Posted inDelusions Mindfulness Reality

“The Surprising Allure of Ignorance,” an essay by Mark Lilla

My wife subscribes to the print edition of the Sunday New York Times. As I was taking the discarded December 8 edition to our recycling bin, I noticed an essay in the Opinion section, which was on top of the pile, that looked interesting: "The Surprising Allure of Ignorance," by Mark Lilla. (That's a gift link from my digital New York Times account, so it should be readable by everybody. But I've also copied in Lilla's essay in its entirety below, as it isn't all that long.) Lilla is a professor of humanities at Columbia University and the author of…
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Posted inBooks Mindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

“The Mindful Geek” is a meditation guide for secular skeptics

Do I really need another book about meditation? No, I've got lots of them at the moment and have read many more over the 55 years I've been engaged in daily meditation. But do I want another book about meditation? Absolutely. That's why Amazon delivered The Mindful Geek by Michael W. Taft to me recently. I was in the mood for a meditation guide that was based on secular non-religious principles that were in accord with modern neuroscience. Taft has a strong background in various sorts of traditions. His first paragraph is: From Zen temples in Japan to yogi caves…
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Posted inDelusions God

Drone fever and prosperity gospel point to religious myth-making

A couple of news stories I came across today are examples of both the limitations of human reason, and how those limitations help to produce religious myths. The New York Times had a story about the drone sightings that have gotten lots of people in New Jersey and New York all excited. Everyone should be able to read "How Drone Fever Spread Across New Jersey and Beyond," because I'm a digital New York Times subscriber and am sharing the story as a gift link. Here's some excerpts: It was a dry and cool Wednesday evening outside the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Personal/Stories

Here’s our 2024 Holiday Greetings letter

I'm not a Christian, but I have no problem with saying "Merry Christmas." After all, tomorrow is as much a secular day devoted to giving and receiving presents as it is a celebration of Jesus' supposed birthday. The problem with this celebration is that it's virtually certain Jesus wasn't born on December 25. Wikipedia says: In the third century, the precise date of Jesus's birth was a subject of great interest, with early Christian writers suggesting various dates in March, April and May. Steven Hijmans of the University of Alberta writes that "cosmic symbolism" inspired the Church leadership in Rome…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

The greatest sin is certainty

If I believed that the universe communicates with us, I'd view what happened during some television watching a little while ago as being a message to me from the universe. But since I don't have such a belief, I'll go with coincidence. My last blog post was called "A clear mind sees a foggy world. A foggy mind sees a clear world." I found this wonderful notion in Tim Urban's book, What's Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies. Urban does a masterful job arguing against zealotry, where a person is so sure that a belief they hold is correct, they're…
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Posted inReality Science

A clear mind sees a foggy world. A foggy mind sees a clear world.

In my previous post I talked about how science is viewed in Tim Urban's creative and engaging book, What's Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies. I've continued reading the book, finding Urban's writing style highly appealing. Here's a terrific passage that offered up a compelling way of looking upon the difference between a Scientist and a Zealot. While the Scientist's clear mind sees a foggy world, full of complexity and nuance and messiness, the Zealot's foggy mind shows them a clear, simple world, full of crisp lines and black-and-white distinctions. When you're thinking like a Zealot, you end up in…
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Posted inScience

Your Higher Mind thinks like a scientist

I've followed Tim Urban and his Wait But Why blog off and on for quite a few years. Not long ago Urban published a book online, What's Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies. I took a look at it, but I much prefer reading print books. Fortunately, Urban eventually came out with a "real" book. When I got an offer from Urban to buy his book directly from the printer (it's self-published), I did just that. It arrived a few days ago. I'm enjoying it, in part because I like the quirky illustrations crafted by Urban. The book also…
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Posted inDelusions

