One need not conflate spiritual experience with religious belief. Despite what the predominant religious systems of American culture often profess, belief is neither a prerequisite for nor the only important outcome of spiritual experience. In other words, one can be an atheist (believing there is no God) and also have an experience of being connected to something larger than oneself. One can do this and still think of that very experience as neurochemically determined and its potential encoded in DNA. One can hold quite a materialistic, scientific world view and be awed into great joy and deep trembling fear by the experience of love, or the sudden visceral awareness of one's place in the vastness of the universe, or the smell of the forest after a thunderstorm. Atheists can be as humble and as spiritual as anyone else.

But then, I would disagree with Amma's quoted distinction between spirituality and worldly pleasures (though I'm not sure her distinction in that quote actually means what the author of the article wants it to mean). The two -- spirituality and sensory experience -- very often go hand in hand. Arm in arm, even. Else why do hugs at all? Investing it with this or that interpretation doesn't take anything away from or add anything to the experience itself, not necessarily at least. Either Amma's statements are not coherent to her practices, or the author has taken something out of context and turned it into a hook for people with specifically American cultural hangups. Or it's a bad translation. Or both. :)

After all, what really makes something sacred but it's inability to be pinned down by the language of the intellect alone? The holy, in my experience, is something that goes beyond belief. That doesn't mean that it has to be unbelievable, just that it doesn't really reside on that spectrum at all. Visits it occasionally, perhaps, but doesn't stay for long. I'd warrant a guess that some animals have just as much potential for spiritual experience, if so defined, as do we.

Speaking of visiting, I would personally avoid the Amma gatherings, as well as most other "spiritual tourism," largely because I have noticed that spiritual experiences rarely come to those who are looking too hard for them (at least the kind that don't seem a bit rooted in the need to convince oneself that one has not wasted travel fare and admissions fees). As some Buddhist philosophies put it, you have to let go or your attachment to letting go of attachment in order to let go of your attachment. That happens, generally, when it's good and ready to, no sooner, no later, and never in the place of your own choosing.

I have tried so hard with JFC, but the past two episodes have just done me in, and the final blow was precisely at the point mentioned in this review, where John gives his monologue thingamajiggie - it was sooo Twin Peaks, but in a Fire Walk With Me kind of way. What was with that random dead guy that John carried out to listen in, anyway? I was waiting for some Lazarus reference or something, but he was just ... there ... and then he wasn't. Look, I'm all for mystical. I'm all for spiritual. I've a damn BA in Religious Studies for heaven's sake. But this stuff is just coming off flat to me. It seems like a gimmick so far, and the show relies on it way too much at this point.

There was one episode where I really felt something click together, and the odd dialogue started to work with the characters and the story and even the supernatural elements to create something akin to the sense of community tension that I felt in practically every episode of Deadwood (hell, in the opening credits of Deadwood). It was when they were rescuing Sean from the hospital, and the subsequent community camp-out in front of his house developed. There you had a supernatural intervention that left the entire community reeling and responding and interacting in a new way as a result. The characters started to seem more interesting because of it, rather than less. But then we have Mitch sitting at the beach with Cass, still believing his grandson is braindead, spouting about real surfing vs. competitive surfing. I'm a So Cal girl, I know plenty of surfers whose dedication borders on the obsessive, but please. Nothing else to talk about at that moment, Mitch? And he seemed genuinely enthralled with what he was saying there, too, not just spouting on in order to stave off sorrow. No no, this was serious surf talk he was engaging in. Sean seemed more like a pretext for his thoughts about surfing than the other way around.

And speaking of So Cal, I'm hard pressed to think of any way one could justify having such an almost exclusively white cast of characters in a community that is predominantly non white. I mean, other than the random "illegals" who were inexplicitly scurrying along the beach in the background of the opening episode, or the white-looking guy with the Mexican accent who accosted John. Other than the hotel manager, who has, what, one scene per episode, the whole show is lilly white as far as the eye can see. That's not the California I know, that's for damn sure.

And I was terrifically shocked to see the actress playing Trixie in that one scene, given that Cissy is clearly Trixie reincarnated and with a slightly better job.

I find myself only able to watch about ten minutes at a time of this show before I get so bored or so irritated that I have to stop and come back to it. At this point it's just a stop along the way to Flight of the Conchords on my Sunday night.