THE GOD WHO FORGOT HE WAS GOD

The key to understanding, answering, and evangelizing those involved with Eastern religion, spirituality, Hinduism, Buddhism, and New Age.

Thursday, May 11, 2023

Many names in the Bible contain the word “Bar,” meaning “son of”. Simon Bar-Jonah, Bartholomew and Barabbas which means “son of the father.” The word Bar-mitzvah, means “son of the commandments.” Messiah is called Bar-Elyon, which means, “Son of the Most High.” We’re to be little versions of Him, a little child of the Most High. What does that mean? Your identity isn’t based on yourself any more. It doesn’t come from you, your life, or your past. It comes from your Father in heaven. You are no longer Bar-bitterness- -a child of bitterness, Bar-failure- -a child of failure, Bar-sin- -a child of sin, or Bar-hurt- -a child of rejection, hurt and wounds. All those things are not you anymore. You are Bar-Elyon, a child of the Most High. That’s your identity, you are born from above. Your identity comes from Elyon, the Most High. That’s who you are, a beloved, holy child of the Most High. Start believing it. Start receiving it. Start living like it and acting like it. Because you, too, are a little version of Bar-Elyon, a child of the Most High.

You shall be like God.
That is the very first, the root of all sins. You shall be as God.
That is the root of every sin. And that’s where that everything.
If you look at the heart of it, that is there, you shall be as God.
Now I’m gonna mention you have to turn to it because it’s one scripture but know it.
Psalm 46 verse 10 be still and know that I am God.
Today we’re gonna look at something important for you to know because it affects the world, it affects our culture, it affects people in your life.
It may have even affected you.
And that is a whole stream of spirituality, stream of philosophy, stream of, of a way of looking at life.
Eastern religion. Eastern spirituality has permeated the culture part of it came from an old Beatles movie called Help the Beatles were making a movie kind of a silly movie which involved a story that had Hindu characters.
George Harrison of the Beatles saw an Indian instrument, the sitar on the set, he became interested in playing it, got into Eastern music because of that, then got into Eastern philosophy.
And religion got the Beatles into it for a season and became the in thing.
At the same time in America, the sixties there was a and it’s gone on.
There’s been a falling away from the faith among mainstream culture and so falling away from the Bible become they be there’s an openness to things that are anti the Bible or which in ancient times would have been paganism as in now eastern philosophy.
And from this comes yoga, transcendental meditation, meditation groups.
And it’s not by the way, not that meditation is wrong. Sometimes we get we become reflexive meditate.
The Bible says meditate on the Lord meditate on the Lord. Meditation on God is good.
But meditation for the sake of meditation on these things is a whole another story terms like Karma mantra, it flows at such streams as Hinduism Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Dalai Lama, uh uh uh uh a modern day teacher who is kind of re renewing.
It’s called deepak chopra goes on Oprah Winfrey. Oprah Winfrey speaks about things like this new age.
All the new age things you’ve heard are linked to this Eastern fate religion being one with the universe seems nice, seems open, seems flowery.
But I’m gonna open up, we’re gonna open up something today to get to the heart of it and really kind of an expose, which is very important for you to know this is the heart of it.
All they have a riddle in Eastern spirituality. He says a man woke up from a dream.
He said I dreamed I was a butterfly.
He says, but what was I was I a man dreaming that I was a butterfly or now in my waking?
Am I a butterfly? Dreaming? I’m a man.
The dream imagery in eastern religion is very important as we’re gonna see.
We’re gonna kind of pull back the curtain, not so much like the Holy of Holies, but more as in the Wizard of Oz as in the ignore the man behind the curtain.
If you take away the curtain from Buddhism, Hinduism, transcendental meditation, new age yoga, mantras, all those things we’re gonna see what is really ultimately behind him.
It concerns two central players.
I’m gonna explain this all to you because when you understand this, you’ll get it, you’ll get the whole thing in a nutshell.
You’ll not only, not only will you get the, the, the main foundation, you’ll get the whole problem.
You’ll get the whole concept that explains really every single thing about it.
The two realities in Hinduism or Eastern religion. One is called the Brahmin, the Brahmin is God, absolute reality.
The other one is called the Otman. The Otman is the soul.
So you have the two realities of this system, the Brahman God in their view.
