Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Meditation teaches the brain new tricks

Okay, so nobody knows what consciousness is. Doesn’t really matter, so long as we use the consciousness that we have—whatever the heck it is—wisely. Which includes training the brain. In TIME’s “How the Brain Rewires Itself,” Sharon Begley presents some encouraging research that overthrows the depressing notion that “the adult human brain is essentially immutable, hardwired, fixed in form and function, so that by the time we reach adulthood we are pretty much stuck with what we are.” She goes on to say: But research in the past few years has overthrown the dogma. In its place has come the…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Digging into the hard problem of consciousness

Want to tackle one of the most intractable mysteries in science? You’ve got a hold on it right now: consciousness. Nobody knows what it is, though everybody uses it to think, “What is it?” Steven Pinker has a terrific article in this week’s TIME magazine, a special issue devoted to the mind and brain. In “The Mystery of Consciousness” he talks about the Easy Problem of consciousness, which basically concerns how mental processes function and are correlated with neural goings-on in the brain. Tough enough, certainly, but researchers are making good progress delving into this area. However, barely a scratch…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

How would Jesus have us pee?

When you need to go, you’ve got to go. Peeing is simple. At least, it should be. But when going to the bathroom gets mixed up with religious dogma, organizational rules, and guru worship, it’s amazing how much controversy arises about getting up to go during a “sermon.” My post about blind obedience being a hallmark of cultish religion got noticed over on the Radhasoami Studies discussion group. I’d talked about how the leader of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh, objected to having his photo taken in a public place, and how devotees tried to force a man to…
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Posted inReality Universe

Consider a cosmos that is only consciousness

There’s always another side. To anything. A coin can’t have “heads” without “tails.” Being on this side of the wall implies a that side. So I have no problem flipping the pancake of my “Consider a cosmos with no consciousness” post. Reading the final pages of Suzanne Segal’s Collision With the Infinite this morning got me thinking about what lies behind, beyond, within, and without my consciousness of thinking about those final pages. Early on in the book I read that Segal had a profound experience at a bus stop in Paris. In fact, it’s listed in her Acknowledgments: The…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Blind obedience a hallmark of cultish religion

“Don’t do that!” We hear this a lot when we’re children. Often for good reasons. Like when we want to flush kitty down the toilet, or see what happens when the bathtub water just keeps getting higher and higher. But once we can think things out reasonably for ourselves, few of us want to be treated like two year olds. So why are so many people attracted to religions that demand blind obedience, no matter how nonsensical the command? I guess because humans also value security. If we let someone else make decisions for us, we may not be free,…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Silent snow has a lot to say

This is a Church of the Churchless day when some Oregon snow is going to do most of the talking. I learned quite a bit from it on my walk this morning. When you feel the spirit, jump up and dance with snowballs. Bare bright branches are beautiful. No leaves necessary. Even blah barren brush turns into wow! with a coating of white. Put on the right coat and you'll say "It's not cold." Dead trees are still alive. Oh, yes, very much so. It’s possible to walk in your own footsteps (our dog can, at least, which is how…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Shabd is a power, not a person

Currently I’ve got a heretical reputation in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) branch of Sant Mat, which means “teachings of the saints.” Earlier though, I wrote a couple of books under RSSB auspices, one published directly by the organization and one that was published commercially, then bought and resold. My Church of the Churchless blogging led to me being fired as a RSSB speaker. And regularly I get emails from other RSSB initiates who take me to task for supposedly having strayed from the core Sant Mat teachings. In my own mind, though, I consider myself a true Sant…
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Posted inScience Universe

Consider a cosmos with no consciousness

I’ve always thought that the “we create our own reality” folks didn’t have much of an argument to stand on. It just seems so darn obvious that the universe stands apart from any conception of it. How we perceive the cosmos certainly depends on our sensory and cognitive capabilities. However, that there is a cosmos—however it may appear—prior and separate to any perception struck me as self-evident common sense. In other words, I considered that the universe stands on its own (anthropomorphically envisioned) feet. While we humans are able to create subjective realities within our minds, the grander cosmos outside…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Stages of spiritual growth: skeptics top believers

I was prepared to scoff at M. Scott Peck’s levels of spiritual development . But when I scanned the four stages and saw that I’m definitely a “three” and probably a “four,” I became an instant believer. Somehow I’ve managed to never read any of Peck’s many books, he of “The Road Less Traveled” fame. He converted to Christianity after dalliances with Christian and Islamic mysticism, but I don’t hold that against him. Well, maybe a little. I did enjoy reading an abridged version of Peck’s analysis of the stages of spiritual growth after Bob, a Church of the Churchless…
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Posted inHumor

Blasphemy Challenge video proof

Today I denied the Holy Spirit on camera and uploaded the video to YouTube. I now qualify for both a free DVD and eternal damnation, per my previous post. Hope my afternoon is equally productive. I considered filming another take of my blasphemy, but figured that if you’re going to deny the Holy Spirit, it should be spontaneous. (And you should bring your stuffed animal along with you.) See:
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

I condemn myself to hell. For a free DVD.

