Posted inBooks Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Guru Gurinder Singh is sounding a lot like Alan Watts

Since there are quite a few devotees of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) who use the comment sections of my blog posts as sort of a Sant Mat discussion venue, I wanted to revisit the question of how the current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh, has been altering Sant Mat teachings to a surprising degree. A blog post of mine from 2011, "Has Gurinder Singh revised Sant Mat to v. 3.0?" summarized these changes. Five years ago I wrote a post about "Sant Mat, version 2.0." This is how I summarized the changes that Gurinder Singh apparently has made to the…
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Posted inBooks Mystics Radha Soami Satsang Beas

I respond to criticism of my book that I no longer fully believe in

As noted in a post three weeks ago, I've gotten God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder back in print, even though I no longer believe in much of the mystical/spiritual aspect of the book.  Spencer Tepper, a frequent commenter on this blog, bought a copy of the book, which I appreciate. I also appreciate a comment he left where he critiqued some of what I said in the first part of God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder. It's a bit strange that I feel the need to defend a book that I don't totally believe in, but Tepper focused on a topic that I…
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Posted inBooks Taoism/Tai Chi

The Book of Chuang Tzu praises uselessness

There's religious, spiritual, philosophical, and mystical writings. Then there's The Book of Chuang Tzu.  It stands apart, because there's nothing else like it. This Taoist classic is humorous, crazy, confusing, paradoxical, entertaining, wise, weird, and so much else besides.  I've read it several times, in various translations. It's one of my favorite books, in large part because there's no way to pin down exactly what's being taught in the collection of, as the back cover says, "the stories, tales, jokes and anecdotes that have gathered around the figure of Chuang Tzu." Since I'm feeling increasingly useless, the older I get,…
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Posted inBooks Personal/Stories

“God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder” is back in print, shorter and simplified

Big news! Also, kind of weird news.  Now-atheist me has gotten a second edition of the book written by previous-religious-believer me back in print. It took me many years to do this after the initial publisher went of business, but I finally got around to it. (Note: the paperback version was available May 8 on Amazon, but it took this long for a Kindle version to be prepared, then linked to the paperback listing on Amazon.) Yes, Amazon has "God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder: Echoes of Spiritual Reality in the New Physics" available for $13 in paperback and $3.99 for the…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Can’t stop quoting from “Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide”

Zen, along with Buddhism in general, teaches that nothing is permanent, everything changes. So even though right now I feel like I can't stop sharing quotes from my re-reading of Barry Magid's book, Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide, clearly I will at some point.  Like maybe tomorrow, not today. Here's more passages from the book that appealed to my churchless consciousness. Which follow a Zen cartoon. "Karma means "cause and effect," which is another way of describing interconnection and change. Enlightenment is the realization of our being the ongoing product of interconnection and change -- it is…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Great quotes from “Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide”

I'm a big fan of Zen, though I've never actually practiced with a Zen teacher, and I'm turned off by overly dogmatic or religious versions of Zen Buddhism.  Yesterday I was idly glancing at the Zen section of my bookcase and noticed a book that I'd read nine years ago and blogged about in "Search for happiness (and self) called off." I'm enjoying a re-reading of Barry Magid's Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide. Magid is a psychoanalyst with an appealing take on Zen. He founded the Ordinary Mind Zendo in New York City and still teaches there.…
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Posted inBooks Morality

Why do gods and spirits matter?

The title of this blog post asks a question that's a chapter title in Pascal Boyer's challenging, but intensely interesting, book, "Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought." Boyer is an anthropologist who is also well-versed in psychology. His book isn't an easy read, but I'm enjoying making my way through it, occasionally by skipping a chapter and moving ahead to a chapter that grabs my attention more. Not surprisingly, I'm carefully reading the "Why do gods and spirits matter?" chapter, since this is such an important question. Below is how the chapter starts off. I decided to share…
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Posted inBooks Science

A quest for spiritual liberation can lead to new illusions

Some scientific findings contained in an article in the April 2 issue of The New Yorker, "Are We Already Living In Virtual Reality?" bear on the question of what meditation is all about, and the extent to which meditation liberates us from anything. The article is about Thomas Metzinger, a philosophically-minded neuroscientist. As you can read in the excerpt below, Metzinger speaks about our inability to recognize the unconscious mental models that determine how we experience reality. In his book, The Ego Tunnel, which I've read and enjoyed, Metzinger speaks of the walls of the tunnel as being transparent to…
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Posted inBooks Science

Steven Pinker defends Enlightenment values

My wife, Laurel, belongs to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which publishes an excellent publication, Free Thought Today. The most recent issue has an edited version of Steven Pinker's speech to the FFRF convention in 2017 where he talks about the message of his new book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. You can read the Free Thought Today story, "Knowledge has enhanced human flourishing," online. Here's how it starts out: It is an honor to speak about my forthcoming book in public for the first time in front of this audience. We’re going to begin…
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Posted inBooks

Great advice from Alan Watts: wisdom lies in letting go

I'm a big fan of Alan Watts' "The Wisdom of Insecurity." I've read this book several times and have written about it in numerous blog posts.  (You can search for the posts via the Google box in the right sidebar.) Here's an article about a core message in that book, letting go: "Alan Watts: Anxiety, Enlightenment, and the Wisdom of Insecurity." Thanks to a Church of the Churchless visitor for sending me a link to the piece. Excerpts to whet your appetite for reading it: Throughout the history of civilization individuals have had access to myths which conveyed the sense…
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Posted inBooks

Clean up your life. Be left with the bare tragedies.

