Eastern Mysticism

RV83-01

John hears the living creatures proclaiming day and night (without ceasing) the holiness of God. The word "holy" is repeated three times, because the Godhead consists of three persons: Father; Son; and, Holy Spirit. These three are one in essence. So, there is, in fact, one true living Creator God.

The fact that the Creator God is holy indicates that there is a standard by which to distinguish between good and evil within the creation of God (within the universe). Satan has tried to counter this fact that there is a standard between what is good and evil. Satan has tried to counter this by promoting a lie about the nature of God, and this lie about the nature of God is widely accepted in the United States today. Satan teaches that God is not a person, but rather a life source which is shared universally by humans and animals. So, deity resides in every person, though most people do not realize that they are gods. God and creation are one and the same, rather than two separate entities.

If all of life is God, and all life forms are unity, then all that people do is an expression of deity. Therefore you cannot say that there is evil and that there is good. If all life is one, and everybody is part of that one life force, then whatever is, is acceptable. So, good and evil are merely facets of one life force that exists in all mankind. Good and evil, therefore, are equally acceptable, because there is no standard which is separate from man who is God. Therefore, you cannot say that anything is wrong, and that something else is right. And make no mistake about it – the Bible is just the opposite of all this. The Bible very definitely says that some things are corrupt (they're wrong), because God is holy. Therefore, there is a standard of comparison. And other things are acceptable because He is holy. Make no mistake about it – the Bible says you must be holy. You must be holy as God is holy. You'll never get into heaven if you're not as holy as God; if you're not as good as God; and, if you're not as absolutely righteous as God.

Of course, that immediately confronts us with the fact that we need a grace salvation in order to have that kind of absolute righteousness provided to us. The religions of the world that Satan has produced never have a holy God. You want to remember that. The religions of the world that Satan produces never have a holy God. Satan promotes, instead, the lie of pantheism – everything is deity, so people will not concern themselves about sin. If all of us are God, then sin is no problem. If there is no holy God to face after death, then there is no problem in being sinful. But if there is a holy God, and if these cherub angels were right in 24-hours-a-day saying, "Holy, holy, holy" in praise and honor to God, then if you are an unbeliever, you're going to face some real problems. If you are a Christian, you will face real problems if you are an unholy believer. Whether you're an unbeliever or a believer, both can be unholy. But make no mistake about it – if there's anything you should get out of Revelation 4:8, it is that there is a standard to face, and you will be called to account for it.

The Bible tells us that the descent of man into the satanic lie, that man is deity, took place as the result of man's own rejection of the truth that he had about God. In Romans 1:21, Paul writes: "Because when they knew God (the human race knew God), they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." The thing that took place here is that God made Himself known to the human race, but mankind did not value the divine viewpoint truth. So, they became victims of human viewpoint thinking, which is promoted by Satan. That's what the Bible means when it says that they became arrogant in their own minds, and their stupid parts (their stupid mentalities) finally just had a cloud of darkness descend upon them.

So, here you've got people who have high IQs; people who are educated; and, people who are prominent and esteemed, but they have darkened mentalities. Verse 22 says, "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. These arrogant human viewpoint minds attacked God's revelation, and they rejected it, and they accepted Satan's lie about the person of God. That is the point. They accepted a lie about the person of God (the nature of God). Eve did exactly the same thing. What Satan told Eve, in effect, in the garden was, "Eve, you're God? You don't realize it. God is trying to keep you from finding this out. Once you eat of that tree, you're going to discover that you are God." That was an exhilarating thought to her.

Verse 23: "The result was that they changed the glory of incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and into the image of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Satan's lie was that all life is one, and that all life is divine. So, animals were portrayed as gods. People do this to this very day in all sincerity.

Have you ever looked into the eyes of a rat, with his fuzzy little whiskers coming out from both sides of his nose? In India, he is seen as a god, and there are temples dedicated to the rat. The rat must not be killed. He must be preserved to eat most of the foreign aid that Americans send over there in the way of food. Have you gotten up close and touched a snake recently? They are little slimy things. I saw one go across my path up at camp, and I didn't have the slightest emotion of devotion to him at all. I hated every wiggle in him, and I would have stomped on him had he not been so fast. But the snake is one of the primary objects of worship in a place like India.

You don't do this, but I want you to realize that most of the human beings who take breath today, and through whose veins the blood of life still flows, do exactly what Paul is describing here. They have taken the Creator God, and because of their belief of Satan's lie, they have converted the nature of God into that of one life force which expresses itself in animals as well as human beings.

