Change, even when it feels welcome, often has a way of seeming strange just because the old way of doing things had become so familiar. This is why my giving up on spiritual projects sometimes strikes me as such a departure from my previous approach to spirituality.
Here’s what I mean by a spiritual “project.” Not so much a definition as examples that point to what I’m talking about.
For most of the 35 years I was a member of an Eastern religion, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, I’d regularly go to a bhandara (spiritual gathering) of the organization where I would listen to inspiring talks, then return home with a vow to make more of an effort in some aspect of the RSSB teachings — usually meditation.
That became my project for a while, until it was time to repeat the process after attending another bhandara. I’d also go through phases of diving deep into some other mystical philosophy that had some sort of relation to my chosen faith.
I want through a Rumi phase, a Meister Eckhart phase, a medieval Christian mystics phase. Reading books on these subjects was another kind of spiritual project where I set out to understand more deeply how mystics from traditions other than my own looked upon God, meditation, and spiritual development.
My basic motivation in pursuing these projects was “I must try harder.” I looked upon the spiritual path as being akin to climbing a tall mountain. When I felt myself faltering, slowing down, becoming complacent with where I found myself, I’d eventually rededicate myself to pursuing spiritual ascent with more vigor.
Well, for quite a few years I’ve found my love of spiritual projects lessening. I no longer feel the necessity of trying harder, because I no longer believe life requires that sort of trying.
Sure, every day I labor at doing what needs to be done. Today I went grocery shopping, walked the dog, helped my wife set up a table for a Christmas Eve dinner with friends. Plus a bunch of other stuff. But I resonate with something Robert Saltzman says in his book, Depending on no-thing, that I read this morning. It’s a quote from his previous book, The Ten Thousand Things.
When the path peters out, and you find yourself alone and without assurances of anything, this aliveness, unmitigated, is apparent. Unless you find yourself alone like that, without taking refuge in second-hand notions, no matter what their source, you will never be free, but will remain always an adherent, forever a disciple or an epigone.
I had to look up the definition of epigone: “a less distinguished follower or imitator of someone, especially an artist or philosopher.” Yes, that fits. I want to be myself, not someone else. It’s what I wanted ever since I came up with the tagline for this blog in 20o4: Preaching the gospel of spiritual independence.
For many years I’ve bounced back and forth between listening to guided meditations and simply following my breath, or remaining in open awareness of what’s going on inside and outside of me. Now I’m finding it more difficult to hear the voice of someone else guiding me in meditation .
One reason is that I no longer believe there’s somewhere I need to be guided. Here and now is enough for me. I can effortlessly find that place all by myself. Also, if I need any guidance in embracing the present moment, the voice in my head that speaks thoughts can handle that just fine.
I still enjoy reading books before I meditate in the morning. But more and more, they have to do with not-doing, spiritually speaking. This is why Robert Saltzman’s books appeal to me. He has a spiritual message, but it basically is “there’s no need for spiritual messages.” In the Depending on no-thing chapter I read today, Saltzman answers someone who is attracted to nondual teachings.
You mentioned the “nondualists” and said they seem to be missing something human, while I, Robert, seem to be “human and yet more.” That seems to be the crux of your question. You want to be more than human. You want to be more than you are right now. You want to live as if there were some ideal state — the state of so-called “nonduality” — in which, like a successful “nondualist,” you achieve “no separation” between “myself” and “everything else.”
I no longer want to be more than what I already am. At least, not in the sense of becoming some sort of more-than-human spiritual being. I currently view meditation much as I view going to the gym: it’s a form of mental exercise that relaxes and strengthens me just as physical exercise does. Nothing more, nothing less.
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To be disconnected from reality can be very lonely. Yet it can also be freeing, a freedom from the weight of our own self-delusion. A moment when we feel truly free to be ourselves. Whatever that self constructed artificial icon is.
But that is just another illusion. An illusion of much lighter weight but still no actual realization or true connection.
Our connection to reality is never ending. We are never alone. That sense of independence, freedom and loneliness is simply blindness. We are simply observing the disconnection of mind from reality. It is a mental state only. Fine to observe, then fine to set aside for the fact that we are all connected and our intellect is certainly not the only consciousness, and most certainly not the greater Consciousness that is moment by moment looking out for us.
@ Spence T.
The descriptions of NDE’s have not only certain things in common related to the experience, like experiencing tunnels, light etc but also the change in the relationship between the near and dear of the person that had the NDE.
Often the complaint is heard that the person that has the NDE, is no longer experienced as the one who he was before the experience.
