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The subtlety of eastern religion is that it enters like an odourless poison gas, seeping under the door, through the keyhole, in through the open window, so that the man in the room is overcome without his ever realising that there was any danger at all. [The Dust of Death. Os Guiness]
The invasion from the East has spilled over into the church. Centering prayer , now a common practice in much of the church originated in St. Joseph’s Abbey, a Trappist monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts. During the twenty years (1961–1981) when [Thomas] Keating was abbot, St. Joseph’s held dialogues with Buddhist and Hindu representatives, and a Zen master gave a week-long retreat to the monks. [Details]
Also See What Eastern Gurus Say About Occult Practices
Eastern Mysticism -- Part One
There is a growing missionary spirit in Hinduism.... A small army of yoga missionaries is ready to go to the West. They may not call themselves Hindu, but Hindus know where yoga came from and where it goes. - (From an editorial in Hinduism Today titled "An Open Letter to Evangelicals," by its editor, Reverend Palaniswami, a Hindu monk 1)
In 1974, Stanford Research Institute (now SRI), with funds from the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, undertook a study to determine how Western man could be deliberately turned into an Eastern mystic/psychic. Directed by Willis W. Harman (who later became president of Edgar Mitchell’s Institute of Noetic Sciences), the project was called Changing Images of Man. The scientists involved sincerely believed that a turn to Eastern mysticism was the only hope for human survival. [2]
The task of persuading the public to accept this new direction fell to one of Dr. Harman’s friends and admirers, Marilyn Ferguson. She fulfilled her assignment with the publication in 1980 of her groundbreaking bestseller, The Aquarian Conspiracy. In it she said:
A great, shuddering irrevocable shift is overtaking us... a new mind, a turnabout in consciousness in critical numbers of individuals, a network powerful enough to bring about radical change in our culture.
This network - the Aquarian Conspiracy - has already enlisted the minds, hearts and resources of some of our most advanced thinkers, including Nobel laureate scientists, philosophers, statesmen, celebrities... who are working to create a different kind of society....
The [Eastern mystical] technologies for expanding and transforming personal consciousness, once the secret of an elite, are now generating massive change in every cultural institution - medicine, politics, business, education, religion, and the family. [3]
Also See An Overview of the New Age and The Global Alliance
Eastern mysticism has penetrated every area of Western society. Children’s comic books that once offered Charles Atlas courses in body building now advertise courses in mind power, which teach how to control the minds of others. TV series such as "Kung Fu," "Highway to Heaven," and "Touched by an Angel," and TV cartoons by the dozens ("Mutant Ninja Turtles," "Power Rangers, Masters of the Universe," etc.) have made Eastern mysticism the normal way of thinking. Across America, YMCAs offer classes in yoga, and churches of all denominations follow the trend. According to Palaniswami, the editor of Hinduism Today, yoga and other forms of Eastern meditation "were too sophisticated for public consumption 30 years ago, but today they’re the hottest item on the shelf." [4]. [See Yoga and The Christian]
Universities now offer courses in Yoga Psychology; Metaphysics, Hatha Yoga, The Origins of Salem Witchcraft, Eckankar, Tarot Card Workshops, Psychic Development and Techniques, Astrology, Self-Awareness Through Self-Hypnosis, and similar subjects. A Washington Post article about a Maryland grammar school was titled "Meditation Comes to the Classroom," [5] while the Seattle Times reported that inmates at Walla Walla State Penitentiary were learning "stress management" through the regular practice of Hatha Yoga. [6] A nationally syndicated columnist wrote:
Instead of singing hymns, they’re sitting in the lotus position chanting "omm" at America’s oldest school of theology [Harvard Divinity School].
The Nave’s [school paper] calendar reminds students that March 20 is... "a special time to listen to the Buddha and meditate on the perfection of enlightenment...." There’s no mention of Palm Sunday or Passover, reflecting their insignificance at an institution where all is venerated, save Western religion....
Harvard… is an elite institution, training the next generation of mainline church leadership. Its degrees are passports to power in the Protestant establishment....
Will the last graduating Christian please collect the Bibles and turn out the lights? [7]
The Evangelists of Eastern Mysticism
How did this transformation overtake a "Christian" America? The drug movement in the ’60s and ’70s opened the West to the cosmic gospel of the invading Eastern gurus. Most Westerners find it difficult to think of these smiling and bowing yogis, swamis, and lamas as missionaries determined to win us with their mystic gospel. It comes as a great surprise that the largest missionary organization in the world is not Christian but Hindu - India’s Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP).
