With less than three hours to go before 2025 draws to a close here in Oregon, the main thing I want to say in this final blog post of the year is…
I deeply appreciate each and every person who visited the Church of the Churchless this year. It was a difficult period for me a few months ago, after I learned that Typepad, my blogging service for 22 years, was shutting down for good on September 30. I’d thought that this could happen at some point. Still, it was a shock.
Fortunately, with the expert assistance of Glory Webs, a tech company based in India, all of the posts I’d written for my three blogs, along with associated comments, were migrated to the WordPress platform. There’s still some glitches — Glorywebs recently fixed broken internal links that were still pointing to no-longer-available Typedpad URLs — but on the whole my blogs are functioning smoothly.
I wasn’t sure how many regular Church of the Churchless visitors would follow this biog to WordPress. Many, or most, of you did. I’m grateful.
Because your comments add a lot to the blog posts. It doesn’t matter to me whether a comment comes from a believer in God, or an atheist. While I’m an unbeliever, what I enjoy is learning how other people feel about this issues that get discussed in comment conversations.
I already know how I feel about some subject. So being able to get insights into how others see things expands my horizons beyond my own perspective.
For me, this is a spiritual exercise of sorts. Recently I heard Zen Master Henry Shukman talk in a guided meditation (I still listen to him at times, notwithstanding what I said about eschewing guided meditations in a recent post) about how when we lessen the Me-Me-Me talk in our mind, the world comes closer to us and we feel less alone.
Interestingly, the same day I heard Shukman say this, I read a chapter in one of Robert Saltzman’s books about how we are inherently alone, because all we know is how our own mind perceives reality, being unable to experience how anyone else does, no matter how well we may know them.
Both Shukman and Saltzman make valid points. I agree with both of them. I can never know the world as it truly is, nor can I know any other person as they truly are — assuming the word “truly” makes any sense in this context (meaning, arguably there’s nothing that objectively truly is; there’s just subjective best guesses).
This is the Google AI overview of a fictional C.S. Lewis quote from the movie Shadowlands that I shared in my first book.
That powerful quote, “We read to know we are not alone,” is widely attributed to C.S. Lewis, expressing how books connect us to shared human experiences, but it actually originated in the 1993 film Shadowlands, written by William Nicholson, where a fictionalized Lewis says it, though it perfectly captures Lewis’s themes of shared humanity and deeper realities, making it feel authentic to his spirit. The sentiment highlights literature’s role in alleviating loneliness by revealing universal feelings, offering comfort that our struggles, joys, and hidden selves are understood by others.
Well, not only books, but all forms of human communication, both written and spoken. I feel less alone when I write a blog post. I feel less alone when I read comments on a blog post. I feel less alone when I say something to another person. I feel less alone when I hear something another person says to me.
Agreeing or disagreeing isn’t important. Simply communicating is. Sure, I prefer it when people agree with what I’ve written or said. But disagreement is almost as good. Most of us, certainly me included, would rather be criticized than totally ignored. After a week in solitary confinement, I strongly suspect a prisoner would prefer an intense argument in the prison yard to being left alone in a cell with no human interactions.
So my hope is that Church of the Churchless agreements and disagreements continue on with even more passion in 2026. May we all express how we see things from our own unique perspective. There’s nothing more boring than groupthink. Here’s another Google AI overview:
Henry David Thoreau celebrated uniqueness through his emphasis on individualism and living deliberately, famously saying, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away” from Walden, encouraging authenticity over conformity. He believed in trusting one’s inner voice and living a life true to oneself, even if it diverged from the norm, finding beauty in nature’s unique details and our own inner landscape.
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Hm yes, the Glory Webs guys. They do deserve our gratitude, not just yours Brian but all of ours as well, since without their excellent support none of us would have been able to continue to share in your blog after the Typepad closure thing. Very cool that they not only enabled the transition but are, as you say, also offering reliable ongoing troubleshooting service.
Wishing you, and everybody here, a happy 2026.
To divide time into months,days, years and hours seems pagan to me. There’s only two time zones in my world; dead and alive and only in the alive state can you deny the existence of God. In the dead state you’re part of It. I see solutions and no problems. I have conquered time and only in doing so does one have a right to boast of the non existence of God.So don’t confuse my waiting for Jesus to have anything to do whatsoever with Christianity or God .I just need One honest Friend.
Happy new year Brian and family. Glad you have kept this blog pages open as it is a vital source of information to help expose bent baba’s hiding behind a malevolent cult/ religion’s ( gurinder Singh dhillon and his apprentice jasdeep and RSSB cult). Let’s hope more people wake up from this sickly cult and gurinder faces his karma. God you bless.
The dialogue is important, but not as important as the listening. So, whatever helps us hear each other is to the good. As you point out Brian, no one needs an echo chamber. We gain by diversity, for within us is a connection to each other and all things. We don’t need to say anything, and in fact we most certainly don’t need to interrupt what is already there within, and without. To see, to learn.
