This morning I read another chapter in Scott Carney's The Enlightenment Trap: Obsession, Madness and Death on Diamond Mountain. "Diamond Theosophy" included some interesting Buddhist history that I wasn't aware of before.
I did know that Buddhism became less popular in the area where Buddha lived, modern day India. China and Japan became Buddhist centers, along with south Asia. But Buddhism also made its way into Tibet in the fifth century, where it thrived.
Carney writes:
Modern scholars who have studied the original manuscripts were unsurprised to learn that the translations that endured the legions of miles on monks' backs were not always true to the source material. Occasionally, texts that turned up in Tibet were little more than insights of a monk from his travels, but the books nonetheless masqueraded as sacred texts from an ancient source.
Ronald Davidson, a professor in New York who spent much of his lifetime poring over translated books from medieval Tibet, found that in many cases the tantric scholars borrowed freely from non-Buddhist sources, including the wide array of Indian mystics, magicians, and yogis they met on their travels. As translators hurried back home with increasingly outlandish literature, Buddhism there took a turn toward the exotic. Stories of siddhas, enlightened masters with magical powers, spread freely.
The problem of authenticity was as relevant in medieval Tibet as it is now that Tibetan Buddhism has gone global. Does authenticity mean an indisputable connection to an ancient source of wisdom? Or can something be authentic even if it is ephemeral and experiential? Perhaps the questions are best thought of as a tension between what has stood the test of time and what makes someone feel a connection to the spiritual ideal.
For a long time after Jesus did his thing, whatever it was (I deeply doubt that he was the Son of God, since there's no demonstrable evidence that God exists), there was only a single church, the Catholic one. Then Christianity split into Catholicism and Protestantism. Then each split into more Christian faiths. Something similar happened in Islam.
The religion that I know best, because I belonged to it for 35 years, is a branch of Sant Mat, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).
This India-based religion headed up by a guru has close connections to the Sikh religion. But Sikhs consider that their holy book, the Adi Granth, is the last word on what's true about the cosmos, while RSSB considers that a living Perfect Master, God in Human Form, is the source of true knowledge about ultimate reality.
During most of my time in RSSB, the organization took pride in the fact that, according to the RSSB gurus, the religion's teachings were the highest truth about God, the purpose of human life, and supernatural realms of reality. This truth was considered to be unchanging, baked into the fabric of the cosmos by the Creator.
So each RSSB guru reflected the teachings of his predecessor. At RSSB meetings, satsangs, books written by each of the gurus were quoted from. They differed in style but not in substance. That changed when the guru who initiated me in 1971, Charan Singh, died in 1990 and the successor he appointed, Gurinder Singh, took over.
By 2006 Gurinder Singh had appeared to change the RSSB teachings to such an extent, I wrote "Sant Mat, v. 2.0" (In 2011 I wondered if there was v. 3.0.) This was my summary of how the teachings had changed.
Since Gurinder Singh doesn’t write anything for publication, nor allow his talks to be recorded, nor permit attendees to take notes about what he says, it isn’t easy to make a comparison between the original Sant Mat teachings and the new guru’s version.
But here’s the impression that I get from hearing Gurinder Singh speak four times, spending two weeks at the Dera in India eight years ago, and reports I’ve gotten via this weblog and other sources about what he’s said more recently.
Sant Mat v. 1.0
–The guru is God in human form
–The guru is perfect, possessing God’s divine qualities
–God has chosen certain souls to return to Him
–God delegates the guru to initiate these “marked souls”
–Without initiation by a perfect guru, God-realization is impossible
Sant Mat v. 2.0
–The guru is a human who is seeking God, just like us
–The guru is imperfect, just like us
–Whether we want to pursue God-realization is up to us
–The guru is a spiritual guide, not a savior
–There are many paths to God, not just Sant Mat
This raises the same question that Carney spoke about in the quotation about from his book. How can the authenticity of a religion be determined? I'm not speaking so much about factual or scientific authenticity as how consistent the religion's teachings are.
Buddhism teaches that everything is impermanent, ever-changing, including Buddhism itself. However, Carney notes that a rogue Tibetan monk, Dolpopa, declared that:
Yes, lots of things were in flux, but there were fundamental rules about how the universe operated that were true across all time and space. Dolpopa taught that there is a pure ultimate reality that is as solid as bedrock.