The near and dear one’s sometimes experience a painful alienation having “lost” the object of their love.
It can become so painful that they decide to end the relationship …. not withstanding the statements that nothing has changed by the one having had the experience and that they still love his friends and family as before.
So Spence, that person might feel the way you point at, that they are connected with all and everything but THAT is not what others experience. …they are painfully aware that they no longer share the common reality with one another with one the love so much before the NDE
Efforts of those having this kind of inner experiences to make others share that new found consciousness of reality with those near and dear, just do not work and these efforts cannot work and I suppose you know that too.
Those that have inner experiences have NOT solved that riddle of .. loneliness…they are as alone as they were before , .. they step in the ranks of the Saltzman’s, the Rumi’s, the Nisargadatta’s …
Nobody can escape the fate of walking his path of life … ALONE.
Being alone is by no means a hindrance for making coffee … he told me how to deal with it … be alone and enjoy your own compagny
It depends on what you think reality is or how you define it. Is it your bank account or is it Strawberry Fields Forever? For me it’s the latter .
Hi Um
You wrote
“Nobody can escape the fate of walking his path of life … ALONE.”
I think it depends on one’s connection to reality. We come from life, we express life, and we merge back into life.
The experiences of being apart and lonely we all feel in moments where we are NOT conscious of that connection that is ongoing 24/7. It is blindness that leads us to think we are alone. But practice at nothing more than observation clears that away.
The only thing that is alone and separate is our artificial identity. It’s manufactured and therefore not connected to any reality. Let it go.
It’s about taking yourself out of it, Um, that is all. Then all there is is light, sound, connection and a loving consciousness all around you and within you. You don’t need any inner experiences to realize this.
Throughout Saltzman’s books, he has a lot to say about “When the path peters out . . .” It takes a certain courage to live with just this moment and not to rush off into a projected different moment; one that often involves latching onto some formula propagated by self-proclaimed spiritual authorities who offer their particular brand of realisation, enlightenment, etc.
It is so tempting to follow those who say “I know” and perhaps prescribe hours of meditation or obedience to a set of rules or whatever that enable you to reach some utopian state. All generally aimed at what is really an escape from the everyday ups and downs of being human.
There is no end to the clever, concept-driven metaphysical claims and alleged proofs that basically entice one to transcend the fact of being a human primate and the factual realities of being born, living with all the pains and joys of life, and finally dying. Such is the way with all biological organisms, but it is hard to accept, so the temptation, indeed, the inclination to escape toward the promise of being more than merely human is almost universal.
So yes, once that understanding takes place, that seeing of what/who I really am, along with the profound limitations of what I can really know, then short of running back to the gurus’ offerings, living with life as it is can be liberating – though perhaps not easy!
And to add, all this doesn’t mean accepting one’s lot. If you have a toothache, then go to the dentist; if society is unjust, then react – if that’s your thing – but whatever is done or not done is one’s actual life and reality.
I just finished reading this book on Zen. It’s one of the best I’ve read:
https://archive.org/details/lightsittinginli00maci
She studied for 35 years under one of the top Zen Masters of Japan. One of Yasutani Roshi’s favorite sayings that she found to be true: “There is no kensho (radical awakening that non-dualism is reality) without sore knees.” That means a lot of sesshins, a lot of work with koans, if one wants to really see and know.
@ Ron E.
That all said and agreed with … what remains is, that through the ages, humans have had spontaneous or artificial provoked experiences, that all have certain elements in common, experiences that speak of another reality or another way of perceiving reality
So yes, we are all bound by our “hardware” to perceive reality in a way that suits that perception and fits the drive of survival.
So human awareness, consciousness etc is restricted to our survival but that doesn’t say that such an perception is all there is.
I understand that those having these altered states of consciousness want to share their experiences with their fellow human beings and have tried to find ways as how to manipulate the “hardware” in such an way that that awareness can be had.
The problem, by lack of a good other word, that I have with it is the suggestion that this successful manipulation of the body in order to force that kind of awareness …is the very goal of life.
@Spence T
Aware of the unique variations of the same of everything in the whole universe, makes one onderstand that both the uniqueness and the sameness are as two sides of the same coin. … it is not possible to separate either side of that coin. .. so the crow is born a crow, lives a life as a crow and ultim,ately will die as a crow.
The fact that the “sameness” takes endless forms doe not alter the sameness that gives life to it and everything.
