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 To my first grandson,
Jude Kumar McNeil.
His name says it all—
He is a gift from our Lord
and the twin ethnic heritages he represents.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Anyone who has ever accomplished anything knows there is

very little one can do without enormous support and help from
others. In fact, that help may come from the most unexpected
places. I write thousands of miles away from home, far from the
distractions of other responsibilities, so that I may focus on the
job at hand. So first I would like to thank those who have given
up so much time with me to free me to do a project like this—
my family, my colleagues, my friends. In fact, they have done
much to cheer me on from a distance. My thanks to all I meet
while traveling, some of whose names I do not know, who take
the time to talk and interact with me. To the team that takes care
of my back to minimize my pain during protracted hours of
writing, my deepest gratitude. Without you all, I could not do
this.
Finally, I want to thank the four who work behind the
scenes: Wolgemuth & Associates, my agents, are also my
friends; the efforts of Joey Paul of FaithWords, whose diligent
pursuit helped me sharpen the focus of this book, cannot be
gainsaid. Joey is a unique man. I wish there were more like him
in this world. Also Danielle DuRant, my hardworking research
assistant, who reminds me of what I said where and helps me
say it better; Margie, my wife, who is a night owl when it comes
to working on manuscripts. She gave up many nights of sleep
to do the editorial work. I can’t thank her enough.
But all is not said: As a teen without meaning in my life, I
found Jesus as my Lord, Savior, and the shepherd of my soul.
Little did I know then how much his message of love and
forgiveness would change everything for me. This book is a
defense of who he is and of why his name is still above every
name.
 INTRODUCTION

I had just walked through one of the newest shopping malls in

New Delhi. It is one of those globalized reproductions where
you see the same stores whether you are in Hong Kong, Paris,
Tokyo, or New York. What’s in a name? A lot of money,
depending on whose name it is. But you can also walk into
shops in Bangkok or Jakarta and find, in popular jargon, a
“knockoff version” of the brand name that looks identical to
the original. If it is a Rolex you are looking for, the shopkeeper
will tell the person who is wearing an original one, “You’d
better put yours in your pocket, because when you place it
side by side with my fake one you won’t be able to tell the
difference.” The replicas are so identical to the real ones that
only an expert can tell the difference. When, out of curiosity, I
asked one salesperson how they were even able to
manufacture these, he reprimanded me, saying that his fakes
were genuine fakes and not the fake fakes that the man around
the corner sold. When I asked the man of the “genuine fakes”
if his genuine fakes would fail within a little while, he looked me
in the eye and said, “So will you in a few years.”
Not only was there the genuine/fake market in this mall,
there was the exotic touch to the way products were promoted.
The health food stores advertised revolutionary magical
slimming and wellness products from America, Switzerland, and
points west. I couldn’t help but think of the wellness
magazines I have seen in the West, all of which advertise
revolutionary products from the East: the juices of Tibetan
berries, “age-old” remedies from India, China, Japan, and
Indonesia; from the jungles of the Amazon to the mountains of
Kashmir, they offer myriad cures. What a world we are living
in! The more foreign-sounding a word, the more mystique we
attribute to it and endue it with powers to bring about nirvana.
Who doesn’t want to be well? Who doesn’t want a life
free from stress? Who, deep in his or her heart, doesn’t want to
know God, if he really exists? So the wellness industry and the
spiritual centers are thriving, each offering their own version of
bliss.
Recently, Deepak Chopra went to Thailand to be ordained
as a Buddhist monk, and, according to an article I read in India,
Julia Roberts has become a Hindu. She and her family go to a
Hindu temple every now and then, to chant and repeat certain
sounds that are supposed to help her gain peace. I wonder if
Roberts and Chopra realize that Buddha was born a Hindu and
turned his back on some of Hinduism’s fundamental teachings
in order to begin his own pilgrimage and discover a new path.
At least in Buddha’s defense we can say his was a lifelong
pursuit. In Chopra’s case, he was a monk for a week.
This book is about the deep, irrepressible spiritual
hungers we all have. We long both for an escape from the
world around us and for solace within us. Our world extracts
too much from us. Where does one find replenishment and
ultimate meaning, especially in a world that mass-markets
numerous paths to truth? At every turn we are offered special
words, sounds, discoveries… genuine fakes, fake fakes… and
everything else that is today subsumed under the sweeping
category of “spirituality.” Just as sin has gone out of vogue
and evil has remained a legitimate category, though limited,
religion has gone out of vogue while spirituality remains a valid
pursuit.
Over years of careful research and reflection I have given
deep, detailed, and extended thought to this subject. More
than forty years and numerous countries and conversations
later, I have some thoughts to offer that I trust the reader will
pay careful attention to. I genuinely and passionately care
about this search.
In spiritual matters, too, there is the genuine, the genuine
fake, and the fake fake. Tired, in the West, of what C. S. Lewis
called “the same old thing,” and having become accustomed to
abundance and the bliss of multiple choice, we have now a
spiritual supermarket before us from which we may choose
whatever form of spirituality we fancy. We think we can follow
whichever path we want and still end up with something
meaningful. It all boils down to branding and appearance.
Questions of truth are hinted at but seldom asked. Life is lived
with a smorgasbord of sounds and chants.
Spirituality is writ large in the West as gurus come and go.
Perhaps a primary reason for this spread of alternative
spiritualities and a key to unlocking much of this puzzle for us
is our means of communication today. Cultural shifts do not
happen in one giant step. How is it that a culture that once
frowned upon certain sexual practices now frowns upon those
who frown upon them? How is it that from the normal use of
language in public broadcasting and in public discourse, so
well tempered that even mild deviations were viewed as serious
infractions, we now experience on a daily basis entertainment
that has moved from the genius of humor to the crassness of
shock and vulgarity? Why is it that the more perverse the
story, the greater the audience it draws on television or at the
theater? Why do people create false scenarios in order to have
their own “reality” shows? Who are these icons created by the
media of the visual whose belief in some form of spirituality
seems real, even if they are made-up for the sell? Has all this
happened because our taboos were wrong or is it that, in a
very real sense, we have pushed the Replay button on the saga
of Eden and can now look, touch, and taste anything we wish
to because we have become gods, determining for ourselves
what is right and what is wrong?
There is no greater force in cultivating tastes, legitimizing
beliefs, and achieving mass impact than our capacity for visual
communication. It is hard to even remember how we lived
before its inception. At the same time, it is hard to imagine a
culture more gullible than that of America today, priding itself
on being a culture that is willing to absorb anything
indiscriminately.
Two personalities that typify what we have in the spiritual
smorgasbord before us today are Oprah Winfrey and Deepak
Chopra. And if they represent two ends of the spectrum, there
are hosts of others in between. Their success has
demonstrated how easily an idea can be marketed, reshaped,
repackaged, and taken at face value by a generation that not
only fails to ask the right questions, but doesn’t care enough
about truth to even think the right questions. Combine the
power of the camera and the power of the Internet with the
hungers deep within, and you have a ready mix of spiritual time
and space in different dimensions.
This thing we now call “spirituality” has itself evolved as
a term over the last few years. People will say that they’re not
“into” religion but they are “into” spirituality. That in itself is a
sociological phenomenon. And just as existentialists don’t like
to be categorized, neither do the advocates of the New
Spirituality. Because so much is encompassed by that term, to
deal with it in a simplistic manner is unfair to any reader. So,
instead, I have looked at the most popular forms of the New
Spirituality and then at the marketing of this vast new field.
Then I have gone further and looked at those religions and
exponents that actually provided the underlying worldviews
from which these popular forms of spirituality have emerged.
Finally, I have looked at what it is about the message of
Jesus Christ that, if properly understood, still offers the beauty,
the power, and the only hope of any future for mankind. So
much of the fake has overtaken the depth and breadth of his
teaching. He said that he came to give us water to drink that
would quench our deepest thirsts. Yet the superficiality with
which his message has been presented and manipulated by the
media has obscured if not destroyed his message. One ought
never to judge a philosophy by its abuse. Yet that is what the
message of Jesus has suffered. The same manipulations attend
the “new” spiritual movements, but for a different purpose.
Should our pursuit be to abuse the message, or should it be to
discover what is actually being claimed by these belief systems
and test these claims for authenticity? At their core, the
worldviews behind these new spiritual movements are
completely different from that of Jesus.
There are four key elements that come to the fore in a
study of these systems and beliefs. The first is the combination
of truth and relevance: How do I know that what I believe is
true, and is what I believe in any way relevant to my day-to-
day life? The danger here is that we often mistake relevance for
truth and make truth so academic that it seems to have become
irrelevant. Either we become so rigid and dispassionate about
truth that we forget to filter it down to the level of our
emotions, or we place such stress on “feeling good” that we
forget to ask the basic question of whether what we believe is
based in truth.
But there is a second combination, and that is of reason
and faith. Every worldview has to bring together reason and
faith. Some admit to both, and some like to pretend they have
both in the proper order. The naturalist is too proud to admit
that a heavy dose of faith is required in order to believe as he
or she does. And the religious person can often become smug
and say, “I really don’t care what you say, my faith is the most
important thing to me.” I have often put it this way: God has
put enough into this world to make faith in him a most
reasonable thing; but he has left enough out to make it
impossible to live by reason alone.
I was born in Chennai, in the south of India, and raised in
Delhi, in the North. My ancestors came from the highest caste
of the Hindu priesthood, the Nambudiris and the Nairs, from
Kerala. Several generations ago, as far as we know, one of them
heard the message of Jesus from some German-Swiss
missionaries and became a devout follower of Christ. She was
ostracized, expelled from her community and family, and paid
dearly for her newfound faith. Her descendant was my
grandmother, who married into the Zacharias family, which had
also been converted from Hinduism several generations back.
However, generations later this newfound faith had
become true in name only because, unlike every other religion,
being born into a Christian home does not make one a
Christian; it is the specific decision on the part of every person
to follow Christ that makes that person a Christian. It took my
generation, asking the hard questions about belief, to once
again study the message of Jesus and respond to its simplicity
and sublimity. I became a Christian while on a bed of attempted
suicide at the age of seventeen when I cried out to God in
prayer, “Lord Jesus, if you are who you claim to be, reveal
yourself to me and take me out of my desperate situation and I
will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth.” Five days
later I walked out of that hospital room a brand-new man, and I
have never looked back. Jesus Christ does not only change
what you do, he changes what you want to do.
But here is something important: One cannot just grasp
the finger of an experience of a moment and assume, therefore,
that one has grabbed the fist of reality. I have followed through
on my promise to pursue truth and have devoted my life to the
study and understanding of all the major religions and systems
of belief in the world. It was the right and proper thing to do.
Jesus makes an amazing statement. He not only claims to be
unique and to have the power to transform anyone who comes
to him, but the Bible says that we are “made complete” in him
(Colossians 2:10 NASB). What does that mean? I hope that in
the pages to follow you will stay with me on this journey to
find truth and relevance, faith and reason, and discover that
when we have Jesus, we have life. All other hungers for
spirituality are a reflection of why it is that he offers himself as
the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Even if you disagree with me, please stay the course.
Honesty of intent and thinking seriously about the content will
make the difference between the genuine and the spurious.
Coming to the right conclusion on a matter such as this will
define eternity. You may be surprised what your spiritual
hungers and God’s self-disclosure might bring to you. At the
point of his conversion C. S. Lewis said, “I thought I had come
to a place. I found out I had come to a person.” That’s what
this book is about: examining the places we wish to be and
those we should walk away from until we find the Person for
whom we are looking.
CHAPTER 1
 MOVIE MAKING OR SOUL MAKING

It’s a Dream World

From the first moment of the movie Inception, you are taken
through enough mysteries and plots strung together that you
are not sure whether you are watching the movie or the movie
is watching you. You feel yourself trying to determine whether
you are dreaming that you are awake or are awake and
dreaming. You begin to question whether you understand
reality at all or if reality has conned you, and a series of mind
games follows: Is consciousness a cause or an effect? Are we
human beings eternal entities given a quantity of time to exist
or are we time-laden bodies pretending to be eternal? In short,
in the complex mix of the drama, the biggest struggle is whether
you, the watcher, are the ultimate dreamer or merely the dream.
Ironically, the unavoidable reality in this brilliant
production is that dreaming or awake, the lead characters
display their infinite capacity for human depravity. The
schemes that wreak devastation—wholesale slaughter,
explosions, killing, everything in the news that clutters our
daily lives—are the staple of this movie, whether the characters
are in a state of slumber or awake. One thing has to be said for
Hollywood: there are some real geniuses behind the levels to
which they can carry the imagination.
The plot of Inception is built on the idea that a person can
infiltrate another individual’s mind through their dreams and
steal that person’s subconscious thoughts and plans. The
extractors of the information that is gained through the dreams
and their victims sleep in close proximity to one another, linked
by a device called the “Dream Share,” which administers a
sedative that allows them to share the dream jointly.
Interestingly, pain experienced in the dream world is real, and if
one awakes in the middle of the dream, death will result from
the abrupt crossing of consciousnesses. So one must remain in
a state of sleep and endure the pain in order to accomplish the
extraction. The sedation has to last. So in this depraved reality,
if you are the extractor you must remain asleep, enduring
someone else’s pain, until you can extract the information you
want. That’s about it.
The lead character carries a little spinning top called a
“totem” that either spins unceasingly or topples, allowing him
to determine whether he is dreaming or awake, respectively.
Odd, isn’t it, that even in the wanderings of our imaginations
we still want to know the difference between fantasy and
reality by implanting a world within a world to separate the
realities? No human emotion is missing from Inception: family
longings, children at play, the usual array of surreal underworld
figures and big-business shenanigans and the angst of marital
strains all form the tapestry of the story.
The overall mission in this film is to secretly implant an
idea that will topple a business adversary. Just trying to figure
out what is going on is enough to keep your attention as you
are swept into the story with its gripping motif of how the
power of an idea planted in the mind can change an individual
and in fact, rearrange reality when it is given motivation and
direction. The web that is being spun becomes even more
complex, delving into deeper and deeper levels of the
subconscious with proportionate ramifications. Just enough of
the supernatural is included to tantalize the viewer with a world
beyond the physical, and the producers have created a
psychological terrain and breadth of imagination that would
have made Freud look sophomoric.
Intriguing about this mix is how its creators concoct a
mesmerizing blend of mutually exclusive worldviews. But in the
world of moviemaking the irrational and the rational work hand
in hand to create worldviews that, in the end, endow a human
being with divine powers. That seems always to be the desired
result, and the means are harnessed to accomplish that end.
Interestingly, the same man who brought us this movie
spectacular also brought us The Dark Knight, which was really
Batman made postmodern. In that movie, award-winning actor
Heath Ledger played the sinister role of the Joker with near
satanic powers. Once again, you walked away from the movie
thinking it was “just a movie.” But was it? One can write a
whole book on some of the lines in that story. You can’t seem
to escape the question of whether that was all there was to it…
just a movie.
In the real world, devoid of pretense, when the news of
Heath Ledger’s sudden and mysterious drug-related death at
the age of twenty-nine hit the news, the question being
bandied about was whether his portrayal of the Joker had so
overtaken his thinking that he couldn’t break free from the
script of Batman. According to his co-actors and friends,
Ledger ended up possessed by the Joker and unable to break
free from the character, even away from the set. He so
immersed himself into the thought processes of the character
he was playing that the dividing line between imagination and
being imagined, from acting to becoming one with the
character, was erased. The sinister won the day and the Joker
was no longer a phantom character, but was embodied away
from the set with dire real-life consequences.
It’s Just a Story
Is it possible to read a story and not enter into it; to write a
story and not become part of the script?
When I was writing my first book, my family and I were
living in Cambridge, England. Our young son, who was just
nine years old at the time, decided to write a book as well. So
every evening after school, he would get out his pad of paper
and start dreaming his plot. Needless to say, every second
page was filled with some kind of crisis. One day, I came to the
table where I had my material all set up and I saw him seated
there as well, pen in hand, pad in front of him, the weight of the
world apparently on him as tears ran down his face. I
immediately put aside all I was thinking of and asked him what
on earth the matter was.
“I know it, I just know it,” he said between sobs.
“Know what?” I asked gently.
“I just know the dog is going to die.”
I had to pause to process what he was talking about and
realized that the world of make-believe and his make-believe
characters had taken over his own will to believe. It was
amazing to see in his eyes the sense of inevitability from which
he wanted to escape but couldn’t, even though it was in his
power to do so. Frankly, I didn’t know whether to break him
out of the role of storyteller or let him know that when you
write a story, it tends to take on a life all its own. Such is the
immense power of the imagination when it intersects with
reality. This is actually how cultures are shaped.
It is one thing for this to happen in the mind of a nine-
year-old who enters the world of make-believe; quite another
for it to happen in the mind of an actor employed in the billion-
dollar industry of sophisticated storytelling, the biggest
imagination-controlling business in the world today. If Heath
Ledger couldn’t break free from the story, being close to the
script and knowing he was just acting, how can the audience
break free from the story when they don’t know what is going
on behind the scenes?
Watching a movie with my mother-in-law is worthy of a
script all its own. She sits there almost in a trance, watching
every move, and often she will call out to the character,
“Watch out, there’s someone hiding behind the door!” I have a
lot of fun reminding her that actually the actor knows better
than she does that there is someone behind the door and that
he is going to get mugged, and the only reason he appears to
be unaware of it is that the director has told him to look that
way. Not only that, he has practiced this a few times before it
looks real enough for the director. Perhaps she has a greater
grasp of the imagination; and it is true that there is fun in
drama, even if it ushers us into the surreal and then traps us
there.
The important point I am making is worthy of repetition. If
the actors themselves, aware that they are playing roles, are
unable to break free from the media and the message, how is it
possible for the viewer to be freed from the stranglehold of the
imagination? In fact, we go even one step further than crossing
the line between the imagination and reality by deifying the
actors. And movies become narratives played out by gods.
What we are witnessing, at the very least, is that the
propensity within us to blur the lines between what is real and
what is imagined has been deliberately taken advantage of by
fiction writers and especially movies. Stories can alter one’s
way of viewing things. The playwright or author is no longer
writing the play or story. The play or story is writing the
playwright or author. And, in turn, the playwright and the play
rewrite our own stories. This is the real world of our time. The
world of entertainment has become the most powerful means of
propaganda, and the audience is unaware of how much it is
being acted upon and manipulated, paying for it not only in
cash but in having its dreams stolen.
It’s a Growing World After All
What Disney World is for fun and for children in their small
world, the intrigue of the movie and media world is now for
adults, encouraging us to believe what is most often make-
believe.
I bring these thoughts regarding the deliberate overlap
between imagination and reality to the beginning of our
journey through the minefield of conflicting worldviews to help
us find the truth about life’s greatest quest. Why is there so
much of the supernatural in story lines today, and why do
those assumptions so often promote a worldview that tries to
make the human divine? And why is that not possible without
including our fascination with evil within the human story? In a
strange way, is not the marring of beauty now the force of
entertainment? Is not the spiritual always irrepressible in its
power to tell a story? What is it about us that we constantly
seek answers? What lies beneath the physical? In country
music it is always about a broken vow; in the world of stories it
is invariably about a broken world. Where do we go to be
mended? Has Christianity had its say and been rejected in the
West? Are old answers passé?
Certainly old answers once deemed doctrinaire and
dogmatic seem totally irrelevant today. Why are we always on
a quest for the spiritual without categories? Why do we always
find ourselves at odds on matters of the sacred? It is a
terrifying indictment of our existence that, unable to solve our
problems in the phenomenal world, we now dig deep into
dream states and, with the aid of technology, leave audiences
in a dream world of their own. The visual has, in fact, distorted
the spiritual rather than clarify it. How easy it is to forget that
behind these story lines are storytellers who are often
themselves in knots in their own private worlds. Have we been
trapped by a means that has engineered the ends? Are there
now manipulators at work who have grasped the ends and
means better than any preacher ever has? These stories are not
just tales for the imagination; they are entire bodies of belief
that are reshaping society beyond recognition, doctrines
dressed up as entertainment.
How else does one explain the tragic self-destruction of
actor Charlie Sheen, a news item for millions to watch and be
entertained by? He himself made the incredible statement that
his producers have broken their contract with him because he
was living in reality like the loose-living, “anything goes”
character in his very popular TV sitcom. When he translated
his values from the show to reality, they broke ties with him. Is
it that we think by watching his meltdown we can change the
ending? How else does one watch comedians humor their way
out of embarrassing and frankly immoral situations?
The message is massaged into the subconscious by media
that make the undesirable attractive and the good appear
boring and flat, while shattered lives look intriguing and full of
the divine. Worldviews are being smuggled in by the power of
the lens, far beyond what any evangelist could have done.
Inception reminded me of the aphorism of the famed Chinese
philosopher Lao Tse: “If, when I am sleeping, I am a man
dreaming I am a butterfly, how do I know that when I am awake
I am not a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?”
It’s a Science
If the person promoting the fantasy is incapable of defending it
and wishes to be taken seriously, then it becomes clever to
inject into the argument a dose of the final authority—science.
What novelists were to existentialism and deconstructionists
were to postmodernism, pseudoscience or selective science
has become to the postmodern spiritual quest. This is quite
ironic. At its core, postmodernism is a philosophy of
inexactitudes. But in an effort to find credence, it goes to the
exact sciences. The wiggled-in entry point is generally the
branch of science called quantum physics so that it can seem
to hold on to the worlds of the empirical and the uncertain at
the same time.
Marilyn Ferguson, one of the earliest voices to announce
“the Age of Aquarius,” opined in the early days of what is now
branded broadly the New Age movement that “the brain’s
calculations do not require our conscious effort, only our
attention and our openness to let the information through.
Although the brain absorbs universes of information, little is
admitted into normal consciousness.”1
With that no-man’s land of comprehension one is
supposed to buy into a whole metaphysic of religion. Just
think of that line: “The brain’s calculations do not require our
conscious effort.” She is telling us something of our
susceptibility to belief even though we might not be willing to
believe. And so the abnormal is now normal in entertainment,
because the normal is treated as subnormal in the world of the
media. That, I can assure you, is consciously done.
Scientist Stephen Hawking espouses a “multiverse”
theory, meaning that ours is not the only universe there is;
there may be an infinite number of universes out there. He does
not need God to explain the universe. Gravity does that. So
while Richard Dawkins, an atheist, espouses that this show on
earth is the only show in town, Hawking suggests that though
our show may be the only show in town, there may be other
towns, perhaps many of them. And one day, supposedly, we
will discover those other towns or, more to the point, we will be
found to be just one of many.
In a strange way, the New Spirituality may comfortably
cling to both positions—this town that we know and the make-
believe towns that are made by science to look real. What
Hawking proposes with his “physics,” the arts had already
implied in its metaphysics. In a made-to-order spirituality, the
multiverse theory may also be positioned as being inside us,
not just outside. In a not-so-subtle way, we are beginning to
believe that we are inhabited by a multiverse within us.
Coming to terms with what is happening, then, we have a
multiverse within us, immersed in the pluriverse around us, in
which we are pursuing an imaginary universe that will unite us.
And all this is done in dark theaters or in the privacy of our
own homes, giving us the illusion of being entertained while
we are actually being indoctrinated by ideas that are
deliberately planted within us.
This is truly to have our cake and eat it, too. It makes for a
charming story, but the spoiler is that our depravity gets in the
way. Everyone knows that Karl Marx said that religion is the
opiate of the people. But very few go on to finish what he said
next; that it is the sigh of the oppressed and the illusory sun
that revolves around man as long as man doesn’t revolve
around himself. The New Spirituality has solved that dilemma.
We have found a religion that has helped us to revolve around
ourselves, and once we have believed that the spiritual
imagination needs no boundaries because we are gods,
everything becomes plausible and nothing needs justification.
We are now in the precarious situation where science has
given us the tools—and possibly the imperative—to convey
fiction, and fiction has the persuasive power of science. This is
the New Spirituality.
One major news network carries the distinctive tagline “Go
Beyond Borders.” There is a pun intended. But when crossing
borders worldviews often collide, and on that, there is a
strange silence. When Deepak Chopra (a household name to
many in the spirituality movement of our time) was on a
program with scientist Richard Dawkins, he tried to smuggle
some terminology of quantum physics into his argument.
Dawkins, rather puzzled, asked him what his spiritual theory
had to do with quantum. Chopra tried to explain his position by
saying, “Well, well… it’s a metaphor.” “A metaphor?”
countered Dawkins, looking even more puzzled. It could have
been a comedy routine, but it wasn’t. It is one thing for Deepak
Chopra to impress the popular audience with scientifically rich
terms, but when pushed by a rigorously pure scientist, all of a
sudden his science becomes a metaphor… whatever that
means! Chopra looked like a little boy caught with his hand in
the cookie jar. But gurus can get away with saying nothing if
they cloak it in ponderous terminology.
It’s Superman
By the visual media and a selective if not perverted use of
science, new consciousness patterns were introduced into the
West just four decades ago when Transcendental Meditation
(TM) made its first foray onto Western soil. The lead voices at
that time caught the West on the turn culturally, and the result
was a fork in the road in Western spirituality. As innocuous as
it seemed then, it has redefined spirituality for Western culture
so that a whole new way of thinking about ultimate reality has
emerged. The Eastern gurus arrived in large numbers, using
terminology that sounded scientific but, when challenged,
became “just metaphors.” I will deal with three of these gurus
and their specific teachings later.
These meditation experts offered a systematized teaching
that could plumb the depths of the subconscious and
enumerate several states of consciousness. And while
scientists talked of dimensions far beyond the three we know,
spiritualists jumped into the narrative with a meditation
technique that was actually more of a psychological theory of
the spirit, though it was asserted as an exact science. Starting
from the crassness of the material world, their theories led to a
spiritual journey that progressed through different stages of
meditation to a state of dreamless sleep and, ultimately, to
attaining a transcending sense of cosmic consciousness where
the pilgrim became one with the universe. The biggest
challenge, then, was to make what was momentary, normative:
to breathe one’s way into a relaxed consciousness.
To be sure, we were told again and again that TM was not
a religion; it was merely what sages have taught for centuries,
nothing more than a method to awaken the dormant divinity
within each one of us. It was continually reemphasized that one
did not have to change their religion in order to participate in
this spirituality. The magical potion in these meditative
techniques was not a spinning top, as in Inception, but the
taming of the spinning mind. And as a culture, we entered the
brave new world of self where everything is viewed through
individual, tailor-made lenses. At the same time that we were on
the cusp of technological advances, our high-paced lives and
stress were tearing us apart inside. How and where could we
experience both technology and spirituality? The best of
Western technological advances combined with the best of
Eastern ancient divinizing techniques made for the inception of
a nirvanic world where we could become the new avatars.
Back to the Future
The meditative techniques that were introduced to the West
four decades ago were a hybrid of automation and stagnation:
If only this spiritual secret could be transmitted through the
utterance of some words of empowerment by a teacher who
has already attained this nirvanic bliss, what peace would
ensue individually and cosmically! There was a time in the
West—not so long ago—when words like mantra, chakra,
tantra, moksha, and nirvana needed explanation. They are still
not generally understood, even by most of those who use them
regularly, but they make for an intellectual veneer in a
subculture. The ensuing patent wars that have emerged over
which theory or guru owns the rights to yoga are a bizarre twist
in these spiritual schemes that are purported to release stress
and induce peace.
One medical practitioner with an avocation in spiritual
apologetics for Hinduism is on a crusade “to give credit where
credit is due,” insisting that the world owes a debt to Hinduism
for these techniques. Meanwhile, Deepak Chopra, also a
medical practitioner whose primary practice is writing on
spiritual themes, challenges that claim and declares that yoga,
among other practices, is part of a universal religion and not
the private possession of just one: Sanatan Dharma, he
brands it… the “Eternal Religion”… essential and pure
spirituality that goes beyond any “ism.” The inescapable
conclusion of all this is that whether meditating or awake,
ancient or new, depravity is the constant. Stay tuned! We will
fight one another verbally or legally for the right to preach a
stress-free life, and do so with material means for material
gains, all for the glories of a nonmaterial transcendence.
I was pondering the other day how much in our lives has
to do with boxes: We give gifts in boxes, we buy our food in
boxes, we drive in boxes, we live in boxes, we sleep in boxes,
and we ultimately leave this world in a box. But this brand of
spirituality hates to be boxed in by absolutes, so the edges of
reason are erased and spirituality oozes into another realm like
a vapor or a cloud. As boundaries have been erased our world
has changed, and the means by which we now share this world
are not necessarily that far removed from planting ideas in a
mind that is half asleep. The resulting inability or even desire to
reason and think through an idea logically is demonstrated by
one-liners such as “I’m not into ‘isms.’ ”
Existentialists don’t want to be boxed into an “ism” either;
nor do postmodernists. The person who isn’t into “isms” gives
himself the liberty to conveniently dismiss anything he doesn’t
like or agree with as an “ism,” which by his definition does not
deserve to be taken seriously, while his own beliefs are
defended against being considered an “ism.” Giving yourself
the privilege of destroying other positions while parking your
own position in an unidentifiable location is a form of linguistic
terrorism.
In the world of non-isms, you are introduced to
terminology that seems to have magic powers. You make an
appointment for a massage and are told that they will work on
your chakras so that you will reach the tantric stage and
ultimately nirvana. I shall resist further comment on this right
now. This form of spiritual communication has unfortunately
hijacked reality and holds truth hostage, never to be released
until one is willing to pay the price of relativism. Couched in
jellylike terminology, reality reshapes itself, and rather than
being a constant, it can become whatever you want it to be.
But like the actors who still have to leave the set and live in the
real world, we all now have to return from the escape of a story
to the harsh questions of our private worlds.
Where can we find reality the way it was meant to be?
Allowing ourselves to be beguiled by foreign terms is not
consolation for reality. The greatest and most notable casualty
of our times in which we are inundated with spiritual
terminology is, unquestionably, truth. As Malcolm
Muggeridge would have stated it, “The lie is stuck like a
fishbone in the throat of the microphone.” I would add that
today it is not so much the microphone as the camera and the
vocabulary of the verbal magician.
Some years ago I sat in as a visitor on a trial in London at
the Old Bailey. It was the trial of a man accused of raping two
minor girls. I was there for the opening arguments, watching
from the gallery. I remember the defense lawyer’s plea so
clearly. He looked intently into the faces of the two minor girls
separately and said to each of them, “I am interested in only
one thing: one thing and nothing more—the truth. Do you
understand me?” he asked. “All I want is the truth. If you have
the answers, give them to me. If you don’t know the answers,
tell me you don’t know. I want the truth. That’s all.”
Here is my question: If the truth is so important in one
isolated courtroom case, how much more important is it in the
search for the spiritual answers to our deepest hungers?
“The most valuable thing in the world is the truth,” said
Winston Churchill. “The most powerful weapon in the world is
the truth,” said Andrei Sakharov, the man who gave the
Soviets the atomic bomb. “God is Truth and Truth is God,” said
Mahatma Gandhi. From its value, to its power, to its deification,
even as an abstract category truth becomes the final question
in any conflict. Yet, again and again we find ourselves
uncertain as to what truth means and why it matters. “What is
truth?” asked Pontius Pilate impatiently… and walked away,
without waiting for an answer. The irony is that he was
standing in front of the one Person who, as the personification
and embodiment of Truth, could have given him the answer.
In the musical play by Andrew Lloyd Webber The
Phantom of the Opera, the Phantom sings a beautiful piece
titled “The Music of the Night.” One of the lines intimates that
under the cover of darkness it is easy to pretend that the truth
is what each one of us wants it to be. When there is no light
held to our version of truth to call our bluff, we confuse what is
with what we think ought to be, and infuse “the ought” with
our own ideas to make it what we want it to be. Truth is that
foundational reality we often resist but that, ultimately, we
cannot escape. Nothing is so destructive as running from the
truth, even as we know it will always outdistance us.
Tragically, we seem to be at a time in our cultural history
when we no longer care about this question whatsoever.
Seduced by terminology carried by a media that distorts, we
willingly, it seems, buy into a lie. From the news to the weather
to advertising to entertainment, we are sold feelings, not truth.
I have often pondered the vast terrain of uncertainties that
surround us: mystery—we love mysteries and are held in their
grip; manipulation—we dabble with the mind and find it
fascinating; money—we all fear it, yet we all live immersed in it;
more—we all spend most of our lives either earning it or
desiring it, hardwired, it seems, to keep adding to what we have
already accumulated. When mystery, the manipulation of the
mind, and the accumulation of wealth are offered to us all tied
up in one neat package, our dreams are being tapped into and
we have become the dream-givers, having our dreams taken
from us. Add to this the dimension of music or chanting, and
we have the beat to which we can lull ourselves into other
consciousnesses.
Mystery, the manipulation of the mind, the desire for
money and accumulation of wealth, music—what a recipe for
feeling! One practioner of Ayurvedic medicine sums it up by
saying that you can create your own universe out of desire;
that when you empty your mind and focus on the thing you
want, the distance between you and your desire disappears,
your brain cells rejuvenate, and you become open to all
possibilities.
The truth is that if you repeat this kind of self-inducement
often enough, you begin not only to believe it, but to smile in
pity on those who don’t. You begin to feel a sense of security
in a world that has become like jelly because you don’t really
have to make sense of it all. It is somewhat like being a college
student who doesn’t have to be an earning member of the
family or lead an orderly life because he has not yet finished
his preparations for life. A disheveled room and appearance are
acceptable in a college student… after all, that’s a license that
dorm life gives you.
Such is the vocabulary and narrative of the New
Spirituality, which has leveraged and thrived on a privatized
logic while claiming the ultimate strength of philosophy
wedded to science. But how did we get here? How did we
reach such an incredible way of reasoning? Who stole the fire
of reason from us?
As an easterner, raised in the East, I see such irony in all
this. A short time ago I was asked to address a small group of
the entertainment elite in the East. They sat listening with
courtesy and concentration as I reminded them that they were
the icons of our time, the envy of the masses, while they
themselves knew that inside each of them was a big vacuum.
By the end of the talk, some were in tears and after the talk
there was a lineup of these successful people, asking for time
alone and the opportunity to open up the depths of their own
struggles. I admired their candor and transparency.
As I left that setting, I thought to myself, Why are we
always beguiled by something foreign? In the West, Eastern
mysticism is “in”—chants, sounds, and practices with foreign
words have made an appeal of culture-shifting proportions—
while in the East, where these very same techniques have been
tried for centuries, many are disillusioned and are seeking
solace somewhere else. Before me the entertainment elite of the
East gave their full attention to a talk on “Why Jesus Is the
Ultimate Fulfillment,” while in the West, entertainers are
looking toward the East for their answers.
The movies of the East have been played out in an
artificial dream world interwoven with the spiritual long
enough. The lyrics of their music often speak of
disappointment. The setting for a very popular song in the
Hindi language is a man standing in front of a sage, asking his
advice. He sings that he has been to the holy river and to the
holy sites, but his heart is still searching for fulfillment. It is not
gold or silver that he is seeking; it is the fulfillment of his soul.
Pilgrims go to the sacred sites of India by the millions, in
search of inner liberation. The devout of every religion embark
on spiritual journeys in the hope of finding God. Thus, in the
final analysis, it is actually to God himself that we go, asking,
“Where is the answer?” That’s the irony, as I see it.
 In the 1960s there was a song made famous by Tom Jones
titled “The Green, Green Grass of Home.” Hearing it for the first
time is a thrill that dies by the last verse. The song describes
the thrill of touching the green, green grass of home and seeing
loved ones long missed. But as the story progresses, we get to
the last verse.
Yes, those who know the song know the ending. The
singer is on death row, and the morning brings the harsh reality
of his last steps to the grave, a different green, green grass
than that with which the song begins.
We all have yearnings and longings. We all dream of hope
and peace. We all long to align our hearts with ultimate reality.
We need to be grateful for at least one thing that the New
Spiritualists have done: They have awakened us to a place of
our need. We all search for deep fulfillment and yearn for
answers that are satisfying at the level of our feelings, not just
at the philosophical level of truth and logic. Is there somewhere
that the two existences align? Stay with me as we endeavor to
broach this subject in the pages ahead and find some life-
transforming answers.
CHAPTER 2
HOW THE WEST WAS LOST THROUGH ITS
GAINS

