Posted inReality Science

Common sense is a poor guide to objective reality

As I said about a week ago, I'm enjoying theoretical physicist Matt Strassler's book, Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean. I've made my way through chapters about Motion, Mass, and Waves. Then I'll get to read about Fields, Quantum, Higgs, and Cosmos. Strassler is an engaging writer. He makes science readable, though it still takes some work to grasp his core points. One of the things I most enjoy about the book are the facts about the world based on physics that I either never knew, or once knew and needed reminding about.…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Radha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB gurus meet with Pope Francis. I comment on a report of their meeting.

Today in a comment someone shared a link to a story on the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) web site  about the two RSSB gurus -- Gurinder Singh Dhillon and Jasdeep Singh Gill -- meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on October 5. (Dhillon apparently is still the chief guru, while Gill has taken on some of the guru responsibilities but not all of them, being the guru-in-waiting.) I found RSSB's description of the meeting to be theologically problematic. Below are my comments on the story, in boldface. The RSSB story is in regular type. Baba Gurinder Singh and…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Here’s my churchless “death letter.” But I’m not dying.

Yesterday on my HinesSight blog I wrote a post called "My 76th birthday has me thinking about sending death letters before I die." Here's how it starts out. For a while I've been pondering the notion of sending death letters to friends, family, and other people important to me -- not letters to be delivered after I die, but while I'm very much alive, not even sick.  This idea has gained strength as I approach my 76th birthday. That sounds damn old to me. Which, it is. My sister died at 71. My mother died at 73. My father, almost…
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Posted inReality Science Universe

We are made from waves of the universe

For thirty-five years I was an active member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization that taught the ultimate reality of the cosmos is all-pervading conscious energy termed shabd, in English sound current.  I wrote a book on behalf of RSSB called God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder, in which I argued that findings of the new physics reflected the message of ancient mysticism that waves of conscious energy not only permeate our universe but actually are the deep-down nature of the universe. I no longer believe in the supernatural aspect of this viewpoint, but I've maintained my interest…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

New RSSB guru, Jasdeep Singh Gill, gets paramilitary commando protection

A few days ago someone sent me a link to a story in an Indian publication, ThePrint, titled "Centre provides Z category VIP security to Radha Soami head." I've copied in the short story below. This sure is a strange new world we're living in, where the guru of an India-based religious organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB)  is considered to need such protection.  The RSSB teachings proclaim that the guru is God in Human Form. I guess God requires armed security to keep Him/Her/It safe.  New Delhi, Oct 1 (PTI) The Centre has granted the Z category VIP security…
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Posted inAwareness Neuroscience

There’s a place for intelligent thinking. But we should be aware of its limitations.

I feel bad that my previous post caused some people to get the wrong impression of one of my favorite authors. In "Everything is spiritual" says Joan Tollifson. I heartily agree I shared quotations from one of Tollifson's books that were unbalanced in a certain sense. While I understood that Tollifson is a big fan of reason and science, taken by itself this paragraph could be taken to be a putdown of reason and science. Our brain sees patterns where none actually exist. It turns chaos into order. But the order is imaginary. We are always clueless. Life is an…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

“Everything is spiritual” says Joan Tollifson. I heartily agree.

When I've got a hunger for a meal of some tasty spiritual wisdom that appeals to my heart as well as my mind, and is free of unhealthy ingredients like dogmatism, holier-than-thou pretensions, and supernatural fantasy, lately I've been turning toward writings by Joan Tollifson. Here's excerpts from her book, Death: The End of Self-Improvement, that appealed to me in my most recent Tollifson reading. I don't agree 100% with everything she says, but her overall thesis strikes me as sound. This radical perspective points relentlessly to the choiceless nature of reality and the absence of anyone running the show.…
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Posted inMorality Radha Soami Satsang Beas

I prefer honest sinners to deceptive saints

Let's be clear. I don't believe in the notion of sin, which is an offense against God. That's ridiculous, since there's no persuasive evidence that God even exists, nor, obviously, that anyone knows what the nonexistent God likes and doesn't like. I also don't believe in the notion of saints, who are believed to have a closeness to God, for the same reason. So when I refer to sinners and saints in the title of this post, I'm speaking in a secular sense of bad and good people -- where "bad" and "good" are actions or qualities that a certain…
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Posted inMorality

Morality has evolutionary roots, but goodness still feels like a choice

Recently someone complained in a comment on this blog that another person was leaving comments under their name. I was asked to do something about it. Problem is, that's hard to do, since my blogging service, unlike Facebook, doesn't have a way for a user to claim a distinct identity.  So if you're concerned about this happening to you, my advice is to always include the same email address when you post a comment. The email address only is visible to me, while your name is visible to everyone. Then if someone has appropriated your name, not innocently but to…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

We cling to our center even while saying “I am nothing”

I'm a fan of Sam Harris' Waking Up app, which I subscribe to on my iPhone. Usually I just listen to Harris' daily guided meditations, a habit I've had for quite a few years. But occasionally I'll see a talk by someone else that's featured on the app. That's how I started listening to "Life Without a Center" by Adyashanti. (There's lots of free material on that website, along with lots of material you have to pay for.) I've read one of his books and recall that I liked it. Wikipedia says that his original name was Stephen Gray. He…
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Posted inScience Taoism/Tai Chi