Sabrina Wallace’s (“Sheena”) connection to a far-out conspiracy theory

I'm sharing this information not because I believe in it, but for other reasons. (1) The person at the heart of the conspiracy theory is Sabrina Wallace. I've been told by someone who knows her that Sabrina is the "Sheena" who wrote a book about her spiritual experiences in India that included some unflattering references to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. (See here, here, here, and here.)  (2) The person who knows Sabrina said that she now is fine with being identified as "Sheena." Before, she wanted her real name kept confidential. The web page…
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Posted inPlotinus Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Plotinus, a Greek philosopher, spoke a lot about the One

My previous post was about the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas referring to oneness, rather than duality, as being a characteristic of God. So much so, the guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, says that you can't get to God through meditation if you think that God is there and I am here. Osho Robbins, who messaged me about Dhillon's remarks, viewed this as being in accord with the teachings of Advaita, an Indian philosophical system centered on the notion of not-two, the meaning of Advaita. Which does indeed sound a lot like One. However, I believe that Dhillon's discussion…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

The RSSB guru appears to be teaching Advaita

Today I got a message from Osho Robbins, which I've shared below. He titled it "Radha Soami guru is teaching Advaita." Advaita can be described simply or complexly. Here's a simple description.  Advaita is a philosophical and spiritual tradition of self-realization. At the heart of Advaita is the concept of unity. The Sanskrit word Advaita means "not two," or nondual. This philosophy asserts that there is something essentially good, intelligent and awake in each of us—and that something is no different from the essence of this creation. Advaita’s approach is fundamentally experiential. Deep peace and connection to the love and…
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Posted inAwareness Consciousness Mindfulness

Meditators need to avoid mistaking subtle dullness for meditative joy

As noted in a previous post, I've been re-reading the first part of a book by Culadasa (John Yates), The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness.  I'm almost back to where I stopped my reading about six years ago for a reason I can no longer recall. The book is an amazingly detailed and comprehensive approach to Buddhist meditation. I find it refreshing, because there's hardly any mention of Buddhist scriptures, Buddhist terms, or Buddhist stories.  The whole focus is on guiding the reader through ten stages of meditative practice. So…
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Posted inNeuroscience

Your brain has three gears. Gear 2 is the best.

Buddhism has the middle way. There's a saying, "Everything in moderation." The fable of Goldilocks and the Three Bears involves three choices where "the first is wrong in one way, the second in another or opposite way, and only the third, in the middle, is just right." So it isn't surprising that, according to a recent article in New Scientist, Take control of your brain's master switch to optimize how you think, the human brain has three gears that are coordinated by a small bundle of cells called the locus coeruleus, Latin for 'blue dot."Download Take control of your brain's…
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Posted inBooks Neuroscience Universe

Doty’s book, Mind Magic, made sense to me. With one glaring exception.

Well, today I finished reading James Doty's book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything. I started off liking the book more than how I ended up liking it.  The general thrust of Mind Magic is hard to argue with. The human mind is like an iceberg: the conscious tip, which we're aware of, is much smaller than the subconscious bulk, which we aren't aware of. Yet thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and such mostly bubble up from the subconscious rather than our conscious awareness. We all are familiar with thoughts that appear unbidden and depart without a…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Learning new skills is key to improving both mind and body

Like most people, I'm a big believer in improving my skills. This is such an obvious thing to do, it hardly bears mentioning. But I feel like I need to stress the obvious, because some visitors to this blog seem to view spirituality as a "one and done" sort of thing.  Meaning, you find a religion, meditation technique, mystical path, or whatever that suits you, and you stick with that approach with no modifications for the rest of your life. Yeah, I realize this sounds ridiculous, and it is. Yet I've encountered people who actually seem to believe it's the…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism Mindfulness

Mindfulness is focused attention plus peripheral awareness

In December 2018, six years ago, I wrote what seems to be my first (and only) post about a book I'd just started reading, The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness. A few days ago something spurred me to pluck the book from a bookshelf where it had been languishing after I'd read about half of the 415 pages, then put it aside. I decided to re-read it, since the book methodically describes ten stages of Buddhist meditation and I wanted to start at the beginning rather than jump right into…
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