Dolpopa's Buddhist teachings didn't last long. Another Tibetan teacher dismantled his legacy. But the issue he raised lives on. In the case of RSSB, in reverse. Meaning, the traditional RSSB teachings agreed with Dolpopa that there is a pure unchanging ultimate reality, and RSSB knows what it is. Then Gurinder Singh came along and upended the traditional teachings, making them just another religious option — not absolute truth.
RSSB can't have it both ways, obviously. Since the traditional teachings held that ultimate truth is unchanging, and the RSSB gurus know what that truth is, this is blatantly contradicted by the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh, saying that the traditional teachings have to be updated. Not just by a little. But a lot. The differences between Sant Mat 1.0 and 2.0 are huge.
Since I no longer believe in most of the RSSB teachings, nor in God, this is an academic curiosity for me. I just find it interesting that a religion that once claimed to teach unchanging truth now seems to be firmly in a "things change, so deal with it" camp. That's pleasingly Buddhist to me. It just isn't Sant Mat.
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I’ve learned a lot from observing but not necessarily in this order. 1 he’s got a Napoleon complex.2 their first concern is for that colony in India to keep it afloat and surviving. That’s his job and he needs it to pay the out of the world hospital bills that’s keeping him alive. That and the drugs that they sell in the family business. But don’t worry the Master’s master is the shabad and it’s coming for you.
Years ago I came to learn about one-line fighter kites. Intrigued, I found out how to handle them and how to make them myself from an Indonesian neigbour.
After a while i found out that almost every Asian country has developed their own fighterkites.
Most of them are more or less the same as far as construction and bridling is concerned ..after all one has to obey the laws of nature … hahaha
Anyway ..there is an exeption to that rule , not realy, in the way the Japanese Hata is bridled.
On finding the differences in construction and bridling, having the desire to understand it, I approached some of my Indonesian mentors
To my surprise they were not at all interested and maybe even not amused if not irritated me bringing up the subject. They made it clear to me that for ages they had used these kites and mastered the technique and skills to fly and battle, … did it not work? … and if it worked to ones satisfaction why change and compare.
This has become a metaphor for many other things also spiritual schools and practices. I found that the very need to compare, finding the best is characteristic for western thought always changing for the better
One can change the model, but the change must always be within the limits of the law of nature if you want the kite to remain airborne, the same holds for the bridling
Practices, of manipulating the mind/body in order to create a change in awareness, consciousness, must for that same reason remain within certain laws of nature and they do. After all one has to accept and work with the mind/body as it is … one cannot change that.
It is my understanding and I have vented it here several times .. that the way how satsangis were interpreting the teachings and the practices had to change in order to prevent it to be come a “fan club” …..
Let those that were initiate by the late MCS write down for themselves how THEY thought about the main issues on a piece of paper, the things THEY believed and than compare that with the sayings of MGS … they might find that these are exactly the negation, the opposite of what THEY believed
The satsangis were running away with the teachings and made them seen as it suited them.
Just listening to a couple of tapes with Q&A will make it clear that They always tried to “force” these teachers to mage amendments to the teachings that suited them better and would express the spirit of the time
And yes, if these teachers do not want to lose contact with the masses they have to adapt but the adaptation is only in the presentation …. after all one can not change the laws of nature for a kite… and the same is with any spiritual practice … as whatever change is made it must be within the limits of the mind/body construction ..if one wants it to function
If you want a car to function as an car, you cannot square the tires … hahaha
Some sketchy thoughts, basis this post, and roughly and approximately about the subject matter covered in this post:
1. Oafish religions, like the Abrahamic three for instance, or for that matter theistic/Puranic Hinduism, cannot admit of radical new changes without dissolving in an implosion of internal contradiction, agreed. RSSB as well, sure.
2. However: The Buddha’s teachings — which is to say, secular Theravada Buddhism, that is to say Theravada shorn of its overlay of superstitious halfwittery that serious practitioners, including monks, generally keep away from, at least in my experience — do not claim to contain any ultimate truths, only psychological first-hand observations — albeit, admittedly, generalized to more than just personal observations. I don’t see why those shouldn’t be open to growth and evolution. In fact, someone like the (alleged) Buddha would, IMO, be sure to be an enthusiastic adherent and votary of the methods of science, should he be able to come to be aware of such.
