Video of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the secretive guru

One of the most strangely secretive gurus in the world is Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the leader of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (headquarters are in Beas, India).  His predecessor, Charan Singh, had no problem with being photographed in both still shots and videos. However, Gurinder Singh prohibits cameras from being used in his presence, even in public places.  I witnessed this myself when I was serving as a security volunteer at a RSSB meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii. Prohibitions of that sort, though, can be gotten around. Here's a You Tube video, "Babaji Gurinder Singh Dhillon -- I Just Wanna Hide," that…

Being totally into what we do makes us godlike: kamiwaza

I've finished Seth Godin's book, "The Icarus Deception," that I blogged about before in Here's something to be afraid of: fear.  I didn't find it astoundingly inspiring or informative. However, it did reinforce some notions I already hold, and said some old stuff in some new ways. And I did learn some new things. Had never heard of the Japanese word kamiwaza before. Godin writes: Superman. Thor. Moses. Athena. George Gershwin. Thomas Edison -- they each represent part of what it is to be human; they are inside all of us. We know we are capable of this -- to…

In this moment, be the mystery of existence

Thirty-five minutes until the Beanery coffeehouse closes. One sixteen ounce of coffee to consume while composing a caffeinated blog post. I accept the mission.  Now. In this moment.  To say something about one of my favorite chapters in one of my favorite books: "God in the Moment," in Luther Askeland's marvelous Ways in Mystery. I've highlighted this chapter so many times, there's fewer non-colored lines than colored. Blogged about this chapter before in my very early blogging days, when I wrote "Still trying to set my hair on fire." Re-reading it, I was pleased to find that when I was…

Weirdness: editing a book I wrote that I no longer agree with

This afternoon I decided that I've got to get serious about finishing my re-write of "God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder," a book I wrote in the early 1990's that has been out of print for a long time — since the publisher went out of business.

Years ago I edited the book significantly. My preachiness bothered me. Of course, at the time I wrote it, what I said didn't sound preachy to me. Hey, it was the truth!

So this evening I spent 90 minutes or so on proofreading and editing instead of on writing my usual Church of the Churchless blog post. It was a pleasingly weird experience. Whenever I read what I wrote in this book, even de-preachy'fied, I'm struck by how differently I look upon life now.

Which is a good thing. I feel like I've evolved into a more genuine way of understanding my place in the cosmos. Still…

There are moments when I read what my true-believing self wrote and think, "Ah, back then it was sort of nice to be so sure about God, soul, spirit, life after death, and all that stuff."

Why, you might wonder, would I want to re-publish a book that I don't really believe in any more? Well, several reasons.

Some other people will find my arguments more convincing that I find them myself nowadays. In fact, there's a chance I was on the right track before, and the wrong track now. I put a lot of work into researching and writing this study of how "ageless mysticism" relates to the "new physics." And I wouldn't mind getting some royalties from Amazon to support my senior citizen longboarding passion and caffeine addiction. 

Until I get the revised version of God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder back in print (both paper and electronic forms), I'll probably spend less time writing original posts for this blog. Maybe I'll continue to share excerpts from the rewritten book.

Feel free to laugh at me. I do so myself. Here's how the introduction reads now. Can't recall how different it is from the original. Perhaps not much. I made more changes to other chapters.

Spirituality is liberal, religiosity is conservative

Thanks to Steve for letting me know about a study that confirms what seems intuitively obvious.  People become more politically liberal immediately after practising a spiritual exercise such as meditation, researchers at the University of Toronto have found. "There's great overlap between religious beliefs and political orientations," says one of the study authors, Jordan Peterson of U of T's Department of Psychology. "We found that religious individuals tend to be more conservative and spiritual people tend to be more liberal. "Inducing a spiritual experience through a guided meditation exercise led both liberals and conservatives to endorse more liberal political attitudes." Here's a…

Think less, sense more. Stress relief made simple.