Yes, missionary organization. Twenty years ago, in January 1979, at the VHP-sponsored second "World Congress on Hinduism" in Allahabad, India (attended by about 60,000 delegates from around the world), a speaker declared, "Our mission in the West has been crowned with fantastic success. Hinduism is becoming the dominant world religion and the end of Christianity has come near." By law, no Christian missionary activity is allowed among Hindus in India, but Hindus aggressively evangelize the West, and with great success. Among the primary goals listed in VHP’s constitution are the following:
To establish an order of missionaries, both lay and initiate, [for] the purpose of propagating dynamic Hinduism representing... various faiths and denominations, including Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Lingayats, etc. and to open, manage or assist seminaries or centers for spiritual principles and practices of Hinduism... in all parts of the world…. [8]
Interestingly, the 1979 World Hindu Conference was chaired by the Dalai Lama, who publicly proclaims tolerance for all religions. Hinduism and Buddhism infiltrate our society, government, and even public schools as science, while Christianity is banned as a religion.
Of all the gurus who have come to the West, none has done more to establish the credibility of Eastern mysticism than Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader in exile of Tibet’s Gelugpa, or Yellow sect, of Mahayana Buddhism. He claims to be the fourteenth reincarnation of the original Dalai Lama, a god on earth with the power to initiate others into their own godhood. Here we have again the persistent occult theme of human deification echoing the serpent’s lie in the Garden of Eden. [See Footnote on The Dalai Lama]
A Worldwide Deceit
As part of the most massive missionary effort in history - aimed directly against Christianity - every guru who has come to the West (from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh to Baba Muktananda) was sent here by his guru specifically to win converts to the Hindu/Buddhist pantheistic faith. Yogananda, for example, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) and one of the forerunners of this massive evangelism campaign, personally initiated more than 100,000 disciples into kriya yoga. Maharishi has initiated millions into his TM brand of yoga. Yet the missionaries from the East all protest that they are teaching the science of yoga, health, and higher states of consciousness, not religion.
We can register no legitimate complaint against those who seek to persuade others of what they sincerely believe to be important truth. However, they should not lie about their product or their purpose. And that is exactly what the gurus from the East have done. "Yoga" is a Sanskrit word [yuj]meaning to "yoke," and its aim is to yoke with the Hindu concept of God through self-realization: to achieve the enlightenment of realizing that atman, the individual soul, is identical with Brahman, the universal soul - i.e., that one’s true self is God. Yet yoga instructors solemnly swear that yoga has nothing to do with religion, when in fact it is the very heart of Hinduism.
InPlainSite.org Note: A question asked and answered on The Divine Life Society [Sivananda Ashram Rishikesh, India] ...Sadhaka : Will you please explain the meaning, nature and purpose of Yoga? Gurudev : The word Yoga comes from the Sanskrit root 'yuj' which means 'to join'. Yoga is the science that teaches us the method of uniting the individual soul with the Supreme Soul, of merging the individual will in the Cosmic Will. To live in God, to commune with God is Yoga. Yoga is life in God, life in perfection, peace, lasting happiness and eternal Bliss. Life in God brings eternal Bliss. Yoga shows you the way, unites you with God, and makes you perfect and Immortal. [http://www.sivanandaonline.org/public_html/?cmd=displaysection§ion_id=356]
The same site also says... “Kundalini can be awakened by attaining perfection of certain hatha yoga postures called asanas ...” [Shaktipat Initiation.. http://shaktipatinitiation.blogspot.com/
The magnitude of the deceit is comparable to the Pope claiming that, instead of heading a church, he represents a group of non-religious scientists. India banned foreign missionaries shortly after it gained independence. All the while, India’s missionaries travel the world converting millions to Hinduism and Buddhism while protesting their tolerance for all religions and denying the religious nature of their mission.
There has been much criticism, some of it no doubt justified, of Western missionaries who have gone to Africa, China, and India with the gospel of Jesus Christ and attempted to westernize other cultures. That goal cannot be justified. Western culture is not Christianity. In fairness, however, we must ask why there has been little or no criticism of Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim missionaries who have aggressively pushed their religion and way of life upon an unsuspecting Western world?
Eastern Mysticism -- Part Two
Life is an Illusion - So Make Up Your Own!
Much credit for bringing Eastern mysticism into the West goes to Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. As a young girl, psychologist Jean Houston was heavily influenced by de Chardin. [9] Houston claims that the techniques she teaches for activating the imagination open the person to a new reality. Echoing de Chardin’s Eastern mysticism, she claims that this alternate reality is more real than the "cultural trance," known as "normal waking consciousness... in which we all dream the same dream, more or less, and call it: reality." [10]
InPlainSite.org Note Jean Houston is the spiritual mentor of Lauren Artress .. the Episcopal priest who runs the Labyrinth Project at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.
