Posted inBuddhism

Anxiety stretches between real and unreal

This morning I came across some great passages in Charlotte Joko Beck's "Nothing Special -- Living Zen." Anxiety is always a gap between the way things are and the way we think they ought to be. Anxiety is something that stretches between the real and unreal. Our human desire is to avoid what's real and instead to be with our ideas about the world:  "I'm terrible." "You're terrible." "You're wonderful." The idea is separated from reality and anxiety is the gap between the idea and the reality that things are just as they are. When we cease to believe in…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Radha Soami Satsang Beas men reportedly attack journalists

Interesting story in the Global Sikh News: Beas Dera Radha Swami men attacks journalists -- no action as yet. (Thanks for the links, Robert.) Senior Journalist H. S. Bawa, editor of YesPunjab.Com has release a news report providing extensive information regarding attack on Sangat TV (UK) crew members by Radha Swami Dera men. The men of Radha Soami Dera at Beas, which preaches non-violence, attacked the crew of Sangat TV at village Jodhe near Beas in the district of Amritsar. However, both the members of the crew were lucky enough to escape the attack. The crew members – Baljeet Singh,…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Make the mind cat-like (and win a gold medal)

I don't really believe in sychronicity or the universe has a message for me, but in the past 24 hours three pieces of information have combined to produce a feeling of, well, synchronous messaging going on. Last night I was reading TIME's summer olympics special issue. Lolo Jones, the American hurdler, describes what happened during her disastrous run for a gold medal in the 2008 Olympics. In the midst of the race... And then there was a point after that where I was like, Wow, these hurdles are coming up really, really fast. You have to make sure you don't…
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Posted inMiscellaneous

Kumare: a true movie about a fake guru (but aren’t they all?)

I'd seen a Stephen Colbert interview with the director and star of Kumare, Vikram Ghandi, a movie about an Indian guy who pretends to be a guru. Not surprisingly, he fools a bunch of Americans. But I hadn't watched the intriguing two-minute trailer, until someone emailed me a link. (Thanks, Tej.) Have a look.   Kumare is on my Netflix list. Or maybe it'll come to our local independent movie house. I loved the Borat movies, but now Sasha Baron Cohen is too well-known to be able to pull off his impersonation stuff.  Vikram Ghandi, though, succeeded. Heck, I bet…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

How is eating fast food chicken godly?

Having been a vegetarian for over forty years, and being familiar with how many (most?) Buddhists and Hindus consider killing animals for food to be sinfully bad karma, I'm struck by the bizarreness of Christian Mike Huckabee saying that the godly thing to do on August 1 is head to Chick-fil-A, a fast food chain, and eat a bunch of chicken. Dana Milbank explains.  “The goal is simple,” he announced this week, calling on Americans to help those who honor “the Godly values we espouse by simply showing up and eating at Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, August 1.” As of lunchtime…
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Posted inScience Universe

More thoughts on Jim Holt’s “Why Does the World Exist?”

Via an email (thanks, Nick) I learned about a Slate article that's based on a chapter in "Why Does the World Exist?" by Jim Holt, a book I blogged about recently. Updike on the Universe describes Holt's interview from John Updike, a noted novelist who has mused about the mystery of existence in his writing. It's worth a read. Here's a sample: “When you think about it,” he continued, “we rationalists—and we’re all, to an extent, rationalist—we accept propositions about the early universe which boggle the mind more than any of the biblical miracles do. Your mind can intuitively grasp the…
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Posted inReligions

Unreligious “Nones” are growing fast in United States

Great news. The Nones are on the march in the United States. Don't be scared. They aren't zombies, or soulless creatures from the underground (though religious believers might think so).  Unbelief is on the uptick. People who check "None" for their religious affiliation are now nearly one in five Americans (19%), the highest ever documented, according to the Pew Center for the People and the Press. The rapid rise of Nones — including atheists, agnostics and those who say they believe "nothing in particular" — defies the usually glacial rate of change in spiritual identity. Barry Kosmin, co-author of three American Religious…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Universe

Mystery of existence is near and far — not in between

Why is there something rather than nothing? Or more positively (my preference): There is something rather than nothing! A great question. And a great exclamation. I hugely enjoy pondering both, especially the latter. But the mystery of existence is much more than a pondering to me. It's an immediate, um, existential experience that always is lurking not far from the surface of my consciousness. I'm easily drawn into the depths of WOW! by ducking my everyday conscious mind just a little ways below the surface of the perceptions, thoughts, sensations, emotions and what-not which normally are the focus of my attention.…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Another inspiring RSSB “why I left” story

I love religious deconversion stories. They're more inspiring to me than conversion stories, because I've come to realize that a meaningful life is far distant from religiosity.  So someone is making progress when he or she is able to get further away from rigid dogmas. Below is a story from one such "someone." After sending me an email, I encouraged this person to write a blog-sharable version of why a decision was made to leave the formalities of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an India-based spiritual group organized around the teachings of a line of gurus who are considered to be God…
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Posted inGod

Why have faith in a God who fucks things up?