In verse 24, what is God, who faces this kind of insult, going to do about it? "Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves." Satan's lie about God and His holy nature resulted in sinful, degrading sexual immorality running rampant in the human race. That's where we are today. That is because you do not see yourself as one who is in the image of God, who is reflecting the qualities of God's nature in you that He has put in there, but as one who is not God. Because you do not recognize that you are a child of God, then you degrade yourself into the perversion of sexual immorality.

Here's the punchline in verse 25: "Who exchanged the truth of God (the truth about the nature of God) for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever and ever. Amen." They exchanged God's truth about His Holiness and His separateness from creation for Satan's lie of pantheism, and man worshipped the elements of creation rather than the Creator Himself. So, the big lie of man as God has captured the minds of the vast majority of the human race today. They believe it. They sincerely believe it.

The antichrist, in the tribulation period, is going to promote this same big lie of human godhood, and he is going to present himself, as you know, as the epitome and the expression of man as God. 2 Thessalonians 2:4 says about this man: "Who opposes and exalted himself, above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he, as God, sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Then drop down to verse 9: "Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all powers and signs and lying wonders." There we're talking about psychic experiences, in part: "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe the big lie." What is the big lie? That man is God, and that all life is one force, and there is no distinction between holiness and unholiness.

Verse 12 says, "That they might be judged who believed not the truth, but have pleasure in righteousness." So, the result will be that the antichrist, under Satan's control, will reject the truth about the one true living Creator God. He'll exalt himself as deity to be worshiped. And people will worship him because of the concept that life is one force, and man is God.

Eastern Mysticism

The antichrist is going to find very, very fertile soil. He's going to find it very easy for him to say, "I am the epitome of godhood." They do this in India. Do you know what an avatar is? An avatar is the incarnation of one of the great Hindu deities, Krishna Rama. That's what an avatar is. There are hundreds upon hundreds of them in India. And people come, and they worship, and they bring the offerings. They do this because to worship in the presence of an avatar will help you in your next life, because you're working out your evil karma – the evil effects of what you did in your previous life.

So, this business that people are gods is widely held in our world today. It's going to be easy for the antichrist to do this. The antichrist will appear to be divine because he'll have supernatural powers from Satan. They'll be psychic powers. The vast part of mankind will perish in the lake of fire because they reject the truth about God as holy and as transcendent. Transcendent means that He's separate from His creation. He's not part of it. Then God will give the god-man devotees up to their self-delusion. They'll confidently accept Satan's lie of pantheism. Those who refuse to believe in the Holy God, as revealed in the Bible, then pursue the pleasures of holiness, and they will be judged by Holy God. If you are Christians, you will pay for it. If you are not a Christian, the lake of fire will be the consequence of that.

If there's anything you get from this verse in Revelation, it is that, because God is holy, there is a standard, and I guarantee you that judgment will be there. So, if it's big kicks for you now, you better enjoy it, because you're going to have quite a bit to pay for it in consequences, whether you are a believer or unbeliever, once you face a God who is a holy God.

Man's delusion about his inherent deity has always been an integral part of paganism. This was true from the time of Nimrod's Babylonian mystery religious system. At the heart of Nimrod's system was this concept that man is God. The basic proponent today of the big lie of human godhood is Hinduism, which inherited it from the Babylonian mysteries. This is why we tell you that there are only two religions in the world today. It will help you in the religious scene if you get that anchored in your mind. There are only two religious systems. One of them is Hinduism, as the basic parent religion system. Everything else in the Eastern mysticism is a cult under that. The other is Judeo-Christianity, and there are heretical cults under that. But those are the two basic religious systems of the world.

The current fascination with the Eastern meditation techniques of Hinduism is resulting in the acceptance of the unity of life, and the deity of man. God is seen as an impersonal force, lacking any standards of morality which must be obeyed by man, and man has no eternal consequences to face for the way that he lives. We live in that period of human history which is predicted in Matthew 24:4-5. That is the period that the Lord said was going to come, and we're at the very heart of it now: "Jesus answered and said unto them, 'Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in My name, saying, 'I am Christ,' and shall deceive many.'"

Verse 11: "And many false prophets shall arise and shall deceive many."

