Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Morality thrives without belief in immortality

Why would believing in life after death make us act more morally? Religions argue that if people didn't anticipate some sort of afterlife – the nature of which depends on behavior in this life – there'd be little motivation to do the right thing here on Earth. To my mind, there's an even better argument in the other direction: a belief in immortality creates an atmosphere where life as it is here and now is disrespected, disparaged, and downplayed. That's immoral. A plane crashes. There's a disaster in a coal mine. A stray bomb kills innocent children. Religious believers say…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Proof of life after death? Not yet.

If truth can't be found on Google, it must not exist. That's my cyberspace-centric view of reality. So here's the result of my hour or so of Googling the question: is there persuasive scientific evidence of life after death? Short answer: no. As some commenters (one of whom was me) on my "Life is a mystery. Afterlife, ditto" post observed, if such evidence existed, it'd be trumpeted to the heavens – plus the front pages. Now, quite a few people believe that scientists and the media are censoring evidence of life after death. Such as this guy. There are two…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Life is a mystery. Afterlife, ditto.

I like how Zen talks about the need for a "great ball of doubt." It seems like I should have enjoyed a satori by now, my doubt is so balled up. Some days more than others. This was a good doubting day. I just had an interview with my Zen master, who, conveniently, is myself (makes it easy to get appointments). He reviewed the enigmatic koans that life presented me on this Sunday, along with my responses. I think he was pleased. But I can't say for sure. That doubt thing, you know. Sundays usually follow a fairly predictable routine…
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Posted inScience

Being absolutely right, you’re wrong

You can't have "right" without "wrong." So if what you say is absolutely 100% certain, no doubt about it – that can't be true. The Taoists figured this out a long time ago. Yin requires yang. Up needs down. Truth depends on falsity. Much more recently, Karl Popper made falsifiability the cornerstone of what distinguishes a scientific theory. I echoed his ideas in "If a religion can't be wrong, it surely is." I keep coming back to this notion, because both intuitively and logically it appeals to me. Sure, something may be real, yet improvable or indescribable. Existence, for example.…
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Posted inReality

I know I’m right about uncertainty

Ooh! It feels so good to have my view of life confirmed. Today someone sent me a link to "On Being Certain," which talks about a book with the same name by Robert Burton, M.D. It's subtitle is believing you are right even when you're not. Nice! Not that it applies to me. Because I know I'm right about uncertainty. Why, I've read marvelous blog posts about this subject, each of which, I'm pleased to say, was written by me (see here, here, here, and here). And now I learn from a description of Burton's book that science shows I've…
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Posted inVedanta/Advaita

Start with mystery closest to home

I've been enjoying recent Church of the Churchless comment conversations, here, here, and here (plus a few other post places). In this regard, I want to mention that I keep on telling TypePad, which hosts this blog, that they need to improve their comment features. It bugs me that only the ten most recent comments are shown on the left sidebar, and that it isn't possible for visitors to search through previous comments (I can, but others can't). TypePad assures me that they'll get around to this. Someday. Guess I need to have faith. Which brings me to a thought…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Critics are our best spiritual friends

The worst thing about belief? In one way or another, it's always unbelievable. The best thing about belief? When the unbelievable is stripped away, you're likely to be pointed toward truth. So strippers – no, not that kind (sadly) – are all-important on a spiritual journey. Without them, religious or other sorts of dogma are accepted uncritically, leaving us wandering in a maze where every path leads anywhere you believe it will. The Indian guru I began to follow in 1971, Charan Singh, was fond of saying: "Critics are our best friends." His disciples would nod, seemingly taking the words…
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Posted inPolitics

Curse the National Day of Prayer

Here on the West Coast there's still a few hours left to take part in the National Day of Prayer (May 1). My recommendation: swear at it. That's the tack one of my favorite web sites, Pharyngula, took. In the midst of a post on this ridiculous religious observance I found a well-spoken pithy piece of advice. "Fuck the National Day of Prayer." Now, that might seem a bit harsh. What's wrong with warm fuzzy prayer? Well, nothing. So long as you're into having one-sided conversations with imaginary people. But a few minutes of browsing the official web site of…
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Posted inGod

Jellyfish and God, the differences

Main difference: jellyfish are real. I'm so certain of this, today I sat for two hours on Maui's Napili Beach, watching terrific large boogie boardable waves from the sand, passing them by because of jellyfish warning signs that had been posted. Having just invested a lot of time in pondering jellyfish, much more than I've ever done before, I've been trying to fathom what cosmic significance this dangerous sea creature (whose sting toxin supposedly is seventy-five percent as powerful as cobra venom) has for my spiritual development. Assuming it has any at all. But it's no fun to go the…
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Posted inWu Project

Feeling alive, undeadened by religion

Some more Maui meditations...following up on "Big waves, small waves: no difference?" I enjoyed the comments on this post. I agree: splitting reality up into awareness and what we're aware of – how is this not another duality that the consciousness is all philosophy tries to get away from? Reading further this morning into Peter Dziuban's book by the same name, my consciousness made clearer by Kona coffee, I'm struck by how Awareness (with a capital "A") can be made into an abstract divinity with pretty much the same characteristics as God. I've never been aware of Pure Awareness, unsullied…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Big waves, small waves: no difference?

