Comments on “SBNR: system-free monism?”

This matches to my observations too. My own generation of twenty-somethings seem to be more oriented this way that in the typical New Age way.

On the more positive side, I find that many of the young spiritual seekers/practitioners often ask that does it work? These people wish for less bullsh*t and more something that leads to results - at least after some effort. Those people do have the tendency to actually start doing practices and finding out something that way. However, I think that people who actually start to practice anything are always in the minority. I do not think that this can never be a mass movement.

One more concrete example would be the so-called hardcore dharma movement. It is not the whole thing, but works as an example. They really emphasize that people should actually do the practices and it is important that the practices yield real results.

But the “less bullsh*t more results”-approach has its own challenges. When people want to stip things to their bare essentials baby is sometimes thrown out of the bathwater. (Like Daniel Ingram’s “Simplified Four Path Model” of the process of enlightenment. I was initially much inspired by it before becoming familiar with Aro gTér, but for me in the end, that model was more detrimental than useful. When I threw that model out of the window, I started to make sudden progress - though the problem could just be that the model may be very much at odds with the Dzogchen Sem-de.)

(Oh, I seem to have only litte to do in the christmastime, because I do all this commenting. :D)

One thing that puts me off – to tie back again to the topic at hand – is that they incorporate a fair chunk of monism. Not only do they get that from modernist Theravada (which got it from Germany), they've also pulled in bits of Advaita Hinduism.

I have noticed that. But at least Ingman criticizes the Advaita crowd. He thinks that they are lazy.

The monism of the hardcore dharma movement does cause a certain confusion because they use the word “non-dual” as something that means that “all is one”. Just a day ago, I spotted this example: http://uroboros.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/new-model-monism-open-thread/ from a writer who is a part of the hardcore dharma movement.

I wonder why many mystical experiences, and whatever, are interpreted in a monist way? I have tried that too myself when trying to make sense of my own experiences. I stopped that eventually because the pieces did not just seem to fit.

Monism seems very simple, very elegant - like the notion that reality can be completely explained by a couple of equations (I am a physicist, but I am very critical towards the so-called Theory of Everything crowd). Modern people like simple elegant explanations, and monism seems to provide one. For many people, a model that is nebulous, does not seem to be a good model. While writing this, I wonder is there a connection between monism and physicalist reductionism in some weird way. Both wish for simple elegant explanation for everything - even though you could not apply it directly to understand the “real world”.

Oh, whew– it’s such a relief to encounter sense, in a time when ‘discrimination’ is seldom considered a good thing. Maybe the invisible context that makes Advaita seem plausible is that Indian society– at the time the doctrines and methods developed– had a place, and a highly venerated one, for those who had ascended to ‘the enlightenment ward’ and couldn’t make ordinary distinctions sufficient to care for themselves.

Of course, the fact that our lives are entirely devoid of such supports, makes the attempts to foist such a delusional doctrine on us as the acme of spiritual development not only wrong, but heinously wrong.

I agree - the Spiritual But Not Religious does seem to often mean a kind of monism…

The monism involved is all too often, though, a kind of lazy mystical (and hollow) pantheistic monism.

As I (as emotional reaction - I don’t go around doing it!) at http://dispirited.org/about-the-book/ -

“When someone tells me that they are “Not religious, but very spiritual”, I want to punch them in the face.

Hard…”

I enjoyed reading this. The progression through the various alternatives follows my current experience. It’s interesting that spiritual seekers are beginning to operate as error detection in the seeking of truth.

For centuries prior, I think the elaborate and mystical creation stories / myths satisfied people enough, so there was not a need for an extensive search for integrated alternatives.

It’s funny though that you finish by offering a 4th alternative. A few decades from now, we will probably look back on this and realize the 4th alternative was another dead end. It seems so long as we build our spirituality from “not being another system”, we will finish our quest empty-handed.

An interesting work of fiction I read recently is “Spiritual Warfare” by an anonymous author under the name Jed McKenna. The book symbolizes what every spiritual person TRULY wants to BELIEVE, which is a blissful, content VOID OF BELIEF. If you have read this book, you will realize how undesirable truly being alone and confident with one’s own system (or lack thereof), is.

Perhaps this is a terminological hangup, but I find it vexing that you treat “materialism” and “consumerism” as synonyms. Of course I’m familiar with this colloquial usage, but from a quite early age I’ve embraced ontological materialism (which is more accurately described as saying that mind has an existence contingent on matter, like e.g. respiration, rather than having no existence) while rejecting consumerism. And in my experience there’s a pretty substantial pool of people who do likewise, many of whom describe themselves as humanists. In fact a materialist world-view works very neatly as the framework for a humanist life stance. The complete absence of this perspective from your description of the cultural landscape is disconcerting.