Verse 24: For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." The truth of the matter is that there are great powerful forces today who are claiming to be deity – even Eastern mysticism. There was a time when the Hindu system would reject Jesus Christ completely. They were totally offended by Him, because they considered him a threat. That is no longer true. Now Jesus Christ is one of the avatars. He is one of the incarnations of Vishnu. He is one of the incarnations of the great god of Hinduism. Therefore, He is put in line now, and accepted as one of the revelations of the one life force.

But the thing that's coming are people who are claiming they are Christ. Therefore, in India, we have this constant claim of those who are Christ. They're coming over to our country, and they're claiming to be Christ. Sun Myung Moon, who has just had a little trouble with the Internal Revenue Service this past weekend, is claiming to be the Christ, the expression of the coming one.

The Charismatic Movement

I think after we get through with this little series on Eastern mysticism, you're going to find that the charismatic movement is even a grosser thing than you perhaps thought it was. You're going to discover the close tie-in between this great lie of Satan and the charismatic movement that is startling, even in the very techniques which they use. It is the fact that there is great psychic power in Eastern mysticism that verse 24 is talking about. Those, in part, are the great signs and wonders. I told you a little bit about that last time. There are tremendous psychic powers that find expression – psychic phenomena that are very impressive. The stuff that Uri Geller does just takes your breath away, and you know that something is there working that you can't explain. The people who associate with the youth culture of our day have seen this kind of power in action.

When Hal Lindsey wrote Satan is Alive and Well, he observed that the reason he thought the charismatic movement, and the tongues that was being practiced, was the real thing was because God the Holy Spirit was trying to show that He was as powerful in the spirit world as were Satan and the demons. I suspect that where Mr. Lindsey got that is from his association with college students where he saw this stuff in action. So he made the connection in his own mind, falsely and wrongly, that God the Holy Spirit, was going to come through with this fake gibberish of the charismatics and the associated psychic phenomena. Don't make any mistake about that. The charismatics have psychic experiences. Lindsey said that this was God the Holy Spirit's way of showing that He's just as powerful as the devil. That is an insult to the Spirit of God. He doesn't operate that way, and He doesn't need to.

Well, the result of the big lie, that all humans are God, is to bring people under demonic powers which provide supernatural experiences. This is a major feature of the angelic warfare. The angelic warfare should take on new meaning for you as you realize that, at the heart of the angelic warfare, is now this concept of perverting the nature of God; the concept of pantheism; and, the concept (from its demonic spirits) to take control and bring about psychic phenomena. Psychic experiences are provided by the demons to convince the victim that he's in touch with God, and that he is in possession of divine powers.

The apostle Paul warned his young associate Timothy of this very fact. 1 Timothy 4:1: "Now the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) speaks expressly that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons." That's where we are today. People are giving heed to seducing spirit and doctrines of demons. Hinduism is Satan's great production and system to bring people under the control of seducing spirits, and to give them the information of doctrines of demons, all of which are at the heart of Hindu doctrine.

God-Consciousness

However, the term God-consciousness in Eastern mysticism does not mean that. It is used to describe that point of enlightenment in a person's experience where he realizes his own deity. He becomes conscious of the fact that he is God. The techniques for this are the techniques of meditation, and they are used to produce what are described as altered states of consciousness, in which demonic experiences can be received.

Yoga

Hypnosis

Charismatics

There is a mantra, the most basic of which is "om." These mantras are given to those who come into Eastern mysticism. Each is given his personal mantra. The guru who gives you the mantra just tells you, "This is a sound to relax you. You just keep repeating this, and it'll clear you and relax you." It is, in fact, a sound which is connected with one of the Hindu deities. Behind that deity, of course, is a demonic power, that repeating this particular sound will open you up to. Many of them just come right out and say, "Say this word. Say the sound. Say it over and over again." Do you know what happens? You suddenly become disjointed in the mind, such that you are out in the psychedelic world.

All of this psychedelic art that you've been seeing came from the fact that people have really experienced this. When you enter an altered state of consciousness, you do see all these colors. Things do become all strange in your perception, and you think that you have entered a dimension of consciousness that you didn't realize was there. The result of all this using of repeated words like they do in the charismatic movement (such as the word "Jesus") is that that word simply becomes the mantra in order to cause the mind to break loose of its control of the human being, and to let an alien mind, in the way of a spirit, come in.