Arguments, because they are based on what we already believe, in premeses we already accept, are out of date right out of the gate. They are inboxed in the hope of something new only to discover a present we made for ourselves that is already old and worn out.
So how do we add new premeses? Only listening and learning can do that, and not from the old context.
Learning the truth of what you thought was false is your best assurance you are actually learning something new, and not reinforcing what is already outdated.
Peter Drucker, the management guru, one wrote that there is a difference between a person who has twenty five years of experience and a person who has one year of experience repeated twenty five times.
My wish for my Church of the Chirchless brothers and sisters, and every possible variation happily gifted to this creation by our creator, is that this next year isn’t a repeat, but an actual new year of new understanding, new experience, and real growth.
@ Spence T.
In Nature there is no need of managers and in culture, they make themselves seen as the theologians that make themselves and others believe that the simple words need a complicated explanation and that THEY are called to do so .. and payed of course. … hahahaha ..and … of course the audience should stay mum, so that they can ingest each and every idea, concept and word they produce …… hahahaha …. Jezus is said to have kicked them out of the tempel, .. bad luck for him, because they had him hanged for disrupting their business.
At um
Read The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong. Great book. She did accept her own way. He own “practices”
@ Alex
Yes, I know whjat she went through, I read her two books on her journey in and out the monastery.
Her storry underlines the growing understanding that chosing a path, walking it and leaving it unfulfilled … is in the end an “PSYCHOLOGICAL human phenomena”.
The phenomena is not only related to religious cq spiritual affairs but also other human endeavors as there are , relationships, marriages, academic studies etc.
For some maybe for all, the motivations that helped them to step onto a path and walk on it for a while with more or less success, will not be enough to carry on and reach the destination and they will turn their back upon what was once so dear to them.
THAT moment, is crucial as one has to look at one’s face in the mirror for the first time, and confront one’s own motivations, attitudes, efforts etc etc.
Untill that moment all investments were, one will discover for one’s own pleasures, satisfaction and honor ..simply stated self-cxentred motivations ..yes, the motivations one started a marriage in terms of “I love you” will turn out to be just wishfull empty words.
It uis also the moment that one can for the first time discover one’s partner, their needs etc etc and that one can do something to make the other realy hapy.
Unfortunately many do not use that oportunity to first discover to find out what “real” devotion, and love means, not to speak of practicing it …so they depart ..an as in the case of Mrs Armstrong …because … “although there is nothing wrong with the religious practice in the monastery, ..”I”, Karen, “I” am not fit for such a live.
Others can not even make THAT step and find fault with the practice, the teaching, its teachers and god knows what more ..I does not fit science, ..you name it.
So I is all foder for psychologists. … and coffee drinkers … hahahaha
@Um
Thanks for you words. Funny we read such things here. I’ve had to face the mirror recently with RSSB. Not with Gurinder but the organization itself. It hasn’t been easy because I was heavily involved in Seva. Now I’m not. Again, your words leave much to ponder. With coffee…of course. Lol
@ Alex
And .. what I wrote is just an subdivision of something that several mystics have addressed .. being … that humans can generaly be devided in 8 classes, classes that represent all selfish interests, starting at the lowest level with material interests and going up to mental and even spiritual interests ..each class higher being smaller than the previous one.
They state that there is always at best just one or a few Gurmukh to be found under the devout, if at all. Some guru’s in the past went out to search themselves for an suitable one to hand over his knowledge.
Bur that attitude by itself is not special at all, talk to teachers in school and they will tell you that in every class of pupils there is mayby one or two that is SOLELY interested in the subject at hand.
That all said, there is no need to give up … honorable Rumi… for that reason stated …come as you are .. but please, DO come.
The development of the things mystics speak of, write poems about are not that easily to be had, developed, or vene understood..reason for the late MCS to state often … it is a life long struggle … simran is not important nor seva by itself, but what maters is HOW you do it.
@Um
karen Armstrong says more compassion is the spiritual litmus test. You have written something like you know nothing of compassion. Can u elaborate?
@ Alex
Yes the changes that have occurred ever since the late MCS took with him everything delightful with him in the grave in 1990 is not easily to digest, accepted, understand for all … petsonaly I was given to understand that …”there is no longer a place for you in this organization “.. after decades of involvement as sevadar in all sorts of roles … and .. he was right … hahahaha.
It has been my great fortune that I could leave the organisation, as Mrs. Armstrong did, with the opposite, my dear late friend “where shown the way out” so to say after doing some seva for his successor during more days.
And .. as I have no grudge against anybody or anything, having ahd such good time for decades, and freed from the “calvinistic rule” I can now like a cow lay down, and ruminate with some coffee what I was “served” as food for decades….. how funny my appreciation, understanding etc has grown in that newly found ..FREEDOM
@ Alex
Words like Compassion, love etc etc .. are hardly ever used by me as they do not arise in my mind … or heart , if I have one.
I never have had the intention to do good or bad, but without doubt some things I did are certainly to be labeled as good and others as bad ..sometimes I have to face how people have experienced my nehaviour as troublesome, just to use a word, whil i remember myself acting towards them without any malicious intent.
