Ralph Waldo Emmerson & Hindu Influence

Wherefore come out from among them,

and be ye separate, saith the Lord,

and touch not the unclean thing;

2 Corinthians 6:17

"Ralph Waldo Emerson may be regarded as the founding father of New Thought. 

He was much influenced by his reading of the Hindu scriptures. He wrote: "In all nations there are minds which incline to dwell in the

conception of the fundamental Unity. This tendency finds its highest expression in the religious writings of the East, and chiefly in the Indian Scriptures, in the Vedas, the Bhagavat-Gita, and the Vishnu Purana. . . . I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavat-Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us".

Emerson delivered a lecture on “The Oversoul,” at the Harvard Divinity School in 1844. He talked of a ‘divine presence’ that permeates the whole creation and all living things. 

The close parallel between Hindu scripture and Emerson’s

enunciation here is unmistakable. 

Emerson was settled in Concord, Massachusetts, which now boasts an impressive Emerson Museum. Leading Transcendentalists in Massachusetts included Henry David Thoreau, Phineas Quimby, Margaret Fuller, Palmer Peabody, James Freeman Clark, and Mary Baker Eddy. Charles and Myrtle Fillmore founded the Unity Church in 1889 with headquarters in Missouri." 

UniversityOfWestFlorida

Hinduism & Western New Age

Wherefore come out from among them,

and be ye separate, saith the Lord,

and touch not the unclean thing;

2 Corinthians 6:17

"The “new age” is a movement that became popular in the West in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, it carried a clear Eastern pedigree, drawing from Hindu mysticism and Western occult teachings that appealed to the idealist counterculture then in the ascendancy. 

But over the course of the 80s and 90s New Age authors, writing for a Christian and Jewish readership, retained popular Sanskrit words in their books, such as chakra, but with a nonspecific spiritual

connection. 

New Age morphed from a quasi-religious movement to a loose spiritual philosophy with a strong marketing angle, aimed primarily at women, promoting health, beauty, inner peace and successful relationships. 

In India, It’s Just Hinduism. 

New Age cosmologies uphold a cyclical worldview wherein individuals, worlds, and the universe pass through multitudes of incarnations. 

Here the New Age borrows from the standard cosmologies of the Indian traditions, most notably Hinduism, which envision the cosmos passing through vast cosmic epochs, just as the individual moves from life to life. 

Again, this position also distinguishes the New Age from the conventional linear view of existence promulgated by the western religious traditions. This cosmology also reinforces the New Age propensity toward belief in reincarnation." 

HinduismToday/Patheos

IN the NEWS - Indian Christians feeling the Wrath of "Rama"?

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. John 15:18

"A Hindu extremist mob in northern India last month assaulted two Christian couples and an attorney for several hours, accusing them of forced conversion, sources said.
In Harayana state’s Titoli village, five miles from the city of Rohtak, the mob forced one of the Christians, a pastor, to set fire to a heap of Bibles while the Hindu extremists recorded videos that immediately went viral, resulting in 32 complaints to police.

Pastor Jehovah Das, 65, and Vinod Masih, 42, along with their wives had been invited to a Christian family’s home in the village to pray and bless the arrival of their second child on Nov. 7, sources said.
About 10 to 12 members of the Arya Samaj (Noble Society), a Hindu reform movement, found out about the Christians’ visit. They phoned several of their associates and gathered a mob of about 50 people that barged into the house.
“They began to beat us with slaps, punches, elbows, kicked us with their legs and held us hostage,” Masih told Morning Star News, adding that they beat the Christians from 10:30 a.m. until 3 p.m.
The Hindu extremists, whose number had then reached 80, searched their car, pulled out all Bibles and tracts and cast them onto the ground into a heap. They shot videos that showed the two couples, disoriented and in shock, forced to repeat that they intended “conversion” in the village and that they would never return.
The mob kicked the Bibles and spoke disrespectfully about Christ, Masih said.
Pastor Das was made to write a letter of apology that the video shows in his hand. A member of the mob then took a bottle of flammable liquid from the hands of a boy standing with the mob and forced