3. Yes, it’s an interesting story, how the Buddha’s teachings practically disappeared away from India, the land where it was birthed and where, for centuries and millennia, it was perfected — under onslaught from reactionary Brahmanism. And how, although it ceased to be big-daddy mainstream as it once had been, but it persisted nevertheless in the “universities” of old, until these were finally destroyed, classrooms destroyed libraries burnt books burnt scholars monks librarians killed, by Allah–worshiping barbarian invaders. (So that, in my view, the dying out of Buddhism in India was to an extent organic, but also to an extent the result of competing religious halfwittery turned violent — both the seemingly esoteric but nevertheless discriminatory and ultimately silly Vedic kind as well as the more barbaric Allah-worshiping kind.)
4. Very interesting observation, how “mystery” is sometimes built up around nonsense. And how anything ancient and mysterious is sometimes/often directly assumed to be authentic and wise, when often enough it is anything but.
5. Hadn’t known about this, how random travelogues and general ruminations of monks and travelers got transmogrified, over the years, into what people assumed was wise ancient esoteric powerful “mysteries” and wisdom. Stands to reason, when you think about it.
6. Also, I’d always assumed that Tantra had Buddhistic roots — over in India — which then took root in Tibet. What is suggested here, that the magic-verging Tantric principles that are the mainstay of Vajrayana, are actually of non-Buddhistic origin, specifically individual practices found in India —- that I had not known. This bit of information turns on its head the (kind of vague) impression I’d had about how Tantra came to be. …Very interesting! Any futher details on this, Brian, if they happen to be provided in that book, will be much appreciated!
7. As far as RSSB and Sant Mat 1.0 and Sant Mat 2.0 and whatever: while RSSB is the brand of Sant Mat that most readers here are aware of, but let’s not forget that RSSB, although relatively large in numbers of adherents, is neither the only representative of Sant Mat, nor even the most authentic. Jaimal Singh was no more than a usurper, an interloper — albeit a genuine mystic, not in the sense that his mystic visions were objectively true, but in the sense that he himself was, as I understand it, fully immersed in and occupied with his mysticism, and not particularly mindful of the externalities. But, that said, Jaimal wasn’t the real deal, as in the truly representative successor of Soamiji Maharaj. There are other genealogies of Sant Mat that have far more credible claims of that. (Not that such credibility in terms of succession from Soamiji translates into credibility in terms of any of it being actually true — those are two wholly separate and unrelated matters. Still, I’m saying, let’s not conflate RSSB with Sant Mat. RSSB is merely one branch of Sant Mat, and not even the most “authentic” one — even if it is indeed, arguably, the most populous one.)
What I’m saying, as far as my #7 above, is: Even if it were the case that GSD were actually peddling a new version of the teachings, even so: first, it’s all nonsense, beginning to end, regardless of whether he changes it or keeps it same; and second, it’s silly to call it Sant Mat 1.0 and Sant Mat 2.0, because even if we do have good reason to call it such then it would be accurate to instead call it RSSB 1.0 and RSSB 2.0 and so forth. Calling it Sant Mat 1.0 and Sant Mat 2.0 is wildly inaccurate, and conflates one part, one single subset (and an inauthentic part/subset at that) with the whole.
The path of inner sound and light has been recorded even in our earliest writings, such as the upanishads and the Tao.
“The Name to which mankind may hold is not the eternal name.
That nameless name was long before a spoken word was told.”
.A little investigation reveals remarkable similarities over vast geographical regions, indeed across the globe and down through recorded history.
Of course this would be so if that path of spiritual growth actually reflected the same mechanism throughout human history, the same capacity within.
The metaphors used to help communicate the details changes to match the times.
Even the teachers, as human beings, are going to have different styles of teaching. They may know the same truth, they may be connected to it day and night, they may indeed be that truth in the flesh, but they will explain it based upon their own singular human perspective, just the way any two people witnessing the same event will describe it filtered by their own human conditioning.
