Posted inBuddhism

Why Buddhism doesn’t believe in self-realization

For a long time in my spiritual seeking career -- about 1968 to the present -- I thought "self-realization" was a worthy goal. I knew people who were active in the Self-Realization Fellowship founded by Yogananda. I followed a meditation practice that taught "self-realization before god-realization." I avidly read books by people who has supposedly found their true self. Now, I'm much more inclined to the Buddhist viewpoint: there's no such thing as the self, so self-realization isn't possible. This differentiates Buddhism from other religions, spiritual philosophies, and mystic paths which hold that we humans have (or are) a soul…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Radha Soami Satsang Beas loses another believer

l like hearing deconversion stories. Deconversion, as I've noted, is as natural as conversion. Here's a tale that came to me in an email message. Jesse was pleased to let me share it with others. Thanks, Jesse. I've added a few explanations of unfamiliar terms [in brackets]. Hi Brian, Since your blog is the go-to place for anti-Radha Soami Satsang Beas stuff I thought I'd share this with you, you fuckadilly pigfuck. (I'm kidding. That's an insulting and hilarious line directed at you from a hater who left a comment on your I Hate Church of the Churchless site.) Anyway, I'm…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Life comes to us as water falls on a landscape

There's a lot of beautiful writing, thoughts, and inspiration in Iain McGilchrist's scholarly yet engrossing book, "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World." (I've blogged about the book here, here, here, and here.) I loved these passages. Deeply moving. If it resonates with you also, great. It sure did with me. The feeling we have of experience happening -- that even if we stop doing something and just sit and stare, time is still passing, our bodies are changing, our senses are picking up sights and sounds, smells, and tactile sensations, and…
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Posted inBooks

Sam Harris’ recommended reading: good list of books

Amazon is happy. So is VISA. Having recently subscribed to Sam Harris' email list, today I got a message plugging his recommended reading list -- which includes suggestions from readers of his books. Harris often is billed as a "new atheist." However, I see him more as a "spiritual but not religious" sort of guy, where spiritual doesn't mean anything supernatural. More like mindfulness, or making best use of human potential. Along that line, I just ordered a few books in his Eastern Philosophy and Meditation category that appealed to me: "Mindfulness in Plain English" and "Introduction to Emptiness."  Have a…
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Posted inBuddhism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Lineage means little in science and art. Why so important in religion?

When you learn about an important scientific discovery, does it matter to you what "line" of scientists the researcher is associated with? When you listen to a scintillating musical performance, does it matter to you what "line" of musicians the artist is associated with? No. At least, not much. Likely not at all.  Recently the Oregonian had a story about a classical guitarist who is going to play in Portland. It was mentioned that Scott Kritzer was the "grandson" of famed guitarist Andres Segovia, because his teacher was a Segovia student. But that fact has no bearing on Kritzer's reputation as…
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Posted inPolitics Religions

When is it OK to trash-talk a religion?

The recent killing of diplomats at the American consulate in Libya raises questions about the balance between freedom of speech and religious liberty. This subject is dear to my heart, since I've been blogging on this here Church of the Churchless for eight years, attempting to do the same thing -- speak my mind about the ridiculousness of organized religiosity while respecting the personal beliefs of individuals (after all, we all believe in weird things; weird, that is, from the perspective of other people; to us, we're absolutely normal). It's unclear what set off Muslims who attacked American diplomatic outposts…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

I’m asked questions about Sant Mat. I answer them.

Recently I got an email from someone who shared ideas about Sant Mat, the Indian philosophy I used to believe in. My correspondent also asked me some questions. Here's what the person said, in italics, and my responses, in regular type preceded by a "ME." A lot of this won't make sense to anyone who isn't into the intricacies of the Sant Mat teachings. But quite a few visitors to this blog are, so I figured that I might as well share the comments/questions and my responses. ----------------------------- I have been initiated for about 4 to 5 years now, and there…
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Moving on from religion is as normal as other life changes

Once in a while I hear from somebody who asks me when I'm going to write another blog post about the Indian religious organization that I belonged to for about thirty-five years. I usually reply in this fashion: "I used to write quite a bit about Radha Soami Satsang Beas, but now I don't think very much about RSSB any more. It's a lot like when I got divorced from my first wife. She often was on my mind right after we split up. Eventually, though, we each moved on to other relationships and that woman became the focus of…
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Posted inFree will Morality

Sam Harris explains how life is good without free will

Free will. Who needs it? Not me. Not you. Not Sam Harris. Not anybody.  Which is a good thing. Because almost certainly free will doesn't exist. So it's good news, and unsurprising news, that something humans don't have isn't necessary to live a satisfying life. Harris is an excellent writer and thinker. Read his "Life Without Free Will." If you're under the illusion that you're free to do whatever you decide to do, his piece will reassure you that's it's fine to give up that unsubsantiated belief. I particularly liked this section of the essay. In my view, the reality of…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Meandering is the path; uselessness is the purpose

The older I get, the less I care. Must be getting close to my Ultimate Enlightenment. Except, I care so little, I've lost interest in trying to figure out whether I'm closer to or further from something or other... God, spiritual truth, Buddha-nature, enlightenment, Tantric ecstacy, whatever. For a long time the notion of a spiritual path made sense to me. Now, it doesn't. A path leads to somewhere I want to go. And which I know exists. What the hell is a spiritual path? Can anybody point to it? Are there signs of the destination? Devotees of religions, forms…
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Posted inPolitics

Romney’s religion isn’t an asset. No religion is.