Barely twenty years after trying to reshape the world in the

horrific aftermath of the Second World War, America was
caught in a war of her own making from which she has not
recovered. In the backdrop was the Civil Rights movement,
guilt over the past, cultural blunders, and spiritual hungers.
And in the foreground was a brewing rebellion as the young
questioned why they were being sent into a war in Vietnam
that they felt was unnecessary and ultimately unwinnable. It
was the perfect storm for the overthrow of what had been
believed and held inviolable for generations.
This was also a time of forging new horizons, nationally.
The landing on the moon did not merely happen; the nation
actually watched it happen on the new television sets in our
own living rooms. And this same new medium allowed
America’s military enemy to win because they were able to
harness it and make it serve their advantage more than it
served those who had developed it. The medium of viewing at
home made the war cabinet room not a single location in some
subterranean setting where war strategy was determined.
Rather, every household was able to watch the carpet-bombing
by the B-52s. Every home was able to witness the
psychological breakdown of the nation’s troops. The pictures
of war that could be seen and experienced at home through
television changed the war from one fought just on the
battlefield and brought it into each home. The burning of draft
cards and the uprising from within the nation made the Vietnam
War a very personal thing. More than fifty thousand individual
lives were ultimately lost. And the nation returned from the war
with its soul in a body bag.
The camera had won the battle of seeing and believing.
The world, and America in particular, was foundationally
transformed. The zeal of the young, combined with the material
means that their parents had fought to give them and the
invasiveness of the medium of television, made for a powerful
overthrow of the reigning worldview.
There were really several wars going on. Politically,
though the administration that supposedly brought “peace
with honor” had inherited the war, it has been forced to carry
the blame for it ever since. Conservatism became the pariah of
political verbiage, and “politically correct” became
synonymous with anti-traditional values. It was really the
absolutizing of relativism, the new anti-values value. The Cold
War was at its grimmest and weapons of intimidation and
destruction were piling up, with each superpower living in fear
of the other.
The battle was carried into the universities, whose own
academic experts were flaying America, and the intelligentsia
hit hard at political demagoguery, as they called it. At the same
time, the race struggle was reaching conflagration points on
many fronts. Watts became synonymous with rioting. And all
this was reflected in the arts as rock stars changed the
mathematical rules of music and discord became entertainment.
Noise became deafened to reason. Woodstock became the
stage for selling propriety in exchange for public nudity. Sexual
mores were questioned as the gender exploitations of the past
came home to roost. In all of these areas of debate there was
just one identifiable winner.
At the time, most people failed to understand the power of
the media to change their views and reshape their thinking.
Instead of viewing the world through the medium of television,
they allowed the medium to define the world for them. A new
purveyor of truth and relevance was in the making, one that
has triumphed over all and is here to stay. And from now on,
whatever our view on any issue, not just war or a particular
war, we cannot get away from the assault of the visual even if
we don’t watch television, because of its impact on the way the
rest of society makes its judgments.
There is a war raging. It is the battle for thought and belief
through a weapon of mass deconstruction. In that battle, it is
not firepower we need to fear as much as it is electronic power.
From the conscious to the subconscious we are in its grip.
From wars in different lands to battles for moral acceptability,
the television set has won the day. I stress this because I
believe that almost none of the New Spiritualities would be so
pervasive if it were not for the genius and built-in distortion of
television. It reinforces what we want to believe, and if what we
want to believe is what we are told to believe through the
medium, no amount of logic or argument can shake that
conviction. Whichever way you want to look at it, television—
and now viral media—is the shaper of everything we think and
believe.
Life’s Dim Windows
William Blake long ago warned us about the vulnerability of
the eye when he said:

This life’s five windows of the soul

Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole,
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not thro’ the eye.1

We are intended to see through the eye, with the

conscience. Instead, the visual media, especially television and
movies, manipulates us into seeing with the eye, devoid of the
conscience, whose role it is to place parameters around what
we see. The supremacy of the eye-gate makes it easy to strain
at a gnat and swallow a camel.
Seeing is believing, it is said. But by seeing something
only in its narrow sense, one may miss the big picture and
believe something that is actually not true. And that belief,
even though it may be false, may become the generator of
culture and national mood.
What is it about television and movies that makes them
both attractive and dangerous? In so many ways, television is
truly a fantastic medium. Which of us who watched the first
landing on the moon can ever forget the awe-inspiring sight?
How incredible it is that we can sit at home and watch some of
the greatest performers, as if they were in our own living
rooms! The experience of being able to watch a great sporting
event or national and world event such as a royal wedding or
the funeral of a great leader or a national memorial service is a
memory that lasts forever. It allows the imagination to soar and
gives wings to dreams. The imagination is one of the most
vulnerable, though fascinating, faculties that we humans have.
Nothing better describes the beauty and vulnerability of the
human imagination than the song written and sung by John
Lennon years ago, “Imagine.” He wanted us to imagine no
heaven, no hell, no countries, and no religion. No, he said, he
was not a dreamer, just offering possibilities.
Anyone who has heard the song cannot help but stop
and hum the tune as they read these words, and even hear
Lennon’s voice in the words. It’s a beautiful, haunting
melody… especially after sitting through the daily news and
wondering when all the strife will end. When you think about
it, why did he need all those descriptions about an ideal world?
Why not just one or two lines? A world without killing and all
of us living as one—that’s the dream, isn’t it? Who can take
issue with that? And nothing could have been more
instrumental in killing the dream than the senseless killing of
Lennon himself at the hands of an assassin. English journalist
Steve Turner writes of Lennon’s brief struggle with
Christianity, a struggle that his wife, Yoko, strongly influenced
him against and toward magical stones and astrology instead.2
Isn’t it interesting that no astrologer was able to warn him
and protect him from that fateful day? Just because Lennon
could imagine such a world doesn’t mean that it exists, or that
there is any chance of it existing. Just because he wanted to
believe in such a world didn’t make it real, even for him. And
here is the contradiction: He imagined a pure world without any
ultimate reason for life and destiny. He amputated
accountability but wished for a world of responsibility. That’s
the privilege of music… it doesn’t have to justify its flawed
reasoning.
Fame, fortune, and adulation are generally based on
measurements that serve only to disfigure reality and make the
imagination king over common sense. Common sense ought to
tell us that there is no guarantee that a person with a gifted
voice and musical genius is any better a person than someone
who cannot sing or write music. Common sense ought to tell us
that a world without heaven or hell in the future generally leads
to one or the other in this world. But a gifted voice and an
errant imagination can angle a lie to fit into the worldview one
wants to believe.
It has been said that at first art imitates life. Then, life
imitates art. Finally, life finds the very reason for its existence in
the arts. This visual medium of television was catapulted into
our private living space via electronic advances and we
understood its power very little. I believe that this medium was
a key means by which the truth came to be seen as a lie.
The Displacement of “It Is Written”
Throughout the history of man, communication from one
person to another had been primarily oral. The faithful
transmission of tradition was key and human beings could
rightly have been called Homo rhetoricus. Language was the
medium. Story was the form. When in 1456 the Gutenberg press
was invented, a print culture was set in place. Texts and
contexts were in focus. Ideas could be distilled, disseminated,
argued, spread, and debated. Still, it was language and concept
that carried the day.
In 1839, a key advance was made in communication:
Photography was discovered. Within four decades, in 1873,
transformation in mass communication took a giant step. And
when it was discovered that light could be converted to
electrical impulses, transmitted over a distance, and then
reconverted into light, the age of television dawned.
When one studies the viewing habits of the young and
considers the thousands of hours spent unthinkingly in front
of a TV screen or iPhone, it is easy to see why the power of
abstract reasoning has died since the advent of television and,
in the words of Jacques Ellul, we are living with the humiliation
of the word. The loss of reading has also reduced the
individual’s capacity to write. “Enlightenment” has a whole
new meaning now, each person in front of his or her own
screen deciding for himself what is truth and what is fancy. No
longer does one have to leave his palace to see poverty,
disease, old age, and death, and meditate on its meaning under
a tree as Buddha did. Death, disease, old age, and suffering are
all visible on the televisions in our own living rooms or on
handheld devices in our own cars.
One can turn on a television station and “meditate” using
the direct-dial numbers that are given. Some advertisers even
promise a worry-free life after just a fifteen-minute call. The end
result is spirituality without dogma, religion without God,
argument without substance, rationalization without rationality,
and tranquillity by transfer of funds from the seeker’s bank
account to the company that makes the best offer of nirvana, at
the same time producing dogmatism about relativism in matters
of ultimate meaning.
I mentioned in the introduction that Deepak Chopra, the
Western-marketed, Eastern proponent of the New Spirituality,
visited Thailand to become a monk for a week. On his website
there are pictures of him, clean-shaven, a begging bowl in his
hand, sleeping on the floor of a temple. When I mentioned this
to an Indian friend, he wondered aloud if Chopra would have
done this had there been no photo op to tell the story. Curious,
that that was his first response. Perhaps the cynicism that has
been bred through the caricatures of reality that are created by
the visual is what makes the nighttime stand-up comedians on
television so popular.
After reading the article, I went to the leading computer
mall in Bangkok, where I happened to be while writing, to buy
some accessories for my laptop. I had to wait my turn, because
two monks were talking to the salesman, buying their own
hardware for who knows what.
First, we had a monk for a week; then, we have computers
for saffron-clothed ascetics. I can’t imagine a greater
contradiction than monks at a computer store, nor a greater
manipulation of spirituality than becoming a monk for a week,
with publicity to boot. One may as well be married for a week
and think one now knows everything there is to know about
marriage. I’m sure the Buddha would have had some thoughts
on Chopra’s exploits. And on his fellow ascetics buying
computers.
Electronic dissemination became the progenitor of the
computer, and now the visual has gone viral with each person
having his own network. One police beating or one errant act
anywhere in the world can be viewed by millions within
minutes. Not too long ago a student in the United States was
covertly filmed by a roommate while engaging in a private act,
and within minutes thousands were watching it on their cell
phones. The young man could not live with the shame of the
world watching his private conduct and committed suicide.
While television and movies became the means and the
microchip was making its entry, the very substance of our
culture was at risk. First to fall was our values. What we
treasured and what we revered became expendable and
profaned. There was a new way of popularizing rebellion
against age-old values. Humor became vulgar. Sensuality was
mass-marketed, and that which we thought should be private
now became public. How else could a late-night talk show host
have humored his way through a public disclosure of his
duplicitous life other than by skillfully using the medium to his
advantage? The normally immoral became the brilliantly
creative. Television triumphed again.
The Eye Is the Lamp
Jesus made a very profound remark about the eye. He said that
our eye must be “single” because the eye is the lamp of the
body (Matthew 6:22 KJV). “If then the light that is in you is
darkness, how great is the darkness!” he said (6:23 NASB). I
cannot think of a more powerful metaphor for the imagination
than the metaphor of light. Pretense and distortion are at the
heart of a world without any light. That is why the light
emanating from the TV screen, or better still reflecting off the
screen, must be examined to see whether what is being
revealed is truth or a distortion of the truth. Where is the light
of reality in a setting where everything is staged?
Four words that are easy to grasp capture the medium of
television: induction, seduction, deduction, and reduction.
Take a good look at those four words, and it is easy to see how
we have found ourselves playing mind games in a world of
images, running counter to truth and redemption.
A Problematic Induction
The Latin word for induction literally means “to lead to.”
Inductive reasoning moves from the particular to the general or
from the individual to the universal. Induction is simply a
process that leads from something or some assertion to an
inference for something else. It starts with particular truths.
New Age Spirituality runs amok by displacing inductive
reasoning and replacing it with a personalized mystical
revelation as the sufficient if not sole basis for universal truth:
Person A found enlightenment while meditating; person B
found enlightenment while meditating; therefore, silence and
meditation are the answer for all humanity. No matter how
much it is denied, this kind of thinking surfaces in key
assumptions. This is an invalid basis for establishing universal
truths because it fundamentally ignores the contradictory
conclusions that others have come to in the same process. It is
not a valid means of truth testing. The correspondence and
coherence tests for truth are discussed in the closing chapter.
In a cartoon I saw some time ago, a man dressed in a
tuxedo lay apparently dead on the floor, surrounded by a host
of other men, also in black tuxedos. One tuxedo-clad man is
saying to another, “Where does one begin when something
like this happens at a Butlers’ Convention?”
If intuition is the only test for truth, to say “The butler did
it” doesn’t help.
No court of law can function in such mystical fog as exists
in the New Spirituality. Consider, for example, the famed Sri Sri
Ravi Shankar, one of the most influential gurus today. Based in
Bangalore, India, his charming smile, flowing locks of hair, and
pithy one-liners have made him the person to know and to
quote.
By the way, it is fascinating to consider how one even
gains such titles. Normally, one would use one titular name,
“Sri,” which actually means to diffuse light and implies respect,
reverence, or even lordship, as it was used by Bhagwan Sri
Rajnesh. He was content with only one Sri in his name because
he placed Bhagwan (meaning “God”) before the Sri: How can
one exceed that? But for Ravi Shankar, one Sri is not enough.
In effect his name means, “the Revered Revered, Ravi
Shankar.” But even that is not enough for him, and now his
title is Poojya Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (“poojya” connotes the idea
of “His Worship”), so what we actually have is “His Worship,
the Twice-Revered Ravi Shankar.”
Ravi Shankar’s take on truth is that there are two ways of
knowing: through logical understanding, which comes from
intellectual analysis and for which there must be empirical
proof… even though that proof may not stand for long; and
the knowing that comes from intuition or through deep
meditation, for which you need offer no proof to support its
claim to truth. The latter, he says, is more reliable. If you
meditate long enough, he says, you will recognize the
connection that has always existed between all religions, even
today. And when through meditation and intuition you have
recognized that all religions are connected to every other
religion, it’s quite reasonable to see, in that light, that Jesus
lived in India for twelve years and returned to Israel in a saffron
robe… or as a Hindu holy man.
His essay ends with these words:

Jesus is the only way. Jesus is love. Jesus has many names. He
is Buddha, he is Krishna, and he is you. Your name also
belongs to Jesus. Do you really think that your name is yours?
Jesus is the Son of God. He inherits what belongs to God. Do
you inherit what belongs to God? Then you belong to Jesus.
Isn’t it? What do you say?3

But that is not all. He has to add in a sarcastic footnote

that there was a group of people in America who believed that
the world would end on a certain day in 1994. They gathered in
their churches on that day, but “obviously nothing happened,”
he says. “All fears and anxieties are caused by believing wrong
things. You need that guru to tell you what is right and what is
wrong.”4 His prescription is that meditation, yoga, and a guru
will help you distinguish truth from nonsense.
This is amazing stuff! How does one respond to
assertions that are so flatly induced with false premises and
deductions and then given to the masses as “truth”? There is
something extraordinary going on here. When any statement is
made concerning the oneness of all religions, either meditation,
intuition, or textual extrapolations are used. The differing
doctrines of each religion are always left unaddressed. But
when the mystics are questioned, they resort to falsifying other
systems by switching to induction (e.g., “These misguided
people went to a church expecting the end of the world, but
obviously it didn’t happen”). According to his own argument,
how can he say they were misguided if their “intuitive
awareness” guided by a guru—or minister—impelled them in
this direction?
Even those who maintain that meditative extrapolation is a
sufficient basis for defending their belief system smuggle in an
inductive approach when they need it to attack someone else’s
system of belief. They use inductive reasoning to assert
charges of falsehood against a counterperspective, while a
mystical argument is enough to defend their personal belief.
Logical consistency is a consideration only when they are
uneasy with someone else’s perspective; experiential relevance
is all that is needed to justify their own perspective. The same
rules are not applied both ways.
This method of reasoning underlies the teachings and
writings of all the advocates of the New Spirituality. According
to them, truth is discovered in silence or in a sudden burst or
gradual arrival of insight. Bringing into question Jesus’
statements about truth, they force you into a “Hobson’s
choice”5 dilemma: There is no choice but to accept a
pantheistic Jesus. There is no other option.
This is a false way of induction. It leads to beliefs based
on falsehoods, such as that Jesus lived in India for twelve
years and returned in a saffron robe. Isn’t it interesting that it
was not some incarnation of Krishna who went to Jerusalem
and came back wearing a crucifix? Imagination and meditation
are not secure ways on which to build a worldview that reflects
reality. They may make for a beatific smile but not for a
philosophical alternative to truth. A worldview tested by truth
will inform imagination and meditation, not the other way
around. That is why the rigorous way of testing truth has
always been through logical consistency, empirical adequacy,
and experiential relevance.
Seeing with the eye alone, induction can easily be
manipulated. As academic as they seem, the basic laws of logic
are few. I shall not go into them now. However, when those
laws are applied to any system of thought, it is easy to see
whether the statements and/or arguments are true or false or
purely speculative. This is especially important with systems of
thought that make numerous assertions. Here, let me just
suggest that viewing a story that has been staged and scripted
does not make the story true and is not the most solid ground
for truth. In the business of television, where even the weather
report has to be dressed up, to say nothing of the news itself,
how can one legitimately engage in inductive reasoning? A
false induction is serious and can be tested.
Beginning with a problematic induction, television takes
us to the next step.
The Dangerous Seduction
In early March 2011, Japan was rocked by a deadly
combination of an earthquake followed by a tsunami. Through
the wonderful gift of communication, it was immediately
brought to the world’s attention. Many of every age bracket
responded to what had happened, and the human spirit came
to the fore with help and rescue. That was the positive side of
the visual medium of television. We didn’t just read or hear
about the devastation, we saw it and were able to feel the
tragedy to a certain degree. Just today, when I met a Japanese
man in the elevator, I placed my heart on my chest and said, “I
am so sorry for what your country is going through.” He
bowed in response and said, “Thank you.” The breadth of the
calamity brought every human being into a compassionate
posture.
There was, therefore, something very strange in the
response to the tragedy of one television personality, Gilbert
Gottfried, the former voice of the duck in the Aflac Insurance
Company commercials. He is a highly paid and skilled comic
actor. But a few days after the tsunami hit, he tweeted ten jokes
about the Japanese tragedy, one being that in Japan people
don’t go to the beaches, the beaches come to them; another,
not to worry if you lost your Japanese girlfriend, another one
would soon wash up on shore. It absolutely strains credulity
that anyone could find anything humorous in one of the
greatest tragedies of modern times, the full extent of which has
still not been fully realized. The outrage against him was
immediate, the vast majority focusing their incredulity on the
fact that he would say such things in the face of the instant
dissemination of any communication in our day.
But my thoughts were different. What, I ask, was this man
even thinking to write such things, regardless of who would
have picked it up? Is such tragedy a subject for humor? Is this
his ready wit? Is this his way of trying to bring some lightness
into a heavy situation? I don’t think so. I really think the
camera does things to a person and seduces him into believing
that it’s all about him; that somehow his is a persona that
transcends the usual boundaries for ordinary people. It is
precisely the same pitfall that needs to be avoided by
professional athletes on the screen for whom life has been
reduced to a game and the game has been elevated to life. That
is the power of the camera. I feel sorry for Mr. Gottfried. He lost
his lucrative contract over a pathetic blunder. He can no longer
be taken seriously because he failed to see the seriousness of
life and death. The reason he gave for his comments was that
he is a humorist and that making jokes is his calling. But he
didn’t know boundaries.
How much more serious is the impact of the visual media
for those who are dealing with issues that concern the souls of
people! No one ought to be more mindful of this seduction
than those who deal with spiritual matters. Though the mass
media began its onslaught upon the Christian faith and the
academy gave it sophistication, it would not have been that
easy to discredit the faith of millions in this country except for
the fact that American Christianity itself bought into the
gimmickry of television. And that is what gave the attackers
their legitimacy. The message became nothing more than glitz
and glamour. Being seen through the lens of a camera became
the mission.
Study the lives of those in Christian ministry who fell into
this trap. Two in particular come to mind, Jimmy Swaggart and
Jim Bakker, who, according to Google, is “best known as the
disgraced PTL TV host.” Look at what happened to them
personally, and it becomes evident that the medium massaged
them into a false sense of their own preeminence and status
until they collapsed under the weight of their own fame. Both
became victims, seduced and hoisted ultimately on their own
petard. They were the Heath Ledgers of American
evangelicalism.
No, there is no reason to celebrate, nor is there reason to
mock any of these personalities. We all are vulnerable to the
seduction of fame. It could have happened to any one of us in
the same situation, standing before the cameras and lights,
recognized by millions around the world, with millions of
dollars in our bank accounts by virtue of self-seduction. It was
Inception in real life. The pain was real, and when they awoke
from the dream it was to realize that the real person who was
there at the beginning had died.
I recall that I was on my way to do my early morning
workout routine when the story broke, years ago, of what had
happened to the PTL television network. I remember at the time
thinking that this piece of news was going to permanently
change the way the gospel would be seen and then ridiculed.
Common sense could have told us this was going to happen
sooner or later. I couldn’t help but think of how Jesus was
pressured by his followers to become a king, to change stones
into bread, to use God for his own ends. Jesus resisted the
temptation of self-aggrandizement—and for him who was God
of the very God, it would have been legitimate—but some of
his followers haven’t.
The cost was in more than the loss of the message. The
economics of it demanded that the better part of the PTL Club
program be spent in generating money to pay for the airtime,
rather than in any real ministry. The scene at the temple when
Jesus walked in and overturned the tables of the money
changers comes to mind again and again. This is America in
the age of television. Everything is made for sales.
Prayer was no longer sufficient in this portrayal of
Christianity; tears had to flow to make it real, while in the
background, telephone volunteers were viewed taking calls
and pledges. The simple truisms of the gospel were so often
repeated and used for impure reasons that they became lines
for derision even though they are true: Jesus died for your
sins; Jesus is coming again; you must be born again; come to
Jesus; give your heart to Jesus. Bumper stickers like “Honk If
You Love Jesus” abounded. Just like John Lennon and
“Imagine,” you can hear the lines in your mind, and even the
way some of them pronounced and stressed the syllables. It
was not just “God”; it was “Gaw-dah.” I know people who
even now can do a perfect imitation of the way these one-liners
were thundered by TV preachers.
The gullible swallowed this distortion of the gospel
unquestioningly. The skeptic was given fodder for his ridicule.
Christianity was denuded and the walls of traditional belief
came crashing down. The message of Christ was sold out to
the medium of television, and in the ensuing vacuum, politics
were mocked, conservatism became suspect, fundamentalism
became a bad word, and long-held and sacred values were
overthrown. Liberty, equality, and fraternity were redefined to
mean “autonomy,” “relativism,” and “fragmentation.” The
gospel of Jesus Christ was made synonymous with the
methods that had devalued the truth, and people began to
search elsewhere for answers. The miracle is that in spite of
everything, some were touched and some lives were actually
changed. But by and large, the medium seduced the user. The
programming and simplistic message that was promoted with
sophisticated techniques made the whole message of Christ
appear as a lie, taken seriously by very few “thinking” people.
The same television screen that had a hand in the ridicule
of the truth became the means of promoting a different belief
and a different hero. And the same mix of mindless belief and
razzmatazz that appeal in the promotion of the New Spirituality
will meet with the same result, some day. Believe me, I see it
and can see through it. The same shenanigans are at work.
At first blush, the New Spirituality provided a welcomed
escape and was hailed as a needed relief from the dogmatism
and clichés that branded Christianity as “Western” and
invasive to our private lives. As the generation gap widened,
the young wanted something they could call spiritual, as their
forefathers had had, but that provided a new way of sacred
thought that would allow them to escape the restrictions of the
past. It had to be an egalitarian, all-inclusive, nonjudgmental,
non-Western way of looking at things. There should no longer
be a dominant faith in the West. Culture and Christianity were
both examined and found wanting. The old way of belief was
expelled and the New Spirituality made its entrance.
When Critics Fail
Until this time in our history, our faith, our convictions, and our
basis for decision making in the West were implicitly or
explicitly provided by the Judeo-Christian worldview. That is
not by any stretch to say that America was a Christian nation.
Certainly not. But the Judeo-Christian worldview provided the
essential definitions for the founding of America, beginning
with the conviction expressed by our founders that at its core
life is sacred and that our legitimate rights as human beings
have been endowed to us by our Creator. Which other
worldview could provide that categorical statement?
Naturalism? Pantheism? Islam? No Islamic nation in the world
operates with a belief in the inalienable right of liberty.
Naturalism does not acknowledge a Creator who could endow
us with inalienable rights. And pantheism, with its karmic
bequest, does not see us as being created equal; instead,
pantheism assumes that we are born to a life of karmic
repayment until the debt is paid. Please understand that this is
not a reference to the caste system. This refers to the fact that
according to pantheism, my present station is at a level
determined by a previous life and is something that those who
promote the New Spirituality conveniently ignore.
The critics of Christianity often missed the mark in this
quest for spirituality that came to be called New Age. Within
the New Ager’s mind, there was obviously some legitimacy for
his New Spirituality. But the critic of the status quo did not
readily sense the error in New Age thinking that lay much
deeper than was evident on the surface. There were really three
layers to their thinking. Some realized only the most superficial
layer; others were able to comprehend the middle layer of New
Age thought. Few grasped the most meaningful substratum of
New Age thinking.
On the surface New Age thinking was simply a reflection
of the distrust many had in the old ways and a conviction that
they were being oppressed. The young were tired of being told
how to think, how to feel, how to love. Why should they listen
to a generation that had dragged its young into a conflict for
which the very reasons were so blurred? So, along with the
eviction of conservative politics, the eviction of the religious
worldview was not far behind. They were tired of preachers
who moralized and of church people who, at their core, were no
better than anybody else. They were tired of the pursuit of
materialism they saw in Western culture, often seeing it as the
plunder of older traditions. Ivy League professors left their
posts and smoked pot, instead. Some went on spiritual
pilgrimages.
But there was more to it than just disaffection. As the
American military reached its zenith and technological
advances created dizzying changes in the world, there were
deeply felt resentments and a strange irony in the rejection of
our own values. “What makes us think we are better than
anyone else?” was their entreaty, and the West became the
target of attack by the young from within the West itself and,
yes, from the intellectual liberals who felt that the West had
succeeded on the backs of weaker nations. All of a sudden
causes were addressed that became aligned with New Age and
New Spirituality.
There are those who insist that New Age and New
Spirituality are not identical. That may be so in terms of their
building blocks, but it is not so in their epistemological starting
points. From the environment to the institutions of
government, learning, religion, and the family, a new day of
revolutionary thinking began. The irony lay in the fact that it
was the same technological knowledge that made possible
both the advances that were being seen as detrimental to
human potential and their alternatives.
There were layers beneath layers in this cultural and
religious revolution. Sexual liberation, gender conflicts, and
abortion rights all hit the fan at the same time. Someone has
said, “Any stigma can lick a good dogma.” For several reasons,
church and state were both called into question, and anything
that argued for coherence in moral reasoning was deemed
oppressive and was generally placed in the lap of Christendom
at large.
I will never forget a particular scene that ought to have
signaled to me, as a young man, what was happening. I was a
newcomer to Christ. A friend of mine, who was the president of
our youth group at church, caught everyone off guard when he
let it be known that he was “gay,” a new meaning for the word
at that time. For the youth at the infancy of that movement,
processing it was a challenge, including the one with that
disposition. But we were friends and we would sit late into the
night talking about these things. Who determines right and
wrong? Isn’t love the only thing that counts? he would say.
Why does it matter to anybody else what my private life is like?
I turned these questions back on him, and his answers were no
more convincing than the ones he was attacking. There was no
rancor, no anger, but a deep struggle that I sensed but found
hard to process and express, as I listened. It was truly turning
the world upside down.
When word of his lifestyle got back to the church leaders,
he was summoned by the board of elders to face some serious
questioning. As I recall being in the room, also serving on the
youth committee, the very setting was symbolic. The silence as
he entered the room was quite pronounced. The leadership
were all dressed in dark suits, while he sat in his casual attire
and defended his position and his practice. He smiled his way
through the meeting. They grimaced under the strain. I little
knew then how the setting itself portended the future and
represented the backstage of life. There were no harsh words.
There was no condemnation, which one might have expected.
But it was obvious that he felt, This is me against the church.
Naturally, he was relieved of his responsibilities as a leader
among the youth. It was fascinating to see how he used the
religious terminology and doctrines of Christianity that he had
learned at Bible college to defend his new lifestyle and choices.
He still saw himself as a “Christian”… he just didn’t see himself
as a “churchman” anymore.
What none of the leaders or, for that matter, he himself
knew was the heartbreak that awaited him. I befriended his
partner as well, even though culturally and in belief we were
worlds apart. I spent hours listening to their emotionally hard-
hitting responses to traditional morality. Until the fateful
Saturday morning that I received a call from his partner. The
call caught me by surprise, as I realized that something life-
threatening was happening. I dashed off and drove the several
miles to their apartment, but when I knocked on the door there
was no response. The door was unlocked, so I opened it and
found a scene I will never forget. It appeared as though the
house had been ravaged the night before. Broken bottles of
liquor and clothes were strewn all over the place and there was
leftover food on the floor and on the furniture. I walked in
carefully, feeling that I was entering a crime scene. Frankly, I
was afraid. I heard a groaning sound from upstairs and ran up
to find the partner in a stupor. I called for help and he was
taken to the hospital, his last journey in this life, as it turned
out. The power of an idea had overtaken his life and left it in
shambles.
This, I dare suggest, is the substrata of all that lies
beneath: One simply cannot live without boundaries. The
question is, whose boundaries? This was what the self-
appointed critics of established society didn’t quite know how
to deal with: If we are going to dismantle the boundaries set by
society, which boundaries are we going to promote? For we
cannot live as a society without boundaries. These cultural
revolutionists never paused to think of our infinite capacity for
destruction. Anti-absolutist thinkers seldom come to terms
with the fact that freedom is not destroyed only by its
retraction; it is devastated by its abuse.
The three layers that made up the rebellion against the
status quo of Western society were, first, the disillusionment
with materialism and the status quo; second, the shallowness
and, at times, hypocrisy of the Church, or of those who claimed
to be Christians; and third, and perhaps most compelling, a
desire for liberation from all restraint, especially in matters of
sexuality. Those rebelling wanted the foundations of society
replaced and a new foundation of their own choosing
established. But the foundation they wanted was actually the
absence of any foundation. They wanted no point of reference
for values, except one’s self.
Restlessness in the soul, disillusion with a commercialized
Christianity, and a hunger for free expression came together to
find a new way. In the high-speed descent into a profane
culture, they tried to reexamine why anyone had ever bought
into the sacred anyway, and a New Age dawned with a new
way of discovering or defining the “sacred.”
CHAPTER 3
 EXHALING THE OLD, INHALING THE
NEW

The Dawn
In a November 2, 2008, article in the Los Angeles Times, staff
writer Elaine Woo reported on the death of Marilyn Ferguson,
the author of the 1980 best seller The Aquarian Conspiracy.
Ferguson had died on October 19 of that year, at the age of
seventy. She was described as “a galvanizing influence on
participants in scores of alternative groups that coalesced as
the New Age movement.”1
From the extreme focus on rationalism came a balancing
response of empiricism. From the displacement of personal
value in empiricism came the tidal wave of existentialism that
championed individual will, passion, and choice. From the
nihilism that came hand in hand with existentialism,
postmodernism was waiting to be born. Existentialism had
harnessed the arts and wanted to tell philosophy in a story.
But stories required an author, and the subjects of the stories
reacted against the author and claimed their right to reinterpret
the story as it seemed right to them. The likes of Michel
Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and others framed the world of
postmodernism and deconstruction. While these terms merit a
rigorous philosophical analysis, the resulting authority was
clearly the individual, and the reader claimed authority over the
author.
 The tale would go something like this:
In the beginning, God.
God spoke. But that was a long time ago.
We wanted certainty—now.
For this, only Reason and Rationalism would do.
But that was not enough. We wanted to “test.”
So we went into the senses and found the empirical.
But that’s not what we meant by testing. We really meant
“feeling.”
So we found a way to generate feeling into the picture.
Truth was framed into a scene.
But the scene was left open to interpretation. Scenes are
not absolute.
So the story was told as an art form.
But the reader still didn’t like it, because he was not the
author.
So he read the story while he sat in a reconstructed and
deconstructed cubicle to make of the story whatever he
wished.
But what does one do with the long reach of the
empirical?
The best way was to find a blend between the empirical
and the satirical and end up with God again.
The only difference was that God could not be the
storyteller.
We still needed God.
So we became God.
That’s precisely what the counterculture wanted.
Postmodernism engendered a philosophical stance devoid of
truth, meaning, and certainty. In literature, texts were
deconstructed to fit the mind-set of the reader, not the writer.
Foucault’s own foray into a sensually driven lifestyle that
ultimately took his life was based on his aphorism that there
were no boundaries. There were no absolutes.
While on the one hand those in the counterculture
movement openly debunked American individualism, on the
other hand, they brought in its place the individualism of a
subculture with the underlying theme that it was all “in you
and me.” Ferguson was one of the lead voices coalescing this
collection of individuals, and she harnessed the popular theme
of human potential. Her monthly newsletter, Brain/Mind
Bulletin, won a great readership and became the catalyst for
new ideas in spirituality that were a mix of science, albeit an
inexact one, with ancient texts of spiritual voices, which in turn,
would engender “new discoveries in neuroscience and
psychology.” The writer of her obituary goes on to state:
“That work led her to discern that a massive ‘cultural
realignment’ was occurring, a conspiracy in the root sense of
disparate forces all breathing together to produce personal and
social change.”2
The Aquarian Conspiracy was the first comprehensive
analysis to be written of the seemingly disparate efforts that
fed the movement—from the scientific world, experiments with
biofeedback, altered states of consciousness, and alternative
birthing centers; from the political world, experiments in
“creative” government; and from the religious world, a
Christian evangelist who seemed to be promoting forms of
meditation more familiar to the East—all coming together to
break from traditional mainstream Western practices and
beliefs.
Ferguson’s message was optimistic: “After a dark, violent
age, the Piscean, we are entering a millennium of love and light
—in the words of the popular song ‘The Age of Aquarius,’ the
time of ‘the mind’s true liberation.’ ”3 By her definition,
Aquarians were people who sought to “leave the prison of our
conditioning, to love, to turn homeward. To conspire with each
other and for each other.”4 Numerous publications exist today
that were birthed and made popular by this category of
thinking.
The Los Angeles Times also recorded some who disagreed
with her positions, finding her views simplistic. In the journal
Science Books & Films, R. C. Bealer wrote that Ferguson
offered the “hyperbole of the ‘positive’ thinking huckster.”5
Bealer’s questioning of Ferguson was the same as Dawkins’s
puzzlement by Chopra’s use of quantum as a metaphor for his
brand of spirituality. By embracing alternative religions,
Ferguson was accused of undermining Christianity. As her
ideas gained followers and moved more toward the center of
society, she was considered a trailblazer, and her work became
the classic explanation of the New Age standard ideals and
goals.
Has “spirituality” become such a vacuous term that like
Humpty Dumpty one can assemble it to mean whatever one
chooses to make it mean? But let me not move too far ahead of
the argument here. Let me take a step back and then several
steps forward to see what all this spirituality is about anyway.
While its path may have been along political-cultural-religious
lines, the destination to which the spiritual masters of today
want us to head is clearly defined, rising above politics,
religion, and culture. So let us give it the best representation
and see where it leads to and where it leads from.
High Noon
Elizabeth Lesser is the co-founder and senior adviser of the
Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. Prior to taking that
responsibility, she was a midwife and childbirth educator. It is
not without design that the front and back cover endorsements
of her book The New American Spirituality are from medical
doctors. The back cover suggests that her book will take us
through four landscapes of our spiritual journey: the mind (the
root of stress and anxiety); the heart (the root of grief and
pain); the body (the root of the fear of aging and of death); and
the soul (from which come meaning and mystery).
To help us in our understanding of that spiritual
landscape, new definitions are forthcoming in the book. It is
interesting that she doesn’t even begin to define spirituality
until page 30 in her book, in a chapter titled, “What Is
Spirituality?” After several paragraphs of telling us what
spirituality is not—not religion, sentimentality, cynicism, or
narcissism—a definition is finally broached. She certainly
doesn’t define it as synonymous with New Age Spirituality. In
her terms, not all spiritualities are created equal. The spirituality
she is speaking of is an attitude of fearlessness toward life, of
adventure; a search for the truth about existence. It is, as
Buddhism describes, “a tranquil abiding.”
Quoting from Buddhist texts, Hindu texts, Sufi texts, and
so on, Lesser offers a cornucopia of spiritual thought until you
have to wonder whether she is engaged in pursuing truth or in
a mix of ideals, being careful not to broach what else each of
these sages has said that would negate what the others have
said. Then comes the prescriptive moment in the book. This is
an extensive quote, but it must be given because it is vintage
New Spirituality:

Sit quietly right where you are, and close your eyes. Feel
yourself breathing. Follow the breath on its journey into and
out of your body. Sit feeling yourself breathe for a few minutes.
Place your hand over your heart and feel the warmth of your
hand connect with the steady beat of your heart. Then put
your hand or fingertips lightly on the spot in the center of your
rib cage, to the right of your physical heart. It is the spot you
can feel when you are startled and draw your breath sharply
inward. Move your hand gently, and breathe slowly and softly
into that spot until you are focusing intently on what many
traditions call the spiritual heart or the heart center.
Imagine that the spot you are touching is the top of a
deep, deep well. Follow your breath on a journey into the
spacious interior of your own heart. Breathe slowly in and out.
Let yourself be pulled ever more deeply into the well of your
heart. As you meet thoughts and emotions on the journey, do
not push them away. They are part of you, but not all of you.
Greet what you find and move on, ever deeper into the well of
your spiritual heart…
Welcome whatever you discover, without judgment, as
part of yourself, but not all of yourself. Sit in this state, letting
yourself be pulled by your longing into the well of your heart,
observing your breath, for as long as you feel comfortable and
then slowly remove your hand, return to normal breathing, and
open your eyes.6

The metaphysical roots and the means of discovery of the

not-so-new New Spirituality are acknowledged: The
Westernized Eastern spirituality that Elizabeth Lesser writes
about has all been tried and done before. But she is very clear
about how important it is to even know what to call it.
Referencing her own book, she says that she shies away from
the label of “new American Spirituality” because it is often
confused with “New Age” which, she says, implies such
things as crystals and UFOs and elevator music.7
This problem of what to call the New Spirituality is
resolved in the spring 2000 issue of Spirituality and Health
magazine:

In our times [it] seems best described as “21st-Century

Spirituality.”… It contains the nature-centered traditions of the
original peoples of the Americas. It is part science, which has
underscored, for most of the 20th century, our unspoken
collective philosophy. It respects both a mistrust of heavy-
handed authority, and the willing surrender to a greater power.
It draws from the religious teachings of the past: the biblical
traditions, the spiritual roots of Africa, the meditative schools
of Asia, and other diverse mythic and religious worldviews.
And it draws from our own times, from the wisdom of
psychology, democracy, and feminism.8

Why such a sweeping epistemology that seems to include

everything would feel the need to distance itself from crystals,
UFOs, and elevator music is intriguing. We shall let that be.
Lesser’s own spiritual journey is sad while, in her words,
triumphant. But if you get past the story line, you can see that
the very things she resists constantly surface. I shall get to
more of this later. But she is representative of the ideas and so
I take her at her word.
In the end, she sums up the difference between the “Old
Spirituality” and the “New Spirituality” according to her
understanding of ideas of authority, the path to God,
spirituality, truth and the sacred in each:

1. AUTHORITY: In the “old” spirituality authority is held

by the church; in the “new” spirituality the individual
worshipper has authority to determine what is best for
him or her.
2. SPIRITUALITY: In the old spirituality God and the way
to worship have already been defined and the
worshipper just follows the rules; in the new spirituality
the worshipper defines spirituality for him-or herself.
3. THE PATH TO GOD: In the old spirituality there is only
one way to God, all else is wrong; in the new spirituality
there are unlimited paths or combinations of paths one
can follow… you can string a necklace all of your own
making.
4. SACRED: In the old spirituality parts of yourself are
considered evil (the body, ego, emotions) and must be
denied, transcended, or sublimated; in the new
spirituality anything goes.
5. TRUTH: In the old spirituality truth is knowable and
constant, leading to the same answers at every stage of
life; in the new spirituality you never quite arrive at the
truth as it is constantly changing to accommodate your
growth.