And, and, and at the other hand, the Otman, the individual, the soul, it’s kind of like their dynamic duo when I was growing up Batman was really big.
It was the dynamic duo was Batman and Robin, their dynamic duo is Otman and Brahman. What are they?
It, the Brahman is all. Everything is God is God.
But, but their idea of God here’s the thing is God is not God the way we see it, not the way, not the way it’s revealed in the Bible, God, in Eastern religion, new age, everything God is everything, meaning God is the universe.
God is the creation. God is the creator and the creation which which, which, which begins to open up an entire realm of confusion.
He’s not only the creator of the world, he is the world that he created. The creator is the creation.
The creation is the creator. You shall be as God and the is the self is the soul is the individual.
I’ve heard actually many of you have heard the, the name Deepak Chopra because he’s the popularizer of this now.
And he, he, he, I saw him on television once and he says, and he quotes from the Bible because you know, largely it’s still a Christian quote culture.
And he says, and he quotes from the Bible, the verse be still and know that I am God.
But what he says is be still and what he says, what it’s saying is be still and know that I you are God, which is blasphemy and it’s clearly has nothing to do with what it’s the opposite of what the Bible say.
But according to Eastern religion, that’s what it is.
That everything, that is everything, everything, the, the, the pulpit, the state, everything is gone, everything and everything emanates is an emanation of God.
That God in their view, the promise He transforms himself or itself into everything else.
So according to Eastern religion philosophy, you are God, everything is God.
Everything again from the very beginning, from the Garden of Eden.
And you have this, this is, this is the first lie.
It actually, you see it in paganism, you see it in p theism and pantheism.
Yet here it is, you are God.
This is, has so many problems with it aside from the fact that it’s totally false first of all.
And, but this is underlying everything, yoga, all that and I’ll show how it even underlies yoga.
If we are God, then how could we be searching for God?
If you’re searching for God, you’re searching for yourself?
I mean, I’ve lost, you know, I lose my, I lose my keys like every day sometimes.
But this is, and sometimes it ends up right in my pocket, you know, but that is, but here, I mean, it’s, it’s a, it’s a, you’re searching for what you if you created the universe, how could you be?
How did you lose yourself? It says in the scripture, the fool has said in his heart, the fool has said there is no God but the fool of eastern thought has said in his heart, the fool is God and thus God is a fool and God has been fooled.
If you are God, why are you seeking for anything? The Eastern explanation is the dream of that butterfly?
Am I the man dreaming? I’m a butterfly or a butterfly, a dream.
And let, let me tell you why that’s important because in Eastern thought underlying it all, if God is everything and that he’s the universe.
Well, then how did he forget He was God?
They go this, this is the God who forgot He was God.
You know, we used to sing a song as kids, row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream.
Now, that’s kind of weird actually, when you think about it, that’s really weird.
But according to Eastern thought, that’s eastern, the universe is a dream.
So it’s actually, I don’t know if we were singing a Hindu song, but that’s a very weird thing.
Life is but a dream. But that is what it is saying.
What it’s saying is that this whole world, this whole universe is as a dream of God.
Now, the Bible speaks of creation in a few.
It, it speaks of creation that the creation is God’s his workmanship.
We get the word poem. You could say that the creation is God’s poem or his workmanship.
But there’s a gigantic difference between a poem or a and a dream, a poem is something you make you, you, you create a dream is a holder, a dream implies a God someone who’s sleeping.
And so the the ultimate the concept of Eastern faith or new age is that actually God is sleeping.
Why remember on Mount Carmel Elijah was dealing with the prophets of bail and he called out and you know, the prophets of bail are are calling for their God to do something and nothing happened.
So Elijah says, listen, guys, shout louder, maybe he’s not hearing you. So, so just shout louder.
Maybe he’s on vacation, maybe he’s asleep. Well, he’s mocking them.
But the thing is that in Eastern faith, God in effect is asleep.
He’s dreaming when you’re asleep, you’re kind of lost. Well, in Eastern faith, God is lost.
When you’re asleep, you’re out of control. Well, God is out of control. According to this.
When you’re dreaming, you’re under an illusion, you’re out of touch with reality.
So, you know, I say, well, when I went, I thought that in Eastern religion or new age, I thought that God is the reality.
How can it be out of touch with reality if he is? Well, that’s the whole point.
If if everything is a dream, then, then, then everything is an illusion.