Carl Jung wrote introductions to some of the first Western editions of books on yoga and Eastern mysticism. Reflecting the Hindu view that life is but a dream, Jung was obsessed with dreams and their interpretation. In one dream he saw himself in yogic meditation representing his "unconscious prenatal wholeness...." In commenting upon the dream, Jung declared:
In the opinion of the "other side" [i.e., the communicating spirit guides] our unconscious existence is the real one and our conscious world a kind of illusion... which seems a reality as long as we are in it. It is clear that this state of affairs resembles very closely the Oriental conception of Maya. [11]
Jung claimed to have received multiple communications from the "other side." The messages he received were consistent with the vast majority of such communications - proving again a common source and identifying it beyond dispute. Over and over, Eastern mysticism rears its serpentine head. Ramtha’s message is no exception: "You are God, and therefore capable of creating any reality you desire, if not now, then in a later incarnation." [12] Again it is Hinduism’s belief that all is maya, or illusion. Houston’s goal is to deliver us from this common delusion so that "... we will one day look back astounded at the impoverished world of consciousness we once shared, and supposed to be the real world - our officially defined and defended ‘reality.’" [13] [Also See The Teaching Of The Spirits]
Yoga was developed to escape from this unreal world of time and sense and to reach moksha, the Hindu heaven. With its breathing exercises and limbering-up positions, yoga is promoted in the West for enhancing health and better living - but in the East it is understood to be a way of dying. Yogis claim the ability to survive on almost no oxygen and to remain motionless for hours, free of the "illusion" of this life.
The Deceit and Danger of the "Science of Yoga"
In a classic flimflam, one of the world’s most ancient religious practices is being sold as the "science of yoga." The average Westerner is not aware that yoga was introduced by Lord Krishna in the Bhaghavad  Gita as the sure way to Hindu heaven, or that Shiva (one of the most feared Hindu deities) is addressed as Yogeshwara, or Lord of Yoga.
InPlainSite.org Note: Shiva... The Destroyer is often depicted in the classic Yoga pose, and usually with one or more snakes draped around his body.
That yoga is Hinduism is usually denied. Hearing occasional references to Patanjali’s second-century B.C. Yoga Sutras, the Westerner assumes that Patanjali was an early Indian Plato or Einstein. In fact, Hindus regard him as one of their greatest religious leaders. Thinking they are buying health, millions are unwittingly getting involved in Hinduism. Believing they are being taught scientific practices, yoga enthusiasts are led unaware into Eastern religious beliefs and rituals which are designed to open them to the occult.
Hatha Yoga, known as physical yoga, is alleged to be devoid of the mysticism in other forms. Not so. Yoga is yoga, and all of the positions and breathing exercises are specifically designed for yoking with Brahman, the universal All of Hinduism. If the goal is physical fitness, one should adopt an exercise program designed to that end, not one designed for reaching godhood. In one of the most authoritative Hatha Yoga texts, the fifteenth century Hathayoga-Pradipika, Svatmarama lists Lord Shiva (known by Hindus as "The Destroyer") as the first Hatha Yoga teacher. No wonder yoga can be so destructive!
The average yoga instructor does not mention the many warnings contained in ancient texts that even "Hatha Yoga is a dangerous tool." [14] In an unusually frank interview in Yoga Journal, Ken Wilber (practicing mystic and yoga enthusiast, often called today’s "Einstein of consciousness") warns that any form of Eastern meditation, even done "correctly," involves "a whole series of deaths and rebirths; extraordinary conflicts and stresses... some very rough and frightening times." [15]
David Pursglove, a therapist and transpersonal counselor for 25 years, lists some of the "transpersonal crises" common to people who get involved in Eastern meditation:
Frightening ESP and other parapsychological occurrences… [spontaneous] out-of-body experiences or accurate precognitive "takes"… profound psychological encounter with death and subsequent rebirth... the awakening of the serpent power (Kundalini)... energy streaming up the spine, tremors, spasms and sometimes violent shaking and twisting.... [16]
"Such experiences," admits the Brain/Mind Bulletin, "are common among people involved in Yoga, [Eastern] meditation and other [pagan] spiritual disciplines...." [17]
Transcendental Trickery
Transcendental Meditation (TM), one of the most popular forms of yoga in the West, exemplifies the deliberate misrepresentation that characterizes so much of today’s New Age scene. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at first introduced TM to the West as a Hindu religious practice. He openly taught that its purpose was to produce "a legendary substance called soma in the meditator’s body so the gods of the Hindu pantheon could be fed and awakened." [18] But when TM was excluded from public schools and government funding as a religious practice, Maharishi quickly deleted all reference to religion and began presenting TM as pure science. [See Transcendental Meditation]
Such deliberate deceit says much about Maharishi’s integrity. Nothing was changed except the labels. This deception has been furthered by the many celebrities, who have practiced and then enthusiastically promoted TM. Subsequent advertisements dishonestly declared that TM "is not a religion, not a philosophy, not yoga... involves no change of belief system...." In fact, TM involves all of these. According to Kropinski, Maharishi told those on the inside:
It doesn’t matter if you lie teaching people... [because] TM is the ultimate, absolute spiritual authority on the face of this Earth.
[TMers] are the only teachers and upholders of genuine spiritual tradition.... They’re running the universe.
They are controlling the gods through the soma sacrifice. [19]
Beachheads of Occult Invasion
The proliferating centers where yoga and other forms of Eastern meditation are taught become focal points of the occult invasion. Channeled messages describe such centers as "the first beachheads secured by the approaching forces... to prepare the human species for its collective awakening." [20] This so-called "awakening" into "higher consciousness" is actually the demonization of mankind in preparation for Antichrist and his world religion.