With the safety net she has provided for determining

truth, who can ever fall? Only those who believe in the
exclusive nature of truth. So there is exclusivity implicit,
cleverly disguised as accommodation.
As a result of this excursion into an embrace of everything
except metaphysics (and crystals, UFOs, and elevator music),
walk into a health food store that promotes this philosophy
and look at what is advertised by the business cards of
persons with the following specialties that are on display and
for the taking:

Mystery School Instructor, Clairvoyant

Archetypes, Cartomancier, Astrologer
Numerologist, Medium, Healer
Shaman, Angel Therapy Practitioner, Empath
Clairvoyant, Channel, Kabbalist, Hypnotherapist
Medical Intuitive, Tarot, Reiki Master

I remember walking on the streets of Kuala Lumpur,

Malaysia, some time ago, and seeing a man sitting on the side
of the road with a parrot in a cage. Beside him were about
twenty or thirty little books no bigger than the size of a child’s
hand, laid out on the sidewalk side by side. I stood nearby and
watched. A woman came and sat in front of him, with her sari
draped over her head so that she wouldn’t be recognized. After
he spoke to her for a few minutes, he opened the birdcage, took
the bird on his hand, and placed it in front of the little books.
The parrot waited a few moments and then picked up one of
the books and gave it to the fortune-teller. The man opened the
book and began to read to her. She kept nodding, clearly
happy with the book selected. She reached into a side pouch
draped over her waist, paid him for his services, and walked
away. The man sat there, continuing to call to people as they
walked by, until the next customer was landed. He even looked
in my direction, paid me a compliment, and invited me to be his
next client. He should have known, being a fortune-teller, that I
would turn down his kind offer.
The evangelist from the Old Spirituality pleaded with his
audiences to “invite Jesus into your heart”; the apostles of the
New Spirituality tell you to invite yourself into your heart, to
feel your own breath. We might well conclude that Narcissus
may have been on to something. But if inviting yourself into
your own heart doesn’t help, there is a host of “Mystery
Instructors” who will find the right formula for you. The Oracle
at Delphi has come to life again.
Is life a tale told by an idiot or are we being idiotized? Is
there truth in religion or is religion a free-fall zone where each
one designs his or her own parachute to feel most comfortable?
Has man really “come of age” and are the skeptics right? Is it
time to turn the lights out at temples, mosques, and churches?
If there is truth in these matters, we had better find it before the
world is sent into a dream world turned nightmare.
But let me come back to the core of my concern. Anyone
who promises utopia through mass communication and mass
dissemination simply has run afoul of the facts. Several years
ago, Ted Turner, the media mogul, made a statement that now
seems almost laughable, except that it is sad. He presented his
own “Ten Voluntary Initiatives,” although he did add the
caveat that people of this age shouldn’t be told to do anything.
They are suggestions, all of which have to do with the
environment, and the tenth is to support the United Nations
and its efforts to collectively improve the conditions of the
planet. “One way to get this going, believe it or not, is TV. I
believe mass communication has helped make us all closer
together than we have ever been.”9 I wonder if Mr. Turner still
believes that.
I remain firmly convinced that changes do not take place
overnight. It is the old story of placing a frog in a kettle of cold
water and gradually bringing it to a boil, so that it doesn’t
know when to jump out as the water temperature rises to a
boiling death.
Yes, I am a Christian. I am persuaded that the whole
teaching of Jesus stands unique in all of the world’s religions. I
am persuaded that his analysis of the human condition is the
most real and empirically verifiable. I am also certain that if we
fail to come to terms with what he said and taught, we will put
all of humanity at risk. You must make up your own mind. But
after four decades of traveling around the world and listening
to some of the leading exponents of the human situation,
disappointments, and potential, what I am writing now I write
with the deepest conviction that whether it is heeded or not, it
has to be said.
I am a lover of the world’s cultures. I see beauty and
drawbacks in all of them. No one culture has all the right ways
of doing things. Having been raised in the East and having
lived in the West for the past forty years, I have lived and
learned much from both. In my veins flows Indian blood. In my
language, I am comfortable in both Hindi and English. I must
confess that in my culinary delights I am prejudiced toward
Indian cuisine, which stands uniquely exotic above all others.
(You could question that, but when more than a billion people
stand with me in that opinion, at worst it would come in a close
second if numerical factors were weighed.)
There is a strange twist in this fascination in the West
with the East and with Eastern spirituality. When a westerner is
attracted to Eastern spirituality, the East claims credit for
having had the answers all along. But should an easterner be
attracted to Christianity, it is seen in the East as a betrayal of
one’s culture. Ask any Christian from India and you will find
that to be true.
But God Finds a Bridge
Some years ago, as a young speaker I was addressing a rather
small audience in New Brunswick, Canada. During the evening,
my hosts invited another Indian gentleman to join us for
dinner, a schoolteacher. In the 1970s the Indian population in
Canada was very sparse. So anyone who knew two people
from India took it upon themselves to make certain that the two
should meet. Such are the vagaries of human friendships. He
came from a Hindu background and when he met me for dinner,
he was extremely hostile. He believed I had betrayed my culture
by becoming a Christian and somehow made the assumption
that the purpose in my meeting him was to convert him to
Christianity. To say that it was an uncomfortable evening was
to put it mildly.
I listened and assured him that whatever prompted the
host’s invitation, I was as much a guest as he and that he was
under no obligation to attend the evening talk later that
evening. It was entirely his choice. He did attend. He did listen.
He left without saying anything.
Several years went by before I received a call from him. He
was in a hospital in Toronto and asked if I would come to visit
him. I knew that the hospital he was in specialized in cancer
treatment. When I walked into the room at the hospital, I
quickly apologized to the occupant for being in the wrong
room and stepped out again. But he corrected me and called me
by name. It was, indeed, he, but he had been reduced to a
shadow of himself and tears flooded my eyes. He gave me a
hug and told me not to feel bad for him and then began to tell
me that during the twisting path he had followed after we met,
he had come to know and enjoy a relationship with Jesus, the
same Jesus he had so shunned at our first meeting. He had
learned what it meant to walk with God while still cherishing the
culture of his birth and to find peace and hope in his innermost
being. As we talked and finally bade each other good-bye, it
was a fitting parting. God was with him, and he knew what true
spirituality was about.
Why Jesus? What difference does it make what you
believe? Is truth really even knowable? Could it be that
postmodern spirituality is really the expression of a universal
hunger rather than an answer to anything? What are the deep-
seated questions that drive the quest for spirituality? Why is it
that in the West we seem to have discarded the message of
Christ, while in the East they have begun to realize that he is
the one they are looking for? I have just one plea as we
proceed: Let us consider these things frankly and honestly,
without the rancor or bitterness that too often clouds the
vision and makes truth the casualty.
In my college days, I read an essay in which the writer
stated that one ought always to be grateful to those who made
you try harder. I mention this because I have to commend the
New Spiritualists for setting the bar high for us by awakening
us to the questions of life’s purpose and forcing us to take the
journey of life earnestly, and perhaps consider seriously what
we have always taken for granted. As a philosopher and
follower of Jesus Christ, I cannot ignore the New Spirituality; I
have to ask myself whether the worldview being espoused
really has the answers people claim to be looking for or the
package that is presented is more substantive than its content.
Are they pointing to a disease without giving a real cure?
One thing the promoters of New Spirituality have
unintentionally done with certainty is to illustrate the truth of
C. S. Lewis’s statement that each of us as a human being does
not have a soul; each of us is a soul. We each have a body.
That is the paradigm from which I want to respond to the New
Spirituality and demonstrate that everything the New
Spiritualists say they are seeking is actually found in Jesus.
No, not the Jesus of popular television marketing. Not the
Jesus of the New Ager’s imagination. And not the Jesus of all
talk and no walk, who is heard but never seen. The Jesus I am
talking about is the Ultimate Reality who became flesh to bring
us grace and truth that we might become the children of God.
Our destiny is in a relationship to a person, not in a
pilgrimage to a place. Our purpose is in communion with the
living God, not in union with an impersonal idea or nameless
Higher Power: Such categorization is intellectual cowardice.
Access to an abstract power gives you no one to be grateful to
in times of blessing and no one to question and receive
comfort from in times of sorrow. The world was made for the
body. The body was made for the soul. And the soul was made
for God. Not everything is actually as it is marketed to be, good
or bad.
Hinduism uses the term “leela” to describe its story. The
very word means a “play” or a “drama.” So as the wheels of
fortune have turned from texts to pretexts to contexts, we have
arrived at a time in human history when science claims to be
the ultimate authority for everything, and if science can’t quite
explain everything just yet, it is on the verge of a theory. We
are at a time when postmodernism defies certainty, truth, and
meaning; when spiritualism dabbles in quantum theory; and
when randomness has become the order of the day. Isn’t it
ironic that at the same time, the world is on the edge of
financial bankruptcy because we have conducted our financial
affairs in a random fashion, as if there are no absolutes? Every
serious-minded person needs to ask the questions of spiritual
truth honestly. The game shows and showmanship in the
marketplace may tantalize for a while. But truth will triumph in
the end. The daunting questions represented by this New
Spirituality, so obscured and propelled by the media, will not
go unanswered.
I remember a statement made by the president of the ill-
fated PTL. Commenting on the icons they had become in the
eyes of the masses and the material success that oozed from
their gains in wealth and fame, he said, “We became less than
what we were meant to be.” That statement is profound.
The New Spirituality represents this same tragedy. In
promising sublimity and divinity to each of us, its proponents
have actually made us less than we were meant to be. God
alone knows how to humble us without humiliating us and how
to exalt us without flattering us. And how he effects this is the
grand truth of the Christian message.
CHAPTER 4
 FROM OPRAH TO CHOPRA

From a problematic induction to an inescapable seduction, we

move to an inevitable reduction and, finally, to a false
deduction. Two of the biggest names associated with the New
Spirituality reflect this very well. It will be worth our while to
see a “Pilgrim’s Digress” here… how one starts out with a
belief, pursues her dream aided by the values of that belief,
attains the dream by capturing a medium for her gifts, lifts the
power of those gifts to dizzying heights, is seduced by that
very power, begins to market a belief different from that which
brought her to those heights, and finally shapes that belief into
making herself the object of the viewer’s belief. I might put it
the following way:
First, the innocent is attracted to climb a mountain. Then
the innocent draws others into her orbit to keep her company
as she climbs. Then she seduces the others into believing that
she has attained a higher status than the mountain and now
has a transcendent perspective. Finally, she makes it look as if
all along, the mountain should have tried to scale her heights
but it couldn’t, because it is not the mountain that created the
climber but the climber that created the mountain and
everything around it is the climber’s creation. Now when
others come to the mountain, it is to find that the mountain
actually leads to her.
Through these two personalities that exemplify the New
Spirituality, we see the perils of the New Spirituality made to
look glamorous and a pseudoscience wedded to a mystical
vocabulary that results in absurd deductions. I have chosen
Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra to illustrate what I am
saying. One reveals to us the slow but sure grip of being made
an icon by a seduced populous and the inevitable devolution
of a belief. The other shows the flawed induction of this New
Spirituality, and the predetermined conclusions that defy both
reason and observation. If they both represent two sparkling
lights in this astral spectrum, there are hosts of others that also
shine. Their beliefs and means of communication have shown
how an idea can be taken and marketed, reshaped, and
repackaged until it is taken at face value by a generation that
has failed to ask the right questions. There is no spinning top
here to tell them whether they are dreaming or awake.
The breadth of thinking ranges from the genuine to the
fake to the fake fake and the genuine fake (I hope you read the
introduction). You are told in smooth-flowing tones that you
have an “ageless” body and a “timeless” mind, when you
know full well that your body is aging and that your mind is
still swallowed up by time. But if you keep repeating the mantra
with your eyes shut and your mind emptied of anything
meaningful, you will float through the various degrees of the
mystical overriding the rational. That notwithstanding, both
Oprah and Chopra show us something very profound in the
process. Allow me to take you on this brief journey to show
the digression they have followed.
For one, life began in poverty and has ended up in
incredible wealth. For the other, life began in the East and has
ended up in the West. For one, the definitions started with
“You are nothing until you make yourself something.” For the
other, it was “No matter what you make of yourself, at the core
you are really nothing”… or everything, depending on your
science or religion. For one, common sense and brutal reality
are transformed into a rags-to-riches show-and-tell on the
wings of telegenic strength. For the other, “quantum
cosmology” and esoteric terminology provide the double-
edged strength of two escape doors whenever questions are
put to either; there is always a default position to the other
when fault is found with one. The two things both Oprah and
Chopra have in common are wealth and spiritual talk. Wealth is
concrete, usable, power-leveraging, and the cause of mass
envy. But the spiritual is the intangible, soul-appealing,
sometimes foreign phraseology made marketable in one-liners
and aphorisms that have the world eating ideas out of their
hands.
What do I have in common with them? Very little, and
very much at the same time. I, too, was born in the East and
now live in the West. I, too, was raised in a small home and
shared a small room with four other siblings. Just twenty-five
yards away from where I lived, a family of eight lived in a shack
made out of mud and cow dung. Poverty was writ large in a
culture such as that. I grew up with spiritual talk all around me.
I went to a school where the prescribed postures, breathing,
and chants were part of assembly each day. I lived in a
neighborhood where the silence of the dawn hours was
regularly broken by voluminous chants in Sanskrit that wafted
through the walls. The land of my birth is a country of
complexities. You have both extreme wealth and extreme want.
You have the ancient and the modern existing side by side.
You live with dogma and myth. The ivory tower of the academy
and the scourge of illiteracy exist a few feet apart.
But I have come to a conclusion radically different from
those of Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra. I have looked into
their ideas and their impact and wondered aloud if they have
pondered long enough the reasons for their success. Is it not
odd that both knew the impact of some form of Christianity in
their upbringing? Is it not odd that both have made their
fortunes in a country where the impact of the gospel made
possible freedom to the enslaved and liberty to pursue one’s
dreams? Is it not odd that the spirituality one touts still holds
captive millions who are told that they are born inferior at their
core? Is there an elephant in the room? Are they so enamored
with their own statures that they are missing the fact that
something larger than they are is struggling to make itself
visible?
To their credit, they have in effect revealed the “unpaid
bills” of Christendom. People yearn for the mystical and the
relational. But at the cost of truth and reality? The vortex that
suctions a person down the funnel of falsehood is that people
are enamored by material success and want to know how they
can get a piece of the pie. As Tevye in the musical Fiddler on
the Roof would say, “When you’re rich, they think you really
know.”
From Orpah to Oprah—Making
Television and Being Remade by It
“The reason I wanted to be a white kid is that I never saw little
white kids get whippings.”1
With these words, Oprah summarizes some of her early
struggles as a child. Born on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko,
Mississippi, and named Oprah because her mother misspelled
Orpah from the Bible, this child was destined to become a cultic
figure and a household name. In these days when the names of
“stars” are given to children, her mother had no idea she was
naming a star. Who knows, maybe “Orpah” would just not
have made it: Cary Grant’s birth name was Archibald Alexander
Leach… it doesn’t have the same iconic ring to it as Cary
Grant. That aside, not only was Oprah to become a household
name, she was in effect to become the point of reference for
terms and phrases such as “the Oprah effect,” “Oprahfication,”
and “She Oprah’ed it out of me”… new words in cultural
jargon. One writer says, “She’s not just working with the
languages out there; she’s helping to create those languages.”
In a remarkable way, Oprah has embodied her own storied
life. She interviewed the famous people who made her famous.
She then went on to interview people who became famous
because of her. We really don’t know them except through the
sound bites of their interviews with her, which can be all of
about forty minutes of give-and-take. But we think we know
them. Oprah, interestingly, is also only known to us from the
sound bites in which she handles her guests and periodically
reveals her own inner hurts. “She’s like the one friend you
trust,” said a fan, waiting in line to see her show. “You stick
with a girlfriend like that, you know.”2
Being regularly seen by many on a television screen
insidiously imparts a sense of trust. That is why advertisers
use familiar screen personalities. The Earl of Shaftesbury once
remarked that if the pope were married, he would know that he
is not infallible. If we lived close to these television
personalities, we would see them very differently from the
cosmetic way in which we see them as “stars.”
While we were in the makeup room being dabbed and
readied for a television program, a friend quipped, “This is
what you call preparing the body for viewing.” That’s about
it… making the dead seem alive, the old look young, decay
look fresh. Can real bonds be forged through such a medium or
is it part of the charade? One critic rightly calls this “intimacy at
a distance.” The orchestrated informal, interactive style of the
talk show encourages the audience to have a sense of intimacy
with the host. The host’s conversational style of speech, direct
gaze at the camera, and the sense of intimacy between the host
and the audience give the viewers the feeling that they are part
of the conversation they are watching take place before them.
One viewer is reported to have said, “Oprah is me. We’re both
black, we’re both the same age, we treat people the same way.
That could be me.” Even Oprah’s choice of “I’m Every
Woman” by Whitney Houston as her show’s theme song is no
accident.3
It’s hard to know someone when there is no “authorized”
biography. One wonders how well someone can be known
even through an authorized version. But there are glimpses we
get of Oprah that convey the shaping strands of her life. More
to the point, her fans find her appealing because she reflects
their inner hungers to escape the hard knocks of life and find
someone who “cares.” Oprah credits her grandmother Hattie
Mae for giving her a start that made it possible for her to
pursue her values. But one gets a mixed story here. “My
grandmother whipped me with switches. You go and pull a little
limb off a tree and you bring it in. It’s what Richard Pryor
described as the loneliest walk of your life—to get your own
switch. Amazing, isn’t it?”4 She goes on to say that our
prisons are full of men who as young men “had the living hell
beat out of them.”5 The beatings that today would be
considered child abuse, she says, form her memories for the
early years.
I can relate. Speaking personally, in the culture and times
in which I was raised, beatings and thrashings were common
fare. And I mean thrashings. It was and still is a system of
values that thrived on imparting fear and shame. If fear could
not be leveraged, shame would be. If neither worked, suicide
became the option.
Beyond these beatings and the poverty (they had
outhouses… something you never forget, she has said),
Oprah’s life seems to have been fraught with twists and turns
to find some solid footing somewhere. Her early years were
immersed in instability. At the age of six, she left her
grandmother’s home and moved to Milwaukee to live with her
mother, Vernita Lee, who worked as a cleaning woman and
supplemented her income with welfare. After first grade, she
went to live with her father and stepmother, but that was short-
lived, and before long she was returned to her mother. Gleaning
through her comments, you discover several shaping
influences.
 The principal feature of her early life was fragmentation…
where nothing is the way it is supposed to be and a child is
forced to grow up all too soon. She describes her own birth as
the result of a “one-night stand.” No one would label herself
that way without struggling to justify her existence as either an
accident or design: If life becomes a protracted misery, then the
accident takes primary place; if it turns out to be a Cinderella
story, then design surfaces, in spite of the pain. But this is
where spiritual depth determines whether she would see the
details of her life as luck or providence, the result of personal
perseverance or grace. I think, for Oprah, there are shades of all
these, at least in the early years. Though sometimes others can
see us better than we are able to see ourselves, it is the hazard
of life that others can also mistakenly see us as greater than we
really are… or less than we really are.
Oprah’s own admission is that she remembers her home
being smaller than it actually is. Funny, in my memories my
home and neighborhood are much bigger than they actually
are. When I returned to India for the first time after years of
being gone, I wondered why I remembered those small rooms
as being quite large. Was it because I didn’t know any better?
When Charles Dickens returned to his hometown and remarked
that his city had changed, someone responded that it had not
changed nearly as much as he had.
Oprah has the distinct trait of remaking herself many times
over. From the glamour of fitting into a smaller pair of jeans to
forcing an interest in particular themes so as to keep the show
going, the power of a lens is incredible. This, audiences seldom
ponder. As I read snippets of her own assessment of her life
and career there are several unmistakable conclusions that can
be rightly drawn.
 Oprah was and is almost unstoppable—determined,
hardworking, driven, a keen exponent of her medium
(television), knowing precisely where her audience is. In fact,
she knows them better than they will ever know her. With
determination and skill she has combined her grit, gained in
spite of the fragmentation of her life, with an intuitive strength
of knowing what to serve up to her worshipping audiences.
She has pursued every opportunity toward her goal, and when
opportunities seemed to disappear, she created them. She
understood the medium and wrested it to her advantage.
The fragmentation was a drawback, but she has used her
wounds and hurts to her advantage. These, I have no doubt,
have conditioned her thinking, and she has drawn from them at
the precise moment of maximum impact. There are two ways to
use a wound: either as a stepping-stone by looking beyond it,
or as an exploitative thing to be leveraged for gain. I shall leave
the individual to decide which is what. A little child in the arms
of a beggar can elicit pity. But if the child is exploited for the
purpose of material gain, there is a thin line between pity and
seduction, or even deception. Any confession that paints the
subject as a victim, and at the same time as a survivor, will draw
a large following. Her personal stories of repeated molestation
at the hands of relatives and friends opened the door of this
harsh memory for large numbers of women.
Some of these experiences she has revealed in her shows;
others have been dragged into the public eye without her
desire to see them made public. Her first experience at being
molested happened, she says, when at nine years of age she
was left alone for the day with her nineteen-year-old cousin.
When she was fourteen, she was molested by an uncle. Her
pain has been shared by many women who have found an
echo for their own pain in her voice. When the subject comes
up, tears flow and those who have never experienced that
trauma can still feel the weight that is being borne by those
who have. The emotional scars make for desolation and
rejection by the self, of the self. This is the self no little girl
would choose. In this, Oprah has to be seen as a trailblazer,
instrumental in unifying the public revulsion for such actions.
But then came a bombshell from a completely different
source. In March 1990 Oprah’s half sister betrayed a deep
family secret to the National Enquirer, saying that when
Oprah was fourteen years old she gave birth to an illegitimate
child. In Oprah’s words, “That experience was the most
emotional, confusing, and traumatic of my young life.” One can
only imagine the double-edged pain felt by a public figure who
is betrayed in this way, when deep hurts that never leave you
are turned into public wounds to be exploited.
Oprah talks about this subject quite extensively… the
resulting fears, the promiscuity, the silence that was bought by
the perpetrators. The most distressing thing about this story to
me is not even addressed; that it is possible for no one in the
family to know that a nine-year-old has been molested when it
is a family member who is responsible; that no one asks,
“Who?” “When?” “Where?” Is it the unwritten law in a family
that has experienced this to ask no questions, lest one hears
what they don’t want to hear, or risks being exposed for their
own crimes? Such victimizers have learned to run from reality
themselves and do not consider that they are criminals and
could stop the crime.
There were other forces at work in shaping her life.
Moving from home to home, repeatedly packing her bags and
living sometimes with her grandmother, sometimes with her
mother, sometimes with her father… the transitory feeling of
being constantly uprooted was always present. Life has a way
of compelling the “homeless mind” to either surrender or
persevere. Oprah chose the latter, and she credits her father
with pointing her in the right direction. “His love of learning
showed me the way. Reading gave me hope. For me it was just
the open door.”6
One writer offers several reasons for “why Oprah is a
compelling and successful spiritual teacher.”7 These speak
clearly to her success and take nothing away from her; in order
to be the success she is, she has had to exhibit extraordinary
and sustained skill. I believe they are an accurate assessment
of Oprah and of her story and explain why she is so admired
and loved. Below is my take on the reasons offered:

First, she is very human… people are able to connect

with her as a real person. This is an icon but one that is
“in the flesh.” This combination of “being up there yet
down here” is probably her greatest appeal.
Oprah is familiar with suffering and wants to do
something about it. Here again, I see that she is a
reflector of people’s anguish. They, too, can come to a
show almost unknown, yet be known. These traits I
believe point to something very striking as a human
need.
Oprah is a name that now signifies “community.”
Whereas authors trigger discussions in book clubs
where the writer provides the ideas that shape the
discussion, Oprah becomes the idea that shapes the
discussion.
 As a pioneer, she has encouraged self-examination but
has done so without cheapening people or exploiting
others.
Oprah is a firm believer in gratitude.
Her speech is easy to understand. She engages with
simple concepts, plainly spoken.
Oprah is a great listener. As she interviews, she gives
the impression that she is completely engrossed in
what the person is saying and carries that discussion to
bring in the audience.
She has a contagious generosity that encourages
people to give and to care.
Forgiveness has been a key part of her own life. She
has had to learn to forgive. Oprah is a promoter of
goodness and honest living.

