Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
—II Tim. 3:7
3961 Some Statistics
The Buddhist sect called “Nichiren Shoshu” had 25,000 followers in the U.S. in 1965. In 1971 they became 200,000. A typical meeting is for all to be seated lotus-fashion, chanting the same words over and over again.
And Transcendental Meditation has 50,000 followers in the U.S. colleges alone.
3962 Yoga Is Anti-Christianity
The foundations of yoga are based on the denial of God. It is atheistic in character. Man must aim at attaining to his eternal “self” through the practice of many exercises in purification. This eternal self (real self) is allegedly a part of the universal or ultimate reality. Yoga calls this process self-realization. Actually, the word yoga has a meaning corresponding to “the mystical union with the universal spirit.”
Therefore, it will be impossible under any circumstances to harmonize yoga and Christianity.
3963 Condensing Yoga Textbook
In the comprehensive work on yoga by Mishra called The Textbook of Yoga Psychology, a few concise statements:
Every bodily organ is related to the soul.
Every person has a physical and spiritual nature which strive with one another for preeminence. A harmony and union of these two natures is to be achieved through psychological exercises.
Man’s eternal self is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.
Man’s eternal self is both transcendent and immanent; it is without beginning and without end, having neither birth nor death. Material things are on a lower level than the mind, the intelligence and the spirit.
Yoga includes all branches of physics and metaphysics. Yoga includes a synthesis of the physical and the metaphysical universes.
Heaven and hell are the products of man’s mind.
Thus the system of yoga stands behind magic, mysticism and occultism.
3964 Death Of Yoga Instructor
Yoga experts and pathologists are still talking about the strange death of Robert Antosczcyk, 29, an Ann Arbor, Michigan, yoga instructor. One day, Antosczcyk said he was going into his room to attempt a state of astral-projection and did not want to be disturbed. Two days later he died. His body was found on the floor of his room in a yoga position used for deep meditation: he was flat on his back, his thumbs between his index and middle fingers.
Friends and relatives say he had been in excellent health. He did not smoke, drink or use drugs, they said. Pathologists were baffled. One theorized that Antosczcyk had gone into such a deep, trance-like meditation that his heart slowed to the point where his brain no longer received enough blood.
3965 Giggling Guru
“The benefits of transcendental meditation may simply be due to the extra sleep a practitioner gets,” University of Washington researchers say.
Two professors at the University of Ottawa buck the current tide and describe transcendental meditation as a cop-out. In their view, some people may become as addicted to meditation as to drugs.
Merv Anderson observes that “the normal gear for the mind of Western man is overdrive. I suggest that’s why a giggling guru from India has been able to turn something called transcendental meditation into a multi-million-dollar success story. Mahariah Mahesh Yogi shows people how to let their minds slip into neutral gear, or what his adherents pretentiously label “cosmic consciousness.””
—Prairie Overcomer
3966 Buddhist Concentration
Here are some Buddhist teachings on how to concentrate:
(1) When your mind wanders, clap your hands tightly; or concentrate on the tip of your nose. Usually awareness of the lower part of your abdomen prevents mind wandering.
(2) If you feel dizzy during meditation, concentrate your mind upon your forehead.
(3) If you feel sick, concentrate your mind upon your toes.
3967 Psychometry
My wife once received a letter from a young girl, to whom she had sent some small gift. It was a simple “Thank You” letter. I did not know the girl or any events on her. Taking the letter and concentrating, I received a clairvoyant picture of a girl
—about 9-years-old, blond with hair to shoulders,
—standing in a garden,
—seemed to wear long, white socks.
My wife had never met the girl either. But when she spoke to a friend who does, she found out she was:
—actually 10 yrs. old,
—indeed fair-haired, shoulder-length,
—loved the garden behind her house, spent much time there,
—badly burned her legs and had bandages on legs (I saw them as white socks).
—Selected
3968 Close Alliance With Black Magic
A person once showed he could indentify another unknown person by just a few specimens of that person’s handwriting. By con centrating on them, he could give the person’s exact address, family background, health, etc. He was discovered to be relying on a magic book, The 6th and 8th Book of Moses. Thus, his psychic powers had come from the close alliance of psychometry and Black Magic.
3969 Not A Delusion After All
In London, England, a woman took her husband to a Harley Street psychiatrist, claiming that he was suffering from delusion of grandeur. “He keeps saying he is expecting one letter that will make him the owner of 1,000 acres in Surrey and another telling him he had inherited a diamond mine in South Africa,” she explained. The man had three weeks of intensive treatment—then the letters arrived.
3970 Almost Loses His Faith
Kurt Koch relates the following three accounts on psycho- analysis and hypnotism:
A Christian psychiatrist I know allowed himself to be used as a guinea pig during his period of training. He was in the process psycho-analyzed by the professor of a seminary. He told me about the experience and left me no doubt concerning his feelings about it. The analysis had been such a source of trouble to him that he had been in danger of losing his own faith. He had had to spend hours in meditation on the Word of God and in prayer in order to prevent his faith from being completely wrecked. Today this psychiatrist is opposed to use of the psycho-analysis by non-Christians.
3971 Complexes Explain Everything?
Then, a student who was psychoanalyzed in the course of her medical and psychological training ended up in a terrible psychical state. She had no peace for months. She could not sleep and found herself to be in a state of inner turmoil. The analyst had told her that she suffered from a mother-complex, and this caused her to break off all relationships with her mother. She left home. In the same way her teacher said that her religious faith was merely a church-complex; and so she threw this overboard too. When the psycho-analysis was complete, the young student was convinced that the majority of people are merely governed by the series of complexes. In the process though, she herself had become inwardly torn and distressed.
3972 Mother’s Character Changed
And a Christian told me of an experience she had had with her mother. The mother had suffered from severe colic due to gallstones. Once when she was in pain the family doctor was called. Instead of giving her a pain-relieving injection he hypnotized her and the pain left within a few minutes. However, after this hypnotic treatment the mother’s character altered completely. She developed such an evil temper that at times it bordered on madness. She would sometimes throw plates at the wall in these fits of temper. Once she tore the electric light fittings down from the wall. Her children who have all grown up now are strongly opposed to hypnosis as a form of treatment.
See also: Mind Control ; Thinking.