It is astonishing that millions of otherwise intelligent and well-educated Westerners can be so easily persuaded to accept as "truth" information transmitted by mysterious entities whom they are unable to identify. Yet this fact offers further proof of the Genesis account of Satan’s seduction of Eve and confirms the universal appeal of his lies.
The practice of yoga and other forms of Eastern meditation creates the same altered state as do drugs, hypnosis, drumming, dancing, visualization, and other shamanic techniques now so widely used in the West. The door is opened to demonic seduction of mankind. Incredibly, yoga is now widely practiced and promoted within the church. [Also See Drumming Up Jesus]
Eastern Mysticism -- Part Three
Reincarnation
Yoga was developed as an escape from endless reincarnations. The theory of reincarnation is continually promoted by the deceiving spirits "channeling" to mankind. In Eastern mysticism, as in Christian Science, death is an illusion. Existence follows an endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth through reincarnation. There is no such thing as resurrection, but a "transmigration of souls" into one body after another.
Reincarnation has become a widely accepted belief in the West to replace the biblical declaration that it is "appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). In the East, however, reincarnation is viewed as a means of punishment. Gandhi called it "a burden too great to bear" - returning to this life of suffering and disappointment, spinning forever upon a never-ending "wheel of reincarnation"!
One cannot believe in both reincarnation and resurrection. Each new reincarnation leaves one more body in the grave, overcome by death. In contrast, the Bible promises complete victory over death through Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection for our sins. Jesus Christ was resurrected, not reincarnated. The Antichrist, lacking the marks of Calvary, will likely claim to be the latest reincarnation of the "Christ spirit." [See Section on The Resurrection]
Professing Christians go to astonishing lengths in attempting to reconcile the anti-Christian doctrine of reincarnation with the Bible and even to find it taught there. Elijah is a favorite because "Malachi prophesies the return of Elijah, and Jesus says John the Baptist is Elijah returned." 21 Yet Elijah was taken to heaven without dying and appeared with Moses in conversation with Jesus (Matthew 17:3), so he could not have been reincarnated into John the Baptist’s body, as it is claimed. Clearly, John the Baptist came "in the spirit and power" of Elijah (Luke 1:17), not as Elijah himself.
Some who teach reincarnation pose as born-again Christians. Reincarnationist Herbert Bruce Puryear says, "I love Jesus, and I know Him as my personal Savior. [22] Yet he admits that "most of Christian theology must be reexamined and rewritten in the light of this new truth." It is not surprising that Puryear claims to have experienced in prayer "the radiant white light" [23] so common in the occult. [See Section on Reincarnation]
Reincarnation and Scientific Evidence
Yes, some scientific evidence is claimed for reincarnation. There are the studies of clinical psychologist Helen Wambach. She hypnotically regressed hundreds of subjects into "past lives" and found them to be more than 99 percent accurate in descriptions of life and surroundings. Hypnosis, however, involves a highly suggestible state in which one is controlled by the hypnotist. It is entirely reasonable to believe that a demon would take advantage of this passive state to interject its influence as well. Hypnosis is one of the oldest occult practices. No one should ever submit to hypnosis.
[See Hypnosis.. An article that attempts a Christian assessment of hypnosis in the medical context and deals briefly with the use of hypnosis for entertainment].
Another respected researcher in this area is psychiatrist Ian Stevenson. He has investigated and documented a number of cases of young children who, in the process of spontaneously expressing memories of past lives, gave so much factual data that there seemed to be no other explanation except reincarnation. Once again, of course, a demon could have implanted such "memories" of past places and events.
Yet in the scientific evaluation of the data, the possibility of demonic interference in an altered state is not even considered. Nor is there any "scientific" way to know whether or not a demon was involved. Yet that possibility alone is sufficient to undermine what few examples reincarnationists can offer. Reincarnation can be refuted by simple logic, but the Bible, which contradicts reincarnation, is fully verifiable in every point. One cannot believe in both the Bible and reincarnation.
Amoral, Senseless, and Hopeless
Reincarnation is amoral, senseless, and hopeless. It is amoral because it perpetuates evil. If a husband beats his wife, the cause-and-effect law of karma will require him to be reincarnated in his next life as a wife who is beaten by her husband. That husband will have to return in his next life as a wife beaten by her husband and so forth endlessly. The perpetrator of each crime must become the victim of the same crime, thus necessitating another crime, the perpetrator of which must in turn become a subsequent victim at the hands of yet another criminal, ad infinitum. [See Section on Reincarnation]
Reincarnation is also senseless because no one recalls the many past lives he or she has supposedly lived nor the previous mistakes and lessons supposedly learned. What then is the point of living again and again, only to bear the burden of bad karma due to misdeeds one can neither remember nor correct? It is argued that subconsciously we have such memories and are thus benefiting at an unconscious level. If that were true, we should see evidence that mankind has gradually progressed morally. Obviously, this is not the case.