three of the Christians to sprinkle it on the Bibles and literature. After forcing Pastor Das to set the Bibles on fire, the mob then shouted praises to the Hindu god Rama.
The mob dragged the Christians to their car and locked them inside.
“We were locked in our car for two hours – we were not allowed food, water or to relieve ourselves during this time,” said Masih.
While held hostage, Masih’s wife Reena called attorney Satish Arya for help. Arya, who once belonged to the Arya Samaj sect, has been a practicing Christian for five years. He quickly drove 10 kilometers (six miles) to reach Titoli village.
“While on my way to the village, I called the police helpline and informed them about the hostage situation and requested that any inquiry against the Christians be taken up in the police station, and that they should not let the mob take the law in their hands,” Arya told Morning Star News. “Police assured me that they will arrive soon.”
When Arya reached the village, he saw that the Christians were gathered at one area and about 20 to 25 Hindu women were assaulting the two Christian women.
“They were slapping the Christian women, pulling their hair, punching them. The scene was terrible,” said Arya. 
Arya stood at some distance waiting for police, but they did not arrive, he said. The mob called police, and responding officers soon arrived, he said.
One of the Hindu extremists noticed Arya and the words, “Jai Masih Ki [Praise the Lord]” written on his car’s back window, and about 12 of them approached and asked about his background. They quickly learned that he was a Christian.
Arya told them that he was an attorney and insisted that they take the Christians to the police station and let officers, rather than the mob, question them.
“I objected to their act of holding the Christians hostage for four hours and questioned their inhumane behavior,” Arya said.
Wearing his black court robe, he was dragged to the site where the other Christians were being beaten and was assaulted.

“They tore my black gown, my shirt and my innerwear,” he said. “They stripped my upper body and continued to beat me for 25 minutes, and that too in the presence of the police.”
The mob proposed that they put all five Christians in a car and set them on fire within, and Arya told them the law would not spare them for such a horrendous act.
A man from among the Hindu mob somehow managed to set Arya free, and the attorney left and called his wife, asking her to bring him a fresh set of clothes.
Officers responding to Arya’s initial helpline call finally arrived, detained the Christians and took them to the police station, sources said. After Arya went to a doctor and received first aid, he then went to the police station.
“By the time I reached the police station, the Christians were pressured to give a written statement that they did not want to press charges against the mob and promised that they would not enter that village in the future,” he said.
Arya wanted to take legal action, but when he held a meeting with the host family in Titoli village, he learned Hindu residents had threatened to drive them from the area if they sided with the Christians." MSN

Papal Notes - Jesuit Francis Follows in Footseps of Jesuit's in China

"On May 3, 2023, the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue met with Hindus and various Christian groups to build a new family based on the encyclical Fratelli Tutti and Hindu texts. The Vatican published the following:

“About fifty-five participants representing the Christian and

Hindu religious traditions in Europe gathered in Rome for a meeting on the theme ‘Hindus and Christians in Europe: Building together a fraternity-based new humanism.’ The meeting, which was the first of its kind, took place yesterday and was organized by the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue in collaboration with the Hindu Forum of Europe, the Italian Hindu Union and the World Council of Churches.” 

“Participants reflected on the changing dynamics of the Hindu-Christian relationship in Europe and envisaged ways of enhancing cooperation on issues that would foster human flourishing through interreligious dialogue, solidarity and hospitality. It was acknowledged that the Hindu concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the whole world is one family) and Pope Francis’s Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti serve as compasses to guide Hindus and Christians towards a ‘new humanism’ in an increasingly intercultural and interreligious Europe. Participants also had the opportunity today to take part in the General Audience of the Holy Father.” 

The Vatican is determined to create its new universal fraternity. 

In order to accomplish this, there must be interfaith dialogue with all the religious faiths. 

*The problem with Hinduism is that this belief system embraces the

pagan gods Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesh, and 330 million other gods.  God has not called His church to dialogue but to evangelize the world with the gospel. The Bible clearly states that God will not share His glory with the false gods of this earth:

“I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” Isaiah 42:8.

Tragically, in Rome’s universal fraternity, the truth of God’s word is hidden and trampled upon." AdventMessenger

Creation Moment 4/24/2023 - The 4 "Wise" Fools of France

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,... 

Romans 1:22

"Belief in ‘deep time’ actually developed in France in the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries, before spreading to Britain in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.

 

Amongst the most notable French voices against scriptural authority and belief in the Flood in the 18^th century were: Bernard de Fontenelle (1657–1757), Benoît de Maillet (1656–1738), Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694–1778), and Denis Diderot (1713–1784).

 

Bernard de Fontenelle

Fontenelle was trained at the Jesuit Collège de Bourbon, and for decades (1697–1740) he held the prestigious position of Secretary to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris. This allowed him to influence the development and direction of geological science in France in a way that undermined belief in the Biblical Flood.