Today a gunman killed at least 12 people and wounded 59 in a Colorado movie theatre. My wife watched news coverage of the disaster this evening. She told me that a man was interviewed who praised God for saving his life. Maybe it was this guy, Zach Golditch, a football player in an adjoining theatre who was shot when a bullet went through a wall. And then at 8:57 a.m., he tweeted, "Thank you God for the gift of life! i promise it will not go to waste." Don't take this too personally, Zach, but I think you're an idiot.…
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Posted inFundamentalism Religions

Irritating putdowns of pseudo-spiritual wannabes

Even when I was a religious true believer, Eastern mysticism variety, I tried to avoid being irritatingly sanctimonious. People who consider themselves holier-than-thou are difficult to be around. And I necessarily associated with quite a few people who didn't believe in what I did. Such as my first wife, who early on deconverted from the India-based Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) faith that I held on to for about thirty-five years. And my second wife, who always has been an "infidel" from the standpoint of RSSB. When I gave talks at RSSB meetings, I often used her as an example,…
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Posted inBooks Science

Free will doesn’t exist. Compatibilism makes no sense.

I don't believe in free will. I've got good neuroscientific company, which includes Sam Harris, author of "Free Will." (See here and here for my previous blogging about the book.) Reading a New York Times review of "Free Will," I was reminded of how the have-it-both-ways notion of compatibilism doesn't make sense to me. Compatibilism claims that free will and determinism are compatible. Huh? is my reaction. Harris' also, according to the review. For quite a while now, philosophers and public intellectuals, including Harris’s friend Dennett, have tried to rescue something like the common notion of free will from the…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

I’m not bitter toward religion — just fed up with false claims

Fairly frequently true believers leave comments on this blog saying, "Brian, you're so bitter toward religion." This surprises me.  I don't feel bitter toward any religion or spiritual organization, including Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the India-based group I was an active member of for about thirty-five years. Rather, I'm disappointed about the false claims RSSB promotes in its teachings. If I buy a car, or a computer, I expect it will function as advertised. If it doesn't, I don't feel bitterness. Just irritation, disappointment, let-down. Now, how do I know that RSSB, or any religion, makes false claims? I…
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Posted inReality Religions Science

Morality has nothing to do with scientific truth

Einstein revealed some amazing truths about the cosmos through his theory of relativity and other research. Einstein also spent time with six girlfriends while he was married.  Is there any connection between these two facts? Should we question the validity of the theory of relativity because Einstein engaged in behavior that would seem morally questionable to many people?  No, of course not.  Universal scientific truths have no connection with individual, or even societal, moral norms. The cosmos doesn't care what we do with our bodies and minds. Laws of nature aren't dependent on human thou shalt's and thou shalt not's.…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

What Zen practice is… so simple…

I've been reading Zen books since my college days, forty-four years. I go hot and cold with Zen. Never have heated up enough to study it formally. Never have cooled off enough to lose interest in it entirely. When an author throws too much Buddhism into the mix of Zen + Buddhism, I get turned off. I like my Zen to be as non-religious as possible.  Which explains why Charlotte Joko Beck's "Nothing Special" appeals to me so much. I learned about the book from an interesting blog post by David Chapman with the same name.  I took the title…
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Posted inScience

Discovery of “God particle” has nothing to do with God

Bravo, CERN scientists! It looks like you've found evidence of the Higgs boson, a particle produced by knocking a tiny chunk out of space-time with a high-energy particle accelerator. This discovery could answer the question, "Where does mass come from?" That is, why is there something we can point to and say there!, rather than everything being formless pure energy? According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass. Particles wading through the field gain heft the way a bill going…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Does God want me to be a senior citizen skateboarder?

There's got to be a deep meaning behind my strangely strong desire to become a skateboarder, longboarding style, at the age of 63.  After all, don't the world's Western religions tell us that God/Allah is in control of our lives? And don't the world's Eastern religions tell us that Karma/Tao guides our decisions?  Thus I have to assume that if I follow through on my lust for longboarding, I will have taken another step toward my salvation, enlightenment, god-realization, satori, and overall Major Dude'ness.  (For some background on my divine mission, see here and here.) Now, so far I haven't…
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Posted inReligions

Religion and politics: where lies triumph over facts

Fascinating. Reading Leonards Pitts' column in today's Oregonian opinion page, it almost seemed as if he was talking about religion in "When lies triumph over facts, we're done." All I had to do was mentally substitute a few words in key passages. Which I've done non-mentally below. Not long ago, if you told a whopper like Palin’s a holy book's and it was as thoroughly debunked as hers it's was, that would have ended the discussion. These days, it is barely even part of the discussion. These days, facts seem overmatched by falsehood, too slow to catch them, too weak to stop them. Indeed,…
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