Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Death no big deal to most over 50

I rarely pick up the AARP magazine, but a stint in my eye doctor's waiting room got me reading "Life After Death." The article describes the results of a poll that asked people over 50 questions about death, religion, heaven/hell, reincarnation and such. Death scares me. Not as much now as it used to, but I've still got a primal fear of not-existing. Looks like I don't have a whole lot of company, since only 20% agreed that "Thinking about my own death and what happens to me after I die scares me." Interestingly, the somewhat religious were more afraid…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Ceaseless prayer: Christian vs. Sant Mat

Like I said in my last post, I enjoy reading the regional Radha Soami Satsang Beas newsletter because it reminds me of what I like and dislike about what used to be my chosen faith: Sant Mat. The current RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh, is notoriously adverse to having his talks recorded or transcribed. Plus, he rarely writes anything for public consumption. So the only way of learning about his pronouncements, aside from seeing him in person, is second hand. In the September 2007 newsletter, Vince Savarese offers up an interesting snippet: We turn now to the words of the Masters…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Spirituality: following fences or bursting barriers?

I just got the September issue of the Western USA Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) newsletter. It made me sort of sad to see that soon I won't be getting it any more. (Starting in 2008 it'll only be available at the RSSB equivalent of "church," satsangs, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since the inspiration and information in the newsletter can be conveyed directly at satsang, while many "churchless" RSSB initiates stay in touch with organizational goings-on only through the newsletter). I like to read it, even though I'm no longer a RSSB true believer, because I…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Mother Teresa’s crisis of faith

Reading about Mother Teresa's crisis of faith in TIME magazine left me with a (slim) hope that sainthood could be in the works for me someday. Why not? I was baptized Catholic. I help the poor. (Once in a while, at least, when it isn't too much trouble.) And I've got lots of doubts about God, like Teresa did. Until I read the article I didn't know that someone who felt divorced from God could be on the road to sainthood. But this was Mother Teresa's condition for nearly the entire last fifty years of her life. In previously unpublished…
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Posted inMorality

Finding my inner self in a light beer

It was a moment of clarity. Not exactly a kensho, but what do you expect from a Miller Chill? Very little, according to a scathing review of this lime'ized light beer that garners a whoppingly low 1 percentile drinkability ranking. However, I didn't know this a few days ago when Jerry, the husband of my wife's sister (my brother in law?) asked me if I drank beer. We were sitting on the deck of his rural central Illinois home on a hot end-of-summer day, surrounded by corn and soybean fields, being serenaded by cicadas. For most of my adult life…
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Posted inVedanta/Advaita

Surrendering to nothing outside myself

Sometimes I surprise myself. Reading along in a nicely non-dualistic advaitaish book I didn't expect to find myself moved by a passage about surrender. If you surrender, doesn't it have to be to someone or something outside of yourself? That doesn't sound very non-dual. Usually religions preach the virtue of surrendering either to God or His earthly representative – a prophet, guru, messiah. I don't like the idea of surrender under those terms. Throwing myself at the mercy of an imaginary being called "God" makes as much sense as pleading to the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus to take care…
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Posted inWu Project

Ibn ‘Arabi on the impossibility of becoming nothing

I've read the Koran (in translation, naturally). It didn't resonate with me. Really tough to get through – but Muslims say that a lot, maybe everything, is lost in translation. Somewhat strangely though, I went through a phase where I couldn't stop reading Rumi. He was a Sufi, the mystical side of Islam. My bookshelves are full of Rumi titles, including Nicholson's three volume translation of the Masnavi. I rarely pick up a Sufi book any more. There's too much monotheism left over from Sufism's Islamic roots to appeal to me, now that I'm in a Taoist/Buddhist phase. All this…
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Posted inReligions

Scrupulosity, a religious mental illness

Do you know someone who tries to follow every commandment, injunction, rule, and ritual of his or her religion absolutely correctly? Within their faith they probably are considered to be exemplary examples of rectitude. But there's another way of looking at them, which I learned about today thanks to a blog comment from Sapient. They could be suffering from scrupulosity – a mental disorder. Religious belief, and membership in a faith community are important factors in the lives of many individuals. In addition to moral and spiritual guidance, they can provide a sense of purpose, structure and community. For certain…
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Posted inFundamentalism

“God’s Christian Warriors” shows crazy side of religion

Anyone who thinks that Christianity is a warm, fuzzy, loving religion needs to watch, or read, God's Christian Warriors – part of a CNN special series on Muslim, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalism. The whole idea of a religious warrior is crazy, of course. That's what made the two hours my wife and I finished watching last night especially weird. When someone fights for something real, that's understandable even if you don't agree with their cause. But when you see people all passionately fired up to defend something imaginary, that's bizarre. It'd be diagnosed as insane if it weren't for the…
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Posted inScience

Science keeps painting religion into a corner

Believers in the supernatural, do you feel a bit more cramped today? Like there's less room for your beliefs to roam unquestioned? You should, if you've been following the out-of-body news. Scientists have been able to induce out-of-body experiences in healthy people. They didn't need to nearly die on an operating table and look down at their bodies from an external vantage point. All it took was some virtual reality goggles, a camera, and a stick. Now, this is just a first step toward understanding out-of-body experiences. It doesn't rule out the possibility that human consciousness is able to exist…
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Posted inBooks

