Posted inReligions

Religion needs to dance – freely

Mark Morford, a columnist for SF Gate, gets it just right in his "Does your religion dance? Behold, the most dangerous issue facing modern faith: it's inability to evolve, nakedly." If you've never read Morford, his free-floating stream of consciousness writing style takes some getting used to. But what he says, and how he says it, sound just fine to me in this piece. We as a culture just might be suffering a slow, painful death by spiritual stagnation, by ideological stasis, by cosmic rigor mortis. It has become painfully, lethally obvious in the age of George W. Bush and…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Time to fire our gurus

Thanks to my friend Randy, I got turned on to Tijn Touber's thoughtful piece, "D.I.Y. Guru." (For the acronym impaired, like me, D.I.Y. stands for "do it yourself"). I liked it. It fits with my understanding of how we should regard a guru – as someone begging to be fired. So it's time to fire our gurus (facts, truths, religious persuasions, principles, dogmas) so the guru in ourselves can emerge. It's time to become as great as the gurus we followed--just as authentic, unique and obstinate. This is not an act of aggression or disrespect. On the contrary, it is…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Loosening the bounds of “I am…”

Who am I? Well, that depends. Yesterday I had an opinion piece published in our local newspaper. A few days ago an editorial page assistant phoned me and asked how I wanted to be described at the end of the piece. I said, "Retired writer, blogger, and land use activist would be fine." She must not have heard the "b" in "blogger" because I ended up as a "logger." Some readers must have wondered how an Oregon logger became such a strong supporter of an environment-friendly ballot measure. But what's in a name? I wasn't bothered. Heck, I have a…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

“Into the Wild” an inspiration for churchless roamers

Last night my wife and I saw "Into the Wild," a terrific movie that speaks to anyone (which means, almost everyone) who has harbored thoughts of chucking it all in and starting over – free of entanglements, material or mental. Fittingly, it was a pretty wild night for us. The movie started at 8:50 pm and it runs two and a half hours. Almost all of the people in line with us were young people for whom a Saturday night just starts to get going at midnight. For us, it's sleepy time. But with this being the "fall back" from…
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Posted inReligions

Religions’ desperate search for causes

Why? Why? Why? From an early age, we're all obsessed with finding the reason for things. I remember being driven almost crazy by my daughter when she entered her "why" phase. "Why are you filling up the bathtub?" "To give you a bath.""Why?""Because you're dirty.""Why?""Because you played outside all day.""Why?""Because your friends came over.""Why?""Because they didn't recognize what an irritating little girl you can be when you keep asking why when someone is trying to wash your hair." (OK, I didn't actually say that; but I'd think it). Today I got to a chapter about causes in the book that…
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Posted inReligions

Religion, watch out for a grizzly bear with an EEG!

Sometimes I'm called a materialistic atheist by commenters on this blog, as if that's something bad. Or at least surprising, given my previous fervent commitment to the metaphysical theology of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. But, hey, I've been talking about a grizzly bear with an EEG machine for a long time. Way back when I used to give satsangs ("sermons") to the faithful at RSSB meetings, this used to be one of my favorite thought experiments regarding the practice of meditation. An EEG, or electroencephalograph, measures electrical activity in the brain. It's a crude way of testing brain function. Nowadays…
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Posted inWu Project

Absolute unitary being – nothing that’s really something

AUB. An acronym for the highest reality humans can perceive. Or, more accurately, not perceive – because Absolute Unitary Being isn't anything you can be aware of, because it is awareness without any content other than itself. This isn't just another wild-eyed, New Age, mystic-religious, or psychedelic inspired bunch of far out fantasizing. Rather, the notion is founded on some solid science. In the book "The Mystical Mind" that I've been blogging about recently (here, here, and here), physician researchers Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew Newberg show how the brain produces experiences that often are termed mystical. In their opinion, the…
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Posted inGod

Embracing God in my brain

I'm still trying to get my head around the main message of a book that I'm reading: God is in the brain. And not just "God," whatever this famously fuzzy word means, but also every form of religious, spiritual, or mystical experience. This shouldn't be a big surprise, to me or anybody else. Yet the more I dig into The Mystical Mind, by Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew Newberg, the more I'm having to re-examine some deeply held and largely unconscious beliefs. Like, the notion that when I'm meditating, something marvelously mysterious is going on. Or, at least, could go on…
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Posted inReality

Getting down to rock-bottom reality

When we feel like somebody is putting us on, "Get real!" is an appropriate response. But what the heck is real? Most of us think we know. However, are we really right about reality? I'm a sucker for big questions like this. So when I see a chapter called "Consciousness and Reality" in a book, my philosophical spine starts to tingle. That chapter is in Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew Newberg's The Mystical Mind, which I praised in my previous post. It reduces a whole lot of scientific, philosophical, and religious speculation, thousands of years of it, down to a single…
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Posted inScience

Arousal and quiescence in the mystical brain

Browsing through my collection of half-read books, recently I came across The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience. Starting in where I left off quite a few years ago (the book was published in 1999), I can tell that I'm going to be reading this baby straight through this time. Because the question marks I left in the margins next to statements that questioned whether any mystical experience occurs outside of the physical brain now would have my personal version of exclamation marks next to them (a round dot made with my highlighter). Back in my religiously devoted…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Ken Wilber’s “Integral Life Practice Kit” looks like a scam