It's easy not to think too much on Maui. But my blogging addiction presses me toward a Church of the Churchless posting. Where is my inspiration? In today, in the waves. They were good sized today in Napili Bay, praise the wave gods. Whenever we come to Maui I religiously bring my boogie board on the airplane. Then I devotedly cart it down to the beach, every time we go, no matter how calm the ocean is. You never know. You really don't. I've been fooled before. Nice waves can spring out of nowhere. Like satori. This morning I was…
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Posted inWu Project

When I’m unconscious, why aren’t I enlightened?

My second straight post with a question mark in the title. I still don't know if awareness can be aware of nothing, so I'll extend my ignorance by talking about what happens when we're unaware of everything. Like, under anesthesia. Or after being hit on the head with a baseball bat. Or in deep dreamless sleep.This latter state is particularly praised by Advaitist sages such as Ramana. I like Ramana a lot. But whenever he extols dreamless sleep as being akin to a realized consciousness, I'll pause in my reading and think: Gosh, I'm not sure I want to be…
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Posted inWu Project

Can awareness be aware of nothing?

My wife and I are in Maui. We've overcome a lot of struggles to get here, as documented in "From snow to sunshine with snafus." For example, our first class upgrades didn't get us much of a vegetarian meal on Hawaiian Airlines. The Buddha was right: life is suffering. I like to keep things simple on Maui. Today we sat in some shade on the beach until the mid-day sun drove us into the ocean -- Laurel to snorkel, me to swim back and forth across Napili Bay. When to lie on the sand; when to go in the water.…
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Posted inMorality

Moral relativism is absolutely great

I love to argue with the Pope. It sends a thrill up my lapsed Catholic spine. The notion that insignificant me has a shot (in this case, a certainty) at out-moralizing the head of one of the world's major religions – marvelous! Pope Benedict XVI hates moral relativism. I adore it. So who's right and who's wrong? This is why I win: the fact that this is a serious question shows I'm right. Nobody says that the atomic structure of water has several possible answers. Two molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen always is the correct response. Recently President…
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Posted inMystics

“Perfect” gurus: myth or reality?

Those steeped in a Western monotheistic religion, such as Christianity or Judaism, might be surprised to learn that millions of people in the world today believe that God walks on Earth in a human form – divinely perfect. Some Christians believe that Jesus was perfect, but his flawed humanity seems to be as important as his divinity. In like fashion, most Muslims consider that Muhammad was a flawless conduit for God's message as revealed in the Koran, but the Prophet himself isn't revered as God. It's only in the Eastern religions, so far as I know, that a person is…
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Posted inPolitics

Bitterness and religion: some advice for Obama

I've been doing some thinking, from my churchless perspective, about the controversy over Barack Obama's remark that people in struggling Pennsylvania towns are bitter and cling to religion (among other things). And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. Clinton has seized on the words "bitter" and "cling" in blasting Obama for his supposed elitism. On cable news today I kept seeing her new ad being played. In the ad a Pennsylvania woman…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Radha Soami Satsang Beas embraces the Internet

I like it when a religious organization shows some flexibility. So kudos to the group that I belonged to for some thirty-five years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, for significantly expanding its embrace of the World Wide Web. Today I learned that the RSSB web site has a new look. Previously there was basically just a home page and a catalog of RSSB publications. Now there's much more, including essays on the Sant Mat philosophy that forms the core of the group's teachings. For a long time the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh, asked that disciples refrain from discussing Sant Mat…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Religions should offer a better deal on death

Yesterday I spent part of a nice afternoon musing about a not-so-nice subject, death. And here I am doing it again, on an even sunnier and warmer Oregon day. As I said in "Baby boomers confront the big 'boom,' death," dying is an unwanted intrusion into the pleasant pursuit of existing. Dying wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't a likely nasty side effect: non-existence. Forever. That'd be a bummer, to put it mildly (only good side is, I won't be around to be bummed out). So humans have invented religions to reduce anxiety about the hereafter. Which is more…
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Posted inVedanta/Advaita

I am, therefore I am

The older I get, the more I feel like embracing seriously simple approaches to spirituality. That way, if I become senile, when someone asks me what I believe a ready answer is more likely to spring from my receding lips and failing psyche. This helps explain why I'm enjoying Stanley Sobottka's Course in Consciousness so much. I've been lugging my laptop into my meditation lair each morning, reading some of his downloaded book-length manuscript before I meditate. I'm about halfway through. The basic message is exceedingly simple, though it takes over 200 pages to express it. Consciousness is all there…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Loving is one thing, investing another

I've had an interesting email exchange with someone who noted my statement in a previous post: "Often I hear believers say, on this blog or elsewhere, that sharing their personal experience runs the risk of enlarging their ego. In my opinion, the risk lies in the other direction." She disagreed, saying that for her (a Sant Mat initiate), love is the whole of spirituality. And love should be private. The inner personal experience of meditation is regarded by many satsangis as a very personal, private, and precious gift which has relevance only to oneself. The experience is a special gift…
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