Nice people are just that: nice. Good people are just that: good. Compassionate people are just that: compassionate.  There's no need to ascribe their niceness, goodness, or compassion to their religiosity, as Jack Roberts did in an opinion piece, "Romney's religion should be an asset, not a liability," in today's Portland Oregonian.  I say this as a non-Mormon who from my Mormon friends has gained a deep appreciation for the positive values that church imparts to its members -- chief among them their obligation to provide support and charity for others. I could never join that church myself because their…
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Posted inGod Politics

Goddamn it — “God” is back in Democratic Party platform

Jeez, I was beginning to think that the Democratic Party to which I belong really was a coven of atheistic religion-haters who got their kicks from burning the Bible while high on illicit drugs (that'd be a good thing, of course). My hopefulness arose from reading that "God" had been dropped from the 2012 Democratic platform. The Christian Broadcast Network reported: Guess what? God’s name has been removed from the Democratic National Committee platform. This is the paragraph that was in the 2008 platform: “We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and…
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Posted inReality Science

Thinking about life isn’t the same as experiencing life

About half an hour ago I was walking around a nearby lake with our two dogs. Then I was directly experiencing what it was like to be outdoors in late afternoon on a pleasingly sunny and warm Oregon day. I can share a photo I took, but what you see isn't what I experienced. In fact, even if you had been standing right beside me when I got my iPhone out, how you looked upon the lake wouldn't have been the same as my experience of it. That's the thing about experience: it's subjective, personal, ineffable, ever-changing, impossible to pin…
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Posted inHumor Religions

Fake celebrity video shows how gurus scam devotees

Watch this You Tube video. In four and a half minutes you'll have a much better understanding of how gurus, prophets, masters, and other "spiritual" celebrities get so many people to believe in them. Fascinating, how easy it is to delude us humans. Our tendency is to follow others like sheep. (Thanks to a blog visitor for sending me a link to this video. It's got over 4 million You Tube views, but I hadn't heard of it before.)   
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Enlightenment explained in 47 words

Just got this email from a Church of the Churchless visitor. Nicely said from someone about my age who looks on enlightenment pretty much the same way I do now. I never knew what to believe until my early twenties when I came to believe in enlightenment. Now, at the age of sixty-four, having found that I can’t explain clearly what enlightenment could possibly be, I can’t believe in it anymore, and I find this inability enlightening.      
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Posted inBooks Science

Certainty is how the brain’s left hemisphere deludes itself

Are you certain? For sure? No doubts at all? 100%? Your faith in what you know is absolute? Congratulations. The left hemisphere of your brain is firmly in control of you -- recognizing that almost certainly (notice that almost? my brain's right hemisphere is working) there's no difference between "you" and "your brain." This is my second post about Iain McGilchrist's fascinating book, "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World." See here for the first. I'm hugely enjoying learning about how the left and right hemispheres function.  After all, how the world appears…
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Posted inReality Science

Divided brain is root of our divided self

I'm fascinated by the human brain. It's a mini-universe. A mini-universe that is me. So what I'm fascinated by is the same entity that is doing the fascinating, which is to say...me. Go figure. I can't. There's no way I can get outside of my brain and look upon it objectively. Nobody can, not even supposedly elevated mystics and meditators. Show me someone without a working brain and you're showing me someone dead. However, neuroscientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other scientifically-minded students of the human brain know a lot about its structure and functions. I've read quite a few books about…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

“Oneness” is an abstraction. “Manyness” is reality.

I like the idea of oneness. But I'd hate the reality of it, oneness plain and simple. Well, more accurately I couldn't hate absolute oneness if it existed, because there wouldn't be any me to feel hate. Or anything else, since there's no room for two in One. Thus it's impossible for anyone to experience oneness. "Anyone" and "oneness" are two separate entities. So whenever someone talks about how the cosmos is One, they're referring to an abstraction, not reality. Nothing wrong with this. Abstractions can be fun to intellectually play around with. That's a big part of what philosophizing…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Everything will be OK when you are OK with everything

The title of this post isn't my own thought. It's from Michael Singer, author of "The Untethered Soul," a book I've been re-reading. Or re-re-reading (can't remember which). That's how much I like the book. Which is sort of strange, because I don't believe we humans have, or are, a soul. And I also don't believe in the sort of pure awareness that Singer talks about in much the same way Ramana and other Advaita'ish teachers do. Yet this is precisely one of Singer's main points: we can't make everything in life conform to our notions of how things should…
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