Eastern Mysticism ā Part 2
By: Dave Hunt; ©1998 |
Dave Hunt explains how yoga and Transcendental Meditation have been repackaged in an effort to hide their religious content and to make them palatable to a Western audience. |
Contents
Life is an IllusionāSo 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. [1] Houston claims that the techniques she teaches for activating the imagination open the person to a new reality. Echoing de Chardinās Eastern mysticism, she claims that this alternate reality is more real than the ācultural trance,ā known as ānormal waking conĀsciousness⦠in which we all dream the same dream, more or less, and call it: reality.ā [2]
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 āunconscious prenatal wholenessā¦.ā In commenting upon the dream, Jung declared:
- In the opinion of the āother sideā [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. [3]
Jung claimed to have received multiple communications from the āother side.ā The messages he received were consistent with the vast majority of such communicationsā proving again a common source and identifying it beyond dispute. Over and over, Eastern mysticism rears its serpentine head. Ramthaās message is no exception: āYou are God, and therefore capable of creating any reality you desire, if not now, then in a later incarnaĀtion.ā [4] Again it is Hinduismās belief that all is maya, or illusion. Houstonās goal is to deliver us from this common delusion so that ā⦠we will one day look back astounded at the imĀpoverished world of consciousness we once shared, and supposed to be the real worldā our officially defined and defended āreality.āā [5]
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 livingābut in the East it is underĀstood 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 āillusionā of this life.
The Deceit and Danger of the āScience of Yogaā
In a classic flimflam, one of the worldās most ancient religious practices is being sold as the āscience of yoga.ā The average Westerner is not aware that yoga was introduced by Lord Krishna in the Baghavad 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.
That yoga is Hinduism is usually denied. Hearing occasional references to Patanjaliās 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 specifiĀcally 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 āThe Destroyerā) 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 āHatha Yoga is a dangerous tool.ā [6] In an unusually frank interview in Yoga Journal, Ken Wilber (practicing mystic and yoga enthusiast, often called todayās āEinstein of consciousnessā) warns that any form of Eastern meditation, even done ācorrectly,ā involves āa whole series of deaths and rebirths; extraordinary conflicts and stresses⦠some very rough and frightening times.ā [7]
David Pursglove, a therapist and transpersonal counselor for 25 years, lists some of the ātranspersonal crisesā common to people who get involved in Eastern meditation:
- Frightening ESP and other parapsychological occurrences⦠[spontaneous] out-of-body experiences or accurate precognitive ātakesā⦠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 twistingā¦. [8]
āSuch experiences,ā admits the Brain/Mind Bulletin, āare common among people inĀvolved in Yoga, [Eastern] meditation and other [pagan] spiritual disciplinesā¦.ā [9]
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 todayās 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 āa legendary substance called soma in the meditatorās body so the gods of the Hindu pantheon could be fed and awakĀened.ā [10] 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.
Such deliberate deceit says much about Maharishiās 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 āis not a religion, not a philosophy, not yoga⦠involves no change of belief systemā¦.ā In fact, TM involves all of these. According to Kropinski, Maharishi told those on the inside:
- It doesnāt 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 traditionā¦. Theyāre running the universe.
- They are controlling the gods through the soma sacrifice. [11]
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 āthe first beachheads secured by the approaching forces⦠to prepare the human species for its collective awakening.ā [12] This so-called āawakeningā into āhigher consciousnessā 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 ātruthā information transmitted by mysterious entities whom they are unable to identify. Yet this fact offers further proof of the Genesis account of Satanās 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 techĀniques now so widely used in the West. The door is opened to demonic seduction of manĀkind. Incredibly, yoga is now widely practiced and promoted within the church.
Notes
- ā Jean Houston, Life Force: The Psycho-Historical Recovery of the Self (Quest Books, 1993), pp. 254-56.
- ā Ibid., pp. 211-42.
- ā C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Pantheon Books, 1963), pp. 323-24.
- ā āThe World According to Ram,ā The Utne Reader, July/Aug. 1988, p. 80 abridged from Martin Gardner, The New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher (Prometheus Books, 1988)
- ā Robert Masters and Jean Houston, Mind Games (Dell Publishing, 1972), pp. 13, 229-30; see also Houston, Life Force.
- ā Georg Feuerstein, āA Brief History of Hatha Yoga, Part II,ā in Yoga Journal, September/ October 1987, p. 67.
- ā Catherine Ingram, āKen Wilber: The Pundit of Transpersonal Psychology,ā in Yoga JourĀnal, September/October 1987, p. 43.
- ā Naomi Steinfeld, āPassages In: For People in Spiritual Crisis,ā In AHP Perspective, FebruĀary 1986, p. 9
- ā Brain/Mind Bulletin, July 12, 1982, p. 3
- ā Art Kunkin, āTranscendental Meditation on Trial, Part Two,ā in Whole Life Monthly, SepĀtember 1987, pp. 14, 17.
- ā Ibid., pp. 15-17.
- ā Ken Carey, The Starseed Transmissions: Living in the Post-Historic World (Harper Collins, 1991), pp. 54-55.
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