Evolution, the essential partner of reincarnation, claims that man is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of gradual advancement to an ever-higher order of being. The Bible, however, says that man is degenerating into ever-more-immoral behavior. One need only read the daily papers and study history to know which of these opposing views is correct. [See Section on Evolution]
That reincarnation is also hopeless follows logically. The karma built up in the present life must be worked off in a future reincarnation. In that process more karma is accumulated, which must be worked off in a subsequent life, and so it continues endlessly. The cycle offers no release. As for escaping through yoga, there is no explanation of how that practice could abrogate the immutable law of karma nor any proof that anyone has ever effected such an escape.
A further moral dilemma is presented. Suffering by an individual could never make right his past misdeeds. Nor would living a perfect life in the future (even if that were possible) make up for past wrongs. Somehow the penalty must be paid or God Himself could not forgive us.
In Christianity alone the penalty for breaking God’s laws is paid by God, who became a man through the virgin birth. He never ceased to be God and will never cease to be man. Jesus Christ is the one and only God-man, who as perfect and sinless could represent the human race, taking the penalty it deserved, and could fully pay that penalty. Only on that basis can pardon justly be offered to all who repent and receive Christ as Savior. [See Salvation]
What a difference there is between an impersonal law of karma which can only perpetuate evil and suffering, and the personal God who loves us so much that He became one of us to pay the penalty we deserved, which alone could end evil and suffering!
Eastern Mysticism -- Part Four
The New Panacea: Eastern "Meditation"
Harvard University has long been among the leaders in promoting the occult through psychic research. One of its projects involved experimentation with Buddhist monks’ psychic powers. The results have been convincing. For example, a Harvard film crew, dressed for the Arctic, set out in zero-degree-Fahrenheit weather from a 17,000-foot-elevation monastery, accompanying ten monks wearing only sandals and light cotton wraparound cloths. At 19,000 feet, on a rocky cliff side ledge, "the monks took off their sandals and squatted down on their haunches... leaned forward, put their heads on the ground, and draped the light cotton wrappings over their bodies." Harvard professor Herbert Benson reported:
In this position, being essentially naked, they spent the entire night practicing a special type of gTum-mo meditation called Repeu.... A light snow drifted down over them during the early morning hours.
No ordinary person could have endured these conditions. We’re sure of that. Yet the monks… simply remained quietly in their meditative positions for about eight consecutive hours....
Finally, at the sounding of a small horn, they stood up, shook the snow off their backs, put their sandals on and calmly walked back down the mountain again." [24]
Paramahansa Yogananda attempted to explain such amazing abilities of certain monks: "Lord Krishna pointed out the holy science by which the yogi may master his body and convert it, at will, into pure energy. The possibility of this yogic feat is not beyond the theoretical comprehension of modern scientists, pioneers in an atomic age. All matter has been proved to be reducible to energy." [25]
In fact, there is no evidence that any atomic conversion of any part of a yogi’s body takes place. If that were the case, yogis would not need to eat, drink, or sleep for days at a time and could duplicate the feats of Superman. Yogis have definite limitations far below the level of atomic energy. The possessing demon is obviously limited in what it can manifest through a human body.
The scientists at Harvard and elsewhere accumulate data which show that something paranormal is going on. But science cannot explain it because the source behind psychic power is not atomic but demonic, a source which science can neither identify nor evaluate. Eastern meditation, having been credited with miraculous power, has become increasingly popular in the West. It is another door into the occult.
The Old "Shell-Game Switch"
It is essential to understand the vastly different meanings given to the word "meditation" in the West and in the East. Meditation in the West has always been synonymous with contemplation, or thinking deeply about some thing. Christian meditation involves seeking deeper insights into God’s Word (Psalm 1:2), pondering God Himself (Psalm 63:6), reflecting upon God’s works (Psalm 77:12), and considering what our responsibility is and what our response should be (1 Timothy 4:15).
In contrast, Eastern meditation involves ceasing to think, and emptying the mind. It is a prelude to possession. Through repeating over and over a word or phrase (a mantra) or focusing on a candle or upon one’s breathing, the mind goes blank and one enters an altered state of consciousness. An Eastern meditation instructor tries to explain this induced state as natural:
If you’re new to [Eastern] meditation, remember that all of us naturally meditate. We have ordinary experiences... that regularly put us in a meditative state: watching the sun as it sets, listening to soothing music, or just being at the water’s edge.