Meridians in Chinese medicine have no basis in fact, just superstition

Over on my HinesSight blog yesterday, I posted "Some life lessons from a Tai Chi seminar." These were some of the insights I got from a special three-hour class my Tai Chi instructor, Warren, put on for five students who are especially interested in the martial side of Tai Chi, as contrasted with the energetic/exercise side. During the seminar Warren, who used to teach classes in East-West Medicine at a nearby college, talked about the meridians that are part of Chinese medicine. This is how a Wikipedia article about meridians starts off.  The meridian system (simplified Chinese: 经络; traditional Chinese:…
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Posted inReality Science

Search for quantum gravity shows why science is so much better than religion

I love science. I don't love religion, but I don't hate it either. Mostly I give little thought to religion, aside from when I write about its shortcomings on this blog.  Science appeals to me because I admire its dedication to truth, something that can't said about religion without being, well, untruthful. Yes, science often gets something wrong. However, rather than being upset about this, science views error as an opportunity to learn from the mistake and seek truth in another direction. Religion, on the other hand, abhors the possibility that what is considered to be true, actually isn't. Blind…
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Posted inMindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

How to have less of a distracted mind

As evidenced by the title of the first blog post I wrote six days ago about The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, a book by Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen -- "Why repeating a mantra during daily activities doesn't make much sense" -- I'm interested in the spiritual implications of the book, even though the authors pay zero attention to this. They're concerned with how three modern innovations, the Internet, smart phones, and social media, are screwing up our ability to concentrate, though it isn't as if these innovations are forcing us to obey their whims. For…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

A claim that Gurinder Singh “demolished” the Western RSSB sangats

As I frequently observe on this blog, the reason I refer so frequently to Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is that for thirty-five years I was an active member of this India-based religious organization headed up by a guru who is considered to be God in Human Form. If I'd spent that amount of time as a Catholic, then deconverted from that faith, rather than RSSB, now I'd be talking about the downsides of the Catholic Church based on my experience with that religion. I also point out fairly frequently that for most of the thirty-five years I belonged to…
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Posted inPolitics Reality Religions

In both politics and religion, reports aren’t the same as verified evidence

Building on my post of four days ago, "Harris-Trump debate shows how political lies are like religious lies," now I want to talk about how in both politics and religion reports aren't the same as verified evidence. I got to thinking about this after watching a clip on X, formerly known as Twitter, from an interview Meet the Press host Kristen Welker did today with Republican Vice-President candidate J.D. Vance. Leaving aside the fact that I can't stand Vance and his running mate, Donald Trump, I found the arguments Vance brought forward in favor of his belief that migrants from…
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Posted inNeuroscience Spiritual practice/meditation

Why repeating a mantra during daily activities doesn’t make much sense

Recently I got to thinking about the many years (about thirty-five) that I did my best to mentally repeat a mantra not only during my morning meditation, but also as much as possible during the rest of my daily activities. UPDATE: I meandered quite a bit in coming to the conclusion expressed in this post's title. Here's the short version: The world is always changing. Unexpected challenges, surprises, problems, opportunities, and such continually pop up. Our minds should be similarly flexible to deal with these happenings in the world and our life. Rigidity should be avoided. But some meditation practices…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Eyewitness report shows Radha Soami Satsang Beas truly has two gurus now

Just got the message below from someone who received it on their Radha Soami WhatsApp chat. Seems to show that contrary to claims by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) that the new "guru in waiting," Jasdeep Singh Gill, will just be an administrator rather than a true guru for now, Gill actually is performing some of the duties of the current guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, referred to as Baba ji. Hazur refers to the new guru, Gill, who has been given that title of high respect. So the person on the chat believes RSSB now has two living masters. Interesting…
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Posted inPolitics Religions

Harris-Trump debate shows how political lies are like religious lies

In both politics and religion, lies are commonplace. I'm defining "lie" as a person saying something that isn't true, because there isn't any persuasive evidence supporting the statement. God loves you is a lie, since there's no persuasive evidence that God exists, so there's no entity to love or do anything else. You'll go to heaven after you die is another lie given the lack of evidence for life after death. People believe in religious lies for a variety of reasons. For example, it feels good to embrace warm supernatural fantasies that are more appealing than the cold truth of…
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Posted inNeuroscience Spiritual practice/meditation

Rationality has a lot to do with spirituality

For the thirty-five years I was an active member of an Eastern religion, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), one of my favorite Indian words was sat, truth.  For example, there was the satguru, the true guru, and satsang, association with truth. Eventually I came to feel that truth was the most important thing. When I concluded that for me, truth was best pursued outside the bounds of RSSB, there was only one thing I could do: leave RSSB. When I came to the epilogue of Thomas Metzinger's book, The Elephant and the Blind, an examination of pure awareness, his thoughts…
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Posted inMeaning of life Radha Soami Satsang Beas

The sad state of RSSB gurus, and advice on seeking spirituality without them

Today M K Sharma left this comment on my previous post, "Jasdeep Singh Gill, successor to RSSB guru, has disturbing tie to Ranbaxy." Sharma made some points that I'd thought of, yet wasn't able to grasp as clearly. GSD refers to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) who appointed Gill as his guru-in-waiting. What a saga unfolding before our eyes! The new Baba, now revealed as the cousin of the old Baba, GSD, is knee-deep in the same deceitful schemes, and it seems the corruption runs through the entire family. It’s almost like GSD found…
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