I've read many of Ken Wilber's books. I've written an essay critiquing Wilber's misrepresentations of Plotinus' teachings. So I'm pretty familiar with his Integral philosophy. Intellectually, at least. I've pondered Wilber's quadrants until my head hurt. Which didn't take long. That's the problem I have with Wilber's hyper-analytical approach to making sense of the cosmos (oops, should have written Kosmos – Wilber's preferred spelling). It just seems like it reflects Wilber's mind a lot more than it reflects reality. I don't feel like I understand either the world or myself more when I read Wilber. I'm impressed with his breadth…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB’s strange fear of praise

What's wrong with telling someone "Good job"? I can't think of any reason not to give out praise when congratulations are due. But religiously minded members of Radha Soami Satsang Beas sure did back in my RSSB speaking days. I suspect that not much has changed. Which is too bad. Because spirituality should start from a base of being fully human. That is, if we aren't engaging in the normal social niceties that bring people together and make everyday life flow more pleasantly, it's hard to see how we're on a path that leads to some sort of higher realization.…
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Posted inPolitics

Blind belief in religion and politics: bad, bad, bad

Often I hear people say, "What's wrong with belief unsupported by facts if it makes someone feel better?" Well, the explosive popularity of truthiness (way beyond Stephen Colbert, originator of the term) points to the common human propensity to believe that you know something even when you don't. And there is indeed a lot wrong with it. This isn't an innocent frailty, though it's harmless enough when not taken to extremes. I believe that some hair in my bald spot is growing back. I don't have any solid evidence for this, other than the feeling I have when I occasionally…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Faith or falsehood? “I can’t wait to die”

Religious people often look upon death as a ticket out of this world and into a better one. Me, I'm clinging to what I've got until I have hold of something else. So I was intrigued by the following email message from a Church of the Churchless visitor. I know just what he's talking about, as during my devoted Radha Soami Satsang Beas days I encountered quite a few initiates, or satsangis, who couldn't wait to die (some who were seriously ill, some who were not). My correspondent wanted to know my thoughts on this topic. Well, to me it's…
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Posted inBooks

First atheist author: Baron d’Holbach

Watching a recording of PBS' "A Brief History of Disbelief" last night, I learned a fact that could come in handy if you're ever on a high-stakes quiz show. They ask: Who wrote the first atheist book? You say, Baron d'Holbach. (When you win the million dollars, be sure to remember with gratitude what blogger informed you of this.) Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789) hosted a notable salon in Paris where free-thinkers gathered for serious conversation. My wife and I belong to a Salem, Oregon salon group, so we've got that in common. Philosophically, the Baron and I also are on much…
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Posted inPolitics

God-o-Meter rates presidential candidates’ religiosity

With seventeen candidates still in the running (or, at least, walking), it's tough to decide who I want to vote for in the 2008 presidential election. Fortunately, Belief Net has come up with a way of thinning the herd for me: a God-o-Meter. This provides a regularly updated religious wackiness score – though what I derisively call "wackiness" a disturbingly large percentage of Americans would fondly term "faith." I'd already began to tilt away from my initial favorite, Barack Obama. Seeing that Obama presently rates a "9," almost a full blown theocrat on the 1 to 10 scale, turns me…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Better to be truly real than falsely perfect

Back in my super-devoted Radha Soami Satsang Beas days, I used to love the Hindi word "sat." It means truth, with an additional connotation of perfection. In Sant Mat "sat" gets used a lot. Sant itself means "one who knows the truth," such as a saint. Then there's satguru (true and perfect guide), satsang (true company or association), sat nam (true name), and other sat-based terms. Sat, sat, sat. The sound of the word has a pleasing emphatic ring to it. It reminds me of the movie "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring." My bloggish review of it included: When the…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Help expand recognition of my divinity

Thanks to my friend Randy, who emailed me these images today, for a while I felt really good. Finally! I was beginning to get a well-deserved recognition of my holiness – as befits someone, namely Me, who has preached so many sermons here at the Church of the Churchless. Unfortunately, I let reality enter into my fantasy. Not a good idea, if you're entertaining delusions of spiritual grandeur (one of my favorite activities). I made the mistake of Googling "church of briantology card." And damn it!, up popped a result that led me to a blogger who just had to…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Some darn good advice

On first reading, I didn't like the advice that came to me in an email from a Church of the Churchless visitor. After a second and third reading I came to see what the person was trying to tell me. Sort of. It's hard enough for me to understand me. Translating understandings from one mind to another is considerably more difficult. I particularly like the third and fourth paragraphs (see message below). This person is right. When I was a Radha Soami Satsang Beas true believer I did become preoccupied with rights and wrongs, do's and don'ts, rites and rituals.…
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Posted inBooks

Spiritual reading list — new and improved

I’m an avid reader of spiritual books. Not the overly religious kind, but the edgy variety – mystical and meditational writings that stretch my psyche’s understanding of what reality is all about.

Last year Ron Gardner sent me a marvelous recommended spiritual reading list that I shared in a blog post. Now Ron has emailed me a new and improved list, “improved” naturally being in the eye of the list-maker, as likes and dislikes in any literary arena are necessarily personal.

However, just as there are classics in other genres, so also in esoteric spiritual writings. No one will agree with the placement of all of Ron’s “highly recommended” selections, but I’m hugely impressed with the thoughtful care that has gone into the making of his list.

Thank you, Ron, for this gift. For many years, if not a lifetime, it’ll help keep UPS trucks coming to my home with offerings from Amazon.

If you like, comment away on the list. Additions are especially welcome. Click below to read Ron’s recommendations.

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