I'm enjoying Jordan Peterson's book, "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos." Peterson is a psychologist who became a celebrated professor through his lectures and You Tube videos. Below is an excerpt that I liked from his chapter on Rule 6: Set Your House in Perfect Order Before You Criticize the World.I don't actually believe that this is either necessary or a good thing -- to get one's life all perfect before criticizing the world. Hey, I'm not about to give up my criticisms of Trump just because I have some failings. But in general what Peterson says makes…
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Posted inBooks Personal/Stories

Pay attention to the small things of life, because they’re the important things

Walking back to our rural home after a dog walk, I was struck by how a leafless oak tree at the edge of our yard looked against the late afternoon sky. It was a lesson in fractals, those amazing shapes that repeat at many levels. Each twig was a reflection of each branch which was a reflection of the entire tree. Which got me to thinking about how the small things in life are a reflection of the big things in life. To put it another way, the meaning we get from small things is the same meaning we get…
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Posted inBooks Free will

“Free Will Explained” is a poor explanation of free will

I had high expectations when I began reading Dan Barker's book, "Free Will Explained." Being a firm non-believer in free will, I figured that Barker, an avowed atheist, would give free will the same de-bunking as Sam Harris and numerous other scientifically minded authors have. I'm a free will junkie. I find this subject fascinating. I've read most of the books that argue free will doesn't exist, even though we humans believe we possess it. So since the subtitle of Barker's book is How Science and Philosophy Converge to Create a Beautiful Illusion, I expected a rational, reasonable, factual explanation…
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Posted inBooks Plotinus

I’m pleased that my ideas about God have changed

I just had an enjoyable hour-long phone conversation with a man who wanted to talk with me about my book, "Return to the One: Plotinus's Guide to God-Realization."  It has been so long since I'd picked up the book, I read through it really quickly this morning to refresh my memory about what I'd written. I have to say that I was impressed. Hey, I made a lot of sense!  However, early on in our phone conversation I had to tell this guy that my views about both Plotinus, and spirituality in general, have changed quite a bit since I…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Buddhism doesn’t believe in a soul, which is fine with soulless me

During my religious days I took solace in feeling that I had, or was, a soul that would survive my bodily death. Now, I'm more attached to truth than to fond beliefs, even when they feel good.  So I enjoy many Buddhist writings (just not the ones that talk about reincarnation and other supernatural stuff).  Back in 2012 I resonated with Owen Flanagan's naturalistic take on Buddhism, as I wrote about in "Buddhism says I'm a soulless Heraclitean river. Cool!" So everything is changing. Including me, you, beliefs, brains, selves, Mt. Everest, ants, galaxies, subatomic particles, who is ahead in…
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Posted inBooks Politics Religions

Trump administration’s push for religious liberty rooted in “Fantasyland”

The United States is a Fantasyland. And not just any old Fantasyland -- people in this country probably have the most fantastical beliefs of any country in the world.  This is the core message of Kurt Andersen's marvelous book, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, a 500-Year History." It's more that 400 pages, but if you want a short overview, check out an Atlantic piece, "How America Lost Its Mind." I've only read the first part of the book. But already it's offered up fresh insights into a familiar topic on this blog, the ridiculousness of giving subjective religious beliefs way…
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Posted inBooks Plotinus Reality

“The Realm of the Wise” is a book I both agree and disagree with

A while back I got an email from Marc Deprey, who shares my interest in Greek philosophy -- notably Plotinus' conception of the One as being both the fountainhead and essence of existence.  Deprey said that he'd written a book, "The Realm of the Wise," that has quite a bit in common with my book about Plotinus' teachings, "Return to the One."  Bookaholic that I am, I couldn't resist ordering a copy from Amazon. The Realm of the Wise is appealingly short -- just 134 pages.  There is very little, if any, overt religiosity in Deprey's book, another plus. He…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Two books about whether there’s a science of Buddhism

I don't read every article in The New Yorker. But when I got near the end of the latest issue and saw this image, along with "American Nirvana: Is there a science of Buddhism?" by Adam Gopnik, I knew I'd peruse every word.  (The online version has a different title.) Gopnik's piece was a review of two recent books: "Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Enlightenment" by Robert Wright, and "After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age" by Stephen Bachelor. Naturally I've ordered both books from Amazon. I say "naturally," because I'm a big fan…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

Check out “The Way of Wonder” by Jack Haas. It’s, well, wonderful!

So, what do you read if you're not religious, but you're still filled with a sense of wonder about the marvelous mystery of the cosmos? How do you inspire yourself "spiritually" if you don't believe in God or any other theological fantasy, yet still want to feel an energetic boost that impels you more strongly to know the unknowable insofar as it can be known? My top answer is Jack Haas' book, The Way of Wonder.  I bought it nine years ago, in 2008. Somehow it took me until 2013 to leave an Amazon review. Which is still the only…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

How meditation helped Yuval Harari write “Sapiens,” a terrific book

I absolutely loved Sapiens, a book by a historian that was like no history book I'd ever read before. It was filled with wonderfully fresh insights -- Big Astounding Ideas rather than little boring facts. My blog posts about the book will give you a feel for what the author, Yuhal Harari, wrought.  "Religion is just one of many stories humans have imagined""Imagined orders -- like religions -- depend on shaky myths"Given how much I admired Sapiens, when I saw the title of a post by Ezra Klein on the Vox site, I knew that I had to read "Yuval…
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