Religion doesn't add anything to human experience

Here's a large disagreement which many eremite people make: when they feel good, they attribute those certain feelings to their religiosity -- not realizing which if they didn't have conviction in God, Guru, Brahman, Allah, or whatever, they'd feel only about a same.

I contend this because we used to be such a person.

For a thirty-five or so years we was an active member of an India-based eremite classification we was roughly regularly in a certain frame of mind. we was energetic, confident, productive, as well as happy.

But this also describes how we was prior to as well as after my immersion in a teachings as well as lifestyle of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

When we was user upon a book project which began underneath a auspices of RSSB, we got into a bit of an justification with one of a senior disciples in a publishing department.

We were emailing back as well as onward about a key to Return to a One which I'd written. The senior RSSB staff member wanted me to contend something about how my guru, Charan Singh, had desirous my literary abilities.

I told her which I'd done a lot of essay prior to we was initiated by Charan Singh. we was a great thinker prior to we got concerned with Radha Soami Satsang Beas. we was means to take complex ideas as well as communicate them sincerely simply prior to we had anything to do with a RSSB teachings.

So we refused to give credit to somebody who hadn't had any outcome upon my capability to write a book about a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher, Plotinus. we simply didn't see how my impasse with a guru as well as a RSSB classification had done me a opposite person.

Sure, I'd done opposite things than if we had taken another spiritual route, or secluded conviction altogether. But we felt which my basic nature -- how we generally experience hold up -- would have been a same no matter what I'd done during a previous decades.

The longer I've been churchless, a some-more I&#! 39;ve be come aware how all of a so-called eremite "virtues" have exact secular counterparts. This includes faith, as well as its trait cousin, acceptance.

For a long time we had conviction which my hold up was being guided in some conform by a higher power: God, karma, destiny, a guru's will. we wasn't really certain who or what was doing a guiding. we only felt comforted by a feeling which whatever happened in my life, it was meant to be as well as indispensable to be accepted.

I suspect which Christians contend "thank you, Jesus" a lot.

I know which we used to do a same thing, substituting "guru" for "Jesus." If we simply found a parking space in a busy downtown area my enchanting thinking would take over as well as I'd praise my source of The Lord for obviating a need to drive around a retard multiform times.

But right away I'm realizing which whatever done me feel good, thankful, or certain during my eremite proviso is still user in a secular guise.

My wife as well as we have been leading a neighborhood's fight opposite a 43-lot, 217-acre resolution which threatens to dry up existent wells as well as bluster surface water rights. The battle has been starting upon for about 5 years.

After some setbacks, we got a favorable circuit court statute upon a interest of a preference to let a subdivison pierce forward. Yesterday a decider had scheduled a conference call to discuss it a attorneys upon both sides how she was starting to hoop a suit by a would-be developer to reconsider her decision.

I was sort of nervous.

We as well as a neighbors had put a lot of money as well as most bid into interlude a subdivision. we was pretty certain a decider wouldn't change her mind, though there was a possibility she could weaken or even overturn her strange ruling.

However, calm acceptance was some-more in justification in my psyche than nervousness. During a morning we assigned myself with mowing a lawn, stai! ning a t ree house, cleaning a gutters, as well as alternative chores.

I thought, Whatever will be, will be. It's not in my hands. However a decider rules, we can understanding with it. We'll pierce brazen no matter what.

No longer did we have any notions about a statute being a life-lesson, God's grace, karma, or whatever. i simply knew which sometime after 1:00 pm I'd learn from a attorneys what a decider said, though until then I'd be in a state of not-knowing.

Which was positively fine with me. I'd been means to understanding with difficult circumstances prior to we joined a eremite organization. Ditto with during and, now, after my RSSB involvement.

All which varied was which during a opposite phases of my hold up we used opposite words as well as concepts to insist to myself how we was means to hoop a complaint with some-more than a jot of aplomb.

So don't be afraid of losing any of your great qualities if we forsake religion. They still will be with you, maybe even stronger than before. You only won't feel a need to thank an unseen energy for what comes your way.

(I do still contend "thank you" to a cosmos right away as well as then, though this is thankfulness for being means to experience life itself -- not any specific experience. That said, we was some-more than a small happy when we listened which a decider ruled in a favor.)