He had earlier written a book (1686) entitled Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds. Effectively a science fiction dialogue, it discussed space travel and the possibility of life on the moon and other planets. Fontenelle envisioned gradual alterations in nature occurring over hundreds of thousands of years, and his book was influential in preparing the French imagination for a different worldview over the subsequent century.

 

Benoît de Maillet

Another significant influence of the middle of the 18^th century was de Maillet’s edited book Telliamed (a reversal of his name). It was first published posthumously (1748) by the Jesuit priest Abbé Jean Baptiste le Mascrier, although draft copies had been circulating in Paris for a couple of decades. De Maillet had become a French diplomat, allowing him to travel to the Middle East where he became acquainted with other cultures and beliefs.

Telliamed argued the case for millions of years of change from the perspective of a Hindu sage against a French missionary. Earlier clandestine drafts had argued that the earth was at least two billion years old, correlating roughly with half a day of the Hindu creator god Brahma; the 12-hour day of Brahma is said to last for 4.32 billion years (during which period Brahma is awake), followed by a night of similar length.

 

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)

The famous Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire also claimed that deep time was required for geological change. He commented in an anonymous letter to the Academy of Bologna in 1746 that:

Revolutions of thousands of millions of years are infinitely less in the light of the Great Architect of Nature, than to us that of a wheel which compleats [sic] its round in the twinkling of an eye.

Voltaire also argued that fossil fish found on Alpine mountains were in fact food dropped by Christian pilgrims! However, Charles Lyell, though a strong opponent of the Mosaic account, thought Voltaire was arguing deceitfully, because Voltaire recognized that such fossil evidence strongly supported the Biblical Flood account. He commented quite bluntly that:

The numerous essays written by him on geological subjects were all calculated to strengthen prejudices, partly because he was ignorant of the real state of the science, and partly from his bad faith.

Voltaire even began to argue that the Hindu writings were more ancient and authentic than the Bible. However, again he misrepresented the truth. He praised the Ezour Veda (or Ezourvedam) as a valuable gift to Western nations, saying they were indebted to this eastern religion. But in reality, this was a latter-day forgery; the work of Jesuits, not an ancient text. It was in the form of a dialogue between two supposed Vedic sages, one a monotheist and the other a polytheist who conclude that Hindu polytheism is more or less monotheism in disguise.

 

Denis Diderot

Diderot was an agitator against the political and religious authorities and, at one time, was imprisoned for sedition. In his Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature (1754), he wrote:

… may not a philosopher, left to his own conjectures, suspect that, from time immemorial, animal life had its own constituent elements, scattered and intermingled with the general body of matter, and that it happened that these constituent elements came together … [and] that millions of years passed between each of these developments … ?

The Jesuit-trained Diderot was well acquainted with Voltaire and gradually lost his faith, becoming a deist, then an atheist. He was tasked with editing a French Encyclopédie, a comprehensive work published from 1751 to 1772 to explain the world from the perspective of naturalism, and aimed at changing the thinking of French society.

 

Belief in millions of years of geological change then spread to Britain in the late 18^th century and early 19^th century through men such as James Hutton, Erasmus Darwin, Charles Lyell, and Charles Darwin." CMI

IN the NEWS - Truly Shocking

 It did not even enter God's mind to have human sacrifice...

They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, ..........

Jeremiah 32:35

"A man and his wife allegedly committed suicide by decapitating themselves using a guillotine-like device, which they created at home, so that they could offer their heads for a sacrificial ritual in Gujarat’s Rajkot district, police said on Sunday.

Hemubhai Makwana (38) and his wife Hansaben (35) killed themselves by getting their heads severed by the blade of the device in a hut at their farm in Vinchhiya village, sub-inspector Indrajeetsinh Jadeja of Vinchhiya police station said.

The husband-wife duo executed the plan in such a manner that their heads rolled into the fire altar after getting severed, he said, adding that a suicide note was found at the spot.

The couple were apparently Hindu, and they had reportedly set up a makeshift temple to worship Shiva, a Hindu deity.

In an article published in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry in 2018, two researchers examined the question of suicide in the Hindu faith, writing: “The stand of Hinduism on suicide has been ambiguous through the ages, on one hand, condemning general suicides, while condoning religious suicides on the other. This ambiguity is reflected in contemporary India and among the Indian diaspora.”

Brietbart

On the Streets of Babylon: Invocations to Shiva heard on the Streets

Babylon is fallen, is fallen,..