One thing that was discovered is that drugs, for the disillusioned youth culture of the 1960s, provided a realm of experience beyond the five senses. This was viewed as an expansion of personal consciousness and an expanded touch with reality. These kids didn't know what was happening, but something was taking place when they got on drugs that was opening up worlds to them that they could not believe actually existed. They felt that they were entering a realm of information, because when they were out there, they were meeting with communications to their minds. Their minds were being controlled and being influenced with understandings; with impressions; and, with basic concepts. This was viewed as an expansion of personal consciousness. Well, the result of this irrational mystical experience, and of the psychic phenomena which accompanied them, is exactly what takes place in Hinduism and its related Eastern religions.

The Cult Explosion

On pages 26-27, he says, "When I first took acid (LSD), I took weak enough doses just to have fun and see colors and psychedelic patterns. But when I started taking really heavy doses, I entered into a relationship with some spirit being. I got a spirit guide. After that, whenever I took psychedelic drugs, I was always guided by spirit beings. I had spirit teachers showing me lessons, and making diagrams right in front of me. One of the first times I took a strong dose of LSD, I had a lesson in astrology. I saw all the signs of the zodiac and how they related to the planets, and how that affected my life. I'd never read anything about astrology. Maybe I'd seen something in the paper, but I had no interest. Now I was awed. The whole thing was laid out in living color. Big charts and information were being printed right in front of me by spirit beings. I heard their voices, but I didn't see any of them at that time.

"On another LSD trip, the spirit guides taught me about Hinduism. I had never read anything about it. They taught me the highest Hindu vibration ("om"). I saw the whole universe dissolve into vibrations, and started seeing vibrations of energy coming out of phone wires. The spirits showed me that everything came down to one basic vibration: the "om." I saw vibes in people."

We use that expression. Now maybe you'll understand when we say, "Oh, I've got bad vibes about that. I don't get good vibrations from that." Every rotten, degrading thing that comes along in our society that offends us is, in time, accepted. The degrading and the corrupting is always outside of it. Then society resists it, but always society (under Satan's influence) moves over, and it absorbs that evil, so that, for example, homosexuality, from which we once recoiled, is now viewed as a dignified, accepted, alternate lifestyle. The concept of vibrations is a demonic concept. While we speak of it glibly, it has significant meanings. People who are in an altered state of consciousness do experience vibrations, and they do affect their thinking.

Continuing, he says, "I had never talked to anyone about Hinduism in my life. I didn't have the vaguest idea about it. I lived in Woodlake, California. If there were ever any people into Hinduism in Woodlake before me, I never ran into them. I had quit high school and devoted my life to taking drugs. With spirits teaching me, I thought I had entered into a higher education. I thought this was really more worthwhile than just dull stuff in school.

"One of my friends was taught transcendental meditation by spirits on an LSD trip. He never had any teaching for Maharishi. By the time he was 18, just following what the spirits had taught him during drug trips, he had reached cosmic consciousness."

Transcendental Meditation

Continuing: "Later on, we were heavily influenced by the Beatles. They had a record called "Revolver" that I'd heard but didn't understand until I heard it again in about 1968, one time when I was stoned. The song was teaching meditation. It said, "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream. Listen to the voices. Are they not speaking?" Well, it was about spirit beings guiding you into cosmic consciousness. A lot of the stuff the Beatles put into their albums later on, like "Sgt. Pepper," had all kinds of enticements to get kids into LSD. "Magical Mystery Tour" had a lot of Eastern mysticism in it. They encouraged LSD, and then later advocated Maharishi Mahesh Yogi after they had quit taking drugs and gotten into TM (Transcendental Meditation). The Beatles, I think, were largely responsible for initiating hundreds of thousands of kids in the United States and England and Europe into the eastern way of thinking.

"The spirit beings didn't say who they were. I would just hear voices like the Beatles described. They would explain and teach. I didn't ever question who they were. I just figured this was the wisdom that was woven throughout the whole universe, and that this was the universal soul that Jung talked about, and that's how it identified itself as a sort of universal mind."

Carl Jung was another of the psychiatrists who was the same caliber as Freud. But Jung's approach was through the psychic. He had been caught up in the concept of Eastern mysticism. Jung's psychiatry became very powerful, and it is very attractive today.

Continuing: "I accepted everything the spirits taught me because it had to be truth coming from the universal self. I began to believe that was what God was. I started to believe that God was the "om," and that the universe was just an illusion. One of my friends left Woodlake to travel. He spent some time in a commune where everyone was into Hinduism. When he returned, I told him what I'd been experiencing on drugs. He said, "That's Hinduism." After he explained some things, I began to realize that the spirits had been teaching me Hinduism. I accepted it as truth. I didn't care what it was called."

