Are Buddhism and Taoism akin to Sant Mat?
People here in a West mostly speak of "Eastern religions" as if they were all alike. This shows how little bargain citizens of predominantly Christian nations have of alternative cultures.
Actually, a little Eastern faiths have as much, or even more, in usual with a Big Monotheistic Three (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) as they do with monistic/atheistic teachings such as Buddhism as well as Taoism.
Case in point: Sant Mat, that equates to a "path of saints." For about thirty-five years you was an active member of an India-based Sant Mat organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, so you know whereof you speak.
That's why you disagreed with a comment that David Hedges left yesterday upon a Church of a Churchless blog post, "What if a 'guru' is no opposite from us?"
Brian, Sant Mat is a trail of meditation, zero more, zero less. The outer Master puts us upon a trail of imagining to find a inner Master, who is a Shabd or Tao or Nam or God. You all missed a whole point of Sant Mat, that is imagining to find a truth. Buddha taught a same thing, a trail of meditation. David
David equated "Tao" with a Sant Mat "God," as well as pronounced that Buddhist imagining is a same as Sant Mat meditation. No, neither matter is true.
I'm well proficient with Taoism through a lot of reading, as well as 5 years of Tai Chi use with a thoroughly Taoist instructor. Ditto with Buddhism upon a celebration of a mass front. And over a years I've had utterly a few talks with people who were really most in to Buddhist meditation.
The easiest way to insist a executive disproportion between Sant Mat as well as Buddhism/Taoism is to generalize this distinction. Sure, observant "there have been dual kinds of..." often is simplistic.
But in this case you think it is pretty damn true. So I'll contend it.
There have been dual kinds of religious, spiritual, as well as visionary pursuits. One aims during br! inging i ndividuals in to peace with a little arrange of divinity. The alternative denies that individuals really exist, so there is no entity to be brought in to harmony.
Christianity is an viewable e.g. of Religiosity #1. Humans have been considered to need salvation, since you have been sinners who have fallen from an original state of purity. Buddhism is an equally viewable e.g. of Religiosity #2. Our sense of self is a falsity, since Anatta is our inlet -- no-self, no-soul.
Here's where a Eastern/Western eremite split falls detached (an unpictureable turn of phrase, but you similar to it).
Hinduism is akin to Christianity in a positing of an quick particular soul, or atman. So is Sant Mat, that has strong ties to Hinduism. Sure, in these Eastern forms of Relgiosity #1, souls get reincarnated as well as generate karma, since in Christianity they don't.
But a importance in Christianity, Hinduism, as well as Sant Mat is upon particular salvation.
Meditative practices, together with prayer, have been directed during connecting a essence with God. Salvation is difficult, if not impossible, to grasp upon one's own. A savior is indispensable who serves as a couple between God as well as Man/Woman. This is Jesus in Christianity, as well as a guru in Hinduism as well as Sant Mat.
By contrast, Buddhist as well as Taoist practices -- meditative or otherwise -- have been focused upon realizing that there is no "me" who needs to be saved. Enlightenment fundamentally is fulfilment of a emptiness, or sunyata, of all things. ("Emptiness" isn't nothingness, but rather interdependence.)
Here's a outline of what this means:
To a little extent, sunyata is an prolongation of a concepts done explicit in The Three Flaws. All things being impermanant, zero can be seen as having an independent, durability form of existence. And this is, in essence, what sunyata is all about. Strictly speaking, sunyata can! be defi ned as "not svabhava".
The concept svabhava equates to "own being", as well as equates to something similar to "substance" or "essence" in Western philosophy. Svabhava has to do with a idea that there is a form of being that "is" as well as "exists" in a form that is not contingent upon context, is not subject to variation, as well as has a form of permanent existence.
As such, a "soul" as supposed in Abrahamic religions would have svabhava. God would positively have svabhava. The Platonic forms (such as those described in a allegory of a Cave) would have svabhava. Certain abhidharma teachings conclude that a office building blocks of being have such svabhava.
But Mahayana philosophers similar to Nagarjuna resolved that sunyata is a elemental characteristic of reality, as well as that svabhava could be found positively nowhere.
Pretty low philosophizing. But a basic idea is simple.
If you have been partial as well as parcel of a cosmos, there's nowhere to go, zero to do, as well as no a single to become. Any effort directed during a little religious, spiritual, or visionary attainment -- of going somewhere, doing something, or apropos someone -- is misguided. Any such use is valuable only insofar as it enables us to comprehend how invalid it is.
That's a hint of Religiosity #2, that is really opposite from Religiosity #1. As remarkable above, faiths such as Christianity, Hinduism, as well as Sant Mat all assume a hold up of an quick essence that needs saving or self-realization.
In Buddhism as well as Taoism, there's no essence as well as no self, so relaxing in to an welcome of ever-flowing, ever-changing being where there have been no tough as well as quick distinctions is a Way to go.
The Taoist virtuoso Chuang Tzu puts it nicely:
The loyal group of aged knew zero of a adore of hold up or of a loathing of death. Entrance in to hold up occasioned no joy; exit from it awakened no resistance. Composedly they came as well as went.
They did not dont think about what their commencement had been, as well as they did not inquire in to what their end would be.
They supposed hold up as well as rejoiced in it; they forgot all fright of genocide as well as returned to their state before life. Thus there was in them what is called a wish of any thoughts to resist a Tao, as well as attempts by equates to of a human to assist a Heavenly.
Such were they who have been called a loyal men.