As one makes their way down this list, one begins to see
that these were not values cradled in a vacuum. I am not sure
that I necessarily agree with this blanket assessment, because
it all needs explanation. Many seriously take issue with
whether all that has happened in Oprah’s life has been as
stated and without exploitation. Nonetheless, that is how she is
portrayed. That is the persona that is believed to be the real
thing. But what we must pay heed to is that even if this is not
who she really is, this is what people are looking for… a person
who cares, who listens, a person in whom people see reflected
their deeply cherished hopes and longings. We are guilty of
living contradictory lives, but we can still recognize what really
matters deep within. It almost sounds like something you
would hear at church: As Paul said in Romans 7:16 and 18, “I
do what I do not want to do… For I have the desire to do what
is good, but I cannot carry it out” (NIV).
Oprah had a church upbringing. Her spiritual heritage
included music, drama, Sunday school, and, most of all,
storytelling. She is a master storyteller. She embodies what she
does. She talks to people about people. She feels what she
wants people to feel. She wants authenticity to be normal and
common. That’s what comes through. At least, that is what her
admirers say about her. Any famous person will always have
their detractors. Even as I write this, an unauthorized
biography by Kitty Kelley has just been released. The
unfolding story is quite remarkable.
In the content of her programs, she sometimes comes
extremely close to the truths of her upbringing and then
suddenly drowns them in a sea of postmodern reality. Even
though her life was fragmented, I strongly suspect there were
those in her family background who prayed for her, those who
asked Jesus to take care of her and who, as church members,
withstood their own pain because the gospel gave the
possibility of hope to them. Fatalism would have been easy.
But dependence upon God is that sixth sense that somehow
holds on to the last sprig of support. I shall return to this. For
now, I simply wish to underscore a backdrop of pain and
disappointment. Yet I strongly suspect there existed lines of
the gospel that kept in check those in whose charge she was
raised.
That is one side of the story. To be a victim and rise
above it is to one’s extraordinary credit. Until the program
changes you. That is the fearsome side of god-makers.
The Person Who Conditioned Others
Journalism is classified within our minds into certain
categories. I had to smile when Tiger Woods gave his first
interview after his tragic fall from grace. One of the press
reporters audaciously asked him, “How could you lie to so
many for so long?” That, coming from a journalist, had to be
the most ironic thing I had heard for a long time. But whether
we like it or not, the media news is part theater and part
information. Journalism that is crude or provocative is branded
“tabloid.” There is a long list in this category. But if we can do
the same thing with recognized personalities, we call it a talk
show. Strange thing, this hero worship of ours.
Just reading a list of the programs featured by Oprah
leaves one thoroughly perplexed by the power of an individual
who, though clearly indulging in shock television, is
passionately defended by her fans who don’t see her that way.
Her interviews on sexual matters have often gone beyond the
pale, and leave one questioning the true motives here. One of
her biographies gives a word-by-word description of
perversions that were the subjects of some of her programs,
viewed by millions. In one instance, she interviewed a
transsexual quadriplegic whose boyfriend’s sperm was inserted
into her sister. The quadriplegic became the biological
aunt/uncle and also adopted the child. When Oprah was
strongly criticized for the program she said, “[Meeting the
child] was just a moving thing. I thought, ‘This child will grow
up with more love than most children.’ Before, I was one of
those people who thought all homosexuals or anything like
that were going to burn in hell because the Scriptures said it.”8
 Quite clever, isn’t it… turning a story of criticism into a
heroic one? Jeff Jarvis, the former television critic, wrote to her
after one terribly explicit show, saying,

Oprah, you can’t act as if you don’t bear considerable

responsibility for this. You brought sex to afternoon TV. Now I
don’t think you should be fined for that and I don’t think you
should be taken off the air for that; I just don’t watch you. But
you’re doing nothing different from Howard Stern—except
getting away with it. So cut your holier-than-thou disapproval
of sex on the rest of TV. You are the Queen of Trash.9

This is where we are today. We locked Jim Bakker of PTL

behind bars for years because he defrauded people of money.
But there is no similar law against the seductive power of
stories that actually exploit people. This is the postmodern
version of the freak shows of years gone by. But here is the
crucial step in impact: Once you have gained a following of
such magnitude; once you can do no wrong by virtue of the
adulation you receive; once you are one of the richest people
in the world and can buy the companies that sponsor you;
once you have a magical impact on the minds of people… is it
not a short step to playing god in the minds of your followers?
But every human god-maker needs a god while playing
god. Fame and success alone do not satisfy. Spirituality was
truly the next step. You can’t make people feel good just by
telling stories. You have to be drawn into the story itself and
become a hero or heroine in that story. And so… the spiritual
side of Oprah’s programming. Mystics, spiritual masters, all are
in the lineup to give the viewer the feeling that she who has
become all but deified in their eyes can now make each viewer
just like them. What better way to do good than to make each
person listening feel good while the spiritual master is instantly
made rich just by being interviewed and the host becomes the
pathway to hope and peace in the process? This is a win-win-
win situation: The host, the guest, and the audience benefit…
to say nothing of the advertiser and the station.
This is the free market at work, and the best win out. It is a
long way from the wanderings of a Buddha or the sacrifice of
the Son of God, but it has eye appeal in a time in history when
gullibility is king and riches control appetite.
The Long Journey from God to Self-
Exaltation
Along the way while Oprah was being made and making
herself, her spiritual metamorphosis was taking place. Take
note of Oprah’s spiritual journey.
In high school, she wrote in the yearbook of her friend
Gary Holt, “You have showed me more by your actions, by the
way you live from day to day, that there is truly One Way,
Jesus Christ! And that without Him taking control, without Him
running the whole show, life is just an endless go-round with
no meaning.”10
During a “look-back” show twenty-two years later, Oprah
invited Gary Holt on her show. But it didn’t turn out the way
either he or she expected. As he saw her surrounded by her
entourage of beauticians, production team, and other
assistants he asked why she was doing all this. “Because I
want to bring truth to the world,” she said. Gary paused, took
the yearbook out of his bag, and showed her what she had
written two decades earlier. She added a few pleasantries and
wrote further, “God is still King!”11
Changes may come in small increments, but they come
indeed. The erudite know how to best talk their way out of their
unattractive transformations.
There is another telling passage about her spiritual
journey. When she joined an A.M.E. church in 1976, Oprah
was described as a “preacher woman” fervently committed to
Jesus Christ, having also memorized books of the Bible. She
was strong in her faith and in calling people to live consistently
with those truths found in the Bible. “I was raised to not
question God. It’s a sin… But I started to think for myself…
and that’s when I really started, in my mid-twenties, my own
journey towards my spirituality, my spiritual self,” Oprah has
said.12
In picking the moment of change, she references a sermon
she heard from her pastor, Rev. John Richard Bryant, on the
text that says God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5):

I was just sitting there thinking for the first time after being
raised Baptist… church, church, church, Sunday, Sunday,
Sunday… I thought, “Now why would God, who is
omnipotent, who has everything, who was able to create me
and raise the sun every morning, why would that God be
jealous of anything that I have to say? Or be threatened by a
question that I would have to ask?”13

Really, Oprah! This is what started it all? Do you really

want us to believe that all of a sudden, after preaching the
truths of the Bible for years and memorizing whole books of the
Bible, you didn’t like this God you had been following?
If this renunciation of God is true, either she didn’t
understand what the text meant and what she had believed all
her life or she was deliberately looking for a way out to choose
this reason for rejecting the faith of her childhood and youth.
Often when we are struggling with how best to say we no
longer believe what we once did, it is easiest to find one idea
and either warp it or take it out of context and make ourselves
heroes for being willing to renounce the unacceptable. I cannot
help but be reminded of my friend in the last chapter. But the
journey down the lane of the mystical, bolstered by a heavy
dose of self-confidence and spiritual jargon, made Oprah the
spirituality queen of the talk shows. The God she grew up
believing in may have no longer been there, but there was an
awful lot of spiritual talk. Redefining terms is the best way to
smuggle in hungers while remaining autonomous. We all know
this trick well.
Strange esoteric beliefs were waiting for acceptance. It is a
long way from quoting the Bible to her fascination with The
Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Beyond even that is what she has
declared her second-favorite book, after the Bible: Gary
Zukav’s The Seat of the Soul. Authors such as Eckhart Tolle
(The Power of Now), John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women
Are from Venus), Iyanla Vanzant (Acts of Faith), and Sarah Ban
Breathnach (Simple Abundance) caused her to become
verbose about their spiritual insights. Dr. Phil was catapulted
to fame as a regular feature on her show. These were branded
“Change Your Life” shows. She ended that series with an
astonishing segment called “Remembering Your Spirit,” which
was introduced with New Age music in the background as she
said, “I am defined by the world as a talk show host, but I know
that I am much more. I am spirit connected to the greater
spirit.”14
She has ascended into ethereal ranks and the mountain
now bows to her. For this little kid, for whom so much had
gone wrong so early, to reach these plateaus is miraculous in
people’s eyes. She has turned stones into bread and gained all
the kingdoms of this world.
Early in her success, she told a friend that it was all God’s
plan and doing for her.15 But in an ironic shift, as the years
went by and a relative asked her why she embellished stories
about her childhood so much until they became lies she said,
“Because that is what people want to hear.” The visual media
had done its work. One is tempted to pun on the word, hence, I
italicize it.
The seduction was complete. The lie is what people want,
so why get hung up on the truth? All she wanted in the
beginning was the truth. Now, if this is true, a lie is acceptable
because that is what the audience wants to hear. Only very
recently, she discovered she had a half sister. If anything
needed to be a private moment, one would think that the first
meeting of siblings would be it. No, not for a performer. The
cameras were positioned so that the tears could flow for the
viewers, garnering more publicity. Something so manufactured
ought to be seen through, but astonishingly it is just regarded
as even greater evidence of her greatness and another cause
for applause. This life’s dim window of the soul has beguiled
the soul once again.
Truth and authenticity are easy casualties before the
power of the lens. Between Deepak Chopra’s co-opting of
quantum terminology to support his version of spirituality,
Oprah’s capacity with telegenic splendor to blur the lines
between fact and fancy, and the empty rhetoric of
televangelists with their perfect coiffures and elaborate stage
sets that are inversely proportional to the substance of what
they are saying, we will never be able to roll back the clock. But
maybe we can find a true point of reference for time. Between
the ancient and the postmodern there may not be much of a
difference except in the inferences we have drawn.
Having said all that, if I had the opportunity to talk to
Oprah one-on-one, I would have some questions for her.
Those questions I shall pose and attempt to answer myself in
the pages to come. How can someone this accomplished and
clear in her speech draw near to things spiritual yet remain
muddied in her spiritual thinking? That, to me, is the bottom
line of a life that has been so successful and so shaped by the
influence of converging and conflicting views.
Here are some of the questions I would initially ask:

1. Why is the spiritual side of life so important and what

do you personally think the true spiritual experience is?
2. If forgiveness is such a key aspect of your thinking,
who is it that ultimately forgives the very motives and
intents of the human heart?
3. Gratitude without a person to be grateful to is an
incomplete thought. As G. K. Chesterton said, “If a
child has Santa Claus to thank for putting candy in his
stocking, have I nobody to thank for putting two feet in
mine?” To whom are you ultimately grateful?
4. When you use the term “God,” to what or whom do
you refer? Is it not important to be right in your
thinking about God?
5. You are a good listener. That is a good trait. Do you
believe God listens to your prayers when you pray?
6. What are your thoughts on the nature of sin?
7. What do you believe ultimately about individual human
destiny?
8. Do you believe success has made you happy or is there
something greater than that?
9. You are a great believer in values: What is the source of
those values?
10. What do you think is the purpose of life?
11. Who do you believe yourself to be?
 12. Who do you think Jesus is?

I believe the answers to these questions will tell me not

what she believes, but why she believes it.
That said, it was quite amazing to hear her closing words
at the end of the last taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the
end of this phase of her career. I do not think for a moment that
this is a farewell. I think it is a fork in the road. And how could
one blame her? With the kind of following she has and the
power that comes with that, it will be hard to escape the
camera. But her closing comments may well be the twin shades
of her spirituality. That she gave God the glory for her success
and mentioned Jesus and “the Alpha and the Omega” did not
escape discussion everywhere.
Ultimately, only God knows a person’s heart. As I see it,
deep inside her is that childlike faith and the memory of all that
has happened to bring her this far. But the tug of the camera
and of the Spirit of the Age, and a desire to make spiritual truth
accessible and not dogmatic, may well have led her to say
things that she thought would draw people closer to decency
in their inner lives, even if she didn’t fully believe those things
herself. Who knows? But that is precisely the game that can be
played under the lights. Farewells bring out emotions that
cannot suppress some beliefs. But with time and fame, the line
between trusting God and playing God can easily be erased.
When we are at the peak of success we may lead other people
to believe that we are God. When we say good-bye, we know
we are not.
CHAPTER 5
 THE RELIGION OF QUANTUM

A More Educated Icon

Deepak Chopra is in effect the spiritual counselor for and a
household name to millions. He was born in Delhi in 1946 or
1947 (depending on the source). He is a graduate of the All
India Institute of Medical Sciences (1968) and a former leader
of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation and
Ayurvedic Medicine programs.
His own trek to his present position is quite interesting.
His early love, first for literature and then for journalism, was
replaced by the study of medicine. He moved to the United
States around 1970, where he interned at a hospital in New
Jersey before relocating to Boston and establishing his own
practice in endocrinology. In 1985 he was appointed chief of
staff at New England Memorial Hospital. As time went by he
became disenchanted with traditional medicine, which he
thought was too dependent on drugs, and having come under
the influence of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s teaching, Chopra
resigned his position at the hospital and co-founded Maharishi
Ayur-Veda Products International, Inc. (MAPI), with Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi, a powerful practitioner of Ayurveda.
MAPI offered a line of herbal supplements, teas, oils, and
incense, as well as other products relevant to the business of
wellness from the Ayurvedic perspective. As the Maharishi’s
representative, Chopra became the head of a Lancaster,
Massachusetts, Ayurveda Health Center, the first of four such
centers in America. His Western education and career as a
doctor in a respected Western medical facility gave legitimacy
to Ayurveda (a Sanskrit word that means “knowledge of life”)
for many who were initially skeptical, and the clinics grew
quickly, especially once it was known that such celebrities as
Elizabeth Taylor, fashion designer Donna Karan, and the
investment banker Michael Milken were clients.
Though his first several books met with a mixed critical
and popular reception, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind,
published in 1993, sold more than a million copies and
suddenly, with his blend of medicine and spirituality enhanced
with a sprinkling of scientific terms, Chopra was becoming the
premier Eastern name in an increasing Western fascination with
all things Eastern.
By the mid-1990s he founded the Chopra Center for Well
Being in La Jolla, California. Now himself an international
celebrity in demand for speaking and lecturing, his subsequent
books were very well received by a public that had been
expertly primed. And in spite of the many articles written by
well-qualified medical practitioners and scientists who have
questioned and even openly ridiculed Chopra’s statements,
whatever he says continues to be accepted unquestioningly
by his large following, to the extent that one cannot help but
wonder at their gullibility.
But do not be deceived: Deepak Chopra is not just
promoting Eastern medicines; he is a shrewd businessman who
has profited greatly from the new spirituality combined with his
brand of gimmickry. His following statement succinctly sums
up his belief in wellness:

Quantum healing is healing the bodymind from a quantum

level. That means from a level which is not manifest at a
sensory level. Our bodies ultimately are fields of information,
intelligence and energy. Quantum healing involves a shift in
the fields of energy information, so as to bring about a
correction in an idea that has gone wrong. So quantum healing
involves healing one mode of consciousness, mind, to bring
about changes in another mode of consciousness, body.1

I’m sure that was helpful. It was a medical doctor who

once told me how upset he was with his doctor’s diagnosis of
the strange pains and sensations he was having in his right
leg. The treating doctor said to him, “It’s a seventy-year-old
leg, you know.” After a moment of reflection my friend said, “I
know. But the left leg is a seventy-year-old leg, too. Why is the
right one hurting and the left one not?”
By changing the information on one level of
consciousness, we can heal the other areas of consciousness.
Each recipient mutters the same terms and concepts and
assumes that the listener now fully understands this cure.
While millions in his and my homeland live in huge deprivation,
the center at La Jolla is here to promote quantum healing for
the wealthy. But there is no reason to complain or to feel
“taken.” Beneath all the trappings, what he is actually arguing
for is very clear to anyone who is willing to see it. We shall get
to that shortly, and I will raise my personal philosophical
challenges to his system at that point.
Along the way of his association with TM
(Transcendental Meditation) and then his own independent
enterprise, there were reports of some issues of disagreement
that signaled what the tensions were actually about. The
origins of some of his teachings and writings were challenged
in the law courts. I have provided links for those who wish to
study this further. Frankly, I am more interested right now in
the substance of what he is teaching than in who was right and
who was wrong in court, or who promoted it first. But it does
reveal the “not-so-pristine” reality that lies behind the scenes.
All the talk of peaceful splendor and nirvanic pursuits masks
the usual bouts of infighting, lawsuits, and competition. It is
interesting, don’t you think, that a God who describes his
sacrificial love for each of us as a jealous love merits rejection,
but demagogues jealous of one another’s successes who
engage in outrage and lawsuits are considered decent and
peaceful.
More serious, for the moment at least, is the very purpose
behind Chopra’s supposedly scientific terminology: to falsely
assert a connection between quantum physics and
“consciousness.” Among his claims are those stating that
“quantum healing” can defeat the aging process, that the mind
may be healed by harmonizing or balancing the “quantum
mechanical body,” and that by localizing your awareness on
the source of your pain, you can direct healing to begin
because, according to him, the body naturally sends healing
energy in the direction you are giving your attention. Or, as he
also says, you make happy molecules by having happy
thoughts. As one writer states, “This ‘quantum mysticism’ has
no basis in physics or biology and represents a leap of the
metaphysical imagination.”2
This same writer goes on to counter and challenge this
supposed blend of science and mysticism. He traces Chopra’s
teachings to the popular publication of Fritjof Capra’s The Tao
of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern
Physics and Eastern Mysticism (1975), and describes Capra’s
attempt in that book to connect ancient religions and modern
physics as “an abysmal failure.”3 According to him, it is this
that has influenced Chopra and other New Age energy
medicine advocates to claim that quantum physics proves the
reality of everything from chi and prana to ESP, despite the
denial of most physicists. Notwithstanding the claims of
Chopra and others that the mind can control diseases like
cancer, the evidence from scientific studies says otherwise. It
is true that there is scientific evidence that optimists live longer
than pessimists, but it is not necessary to bring in quantum
physics to explain why.
Chopra and others of his ilk claim that modern physics
validates ancient Hindu metaphysics, a claim that is
vehemently rejected by serious scientists who insist that there
is no connection between the discoveries of modern physics
and the metaphysical claims of Ayurveda. In fact, physicist
Heinz R. Pagels, author of The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics
as the Language of Nature, goes so far as to say, “No qualified
physicist that I know would claim to find such a connection
without knowingly committing fraud.”4
Physicists like Dr. Pagels deny any connection between
modern physics and Chopra’s “field of consciousness,”
asserting that his claim that large numbers of people meditating
can reduce crime or avert war by creating a “unified field of
consciousness”5 is pure foolishness and that the presentation
of physics that so willfully distorts scientific truth in support of
these ideas can only be seen as a deliberate intention to
deceive those who don’t know better.
According to Chopra, the state of your health is a matter
of personal choice: By taking your pulse, he can identify your
dosha and whether or not it is out of balance. He can cure your
allergies by addressing your digestive problems; reverse or
prevent cataracts by rinsing your eyes with a mixture of spit
from brushing your teeth, tongue scrapings, and water; and
reverse or retard aging by redirecting the way your body
“metabolizes” time. And, of course, he also promotes aroma
therapy based on Ayurvedic metaphysical physiology and
sells the oils and spices needed.
When it comes right down to it, what he and other
“alternative” healers are really selling to the gullible is hope for
healing and the hope of living forever. But it is a hope based
on mysticism, imagination, and good marketing skills rather
than on science.
Here, I cannot resist a personal word on two experiences
within our own family that I have recounted elsewhere. When I
was a young lad, I remember how much my father suffered from
asthma. He was advised by an Ayurvedic doctor to go to the
city of Hyderabad three years in a row at a certain time of the
year. He would have to rise before dawn and stand in a line
with others also waiting for treatment. At the first blush of
dawn, a priest would place a small minnow with a concoction of
spices into the mouth of the sick person and they would be
cured of whichever disease was ailing them. Combining the
astrological chart with nature’s herbs and the administration of
a priest would bring about the cure.
It is important to know that my father was not some kind
of gullible ignoramus. He had studied at Nottingham University
in England and was a deputy secretary in the Home Ministry of
the government of India. I remember him often saying, as he
struggled to breathe in the midst of an asthma attack, that he
would never wish his ailment on his worst enemy. The
intensity of his respiratory struggle sent him to a city more
than a thousand miles away for three years in a row. Did it cure
him? It made not one whit of difference. When he came to
Canada in his mid-fifties, the identification of his particular
allergies and the cleaner air rid him of his asthmatic condition
once and for all. I remember him saying that so simple a
corrective for so deep a malady was denied him by years of
other methods that did nothing for him.
My closest friend growing up in India was the son of a
homeopathic doctor and the strictest vegetarian who often
scolded me for not being likewise. In his early fifties, he
suffered a massive heart attack and died. His father died young
as well.
I tell these stories to warn people that medicine is
multifaceted. To make either Ayurveda or homeopathic or
Western-style medicine, often called allopathic medicine, the
cure-all is ludicrous and just plain contrary to facts. Each has
their distinctive place. What disservice these propagators of
metaphysical medicine perform in an effort to peddle their
philosophy! They play god and make gods while denying us
our essential humanity. They take the pragmatic and make it
the total view. They take the ancient and make it the better
view. This comes perilously close to deception and distortion.
Keep these philosophies for what they are and let the truth
seeker discover whether the ideas behind them are coherent or
incoherent.6
In fact, I can speak from the perspective of my own search
for wellness as a result of serious back injuries that have left
me living with an incredible degree of pain. On my travels to
India I have tried numerous medicinal cures to relieve the pain.
Nothing is so all-encompassing within the mind of a person
who is in pain than the desire to alleviate it. I have been told by
medical practitioners that the greater challenge in pain
management is the emotional toll that the pain exacts. I have
tried the noninvasive and therapeutic methods, which include
an evaluation where they talk about the Vata, Pitta, Kapha, and
so on, followed by a prescription for massage and diet. The
meditative side of these treatments I do not need. My
ancestors left those practices when they became followers of
Jesus Christ. But I did undertake the massage treatments with
the oils, just to mitigate the pain.
There is a dangerous half-truth to the claims of Ayurvedic
medicine. Some of the Ayurvedic oils do work; some of it is
just plain psychological game-playing. That is as kindly stated
as I can afford. The real truth is that I have seen doctors who
practice Eastern medicine desperate themselves to get to the
West to be treated with Western medicine when faced by their
own debilitating disease. I have seen massage therapists who
spend their lives using those oils, only to find no relief
themselves when they are injured or fatigued from overusing
their muscles. This is the plain and simple truth.
There can sometimes be palliative benefits to several of
these methods, without the invasiveness of some Western
medicine. But any positive effect on my skeletal and genetic
problems for me personally has just been a pipe dream. The
same is true for many others I know. Without the care of
doctors here in the West or those in the East who are highly
trained in Western medicine, I would not be walking at this
point. As with everything, there is a balance. By all means
collect the wisdom of the ages, but there is far more to be
gained from using the wisdom of the present, as well.
Unfortunately, the lure of money and power, the influence
of the media, and the struggle of the human heart make us
pursue these things and, in the end, quarrel over who has the
rights to the cure while the heart and mind are severed from
ultimate truth. What is the driving force behind these
searches? The answer is in one word: pain. Whether it is the
emotional pain of someone like Oprah or the physical pain that
comes with illnesses, it is pain that stalks us and drives us in
this search for spirituality. The simplistic solutions of Deepak
Chopra cannot stand against the lofty and deep teachings of
Jesus Christ. However well-intentioned people like Chopra may
be, the claims that are made in those wellness centers and the
costs incurred for whatever is offered there leave one
incredulous. When one begins with a problematic induction,
through an inescapable seduction, there is an inevitable
reduction and ultimately a false deduction. Here is Chopra’s
deduction about the who and what of humanity:

Success in life could be defined as the continued expansion of

happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals…
Even with the experience of all these things, we will remain
unfulfilled unless we nurture the seeds of divinity inside us. In
reality, we are divinity in disguise, and the gods and
goddesses in embryo that are contained within us seek to be
fully materialized.7 (Italics mine)

Chopra says that he wrote part one of his thoughts on

success in his book Creating Affluence: Wealth
Consciousness in the Field of All Possibilities. Now in The
Seven Spiritual Laws of Success he is revealing the guidelines
that underlie all success. Why do I think I have heard such
language before? Is this not a different version of the
prosperity gospel? Evidently, the prosperity gospel is not
restricted to televangelists; rather, the same goal is now being
offered in a different path. What does the old adage say? “Fool
me once…” You know the rest of it. The only difference
between the two is that the televangelists misrepresented
divinity; this group goes one better and tells us we are
divinity.
As I am writing this book, India has just won the world
cup in cricket, a beautiful game. I love the game. But here is one
writer commenting on the victorious Indian team: “These boys
in blue are not just boys. They are men. They are not just
demigods. They are Gods.” How fascinating that he has
forgotten that some of the gods in the Pakistani cricket team
were disqualified from playing because they were charged with
match-fixing in other tournaments. So we have gods aplenty
that are here today and gone tomorrow. Yet these are the same
voices that during earthquakes and natural catastrophes want
to know where God is.
It is easy to see how and why entertainment icons and
these spiritual gurus and celebrities have come together. One
thinks they are gods and the other tells them they are right;
and what’s more, the rest of us are gods, as well. The words of
Reinhold Niebuhr come to mind: “No amount of evidence to
the contrary seems to shake man’s grand opinion of himself.”
I remember reading of a businessman who had gone to
Las Vegas to find something there that would satisfy and fulfill
him. He took his own life in his hotel room and left a one-line
note that said, “Here, there are no answers.” For the ultimate
hungers of the human heart, all the terminology, all the
wellness claims, and all the supposedly scientific terminology
only leave you with the deep conviction that “here, there are
no answers.” I shall let Deepak Chopra have the last word:

I in fact don’t believe in the existence of time. That’s one thing

I have to tell you, and the other is that I don’t take myself or
what I am doing seriously.
I don’t believe in anything supernatural.
Hope is a sign of despair.
Cynicism is a risk factor for sudden death from premature
heart disease.8

Clever… but what a way to build an empire.