That's why we say that Hinduism is Satan's basic religious system. So, here you have, on a personal experience, this whole concept of coming into an altered state of consciousness, and the discovery that it was done through drugs as well as through meditation. The Beatles' music subtly brainwashed the youth of our country into pantheism, and an impersonal God in place of the God which is revealed in Scriptures. In 1967, the Beatles became followers of the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and its Transcendental Meditation form of Hinduism. That's when the Beatles backed off from drugs. Up to then, they had been heavy into drugs, but drugs have bad side effects. They discovered that they could have the same altered state of consciousness, communicating in the same psychedelic world with the same spirit beings, without the drugs, and without the disadvantages and the bad consequences of being on the drugs. But they caught the same concept of the universal mind: life is one; we are God.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote "I am the Walrus." The opening line of "I am the Walrus" is "I am he, as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together." That is an excellent statement of the concept that God is the universal life force. There is no personal separate God. We are God: "I am he, as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together." That is pantheism and the deity of man. If you knew what to look for, the lyrics of the Beatles' music is shot-through with this concept of the deity of man, and god as a universal life force.

Of course, you remember that George Harrison wrote "My Sweet Lord" in honor of the Hindu god Hare Krishna. And one very prominent, famous evangelist, very foolishly, was rejoicing in the fact that: "Would you believe what has taken place?" And among the things that he believed the changes were taking place was that George Harrison was writing the song in praise of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Atheism

Pantheism

Theism

The apostle John, in Revelation 4:8, after observing the "Holy, Holy, Holy" of the angels, day and night, observes also what the angels call this God separate from His creation. They call Him "Lord," which is the Greek word "kurios," and that means deity. That is perhaps indicating here, particularly Jesus Christ, to Whom that title is applied. They call Him God, which is the Greek word "theos," the noun, and the Greek actually says "The God," suggesting perhaps God the Father: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord" ("kurios" – deity; God; the God Father; separate from creation). Then "Almighty" is the third word. It is the Greek word "pantokrator." This means "ruler of all." This word is used only of God. The Communists are trying to dismiss the fact that this word means "ruler of all." They are trying to dismiss the fact that there is a ruler of all, and perhaps the executor of the Trinity is God the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this word is particularly representing Him.

Then the angels say, concerning this Lord God Almighty, "Who was," using the Greek word "eimi," and it is used in the imperfect tense in the Greek. Imperfect in the Greek language means that something keeps being repeated in the past: again and again. It means that He always was. It is the closest way the Greek can say, "There never was a time when God did not exist." As the Beatles' Eastern mysticism says, "That blows your mind." It does indeed, because it is a concept that is so infinite that we can't grasp it – that God always was. But that's what he means when he speaks about this as "Who was," and notice that Satan was not always. Satan did not always exist. There was a time when he wasn't on the scene.

After he says, "Who was," then he uses the word "eimi" again, except this time he uses it in the present tense, which means it's right here now: "He is:" the God who actually is – not the gods of Hinduism. Those are demonic spirits out there. Then he uses the word "erchomai" for the last word: "Which is to come." That is present again – something that is as if it already happened now: "He is to come."

So, here is a God who is deity; who is supreme; who is the ruler of all; who always was; who now is; and, who is coming back. The point of the statement of the living creatures is that when He's coming back, He's going to come back as a God who is separate from His creation, and the God who is holy. He is One who is holy, and therefore One who will judge on the basis of right and wrong. Because of the sin nature within us, it is very easy for you and me to play the fool and to pretend that we do not deal with a Holy God. So, you're doing great, and getting away with it. Don't kid yourself. He is a God who keeps records, and he is a God who will bring us to account sooner or later.

So, we start with that much background before we get into the specifics of Eastern mysticism. I think you're going to find it very revealing, because suddenly you're going to be listening to people talk, and you're going to understand what they're saying as you have never understood them before. You're going to be listening to commentators, and you're going to be listening to religious leaders, and you're going to suddenly realize what it is that they're saying. You are going to enter a realm of awareness of what Satan is doing in his last big attempt to undermine God as you have never before. Unless you understand Hinduism and the concepts of Eastern mysticism, you will get caught up in all the scene that the Beatles made so popular, and which everybody said, "Oh, it's not all that bad." It is bad. It is grossly bad. And a holy God is going to deal with it.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1982

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