Your experience does only tell a tale of the unique variation, however inspiring that might be for you, it does not tell anything about the sameness that is the life line of everything.
He said .. stay at home, in your own room in your own chair and enjoy your own company .. what keeps company with what
Mental concepts are artificial so naturally they are not connected to reality, though any scientist will confirm we are indeed part of nature. We did not invent ourselves, only concepts about ourselves. In nature the distinctions between all life forms are not as humans have classified and dissected them. Those are lifeless distinctions. The persona that claims to be anything is already disconnected, isolated and living the illusion of a concept.
The price of freedom and connection? No ‘I’.
@ Spence T.
What would you have to say without concepts?
Every word you write is conceptual.
Hi Um
You wrote
“What would you have to say without concepts?
Every word you write is conceptual.”
Some concepts reflect reality more closely than others. For example Maharaji never taught anyone to live with being lonely. He taught us to settle down, relax and realize the great Presence that was always there for each of us within. You have a concept but it isn’t connected to the reality, only to the constructed artificial reality of your identity and the opinions the mind forms to defend that artificial reality. That’s the source of tremendous pain and sadness. But actually you are a being that is part of a creation. A little observation, putting yourself aside, reveals a lot. Now that isn’t concept or artificial construction. It’s experience of reality.
For that, ‘I’ must go. Just like Jaimal Singh wrote to Sawan Singh, take yourself out of it. It is the identify that separates us and creates the illusion of isolation and loneliness. If you are willing to put aside being proud of your notions you can live among the living, not the dying.
@ Spence T.
Yes that sameness is always there for everybody and in everything .. nothing [unique variation ] can exist without connection to it.
There is nothing that can be done, should be done for a coin to have two sides …the sameness and the unique variation of it.
Not only horizontal but vertical …. Lao Zi could not have is said simpler ..the sameness gave birth to the 10.000 unique variations of it .. variations that all could be named … conceptual
Love , he said is loosing your own identity merging into another being …. he did not say YOU HAVE TOO … By loving it can be done
I think it’s funny that people defend vigorously their lifeless artificial identity and all its opinions but question the reality of life that pours forth in all things, and even themselves, every moment, and does not require their awareness nor permission to exist.
The variation LeoTse spoke of is the variation of life forms, not the lifeless variation of dead concepts people invent.
Those dead ideas are like excrement. Hardly food for health.
@ Spence T.
If you include me in the tendency of what people do, you are projecting as i neither defend my identity nor do I question the experiences of anybody .. there is no need to.
You are simple not more alive than anything else in this universe … that is all … just an simple observation.
The unique variations do not alter or add to the sameness of everything and everybody.
There is no meaning to life, it’s meaningless beyond knowing that it’s a prison with restrictions, and ruled by evil people for their own needs and their own families. Gurinder Singh dhillon is one of them. He is physically the puppet of his master, kaal, and his hierarchical cult makes sure you are blinded with useless actions. This could be hours of satanic meditation (the first word being jot nirunjan, the light of the devil) it could also be the expectation to do seva , which is slavery for the benifit of rssb cult only. It could be spending more time with your new family who you call sevadars, and of course fall in love with a a dirty old man with a turban that sits on a high stage. How ridiculous does this sound !!!! you give up your possessions , mind body and soul to a complete stranger, and a dirty old man that declares him self as a baba, a saviour. All this to distract you away from your real loved ones, your family, your siblings, your parents , or carry out your own objectives to have the greatest life within your means. Gurinder, your foolish evil methods are being exposed. God will get justice and you will now have to face your own karma – you will not get away with it. God you bless !!!!
Hi Um:
You wrote:
“You are simple not more alive than anything else in this universe … that is all … just an simple observation.”
Yes, true that! But are we aware of our own life? Of the life in us? Are we connected to it? Do we experience it? That would be really living, IMHO. And to be ignorant of it, to be separated from it, or more truthfully, unconscious of it, seems to me to be quite tragic and unnecessary.
So, then there is the journey to self-realization. But it’s a journey to a point we know nothing about, and for that reason few take it. Most give up, surrender themselves to their ignorance. The journey of meditation practice and inner looking is work after all. But then again, we are alive and awake 16+ hours of the day, we are going to be about activity, why not do something that opens up that capacity built in each of us? Why not? Why claim some history as a defense for inaction when we know we don’t know? Why deny all the evidence of the life within us? And if you know you don’t know, then of course, that is the basis for seeking and practicing, etc.
You have the time. Most people have more than enough time. So what then, but ignorance, is the reason? But to see people defend such ignorance is truly amazing.