I haven’t made my Blasphemy Challenge video yet, but here’s the written version: “Hi. I’m Brian. I deny the Holy Spirit.” According to Mark 3:29, my soul is now in deep hellish doo-doo. “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.” On the plus side, if my video is among the first 1001 to be uploaded to YouTube, I’ll get a free DVD of The God Who Wasn’t There. That’s a $25 value, definitely enough for me to sell my soul. Actually, I’d condemn myself to hell for a lot less.…
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Posted inReality

Reality is a terrible thing to waste (on religion)

I admire anyone who writes this boldly about believing in God: You believe in God. You also believe that we have a soul that lives eternally once our earthly bodies fail us. You believe that both of these statements are true. Now that we’ve agreed upon what you believe, let me tell you what I know. (Not what I believe to be true, but what I know to be true.) I know these statements you believe to be true are false. I know they are false because I know they are not true. That anyone is Jon, a Church of…
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Posted inGod

Eliminate the middleman between you and God

It’s usually advisable to eliminate the middleman. He won’t like it. But if there’s no reason to keep him around, dump the guy. He adds extra overhead. Especially if he’s standing between you and God. Or more accurately, if you believe he is. For given that the evidence of God’s existence is extremely scanty, it figures that a belief in the need for a middleman or mediator between humanity and divinity rests on even shakier ground. Like, quicksand. I used to buy cars the old-fashioned way. And hated it. You know the routine. Find a car you like. Talk to…
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Posted inVedanta/Advaita

Worship at your own doorstep

This morning, before meditating, I read some inspiring words from Vivekananda about strength. Our strength. Not God’s. Not a guru’s. Not anyone else’s. I decided to ask Google to tell me more about “Vivekananda” and “strength.” In the results I found myself. Thank you, Google. That’s exactly what I need to know. Or rather, remind myself of. These distant gods, these elevated theologies, these remote sages—increasingly they seem like comic book characters to me. Two dimensional, artificial, unnatural, fantastical. I may not have the answers to the big questions of life. I may be ignorant of what, if anything, lies…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Thank you, Church of the Churchless visitors

It’s sort of clichéd for a blogger to devote his last post of the year to thanking his readers. But who’s afraid of a big bad cliché? Not me. I’m doing it anyway. Thank you. TypePad, my blog host, tells me that on average a few hundred people enter the cyberspacey Church of the Churchless door every day. I’m grateful. I talk to myself a lot of the time. That gets old. It’s nice to reach out and touch someone else, even if they’re repulsed by the gesture. Today I caught up on some unreplied emails and came across one…
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Posted inGod Radha Soami Satsang Beas Wu Project

When nothing is something: God

In my last post, I focused on a plagiarized passage that I found in a book published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas. What’s more interesting and significant than the plagiarism, though, is what this misquoted quotation from W.T. Stace points toward: Nothing. Which he, along with many other mystics and mystically inclined writers, equates with God. Even the plagiarist, J.R. Puri, seems to agree. For after he steals Stace’s words to speak of a state of pure consciousness that has no empirical content other than itself, consciousness aware of consciousness, Puri says: And this self-realization is often eventually spoken of…
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Posted inBooks Radha Soami Satsang Beas

J.R. Puri commits plagiarism in a RSSB book

The tables have been turned. David Lane (a.k.a. the Neural Surfer) has documented how Paul Twitchell , the founder of Eckankar, massively plagiarized from books published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (notably Julian Johnson’s “Path of the Masters”). But I've discovered that at least one Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) author is guilty of his own plagiarizing. A few days ago I was reading along in a book that I’d gotten myself for Christmas, “Meister Eckhart: Mystic as Theologian” by Robert K.C. Forman. On page 102 I came to a quotation from W.T. Stace. It seemed awfully familiar. Suppose that,…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

“The Pagan Christ” looks at Christmas differently

Spoiler alert: if you’re a Christian who believes that today you celebrated the birth of someone who actually existed, stop reading--if you don’t want to run the risk of having your belief balloon punctured. Since I’ve never had any allegiance to the historical Jesus, I had no problem breezing through Tom Harpur’s eye-opening “The Pagan Christ,” subtitled “Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity?” Harpur, a former Anglican priest and professor of Greek and New Testament at the University of Toronto, argues that Christianity is nothing more than warmed over Egyptian and Greek mythology. Jesus never existed as a historical personage. His…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

What makes for a nice day?

I ran into a platitude-buster at Salem’s LifeSource Natural Foods today. A new check-out girl started to ring up my items. She said, “Are you having a nice day?” I was familiar with grocery store etiquette, so responded with my expected line. “Yes, I am. Hope you are too.” That’s where the scripted exchange of pleasantries usually ends. But she surprised me. She stopped what she was doing, looked me in the eye, and asked, “What’s made it a nice day?” Nice! Yet also mildly anxiety-producing. I needed to come up with an answer. Pretty quick, since there were other…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

Almost time to celebrate the Christianity meme

Here we are, late December, and there sure is a lot of Christian talk going around. Someone from outer space would be asking, “What’s that all about?” Mangers, wise men, gifts of frankincense and myrrh. Our alien visitor would be told that Christmas is a celebration of a man who was sent by God to redeem the world’s sins; that he died, was resurrected, and now is able to give other people eternal life in heaven if you believe in him; and that he expects believers to praise his glory to others so that they too can be saved. “Oh,…
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