In my thirty-five years of belonging to an Eastern religion headed up by a guru, I heard lots of statements like this. Some came from me.
“I’m going to become enlightened.”
“I’m going to become a more devoted disciple.”
“I’m going to become a better meditator.”
“I’m going to become God-realized.”
“I”m going to become a knower of ultimate reality.”
There’s nothing wrong with having aspirations, goals, intentions. However, there’s a problem with becoming in the realm of spiritual practice. It can easily become the proverbial carrot in front of a donkey — always just out of reach, no matter how much effort is put in.
The reason is that spirituality isn’t like golf. Someone can become better at putting or driving the ball off a tee. Those are physical activities with measurable results. But religion, mysticism, and spirituality aren’t like that.
They’re activities aimed at arriving at some poorly-defined inner state that sounds good in theory, yet is never achieved in practice. At least, not in any dicernible sense.
(If you can tell the difference between an enlightened and unenlightened person, be sure to describe how this is done in a comment. I’m eager to know what the difference is.)
Today I finished Robert Saltzman’s book, The Ten Thousand Things. It was a highly enjoyable read. I’ll mark the occasion by sharing some passages from one of his concluding mini-chapters, “Understanding Nothing.” Here he’s answering someone’s question.
I trust that you are speaking from the heart in wishing for the relief you imagine might ensue if only you could sign on to “spirituality.” But there is, I say, no real relief there at all — only escapism and self-deception. The only relief I know is the freedom one feels when finally the need for certainty comes to an end, replaced by a willingness to allow life to unfold as it does without knowing a damn thing about “cosmic” anything either pro or con.
When I say “freedom,” I do not mean happiness. Nor do I mean immunity from ordinary human suffering. I mean the equanimity and peace of mind that emerge in the light of the comprehension that in this moment things are as they are and cannot be any different, including what I think, what I feel, and how I see and understand myself and the world.
Each of us sees a different world, and what each of us sees is oneself. This does not signify as some people believe that the world is not real. It means that what I see is not the same as what you see. What you see is you, and what I see is me. When this identity of seeing and seer is understood, freedom is obvious, for then there is no stand-in, alternative, or substitute for seeing what I see, and being what I am in this moment. All I can be is myself, and all I can see is myself.
From my perspective, following a spiritual path, a religion, or a guru serves primarily as a means of avoidance — a way of replacing what one actually is right now with a glorified vision of what one could be. This is the fallacy of becoming. Those who purport to teach methods of “self-realization” or paths to “salvation” are not awake, I say, but hypnotized by fancy ideas they learned from previous epigones. Then, having convinced themselves of their “attainment,” they regurgitate the nonsense they learned to imitate, hypnotizing their followers in the same fashion.
You are what you are here and now. There is no “later,” and there is, I say, no path apart from one’s own suffering, one’s own confusion, and eventually, with luck, one’s own understanding.
There is nothing occult, mystical, or esoteric about this. Awakening is about relaxation and acceptance of each moment, moment-by-moment, not striving and exertion in search of some later, “better” state of mind. You can be only what you are right now, and right now is all you ever have. You do not have to be, and you cannot be, anything which you now are not.
But the path-followers, who want to imagine that their efforts, if pursued seriously enough and long enough, will lead them to some exalted or special state — some attainment — do not like that idea.
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Pure garbage
Gurinder Singh Dhillon was ordered to pay back hundreds of millions of dollars in connection with a large-scale fraud case involving his relatives, the former billionaire brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh
. A Delhi High Court order from 2019 identified Dhillon and his family among 55 entities that owed over $800 million (more than ₹6,000 crore) to the Singh brothers’ company, RHC Holding.
Despite legal cases involving him and his family, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the head of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) spiritual sect, has not been jailed. Claims that he will do no jail time are not a statement of fact, but reflect the reality that he has thus far avoided prison. The ongoing legal situation remains complex and subject to change based on the Indian justice system
High Court ordered Dhillon and his family to repay an $842 million debt to the former owners of Ranbaxy, Malvinder and Shivinder Singh. This money was then to be used to help the Singh brothers pay their own debt to the Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo.
Legal insulation: Commentators have noted that while others close to the RSSB guru have been indicted and jailed, Dhillon has so far not been held directly accountable. I personally do not want to enter into real estate or buildings built by ill gained white turban criminals.
Saltzman: – “There is nothing occult, mystical, or esoteric about this. Awakening is about relaxation and acceptance of each moment, moment-by-moment, not striving and exertion in search of some later, “better” state of mind. You can be only what you are right now, and right now is all you ever have. You do not have to be, and you cannot be, anything which you now are not.”