Our mind slows down, our body relaxes, and our consciousness changes. Our brain shifts into the slower frequency known as the alpha state. And that’s it - we are meditating. [26]
For More Information See Contemplative Prayer
What he describes is, of course, the opposite of the contemplation which has always comprised meditation in the West. But the switch has been made and the West has taken the bait. Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson, who rejected Christianity, explains what he found in Eastern mysticism:
What appealed to me about Zen was its emphasis on clearing the mind…. One of the fundamental tools for doing that is a form of sitting meditation known as zazen. The form of zazen I practice involves sitting completely still on a cushion with eyes open but directed downward and focusing attention on the breath…. Over time your thoughts calm down… and you experience moments of just being without your mind getting in the way… keeping your mind open and directing it at nothing. [27]
Buddhism offered Jackson an escape from the God of the Bible whom, as a young boy, he once feared and desired to please. Says John Daido Loori, abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York: "Buddhism is a… religion without a God or (depending on the school) an afterlife…. [It is] the search for the nature of the self, which ends in the realization that there is no self, that all the beings and objects… are manifestations of the same underlying reality." [28]
The Delusion of Cosmic/Unity Consciousness
The feeling of being part of everything else in the universe is known as "unity" or "cosmic" consciousness. It is common on a drug high and very appealing to those who have rejected a personal Creator. In contrast to the delusion of a mystical union with an impersonal universe, God’s love is experienced by Christians in a personal relationship with him.
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, commander of Apollo 14, had the mystical experience of cosmic consciousness on his return trip from the moon. So profoundly was he affected that he abandoned the outer space program to explore inner space. He described that experience and the transformation it made in his life in his book THE WAY OF THE EXPLORER: An Apollo Astronaut’s Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds:
It wasn’t until after we had made rendezvous… and were hurtling earthward… that I had time to relax in weightlessness and contemplate that blue jewel-like home planet suspended in the velvety blackness…. [I felt] an overwhelming sense of universal connectedness… an ecstasy of unity.
It occurred to me that the molecules of my body and the molecules of the spacecraft itself were manufactured long ago in the furnace of one of the ancient stars...
We needed something new in our lives, revised notions concerning reality and truth. Our beliefs were, and still are, in crisis. [29]
What do the material molecules of one’s body, a spacecraft, and stars have in common with one’s soul and spirit? To fail to distinguish between inanimate matter and consciousness and personality is a delusion of colossal proportions.
The irrationality of Mitchell’s experience was overlooked in his delight at having achieved the Hindu’s "savikalpa samadhi - a recognition of the unity of things while still perceiving them as separate." [30] Many people within the Christian church are having equally powerful mystical experiences which have brought them into occult delusion and bondage.
Like Phil Jackson, Edgar Mitchell was raised in a devout Christian home. Jackson’s was Pentecostal, Mitchell’s was Southern Baptist. Neither man understood true Christianity, and thus each rejected his own misconceptions rather than the truth.
Eastern Mysticism -- Part Five
Shaktipat and the Charismatics
Professor Michael Ray of the Stanford Graduate School of Business came to a new view of human potential and its application to the business world after being introduced by his psychotherapist to the Siddha Yoga of Swami Muktananda. At that time the Swami (since deceased) was the guru to many business leaders and Hollywood stars. Ray’s life was transformed when an assistant to Muktananda ran a peacock feather across the "third eye" in the center of his forehead. Says Ray:
I saw a bolt of lightning, like a pyramid of light. I began literally bouncing off the floor and trembling. I cried. I felt tremendous energy, love, and joy.
What I had experienced, I later learned, had been shaktipat, or spiritual awakening of kundalini energy inside me [the serpent force coiled at the base of the spine and awaiting release in an altered state]…. [31]
As we shall see, Ray’s experience was much like that of thousands of charismatics who are convinced they have received a "special touch from the Holy Spirit" at a John Wimber or Benny Hinn "miracle" service or at the former Toronto Airport Vineyard, or perhaps from the worldwide "revival" flowing out of the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida, or elsewhere. One cannot escape the similarity between shaktipat and what the charismatics, both Catholic and Protestant, called being slain in the Spirit."
See Sections Slain in the Spirit and The Toronto “Blessing”
At the touch of the evangelist, usually on the forehead, the subject falls backward into the arms of "catchers" standing by. In this trancelike state he has a variety of occult experiences, from flashes of light to a sense of well-being and love; from uncontrollable weeping or laughter and violent shaking to "speaking in tongues." It was evangelist and healer Kathryn Kuhlman who made "slaying in the Spirit" a household term among charismatics in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Televangelist Benny Hinn claims to be Kuhlman’s successor, having picked up "the anointing," which he says still lingers at her grave.
As a further example of the similarity between "slaying in the Spirit" and shaktipat, consider what happened to Gerald Jampolsky. He has become famous for his use of A Course in Miracles in his psychiatric practice and in his books and lectures around the world. See A Course in Miracles. Jampolsky believes he was prepared for the message of the Course through shaktipat, administered by Muktananda:
It seemed as though I had stepped out of my body and was looking down upon it. I saw colors whose depth and brilliance were beyond anything I had ever imagined.
I began to talk in tongues. A beautiful beam of light came into the room and… I was filled with an awareness of love unlike anything I had known before.
And when I [later] started reading the Course, I heard a voice within say, "Physician, heal thyself; this is your way home," and there was a complete feeling of oneness with God and the Universe. [32]
As a result of such mystical experiences, Ray and Jampolsky and thousands like them have adopted the views of Eastern mysticism. We are in the midst of an occult invasion.
