place (Religare) which manages the RSSB trust-funds, and in turn helps the Guru and his family profiteer from it. It is a legal v/s moral issue and if you look at this from a pure " Sant Mat " perspective, all of it looks terribly wrong!

This is not your average Wall Street banker we're discussing, this is GIHF - the Perfect Living Master, the Param Sant Sat Guru of Kalyug. The plethora of RS teachings now looks like a bigger pile of BS ! What ever happened to " Honest Living " I wonder... Gurinder's younger son - Gurkirat Singh Dhillon is the youngest billionaire on the Indian Billionaires List. The children of other billionaires are the inheritors of business legacies or are first-generation entrepreneurs - their success stories are a Google search away.

 

Gurinder's older son lives in a posh apartment in Mayfair, London. Has he earned it, or is it a by-product of having a Guru-dad ? My concern is for the poor villager who takes out his INR 10 to put into the RSSB money-box. That INR 10 could also buy him another meal. Something to think about - specially when salvation does not seem to be happening.

 

Well, I don't think we'll find Gurinder absconding one day, my guess is that he may head out in an autonomous direction (the signs are already there) and may even renunciate his leadership and Guru-status in the years to come. This may be a long shot, but like all things RSSB - it will be well orchestrated and the Sangat will be satisfied.
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SKat, Please read http://business.in.com/printcontent/932 and that should put the real facts in line. If Ranbaxy was all that cash rich, why did they sell out ? So, they sold the golden goose for ten thousand golden eggs ? Really ? Was it the current trend of intensifying generic competition and increased government regulation that got to them ?

It is common knowledge that Ranbaxy became debt-free after the deal and got $1 billion in cash to pursue inorganic growth opportunities more aggressively. It is also common knowledge that Parminder Singh would have wholly disapproved of Malvinder's business approach. Back in the day, Ranbaxy had one of the renowned R&D departments in the pharmaceutical sector. Many patents on drugs were about to expire industry wide, which would have allowed other pharma companies to innovate and produce products at lower costs.

The Daiichi-Ranbaxy deal was valued at 4.3 times sales and 21 times EBITDA on historical earnings. Malvinder wouldn't have got a better catch than Daiichi. He got the Japanese - hook, line and sinker ! And, the Parkway Hospital in-and-out deal was the only option as a bidding war with Khazanah would have bled them. Nothing wrong with a " good deal " though Corporate India did expect the Singh brothers to resist ! Instead, Malvinder came back with all bags packed and a neat pile of money.

From your comment it seems likely that you probably know that RSSB trust funds were ( and continue to be diverted ) to Religare. Do you see another reason for the Guru's two sons being shareholders ? What was Gurinder's financial status prior to becoming the Guru ? Of course, you don't have to answer this, but I'm sure that if you know the Head of Treasury and Head of Finance at Religare, you know the truth.

 

And, in this case, they more than hint about the Guru's involvement. It is all very risky, and you probably also know that that if this is publicly proved, it may spell disaster for the RSSB cult. By the way ( as tAo well noted ) we at the Church of the Churchless had nothing to do with the near-collapse of the global banking system ! Gurinder is a bigger fraud than all those bankers combined and he hails from our land. Besides, how different are the business practices of Mukesh Ambani, Malvinder Singh and co. in this country for you to be pulling out a fair-play card ?
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( The Singh brothers cannot be considered " family " in this regard as they " got into business " with Gurinder only in 2006, prior to which Gurinder had nothing to do with Ranbaxy and had no business of his own. ) B. There is no road-map to indicate how the Guru and his sons became ( now the largest ) shareholders of a two billion dollar company... ( ?? ) C. Why were shares transferred at a pre-issue price to Gurpreet and Gurkirat only ? Why is Gurpreet nowhere to be seen on the Religare India website ? Why is he tucked away in London ? Why has he never been interviewed ?