Posted inFundamentalism Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Eastern fundamentalism

Last night someone said to me, “So you were part of an Eastern form of fundamentalism.” For a moment I was taken aback. Me, a fundamentalist? On this weblog I like to foam at the mouth about the dangers of fundamentalist religious attitudes. (By the way, did you hear the one about a man who walks into a bar and sits down between an alligator and a born-again Christian woman?) Fundamentalism takes many forms, and is defined in various ways. Scott Bidstrup says: In my view, a fundamentalist religion is a religion, any religion, that when confronted with a conflict…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

I’m alive. Wow!

I’ve been having a strange sensation recently: I’m alive. It’s accompanied by: One moment I won’t be. Amazing. What’s even more amazing is how many days there have been out of the total I’ve lived (21,065) when I didn’t have this sensation. I took life for granted. I didn’t envision my own non-existence. Maybe it’s taking getting older and passing the 21,000 day mark to begin to appreciate the marvel of being able to appreciate anything. I’ll be walking the dog, or standing in Tai Chi class, or getting out of bed in the morning, and suddenly I’ll be struck…
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Posted inBooks Humor

Take your dose of Daily Afflictions

You’ve got to love a self-help book that advises, “It’s not whether I arrive; it’s how I lose my way.” Along with, “My life is worthless, but it’s mine.” And, “The future is full of possibilities that I must shoot in the head.” In this world of organic antioxidant green tea, Andrew Boyd’s Daily Afflictions is a refreshing blast of lukewarm stale coffee. With a cigarette butt on the bottom. The back cover warns what awaits the reader: In Daily Afflictions, affirmational bromides become Boyd’s Trojan horse—for a Nietzschean text of dark truths and painfully hard-won wisdom. Attractively designed for…
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Posted inGod Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Does God play favorites? I doubt it.

It’d be wonderful if God favored some people over others. So long as I was among them. Otherwise, I’d be on the outside of God’s Favor Party, wishing that I was part of the in-crowd. As I’ve noted before, and surely will again, it’s amazing how almost every religion believes that its adherents are the only favored ones. Jews are a chosen people. Christians have been singled out for salvation. Muslims are beneficiaries of the ultimate revelation. Eastern religions are less prone to believing in favoritism, but even in Buddhism there is the assumption that following the Buddha’s teachings is…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Spiritual practice/meditation

“Be Still and Know that I am God” DVD—not still enough for me

I surprised myself, walking out of Hollywood Video with a rental DVD about Christian contemplative prayer. “Be Still and Know That I am God” appealed to me because I’m a big fan of The Cloud of Unknowing, a medieval text that inspired the modern Christian centering prayer movement. The DVD disappointed me, though. My suspicions were aroused when I read the back cover and didn’t see any mention of leaders of the centering prayer movement that I was familiar with, like Thomas Keating or M. Basil Pennington. When I watched the film I understood why. “Be Still” doesn’t preach the…
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Posted inReligions Science

Yoism, an open source religion

Hey, it works for Linux, the alternative to Windows. So why not apply open source principles to the creation of a new-time religion? Out with dogmatism and hierarchy; in with freedom and independence. Such is the allure of Yoism, which bills itself as the world’s first open source religion. Thanks to a link sent to me by Church of the Churchless visitor Steve, I’ve been able to browse around the intriguing cyberhalls of Yoism and get a feel for the Almighty Yo. Yo, I learned, is “the Infinite Unknowable Essence from which all that we experience manifests.” All right, I…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Taoism—a philosophy for fools

I’ve philosophized my way through the world’s major religions and quite a few of the minor ones. I’ve lost my faith, found my faith, and lost it again. Several times. I expected that I’d get wiser as I got older, but the opposite has occurred. At fifty-seven I know less about God than I did at twenty-one. Back in 1969 I was teaching yoga and meditation. I could hold forth on the meaning of Indian phrases such as “Tat Tvam Asi,” thou art that. The “that” is ultimate reality. I actually believed it. Now, as I wrote about a few…
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Posted inGod

God calls me a fool. I agree.

Churchless brothers and sisters, God spoke to me this morning. Now the spirit is calling me to share the word. I’m just a tool. Also, a fool. That was the message: “Brian, you don’t know.” To which I replied, “Oh God, you’re so right. I don’t know.” Now, I can hear the skeptics asking, “How do you know that God was speaking to you if what you heard was, You don’t know?” Well, all I can say is that I know what I know, and I don’t know what I don’t know. And I know that God was letting me…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Mantra meditation: wax on or wax off?

In the movie, “The Karate Kid,” Mr. Miyagi begins to teach karate to young Daniel by having him do chores requiring simple repetitive movements. Who can forget the memorable Zen wisdom of “Wax on wax off”? Repeating a mantra is a spiritual equivalent of Mr. Miyagi’s training method. This has been the core of my meditative practice since I started studying yoga thirty-seven years ago. If I had gotten a dollar for every time I’ve said a mantra in or out of meditation, I’d be rolling in riches. Since that didn’t happen, the question is: have I benefited spiritually from…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Freeing ourselves from religious fantasy

Fantasies can be fun. Angelina Jolie and I have had some great times together. Only in my imagination, unfortunately. I would have had a lot more fun if she and I had met in reality. In this instance I know the difference between fantasy and reality. When it comes to religion, however, the line dividing fiction and truth can be devilishly difficult to discern. In fact, there’s good reason to say that religiosity is nothing but belief in something that hasn’t yet been experienced. Heaven. God. Jesus. Enlightenment. Nirvana. Allah. Tao. Buddha-nature. These are just words. Like Santa Claus, Easter…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas

