Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Psychedelics and placebos more effective than religion

For some churchless inspiration, check out Mark Morford's "Placebo effect beats out God, Prozac." He discusses the finding that anti-depressants are pretty much useless, except for cases of extreme depression. A sugar pill works as well as Prozac, if the patient believes he or she is getting the real deal.The placebo effect -- hereby defined as the sheer force of will and belief, of the mind's (and heart's) ability to heal and nurture itself sans external assistance -- applies to all sorts of constructs in our tortured modern world.Organized religion? Hell yes. Is your life flawed and painful? Are you…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Feeling something spiritual doesn’t mean it is real

Everybody has feelings, intuitions, hunches, gut-reactions. They always are real for us, because we're aware of them. Individual awareness equals subjective reality.Trouble is, many people make a big leap of faith: they assume that a personal experience reflects a universal truth. Like, God. Or spirit, soul, Jesus' love, heaven, a guru's greatness, or whatever.Thanks to a post on The Rambling Taoist, a blog I follow, today I came across a terrific piece by Greta Christina, "Why 'I Feel It In My Heart' Is a Terrible Justification for God's Existence."Showing that I've haven't quite reached the final stages of egoless Buddha-nature,…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi Vedanta/Advaita

Focus on experiences or the experiencer? The big spiritual divide.

When we get down to the essence of religion, spirituality, and mysticism, it seems to me that the broad divide between various sorts of faiths can be boiled down to this question:Is the focus on experiences, or the experiencer?This isn't an either/or, a crisp choice between one or the other. Still, Zen and Advaita Vedanta are decidedly on the experiencer side. Meaning, what's more important is how the consciousness of a practitioner perceives reality, not what is perceived.Pouring a cup of tea (or for me, sipping a mug of coffee) is as significant, or not, as soaring to the highest…
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Posted inHumor Religions

My 100% guaranteed spiritual investment scheme

With all the talk going on these days about sleazy financial deal-making, I've been wondering why Wall Street doesn't hire more religious experts. They seem even better suited than mathematical wizards to be able to fashion can't-miss investment schemes.By "can't-miss," naturally I'm referring to the 100% certainty that the purveyor of the deal will profit. As is so often the case, the poor suckers who buy into it aren't guaranteed anything -- which is why the scheme is structured as it is.There are lots of variations on the religious "Invest Now and Reap the Rewards Later" pitch. I'm most familiar…
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Posted inMorality

Morality shouldn’t depend on the supernatural

How do we decide what is right and wrong? Is there even such a thing, or just "right" and "wrong"? Who are we trying to please, or relate to, when we act ethically, outwardly or inwardly?All intriguing questions, which are ably addressed by anthropologist David Eller in his "Christianity Does Not Provide the Basis for Morality." This is a chapter in a book I'm reading, The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails.Every religion is deluded, of course -- not just Christianity. Likewise, no religion, spiritual belief, or mystical practice can provide the basis for morality. Eller shows how they all make…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Spiritual practice/meditation

Getting small: solution to all of my problems?

Last week I heard a Taoist scholar/practitioner say, "Feel small, and your problems will be small." Makes sense. A similar intuition has been taking root in me since embracing the non-faith of churchlessness six or so years ago.Most religions teach that bigger is better. We're supposed to expand our consciousness, rise up to heaven, grow in spiritual understanding, enlarge our connection with God.I used to enjoy the feeling that my devotional practices enjoined by a religious organization -- meditation, volunteering, vegetarianism, tee-totaling, and such -- were helping me to become more.More detached from this lower world of materiality. More attached…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Taoism and imagination

Reality is what it is. That's difficult, if not impossible, to argue with. And it's a central proposition of Taoism, which is one reason I'm so attracted to this philosophy.We humans like to name things, conceptualize things, analyze things. But what if something isn't really a "thing"? Then how do we relate to it? Like, the universe, the cosmos, the whole shebang. Not a piece of it, which could reasonably be viewed as a thing. Rather, the entire mysterious ungraspable stupendous all-encompassing entirety of everything -- that can't be divided into this thing and that thing.A few days ago I…
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Posted inReligions

Believers need to take the “Outsider Test for Faith”

Why and how do religious believers choose to accept a particular faith out of the many choices available to them? (4200 is one estimate)Great question. Here's an ever better one: What makes someone confident that the religion they've chosen is true, while all the other religions are false?John W. Loftus examines these issues in a book he edited, "The Christian Delusion." The first chapter I read was by Loftus, "The Outsider Test for Faith Revisited." He used to be a minister, until his deconversion.I loved the chapter. It lays out problems with religious belief that I've been aware of for…
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Posted inBuddhism

My super-simple view of Buddhism

Yesterday, during my Tai Chi class, I had an insightful flash moment that encapsulated how I look upon Buddhism (and also other forms of spirituality) these churchless days.We started off by doing the Yang Long Form. I'm familiar with the form, which, not surprisingly, is long. About twenty minutes worth of prescribed movements, though we usually breeze through the form a bit more quickly.Tai Chi often is described as "moving meditation." Yeah, it seems that way to me. Just as when I do my unmoving meditation, sometimes while doing Tai Chi my mind is calm and centered, and other times…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB’s ties to Religare mix money and spirituality

As shown in my previous post, there's an intimate relationship between Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a religious/mystical organization headquartered in India, and Religare -- a large global financial services group.The current RSSB guru is Gurinder Singh Dhillon. His sons, though only 26 and 20 years old, are among the 400 richest Indians owing to millions of Religare shares having been transferred to them at a very low cost via insider trading deals.And the guru himself has acquired about half a million dollars worth of Religare shares in a similar fashion. (For details on all this, read "Religare's money connections…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Religare’s money connections with the Radha Soami guru

