Posted inAlan Watts

Alan Watts on finding the balance between gooey and prickly worldviews

Here's another compilation of notes I'm taking from audio recordings of Alan Watts that Sam Harris has shared on his Waking Up app. This talk is called Seeing Through the Net. It's 47 minutes long, but you can get the gist of what Watts said by reading my summary in a much shorter time. "Who guards the gods?" In modern times many have the goal of rational control of everything inside and outside us. But things have gotten so complex, nobody knows what to do. If you try to run a hospital, or a business, there's so much red tape.…
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Posted inAlan Watts

How to sound like Alan Watts in two easy steps

As noted in a couple of recent posts (here and here), I've been enjoying listening to audio recordings of Alan Watts' talks that Sam Harris has shared on his Waking Up app. I'm pretty sure I've read all of Watts' books, some of them several times, notably The Wisdom of Insecurity, which I absolutely love. But the audio recordings have given me a fresh appreciation for how Watts viewed the world, or more broadly, reality. His spontaneous speech -- he spoke without notes -- offers a window into his mind that is clearer in some respects than his books provide.…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB guru standards have sunk a lot since Charan Singh’s time

Writing recently about how the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), Gurinder Singh Dhillon, threatened people whose village is involved in a property dispute with RSSB, got me to thinking about how different things are guru-wise compared to the time Dhillon's predecessor, Charan Singh, headed up the organization. I was initiated by Charan Singh in 1971. He died in 1990. So for nineteen years I was exposed to how Charan Singh handled being guru. This included two weeks in 1977 I spent at the Dera, RSSB headquarters in India, when I got to hear him speak and answer…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Description of Gurinder Singh Dhillon “secret” video

I've gotten a description of the video shared in a recent blog post where Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) in India, is talking in Punjabi.  Apparently Dhillon is threatening those who live in Waraich, a village that is next to the boundary wall of the RSSB headquarters in the Punjab known as the Dera. Reportedly Dhillon was instrumental in acquiring the land of Waraich and the villagers filed a petition in the Punjab high court that made Dhillon angry. The guru visited the village gurdwara (Sikh temple) where a local person made this video.…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

How us old folks view time

Over on my HinesSight blog, tonight I wrote "Time has a different flavor for old folks like me." Give it a read, especially if you're younger than me (likely you are), so you can see what the future holds. This is how the post starts out. Remember when you were three? Probably not. I recall what that age was like via my memory of what my young daughter and her friends would say when asked how old they are. "Three going on four." They were so eager to be older, they'd fudge their age to get the next birthday into…
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Posted inUncategorized

“Secret” video of Gurinder Singh Dhillon speaking in Punjabi

Someone sent me this video of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, speaking to some people. I haven't gotten a translation yet. Below is what the person told me. I used a photo of the guru as a thumbnail, since the video's images are so indistinct. If someone could translate the video into English, that'd be great. I'll then share the translation in an update to this post, if what Dhillon says is interesting. I'm curious what "the thing" is referred to below. A translation can be emailed to me, using the address in the right…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Moving essay about a neuroscientist preparing for death

Here's an essay from The Atlantic, "A Neuroscientist Prepares For Death." I'm a subscriber, so I don't know if non-subscribers can read this amazing essay. Click on the link and see if it works for you. If not, I've copied in what David J. Linden wrote below. He makes some cogent observations about why almost all religions believe in an afterlife. A Neuroscientist Prepares for Death About the author: David J. Linden is a neuroscience professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute. His most recent book is Unique: The New Science of…
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Posted inAlan Watts

Alan Watts on meaning, play, letting go

As noted in my previous post, I'm enjoying the audio recordings of Alan Watts that Sam Harris has put on his Waking Up app. Here's some notes I made of Watts' talk on Sense of Nonsense, which focused on the meaning of life. Or, the lack thereof. Watts started off by talking about significance, which we feel our life should have. "Significant" music is such not because it means something other than itself, but is satisfying as it is. Likewise, when our inner turmoil is quietened, small ordinary things are significant of themselves. A skilled photographer can capture images of…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

This talk by Alan Watts is marvelous

Thank you, Sam Harris. As of January 1, he's arranged to have about 100 hours of recorded talks by Alan Watts put on his Waking Up app.  I've read just about of all of Watts' books. Some I've read numerous times, notably The Wisdom of Insecurity, one of my favorite books.  The recordings are arranged in categories: Tao of Philosophy, Philosophies of Asia, Myth & Religion, Philosophy & Society, Comparative Philosophy, Ways of Liberation, Religion of No Religion, Eastern & Western Zen, Taoism, Zen & Meditation, Comparative Religion, Early Radio Talks, Human Consciousness, Buddhism, Spiritual Alchemy, The Arts, The Future,…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Live as if we and our loved ones are going to die

Admittedly this isn't the cheeriest subject for New Year's Eve, the last day of 2021 -- how we should live as if we and our loved ones are going to die. But I got to thinking about this after watching an episode in Season 1 of Dickinson, an Apple TV+ series about Emily Dickinson, the 19th century poet. Dickinson feigns illness in order to have more time alone in order to write her poetry. Her family has a doctor examine Dickinson. Given the sad state of pre-Civil War medicine, he misdiagnoses her as having a fatal disease. What I found…
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Posted inScience

We humans are animals. But most of us deny this fact.

