Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Reality

Theology vs. reality in the RSSB teachings

“Reality.” It’s one of my favorite words. Especially if you say it like Cartman would on South Park: Realitey. That gives it a certain Frenchy sort of snob appeal. But reality, or realitey, really isn’t snobbish at all. It’s the most down-home thing there is. More: it’s the only thing there is. The only real thing, at least. The Greeks considered that something can exist, yet barely be. In other words, there are degrees of reality. Generally we think, “it either is or it isn’t.” However, it could sort of be. And there could be something else with more beingness…
7
Posted inReality

Reasons why “you” don’t exist

One entirely reasonable solution to the seemingly insoluble religious, philosophical, and existential questions that boggle the mind is this: the entity with the mind that is being boggled doesn’t exist. At least, not in the existent sense that we customarily consider ourselves to be enjoying (or more truly, as the Buddha taught, suffering). Over at The Huge Entity this week, Mr. Danieru is featuring musings on reasons why “you” don’t exist from what he calls “some of the most original minds in the blogosphere.” I can’t disagree with that last statement, considering the gray matter inside my cranium is the…
3
Posted inReality

Something’s happening here: Existence

With our electricity off for a reason known only to God and Portland General Electric, my laptop’s battery is showing a quasi-ominous (given my normal weblog verbosity) “87% remaining.” So this is an excellent time to share some thoughts from Will and keep my writing relatively brief tonight. Will, a new cyberspace acquaintance, said in an email that he had just stumbled across the Church of the Churchless. I’m glad he did. For his relatively brief message was sufficient for me to recognize a kindred spirit—both of us being fascinated by Existence. Not the existence of things that exist, but…
4
Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Reality Spiritual practice/meditation

Bursting belief bubbles

“Don’t burst my bubble!” We hear this all the time, as if keeping our belief bubbles intact was a good thing. Well, increasingly I say, “Burst my bubble!” I want my erroneous beliefs to be deflated, as regards religion and spirituality at least. I add that last qualifier because 100% unvarnished reality likely would be too much for me to take. Like everyone, I hold onto delusions that help keep me afloat. For example, I do my best to avoid looking too closely at myself in a mirror. Wrinkles, gray hair, and unwhite teeth aren’t so obvious from a distance.…
2
Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Uncertainty: Be sure of it

We all need something to cling to. The big question is, “What?” What can be counted on to support us when everything else falls away? What will stay with us and never leave? What is the stable center around which the rest of our crazy spinning life can revolve? This is a theme that I keep coming back to in these Church of the Churchless “sermons.” I do so because I’ve been searching for that reliable something my whole life, as have we all. I haven’t found it yet. I’ll willing to bet that you haven’t either. For if we…
4
Posted inReality Science

Truth comes in two guises

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shared a marvelous insight about the nature of the universe with other people and had it fall as flat as a baking powder-less pancake. I’ll speak with astounding passion, clarity, and insight, laying out a metaphysical truth that is so evident to me I figure there’s no way I’ll fail to be showered with praise by an audience grateful beyond belief for being given the gift of my revelation. Yet…actually there’s just a brief moment of silence, as if everyone is mentally praying, “Dear God, please let this conversation head off in…
2
Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Support for the churchless

What supports the churchless? What’s the spiritual equivalent of firm physical ground beneath our feet that provides solidity for every step? “People of faith” are able to cling to a set of beliefs which usually promise that, no matter how much this world may appear to be a whirlpool where everything changes but change itself, someone or something—Jesus, God, Allah, Guru, Buddha, Krishna, the One—is an utterly dependable rock. The problem, though, is that this rock isn’t visible. So you aren’t able to hold onto it directly, as you could a real rock in a real river. It’s the idea…
12
Posted inReality Universe

Existence exists. Amazing!

There’s something. And I’m part of it, as are you. This simple fact is so amazing, it should be a daily wonderment—the Wow! that keeps on wowing through all of life’s routines and trivialities. Existence exists. Seemingly there could have been nothing, though this is a subject that philosophers love to debate: can “nothing” be? Parmenides, I seem to recall, said “no.” Calling something nothing makes it something—a nothing. Buddhists similarly speak of the emptiness of emptiness, though speaking in this fashion fills the void with words, displacing the emptiness. My head hurts when I think too much about existence.…
5
Posted inHumor Reality

Secret of the universe

Wow! Today I discovered that, according to Google, I’m really close to the #1 “secret of universe.” At the moment (Google is whimsical in its rankings), I’ve got the #2 secret. Which is: Whatever is going to happen is what has to happen (Sorry to disappoint you if you were hoping for something else.) Take a look at #1 if you want a more profound answer. I really enjoyed “Secret Worlds: The Universe Within” (and also, without). With my slow Internet connection it took me a while to download the top-ranked secret, but it was worth it. I only wish…
3
Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Reality Religions

What’s wrong with faith?