Religious institutions often have an intimate relationship with money. The hugely rich Catholic Church comes to mind, naturally. There's nothing inherently wrong with this. People simply should be aware when spirituality gets tangled up with financial dealings, and make up their own minds about what, if anything, it means to them. In that spirit, someone forwarded me an email message regarding Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) that reportedly has been circulating among members of this India-based organization. RSSB, as a branch of the Sant Mat ("Path of Saints") religious philosophy, is led by a guru who is considered by the…
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Posted inReligions

“Hidden brain” shows how religion traps people

Humans are social creatures. We are drawn toward conforming with what other people are doing. Being a "lone wolf" usually is less comfortable than being part of a group. Sometimes herd-like behavior pays off. It surely did for our ancestors, or evolution wouldn't have produced such powerful pressures to go along and get along in us. If a saber-toothed tiger is attacking, running off by yourself likely isn't the favored survival strategy. Safety in numbers is the watchword in such situations. But not in others, as Shankar Vedantam shows in an intriguing chapter of "The Hidden Brain,"  a book I've…
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Posted inGod Personal/Stories

Finding meaning in small things…without God

God has become too big for me. So has heaven. Along with more scientific notions like ultimate reality. No longer do I have an idea about what super-consciousness would be like. Or how merging my supposed soul with a supposed all-pervading Oneness would change things for me.Along with other religious true believers, I used to have some pretty damn grandiose spiritual plans. I was going to save my soul. I was going to meet God in heaven -- maybe in this very life! I was going to know divine truths that few people on earth had a clue about. I…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Ooh, Easter eve! Time for a blasphemous un-sermon

Being both non-Christian and non-religious in general, I don't pay much attention to Easter. But since so many other people in the United States do, I feel drawn to play my part in this holiday/fantasy by dedicating a fresh blog post to the occasion -- drawing on some of my previous ponderings.My secular attitude toward Easter was summed up a few years ago by "Easter infringes on my religious freedom." It doesn't seem right that my normal Sunday life gets disrupted by a national shut down in honor of someone (Jesus) I couldn't care less about. My athletic club is…
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Posted inReligions

Religions are founded on human egotism

It's strange that religiosity is so often associated with humility, selflessness, and lack of ego. Actually, the religious impulse is highly egotistical, as William James makes clear in his classic book, "The Varieties of Religious Experience."The pivot round which the religious life, as we have traced it, revolves, is the interest of the individual in his private personal destiny. Religion, in short, is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.There's nothing wrong with this. We just need to remember that human nature is part and parcel of religious belief. People turn to religion in much the same way…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Meditation: nothing special, whatever is going on

Cosmic. Earthy. Whichever, or neither, the day after I asked (and answered) "Is meditation different from simply living life?" I came across a great little book by Steve Hagen that addressed the same question.I found "Meditation: Now or Never" in a Malibu metaphysical bookstore. My wife and I were spending a few last hours shopping in the Malibu Country Mart after a pleasant weekend of granddaughter-visiting and beautiful people-watching. (See here.)I've enjoyed Hagen's other books, "Buddhism Plain and Simple" and "Buddhism is Not What You Think." When religiosity is stripped away from Buddhism, I find it pretty darn appealing.We experience…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Is meditation different from simply living life?

For about two-thirds of my life -- from the age of 21 to my current 61 -- I've meditated almost every day. By "almost," I mean that during those forty years I can recall only a couple of times I didn't put in at least twenty minutes of meditation time. And usually it was more like a couple of hours.I've been a big believer in the benefits of meditation. But I've begun to wonder whether my dedication to sitting still with eyes closed, usually concentrating on a mantra (or simply doing as little as possible mentally), makes as much sense…
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Posted inVedanta/Advaita

What’s wrong with change and concepts?

After I put up a post about Deepak Chopra's misunderstanding of quantum theory, Suzanne left a comment pointing me to Stanley Sobottka's website, "A Course in Consciousness." Sobottka is an emeritus (retired) professor of physics. I enjoyed reading the short version of his course, a 75-slide Power Point presentation. I was curious to see whether his philosophical/spiritual take on quantum physics made more sense than Chopra's.The jury inside my head is still out on that question. After I finished reading the slides, my impression was interesting, but not persuasive. Meaning, I didn't come across any grand insights that weren't already…
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Posted inScience

Deepak Chopra challenged by quantum physicist

I used to enjoy Deepak Chopra a lot more than I do now. I don't know whether he has changed, or whether I've changed. Probably it's both.My impression of him used to be that he was a spiritual maverick, someone who sifted out the crap from religiosity and rejected just have faith dogma. But I've come to see him as a New Age entrepreneur who makes big bucks by peddling his own brand of irrational, unbelievable pseudoscience.This view was strengthened by watching Nightline's most recent "face off," Does God Have a Future? Chopra was the champion of the "yes" side.…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

The craziest thing I’ve ever believed

Recently I asked myself, "Brian, what's the craziest thing you've ever believed?" Since I was an active member of an Indian mystical guru-based meditation organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), for over thirty years, quite a few candidate beliefs came to mind. Here's the winner: I used to accept the distinct possibility, if not likelihood, that when I was initiated by the RSSB guru back in 1971, Master Charan Singh placed a metaphysical "double" of himself, a radiant form, within my consciousness. Or being. Or soul. Or something like that.It wasn't very clear where or how this magic act was performed.…
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