I actually may know much less than you. But that alone inspires me to seek, to look, to listen, to practice. And if I ever know so much that I don’t think I need to keep working to learn and grow, I’m not sure I’ve learned much.
The mind has a way of taking us backwards when we least expect it. Striving to get back to nature, the mind convinces us we are already there! But what does the mind know? Nothing. The proof is in the desire to grow or its absence.
It’s not a matter of whether or not pursuing our connection to reality is necessary. How could we possibly know that? How do we know the actual distance of this journey, or what makes all this happen? What do we know of things unseen or unheard? We know nothing of such and so are in no position to weigh them, to decide upon them.
What brings the tides and the heavens to their passages? We understand a couple of the mechanics, but the ones who discovered those are most aware of how connected and dependent those mechanics are to other invisible things.
We live in ignorance. It is just in the passion to respect life, to acknowledge it, and to grow our relationship to it that we do so.
We can do the work for the sake of the work, and not for the sake of the self. Or we can just live in the self alone, for the self, in complete darkness, justifying our inaction by finding fault in the world, relinquishing everyone and everything else in service to that small self, ego, that doesn’t actually have any existence. And its reward, when it succeeds? The loneliness of being disconnected. What is the gift the mind gives for asserting our existence as individuals? Existential crisis, disconnection, and with it, no basis for balance, no anchor, no home port. But of course all those are there. They do exist. We have just over and over and over again chosen not to look, to preserve that worthless ego.
It’s a poor bargain, IMHO.
@ Spence T.
With pleasure I did read twice what you wrote. Maybe I could or would have answered a struggling brother or sister in the same vein, years and years ago but today I can’t even imagine I had those thoughts and feelings …
Let me just react to one of your questions, statements .. Yes, we are all alive and aware of living.
If you can find it read the parable of the worm, [treasure]hunting for the golden apple in a far away land, and the eagle. Told by the late prof. B sitting next to MCS.
That parable tells it all … in terms of …IF …THEN .Unfortunately Spence the parable is told in just ONE form of “IF”
Just read your own words carefully. If you do you will come across a manifold of pre-conditions, sine qua non’s.
I do hope you will understand that if they are not there, they are just not there and nobody will embark on that treasure hunt or will go on.
There are many psychological motivations to embark on such an treasure hunt or not, or to give up.
There is no better way to explain what happened but to say that I woke up in the middle of an [beautiful] movie. Let me stress here that this metaphor is not meant to say something about the reality of the movie etc…. not at all … I am not saying it is an illusion or delusion …. no that is not to me to make such assessments and I don’t .
Years before I compared it with children one day finding out that Santa Claus does not exist or is the friendly neighbor. Once awake there is no way a child can go back in believing what he did before and yes no child should be disturbed in his faith.
Again PLEASE do understand that I am NOT making any assessments about “santa claus” … it is just only addressing of how something feels ….=> … atheism is an childish belief
RADHA SOAMI AND GURINDER SINGH DHILION
SAINT a person having the qualities of always having good intentions
Hahaha lol can never be Gurinder Singh Dhilion
Just look at all the sick and bad things he’s done to all, even his very own family
Gurinder Singh Dhillon is a Coward and Hides after he’s done so much bad to others, because he might get a good hiding for it too.
He’s no Saint but someone who’s lost his Sanity
His love for Power, money and women is absurd if anything he needs hospitalization for these sick acts which make no sense of his seedy nature.
He needs help he really believes he’s a God and he’s got people believing that too.
Come on Wake up he’s a Lying Little Donkey ripping people out of pocket and land
Now we even have another, yes another fake Baba Jassdeep singh who goes hand in hand with Gurinder Singh Dhilion.
So we have Not 1 but 2 clowns running the circus named Radha Soami worldwide
One with a White turban the other with a white turban lol
Dressing Donkeys
Who’s heard of a 2 Baba person Cult based on lies and greed.
Nearly over Gurinder Singh Dhilion you’re EXPOSED and Gods coming for You, laugh a little, not for long buddy
Ho Ho Ho
Gurinder Singh Dhillon your a clueless clown and have taken an apprentice/ pattron to teach him your greedy, lustful ways and how you can hide your true evil colours from the public. Your a land mafia crook pretentending to be a guru. Also you have teamed up with a drug lord brother inlaw Majeethia to corrupt punjab. You are hiding in plane sight but you are exposed as a wife murderer, amd peodophile sympathizer, and a fraudster – and it is plane for anyone with eyes to see. The karma you keep talking about in your satsangs is going to be served to you.