It is something to watch a person in the making and see
how they end up seeing themselves. It is equally fascinating
that just because a person carries some credentials in the field
of health, we accept as equally authoritative his
pronouncements in philosophy. The successful marketing of a
product is often mistaken as the substance of the product.
Both health and philosophy deal with the spiritual, but,
unwittingly, they make it evident that the greatest disease of
life is of the heart, as Jesus described it.
Whether in competition in business dealings or in the big
business that spirituality has become, Jesus’ words ring true.
The heart of humanity is pride, greed, and lust… insisting on
having our way. We do not have the seeds of divinity. That is
the ultimate seduction. Apart from a Savior, we just play to the
stands. Only in his answers will we find the ultimate hope for
the human heart. That is the pursuit of this book.
CHAPTER 6
 GO WEST, YOUNG MAN

There is a tongue-in-cheek saying in the Hindi language: “desi

murghi pardesi chaal.” It sarcastically refers to a local person
who returns from abroad and puts on airs as if he is now above
the locals. It literally translates, “a local chicken with a foreign
walk.” Much of the New Spirituality that we witness in the
West is the reverse of this saying; it is a foreign chicken with a
local walk. No unkindness is intended here, but it amazes us
from the East to see this hybrid so brilliantly marketed and
accepted in the West. I like to call it “Weastern” Spirituality
because of the genius in combining Western materialism and
Eastern spirituality.
Years ago, the ultimate attainment of Eastern spirituality
was represented by bony “sadhus,” or holy men, who walked
the dusty miles every day and found shelter at night in a
“dharamsala,” or inn. You can still see them along the highway
from Delhi to Mathura, their staffs in their hands and a bundle
draped over one shoulder. They get their meager daily meal of
rice and lentils from anyone willing to share his food with them,
and engage in conversation with anyone willing to listen as
they expound on the benefits to the soul of not living for the
body. Following a ceremonial bath and their time of puja and
bhajans (their hymn singing), they settle in for the night on a
cement floor.
Eastern spirituality is represented quite differently in
America today. Those whose books are most quoted and make
the New York Times best-seller lists, the frontline figures in the
movement, are generally at the head of very wealthy empires.
No excessive attachment to detachment is in evidence. Though
our clothes these days may bear the label “Made in China,”
there is no doubt that the new form of spirituality is “Made in
India.” There is both an explanation for it and yet a lack of
explanation when I ponder “Weasternism.” In the earlier part of
the last century, missionary E. Stanley Jones’s best-known
book was titled The Christ of the Indian Road. It will not be
long before a publication emerges titled Krishna of the
American Road. Better yet, Dharma of the American Road.
There is actually some very serious vitriol in the
continuous debates between Indian practitioners on this.
Deepak Chopra likes to imagine his religion as disentangled
from Hinduism and instead calls it “Sanatan Dharma,” or the
“Eternal Religion.” But some Hindu apologists are not happy
with this disavowal of Hinduism. I suspect I know why he does
not want that tag of Hinduism on what he is teaching: By
disavowing the tag he can retain his beliefs, and a very gullible
American audience is not able to see what is really at work
here. Besides, it conveniently frees him from having to defend
anything in that system of belief that is embarrassing. But the
thinking of Chopra and of others like him, such as Eckhart
Tolle, is generally built upon the work of at least one of the
great exponents of this pantheistic thought. “Three Gurus
Who Changed the Face of Spirituality in the West” is the title
of a very recent article in the Huffington Post written by Philip
Goldberg, the author of American Veda. The title says it all.
Home Is Where the Heart Is
So goes the familiar truism. But the mind has to come to terms
with what the heart believes. This is a difficult section for me to
write, because it is so close to home. As I have already stated,
it is sad that whenever somebody like me questions the main
ideas of the dominant religion that is woven into the culture of
my birth, they run the risk of being seen as a traitor. A traitor to
what, I ask? If my disbelief of the religion that shaped my
culture is such a terrible thing, why are westerners being
encouraged to become traitors to the West and to the
worldview that has shaped the West? Why is it that a
westerner moving toward the East in his or her thinking is
doing a good thing, but the reverse is a betrayal? The tirade
against Chopra by Aseem Shukla, a urologist by profession,
from the University of Minnesota and of the Hindu American
Foundation, is over Chopra’s resistance to call his brand of
spirituality by its rightful name, which Shukla insists is
Hinduism. If this is a demonstration of the kind of castigation
one faces for believing the same thing but calling it something
different, imagine the hostility toward a fellow countryman who
doesn’t believe the same thing.
Some time ago, a noted Indian historian by the name of S.
D. Jha wrote an article in one of India’s leading newspapers on
the pre-Vedic and early Vedic practice of meat and beef
consumption. He mustered a wealth of Sanskrit scholars,
linguists, and historians of religion to show that this was
indeed so, not only, I might add, of Hindu priests, but also of
the Buddha himself. Mr. Jha is a highly respected and qualified
historian. The vitriol the article engendered and the hate mail
he received was beyond belief.
Is it not possible to be honest in what one says without
being seen as attacking one’s roots? Is it not possible to
expose a falsehood and still love one’s culture of birth? I am an
Indian through and through… by birth, by love, by admiration
for all that this great culture has poured into my soul. In India
we have the term “dharti kay admi.” It means “a person of the
soil.” I am of Indian soil. But I have to ask questions where
absolute truth is claimed, in order to be able to find reasonable
answers. On that, the great sages of India agree. That is what I
am trying to do here and, out of my love for both India and the
West, demonstrate that the metaphysics that has changed
Western spirituality is based on a flawed epistemology.
Some years ago, when the former Soviet Union was still in
the grip of the Cold War, I happened to be visiting there with
some friends. After we had finished lunch one day, the
waitress politely intoned, “Would you like any dessert?”
“Yes, we would,” we answered. “What do you have?”
“Ice cream,” came the sweet reply.
We waited. It was soon evident that nothing further was
coming. “Then we’ll have ice cream,” we said.
“What flavor would you like?” she asked.
“What flavors do you have?” we inquired.
“Vanilla,” came the polite answer.
We waited. We stared at one another. That was it. We
concluded that she really only wanted to know if we would like
vanilla ice cream for dessert but asked us with the charming
grace of making us feel that it was the dessert of our choice,
among myriad options.
That is precisely the sweet talk of contemporary
“Weastern” Spirituality. “Choose the religion of your choice…
as long as you include our fundamentals. If not, we’ll call you a
fundamentalist.” Chopra never hesitates to use that description
in a pejorative way for those who take the Bible as God’s
Word. The purveyors of this New Spirituality are brilliant at
playing the game to appear very generous while being actually
very defining. This is the same game relativism plays: You are
told there are no absolutes, but if you run afoul of the relativist,
the castigation that follows knows no boundaries and the
bigotry vented knows no limits. Chopra wants us to believe
that this New Spirituality is not dogmatic and is all-
accommodating. But the truth is that its foundation is in the
Hindu/pantheistic worldview and the implications of Vedic
teaching are at its root. On that there is no equivocation.
Every chapter of Chopra’s Seven Spiritual Laws of
Success begins with a quote from either the Hindu scriptures or
a pantheist. The last quote is from Einstein, and that completes
his scenario of pantheism wedded to science. Dr. Aseem
Shukla rightly takes Chopra to task for playing games with
words. Here is how he states it in their serial exchange in the
Washington Post:

[Deepak] Chopra is the perfect emissary to fire a salvo against

my assertion that delinking Hinduism from its celebrated
contributions to contemporary spiritual dialogue—yoga,
meditation, Ayurvedic healing, the science of self-realization—
renders a rich tradition barren and unrecognizable to its
adherents…
A prolific writer and gifted communicator, Chopra is
perhaps the most prominent exponent of the art of “How to
Deconstruct, Repackage and Sell Hindu Philosophy Without
Calling it Hindu!”…
 The contention that yoga’s foundation is “in
consciousness alone,” thereby preceding Hinduism, is a sad
demonstration of the extent Chopra and other Hindu
philosophical profiteers will go to disassociate themselves from
Hinduism… Hinduism and yoga are inextricably intertwined,
and the dedicated practice of yoga is absolutely a Hindu
practice… Hinduism, being avowedly pluralistic, requires no
membership, affiliation or oath of loyalty to borrow, and yes,
benefit, from its sacred wisdom… Frustratingly, also, Chopra
takes the disingenuous path of impugning a “fundamentalist”
agenda to my contentions… But the guilt of plagiarism carries
no statute of limitations, and Hindus are wise to the
machinations of the pretenders.1

The back and forth between Chopra and Shukla makes for
a fascinating exposé of the hostility between them. There are
no beatific smiles on display here, no enlightened meditational
peace; just plain polysyllabic vitriol. I find it fascinating that
Shukla, verbose and rich in philosophical terminology, naively
or tendentiously calls Hinduism “avowedly pluralistic” when
all the fundamentals of Hinduism are in clear contradiction to
the fundamentals of monotheistic religions. All Hindu scholars
like to perpetrate this illusion of pluralism within Hinduism. But
borrow any of their views, and they will doggedly demand that
you identify this “avowedly pluralistic” thought as uniquely
theirs. It is quite humorous, actually… the old story of “all
yours is mine and all mine is mine.”
Regardless of whether or not we agree on our worldviews,
it is necessary that we learn to live peaceably with our
differences. Swami Vivekananda used to say, “Not just
tolerance but acceptance.” It is a noble intent, but I ask what
exactly we are to accept, the belief or the person? I would like
to add that tolerance of the belief is the gracious thing to do;
acceptance of the person is the loving thing to do. But loving a
belief that violates the starting point of your own belief is the
hypocritical thing to do.
In the end truth will triumph, whether we like it or not. To
sound grand and magnanimous by saying, “I accept all
religions,” is actually to either violate them all or violate reason,
or both. We all have a right to proclaim what we believe about
ultimate things. But that does not mean that everything we
believe is right. The thinking person must honestly weigh the
evidence and come to the right conclusion. To force anyone to
believe matters of transcendent truth is to violate the very
nature of those truths. Chopra is not reticent to refer to “empty
churches” and the unmet needs of the American seeker after
truth. I can tell him the same thing about thousands of Indian
youth and businesspeople, those in the arts and leaders in
India who come to ask questions about the gospel because
their spiritual hungers are not met in the metaphysics of
pantheism and the so-called Sanatan Dharma.
It is ironic that the fastest-growing church in the world
today is in China. They have had their share of ancient
teachers and pantheistic sages. They had atheism forced down
their throats by the iron will of a demagogue. In fact, having
burned their seminaries and banned gatherings in churches,
the Communist leaders were certain that religion in general and
Christianity in particular were forever expunged from the
Chinese memory. Now, they are turning to Jesus Christ in
China literally by the millions. I have spoken there and met with
some of their scholars. A Christian professor teaching in one of
the most prestigious universities there told me that one of his
colleagues made an astounding comment to him: “Whatever
you want to say about communism, you can be thankful for
one thing; it left the soul empty and that is what makes it
possible for you to find students who listen eagerly when you
talk about Jesus Christ to them.”
So why Jesus and not anyone else? What are the
reasons? Before we get to that, let me turn back to those
shapers of the modern Western spirituality that is based in the
pantheistic worldview of the East. Again, let me say that
Christianity is neither Eastern nor Western. It is the worldview
behind it that is different from these other religions.
Keeping Up with the Joneses
E. Stanley Jones was born near Baltimore, Maryland, in 1884.
After studying both theology and law and holding a
professorship in the United States, he became a missionary to
India. He dearly loved the Indian people and became a close
personal friend of Mahatma Gandhi. His conversations with
Gandhi, recorded in one of his books, became an inspiration to
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jones is considered a trailblazer in
India for his enormous effort to give Christianity an Eastern
face; not to make it Eastern as much as to return it to its
Eastern roots without distorting it. It seems that once anything
is seen as being “Americanized,” it is castigated by those who
don’t like America or think America philosophically
sophomoric. To reverse the process and remove the prejudice
is very difficult to do.
In Europe, Christianity was abused when it was used for
political power; in America it has been abused by using it for
economic power. And today it is abused by its detractors who
deny its power and remove it from any position of moral
authority. These detractors live under the illusion that it is the
only belief that claims absolutes. The price paid for these
distortions has been enormous. Gandhi roundly criticized the
Christianity he saw practiced around him and advised E.
Stanley Jones that if the message of Christianity were to make
any inroads into India, it would have to look more like Jesus
than like his followers. That is, I am afraid, a very legitimate
criticism to this very day, and not only in India. I would be very
curious to have heard his thoughts on how Eastern spirituality
has been marketed and demonstrated in the West. What many
“consumers” of Eastern spirituality in the West have missed is
that many of the same methods of distortion that were used to
promote Western spirituality are being used to peddle Eastern
spirituality.
The list of massage treatments and the offerings in
Chopra’s center makes the faith healers in “the old country”
look like novices. As a skeptical friend of mine used to say,
“There are big bucks in the God racket.” Check out Chopra’s
wellness center and ask yourself honestly whether or not this
is commercialization at its height, all in the name of wellness
and consciousness. Pardon the pun, but the emperor has no
clothes, and few are willing to expose it for what it is. These
may be strong words, but that is the legitimate response to
claims that are empirically so extreme.
The challenge to E. Stanley Jones was immense as he
faced a religious culture whose views of the gospel had
become so distorted from the reality of Jesus and his
teachings. But Jones succeeded. His gentle personality, his
life, and his lifestyle won the admiration of all. The challenge,
as I said, was immense because he did not have the advantage
of mass visual communication. However, I strongly suspect
that if he had, the dangers would have been proportionate. His
appeal was both to the outcasts and, because he was from the
West and well learned, to the Indian intellectual as well.
I had the privilege of hearing E. Stanley Jones address an
audience shortly before he died. He spoke for nearly an hour
and a half, without a single note in front of him, while Indian
intellectuals and government leaders listened in rapt attention.
The mystical and spiritual side of the Christian faith was
beginning to take root in India because it appealed to the
Indian mind-set. Some of the more famous Christian mystics in
India were actually two Sikh converts to Christianity and
contemporaries of E. Stanley Jones, Sadhu Sundar Singh and
Bakht Singh. Converts from Sikhism are rare. But both Sundar
Singh and Bakht Singh had made a profound commitment to
Jesus after their earlier years of hostility to the Christian
message.
Christianity first came to India under the teaching of the
apostle Thomas. Numerous Indian scholars support the view
that Thomas first landed on the southwestern shores of Kerala,
India, and that he had a powerful impact on the priests of India.
Kerala is often considered the intellectual bastion of India’s
Vedic teaching. The best-known Indian philosopher,
Shankaracharya, came from Kerala. Ayurvedic medicine is at its
best in Kerala. I strongly suspect that the oils that Deepak
Chopra uses in his wellness centers are brought from there. It
was to Kerala that Thomas first went and then to Tamil Nadu
on the southeastern coast.
After the conversion of seven priests in that region and of
a woman of nobility, Thomas was assassinated while he was
praying. How ironic that the man who would not put his trust
in Christ until he had seen and felt the nail holes in his hands
and the spear hole in his side was ultimately speared to death
himself! A fascinating history of Thomas’s activities in India is
chronicled by several writers. Ancient historians such as the
Venerable Bede, Clement of Alexandria, and Gregory of
Nazianzus, as well as several Indian historians, all make
reference to Thomas in India. The oldest Christian
denomination in India today is named after Thomas, the
Marthoma Church.
The Christ of the Indian road that E. Stanley Jones
presented to India demonstrated that the values and patterns
of Jesus’ teaching had been forgotten in the Westernizing of
Christianity. Christian ideas like meditating on the goodness
and grace of God, solitude in prayer, and commitment to
community and family are all part of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jones also penned a remarkable book called Christ at the
Round Table; he called it such because he wanted to
encourage dialogue and open discussion. Jones began several
“ashrams,” or retreats, in India, places conducive to meditation
and prayer where the gospel was the message and Jesus the
focus. He did everything to retain the “Indianness” of the
expression of faith in Christ without losing the substance of
the message.
This is important to note. There were already strands of
theism within the wide embrace of Hinduism. The Gita talks
more of devotion, worship, the need of a sacrifice, and so on.
The famed Indian philosopher Radhakrishnan said, “You can
be a Christian, a Muslim, an atheist, and still be a Hindu.”
Needless to say, he equivocated on the other terms but clearly
meant that strands of other faiths could be found in Hinduism.
So the message of a supreme, transcendent, personal God was
not completely foreign to Indian thought.
By contrast, when Vivekananda and Yogananda brought
their teachings to the West, it was to bring a worldview
completely different from what America was founded on, a
worldview that if taken seriously would completely uproot the
basic beliefs of the West about the nature of God, humanity,
and human destiny.
If you were to go to India today and ask an average
person what India’s biggest problem is, the chances are you
would be told “corruption.” If you were to ask what brings
many of them to the West, the chances are you would be told,
“To be given a fair chance to succeed.” It is not accidental or
unconnected that the two major types of institutions started by
Christian missionaries in India were schools and hospitals. I am
writing this portion of the book in India. It is interesting to see
the hospitals and dispensaries crowded with patients who are
being treated with Western medicines by doctors who are
Western-trained.
Chopra himself studied in a school started by
missionaries. This is true of most of the prominent
philosophers in India. In fact, the Statesman, which was India’s
first newspaper and is still in existence today, was started by
the British missionary William Carey (1761–1834) as a voice for
the Indian people in British India. The fight to eradicate the
practice of suttee, in which a widow was expected to commit
suicide by throwing herself on the funeral pyre of her husband,
was spearheaded by William Carey in partnership with a
famous Indian by the name of Raja Ram Mohan Roy.
I have often wondered if people like Chopra and Shukla
who talk so much about the Vedic quest and argue over
whether to credit Hinduism or something that preceded it for
their beliefs ever pause to realize that the belief in the equal
value of every life is a bequest only of the Christian faith. The
accepted inequality of life and the lifelong struggle over power
in the East is a bequest of the stratified caste system that
haunts Eastern worldviews either explicitly or implicitly. This is
why Gandhi himself took issue with some Vedic teachings. I
know Hindu apologists don’t like to bring up things like this.
This is the kind of doctrine that I suspect Chopra is avoiding
having to defend by giving his belief a name other than
Hinduism. Shukla, just by the stroke of a pen—referring to the
“perceived social ills” of Hinduism—likes to do away with the
critique rather than seeing it for what it is, instead criticizing
those who have criticized any negative aspects of Hinduism.
But when millions live under the heel of this belief, what
does he expect? Why have millions of members of the “lower
caste” left Hinduism to find value in another faith? Maybe,
Vedic apologists have forgotten that Gautama Buddha also
rejected Vedic authority and the caste system, leaving his
palace and his place of privilege in search of another truth.
Tragically, I cannot help but wonder if we have now
abandoned truth to return to the palace, and rather than sitting
alone under a tree waiting for enlightenment, we gravitate to
mass entertainment under lights that cater to mass ignorance.
The Nirvanic Quest
In one of his books, E. Stanley Jones writes about the
challenge of facing hard questions. To every spiritual claim, he
said, there are three challenges: (1) Is it new? (2) Is it true? (3)
Is it you?
The struggles of the one versus the many, of permanence
and change, of the I and the you is not new. Greek
philosophers also struggled with these ideas and tried to solve
them in purely secular terms. The long journey into
autonomous spirituality is not really new either. On the
question of God, there are only a handful of possibilities.
Pantheism, which is the philosophical term that defines the
divinity of everything, has tugged at the human heart for
centuries. There have been shades of difference, sometimes
greater than what appears at the surface and sometimes less.
From the various varieties of pantheism—Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism, and Sikhism—the main idea that the divine permeates
all of life, along with its concomitant doctrines of karma and
reincarnation, is part of a huge philosophical landscape, which
is why it is not easy to put them all under one category. Ideas
like yoga and iso-meditation are rooted in the same
metaphysic. I call it iso-meditation because the idea of
meditation is not unique to pantheism, but the idea that the
isolated self is all there is, as both the object and the subject of
meditation, is pantheistic. Let’s go back a few centuries and
see that it has all been tried and tested before.
A few years ago I was in Athens, Greece, and as my wife
and I walked in front of the famed Mars Hill where the apostle
Paul delivered his historic message, I remember stopping to
look at that historic spot from the main road down below. It is
not possible to be in those environs and not take some time to
allow your mind to take it all in… the ancient, broken columns
of the Parthenon, the winding path that leads to the top of the
hill, and the bronze plaque fixed to a large rock, on which is
engraved the text of Paul’s brilliant address to the Athenians—
skeptics, philosophers, pantheists, polytheists, atheists—all
gathered to hear him.
This was Athens at its greatest preoccupation… always
debating ideas of ultimate significance. Paul himself had been a
devout Jew. His dramatic conversion on the Damascus road
changed the history of the world. From being a religious fanatic
bent on destroying Christianity, he became its greatest
exponent, willing to pay with his life to take the gospel to
Europe.
The fascinating thing is the initial response his message
received in Athens. It was mixed at best, and sparse in impact.
As I stared at the hill and we continued our walk down the
street to cross at a traffic light, I noticed the name of the road
we were walking on: The sign read in Greek, “Dionysius the
Areopagite.” I immediately stopped and drew my wife’s
attention to the name. Two thousand years ago, Dionysius the
Areopagite was one of two people who responded to Paul’s
message that are mentioned in the book of Acts, the other
being a woman named Damaris. So here we were, almost two
thousand years later, standing on a major street in Athens
named after a man who had responded to the message of Saint
Paul. It is said that Dionysius went on to later become the
Bishop of Athens.
Greece was the birthplace of esoteric and soul-defining
thinking. A little excursion into that world will help us see that
the present-day spirituality is not new but has already been
tried, tested, and rejected. It is not even exclusively Eastern.
Plato taught that the soul was preexistent and eternal. It was he
who gave us the metaphor of the cave: In a cave we can see
only the shadow of reality. The essence or the noumenal is
known as if through a shadow, not the reality itself. In this
state we are restricted to the phenomena and restricted from
the “noumena.” Somehow, the soul in this cave called time
must make its way back to pure essence and ultimately reach
that state of divine bliss in order to know its transcendent and
original state.
Plotinus, who came after Plato and whose thinking is
termed Neoplatonism, climbed the ladder of abstraction even
more. God was beyond any definition or description, the
“One.” This One defies reduction to language—is formless and
beyond time, place, intellect, and, yes, the soul. This One is the
source of “mind and consciousness,” from which emerges the
individualized psyche that gives us the hint and link from this
transient material world to ultimate thought and mind. By
turning inward we, “the ones,” can discover the process
through which the ultimate One impersonal conscious reality
can be attained. This One is the One mind within itself.
Pursuing this One through purification, detachment, reflection,
and contemplation will ultimately bring liberation and
absorption. This is how he worded it:

The soul is anxious to be free, so that we may attach ourselves

to [the One] by the whole of our being; no part of it not
touching God. Then it will be possible for the soul to see both
God and herself divinely, and she will see herself illumined, full
of intelligible light; or rather she will be light itself—pure,
unfettered, agile, become a God or rather being a God, and
wholly aflame.2

When you add to this the manifold debates about the

nature of time, the soul, goodness, politics, and matters of
permanence and impermanence in traditional Western
philosophy, you have all the ingredients needed for a
sophisticated spirituality.
Do you remember the other three—Parmenides,
Heracleitus, and Cratylus? According to Parmenides, all that is,
is. Heracleitus went one better: All that is, is changing; you
never step into the same river twice. And Cratylus bettered
that: You don’t even step into the same river once; not only is
the river flowing, but so are you. This means that the you who
stepped into the river is in flux and is not the same you who
steps out.
The irony of all this thinking is that the I and the you were
sublimated in the mix of metaphysics, as the only way to justify
flux and randomness was to find a justification for the mix. On
the shoulders of other philosophers, people like Fritjof Capra
came along centuries later and in The Tao of Physics tried to
make all this metaphysics look scientific. Chopra, a latecomer
then, appeared on the scene to leverage quantum. And the
bigger the egos became as they exposited all this, the more
they preached an egoless world.
Once again, take a step back—it is an amazing trail that
began with a false lead and spelled a dead end. Dionysius the
Areopagite came to know Jesus through the preaching of Paul.
Years later, a fragment was found and credited to a man called
Dionysius the Areopagite, whose theology sounds very similar
to what the mystics were to develop in the years to come. “God
talk,” he basically said, was more meaningful in negation than
affirmation, although he did not completely rule out affirmation.
But once the stage was set for this kind of thinking, you can
see where it was all headed. He basically played with language
and philosophy, and equivocation was the name of the game.
One could not even say, “God is good,” because God’s
definition of good would be different from ours. Finally, he
opined that one had to go beyond Jesus to “the God, perfect
and complete” in his transpersonal self: Jesus was only an
imperfect revelation of a perfect being. This teaching of
Dionysius’s was floating around and found ready listeners in
the Athens of his day. The Greeks always had a leaning toward
putting ultimate definitions in ideas rather than rooting them in
the personal.
It is interesting that as research continued it was realized
that this Dionysius of Greek philosophy was not Dionysius the
Areopagite of Mars Hill; he had just borrowed the name in
order that others would take notice of him and read what he
was writing… a fitting find for a nonpersonal theology.
This constant free-floating self has been the object of
study for the sciences, the mystics, and those who pursue an
understanding of our essence. Hence, closer to our time and to
the New Spirituality, all of them succeed in muddying the
waters when it comes to the self and our essence. Marianne
Williamson regales her audiences with lines out of science that
she extrapolates into metaphysical pronouncements. She
quotes Gary Zukav in describing how the quantum world
provides us with the model of “transient forms sparkling in and
out of existence.” She follows it up with her own quip, saying
that though you don’t exactly flatter anyone by greeting them
with, “Hello, transient form, floating in and out of existence,”
that’s who we really are. The audience laughs. Entertaining
speech, trying to make up for a greater vacuum than the
quantum world.
I remember as a new Christian walking into a church in
Canada and listening to a hymn I had never heard before, a
hymn titled “Himself”:

Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;

Once it was the feeling, Now it is His Word;
Once His gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own,
Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.3

That hymn was written by the well-known churchman and

theologian Albert B. Simpson (1843–1919). The first time I
heard it I thought to myself, How profound! How God-
centered and how refreshing that the spiritual journey is to
move one from focusing on the benefits of belief to the great
romance and beauty of knowing the Author and Giver of life!
Heaven, if it means anything, will mean being in the presence
of the Ultimate Being, not being the ultimate.
Today’s spirituality actually would reverse the thoughts
to:

Once it was the Lord, Now it is the blessing;

Once it was His Word, Now it is the feeling;
Once I knew the Giver, Now the gifts I own;
Once I sought Himself, Now it is the healing and my “self”
alone.

Behind the popularizers like Chopra are the real

metaphysicians of the soul. In the next chapter I shall deal
briefly with these three who were the designers of Eastern
spirituality gone west.
CHAPTER 7
 THE THREE GURUS

The Hindu Link

Swami Vivekananda, by far the most prominent and respected
name in Vedic thought of recent vintage, was born in Shimla
Pally, Calcutta, on January 12, 1863. His actual birth name was
Narendranath Dutta. His father, Vishwanath Dutta, was an
attorney in Calcutta and had a reputation for being a man with
a generous spirit who was quite progressive and liberal in his
religious views. His mother was known for her rigorous and
disciplined piety and practice. She is supposed to have prayed
to Shiva for a son, and according to the legend, saw, in a
dream, Shiva rising in the middle of his own meditations to
promise her that her prayer for a son would be answered.
There are numerous stories from his life of visions and
dreams in which he would see the Buddha; he had a
fascination with wandering ascetics and with the life of the
meditating monk. He studied the sacred texts of Hinduism and
was also well versed in Indian classical music, both vocal and
instrumental. Vivekananda was quite eclectic in his interests
and studied a wide range of subjects in philosophy, religion,
history, the social sciences, arts, and literature.
Early in his youth, he questioned the validity of the
superstitious customs he saw around him and discrimination
based on caste. He refused to accept anything without first
subjecting it to pragmatic tests for rational proof. When his
father moved the family to Raipur in 1877, Vivekananda was
more or less homeschooled, as there were no acceptable
schools in Raipur, and he enjoyed long discussions on
spiritual topics. Adding to his skill in Bengali, he learned Hindi
in Raipur and for the first time in his own deliberations, the
question of the actual existence of God surfaced. On one
occasion, it is said, he went into an ecstatic trance, something
that is not uncommon for revered teachers in that culture even
today.
After two years in Raipur the family returned to Calcutta,
but those two years in Raipur were the most formative for him
spiritually, which is why Raipur is often referred to as the
spiritual birthplace of Swami Vivekananda. It was in Raipur that
Narendranath Dutta became Swami Vivekananda, a teacher to
others.
College and Brahmo Samaj
Vivekananda was an inveterate student of religious thought.
He made it a point to study Western logic, Western
philosophy, and the history of European nations. His research
included the writings of David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Johann
Gottlieb Fichte, Baruch Spinoza, Georg W. F. Hegel, Arthur
Schopenhauer, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, John Stuart
Mill, and even Charles Darwin. He became fascinated with the
early theorists in evolution and in the works of Herbert
Spencer, so much so that he translated Spencer’s book
Education into Bengali and published it.
Alongside his study of Western philosophers,
Vivekananda was thoroughly acquainted with the Indian
Sanskrit scriptures and with many other writings in his native
Bengali tongue. He was considered a prodigy by his
professors. Dr. William Hastie, the principal of Scottish Church
College, where Vivekananda studied during 1881–1884,
described him as a genius, a student the likes of which he had
never before encountered even in the European universities in
which he had taught.
Vivekananda’s initial beliefs were shaped by Brahmo
concepts, which are against the worship of idols and include a
belief in a formless God. Becoming a Freemason, he was part of
a breakaway faction from the Brahmo Samaj led by Keshab
Chunder Sen. He was never satisfied with his knowledge of
philosophy, and began to wonder if God and religion could be
internalized through meditation. He was even known to go
about Calcutta asking prominent residents whether they had
ever come “face-to-face with God,” but he never received an
answer that was convincing to him. (One can readily see a
blueprint here for Chopra’s thinking. I will get deeper into that.)
The major turning point for Vivekananda was his
introduction to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa in 1881. The subject
of a college literature lecture in college was William
Wordsworth’s poem “The Excursion” and the poet’s affinity to
nature-mysticism. In the course of trying to explain the word
trance in the poem, the professor told his students that if they
wanted to really understand the word, they should visit
Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar. After his hours of reflection and
fascination with the wandering holy men, Vivekananda decided
to meet Ramakrishna. It is from this point that we trace the
theological views of Vivekananda. About that day,
Vivekananda himself later said:

He looked just like an ordinary man, with nothing remarkable

about him. He used the most simple language, and I thought
“Can this man be a great teacher?” [I] crept near to him and
asked him the question which I had been asking others all my
life: “Do you believe in God, Sir?” “Yes,” he replied. “Can you
prove it, Sir?” “Yes.” “How?” “Because I see Him just as I see
you here, only in a much intenser sense.” That impressed me at
once… I began to go to that man, day after day, and I actually
saw that religion could be given. One touch, one glance, can
change a whole life.1

As can be seen, Vivekananda did not initially accept

Ramakrishna as his teacher. He was not sympathetic toward
Ramakrisha’s visions, ecstasies, and dreams, which he
considered to be mere figments of the imagination or
hallucinations. Also, as a member of Brahmo Samaj, he revolted
against Ramakrishna’s practice of idol worship and belief in
polytheism, in particular his worship of Kali, an especially dark
and bloodthirsty goddess in the Hindu pantheon. He often
ridiculed Ramakrishna’s belief in identity with the Absolute
(Advaitist Vedantism) as blasphemy and sheer nonsense.
But over the course of the next five years, Vivekananda
came to totally accept Ramakrishna as his teacher, and the
teacher’s beliefs became fully his own as he declared himself
ready to renounce everything else in his quest for “God-
realization.” As he himself said,

The magic touch of the Master… brought a wonderful change

over my mind. I was astounded to find that really there was
nothing in the universe but God!… Everything I saw appeared
to be Brahman… I realized that I must have had a glimpse of
the Advaita state. Then it struck me that the words of the
scriptures were not false. Thenceforth I could not deny the
conclusions of the Advaita [identity with the Absolute]
philosophy.2

This belief in identity with the Absolute is at the core of

Chopra’s philosophy as well. It is the seedbed of the
spirituality that the West has imbibed now, albeit without
understanding the fuller text or the context. It is a brilliant
philosophical move of believing in the divine and of being
divine, of reflecting and being the reflector, of being both the
subject and the object of one’s meditation. We’re back to
wondering whether we are the dream or the dreamer.
In 1885 Ramakrishna was stricken with throat cancer.
There was no Ayurvedic cure here, I’m afraid, and not long
afterward, he died. None of his disciplines and pristine
practices were able to spare him this terrible ordeal. But during
his last days of instruction to Vivekananda, Vivekananda
reportedly experienced Nirvikalpa Samadhi (a thought-and
concept-free bliss), and along with other disciples, he received
the ochre monastic robes from Ramakrishna, and became part
of the first monastic order of Ramakrishna.
Just before he died, Ramakrishna asked Vivekananda to
take care of the other monastic disciples and asked them to
accept Vivekananda as their leader. Ramakrishna’s condition
worsened gradually and he died in the early morning hours of
August 16, 1886. According to his disciples, he had reached
Mahasamadhi, the ultimate attainment of oneness with the
Absolute.
Vivekananda was not just a mystic. He was a strong
proponent of education and of giving the Indian his rightful
place in the world. He protested vigorously against British
dominance and encouraged India to develop a more militant
mind-set in order to resist the British. Attacking the
glorification of poverty and what he felt was an overemphasis
on spiritualism on the part of most Indians, he asked why it
was necessary for three hundred million people to be sunk in
savagery and starvation in order to make it possible for a
hundred thousand to reach true spirituality. He was not
interested in a God, he said, who would give him eternal bliss in
heaven but who could not give him bread here. No, India was
to be raised, the poor were to be fed, education was to be made
available to all, and the “evil” of priestcraft was to be removed.
In short, no priestcraft would mean no social tyranny; more
bread would mean more opportunity for everyone.
Vivekananda was aware that his speeches and writings
were seditious and wondered why the British never arrested
him. He was prepared to go to any length to usher in the
revolution he felt was necessary, and at times he even
expressed a great longing that he would be arrested and shot;
he thought it would be the beginning of the end for British rule
in India as news of his death ran through the land like wildfire.
It is very clear that though he had renounced the world and
become a monk, he could not sit by and watch his country
being “raped” by invaders. His immediate task, he felt, was to
overthrow British rule. In this attempt he advocated aggression
—spiritual, material, and even physical if it became necessary.
A study of his correspondence shows that although he was
laying the groundwork for a revolution through peaceful
means, he was not opposed to using militant methods and was
prepared to use force if the need arose. In Swami
Vivekananda, Patriot Prophet, Bhupendranath Datta writes
that after his second tour of the West, Vivekananda told an
Indian professor, “What India needs today is a bomb.”3
From Surendra Nath Sen’s private diary we learn that
when it was pointed out to Vivekananda that perhaps, instead
of aggressive force, he ought to consider the course of “radha”
(love) advocated by Chaitanya, he retorted:

Look at this nation and see what has been the outcome of such
an attempt! Through the preaching of that love… the whole
nation has become effeminate… The whole of Orissa has been
turned into a land of cowards; and Bengal, running after the
Radha-prema, these past four hundred years, has almost lost all
sense of manliness!4

Arriving at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago

in 1893, he characteristically fired the first volley. His speech
on that occasion, from which follows an excerpt, permanently
changed religious dialogue in the West:

Brothers and sisters, we who come from the East have sat here
on the platform day after day and have been told in a
patronizing way that we ought to accept Christianity because
Christian nations are the most prosperous. We look about us
and we see England, the most prosperous Christian nation in
the world, with her foot on the neck of 250,000,000 Asiatics.
We look back into history and see that the prosperity began
with the invasion of Mexico. Christianity wins its prosperity by
cutting the throats of its fellowmen. At such a price, the Hindu
will not have prosperity. I have sat here today and I have heard
the height of intolerance. I have heard the creeds of the
Moslem applauded when today the Moslem sword is carrying
destruction into India. Blood and sword are not for the Hindu,
whose religion is based on the laws of love.5

“Weastern” Spirituality had arrived. The doors of the

West swung wide open for him. If Oprah had been in vogue
then, Vivekananda would have been a household name in
minutes. Guaranteed. He would have become her guru. I
suspect he would have taken the West by a tsunami, not just
by storm, if he had had access to television.
Yogananda
The second of the three Gurus is Paramahansa Yogananda. I
have already said that the teaching of the New Spirituality in
the West is still young and that rancor, divisions, money
issues, control, and power will eventually surface. That has
already been evidenced in the aftermath of Yogananda’s death.
Paramahansa Yogananda founded an organization called
Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF). Following his death,
divisions followed by lawsuits began immediately. Power exerts
huge influence, and nobody shows more venom in protecting
or gaining power than those who invoke religion to defend it.
In a sense, this is understandable: Religion breeds convictions;
money and power attract envy; conviction without love leads
to heinous abuses justified by sacred talk. History is replete
with examples of this from every religion. All major religions are
guilty of this… Eastern spirituality is no exception.
The nemesis of SRF is another organization, simply called
Ananda. Ananda was founded by Swami Kriyananda, a
disciple of Yogananda. But SRF refuses to give Ananda rights
to any of Yogananda’s material. (I’m sure you’ve noticed
ananda surfacing in all of these names. The word itself literally
means “joy.”) Each accuses the other of distortion,
wrongdoing, and attempts at monopoly, and there is little joy
apparent in these self-defeating charges. What it all means is
that where there is religion, there is bound to be conflict. But
where there is religion and money, there are bound to be
lawsuits and bitterness, the very opposite of what true faith
should engender.
Who was Paramahansa Yogananda? The following
quotation is a sample of his teaching:

Your religion is not your thoughts and beliefs in which you

enclose yourself, but the garment of light you weave around
your heart. Discover who you are, behind those outer
trappings, and you will discover who Jesus was, and Buddha,
and Krishna. For the masters come to earth for the purpose of
holding up to every man a reflection of his deeper, eternal Self.6

Eckhart Tolle breathes out this identical stuff, almost

verbatim.
Yogananda basically taught a blend of religious teaching
called Kriya yoga, which is another slant on yoga. Though he
wore a cross around his neck, he clearly believed in the divinity
within each person and taught that each soul needed to probe
that inner sanctum of the self and discover its oneness with the
divine. The irony of the baser instincts that now characterize
the turf war for his teaching shows that his own disciples never
quite discovered the divine within themselves, instead
evidencing a lot more of the ego within when confronted by
the holdings without.
Yogananda was a contemporary of Vivekananda and was
also from Calcutta. He was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in 1893
and died in 1952. However, he chose a different guru than
Ramakrishna and gave his yoga a different slant. Yoga has its
roots in the idea of union with the divine and is not simply a
physical discipline. Its metaphysical moorings make it
technically a spiritual practice. When one sheds the spiritual
side of it and focuses only on the physical aspects, it is no
longer strictly yoga.
There are many analogies one can draw from this. It is
ironic that Hindu apologists, who insist that yoga cannot be
separated from its spiritual essence, are very comfortable with
severing the text of Buddha’s teaching from the context of his
rejection of some of their own sacred texts, and very cleverly
misuse the instructions of Jesus as well. They are adept at
textual mangling by appearing to be very generous in their
spirits. The cross Yogananda wore around his neck and his
professed reverence for Jesus did not prevent him from
blending the teachings of what he calls “the Masters,” Indian
spiritualizing at its best. Ironically, his disciples have each
claimed the exclusive rights to teach his inclusive message.
Yogananda also traveled extensively in the United States
and Europe, carrying his message across the Western world.
He was honored wherever he went. He had a very distinctive
appearance and a notable charm. His long, flowing locks of hair
became the hallmark of how a swami should look. He, too, was
well versed in many languages, as many Indians are.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
The Maharishi, with his Transcendental Meditation technique,
is probably the best known of the three gurus. While
Vivekananda and Yogananda did the groundwork of
philosophical thought, it was the Maharishi who packaged it
for the West. His fame was catapulted courtesy of the Beatles,
and when he died in February 2008, the Times of London
reported on his death and traced the Beatles’ initial
enchantment with him before their falling-out over his alleged
inappropriate advances toward their friend Mia Farrow. (It was
this that inspired John Lennon’s song “Sexy Sadie” about a
charlatan who “made a fool of everyone.”) By the 1970s more
than five million people were said to be practicing
Transcendental Meditation, or TM, for twenty minutes every
morning and evening. We have no data to tell us how many
were practicing “yogic flying”—or bouncing in the air in the
lotus position, also part of the Maharishi’s teaching.
By the 1980s he had established schools across the world,
founded the Natural Law Party, and built a multimillion-dollar
business empire that included a property dealership and a
company that sold Ayurvedic medicine and cosmetics, all
primarily financed by donations and the $2,500 per-person fee
to learn TM. He moved his headquarters to a former Franciscan
monastery in the southern Dutch village of Vlodrop, from
which he controlled his Global Country of World Peace
movement as a recluse living in a pavilion, communicating by
video link.
In 2002 the Maharishi announced that with $1 billion he
could train forty thousand expert mediators and combat
terrorism and war. For this, and for his plan to raise $10 trillion
with which to end poverty by sponsoring organic farming in
poor countries, he was roundly ridiculed.
Of course, the Maharishi is not the only New Age
Spiritualist who has announced a cure for terrorism through
meditation. On her blog on terrorism, New Age spiritualist
Marianne Williamson said,

With your thoughts, you can help build a system of spiritual

quarantine for terrorists and would-be terrorists. You don’t
have to know who they are. The Creator does. Just do this. For
a minimum of five minutes every day, meditate in the following
way: Pray that anyone even thinking of committing a terrorist
act… be surrounded by a huge golden egg. The eggshell is
made of the spiritual equivalent of titanium… impenetrable.
Any malevolent, hateful or violent thought that emanates from
the mind of the terrorist cannot get past the confines of the
eggshell. Before the violent thought can turn into violent
action, it is stopped by the force of this meditative field.
Energetically, the terrorist is quarantined. On the inside of the
egg, see a shower of golden light pouring from the eggshell
into the heart and mind of the terrorist. Pray for your lost
brother. See him or her healed by the force of divine Love,
wrapped in the arms of angels, reminded of who he truly is.
Five minutes. Every day. Tell everyone you know.7

That aside, Deepak Chopra was quick to rise to the

Maharishi’s defense saying that he, Chopra, had once met Mia
Farrow in an airport and she asked him to give the Maharishi
her love. That supposedly puts to rest any accusation that he
had made advances to her. The Maharishi made a great impact
with his teaching. Businesses started to give their employees
time off to do this training. One of those impacted by him was
Deepak Chopra. Chopra’s tribute following the Maharishi’s
death raises a lot of questions, and the response to it was not
without variant claims on the part of some of the Maharishi’s
followers. On one occasion, Chopra claims, the Maharishi was
declared clinically dead after an apparent heart attack but was
kept on life support due to the intervention of Chopra’s father
and within thirty-six hours recovered sufficiently to be taken
off life support. According to Chopra, the Maharishi exhibited
at this time “both the all-too-human qualities found in every
holy man and the other qualities one associates with the
superhuman… It was easy to believe that other disciples in
another time felt much the same in the presence of Jesus or
Buddha.”8
Chopra recounts that during his recovery the Maharishi
required a blood transfusion and that Chopra was found to be
the only one compatible. However, the Maharishi refused to
accept Chopra’s blood until Chopra assured him that his bad
karma would not be transferred to the Maharishi in the blood
transfusion because red blood cells contain no DNA and only
hemoglobin would be transferred. Eventually the Maharishi
accepted both Chopra’s reassurances and his blood.9
Please do not miss the subtlety here. The pupil is
instructing the guru on the transmission of karma. That little
excursion into the makeup of the blood is intended once again
to show the knowledge Chopra had that allowed him to even
teach the teacher. This is Chopra at his double-entendre best.
Teachings and Beliefs
One can write ad nauseam on the teachings of these three
gurus and their predecessors. Thick volumes adorn the
bookstands and now are mainly available online. The most
important thing is to know what lies at the heart of all these
meditative techniques and how they actually end up perverting
other religions to prove their point. Vedanta philosophy is
based on Upanishadic philosophy and neo-Hindu
reinterpretations and draws from the Upanishads, pulling
together several important basic elements.
First and foremost is the ultimate essence of all things,
encapsulated in the one impersonal absolute or deity called
Brahman. The term often used to describe this state is Sat-chit-
ananda (absolute existence-knowledge-bliss). The second is
the existence of the transcendental Self, atman, as a
microcosmic manifestation of Brahman. Atman is the core of
each and every individual entity.
But just like a fruit leads to the seed and the seed leads to
the invisible essence of the fruit, Vedantists believe the
potential for divinity is within oneself, and when you reach that
essence of “nothing” out of which first the seed, then the fruit,
and finally the tree emerge, the famous affirmation, Tat tvam
asi—“Thou art that!”—is discovered. When the self, or atman,
attains moksha, or liberation, one has reached the point of “the
atman is the Brahman.”
According to Vedantists, there are four paths to
liberation; karma yoga (the path of selfless service to work off
your karma); bhakti yoga (the path of devotion); jnana yoga
(the path of knowledge); and raja yoga (the path of formal
meditation). In the early years of the movement, jnana yoga—
the path of knowledge—was most popular among the educated
followers. Bhakti yoga—the path of devotion or worship—was
a popular means for the masses to achieve liberation; the
irresistible tendency of the heart toward worship always draws
a large following.
Through the adoption of Shakti (the power of
consciousness and spiritual evolution that is usually
associated with females), worship of female goddesses became
quite prolific. One common position among the various
exponents of these meditative techniques is stressing the
acceptance of different religious faiths. Ramakrishna is seen as
a Hindu reformer who syncretized all religions, even
supposedly to the extent of becoming a Muslim for a few days.
This attempt to accommodate all religions has, among other
things, led to the redefinition of Christianity and the theory
that Jesus was actually a young aspirant in search of nirvana, a
theory very cleverly co-opted by Chopra.
Several years ago I saw a Dennis the Menace cartoon in
which Dennis is seen standing beside a lemonade stand that he
has set up. In big bold letters a sign reads, “All you can drink
for 10 cents.” In the next frame is a bewildered-looking boy
holding a glass just a quarter filled with lemonade, and Dennis
is saying to him, “I says that’s all you can drink for ten cents,
that’s who says it.”
When one realizes the philosophical underpinnings of
Deepak Chopra’s writings, one gets the same feeling. So, too,
with the maharishis and the swamis who are bent upon making
all religions one. Richard Niebuhr once said that in all these
religious theories and expressions, what we are really looking
for seems to be “a God without wrath who took Man without
sin into a kingdom without righteousness through the
ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” A different way to
say the same thing is that we have so deified man and
humanized God that we can scarcely tell the difference.
Here, for example, is a statement from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Divinity is unmanifest, but man has an innate desire to perceive

the Divine in the manifest creation around him. He creates
idols, breathes faith into them and requests the divinity to be
present in the idols for a while so that he can worship, express
his love and lay with the divine. At the end of his worship he
requests Divinity to go back into his heart from where he is
manifested. This is in all puja practices. People actually do not
worship the idols but instead worship the unmanifested
Divinity which has all the Divine qualities. So, the idol
worshippers of the East are not the same as those described in
the Bible, because they are not just worshipping different gods
and different idols, they are worshipping the one divinity in
many different forms.10