“Wholly Spirit” searches for a plausible God

Kudos to Grey Austin. Not only has he written a thoughtful, readable book about his search for a universal ultimacy that makes more sense than the personalized Christian God, but he's evolved a terrific white beard. I've been thinking of letting mine grow out a bit. Not to Austin's Father Christmas length, but he's inspired me. Both beardly and spiritually. I'm a sucker for self-published books that are carefully written/edited and present a unique perspective. "Wholly Spirit" fills the bill on both counts. (So does mine, in my not-humble opinion.) Austin's book has an unvarnished honest feel to it. He's…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Thanks for the chlorine gas, Mom (cough, cough)

There I am, eleven or twelve years old, some age thereabouts, hunched over a test tube on my back porch, carefully following the instructions in my science kit that said, "Conduct this experiment in a well-ventilated area." Good advice. Because this, thankfully, was before the days when anal-retentive product safety types could stand between a boy and his homemade chlorine gas. As instructed, I put the chemicals into a test tube. I added water. I put my nose close to the test tube and waved my hand over the end of it to waft some of the gas into my…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Is it negative to be anti-Christian?

My wife and I try to be positive people. So when Laurel told a man we'd just met today, "You should know that we're anti-Christian," I hoped that this believer wouldn't take our negativity personally. Fortunately, he didn't. I went on to explain that it isn't so much Christianity that turns us off as fundamentalism – which comes in many guises. Christian fundamentalists just happen to be by far the most common variety in our neck of the world's woods. This cartoon does a good job of summing up what we find objectionable about so many Christians. They take the…
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Posted inScience

Science takes the honest path

For me, science is energizing while religion sucks the life out of my soul. Or whatever the heck it is that makes my life lively. As I said in a comment to my "Quantum Christian gobbledygook" post, deflating the ridiculous proposition that electromagnetism casts any light on the Trinity was deeply satisfying. I felt so good after writing that post. Doing my best to look upon reality with eyes wide open unleashes something that could easily be called "mystical" if it wasn't so natural. Speaking truth to bullshit – that brings us closer to the angels. More accurately: it would,…
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Posted inScience

Christian quantum gobbledygook

I didn't get a free book. But I was able to write a blog post with gobbledygook in the title, which is a fine second prize. My investigation into how Christians are mangling quantum theory began with an email that arrived yesterday. The header read: 'God the Final Frontier' - New Book Explains How Discoveries In Science Reveal the Nature of God Even A Child Can Understand. That sounded promising. I can be childlike. And I want to know the nature of God. Tell me more. The author's approach is unique because it reveals scientific discoveries such as how quantum…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

A koan for all guru-based faiths

Here's something about gurus and disciples that I find intriguing. I guess you could call it a koan of sorts, because whatever conclusion you come to about it won't make sense rationally. Which could well be the correct conclusion: that the whole guru bhakti system is so full of contradictions, it deserves jettisoning. But this is just a possibility, one of many. I'm asking questions, not supplying answers. I'll describe this koan using specifics from the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) branch of Sant Mat. However, the basic questions are applicable to just about every guru-based faith, especially those that…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Religion’s dangerous certainty

Yesterday I chatted with a guy who is deeply Christian, yet also moderately scientific. For at least twenty years he's come over when we needed some repair work done on our security system. Standing around, watching him do his circuit testing thing, we eventually get around to our usual philosophical conversation dance. I know he's a true believing Christian; he knows I'm decidedly something else. The Taoist art hanging around the house and bookshelves filled with titles like "The End of Faith" and "God is Not Good" probably is a giveaway. I'm also not shy about expressing my skepticism to…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Wanting. Do I want it?

I'm an expert wanter. I want, want, want. All day long, I want. Much of the night too, because my dreams are filled with wanting. When I'm hungry I want food. When I'm horny I want sex. When I'm sad I want happiness. When I'm scared I want safety. And so it goes, one wanting after another. Right now I want to write a blog post about wanting. After I finish, there will be something else to want. Dessert. Television watching. Dog patting. I've heard so many spiritual talks and read so many religious books about how important it is…
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Posted inUniverse

Hubble photo of deep space is naturally divine

There's no reason, none at all, to look for divinity in a holy book, person, building, or icon. The Hubble space telescope's Ultra Deep Field photograph of the farthest reaches of space contains more authentic mystery and awe than any religious dogma. And readers of the Sunday comics were exposed to it last weekend, thanks to Opus. Berkeley Breathed, Opus' creator, points to the craziness of considering that we humans are the center of the cosmos. Science has revealed, in countless ways, that the Earth and everything on it is just a part of the whole called Universe. A very…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Sant Mat’s “five holy names” aren’t so holy

Today Tucson Bob left a comment that got me thinking about my own evolving attitude toward mantra meditation. He said, in part: I will say that Sant Mat meditation, at least the basic technique of simran (mantra repetition), seems to me to have a dulling, dumbing-down effect that seems to interfere with intuitive perception. Imagine you are in a wilderness at night. It is pitch black and you know there is a predator out there. All your being, all your senses are fully in the moment listening for some sound or movement to indicate where that predator is. You are…
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