Hi Um
You wrote
“Years before I compared it with children one day finding out that Santa Claus does not exist or is the friendly neighbor. Once awake there is no way a child can go back in believing what he did before and yes no child should be disturbed in his faith.
Again PLEASE do understand that I am NOT making any assessments about “santa claus” … it is just only addressing of how something feels ….=> … atheism is an childish belief”
If the only Santa Clause you ever saw was a guy being paid to cosplay Santa then you might think Santa was just s guy being paid to cosplay.
But if you asked yourself why Santa is so compelling to children and adults, even up you, knowing the physical form just looks like a guy in a costume, then you might just miss out the guy handing out incredible presents that always ends up being the one deepest wish in the heart. You have seen to many photo copies you have lost the ability to see the original. But there could be no copies without an original.
Mind does that. It lives on the surface like a quaking duck spouting opinions and destroying insight, stirring up the surface with conflicting thoughts and emotions so that the gems deep within that pond, covering the floor of the pond, are invisible. Santa is absolutely real, but he is deep within you. Only a relaxed, quiet and attentive mind can him. But once you do, no going back.
@ Spence
By nature I do not envy anybody for having anything, in contrary.
It is their fate to have what the have.
Many are called but few are chosen, says that it is in nobodies hand to be chosen.
All at the end will be asked this question, just a slinguistic style form, …WE HAVE you xxxx, whart have you done with it.
Xxxxx ..can be everything from hapiness to misery
It has been my fate that from child hood on people have put before me this or that thing that made THEM, happy and generalizing it suggested that it should make OTHERS, me included happy.
Well Spence it never ever worked out that way … until know I have walked through a dry dessert. Yes there were the comforts of passing this or that oasis and meeting kindred people, but it never rained turning that dessert in to a garden of flowers.
Over time I stopped gradual listening to the “kind” offers made by any by passers and at the mean time came to surrender and understand my fate and in doing so came to understand many a thing about human psychology.
You are gifted by many talents that made you successful in professional life and you are also an chosen one … but that is not something that can be or is generalized.
Being a light in the world, the light should see to it that it does not blind others.
Hi Um
Light doesn’t really concern itself with darkness, does it?
Only with light. The light in me, connecting with the light in you, is the same light.It has no concern or respect for me or you personally. It is beyond personal distinctions. And that is why it is the only realistic hope for peace on earth and goodwill towards all. Because in that light you and I don’t exist anymore. Yet there we are, together, living our fullest life.
The fact that mind, being mostly an instrument of darkness, generally can’t see that light is also the same in you and I. To see that light requires exercising different muscles of internal perception, usually dormant. It would be hopeless to try to ride upon mind’s limited capacity. That will never happen for anyone. So it is quite natural to encourage you to open up those other capacities within you, through renewed practice. After all, isn’t that where your own Master is? Mind has nothing to do with him. By experience we learn that. By faith and practice we go from zero to sixty in a second. Two tracks, one outward and one inward. And moving in opposite directions! Who knew? But stay with the inner one, no matter how dry things seem to be.
If us arrogant and smarmy Jews could walk through the desert for years with only hope to sustain us, if we could turn within, even while pissing off our Master at every turn, unintentionally, walking right through the shadow of the valley of death, and cross that desert, as faithful but foolish, then anyone can, Um. Even you.
@ Spence
I know that it exists and .. at least … that is what I heard from OTHERS and I have nor had any problem accepting that it exists.
After all it happened to my dear late friend with whom I walked this path for some decades.
But I also came to understand, and that is what lies between you and me, it was never in anybodies hand to make it happen … without exception it was given to them … like it was given to you Spence
Hi Um:
Thank you.
Being an ignorant slob, as I am, how could I possibly know to whom it was given? When their time might be? So I just say, “Wait a little longer. Keep at it, return to it for just another day.” The idea that you haven’t received it is impossible for me to conceive. Without any explanation, I know you have, as has Brian and everyone who asks. It doesn’t stop any of us from being ignorant and smarmy slobs, try as we might not to. It’s our Karma. Is a patient undergoing minor surgery awake? No, they don’t know what’s happening, they think nothing has happened even while everything is happening, and that actually is right. They are undergoing surgery, and sleep works best for them during all that. But they will awaken when the surgery is over.
A wave just gently reaches out to the shore and then returns into the ocean. Does the wave even bother to concern itself with where it lands and who might or might not hear or see? It just enjoys being a wave.