One thought on “Spirituality: no beliefs required”
I’m not so sure. Something like this is often claimed, but I don’t see how anyone can have the dedication generally acknowledged (outside of neo-X circles) to be required for liberation without some form of belief. Perhaps not necessarily in anything metaphysical or mystical, but at a minimum that liberation is possible, which for most people will be an inference from a more specific belief, perhaps that the Buddha (Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj) ‘had’ something (knowledge, or self-awareness) that most humans don’t.
Nisargadatta explored this several times in I Am That , stating that only a modicum of faith in him was needed. Enough to get the ball rolling, from which point ‘progress’ was said to be self-attesting. But he himself dedicated all his free time to his practice precisely because he did have absolute faith (surely a form of belief?) in his Guru. That level of belief seems from here to be hard to attain without happenstance or otherwise will/desire (which in most cases is equivalent to self-deception).
What if Michael Langford is right, that an aspirant should dedicate 12 hours a day to practice if at all possible? It would seem a minuscule sacrifice given the potential prize. But how, in an age where it’s clear to everyone how little anyone can really know, could a person have a 12-hour-per-day level of confidence that the prize was available?
Tom Das 
I’m not so sure. Something like this is often claimed, but I don’t see how anyone can have the dedication generally acknowledged (outside of neo-X circles) to be required for liberation without some form of belief. Perhaps not necessarily in anything metaphysical or mystical, but at a minimum that liberation is possible, which for most people will be an inference from a more specific belief, perhaps that the Buddha (Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj) ‘had’ something (knowledge, or self-awareness) that most humans don’t.
Nisargadatta explored this several times in I Am That , stating that only a modicum of faith in him was needed. Enough to get the ball rolling, from which point ‘progress’ was said to be self-attesting. But he himself dedicated all his free time to his practice precisely because he did have absolute faith (surely a form of belief?) in his Guru. That level of belief seems from here to be hard to attain without happenstance or otherwise will/desire (which in most cases is equivalent to self-deception).
What if Michael Langford is right, that an aspirant should dedicate 12 hours a day to practice if at all possible? It would seem a minuscule sacrifice given the potential prize. But how, in an age where it’s clear to everyone how little anyone can really know, could a person have a 12-hour-per-day level of confidence that the prize was available?
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