Come out of her, my people,
Revelation 14:8/18:4

There seems to be "Invocations to Shiva" heard on the Streets of Babylon...

 

"Catholics in the former Portuguese colony of Goa are invoking Hindu gods in a ritual dance before each Lenten season. 

The syncretistic ritual, which takes place every year on the Monday before Ash Wednesday, begins with an all-male Catholic troupe gathering at a chapel in the Goan village of Chandor to invoke the Hindu god of destruction, Shiva.

The ceremony begins with Catholic prayers, followed by an invocation seeking the blessing of Shiva. The troupe then marches to the nearby St. Tiago Chapel, where a short litany is said and the first dance is performed. 

The troupe then performs the rite in front of every house in the village, and the lady of the house comes out with a lamp to welcome the dancers. 

The dancers pray for the repose of the souls of the dead if a family member has died in the past year."

Protestia

IN the NEWS - Old Fashioned Paganism of Romans 1

And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 

Romans 1:22

"The birth of a calf with a third eye in the middle of its forehead and four nostril holes has triggered a lot of curiosity among many people in Chhattisgarh state's Rajnandgaon District in India.

Believing it to be the actual rebirth of the three-eyed Hindu God Shiva, a large number of people are flocking from nearby villages and queuing up to worship the calf, with incense sticks, offering coconut and money as per the local culture.

 

The calf was born on 14 January, just as the Hindu festival of harvesting, "Makar Sankranti", was being celebrated. The timing of the curious calf's arrival has also lent to locals developing a perception that the bovine birth holds religious significance. 

 "I have never seen any three-eyed being. Only Lord Shiva had it. It is a divine miracle. It is an incarnation of the Lord himself," Villager Neelkumar Verma told Indian news agency ANI."

Sputnik

Pasupati & Romans 1:23

And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Romans 1:23

 

"The region of northwest India, in River Indus’s basin area, began urbanizing and was in decline by 1500 BC.

Its natives had their own religious universe, though most of their gods, goddesses, and rituals are still unknown. 

Yet, artefacts like seals, tablets, and terracotta figurines found at its many settlements like Mohenjodaro and Harappa tell their own tales.  

 

One such tablet has as its central theme a man meditating cross-legged in yogic posture. Sporting a double-horned headgear, he is surrounded by animals like tiger, rhinoceros, and elephant. This has led archaeologists to call him Pasupati (In Sanskrit, pasu is animal, pati lord)." PocketWorthy

IN the NEWS - Hindu Monks and the Darkened Mind on Display

 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God,....and their foolish heart was darkened. Romans 1:21

"Various Indian officials and politicians on Wednesday responded to a viral video of a most unpleasant “alternative therapy” by warning that people should not slather themselves in cow dung to ward off the Wuhan coronavirus.

The video from Shree Swaminarayan Gurukul Vishwavidya Pratishthanam, a school run by Hindu monks which happens to be located across the street from a pharmaceutical company called Zydus Cadila that is working on a coronavirus vaccine, shows believers smearing cow dung and urine over themselves to boost their immune systems. 

 

Participants in the ritual occupy themselves by hugging sacred cows and doing yoga while they wait for the mixture to dry, then wash the dung off with milk or buttermilk.

 Another popular video shows Indian lawmaker Surendra Singh, a controversial member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP party, claiming he immunized himself against the coronavirus by drinking “cow urine with a glass of cold water.”

 “There is no concrete scientific evidence that cow dung or urine boosts immunity against Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus]. People should also understand that using excreta of cows is bound to increase the chance of some zoonotic or infectious disease spreading,” Indian Medical Association (IMA) chief Dr. JA Jayalal warned on Wednesday." Breitbart

IN the NEWS - Q: How Far Has The Vatican Strayed?... A: This Far....

 ....we wait for light, but behold obscurity; 

for brightness, but we walk in darkness.

Isaiah 59:9

 

 "The Vatican's forthcoming conference on global health will host a hugely controversial Hindu guru who invented his own "third Jesus".

New Age celebrity Dr. Deepak Chopra will address the Pontifical Council for Culture's health summit on "Exploring the Mind, Body and Soul," which will be held online from May 6–8.

 

The session is expected to discuss content from Chopra and Tanzi's popular book Super Brain: Unleashing the Explosive Power of Your Mind to Maximize Health, Happiness and Spiritual Well-Being. 

 

Chopra's book on the 'super brain' has little to do with science and a lot to do with Vedic mumbo jumbo. It unapologetically promotes Shankara's monist Hinduism.