As was mentioned in regards to New Ageism, SBNRs can have equally vacuous or harmful spiritual beliefs outside the frameworks of an organized religion, so I think it’s somewhat unfair to say that spirituality necessarily trumps religion. What about people who may not have literal or absolute spiritual beliefs (or any spiritual beliefs, for that matter) yet they are still involved in a religious organization because it adds meaning to their lives? For these RBNSs, it’s not necessarily the dogma that they adhere to but the sense of community, opportunities for outreach, or traditions that enrich their lives. I think it would be a disservice to the discussion to ignore this kind of value that religion has to many people.

I ask because I would now describe myself as RBNS over SBNR. I just recently became a member of the local Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Temple and have been regularly attending services, in spite of the fact that my atheistic-agnostic, naturalistic worldview remains unchanged. Jodo Shinshu emphasizes faith and the afterlife (though it’s not necessarily a prerequisite for being involved and I have encountered many divergent views on the subject), yet I am able to look past this and enjoy the cultural immersion, rituals, iconography/symbolism, liturgy, chanting, and, especially, the community.

I’m not a joiner, I’m an outsider, which means that for most of my life I’ve been alone and uninvolved. I like solitude and independent thinking, but this outsider status has often left me feeling isolated. Being a part of this religious community has given me the opportunity to meet and befriend people who I likely would never have met otherwise. I look forward to getting up early on Sundays and seeing the familiar faces, instead of simply sleeping in until noon and frittering away the rest of the day until Monday, as I used to spend my Sundays.

I don’t believe in the supernatural aspects of the religion, but it is nonetheless still very meaningful to me. I simply find personal meaning in the mundane, worldly benefits that the community provides.

Hi, David. Sorry for the lack of clarity in what I was referring to in my comment. It wasn’t that I thought you suggested spirituality is necessarily “better” than religion. Rather, I felt the tone of your article suggested that spirituality - though not of the monist variety - is a more viable source of meaning than the outmoded systems of religion. Specifically, my comment was in response to these lines:

Religious organizations are basically corporations that try to sell you spiritual systems.

The time for big complicated ideologies that try to tell you everything about what to believe and do has passed. No system like that can be credible anymore.

I am spiritual, but not religious. However, I am not a monist.

The latter line I found confusing since you are a practicing member of a religious group, though, like you said, the semantics of “religion” versus “spirituality” are problematic. Perhaps, I also have difficulty distinguishing between your scholarly voice and your personal voice. Anyhow, I hope this clarifies what I was talking about for you. I’m glad to know we’re on more or less the same page when it comes to religion!

I agree 100%, David! However, I think that most people who are religious don’t actually belong to their religion unreservedly, which is why I felt it important to mention RBNS. I think that religion will endure, albeit as an institution of social/cultural value instead of a purveyor of absolute truth.

Somewhat tangentially, I followed the SBNR link in the first paragraph, to www.sbnr.org.

They’re having a small problem with their web server, and at the top of the page, I saw the message:

Warning: Creating default object from empty value in /home/sbnr/SBNR.org/wp-content/themes/spectrum/functions/admin-hooks.php on line 160 RSS Feed

For some reason “Creating default object from empty value” seems apropos of monist eternalism.

Maybe this “SBNR” is a nebulous redefining of spirituality, or what it means to be spiritual, itself.

Our definitions of our words can be nebulous. It seems like the more we try to hold steadfast to our words, the more other people try to redefine those same words.

Maybe that’s the point…

We will always have forces working, fighting, battling for some perfectly defined “truth” that does not exist. But … the “battle” itself is the whole point.

The battle is at once nebulous and well-defined at the same time. In clear view and hazy at the same time.

What we are calling spirituality is the “haze” … what we might call perfect rationality (or perfect science) is the “clear view.” Neither is wrong or right entirely, and both are needed for us to exist … to “be.”

Both must continuously fight for dominance, but neither can dominate. Interconnected, interdependent, and “fluid.”

The “process of doing science” could be, at times, considered spiritual for the scientists doing it (even though they don’t realize it). Especially when a breakthrough is being made.

Likewise, the belief in something beyond our understanding can be investigated using a rational process (even though believers don’t realize it). Even though the conclusion will likely never be reached, the exploration of the unknown could be considered “scientific.”

Maybe, just maybe, the fluid and ongoing exploration and discovery of both the nebulous and the rational … is the whole point.

I don’t know.

I was born a Javanese who can hardly be religious even though I have been trying hard to be since I was child. I have converted my religion from Moslem to Catholic. Yet, I still find it hard to accept what the crowds have long accepted in terms of holy books and rites. But, now I have found the answers which I got from many YouTube channels dedicated to share the knowledge of Ancient Javanese Teaching. There are a number of great masters/guru who could explain why we, the Javanese, have lost our own belief system which has long been more highly sublime than any existing institutionalised religions particularly in our country (Indonesia) . For the Javanese who really understands the teaching, being religious and attached to a certain religion means the person is still at the lowest level of understanding his own self. It is very complicated to explain, though. For further explanation, I recommend a very resourceful book entitled Suwung (emptiness) written by Setyo Hajar Dewantoro.