Eastern Mysticism and Ecumenism
Many Christians assure themselves that there is real virtue in trying to see all the good they can in everyone and that in so doing they are showing Christ’s love. After all, isn’t love the most important virtue (1 Corinthians 13)? But love is meaningless without truth. Showing the influence of Eastern mysticism, a recent poll revealed that 71 percent of Americans, 64 percent of those who claim to be "born-again," and 40 percent of self-described evangelicals do not believe in absolute truth.
That denial of God’s truth is promoted in all communications from entities claiming to be spirits of the dead, Ascended Masters, space brothers, "Jesus," or whoever is most appealing to the particular recipient. Judith Skutch, the publisher of A Course in Miracles, attests to the fact that "the same perennial philosophy or ancient wisdom" is expressed consistently through "different voices." [33]The message of the 500,000-word A Course in Miracles is no exception. Dictated to an atheistic psychologist by "Jesus," the Course reflects the same promotion of Eastern mysticism that Edgar Mitchell embraced on his moon journey:
The world you made… is only in the mind of its maker… by recognizing [this] you gain control over it…. The oneness of the Creator and the creation is your wholeness… your limitless power… it is what you are.
God would never decide against you, or He would be deciding against Himself….
Forgiveness… does not pardon sins… it sees there was no sin.
All guilt is solely an invention of your mind… in understanding this you are saved… how simple is salvation! It is merely a statement of your true identity.
The lie is so obvious that it requires no explanation. Every child has conscience enough to know that he is morally accountable for his deeds. Yet the lie is so appealing that intelligent adults by the millions embrace it in their desperate flight from truth and God. See A Course in Miracles
Embracing the Wildest Tales
It can hardly be coincidence that "Ramtha," who channels through J. Z. Knight, preaches the same cosmic gospel from the East. Those who have rejected the Bible as "myth" turn right around and swallow the wildest tales - and there is none wilder than Ramtha’s. [Also See Channeling and The Teaching of The Spirits]
Having allegedly lived in mythical Atlantis 35,000 years ago and having "ascended into the Seventh Heaven, where he and God became one… [Ramtha] is now part of an ‘unseen brotherhood’ of super beings who love us and hear our prayers." [34] The top business leaders of the world accepted Napoleon Hill’s story of a Temple of Wisdom run by a school of Masters on the astral plane, so why not Ramtha’s delusion as well? Indeed, Ramtha’s followers include some of America’s brightest and most highly educated. [See Napolean Hill and The Council of Thirty Three]
Ramtha’s teachings even influenced "managers and executives of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) whose decision-making and judgments have the greatest impact on the agency…." Ramtha’s influence came through a stress management course for FAA executives over a period of years at a cost of 1.4 million dollars to taxpayers. The bizarre training, which resulted in lawsuits against the FAA, was given by a California psychologist who is reportedly a follower of Ramtha and has even conversed with him. [35] The amoral nature of the training and its relation to the rejection of sin and absolute truth reflects Ramtha’s blatantly anti-Christian teachings, which echo to a large extent A Course in Miracles and have been summarized as follows:
God is neither good nor bad…. He is entirely without morals and non-judgmental. There are no divine decrees. Is-ness is his only business. Hell and Satan are the "vile inventions" of Christianity, a product of "your insidious Book [the Bible]," which Ramtha advises his listeners not to read.
There is no such thing as evil. Nothing you can do, not even murder, is wrong…. I AM… "does not even have the ability to judge you." There is no forgiveness of sins because there are no sins to forgive.
Every vile and wretched thing you do "broadens your understanding. If you want to do any one thing, regardless of what it is, it would not be wise to go against that feeling….
"Everyone… whether he is starving, or crippled… has chosen his experience for the purpose of gaining from it…." Why condemn the Holocaust? Every murdered Jew chose to be killed, and Hitler was merely undergoing a learning experience. [36]
India, Tibet, Burma, Sri Lanka, and other countries where Eastern mysticism has been practiced for thousands of years are among the poorest countries in the world and the most blinded by superstition. Yet Westerners, having rejected the Bible, are looking for enlightenment in the very Eastern religions which destroyed and impoverish these countries.
In one of her rare accurate insights, the late psychic Jeanne Dixon foresaw this massive turning to the East. The story is reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. Dixon relates how the serpent crawled up on her bed and wrapped itself around her:
Its eyes were gazed fixed toward the East…. The serpent turned its head and our eyes met. Its eyes reflected all the wisdom and suffering of the ages, but also an unspoken plea for trust and understanding. It moved its head again, facing the East one more, as if to tell me that I must look to the East for wisdom and understanding. Somehow I sensed that it was conveying to me that if my trust and faith in it were great enough, I would be able to partake of it unlimited, unearthly wisdom. The serpent looked back, and while I gazed deeply into its eyes, it withdrew and vanished. [37]
Later reflection convinced Dixon that this serpent had been Satan appearing to her and that he was going to deceive the world on a massive scale. [38] Who better would know the role that Eastern mysticism would play than the very instigator of that delusion! Yet Dixon though she saw in the serpent’s eyes "all the wisdom and suffering of the ages." How seductive is the occult invasion!
