Is It Possible to Fill Your Mind By Emptying It?

One of things that can be most scary, but on the surface seems innocent and harmless is a form of meditation called TM.  TM stands for Transcendental Meditation and has its' roots in Hinduism. The founder of TM was a man named Guru Derev and one of his most adamant followers who is primarily credited with bringing this teaching to the Western world is a man named Majareesh  Mahesh Yogi.

Meditation is one of those areas that seems to have this flare of sophistication or someone on a higher plane who has it altogether. Hollywood loves Eastern mysticism and new age philosophy. Just reflect for a moment on every single action movie where martial arts are practiced or used by society's heroes, such as Steven Segal, Chuck Norris, Keith Carraidine, or Jean Claude Van Dam , and you will quickly see the degree of proliferation that movies makers are utilizing to convey these philosophies and practices. No, I do not have anything against martial arts or those that practice them, but I want to share from personal experience about the "Meditation" of those and many other forms of Eastern religions and practices.

I came across TM while I was in college back in 1973 or 74 and decided to go check out this meeting that was being held to explain what it was and how it could benefit me. During the meeting the technique and physiological benefits of TM were promoted and I found myself thinking that this was something for me. It was one of the most powerful presentations I have ever seen and it just made sense.  Heh, it is good for me, duh.  Right?
Wrong! Why this might be harmful will be explained a little later. But, I first wanted to explain the attraction of such a practice and how it is promoted.

The basic idea is that our brains have "canals" running throughout and these brain canals get overfilled because of stress in our lives to the point that the canals looking much like a trough that had excessively widened and would lose its ability to channel stress and the walls would begin to give way similar to a levy collapsing.  The teacher shows a simple illustration of some of these out of shape canals on a white board and goes on to illustrate that as you meditate, unknown elements of the stress in your body will float up and away from the canal, never to return. As the process is repeated over and over the canals eventually repair themselves and go back to their original shape.  The way this happens is that a person is given an "Mantra" which they are told is a word of no significance, but merely sounds good to your central nervous system. As you meditate on your mantra, any other thought other than your mantra is an affirmation that some sort of stress just left your body. This process continues until you virtually an sit in a chair easily for twenty or more minutes and not move, slow your heart rate, and be in a totally relaxed state and eventually get to where you may think you mantra once or twice at the beginning of your meditation time and then not think about anything for the duration of the meditation which is 20-30 minutes twice a day. The next level called "God Consciousness" which signifies that you are well on your way to being a true practitioner of TM. Meditation . TM mandates that no stimulants of any kind are to be consumed. No drugs or alcohol and no caffeine are to be consumed including cokes and any caffeine laced beverages because of the interference they cause with the meditation process.  I followed their program, practiced my meditation, and experienced everything they said I would.  I was hooked, and in fact, I wanted to become one of their teachers and show others how to do this because it was so good for the body. Thankfully, God intervened by using my wife to help me see what I was into.

My practice of meditation was very important to me and I saw nothing, but positives. The idea of if it feels good do it was coursing through my now "Enlightened" mind. I was in Nirvana and was so proud of myself for getting my life together.  Wrong.

When an individual participates in the initiation process of TM, he is told to bring a handkerchief and 2 pieces of fruit. He hands them to his initiator or facilitator and takes a seat. There is a long folding table covered with a linen cloth with two pictures of the aforementioned men, ie the founder and the man who brought TM to the western world.
The facilitator places the fruit on the handkerchief on the table with the two pieces of fruit sitting on top of it. The facilitator is speaking in some sort of chant in Hindu and is bowing before each picture. After a few minutes of this, he turns to the new student and gives him a mantra. Please remember that the student is told that the mantra has no meaning, but simply sounds good to the Central Nervous Systerm.

I faithfully practiced TM to I reached the "God Conciousness" level where you basically began meditating and then though of nothing for the next 20 to 50 min. Sometimes you would be in that state for much longer as mentioned, and thinking nothing. If you did have a thought other than the mantra, it was confirmation that some sort of stress was just relieved.