Robert Saltzman has obviously arrived at the same life position of ‘just this’ as described in the Zen/ Chan and Korean Son practices – and also the many non-dualistic approaches. His writing also has a strong flavour of J. Krishnamurti.
Having spent many decades looking into and practicing some of the more esoteric teachings he mentions (along with experiencing some of the associated ‘special states’), but now settled into the everyday realities of just this moment, it is always a pleasure to read someone who is able to state this present moment perspective so clearly – and without fancy embellishment.
He talks clearly about ‘The fallacy of becoming’: – “From my perspective, following a spiritual path, a religion, or a guru serves primarily as a means of avoidance — a way of replacing what one actually is right now with a glorified vision of what one could be.”
My own perspective on all this is primarily as a naturalist – very Daoist perhaps! All other creatures live out their lives without the mental anguish that we humans suffer from. One could say that’s because they don’t have the mental capacity to conceptualise as we do. And perhaps that’s our problem, in that we habitually think in the abstract and take our particular concepts to be the real world.
“no real relief there at all — only escapism and self-deception. The only relief I know is the freedom one feels when finally the need for certainty comes to an end,”
But he seems pretty certain about that. 😉
And uncertainty begins?
The joy of uncertainty awaits, if we just let go of ego, judgment, and embrace not knowing, embrace progress over perfection.
Where there is judgment here remains false certainty? Certainly!
“I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered, than answers that can’t be questioned.” Richard Feynman.
It all depends on who wants to know . It’s better to ask yourself.
It’s only helpful to ask ourselves, Ron. It’s the guy in the mirror who requires a hard look, a compassionate look, and an encouraging look. Personal progress does mean pushing ourselves. Which is why any escape from that is a well used path, and that includes finding fault with others.
In both these articles, Saltzman’s core message is perfectly reasonable, and I enjoyed reading them both.
However, in both cases, it seems to me there’s a completely unnecessary conflation of different — related but different — things.
Rather than discuss these separately, it might be simpler if I were to simply discuss this in one single comment — given that there seems to be a common thread running in both instances of conflation — but separated out into different sections for clarity.
———-
In this thread/article/post, here’s the two things that I believe are being unnecessarily conflated: on one hand, the rejection of spiritual mumbo jumbo, and the recognition of commonly understood ideas about enlightenment as no more than unsupported superstition, and the “enlightenment” from these superstitions; and on the other hand the mindfulness deal, however described.
Another way to express the same thing, using the words in the title and the extracts: Becoming is a fallacy, agreed, and that clear understanding is in and of itself an awakening, enlightenment if you will. Separately from that, there’s simply being, the mindfulness deal, which too, if taken far enough, can be thought of as an awakening, as enlightenment. However, two very different things are being indicated in these two instances, even thought we use the same term, awakening/enlightenment, to refer to them. They’re complementary, sure: but they’re very different. And also, while they’re complimentary (and each might help with the other), but neither is necessary for the other. We’d do well not to conflate them.
———-
And likewise, in the previous thread/article/post, there’s again two things that are being conflated. On one hand there’s (the perfectly reasonable) rejection of religious and spiritual superstitions as the unsupported fantasies they are. And on the other hand there’s the exhortation for first-hand spirituality over the second-hand item.
Here’s what I mean:
There’s a whole bunch of spiritual disciplines. Christian mysticism, and the whole range of Sufi practices, withing the Abrahamic fold. Then the whole vast gamut of Indic practices (including Vipassana, and also the RSSB practice that most readers here are closely familiar with), as well as their derivatives developed outside India (like Zen for instance). Plus there’s a whole host of other practices that probably developed independently, like the drug-aided trances in Indic traditions on one hand and in (native) American traditions on the other, as well as voodoo and shamanism and so on and so forth.
Each of these can be read about, and understood, and discussed, and examined. Studied from the outside as it were. That’s engaging with them at second hand. And/or each of them can be directly engaged with, actually practiced, which is what engaging with them at first hand amounts to.
That’s the conflation I meant, in this case: the conflation of the specific practice we favor (mindfulness, for instance): with whether we’re engaging with them at first hand, or at second hand.
And incidentally: No matter which specific practice/s we pick up: as far as the first-hand and second-hand thing, it doesn’t have to be either-or. One most emphatically doesn’t have to stop engaging with it/them at second hand in order to engage with them at first hand; and nor vice versa.
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Again, I agree with, and appreciate, the core message in both these posts/articles. Just, I thought to point out this conflation of different things within both these articles, that might end up making for unnecessary confusion.