I’m often asked, generally by myself, “What’s wrong with faith? Doesn’t faith help us get through tough times and feel positive about the future?” Here’s how I answer, generally to myself: “Faith is fine when it points toward objective reality. But when faith keeps us revolving in the merry-go-round of subjective conceptions, it’s dangerous and should be discarded." Never passing up an opportunity to quote myself, this is how I discussed the issue in my book, “Return to the One”: The scientific method, by and large, is founded on the first assumption [“I’ll believe it when I see it”]: what…
5
Posted inReality Religions Science

Knowledge, belief, and feathered dinosaurs

Let’s say you believe in creationism or “intelligent design,” as creationists now like to call their addled explanation of how living beings came to be. You don’t accept evolution. Everything was created all at once by a supreme being that knew exactly what he/she/it wanted to do and did it just right the first time around. Then you are confronted with solid evidence of feathered dinosaurs—a fossil dinosaur covered head to tail with downy fluff and primitive feathers. Evolutionary theory predicted that birds evolved from dinosaurs and, ta-da!, the hypothesis has been confirmed. As paleontologist Mark Norell says, “Dinosaurs are…
2
Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Reality Spiritual practice/meditation

All masters but one are false

I’ve followed just two masters in my life. Of course, if “master” is taken in the broader biblical sense (“No man can serve two masters…You cannot serve God and wealth”) then I’ve had lots of masters. Everything that has led me in a direction in which I didn’t really want to go has mastered me. If I started to list all those things, this post would go on…and on…and on. So I’m not talking about those masters of me, just the two spiritual “gurus” that I pledged allegiance to sequentially several years apart. I believe that one was much more…
39
Posted inReality

Reality is shades of gray

Isn’t it interesting how much we like to divide reality into halves? Black and white, liberal and conservative, rich and poor, red states and blue states, pro-life and pro-choice, masculine and feminine, heaven and hell. Can it really be that there are only two choices in so many areas of existence? No. Life in all of its complex, mystifying, aggravating variety is truly shades of gray, not black and white. Diane Ackerman, naturalist and poet, speaks of our fondness for artificial “twosies” in her book “An Alchemy of Mind.” She is addressing the question of whether nature or nurture explains…
1
Posted inBooks God Mystics

Plotinus: Vision

For more than eight years I’ve been a close friend of a long-dead Greek philosopher, Plotinus. Obviously I haven’t sat down and talked with him directly, but I feel like I have, so intensely and intimately have I studied his teachings in the course of writing a book: “Return to the One: Plotinus’s Guide to God-Realization.” Plotinus is the last of five mystics that I’ve been writing about. Each is a worthy “patron saint” for the churchless, and each exhibits a special quality that I try to describe in a single word. For Plotinus it is vision. I’ve read countless…
No Comments
Posted inGod Reality Religions

Why bad tsunamis happen to good people

“Why?” is a many-faceted word when it comes to disasters. Science can tell us the physical reasons why the tsunami hit South and Southeast Asia, but people in the area (and elsewhere) also want answers to broader questions: Why us? Why here? Why now? These are queries in an article by Kenneth Wordward in the January 10 issue of Newsweek: “Countless Souls Cry Out to God.” The article describes how survivors of four faiths, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, are variously conceiving the metaphysical meaning of the tsunami cataclysm. The Hindu inhabitants of poor fishing communities don’t have sophisticated theological…
No Comments
Posted inReality Religions Science

Reality is the best religion

Is religion isn’t real, what good is it? Not much. Admittedly, believing in something that isn’t real can make you feel better and offer consolation when life is tough. It is easier to accept a tragedy if this is taken to be “God’s will.” And instead of feeling powerless to change an unfortunate situation, many people embrace prayer as a way to call a higher power into action. Similarly, children ask Santa Claus to bring them presents from the North Pole. They also put newly lost baby teeth under their pillows and expect that the Tooth Fairy will reward them.…
24