My wife was worried about this new found practice I was consumed with and was able to obtain the words of the facilitator's chanting at the time of the initiation ceremony through our Pastor. Their were phrases such as "I offer my body , my soul to Guru Derev..."There were more, but this was enough. Basically, you were performing a pagan sacrifice and you were not even aware of it if you were as naive as I was, and unfortunately many people are just like me accept the whole thing hook, line, and sinker. Oh, and the Mantra that means nothing....MEANS SOMETHING. Almost 70 % of the mantras given out are Direct Names of Hindu Dieties!   The Hindu religion has about 30,000 gods they worship. They have gods for everything apparently and guess what, while you are meditating you are summoning up a demon or pagan god without any knowledge of doing so. This is the perfect example of WhAT YOU DON'T KNOW CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS.  

I apologize for the length of the blog, but I hope you see the importance of what I am trying to convey. What seemingly was good and produced health minds and bodies was in reality hooking me into a world I knew nothing about and was powerless. I thank God for my wife and her tenacity and courage to investigate TM because God used her to break TM's hold on me. Incidentally, this did not happen overnight. I was a new believer and was practicing this, so I thought I will just change my Mantra to Jesus Christ because after all, I knew how to do it and the physiological effects were good for me. I am happy to say that this did not work because Jesus Christ is a person, not a mantra. He wants to show me how to love him and have a deep and rich relationship with Him that allows his love to be lived out through me. He wants all of us and maybe most important He wants our minds and heart to be totally devoted to Him. Amen and Amen.

Thanks again for your patience with reading this. I hope that if you know anyone practicing TM or considering it that you will share this and show them what they are really into.

What does Rambo Do?

The other day I was going to send someone a verse which I had hoped would be an encouragement and a blessing. Well, I thought I knew the verse and would be able to find it easily enough by utilizing the concordance in the back of my bible or some other similar reference guide. I began to look up key words that I thought were in the verse and to my utter dismay, was unable to find this verse after almost 2 hours of searching. Ok, for all you writers out there, I will now attempt to explain the title of this post. Rambo is one of my favorite characters that Sylvester Stallone plays and he has many sequels... Rambo, Rambo 1, Rambo 2, Rambo 3and I think it goes on to Rambo 55 where he is the bouncer in a nursing home. LOL . The Rambo character is "Machismo" to the max along with his other, and even more infamous role of Rocky which also has sequels numbering 1-35(I think); but in the latter Rocky films I really must confess that I was not quite as enthralled when I saw him in the ring with his walker. Forgive me for the digression, and now let me address something of importance.

In most of the Rambo films, before he is about to have rain down hurt on his enemies you will find him sharpening his huge combat knife. Why? I think Hollywood loves heroes with handling big sharp knives and making you see how he is ready to "Rumble" with the bad guys. If I haven't lost you, here is the point.  When I could not find the verse I so wanted to share, I felt like my sword was in need of some serious sharpening.

Can you imagine going into battle with a dull sword, or even worse, a sword scabbard that was rusted and dirty prohibiting you from even getting to use it because it was stuck. Survival depended almost entirely on the condition of the equipment and the skill of the soldier using it. Either one of these two critical prerequisites for battle would, in all likely hood cause a quick exit from a battle due to a death...Yours. Conversely, the better skills a soldier attained and the utmost care given to the condition of his weapons yielded a much more positive result...Death, but Not Yours. In a spiritual sense, I think this is just as, if not more, critical for a Christian.

The sword mentioned in Ephesians 6: is the only offensive weapon that is used in the suiting up for battle of a spiritual soldier. The sword  of the Spirit which is the Word of God is to be skillfully used and utmost care given to its battlefield readiness. Just as the real soldiers very existence depended on the skill and condition of his armor, we as believers must be skillful in the word and the condition it has in our lives. That is to say that our Sword of the Spirit condition is the receptivity and deep roots of God's word in our heart. Our spiritual survival is directly related to these to vital concepts and it behooves us to follow Rambo's and the soldier's example in Ephesians by being fully battle ready at all times.