tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7384050515453768462009-11-24T20:33:36.377ZSceptical SpiritualityRafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-59148244341089642742009-09-14T15:30:00.008+01:002009-11-18T18:31:08.341Z

Many spiritual belief systems are largely based on the premise that one can become wiser by doing certain practices, accumulating life experience, praying, being more open to God, more compassionate, or whatever it may be. Wisdom will allow us to better understand, accept, and perhaps even change, reality; it will give us inner peace and make us better persons. It is the highest goal we can

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-89417907854906907452009-08-20T20:50:00.014+01:002009-11-18T18:34:32.022Z

I've recently discovered The Urban Guru Cafe, a podcast dedicated to what is often called Neo-Advaita, and, in my usual compulsive style, I've listened to all the available episodes. Advaita, Neo or otherwise, preaches (and actually means) non-duality, meaning there's no separation between, well, anything and anything. Jargon and lines of argument may vary, but basically these people will say

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-83777678086207125812009-05-05T22:12:00.011+01:002009-11-18T18:35:56.884Z

"Most of the atoms that make up the Earth and its inhabitants were present in their current form in the nebula that collapsed out of a molecular cloud to form the Solar System," says Wikipedia. Each of the atoms that make up your body has been around on this planet for 4.5 billion years, and who knows how long for as part of the primordial molecular cloud that would eventually become the Solar

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-21652680736440753682009-04-11T09:37:00.001+01:002009-11-18T18:37:29.492Z

I don't long to believe in God as much as I used to. Now I would settle for plain and simple mysticism. You know, feelings of oneness with the universe and all those other transcendental experiences I'm hardly ever fortunate enough to get a taste of. The reason for that is that God, as we usually understand it, is a belief that can be either true or false. He either exists or he doesn't, and it

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-91799849113674729512009-01-22T12:32:00.011Z2009-11-18T18:39:41.378Z

In my last post I wrote about how the universe is constantly writing stories and histories — of people, countries, worlds — only to destroy them later leaving no trace of their former existence. I often feel the need to believe that that's not quite how things work, that the past must still exist in some way and will always exist. The idea that my childhood memories — places, people, etc. — only

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-74778785242565655202009-01-06T21:43:00.019Z2009-11-18T18:43:31.506Z

Your life, the people that come in and out of it, the emotions that seem to take up all the space around you, that are as real and pervasive as the biting cold in this wintry night, the jobs you go through, the ups and downs with your girlfriends and boyfriends, all the letters and phone conversations, all the lies and truths, struggles, achievements, love and hate, the photographs you take, the

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-27056408663028583752008-11-10T20:20:00.019Z2009-11-18T18:45:04.361Z

It is probably safe to assume that ten thousand years ago, when humans hadn't yet developed any writing systems and, presumably, weren't too philosophically sophisticated, concepts such as consciousness or mind hadn't even occurred to them. Imagine that at that time in human (pre-) history a group a highly evolved, ultra-intelligent, science-loving alien researchers had visited the Earth and

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-43282613060146423352008-10-18T02:59:00.009+01:002009-11-18T22:38:16.535Z

Ana was my friend Bea's cousin and one of her very best friends. A twenty-four-year-old bright and beautiful girl. An only child. A blood clot on her brain sent her into a coma, and then, refusing to respond to drugs and being innaccesible through surgical means, killed her only a few hours ago. I'd never met her, but Bea had told me countless stories about her. She loved her with all her heart,

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-10941483661705084412008-09-09T19:45:00.017+01:002009-11-18T22:40:17.030Z

This is what best-selling author Eckhart Tolle has to say about the "present moment", starting with the more ordinary claims and building up to full-blown mysticism:Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. The Power of Now, page 20 Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. ibid,

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-76300849860342478742008-08-24T00:43:00.012+01:002009-11-18T22:41:58.469Z

It's been seven months since my last post. I'm not quite sure why all of a sudden I didn't feel like writing any more. Was it because of my meagre readership? Did I run out of things to say? A bit of both, I suppose, but there is a more personally meaningful reason. In the last months there have been quite a few topics I thought I could write about, but always thought, "Why keep writing about

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-69576972314292525642008-01-19T19:10:00.006Z2009-11-18T22:44:14.239Z

There are times — which, for some reason, tend to occur when I'm lying in bed and it's dark, particularly between 5 and 9 in the afternoon — when the possibility of ceasing to exist — i.e. dying and there not being an afterlife — comes to my mind in a particularly vivid and persistent manner, not surprisingly making me rather gloomy and distressed. I call it a "possibility" partly because I don't

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-6192116237720558642008-01-13T13:02:00.006Z2009-11-18T22:45:43.609Z

(18/06/09 Note: I've sometimes felt uncomfortable remembering the spiteful tone of this post, but for honesty's sake I've decided to leave it as it is. It would be great to be all-loving and compassionate — or would it? — but I'm not. So, ladies and gentemen, this is me pissed off:) A few years ago I bought Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsh, read the first few chapters and didn't find

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-61573478494089350152007-12-12T18:46:00.002Z2009-11-18T22:47:58.700Z

Spirituality can be regarded, among other things, as a quest for truth. Even in the case of, say, a Roman Catholic that happens to have reached the same conclusions on any matter of importance -- from abortion to homosexuality -- as the Vatican, we can still make out a desire to find the truth. Our RC friends are only working under the inexplicable assumption that what the Church says has to be

