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).
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Unfortunately everyone we know, we know only from the construct our brain makes of them.
When we speak to them, we are really speaking to the construct we have made of them. When we hear them speak, it is the construct we are listening to.
That’s why it’s so easy to have imaginary friends. Because even our “real” friends are reconstructions of our mind based on whatever information it has. And the mind combines these with what our is conditioned to want, to love, to hate.
“We don’t see reality as it is. We see it as we are.”
Anais Nin
To really know anyone requires more than this and less: a very observant state of mind. More focus, less thinking. Not a mind that imagines, but a mind happy with being patient in the darkness of not knowing, waiting, observing.
This is how we really learn about our real friends. And ourselves.
If you can imagine Charan Singh it is only because the mind imagines everyone we know. And that something in you prefers to do this. The mind is reconstructing memories, images, even words spoken to us all the time. And then presents that to our awareness as “real”. And it does this under our own subconscious conditioning, our own subconscious command.
When imagination happens even before we are aware of it, we call that “real”, but it isn’t.
When Imagination is engaged as a conscious reconstruction, we call that fiction. But all good fiction has a basis in truth.
Imagination actually takes place without our permission much more often in what we understand as reality.
That “reality” is through the filter of mind, and”imagination” is a greater part of that than most people realize.
Meditation practice is learning to put that entire construction process aside and to observe what is really there behind imagination, opinions and thinking.
So, when you put aside who you think your neighbor is, you can learn to see your neighbor.
When you put aside who you think Charan is, you learn to see the real Charan.
And there is a point in meditation where we just focus on light and sound only. But what a pleasant surprise to realize that is the real Charan, our neighbor and ourselves.
The brain is a symbol making machine. Everyone and everything, all information is converted into a language of symbols and people.
Behind those are the real sources of that information. Those symbols arise from something. Your choice to imagine arises from something. And the images that one sees in meditation arise from a source. Imagination is constructed from raw materials.
So you may dismiss the entire world you know as imagination.
Or attempt a different, scientific approach to understanding what that is, and the reality behind its construction, the deeper symbols built into us, and the very real sources the mind draws upon.
@ Brian : [ 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. ]
What a refreshing post, Brian. Even if there’s non-belief in God or guru, you benefit
from their friendship. An atheist has an alibi too if nabbed in the act: “Oh, it’s nothing,
Dear, I’m just talking to myself”. A mystic would agree : “Yep, he’s solidifying that
bond of friendship with his “higher self” where the guru resides inside him and they
share consciousness.
That brings an eye-roll from the atheist. “I was just fantasizing an imaginary line
of dialogue in ‘Teheran’ if you must know. Please, no plot “spoilers” during the
show either”, he adds. Mystic: “Mum’s the word. Of course, if you’d like me to
explain what’s really going on in the spy’s psyche, just–“. Atheist: “No thanks,
I prefer an evidence-based explanation, not a conspiracy theory”. Mystic: You
wound me!”. Atheist: “Shh, it’s about to start!”
Well, I must be an oddball! I can’t say that I’ve ever had an imaginary friend. Perhaps when I was younger but I do not recall such. I’ve had a Sufi teacher and a Zen teacher, though have never been inclined to conjure them up to talk to. Of course, I think about them occasionally. And concepts like Gods and devils and such, although they may enter my head (being part of the information that my mind is comprised of) merit little attention.
The nearest I come to anything like that is the couple of crows who wait nearby for me to put some food out for them in the garden. I call out “Hello Mr. crow, here you go.” and place the food under a leaf or two on the lawn (hidden as the herring gulls would gobble them up). Also, when I hadn’t seen a little owl for some years, and one day saw one in a tree, I said “Ah, so there you are!” And of course, I talk (or rather mentally acknowledge) many things I encounter in nature.
And that’s about it. And happy for those who find an imaginary friend helpful in some way. Although like most people I do have many conversations (as most people do) in my head they’re usually to do with planning or irrelevant thoughts. But I am used to having the thinking process quieten down – and watch what is going on in the mind.
I am familiar with the fact that images emanating from the brain (or mind) are mental constructs and that the ‘self’ I feel I am is also a construct. In fact when this ‘self’ and mind content is quiet, all there is is this entire, totally natural physical organism left, being just that – no special self, in fact, no special anything – just this amazing everything.
We ourselves are also, largely imaginary.
Once more the reaching. Let’s not do this.
Yes, we know now that a great deal of what we know and understand is merely “model-building”. We also know that such model-building is often beset with biases and blindsiding aplenty, so that, sure, in a sense much of what we think we know is indeed imaginary, in a manner of speaking. But hey, let’s not stretch this way beyond what is reasonable and imply/claim that because a great deal of what we know is not-directly-real, therefore there’s no distinction between the real and the unreal. Let’s not imply/claim that because much of what we think we know is imaginary (in a manner of speaking), therefore there’s no difference between the real (or what we think is real) and the out-and-out imaginary. Let’s just not try that sleight of hand, of playing with words and ideas and pretending to come out with entirely unwarranted conclusions, and in the process pretending that science somehow backs up weirdo religious and/or New-Age-y ideas.
As far as Brian’s main article, well, I guess there’s no harm to imaginary friends, and they may even do some good in some cases, but —- and this is a very important “but” —- but only as long as one is clear that that friend is imaginary, only as long as one does not actually conflate imagination with reality, then and only then.
Hi AR
You wrote
“because a great deal of what we know is not-directly-real, therefore there’s no distinction between the real and the unreal.”
Yes that’s the problem, AR. Believing that everything we call real actually is. It isn’t. It’s largely warped by the mind, that constructs everything we see.
And believing everything we call imaginary is just unreal. Not true. It is constructed of real elements reformulated and warped by the mind.
Imaginary and real are not the same at all.
But we are never aware of just one or the other. We get a mixed picture. And we can use what we have been given to try to get closer to the real and further from the unreal.
Because what we think we know is an opinion based in part on information our brain constructs for us.
So, it’s not all one thing. And it’s not black and white so long as the human brain is the instrument of knowing.
When Brian Ji speaks to his Master and insists he is 100% and merely maginary, we don’t know.
Once there was a person named Charan Singh. A real human being, not a fictional character.
What Brian Ji’s mind does to that is his business.
Just as whatever you do to the person of your mom or dad or brothers or sisters is your business, but they were real people.
But thinking about Charan Singh isn’t thinking about a fictional person.
That would be false. And calling him 100% imaginary would not be 100% factual. For that statement to be true, Brian Ji would have had to invent Charan Singh. He did not.