I'm enjoying Melanie Challenger's book, "How to Be Animal: A New History of What It Means to Be Human." Here's some excerpts about our dental that we're animal. The point here is that life is neither straightforwardly good nor progressive. This might be unbearable if it weren't for the possibility that humans are special. Something important saves us from the threatening parts of earthly life. We're told this comes from the heart of human nature, some essential part of us. We can't see it and we can't measure it, but it marks us out as the most important life form…
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Posted inReality Religions Science

Respect for facts is a great virtue

I'm a lover of facts. That's why I'm a hater of religion. Ah, but don't religions seek the truth? Not really. They claim to, but only in the sense that QAnon followers believe they're truth-seekers.  In each case, religion and QAnon, truth is viewed much more as a belief, as something they hope is the case, rather than as an aspect of objective reality. So facts are different from truth. There's lots of ways people define those two terms, as I learned by doing some Googling.  This article describes the difference quite clearly. A Fact and a Truth walk into…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Wu Project

We don’t know, so live now

Yeah, it's a cliche, dating all the way from 1971. "Be here now." (I have a well-worn 1972 edition of the book.) The book, though, actually doesn't talk a whole lot about the simple act of embracing the present moment as much as possible. Rather, it's filled with a bunch of Eastern mysticism/yoga philosophizing that I used to find appealing, but don't anymore. What I do agree with is that now is a treasure that shouldn't be frittered away by paying undue attention to the past and future. Sure, we have to be aware of what's happened in the past…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Here’s our 2021 Christmas letter

I don't believe in God. But I do believe in Christmas letters, even with the word "Christ" in Christmas. However, my wife and I prefer to call it a Holiday Greetings, in part because some years I don't write it before Christmas. This year, though, I was amazingly early -- a secular Christmas miracle.  The theme is how an asterisk should have accompanied our usual reply of "Fine" to the query of store employees, "How're you doing?" In our Holiday Greetings we add the asterisk: Fine* Here it is in both PDF and JPEG formats.Download 2021 Christmas Letter PDF
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Posted inReality Religions

Christmas is a good time to debunk all religious belief

Naturally Christianity comes to mind in December, since Christmas includes the word "Christ." But I view this time of year as an opportunity to remind myself, and others through this blog, of the absurdity of all religious belief.  Of course, it is only us atheists who look upon all religions as absurd. Since most people are religious, they view their faith as making good sense. It's those other religions that are absurd. To offer a few examples: -- Christians have no problem believing that Jesus was born of a virgin, walked on water, and came back from the dead. But…
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Posted inBuddhism Taoism/Tai Chi

Descend into the valley of life, rather than climb the mountaintop

At first I didn't like a book I have about Pure land (Shin) Buddhism. But I've come to enjoy "River of Fire, River of Water" by Taitetsu Unno. Here's some passages about embracing the valley of life The ideal of monastic Buddhism is transcendence of mundane existence, as if one were ascending to the mountaintop. In contrast, the praxis of Pure Land Buddhism takes place by descending into the valley, the shadow of the mountains.  We find a similar contrast in Chinese civilization. Like monastic Buddhism the Confucian ideal may be symbolized by the soaring mountain peaks , manifesting the…
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Posted inBuddhism Taoism/Tai Chi

Taoism is playful. Buddhism is serious. I prefer Taoism.

One of my favorite books is Ray Grigg's The Tao of Zen. His thesis, which he argues persuasively, is that Zen is rooted in Chinese Taoism, while Zen Buddhism is, obviously, rooted in Indian Buddhism. Here's a lengthy excerpt from the "Buddhism in China" chapter. While it's possible to quibble with some of Grigg's conclusions, his basic contrasting of Taoist/Chinese and Buddhist/Indian approaches to life seems accurate to me.  The indented italicized passages are quotations from other writers. I haven't included the footnotes that show where the quotation came from. As Buddhism in China was adjusted to fit Chinese sensibilities,…
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Posted inDelusions

Believe in magic, so long as you don’t really believe in it

I'm an atheist who has two wooden Christian crosses sitting on his bedside table. Those are the crosses someone sent to me in a mysterious package, as I wrote about a few days ago. I've got no problem with religious symbols. Plenty of atheists love to visit beautiful holy places, admire religious art, and listen to religious music. Problems arise when people believe that those symbols possess supernatural power. Sure, I'm open to the possibility that Jesus truly is the Son of God and answers prayers addressed to him.  But I'm also open to the possibility of some other entity…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Personal/Stories

I get a mysterious package. Ideas about it welcomed.

Almost everybody likes a good mystery. I sure do. My fiction book reading is almost entirely in the genre of spy/espionage/counterterrorism novels, which involve a lot of intrigue. So I thought I'd outsource to readers of this blog the contents of a mysterious package that arrived in the mail yesterday. If you have an idea about the meaning of what was sent to me, share it in a comment on this post. Here's the envelope I got.  What caught my attention right away was the address and return address both being my address. My razor-sharp mind concluded, Whoever sent this…
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Posted inBooks Taoism/Tai Chi

Chinese painting points to the mystery of existence

Looking back, one of the stranger aspects of my childhood -- which included a lot of strange stuff -- was how my mother took me to Chinatown in San Francisco when I was fairly young, maybe 12.  I came home with many inexpensive pieces of Chinese art that I put up in my room. Most were images that still appeal to me today. Misty mountains with a small figure of a person walking along with a pagoda or hut perched on the edge of a cliff. I don't know where that instant attraction came from. Nobody I knew had any…
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