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-57864069488725899822007-11-15T10:31:00.002Z2009-11-19T20:53:46.378Z

Although most dictionaries haven't caught up with it yet, the distinction between religion and spirituality is commonplace nowadays. What's the difference exactly? Most of us would agree that obeying the commandments of the Church (attend Mass on Sundays, go to confession once a year, keep the days of fasting and abstinence, etc.) and the Ten Commandments (the fundamental one being "Sex: don't

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-26079729710534297942007-10-29T18:19:00.002Z2009-11-19T20:58:37.201Z

Atheism has become fashionable. A number of books have been published lately whose aim is to rationally tear religion to pieces and put forward atheism as the only intelligent and honest alternative. Atheism certainly has much to commend it, so I set out to read some of those books and see what they had to offer. I started with Sam Harris's The End of Faith, and now I'm halfway through The God

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-86350069006907774042007-09-25T18:08:00.002+01:002009-11-19T21:01:30.725Z

A few days ago, rambling around the Internet, I came across this idyllic Tibetan Buddhist monastery on the outskirts of the reputedly hippie village of Órgiva, in the mountains of Granada, southern Spain. Apart from its remoteness and the beautiful scenery that surrounds it, what enamoured me to this place were the little huts, equipped with "just the bare essentials: bed, meditation seat, altar,

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-82485175466650733792007-09-17T18:29:00.002+01:002009-11-19T21:03:28.768Z

If the problem with consciousness is how it arises from the physical world, the problem with free will is whether it is even compatible with the laws of physical world. And if the problem with consciousness is what its nature is, the problem with free will is what do we even mean by it. We all take free will for granted: we assume that we are in control of our actions and that we are morally

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-59740279002494457962007-09-11T20:05:00.005+01:002009-11-19T21:05:49.956Z

One of the things I like about Buddhism is that it offers a clear and simple method for spiritual growth. No matter what ups and downs you're going through, the only thing you have to do is meditate, thereby calming your mind, purifying it, and gaining understanding of the true nature of reality, and, if you work hard enough and happen to believe in it, attaining nirvana. A simple and elegant

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-19674617775112351682007-09-09T10:36:00.003+01:002009-11-19T21:08:34.017Z

Between the ages of 18 and 21, when I was still a Christian, I used to go to a church that was unusually liberal (for instance, sexuality wasn't even an issue) and had a thriving youth "scene". It was organised in different groups, each made up of some ten members plus two facilitators (one male, one female), that held weekly meetings, most of the time with a rather loose agenda. Different groups

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-55004144554810594142007-09-06T19:38:00.003+01:002009-11-19T21:12:17.322Z

You sometimes hear people speak as if spirituality and emotions were, or should be, two separate things, as if emotions were even a hurdle to overcome (or, euphemistically, an "opportunity"). You know, all that enslaving clinging and aversion ... I, on the contrary, think that most of what we call spirituality has an emotional motivation behind it. When I say emotional I'm not just referring to

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-46829930439198657582007-09-05T19:37:00.003+01:002009-11-19T21:16:06.827Z

I am a Hindu because of the sculptured cones of red kumkum powder and baskets of yellow turmeric nuggets, because of garlands of flowers and pieces of broken coconut, because of the clanging of bells to announce one's arrival to God, because of the whine of the reedy nadaswaram and the beating of drums, because of the patter of bare feet against stone floors down dark corridors pierced by shafts

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-10377998743414476402007-09-02T17:24:00.002+01:002009-11-19T21:19:48.437Z

Consciousness/ˈkɒnʃəsnəs/The very word has an irresistible aesthetic appeal, doesn't it? Like a Western version of ॐ (that is Aum, in case your browser is not rendering it properly).Consciousness is quite simply the most amazing thing that exists, and also the weirdest. Everything in the universe (galaxies, planets, flowers, cows, microwave ovens, life, chemical reations) is physical and can be

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-36291327026903520202007-09-01T17:56:00.003+01:002009-11-19T21:27:41.608Z

How pedantic does that sound! Let me explain. "You are a part of God." Many intelligent people (among them my friend Elena, who inspired this post through her no-nonsense / blank-stare attitude towards spirituality) would think that's a bunch of crap. Now, if you decide that God is just another name for the universe, and you're obviously part of the universe, you're therefore also a part of God.

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-83683197104636265042007-08-28T23:29:00.002+01:002009-11-19T21:29:23.835Z

Why is there a universe when there could just as well be nothing?Why the physical laws of the universe are those which they are? Why are they such that life can develop?Why does consciousness, that most incredible yet most useless (from a materialistic conception of reality) of miracles, exist?Why are we capable of experiencing such emotional richness and depth as we do?Why do we have a need for

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-738405051545376846.post-87727848344396624772007-08-26T18:23:00.002+01:002009-11-19T21:32:33.035Z

These are some of the reasons why Wes Nisker meditates: I meditate because life is too short, and sitting slows it down. I meditate because I've discovered that my mind is a great toy, and fun to play with. I meditate because I am growing old and want to become more comfortable with emptiness. I meditate because I want to discover the fifth Brahmavihara, the divine abode of awe, and then I’ll go

Rafael Cortijo Santurinonoreply@blogger.com0