 

The academic pointed to sections of Chopra's book that make

dubious claims. Among these claims  a reiteration of the ancient Sanskrit Vedic mantra, "Aham brahmasmi" (I am the universe).

 

According to Chopra, Jesus is "not the Savior, not the one and only Son of God. Rather Jesus embodied the highest level of enlightenment." Moreover, for Chopra, Jesus is "not a person, but a state of consciousness." CM

Papal Notes - Francis' Hindu Moment

"Dr. Vandana Shiva is a leading Hindu physicist, writer and environmental activist from India. She participated in the Pope Francis conference called the “Economy of Francesco” in Italy....whenever we talk about the “Economy of Francesco,” we are talking about the Pope’s new vision for a global economy. At the heart of Pope Francis’ foundation for this new economy is Laudato Si’. 

Dr. Vandana Shiva, a keynote speaker at the “Economy of Francesco” event, was asked the following question about Laudato Si’:

Vatican News: You certainly must have read Pope Francis’ Encyclical “Laudato Si’” What impression did it make on you?

Dr. Vandana Shiva: I have not just read Pope Francis’s Encyclical Laudato Si’, I participated in the dialogues at the Vatican on Redefining the Economy and going beyond the Economy of Indifference. When I read Laudato Si’ I felt I was reading our ancient Vedic texts, especially the Atharvaveda on our duty to have reverence for the Earth and all her beings.

Here we have a Hindu physicist who says that the Pope’s encyclical on climate, Laudato Si’, is steeped in pantheistic mysticism.

---The planet is being treated as if it were a living rational being worthy of our praise. 

---These ideas make no distinction between creation and the Creator. 

---God is made equal to the universe both in physical matter and in the forces that govern it. 

---The Pope’s message is a call to men and women to have an intimate relationship with the earth. 

---This is the new foundation for the coming global economy.

 

Paul reminds us that we must not accept another gospel even if it is

proclaimed by “an angel from heaven” (Galatians 1:8)."

AdventMessenger

On the Streets of Babylon: Worship around the Phallus?

Babylon is fallen, is fallen,... 
Come out of her, my people,
Revelation 14:8/18:4

There seem to be some worship services around a  "Phallus" on the Streets of Babylon ......

"An Indian bishop has provoked a backlash from Catholics and Hindus after he celebrated the Holy Eucharist using saffron robes worn by Hindu priests before a tabernacle in the form of

a Shivalinga — the phallus of the Hindu god Shiva.
Bishop Derek Fernandes and his concelebrating clergy were photographed at Mass wearing Hindu clerical vestments and sporting rudraksha malas — a necklace of Hindu beads.
The clerics had also smeared their foreheads with a sacred vermillion paste called tilak — one of the most visible symbols of the Hindu religion.
However, what is most shocking is that the tabernacle .... should be shaped like a Shivalinga — which is the phallus of the god of fertility and destruction, Shiva, inserted into the female genitals of his consort Parvati.
Father Nelson Pinto, a priest of the diocese, defended the "inculturation" by explaining that when the first Jesuit priests went to Deshnur, in a predominantly Lingayat (a Hindu sect worshipping Shiva) region, they adopted the local culture.
"The Jesuit priests became vegetarians and embraced other local practices," Pinto said.
"They did not do it to convert the people who lived there," he clarified.
However, Hindus have interpreted the act as a covert attempt at conversion and a desecration of Hindu symbolism."
CatholicChurchMilitant

Hinduism on the Green Religion

The Green Glue that could help bring the world together spiritually....

They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself... Romans 1:25 NLT 

Excerpt from the Hindu Declaration on Climate Change: 

"[W]e call on all Hindus to expand our conception of dharma. We must consider the effects of our actions not just on ourselves and those humans around us, but also on all

beings. We have a dharmic duty for each of us to do our part in ensuring that we have a functioning, abundant, and bountiful planet.
[...]
Climate change creates pain, suffering, and violence. Unless we change how we use energy, how we use the land, how we grow our crops, how we treat other animals, and how we use natural resources, we will only further this pain, suffering, and violence. On a personal basis, we can reduce this suffering by beginning to transform our habits, simplifying our lives and material desires, and not taking more than our reasonable share of resources. Adopting a plant-based diet is one of the single most powerful acts that a person can take in reducing environmental impact. In doing all of this, we help maintain the ecological and cosmic order, an order that allows life and existence to flourish."