When doing seva, certainly what I did for many years together with my dear late friend, the words ..doing this or that for the master .. were … NEVER, NEVER NEVER used ..if one of us had expressed himself in that way, the other would have asked if there was something wrong with the coffee. ….. but .. there are gardly words for the pleasure we had doing it. .. So if the work we did for the community as seva, by those that are entitled to do so, not me … hahaha, than we are double payed.
Maybe Alex I am just an simple autist devoid of all these feelings .. like, devotion, love, faith, compassion etc etc ..it just doesn’t matter, ae I wrote, these words are no part of my mental make up and never were … I liked the company of the many people I came to know in the sangat, all outstanding HUMAN characters … it is a great joy to see the EMBODIMENT of this or that virtue and feel its activity.
With regard to the previous messages …In the bygone years I had to deal with several people being unhappy with the path they had taken spiritual ..un variable I have tried to make themm understand that if they would like to continue their live in peace that should under no circumstance use motivations that are related to outside persons and activities of OTHERS ..after all they all chose this or that path for their own persinal intellectual and emotional reason. If time has come to depart do so also SOLELY for personal reasons without any reference to outward things and persons
@ Alex
And with regard to Mrs Armstrong .. I do not feel her to be compassionate .. maybe she is …maybe not ..but she certainly serves humanity at large with her writings as is not easily done by others.
Humans have more than enough to carry the load of their own life with grace and dignity, without being a burden for others, than that they can look after their fellow human beings in compassion .. Only ONE human being is SAID to have had that capacity ,,,Christ and I hope you will understand that I am not and that I do not consider anybody else to have that power of compassion.
@Um
I think when she says compassion she means less judgy.
@ Alex
Compassion that comes from understanding, you mean?!
@Um
Less Judgy as in your early reply. Not going through life vacillating everthing as good or bad.
Also maybe something like benefit of the doubt.
@ Alex
Maybe you should read again what she had to say about her capacity to establish intimate relationships with others starting from early childhood.
lol. She didn’t seem able to have many deep relationships.
@ Alex
That is right … but read carefully what she has to say about it and how she formulates it.
These things are related to how people walk a path
I remember her calling lovers minidictators. She seemed to refer to many people inner life as controlling.
@ Alex
The late MCS would state time and again .. you have conditioned free will.
So how a person is conditioned PRIOR to stepping on a path, not only Mrs. Armstrong but also you and me and anubody else, will determinate HOW they will walk the path.
Have a deep look in your own history and you will find the truth of it.
@Um. For a long time I believed in majic fairy dust and centered and the dera had majic dirt. I thought that myself and everyone else would change. Satsangis would be angels. Etc. bubbbles are busted. There a great Sean penn scene where he’s very heartily says I thought I would change. You thought you would change. And nobody changed. Something to that effect.
@ Alex
Please, …. now you got rid of a fantasy, do not get disillusioned … have a new fresh look and I am sure you will find something real of value.
I am no longer associated with the organisation but I certainly did not leave it empty handed, I came to understand many, many things I otherwise would have never understood.
To live a sant mat way of live is certainly not a wasted life … but you have to walk it freely and with pleasure
@Um
Fortunaly I still chat with Gurinder once a year. But this change has caused deep self reflection. Hence this thread. Finding you on this site has helped me to face the mirror. I accept responsibility and am grateful for the opportunity to see where I stand.
@ Alex
Dis cuss with him only your own affairs with relation to the path and forget about the rest, what is written and said.
I am not suggesting that it is not true what is written in the papers about him, but it is of no value and meaning for YOU walking YOUR path.
Yes .. it can be difficult emotional etc
You wrote you chat with him … you mean with him personaly??
And Alex … if you do chat with him personally, i can not understand that writing here can be of any help.
We chat via questions and and answers with westerners.we talk about philosophy and my own personal stuff and a bit of leg pulling. The money allegations are not my concern. That stuff seems out of my understanding. Like a great many things. I mostly read your comments only here.
@ Alex and you are not alone in your believes … hahaha … in earlier days, the water of the well in the guesthouse was sold in amritsar as “holy” water
It reminds me an elderly lady, an old friend of MCS, she asked if she would put some prashad into the sugar bowl, all the sugar would become prashad ..vaguely I remember him laughing and saying something like … yes and if you throw it on the streets of the dera, the whole dera will turn into prashad … there was a lot humor in those days.
And there is nothing wrong with that innocent believes as long as they do not become a burden.
@ Alex
And yes .. nobody changes his or her conditioning as a person … and there is no need to it
@ Alex
Participating inhere was and is a love-hate issue for me .. not in the moment when I read or write but later when the words are out and they are no longer under my control and start a life of their own … after all it serves nothing and nobody
@ Um
I have learned from your posts that whatever anybody says they are only talking about themselves. It’s not about the object. That has been helpful for me to take responsibility for for what comes out of me.