Notes:
1. Cited in Christianity Today, April 8, 1991, p. 64.
2. Copy of confidential report on file.
3. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s (J. P. Tarcher, 1980), inside jacket.
4. Cited in Christianity Today, April 8, 1991, p. 64.
5. Washington Post, May 10, 1990.
6. Seattle Times, April 29, 1990.
7. Don Feder, "’Omm’ echoes from Harvard," in Washington Times, April 4, 1994.
8. Johannes Aagaard, "Hinduism’s World Mission," in Update, September 1992
9 Jean Houston, Life Force: The Psycho-Historical Recovery of the Self (Quest Books, 1993), pp. 254-56.
10 Ibid., pp. 211-42.
11 C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Pantheon Books, 1963), pp. 323-24.
12 "The World According to Ram," The Utne Reader, July/Aug. 1988, p. 80 abridged from Martin Gardner, The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher (Prometheus Books, 1988)
13 Robert Masters and Jean Houston, Mind Games (Dell Publishing, 1972), pp. 13, 229-30; see also Houston, Life Force.
14 Georg Feuerstein, "A Brief History of Hatha Yoga, Part II," in Yoga Journal, September/October 1987, p. 67.
15 Catherine Ingram, "Ken Wilber: The Pundit of Transpersonal Psychology," in Yoga Journal, September/October 1987, p. 43.
16 Naomi Steinfeld, "Passages In: For People in Spiritual Crisis," In AHP Perspective, February 1986, p. 9
17 Brain/Mind Bulletin, July 12, 1982, p. 3
18 Art Kunkin, "Transcendental Meditation on Trial, Part Two," in Whole Life Monthly, September 1987, pp. 14, 17.
19 Ibid., pp. 15-17.
20 Ken Carey, The Starseed Transmissions: Living in the Post-Historic World (Harper Collins, 1991), pp. 54-55.
21 Herbert Bruce Puryear, Why Jesus Taught Reincarnation: A Better News Gospel (New Paradigm Press, 1992), p. xii.
22 Ibid., p. v.
23 Ibid., pp. v, xii.
24 Herbert Benson with William Proctor, Your Maximum Mind (Random House, 1987), pp. 16-22.
25 Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (Self Realization Fellowship, 1971), p. 489.
26 Jonathan Ellis, "Practicing Meditation: Basic Techniques to Improve Your Health and Well-Being," in Deepak Chopra’s Infinite Possibilities for Body, Mind and Soul, October 1996, p. 4.
27 Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty, Sacred Hoops (Hyperion, 1995), p. 173.
28 Jerry Adler, "800,000 Hands Clapping," in Newsweek, June 13, 1994, p. 46.
28 Edgar Mitchell with Dwight Williams, THE WAY OF THE EXPLORER: An Apollo Astronaut’s Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds (Putnam, 1996), as cited in Brain/Mind, August 1996, p. 4
30 Ibid.
31 Bill Thomson, "Spiritual Values in the Business World," in Yoga Journal, January/February 1988, p. 52.
32 Bill Friedman, Ph.D., "Interview with Gerald Jampolsky, M.D.," in Orange County Resources, p. 3, from Jampolsky’s book, Teach Only Love.
33 Jon Klimo, Channeling (Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1987), p. 149, quoted from Klimo’s interview with Skutch.
34 "The World According to Ram," The Utne Reader, July/Aug. 1988, p. 80.
35 "The Guru and the FAA," in Newsweek, March 6, 1995, p. 32; see also Ruth Larson, "Unethical conduct found in FAA probe," in Washington Times, March 29, 1995, pp. A1, A18.
36 "The World According to Ram," Utne, p. 80.
37 Jeane Dixon with Rene Noorbergen, Jeane Dixon, My Life and Prophecies, Her Own Story As Told to Rene Noorbergen (William Morrow and Company, 1969), pp. 160-161.
38 Ibid., p. 166.
Footnote: The Dalai Lama... Not exactly what he says he is and certainly not what he is popularly made out to be. There is something very sinister behind this smiling ‘Man of Peace”. He believes in and teaches on the coming of the Maitreya.. and has initiated thousands of people into the Kalachakra initiation, part of which is the Shambhala myth which prophecies and promotes, on an ideological basis, a “holy war” (Shambhala war) by Buddhists against non-Buddhists, in which “supremely ferocious warriors will throw down the barbarian hordes” and “eliminate” them. The Kalachakra texts say that the 25th Kalki king will emerge from Shambhala with a huge army to vanquish "Dark Forces" and usher in a worldwide thousand-year Golden Age. And who are these ‘Dark Forces’? Shri Kalachakra I. 154 says “Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mani, Mohammed and the Mahdi” are characterised as the “family of the demonic snakes” See The Dalai Lama
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