Posted inHumor Personal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Secret of happiness revealed (but my wife disagrees)

In the course of de-cluttering my office yesterday, I came across a long-forgotten piece I'd written for RS Greetings, a spiritual magazine published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas, back in the days when I was a member of this India-based guru-led organization. As I said in a 2004 post about the article, "Sadly, ego-loss didn't arrive in the mail," I'd argued with the editor of the magazine about their policy of not including the author's name.  So I told the editor that their Anonymous policy prevented readers from offering valuable feedback, and from authors learning from those readers. That’s the…
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Posted inBooks

Empty bookshelves reflect my religious deconversion

I love books. I learn a lot from books that I've bought.  But yesterday I also learned a lot from deciding which books to give away (to the Friends of Salem Library, who sell them to support the library). Two large bookshelves and a small bookshelf no longer fit our living room's decor. So my home decorating guru, a.k.a. My Wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed, let it be known that it was time to move the bookshelves into my office. Which meant, I had to remove all of the books. Then decide which ones I wanted to keep. Most…
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Posted inPolitics

Donald Trump’s “spirituality” makes a mockery of that word

I used to think that I knew what it meant to be "spiritual." Now, I don't. (See here and here.)  But whatever the word means, I'm pretty damn sure that Donald Trump doesn't have any sort of genuine spirituality -- unless we twist the definition of that term to include incessant lying, habitual displays of egotism, and insults directed at minorities, women, political opponents, and anybody else who incurs the Wrath of Trump. So when I came across a story in TIME magazine, "Meet the Pastor Who Prays With Donald Trump," I was curious to learn more about Trump's personal…
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Posted inGod Reality

Shermer on why a supernatural God almost certainly doesn’t exist

This month's Scientific American has a great "Skeptic" column by Michael Shermer: At the Boundary of Knowledge: Is it possible to measure supernatural or paranormal phenomena? Shermer cites physicist Sean Carroll's book (The Big Picture, which I enjoyed) in this passage. Take our understanding of particles and forces, which Carroll says “seems indisputably accurate within a very wide domain of applicability,” such that “a thousand or a million years from now, whatever amazing discoveries science will have made, our descendants are not going to be saying ‘Haha, those silly twenty-first-century scientists, believing in ‘neutrons’ and ‘electromagnetism.’” Thus, Carroll concludes that…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

“Anxious time” is mental. “Calm time” is physical.

Here's another chapter in my never-ending story of Observations About the Cosmos That Are Either Astoundingly Brilliant or Fucking Obvious. I've figured out where anxiety comes from! And how to cure it!  OK, let's make that my anxiety. Your results may vary. Consult a qualified professional rather than this blog post if you're really being driven crazy by uncontrollable worrying. The sort of anxiety I'm talking about manifests in me as a sort of negative mental background buzz. I'll be lying in bed before going to sleep at night, or my senior citizen afternoon nap, idly thinking about stuff in…
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Posted inBooks Science Taoism/Tai Chi

“Incomplete Nature” shows how life is based on absence

Demonstrating some spousal exaggeration, my wife has been saying that she fears being crushed by a pile of books I've read that are awaiting my blogging attention. (I made sure to include a chair in this photo for scale; unless Laurel shrinks to two feet tall, I think she has nothing to worry about. However, I will admit that there's another pile behind this one, so combined they could possibly be a risk to wifely health.) The top light green book, 600 pages thick, seemed like a good place to start on reducing the pile. It is Terrence W. Deacon's…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Mother Teresa becomes a saint despite “spiritual darkness.” Hey, make me a saint too!

I was baptized Catholic. I'm immersed in spiritual darkness. I have grave doubts about God. So why can't I become a saint, since Mother Teresa has been canonized by Pope Francis despite her admitted spiritual darkness? Here's excerpts from an AP story, Mother Teresa: a Saint Despite Spiritual 'Darkness.' For nearly 50 years, Mother Teresa endured what the church calls a "dark night of the soul" — a period of spiritual doubt, despair and loneliness that many of the great mystics experienced, her namesake St. Therese of Lisieux included. In Mother Teresa's case, the dark night lasted most of her adult…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Personal/Stories

Great candidate for my last word: “Yes”

The older I get -- which, sadly, seems to be happening continuously -- the more I ponder the not-so-cheery question, "What should my last word be?" Now, usually we hear talk of last words, not word. But since I'm such a wordy guy, in writing at least, I figure I should do something surprising and limit myself to a single Last Word. (An aside: I enjoyed reading the "ironical sense of words said before a disaster" in the Wikipedia Last words article. These are so great, they almost -- but not quite -- made me want to do the last…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

Preparing for certain future events vs. being prepared for anything

This afternoon, during some part of my all-important senior citizen nap time, I had another of my Aha! moments where everything in the cosmos becomes crystal clear for a brief moment of intuitive comprehensibility. And this time, astoundingly, I wasn't even under the influence of a psycho-active substance. Aside from my brain, which now and then approaches a genuine psychologically "active" state of being. As I felt it did today. I was mulling over some of the things I needed to do in the realm of my retired-person civic activism. For example, I'm engaged in a fight against a wastefully…
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Posted inPolitics Religions

Government shouldn’t be guided by irrational religious concepts

It's a pleasure to share a churchless opinion piece by my wife, Laurel. It was published yesterday in our town's alternative paper, Salem Weekly. Laurel was impelled to write this after going into the belly of the beast -- attending a large Franklin Graham (son of Billy Graham) religious rally at the state capitol grounds here in Salem.  Government shouldn't be guided by irrational conceptsby Laurel Hines Recently evangelist Franklin Graham visited Salem to urge Christians to vote their “Christian values.” But does basing government on religious beliefs supported by a book written in pre-modern times make sense? The Bible condones…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Fundamentalism

The Satanic Temple is a positive force for good. Praise Satan!