What is remarkable is the same underlying themes: God is unknowable by the human mind, yet we can have an intimate relationship with them for they are in us, they are in all things, and they are the true form of what we are, as fragments of that same reality. And so we are all connected through that life, that word. We have become fragmented, misaligned to nature and ourselves, and distracted and thereby attached to other symbols and fragments. But we can return to that one whole simply by making that the focus of our life. Then we will see that all humans and indeed all life are our equal brothers and sisters and we are indeed members of the same team, the same family.
God is spirit, the same force of life that gives life to all things. That same force of life, light, inner music and love, the very force of God’s will that runs through me runs through you. This spirit is the creative force and is the basis of, and the purest form of love.
And God is actually that audible spirit:
From the holy Bible…
“Blessed is the Lord, the Lord IS his name.”
“By day the lord directs his love. At night His song is with me.”
And more modern poets, such as Tennyson write of this spirit found within:
“If thou wouldst go within the temple cave of thine own self
And brood by the alter there
Thou happily will learn that the nameless
Hath a voice
By which thou wilt abide
If Thou be wise…”
But these things can’t actually be taught. They must be caught, through experience.
As a Satsangi speaker said recently, for those with any experience of spirit, spirit is real. For those without any experience of spirit, spirit is unreal.
That is a simple reality which we can all honor. To have that experience or not to have it are both realities we can accept and honor. They are facts. And if course what is real to each of us, therefore, will be different.
“the religion’s teachings were the highest truth about God, the purpose of human life, and supernatural realms of reality. This truth was considered to be unchanging, baked into the fabric of the cosmos by the Creator.”
Thats the way it is.
what is highest truth
In the spiritual ocean
you are the notion
take it far
Burn the ehankar
@Brian: – “This raises the same question that Carney spoke about in the quotation about from his book. How can the authenticity of a religion be determined? I’m not speaking so much about factual or scientific authenticity as how consistent the religion’s teachings are.”
Well, the short answer is – it can’t. Religion is a thought construct and therefore not based on any sort of reality that can be pointed to as an abiding fact. Just maybe, the origin of a religion followed the insights and teachings of a person or group but since then has been taken over by the various interested parties and been transformed or amended to reflect the establishments and cultures of the time.
Thought is a wonderful thing; it has provided us with many life improving benefits that are naturally limited to the physical, material world. Thought, being capable of abstract thinking, can and does entertain non-natural interests. All the religious and spiritual belief systems are thought con-structs. They are not based on the real or natural world where the simplicity of birth, brief existence and death are the reality.
Because of our thinking abilities, we are the only creatures on Earth that contemplate our demise. It is this fear that creates and sustains the various non-natural belief systems. We may have various experiences that can be interpreted as evidence of non-material life, though they just serve to con-firm our deepest survival hopes and fears.
An honest inquiry shows that this is so, but thought, sustained by the ego-self, refuses (almost cannot) accept this nihilistic fact. The body has no problem with death; it accepts death when it becomes inevitable; only the ego-self construct that has always striven to maintain its illusory existence will deny its imminent end.
It’s possible, God willing, that old Baba lives another 20 years. The perfect living example of a hypochondriac and a narcissist with a get out of jail free card by his side. I joke with him while he can still read. Signed , Heloise
Not to beat a dead horse but it’s got to be confusing even for the god man to realize that he’s just a man. No matter what the adoring public wants to make him. He started believing his own press. You know he was a soldier and he has killed people . By doing so so others could live. He’s a very confused man. Confused in four different languages. I’d like to set him straight but they have this position where they put their own hands over their ears. My main beef is he told me to grow my beard and I’m still growing it and I don’t know why, he won’t say. I look at it as a boon that a master asked me to grow my beard. And it’s a nice beard I don’t want to shave it after I it shaved once. But now he’s asked Gill to grow his beard out. Let me know when you get used to serving two masters.
Would you be able to expand on how and where he told you to grow your beard?
His Gurinderji’s exact words were ” I knew if I did my job people would die. And if I didn’t do my job even more people would die’. That’s back when we were still being totally honest with each other. It’s possible he was going back into his previous life because I don’t know what his military background might be. I just know what he told me.I initially joined this chat to defend him but I don’t see any lies about him. I know we juxtaposed both of our previous lives into our present ones. A master can only take you to his level and then you’re on your own.