Posted inPersonal/Stories

A Christmas memory of my mother

My mother died in April, 1985. Around Christmas that year I shared some feelings about her with friends and family. I tucked that message away in a Bible that I had given her on her birthday shortly before she died. I’ve only looked at what I wrote a few times in the past twenty-odd years. Something made me pull it out just now. The book I quote at the end is Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation of the “Bhagavad Gita,” a favorite of mine. And of hers. This is a Hindu holy book, but it conveys a universal Christmas message: the…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas

What’s in a name?

Jesus. Buddha. Mohammed. Moses. Sankara. It’s interesting that each of these great sages of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism is known by one name. Ditto with God, Allah, Brahman. In spirituality, simple names seem to go with profound people and ultimate concepts. This came to mind after I got an email message from a Indian man in England with whom I had previously corresponded. He apparently had read my “God’s here, but I’ve got to go” post where I reminisced about having to pee really bad while sitting in the midst of tens of thousand of devotees attending a…
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Posted inHumor Personal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas

God’s here, but I’ve got to go

If Jesus returned to earth and you were part of the multitudes listening to him preach in person, what would you do if you had to go to the bathroom? This is the sort of deep theological question that we love to consider here at the Church of the Churchless. It also was a deep experiential quandary for me back in December of 1977 when I made my first visit to India. I went to see the guru, Charan Singh, who had initiated me by proxy six and a half years earlier. I had never seen Charan Singh in person,…
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