And that brings to that brings us to another concept of Eastern spirituality.
And that concept is called Maya Maya, which is translated sometimes as illusion.
George Harrison of the Beatles wrote a song called Beware of Maya. Also, he wrote the song My Sweet Lord.
People thought, well, it’s about Jesus. Well, he threw in that.
It’s kind of, but he also put in him, he put in Chris, all these other things because it’s all, it’s all everything and nothing, it’s all.
If everything is God, everything is nothing.
Because the, because under this you, the concept is that if, if we’re really God, but we don’t know, we’re God, we must be under an illusion.
The illusion is called Maya who has to be saved in Eastern spirituality.
The ultimate fact is that God has to be saved because he’s deceived because as law, here’s what it’s saying.
If you really are God, but you don’t know you’re God, then you’re under an illusion that you’re not God.
And so you’re under this illusion.
And so you’re on this wheel called karma, a wheel of karma that you are always, you’re trying to break free of the illusion.
And if you, if you do good, you go up on the wheel of karma, you, you become, and if you do bad, you keep going down, down, down maybe till you become an insect.
I don’t know. But the thing is that the thing is that, but you know, you think, well Eastern people think it’s a, just a kind of a nice little, you know, easy laid back thing.
It’s really, it’s really hyper works because not only do you have to work for your salvation in a sense, but you have to work for other lifetimes of salvation because they believe you’ve been reincarnated along this wheel.
But it’s all about trying to get free of the illusion, which brings us to another concept you’ve heard.
But you didn’t see how probably how this all goes together.
The word yoga, yoga, some Christians are involved with it.
Now again, there’s a difference if you are, if you are forget about yoga, but you could meditating on God is wonderful.
We should be doing that all the time. But yoga is a different thing, has different things with it. Yoga.
What is it? Well, it’s just a nice practice to get to get relaxed. No, it’s not.
Yoga comes from, is linked to the same word and actually it sounds like it in English.
That is the word yoke. Yoke. Why?
Because, because what it is is yoga is linked to is the idea is you are getting yoked back to who you are.
You are, you are becoming back to the, the cosmic awe of God who you are. That’s what it’s saying.
You’re joining back. And so according to yoga, you know, they say you, you say these words, just say these words, just say these things.
I remember when I was in camp, uh when I was a teen, uh a kid in camp and the, the counselors were into this, this yoga.
They had everybody saying this, you had to say this word which is means nothing really.
But what it’s saying is that you say mantras, they give you mantras and say, well, what is to do it?
What the idea of yoga is not to meditate on God, it’s to empty yourself completely.
So you, you are joined back to who you are, which is God in their illusion.
You’re getting free of the illusion. So you’re getting that. So you’re, you’re joining yourself back.
That’s what yoga is about. That’s why you cannot be involved with these things. Meditate on God. Yes.
Go, go, go off. But you cannot, you got to know where this comes from.
When you see that you see the picture of the, the eastern teacher with a white robe and flowers and it all seems so sweet or maybe they’ll have a suit on and it seems so sweet and well, it’s really about being detached and I’ll tell you because if they believe that if you believe that everything is in a illusion, then the idea is to be detached from the illusion.
Get away from everything, don’t care about anything. Ultimately.
So you can get back into, you can meld into the cosmic oneness.
If you are the answer, if you’re God, then what do you have to do?
Then it, it brings passivity because there’s nothing more to find anymore.
So therefore you could take a they could take a scripture and say be still and know that I am God and totally twist it.
It see, ultimately, it sees human existence as a dismal thing.
And if you don’t be, you know, you know, if you don’t believe that go to India and I mean, and, and by the way, there’s a revival in India.
But look at what this has done.
If you see, if you see life as an illusion and you see self as an illusion, then therefore, human life loses value.
And so therefore, you know, you know, the point of all these things is to empty yourself of self.
Now, the self is not a bad thing.
The fall in self is bad, but the Bible doesn’t say your self is bad, doesn’t it?
That you have a self? That’s not bad. It’s the fallen self. That’s a problem.
But having a self is from God, we have a self so we can know God.
It comes from God because God, because God as I am, we are have an eye so we can love God.
There are so many problems with this when you take it to its, take it to its foundation.
So many problems. If everything, it’s hard to know where to start. If everything is God, what about Hitler?
