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We are a Christian Fellowship meeting in North London with a strong interest in teaching the Bible and understanding our time in
the light of Bible prophecy
Yoga and new trends in Christianity
'Kneel to yourself. Honour and worship your own being. God dwells within you
as You.' Swami Muktananda, Hindu guru.
'I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing.' Paul the
Apostle
At a New Age fair, where I was helping with a Christian witness, a young man
told me that he rejected all religious systems. He said that he was
discovering god as a force within himself and so finding harmony with all
created things. When I told him that he was in fact following the ancient
religious system of Hinduism, he said angrily, 'I don't like Christians
telling me what to believe,' and walked off.
This brief conversation highlighted the conflict between the eastern
religious world view now being accepted by many people in the West, and the
biblical world view now being rejected. According to Biblical Christianity
the basic problem of humanity is our sin nature which causes us to break
God's laws and thus separates us from God who is holy. The solution is to
invite God into our lives through repentance and faith in the Gospel
message: that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself through the
sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Before we take this
step of faith, God is outside of our lives. After doing this He is inside
our lives, dwelling within us by the Holy Spirit.
According to Hinduism the problem of humanity is not a moral one, but one of
a lack of knowledge. God already dwells within us, but we do not know this.
We have lost contact with our innate divinity through becoming entangled in
the material world and being limited by our rational finite minds. The
solution is to discover the 'god within' through experiencing a higher state
of expanded consciousness. It was evident from the huge numbers of young
people attending the New Age fair that this idea is far more attractive to
many today than the traditional Christian view. New Age devotee Miriam
Starhawk has written, 'The longing for expanded consciousness has taken many
of us on a spiritual journey to the East and to Hindu, Taoist and Buddhist
concepts. Eastern religions offer a radically different approach to
spirituality than Judeo-Christian traditions. Their goal is not to know God
but to be God. In many ways these philosophies are close to witchcraft.'
(Yoga journal May 1986).
How does Hinduism claim that one can experience an 'altered state of
consciousness' leading to discovery of 'godhood'? Over thousands of years it
has developed numerous techniques to manipulate human consciousness in order
to bring this about. These techniques are called yoga. According to a Hindu
saying, 'There is no Hinduism without yoga and no yoga without Hinduism.'
Yoga therefore can never be seen solely as a means of gaining physical
exercise, reducing stress or as a medical therapy. Some of the methods used
by yoga are as follows:
Hatha yoga: Physical and breathing exercises
Body postures (asanas) are intended to immobilise the whole body. Practising
them will enable the body to become completely motionless and hardened in
fixed positions. Meditation words (mantras) serve to immobilise the
consciousness. Mantras are usually the names of gods used for worship.
Symbolic body movements in yoga are designed to close 'all nine doors of the
body', so that no sense perception from the outside penetrates into the
mind. When all outer sensation is shut off the body itself will create sense
perceptions of an inner kind, an inner light, an inner sound, an inner
smell, and an inner pleasure.
I once talked to a yoga teacher who became a Christian. He said that he did
not teach his pupils anything about Hinduism to begin with, but simply
taught them the techniques of yoga. They then experienced things that they
could not explain and he interpreted their experiences in such a way that
would lead them deeper into the Hindu philosophy of discovering god within
yourself.
Japa Yoga: The mechanical way of salvation
Japa is the repetition or chanting of a mantra which is usually the name of
a Hindu god. One example of this is the Hare Krishna movement which chants
the names of Krishna and Rama. I once had a conversation with a young man
selling Hare Krishna books in London. As soon as I questioned his basic
philosophy he began chanting 'Hare Krishna, Hare Rama' after which all
meaningful discussion became impossible.
Transcendental Meditation (TM), taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, has become
one of the most well known forms of yoga in the West. In TM the meditator
learns first to forget the rest of the world and to concentrate only on the
mantra (usually a short word, a name of a deity such as Ram or OM). Then he
forgets the mantra too, transcending all thoughts and feelings. After
several years of meditation one is said to attain 'god consciousness.' In
this state it is said that one can even communicate with birds, animals,
plants and rocks. The final state is 'unity consciousness', in which the
devotee perceives the oneness of himself with the universe. This is
'liberation.'