Here's some good advice from Daniel Bor, a cognitive neuroscientist, in his book "The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning."  After enumerating some oft-heard ways to reduce stress (get enough sleep, exercise regularly, etc.), Bor says: But eclipsing this list in the fight against stress is one simple mental exercise: meditation. This is often written off as being too esoteric and not sufficiently scientific, but it's been shown to profoundly help virtually any mental ailment, whether the person has a psychiatric condition or is merely suffering from the stresses and strains of…

Compassion starts with yourself: be kind to your own crap

Last night I watched part of a video that Netflix suggested I'd like to stream to my TV -- "Louis C.K.: Live at the Beacon Theater." I enjoyed his style of ironic/cynical comedy. Often he reminded me of me. Like when Louis C.K. said that he believes in being kind to people. He gets pleasure out of knowing that he believes this. Doesn't mean that he actually does kind things, compassionate things, caring things. He just enjoys the feeling of believing that these would be good things to do, were he ever to do them. I can relate to this.…

It’s wrong to say “those who know, say not.” There, I said it.

I really liked my response to something a commenter on a recent post said. This isn't terribly surprising, since I usually like what I say. After all, there's not much point to saying stuff that makes me feel "I shouldn't have said that." Occasionally that happens. Usually, though, what I say is something I want to say. So like most people, I've got no problem with saying. There's a time to say. And a time not to say. Thus I replied to the commenter this way: david r, how can you be sure that "Those who know, say not. Those…

The illusory self loves to make up stories

Who are we? Is there both an "I" and a "me" inside my head? Where do my stories about myself come from? Is it possible to live without a coherent life story? Great questions. So it didn't take me long to reply to this email with a "Sure, Alex, I'll put up a post about the video." Hi Brian,I'm writing from the Institute of Art and Ideas, where we organise a philosophy and ideas festival called HowTheLightGetsIn in May every year. All the debates at the festival are filmed and released over the course of the following year and I thought a…

There’s more, and less, to reality than we believe

We humans are mavelously anthropocentric creatures. Of course, our two dogs are marvelously caninecentric creatures. All they know about the world is what their dog brains are able to perceive.  I don't get the feeling, though, that Serena and Zu Zu feel that their way of looking upon reality is the only way, or the best way. Whereas lots of people do. One exception: when they're engaged in an intense sniffing project while we're on a walk and I tell them, "Come on, let's go!"; their bemused look at me speaks What an idiot -- why isn't he as interested…

The secret truth gurus don’t know (but scientists do)

In my life I've flown in both directions: toward mysticism as taught by gurus, and toward scientific understanding as taught by scientists. For a long time I felt like it was possible to meld the best of both worlds in an even-better combination. Now, though, I feel like whatever mysticism claims to offer needs to be assessed from within the world of reality known to science. Understand: I'm not saying that scientists are anywhere close to knowing what life, the universe, consciousness, and All That is all about. Mysteries abound. Maybe they always will, since it seems that most of…

In living, focus on “differences that make a difference”

I've come across this phrase quite frequently in philosphical and scientific writings: a difference that makes a difference. It's appealing.  What good is a difference that doesn't make a difference? In fact, is it even really a difference, if nothing about it makes a difference? These are deep epistemological waters. I'm not competent to dive into them. I just enjoy pondering Gregory Bateson's definition of information, which seems to apply more generally to other areas (of course, it could be reasonably argued that information is the essence of everything). Consider the mind-body problem. Or in some religious circles, the mind/soul-body…

Spiritual sages were clueless about how the brain works

Almost every religious prophet, mystic guru, spiritual sage, revered master, elevated yogi, or other supposed knower of what lies beyond everyday appearances shares a common denominator:  They were essentially clueless about the human brain with which they made their pronouncements about divine reality.  So they had no idea about how the knower of their purported knowledge works. I'd realized this before, but the factiness of this fact hadn't really hit me until I started reading Patricia Smith Churchland's "Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy."  In the Introduction, Churchland reminds us how neuroscience has only come into its own very recently. By contrast,…