Satan, the Devil, is a religious myth. So I like how The Satanic Temple has taken this bit of dogmatic ridiculousness and made it into a way of promoting rationalism and free inquiry.  From their FAQs: DO YOU WORSHIP SATAN? It is the position of The Satanic Temple that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. The Satanist should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in…
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Posted inFree will Science

Free will is a meaningless expression

Here's another episode in my so-far never-ending quest to convince readers of this blog that free will, as normally understood, is an illusion. (For previous attempts, type "free will" in the Google search box in the right sidebar.) Below is a letter to the editor in the July 30 issue of New Scientist, a British publication. Which explains the weird spelling of "randomize" and "recognize." Damn, can't those Britons speak English correctly, like us Americans do? Anyway, I digress. I thought Carpenter's last paragraph was right-on. Along with reflexes, intuitions seem to be another example of unconsicous brain processes that we…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Break the habit of separating body and mind

Almost always, it is best for our body and mind to be in sync. Meaning, whatever our body is doing, the mind should be focused on that activity.  This is a key conclusion I've reached after becoming churchless following several decades of believing the opposite: that mind was a separate entity from body, and it was desirable to view the contents of consciousness as distinct from bodily goings-on.  Back in those dualistic days, when I embraced an Eastern "leave this world and find a better one" meditation approach, my guru taught that a mantra should be repeated as much as…
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Posted inBooks Taoism/Tai Chi

Lessons for living from a fictional assassin: the “Gray Man”

Here's how far down the churchless rabbit hole I've burrowed: I'm able to find existential "spiritual" meaning in a book series about an unstoppable assassin, the Gray Man, a.k.a. Court Gentry.  Court Gentry is known as The Gray Man – a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, and then fading away. And he always hits his target. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness. Now, he is going to prove that for him, there is no gray area…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Why I stayed with a religion for 35 years

Today I responded to a person from India who had some questions about my experience with Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the spiritual guru-based group I belonged to for about 35 years. Here's what I said: _____, sorry for the delay in replying. I’m not qualified to “guide you through it all,” but I can offer some thoughts in response to the questions you posed.  The way I see it, one reason people don’t see through religions is because they strongly want to believe in a happy fantasy. That was one reason why I stayed with RSSB so long. I…
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Posted inFree will Reality Science

Free will is an illusion: convincing Sam Harris video

Below is a 9-minute video that encapsulates Sam Harris' views about free will. Which, in short, is that it is an illusion. And that the world would be better off if people recognized this, rather than wrongly believing that humans are able to freely choose what to do at any given moment. The background music in the video is a bit distracting. But Harris' message is so convincing, and the video is so well done (aside, perhaps, from the music selection), I urge you to watch it.Now, I realize that some people don't look upon free will in the way…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Tai Chi “sensing skills” — a good guide to harmonious living

I'm a dozen years into learning Tai Chi. Which just means, I'm not a beginner. Tai Chi, an internal-style martial art, is so exquisitely subtle, most practitioners never feel like they have come close to fathoming it.  But every class I take, I get further insights into what Tai Chi is all about. Which really is what life is all about. (Links to my previous posts about Tai Chi can be found in "Me and Tai Chi -- eight blog posts about 'Taoism in motion.'" Last Thursday I experienced a better understanding of the key notion of sensing skills. Robin…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Behold my humble web page devoted to… ME!

Let's see. There's got to be some way for me to publicize my totally revamped www.BrianHines.com web site and also make this blog post into something philosophical. Or pseudo-spiritual.  I'll give it a shot... When I sat down yesterday at my MacBook Pro laptop, determined to replace my hugely outdated old personal web site with an Adobe Spark page, I started with a blank Brian Hines slate.  Meaning, I had to decide what I wanted to say about myself.  Since I've got 67 years of living as raw material, obviously I had plenty of options to work with. An Adobe…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

“Be Here Now” — actually, it isn’t possible to do anything else

I started studying yoga and meditation in 1969, when I was a student at San Jose State College. I've got a well-thumbed 1972 sixth printing copy of Ram Dass' "Be Here Now" book, which was published in 1971.  I haven't re-read the book for a long time. I guess the title alone was enough for me to keep in mind.  But today, when I was meditating in the morning, as I have virtually every day for the past 47 years or thereabouts, I was struck by how meaningless those words, Be Here Now, seemed to be in my present churchless approach…
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