Kundalini Yoga: Salvation through the 'Serpent Power'
Hindu psychology teaches that the 'kundalini shakti', or serpent power, lies
at the base of the spine. Normally the kundalini lies dormant in most human
beings, but when it is awakened it arises and begins to travel upwards. In
its journey from the base of the spine to the top of the head it passes
through six psychic centres called 'chakras'. When it passes through a
chakra it kindles various psychic experiences and energies. When it reaches
the sahasrara, or crown, one attains power to perform miracles and to
achieve liberation. The most influential guru who preached kundalini was
Swami Muktananda. He labelled it Siddha (perfect) yoga, for it is the only
yoga in which the aspirant does not have to do anything. He just surrenders
to the guru and the guru's grace does everything for him.
In an article published previously in this magazine (October 1995), Robert
Walker described what takes place in kundalini yoga: 'Few Christians realise
that for thousands of years gurus have operated with gifts of healing,
miracles, gifts of knowledge, and intense displays of spiritual
consciousness as they stretch out and connect with a cosmic power which,
though demonic in origin, is very real. The meetings which mystic Hindu
gurus hold are called 'Dharshan'. At these meetings devotees go forward to
receive spiritual experience from a touch by the open palm of the hand,
often to the forehead, by the guru in what is known as the Shakti Pat or
divine touch. The raising of the spiritual experience is called raising
Khundalini. The practice is quite intricate but is brought on by Shakti Pat
in conjunction with the repetition of mantras or religious phrases and by
holding physical positions for a long time. After a period when the devotee
has reached a certain spiritual elevation they begin to shake, jerk, or hop
or squirm uncontrollably, sometimes breaking into uncontrolled animal noises
or laughter as they reach an ecstatic high. These manifestations are called
'Kriyas'. Devotees sometimes roar like lions and show all kinds of physical
signs during this period. Often devotees move on to higher states of
spiritual consciousness and become inert physically and appear to slip into
an unconsciousness when they lose sense of what is happening around them.
This state is called 'samadhi' and it leads to a deeper spiritual
experience.'
The role of the Guru in granting liberation
The role of the guru in the liberation of a devotee is described differently
in different sects. Generally speaking the guru's task is only to teach the
technique of achieving liberation; the devotee has to achieve liberation by
practicing the technique on his own. Some sects however teach that at
initiation the guru takes the karma (action) of a disciple upon himself.
According to the law of karma, each man has to take the consequences of his
good and bad actions. For this he has to be continually reborn into the
world. But if the guru (out of love and grace) takes the karma, the
necessity of a rebirth vanishes, and one attains deliverance from the
bondage of reincarnation. Therefore it is believed that without the guru's
grace, one cannot be saved. Devotees generally claim blessing, peace and a
sense of union with god as a result of the guru's ministry. Clearly
something supernatural happens, often with miracles taking place. There is
however no lasting blessing, peace or real union with God.
Connections to contemporary Christianity
Today we see that the 'guru' mentality is being accepted by some Christian
groups in which it is required to submit to authoritarian leaders who are
said to provide the believer's connection to God and who cannot be
questioned. Often these leaders' authority is reinforced by demonstrations
of spiritual power causing people to fall to the ground, laugh
uncontrollably and generally behave in a way which resembles an 'altered
state of consciousness.'
An audio tape produced by Hank Hanegraff, author of 'Christianity in
Crisis', features actual recordings of well known American preachers getting
crowds under their spell to repeat, mantra like, the serpent's lie, 'I am
god.' Those who resist or object to these new trends are often ridiculed as
narrow minded legalists or Pharisees, warned that they will miss out on
God's blessings or even threatened with death and damnation.
Christians alert to the deceptions of the end times should not be
intimidated into accepting uncritically all that they are told at highly
charged meetings by preachers with apparently powerful ministries. We should
question any manifestation which is not to be found in scripture, especially
if it connects to yoga and Hinduism. These spiritual forces do not bring
liberation and union with God, but bondage, deception and alienation from
God. In his book 'The Dust of Death' Os Guiness has described the invasion
of eastern religious ideas well;
'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.'
Looking at this issue from a prophetic point of view we see that yoga is a
force which is helping to bring together religious devotees of different
backgrounds, since its techniques can be superimposed on any religious
system including nominal Christianity and Islam. As such it is helping to
unite the religious world in the coming one world religion described in
Revelation 17, 'Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and
Abominations of the Earth.' The defence we have against all this is to be
found in a true faith in Jesus as Lord and Saviour, the one way to a true
relationship with God, who has given us the Holy Spirit to guide us into all
Truth.
Information from 'What Yoga really is' by Johannes Aagaard, 'Five paths to
salvation in contemporary guruism' by Vishal Mangalwadi, 'Journey to
Nirvana' by Robert Walker. All available on request.