Well, according to this, Hitler is gone too and the Nazis are God and the missionaries are God and the cannibals who eat them are God, the prostitutes.
God the pimp is God, the murderer is God. The tortures our God.
And by the way, there, there were many, by the way, there’s links to Nazism and this as well because the Nazis were into Eastern religion.
The Swastika comes from Hinduism. Now, I’m not saying that the Hindus are most Hindus are thinking about this at all.
I’m not saying that at all, but they took this, they took this and when everything is God, then nothing is God.
When everything, if everything is holy, then nothing’s holy.
God simply becomes the world and that becomes like the ultimate of idolatry.
If all you had, you know, if, if, if all, if God is everything in the universe, then, then what about you say?
Well, he’s the truth. Well, it means He’s also a lie.
And how could, how can there be lies if everything’s the truth? How can there be sin?
If everything is God? How could there be? How could God be? How could there be any deception?
How can God deceive himself? Did God pull the wool over his own eyes?
How did he lose the truth when He is the truth? The whole thing falls.
How did God fall asleep? The eastern ultimate spirituality says God is ultimately in error because He doesn’t know He’s God.
How do you know if everything is an illusion? How can you even speak anything?
If everything is not true? How can you be sure of anything? If I am my own answer.
And that’s, you see this in east, you see this in probably new age.
You know, that’s what’s below all these things in New age. You are your own answer. You are the divine.
If you’re your own answer, then how come you have problems?
I mean, if I have to go to a yoga class to get together with myself, it’s easier and cheaper just to stay home with myself and call it a night.
You know, there’s no distinction between subject and object.
You know, there, there’s a, there’s a Beatles song that had to be influenced by this called which goes I am He as you are, he as you are me and we are all together.
Well, what do you do? What that’s called confusion.
You can’t be, you are not the other one.
He I am that if you are God, then how can you ever, how can you ever find God or know God if there’s no other, if there’s no other, what are you worshiping?
You’re worshiping yourself? And that is the stark reality of all this stuff.
It’s ultimately worshiping oneself if God needs, if, if you need to find the truth and we all do.
And, but if they’re, they’re saying that you’re God, then God needs to find the truth.
If that means God needs to find God, he needs a track to come to God.
God needs therefore to be saved, which is crazy. God needs to be enlightened. God has amnesia according to this.
There is ultimately, if you are the truth, there’s no truth to find, you can’t find something that you are.
And if you’re meditating, you meditate on God, you’re not meditating on God.
Because if you think you are God, there’s nothing, nothing happening there.
And if you are God, you better be content with who you are because it’s not gonna get any better than that really.
I mean, think about, you know, the whole thing in, in this, it’s not just those who are in it and I’m not trying to make a lot of people who are, this is what they’re born into and we need to pray for them.
But it’s not just that it’s permeated the culture and even in ways some, you know, becomes new age and then it gets even more permeated where you don’t even know it’s new age, but it’s just part of the, you, the God in you, the, you, the divine, you, you know, you are the answer, you know.
Yes, we can, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
What and what is the goal of all this? The goal is called Nirvana. You’ve heard it now.
What do you think of Nirvana? You think?
Well, you probably don’t know, a lot of, you probably think it’s this nice, you know, kind of club med thing.
It’s like this sort of version of paradise, all that not really. Nirvana means the extinguishing of the soul.
It’s like the blowing out of the flame because the idea, the goal of all this is to extinguish the soul so that you’re back as the cosmic oneness, the, the, that’s what it’s about.
And so you’re supposed to lose yourself. How do you even do that? How do you lose yourself by yourself?
You’re using if you’re a self, if this problem is being self selfishness, how do you do anything?
If you’re starting from selfishness? How can this self do anything good?
How can it, how unless you, you see you need another self?
I mean, you need a bigger higher self usa today. Spoke of deep.
This is not about him. I’m just, this is, this is part of, this is the contradiction of it.
We should pray for him and all.
And it said it said that that he was filing a $10 million lawsuit against.
I’m not sure if it was, I’m not sure if it was USA today or something.
And they like, wait a minute, you know, because they defamed him, they said something, wait a minute.
If you’re supposed to be, if yourself is an illusion, why are you worried about your reputation?
I mean, it should be helping you to quote, die to self.
So he said his answer was they asked him, why are you doing a $10 million lawsuit?