Scott Adams: “We’re living in a computer simulation”

Makes sense to me. Of course, that's what I've been programmed to think. By whoever is running the simulation we call "life." Scott Adams, the simulated human which believes it created the comic strip "Dilbert," also believes that it is highly likely we're living in a computer simulation.  I like his reasoning. One feature of our so-called reality that makes me scratch my head is the consistency of the rules of physics. One might expect a "natural" universe - one that came from an explosion - to be nothing but randomness on every dimension, including the rules of physics themselves.…

The self: a trick your mind plays on not-you

Here's some good news, and some even better news, from the current special issue of New Scientist: "The Great Illusion of the Self." You're being tricked by an expert! And who doesn't like amazing tricks? Even better, the trickster is your own mind! You're your own magician.  Well, you would be if you existed. But almost certainly you don't. At least, not in any way close to how you feel that you do. In 10 pages, several New Scientist stories -- "Who Are You?," What Are You?," "When Are You?," "Where Are You?," "Why Are You?" -- persuasively present evidence that an…

Alan Watts in a nutshell: each present moment is eternity

Man, I dig Alan Watts. I just finished re-reading my favorite Watts book, "The Wisdom of Insecurity." He wrote it at a time, 1951, when "dig" was becoming part of the lexicon of the Beat Generation. But Watts' cogent understanding of what genuine spirituality -- for lack of a better term -- is all about: timeless. And so simple. Here's how the basic message of the book, as summarized in the final chapter, Religion Reviewed, flows. Watts' quotations are indented. My words precede the quotes. We long for security. For absoluteness. For something unchanging. But reality isn't like that. Living…

Mindful equals moral. And I’m a 4/10 Hipster.

I'm not a big fan of rigid commandments. So when I came across "Ten Things that are Bad for Us that Can be Good for You if Practiced Mindfully," I figured it would fit with my loose moral inclinations. I was right. Nothing astounding here; just a good reminder that Buddha got it right about that "middle way" stuff. Here's what the author, Waylon Lewis, said about mindfulness itself: Spirituality and religion can help us to be kind, and patient, to learn, to connect with community—or they can become fixed, dividing, materialistic dogma. Mindfulness itself can be meditation, at its…

Don’t understand the brain? You can’t understand spirituality.

Here's a follow-up to my "Spirituality without neuroscience is bullshit" post. Since I wrote it I've been pondering ways to convert religious believers to what seems to me to be an obvious truth: if you don't understand the brain with which you do your understanding, your understandings are going to be shallow. I'm not saying that everybody has to be expert in the anatomy and functioning of the brain. But without basic knowledge of what lies within the cranium of each of us, how we look upon the world is going to be skewed by our ignorance. Let's consider an…

Spirituality without neuroscience is bullshit

For most of my life I've been an avid reader of philosophical, spiritual, mystical, religious, and otherwise what's it all about? books.  I've mentally devoured ideas that were way out there. Well, usually they also were way in here. Meaning, those notions concerned our innermost core being: soul, pure consciousness, Buddha-nature, atman... that thingless thing goes by lots of names. My evolution into churchlessness has changed my appetite for books that I once found delicously tasty. I'm much more attracted now to readings which accept reality as known to modern science, while delving further into the many mysteries lying beyond the…

Eyes shut spiritual escapism: the trap of “going within”

For many years, decades actually, I practiced a form of meditation aimed at "going within." Meaning, within some supposed realms of consciousness distinct, and higher than, the physical world. This practice was part of a Sant Mat teaching. As Wikipedia says: The basic teaching of contemporary Sant Mat, as described by its Masters, is that everything lies inside us and that God is within. The outside world is only an image or a reflection of the inner reality. So, in pithier terms, what's outside of us is worthless crap; what's inside of us is precious divinity. This world-denying notion is…