A nasty truth, naked and rough

I want to share some thoughts from a woman who emailed me from Europe. Like me, she’s a Sant Mat initiate (satsangi) in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas line. Also like me, she’s gone through some intense soul-searching. I’ve mildly edited her words for clarity, but left her English style intact. (Believe me, she writes infinitely better in my language than I can write in hers). Here’s her first message: Hello, I just found your site and have lovely laugh when I was reading some of your stories. I am your spiritual sister, a so called satsangi. A year ago…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

“Thou shalt doubt,” the first commandment

Proving that there is a churchless God, yesterday I turned on the TV for my morning cable news fix just in time to hear Andrew Sullivan speak on C-SPAN about the genuine form of faith: doubt. Sullivan is my favorite conservative essayist and blogger. I thought that his recent piece about the dangers of Christianism (as contrasted with genuine Christianity) was great. It was a treat to hear him on a Book Expo of American lunch session panel with fellow book floggers Pat Buchanan, Arianna Huffington, and Frank Rich. His book, “The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

Bible and The Da Vinci Code are both fiction

I’m used to hearing absurdities when I listen to conservative talk radio, but this really jarred me: today I heard “The Da Vinci Code” being compared to holocaust deniers. Geez, righties, you should at least make a halfway attempt at rational discourse. This evening Victoria Taft interviewed Michael Chapman of the Media Research Center, which bills itself as “the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.” He was frothing about all the Christian bashing that’s gone on with coverage of The Da Vinci Code book and movie. Funny. I haven’t noticed it. I’ve read quite a few articles…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

Beware of the Christianists

Islamists use Islam to further their narrow political agenda. Christianists use Christianity in the same way. Hearty churchless thanks to Andrew Sullivan for sharing this insight in his recent TIME magazine essay, “My Problem with Christianism.” Your problem is my problem too, my friend. I like Sullivan. Politically, he’s conservative on Iraq and other issues. But culturally he’s progressive. And not coincidentally, gay. He’s appeared on Bill Maher’s HBO program several times. Sullivan is well-spoken, humble, and clearly a nice guy. Which helps explain why he dislikes so much the cocky certitude of Christianists who believe that they, and only…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Breaking free of family influences

Bear with me, Church of the Churchless visitors. This personal story concludes with a churchless moral. Idly watching a high school teen flick on Comedy Central, “She’s All That,” while stairmastering this afternoon, I was taken aback when a character spoke some lines that could have been said by me at his age—with some slight modifications. I heard Zack, a senior, tell Laney (in so many words): “My dad wants me to go to Dartmouth. He always has. It’s just been expected of me. He’s always saying, ‘Zack, you’ve got to make up your mind about college.’ But I know…
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Wave relaxing into ocean. Ahhhh….

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at Maui waves the past nine days. Hopefully I’m starting to get their spiritual message. “Dude, we’re the same as the ocean. Just like you are the same as God, Buddha nature, Tao, whatever you want to call it. Relax, brutha. Hang loose. Trust us, we know: when you’re not the wave, you’re the ocean.” The thing is, waves are a lot more interesting than the flat ocean. When I sit on the beach and gaze out to sea, mostly I focus on the waves. (Which, sadly, have been calm the whole time…
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Posted inReligions Wu Project

Tuning in to religion-less religion

A few days ago I used the term “religion-less religion” in a "I'm working on my Wu" post. Over at the Yoga Loft, they’re asking, “See It Three Times, Is It More Than Coincidence?” I don’t know. Could be a cosmic synchronicity. Could be a random happening. Could be something else. Regardless, I enjoyed what the Yoga Lofter had to say about religion-less religion. The first time this term came up was in a conversation with his or her mother. We agreed that all the world's problems seem to stem from people trying to stick the concept of God into…
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Posted inWu Project

I’m working on my Wu

Maui is a good place to work on my Wu Project. “Wu” is a Chinese term that means no, nothing, nada, negation, not. That pretty much describes me on the beach: a lump of nothingness that is content to do…nothing. Except, what I almost always do. Think about the nothing that I’m doing. I mean, even when I’m just lying on my mat, staring blankly at the ocean, stuff is going on inside my head. I’m aware. I’m perceiving. And, I’m judging. A cell phone rings a few feet away. I think, “Good god! Cell phones should be banned from…
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Posted inBuddhism

Going with the flow

My wife and I are in Maui right now. I’m sitting on the balcony of our condo, watching the waves roll into Napili Bay. Seems like a good time to think about going with the flow. Of course, thinking and flowing are like oil and water. They don’t mix very well. Still, there’s a certain flow to thought when you just let it happen. It’s conscious controlling that messes the flowingness of anything up. That’s the bugaboo of religious concepts—the subject of my previous post. They’re like rocks in the ocean. As an avid boogie boarder, I know all about…
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Posted inGod Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Going beyond religious concepts

Here’s one of the handful of passages from countless spiritual books that I’ve read which truly resonate with me. As I said in “Start erasing your spiritual blackboard,” I’m a believer in writings that say “Don’t believe in me.” This is one of those. It comes from a well-thumbed book of mine, “The Master Answers.” Published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the book consists of verbal questions directed to Charan Singh, an Indian guru, and his off-the-cuff answers. Near the end of my RSSB speaking career, I kept coming back to the following question and answer about the nature…
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