Because they said something you’re supposed to be you know, he his answers quote was maybe I should be enlightened enough to say it doesn’t matter.
But he’s suing anyway. If everything is an illusion, how can you be passionate about anything?
It leads to the, the a passionless, it leads to an apathy.
So in, in India, you had the killing of Children, you had infanticide, you had the burning of widows.
When a husband died, you had Children raised as temple prostitutes, all sorts of degradation of human life because that’s what it ultimately goes to.
You might think if everybody is God, then human life should be precious.
Not so at all because the idea is human life is just an illusion. Ultimately to be nullified, nullified.
They, they, they speak about it.
It’s empowering to say your God, it’s not empowering to say your God, aside from it being blasphemy.
If you say that God is the world and the world is God, you’re giving up all hope.
Because if, if the world is God, then there’s nothing to save the world anymore.
If the world is gone, then the world is, then God would be evil.
God would have problems, then there’s nothing to save it. There’s no hope.
There’s nothing more than what you see. In other words, let me put it this way.
It’s like say you are drowning, you’re drowning and you need a lifeguard.
And the person says, oh, hey, I got good news for you said, well, you are you the lifeguard?
I said no, no. But I have good news for you. You’re the lifeguard. But I’m drowning.
Well, if you’re the life, if you’re drowning and you’re the lifeguard, you’re in trouble, it might feel good for a moment.
Hey, I’m a lifeguard. But you’re drowning. That means that you actually have nobody to save you.
Because if you’re the lifeguards drowning, nobody is saved.
So, in the same way, it may feel good that people tell other people. They, they teach this.
You are God. Well, it might feel good for a moment but it does nothing for you.
All it does is give you all. It does is eliminate all hope.
Because if you’re the answer, you’re in trouble because you still don’t know how to swim and you’re going down, you just say I’m a lifeguard going down up to that point, you might have had hope that there was a lifeguard who knew how to swim.
But the, the same way you see when you think you’re divine by yourself, you think you’re deity, you think that you may feel good, but you still have the same problem.
But now it’s worse because you’ve got no answer. But we have something so much better.
And that is that you exist because of God’s love.
You came into existence for it to know Him personally. You are not alone.
There is another, there is another who said I will never leave you or forsake you.
That’s worth more than all this stuff. And that means because you are not alone.
There is something always new. There’s something more every day for you to find out of God.
That’s why He says, seek me and you will find me every day early. Will I seek you?
God wants us seeking him. There’s something to find every day.
There’s something new for your life every single day if you will seek it and you will say I am not the, I don’t know that, I don’t know, I barely know anything compared to what I should know.
Paul could say that I might know Him. I’m not God. He is.
And that means there’s so much more for me to know. There’s a miracle, there’s a grace, whatever.
I know, there’s more, whatever I think is good. He’s better.
What however much I think I know about His love. There’s more love.
It’s better better than trying to be God is to know God to know that God, that the God is there and he came into the world because He loved you better than trying to be God is to know that God, that God better than better than saying the, the, the false of God is us, is much better.
God is with us. We are not God but God is with us. Emmanuel.
I am with you in all things.
When you pass through the water, it won’t overflow you because I’ll be with you there, you deal with the fire.
I’ll be with you. It’s not gonna, you’re not gonna get burned. I’m gonna be with you.
I will be with you. Always better than all this is to be able to say with assurance.
Three words that, that no one can truly say.
They might say it but they, it doesn’t, it, it’s contradicted by their faith through these three words that we can say.
That’s not, that is our faith. God loves me.
I can call him friend and he calls me my friend.
He’s my father, my redeemer, my shepherd, my light, my beloved, my salvation, my Yeshua, my hope, my everything.
He is all. Thank God. You’re not God. Thank God, no God.
It is written cast your burdens upon him because He cares about you and you don’t have to attain this perfection by this, this, this, this, this selfless perfection.
You don’t, you, you He’s the God who comes down to you.
The greatest thing you can ever know is to know his love and know his peace and know his cleansing and know His, know his mercy and know his redemption.
And you could say that, that I will.
Lord, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is my rock.
He’s my hope. He’s my bride groom. He’s my, he’s my, he’s my everything.
He’s my, the joy of my life.
He is all these things and So I will worship you forever and ever and ever and ever give thanks to the Lord for he is good for his love indoors forever.
Amen and amen and amen and amen.