There are levels of verification and understanding here

that quite unwittingly reflect the quantum world. It is said of
the subatomic world that if you know what a particle is doing,
you don’t know where it is, and if you know where it is, you
don’t know what it is doing. That pretty well explains the
epistemological hybrid of the Chopra-type argument. If a
scientist pins him on his inappropriate use of physics, he
switches to medicine. If a medical practitioner questions his
claims of medicine, he switches to the Vedas or some mystery
story that is unverifiable but supposedly true. So, in effect,
regardless of any truth claim, you are not sure what logic he is
using to support it, and if you understand the logic, you don’t
know what exactly is being claimed.
Chopra’s debate with Mr. Shukla is a classic one. Shukla
was clearly trying to pin him down on his jelly-like metaphysics
that he refuses to brand Hindu. To settle for a pure term and at
the same time use the Vedas to sustain his most rigorous
mystical claims requires nothing short of a master with words
who can rebaptize anything at will. All one needs to do is read
Chopra’s book How to Know God. Such name games can have
serious consequences. But however we dissect it, the monistic
base of Hindu pantheism is at the core of his teaching.
The New Spirituality, however, as it is practiced in the
West, encompasses more than Hinduism. In the next chapter
we will look at the other major Eastern influences on this
movement.
CHAPTER 8
SMILING YOUR WAY THROUGH PUZZLES

The Buddhist Link

Hinduism and Buddhism are not identical teachings. But it is
not possible to understand the New Spirituality without
understanding a few of Buddhism’s cardinal doctrines, as well.
The links in the previous chapter are to the Neoplatonism of
Greek thought and to Hindu pantheism, rebaptized Sanatan
Dharma. While Chopra and his Hindu critics can debate
whether or not what he is promoting to westerners is Hinduism,
the rising and continuing interest in Buddhism gives the New
Spirituality double strength, since all the methods of reasoning
change. Buddhism is the main branch from which many of the
underlying assumptions in the New Spirituality come, more
specifically, the branch of Buddhism known as Zen.
Original Buddhism followed from six underlying principles.
It would take a great deal of space to study the intricacies of
Buddhism and its offshoots. The classic work on Zen was
penned years ago by D. T. Suzuki. A more recent excellent text
on Zen is by Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen: Enlightenment: Origins
and Meaning.
Four noble truths—the truth of suffering, the cause of it,
the end of it, and the eightfold path—are the most popular
concepts of Buddhism and the most often discussed. But that
is far from understanding its intensely complex system. From
these basic precepts there developed huge bodies of teaching,
especially in the law of causality, also called dependent
origination, and the ultimate elimination of suffering. From
conception to reflection to thought to action to appearances,
there is the explanation of the illusionary idea of a self and its
perceptions of the physical world, and the interconnectedness
of causes, which makes it all both emergent and circular.
Once Buddhism left India and expanded into the rest of
Asia, this religion broke down, and the number of sects and
subsects that developed boggles the mind. When it entered
China, the character of Buddhism changed dramatically, as it
did even further when it spread into Japan. Buddha probably
would never have recognized it. The main divisions began a
short while after the death of Buddha, when his followers split
into two sects, Mahayana (Great Vehicle) and Hinayana (Little
Vehicle) Buddhism. The leaders of Mahayana Buddhism
considered a shorter route to attain nirvana as they felt more
people would be able to reach that state through Mahayana
than through Hinayana. Mahayana then further divided into six
branches—Zen, Tian-Tai, Huayan, Fa-xiang, Clear Earth, and
Mi.
Hinayana Buddhism came into its own in the fourth
century BC and then gradually declined. The Hinayanist
School claimed that only a small number of people really
understood and followed the true teaching of Buddha.
Although they claimed him as their teacher, because of the fact
that he attained nirvana they considered him no longer a mere
man. From the implicit deification of Buddha to his three body
states and thirty-two appearances, the numerous and varied
teachings that are part of Hinayana are divided and subdivided
and microdivided. Hinayana is dominant in Sri Lanka, Burma,
Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. But even within those regions
there are divisions and subdivisions. The Thai version does
not ordain women monks, so the first Thai woman monk went
to Sri Lanka to be ordained and then returned as a monk to
Thailand. I met with her shortly after her ordination and had an
extended discussion with her in Bangkok. It was a fascinating
time. Her answers to my questions were quite intriguing. I shall
save that for another day and another discussion.
Let me just tackle one key idea contained in many of the
Buddhist schools of thought. The two poems below from the
renowned Nagarjuna indicate the heart of the teaching of four
subbranches in Mahayana:

To causes and effects was born control,

and to me there is nothing but emptiness,
even though its name is righteousness,
to me its name is false.
They were not born;
they were not dead.
They did not appear often;
Yet they do appear.1

One can see where all this is headed by grasping the key
words, nothing, emptiness, appear, and that “aha!” moment of
discovery as the enlightened mind would catch ultimate reality.
The major exposition in Mahayana is of the word rupa, which
literally means “a form” or “a body.” Here is the key verse:
“Rupa is emptiness; emptiness is Rupa.” On that thought
hinges everything else. So while for Solomon meaninglessness
became a chasing after the wind, for Mahayanists anything
physical became a chasing after the wind. Form and substance
were two different things, so while we are preoccupied with
form, in the end it is nothing more than mere appearance. Life in
effect becomes as a crossword puzzle, where mystery,
contradiction, clues, and answers posed as questions all play a
part.
The most fascinating story of how questions of “what is
real” are dealt with in Mahayana Buddhism comes from two
episodes in the development of Chinese Buddhism. In one
incident the emperor of the Qing dynasty, Shun-zi, asked a
monk named Yu Lin, of the Zen branch, “Looking at my empire,
my thoughts come. When I look at it again, my thoughts
disappear. Do I have an empire or not?”
Yu Lin replied, “Sire, it is just like dreaming. It is there and
it is not there.”
How, then, is all this phenomenon around us explained in
Mahayana Buddhism, if all is empty and ethereal, there and not
there at the same time? What’s the spinning top here? It is
explained through the heart of human beings. This is actually
called a “hearts-only” point of view in one of the sects of
Buddhism. So much can be said here. Let me just sum it up with
how this is translated in the transition of their successors. This
is the second story.
The fifth ancestor, Hong-ren, of the Zen Buddhist
subbranch, informed his disciples that he was going to choose
his successor by means of a test. He asked his disciples to
compete by writing a poem that they thought would please him
the most. One of the disciples, Shen-xiu, who seemed the heir
apparent, wrote:

The body is like a pipal tree.

The heart is like a mirror.
These have to be cleaned frequently
So dust will not cling to them.
 Hong-ren looked at the poem and thought about it a
moment and then said it was not good enough. A second
disciple, Hui-neng, a worker who was just an orderly in the
temple, took his shot at it. He wrote:

The pipal is actually not a tree,

The mirror also is a stand.
Everything is nothing but empty.
Where can the dust cling?

After reading this, Hong-ren selected Hui-neng as his

successor. He had got it: If at its core everything is nothing,
how can dust accumulate? As a sidebar, it is important to note
that once Hui-neng was made successor, he hastily left for
another town and changed his name, lest he be tracked down
and the other disciples who were not chosen avenge his
placement. His rupa had to escape, lest other rupas cornered
his rupa and truly made what appeared to be, disappear.
But the story continues. Fifteen years later, Hui-neng, the
sixth ancestor, went to Guangzhou, where he entered a temple.
He turned his eyes and looked silently upon a banner that was
blowing in the wind. Some claimed that the wind was moving
and others claimed that it wasn’t the wind, that the banner was
actually moving on its own. Hui-neng corrected them by
saying, “The wind is not moving. The banner is not moving
either. The hearts of the people are moving.”2
That lays the groundwork for determining what is real and
what is merely apparent. It has everything to do with the filters
of the person trying to perceive the difference and reality. It’s
really not the wind. Nor is it the banner. It is the stand in the
heart that may only pragmatically be called the mirror. This is
the path of reflection, introspection, intuition, and of ultimately
minimizing the rupa world. “All solidity was ultimately
nothing.”
I cannot resist adding that if Mr. Chopra would like a word
study, this is the place for it, not in the mangling that he does
of biblical texts in his so-called word studies. As mentioned
above, the word rupa means “a form” or “a body,” something
solid. But ultimately, all rupa is illusion and nonessential. Here
is a curious point I would like to raise. The Indian currency is
the rupee, or sometimes rupaiyah, which is what the currency
is called in Indonesia. The etymology for something that is
nothing but has been made into everything that defines value,
all in the name of spiritual truth, would make a book of its own.
I don’t want to give away too much here, but you will see that
propensity when Chopra comes to his study of some very
profound texts in the Bible, while he seems to miss the
obvious. But in this connection one can see with a smile that
life has its material moments even when we pursue emptiness.
Very interesting, indeed.
One very important link from Zen in “Weastern”
Spirituality is the koan. What is a koan? American Buddhist
Ruth Fuller Sasaki, who is married to a Japanese Zen master,
says in the foreword to The Zen Koan,

The koan is not a conundrum to be solved by a nimble wit. It is

not a verbal psychiatric device for shocking the disintegrated
ego of a student into some kind of stability. Nor, in my opinion,
is it ever a paradoxical statement except to those who view it
from the outside. When the koan is resolved it is realized to be
a simple and clear statement made from the state of
consciousness which it has helped to awaken.3
 Any time you see something very significant defined with
a series of what it is not, you can be sure that the person
defining it doesn’t really know how to tell you what it is. Here
is one illustration of a koan at work:

One day when Yuan-wu had taken the high seat in the lecture
hall, he said: “A monk asked Yun-men, ‘From whence come all
the buddhas?’ Yun-men answered, ‘The East Mountain walks
over the water.’ But if I were asked, I would not answer that
way. ‘From whence come all the buddhas?’ A fragrant breeze
comes of itself from the south, and in the palace pavilion a
refreshing coolness stirs.”
Upon hearing these words, Ta-hui suddenly awakened to
enlightenment. He became the Dharma successor to his master
Yuan-wu.4

This is all so critical to understand if we are to fathom the

very mystery and, yes, the numerous contradictions within the
New Spirituality. These are the ideas that have helped to shape
the present “Weastern” Spirituality. Here, for example, are the
words of Elizabeth Lesser, a contemporary proponent of the
New Spirituality:

If the purpose of meditation is to accept the way things already

are, then how do we justify any striving at all? When I was
involved in Zen meditation I was very confused by this
dilemma. The concept of reaching “enlightenment” is a big part
of Zen Buddhism. But so is nonstriving. So, which is it?… The
answer, and this is the answer to many of the Zen koans, is
both. I eventually came up with a slogan that put the question
to rest for me: “Not either-or, but both, and more.”… And yes,
the kind of work that it takes to reach enlightenment looks like
a passionate form of doing nothing.5

When I read that, I couldn’t help thinking of a friend of

mine who has recently retired. He told me that he has enjoyed
doing nothing. “When my wife asks me what I did that day, I
say ‘Nothing.’ The next day when she asks me what my plans
are for the day, I tell her it is to finish doing what I did
yesterday.”
Many years ago Reader’s Digest published a little story
from a contributor who had been taking flying lessons. The
instructor described in detail the steps one takes to land a
plane when the engines have lost power on a dark night,
ending with “If you like what you see, land.” The student
asked what he should do in the event he did not like what he
saw and after a pause was told, “Turn your lights off.”
When you end up with a koan to explain what life is all
about, it is not the landing strip you are hoping for; put aside
your natural reasoning and celebrate obscurity until the light is
turned on inside. How that will happen depends on which
school of thought you belong to.
There’s really something very sad about all of this. It is
interesting that both Japanese and Chinese spirituality met the
fates they did in their political climate. Horrific acts are
committed when ethical religions provide only self-referencing
points for conduct and koans to maintain the mysterious as
dogma in order to obscure what is clear. Without the
transcendent perspective, the mirror does distort the image. In
fact, a hall of mirrors can wreak havoc with reality.
This Zen link of the koan and the main Buddhist link of
rupa are woven into the fabric of the New Spirituality. Systemic
contradictions hide under the guise of “both and more,”
appearances are equivocated upon to suit the koan, and the
koan is leveraged to sustain contradiction. All of this effort is
to define something as “nothing” and “nothing” as everything.
The Yin and the Yang
There is one final connection I want to make here. Many other
systems of belief have been brought to bear that have
influenced the body of thought in the New Spirituality and
could be brought into the discussion, including the doctrine of
dependent origination.6 But I think that if we ignore the Taoist
link, we do injustice to the total landscape of the New
Spirituality.
Taoism really can and should be understood in the
context of China’s struggle to find harmony and moral
reasoning. Between the extremes of using “law” and “love”
and the political turmoil ever punctuating its history, it seemed
that Confucianism would have the last word in Chinese ethical
thought. Confucianism sought to place morality beyond a
utilitarian and motive-driven base to doing things because they
are right in and of themselves. That was key in Confucianism.
What you do, you do because it is the right thing to do. It is
almost Kantian in that sense of the ethical imperative and
sense of duty. The debates regarding various descriptions of
what is essentially good make up a significant part of Chinese
philosophy.
Taoism was one of the major schools and differed from
Confucianism significantly on how to get society back on an
orderly track. There is much that can be said here about
Taoism, but I want to just underscore a handful of Taoist ideas
that have carried over to the New Spirituality.
One key idea of Taoism is that words do not have
absolute meaning. They are considered to be misleading,
limited, and, in fact, deceptive. Every word can be understood
only in the context of other words, and every concept is
understood only in the context of other concepts. In other
words, words are word-related endlessly, cyclically. They
cannot portray a comprehensive picture and are therefore
relative. Language ends up as a game and can be a good side
excursion but not the mainspring of communicating reality. (Of
course, that very thought is expressed in words.) This is a little
bit like what Nietzsche proposed but at the end had to concede
that he, too, worshipped at the altar whose name is “Truth.”
A second major concept of Taoism that has been added to
the mix of the New Spirituality is that life does not have any
clear purpose. Events may have causes, but they do not have
immediate purpose. This has led to clever stories of whether
man is the measure of all things or if there is some transcendent
order behind it all. The food chain cycle reveals an endless
cyclical nature. Man eats the beast, and then the beast eats the
man, somewhat like what Voltaire opined when he said that the
misery of each makes up the good of all. Self-realization, a
skepticism of language, and the agnosticism of any final
purpose made for a worldview that believed that finding the
“Way” to interpret life, or the Tao, is like balancing on the
trapeze rope of life.
Skepticism about language, morals, and government
emerges from a view that the Way (the Tao) cannot be grasped
by the intellect. The universe proceeds, it moves, it does what
it does. But it cannot be grasped intellectually or expressed in
words. It cannot be described. The way of nature, then, should
be the model for proper living. Laws, government, and
institutions are all unnatural creations that put unnatural
demands upon people. The universe is not a machine; it is an
organic whole.
 The Tao Te Ching goes on to teach that the two forces
that run the universe are the yin and the yang: Yin expresses
itself through femininity and earthiness; yang through
masculinity and activity. The yin is represented by water; the
yang by fire.
When all is said and read, several conclusions are drawn:

1. There can be no absolute truth. Each idea borrows from

its opposite.
2. All morality is relative. Everything gains only
momentary explanation.
3. Purpose and meaning are vague and clouded.

There is a fascinating Taoist story that illustrates these

conclusions. It is about a farmer whose horse bolted from the
barn and took off. He went to his neighbor, who said, “Oh,
that’s too bad.” The farmer stoically replied, “Who knows
what’s good or bad?”
But the next day, the horse returned and brought six wild
horses with it. The farmer went to his neighbor again, who said,
“Oh, that’s so good!” “Who knows what’s good or bad?” the
farmer drily responded.
The third day, the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the wild
horses and broke his leg in the process. The neighbor, hearing
this, shook his head and muttered, “Oh, that’s bad.” The farmer
shook his head and responded: “Who knows what’s good or
bad?”
The following day, soldiers of the landlord prince came
around looking for able-bodied men to join their ranks. They
ignored the farmer’s son because of his broken leg. “That’s so
good,” said the neighbor. “Who knows what is good or bad?”
sighed the farmer.
Notice carefully that though none of these are moral
events, they are given a moral value… good or bad. Here, too,
there is a muddying of the waters and a confusion of
categories. What moral reasoning caused the horse to run off?
The events happened apart from any morality, but a moral
explanation for them is demanded. It could have been put to
just good fortune or a blessing. Instead, the events are given
moral significance and demand a moral response.
Whatever answers are lacking are left to koans. What the
spiritual books cannot explain, the poets are left to expound
upon… When hard reason fails, leave it to the poets. Two
poems sum up the resignation within Taoism toward whatever
life brings; the first, from the Tao Te Ching, says it all:

First there was Tao

Then there was Yin and Yang.
And then there were words.
Oh that men would have left it alone.7

The other poem is from a former Confucian scholar who

left the ranks of teaching to go and live in the countryside:

I pluck chrysanthemums from the eastern hedge,

Then I gaze long at the distant summer hills,
The mountain air is fresh at the dawn of day;
The flying birds two by two return.
In these things there lies deep meaning;
Yet when we would express it, words suddenly fail…
What folly to spend life like a dropped leaf
Snared under the dust of streets!
For a long time I have lived in a cage;
Now I have returned.
For one must return
To fulfill one’s nature.8

One would think this was written in the sixties by a

professor turned hippie in the United States. Or that it was the
foreshadowing of books like The Celestine Prophecy. These
ideas came into the melting pot of the New Spirituality. Terms
like “yin and yang,” meaningless ontic referents 9 in language,
birds flying in a pattern as an omen, life itself harnessing the
way of nature, fit well into the mix of “May the force be with
you.”
As the old adage goes, “and yet… and yet…” Somehow,
while all these may provide an anesthetic for simpler situations,
the complexities of life ride hard on the shoulders of reality.
The average person knows he or she needs help with finding
hope in the midst of the tragedies and disappointments of life,
and these ideas provide no hope.
The Final Escape
I have told this story elsewhere, but it is worth repeating. I met
a young woman who was poised, successful, and worked in a
very public profession. Years before, she had fallen in love
with a young man, but her parents denied her permission to
marry him because he came from a lower caste. After much
soul-searching, they eloped and moved to a different city
where no one would know their castes. Both were disowned by
their families.
A year or two went by, and by virtue of her job, she was
transferred to another city and was able to go back to her
husband only for visits. Gradually the visits home became
fewer and fewer, and he feared that he was losing her. He
traveled to the city she was working in and found out that she
had developed a relationship with another man. Heartbroken,
he pleaded with her to come home. He expressed how deeply
he loved her and said that he wanted to make this marriage
work. But regardless of what he said, she insisted that she had
made the decision to leave him.
Finally, he stepped into the restroom for a few minutes,
returned to her, and made one last request before leaving her.
He said, “You know, I gave up everything for you because I
love you. Will you do me one last favor? I promise not to lay a
hand on you; I simply ask that you let me put my head on your
lap and let me lie there for half an hour. Just that half hour to
rest on your lap is all I ask, and I promise I will be out of your
life forever.” She felt sorry for him so she agreed. In only a
matter of minutes, he started to convulse in her lap. Terrified,
she called for help, but within moments he was dead. He had
taken poison while in the restroom.
This completely shook her. Guilt, trauma, sleepless nights,
everything that you can imagine one would feel in such a
situation. Finally, she visited a guru to help her sort this all out.
After some time with her, studying her astrological chart and
other signs that he used to look into her past, he arrived at a
conclusion: In a previous life, he said, this man had raped her
when she was a little girl. It was her karma that she had become
the means for him to repay his karmic debt for the wrong he
had previously done her, so she need feel no guilt.
This young, successful professional now boasted that
she had been completely released from all previous guilt on the
matter. The guru had done his job. Absolution had taken place.
Her mind was rid of any negative thoughts. Karma had
exonerated her because it was payback time for him. In effect,
the man betrayed in love had poisoned himself in a triumph of
good over evil, and the woman who had betrayed him was
merely an instrument to set the balances straight.
King David says in Psalm 115:2–8:

Why do the nations say,

“Where is their God?”…
Their idols are silver and gold,
made by human hands.
They have mouths, but cannot speak,
eyes, but cannot see;
they have ears, but cannot hear,
noses, but cannot smell;
they have hands, but cannot feel,
feet, but cannot walk;
nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
Those who make them will be like them,
and so will all who trust in them. (NIV)

The tragedy of a worldview that is based on a blend of

metaphysics, physics, spirituality, and medicine is that in the
end, it violates those very disciplines to justify self-deification,
which is the bottom line.
This is becoming the Absolute rather than communing
with the Absolute. When you read Chopra and others of his
stripe, you are told that God has a great plan for you. But the
more you read Chopra, you realize that God is not visible in
anything he has written. Chopra’s conclusion is that you are
he… the divine is in you. Ah! But here’s the catch. To
convince you of that, he has had to mutilate every other theory
that holds to the contrary. How does he do that without
seeming disrespectful of others? The bigger trick lies here.
First, he takes their texts and strips them of their contexts. Next,
he heavily quotes their own “authorities,” as long as they
don’t actually believe their own texts. And finally, he dedicates
his theory to all who lay claim to a different belief. This magical
formula makes him look irenic and congenial, and then he can
grace the talk shows as the ultimate glue that brings all
religions together. He has provided spirituality without any
absolutes and debunked any contrary claims at the same time.
Anyone else may follow his lead and quote other texts out of
context, but they dare not quote him out of context, unless
they wish to meet him in a court of law.
This is truly the picture of the proverbial elephant being
felt by four blind people; each one describes what he feels and
gives his own perspective, to the exclusion of the other
perspectives. If you shine the light on one chapter of the New
Spirituality, it can almost look like Christianity. But when you
shine the light on another chapter, you’re sure it’s Buddhism,
then Hinduism, then Taoism. This is brilliance at work in a
culture of spiritual hungers and an aversion for dogma.
If, when I am restless, I am wishing there were a God, why
not trade that for a belief that tells me that when I am
meditating, I am God, and that the momentary excursions into
humanity are nothing more than illusion? It is quite ironic that
many of the founders of these spiritual paths have found the
West to be the ideal place for such frank and open discussion.
One would risk his career, if not his life, in the hotbeds of some
of those other worldviews these founders play with, were the
same liberties taken there. Just as the charge of hypocrisy is
the unintended compliment that vice pays to virtue, so is this a
subtle compliment being paid to the worldview that allows
them the privilege to attack the very foundations of belief that
have made the freedom to believe and promote contradictory
worldviews possible. Such is the glory of Christianity. Trying
to redefine truth our way always results in redefining
everything. The first temptation in the Garden of Eden was to
play God with a different vocabulary, rather than taking God at
his word. That is what the New Spirituality does best. But still
hanging over our heads is the fact that relativism must
eventually pay its dues in the currency of reality.
There is an old story about a man who proposed a bet
with his friend. “First, I’ll ask myself a question, and if I can
answer it, you buy me a coke.”
“What sort of bet is that?” countered his friend.
“But that’s not all there is to it. After I have asked myself
a question and answered it, you ask yourself a question, and if
you can answer it, I’ll buy you a coke. We will keep going till
one of us asks a question we can’t answer.”
“Strange bet,” said the friend, “but let’s proceed.”
So the man asked himself the first question. “How can a
rabbit burrow a hole into the ground, without throwing mud
out onto the outside? My answer is, it should start digging the
hole from the inside.”
“How can it do that?” came the immediate rejoinder.
“I don’t know,” said the man. “That’s your question.”
Between the koans and the subtleties, the obfuscations
and the obscurities, there is a smile on the Buddha’s face. It
may not be the smile of enlightenment. It may well be that the
questioner is trapped into believing that the questions are the
answers.
CHAPTER 9
 DO YOU REALLY WANT TO LIVE?

“Would you kindly see her, Ravi? But be prepared for a

shock.” With those words, I was requested to meet a
seventeen-year-old young woman whose story is tragic and in
some ways terrifying. But it is at the same time a triumphant
story of a human spirit that has conquered a sustained
indignity. Her parents are European. She is a young Chinese
girl, born with an extremely rare birth defect that is known by
the medical name of harlequin ichthyosis.
Harlequin ichthyosis is a severe genetic skin disorder.
Infants with this condition are born with very hard, thick skin
covering most of their bodies. The skin forms large, diamond-
shaped plates that are separated by deep cracks or fissures.
These skin abnormalities affect the shape of the eyelids, nose,
mouth, and ears, and limit movement of the arms and legs. As
the name would suggest, the skin resembles the scales of a
fish, and as the skin is produced at an abnormally high rate, the
constant shedding gives it a pinkish-red hue. Combined with
the disfigurement of the features, the sight can be quite
terrifying.
As they came into the hotel lobby, I met the lovely couple
who adopted this little girl when she was only three. They are
writing her story in a book. It is one of the most incredible
situations I have ever seen with my own eyes. We all know
that every life is a story. Sometimes the story takes on bizarre
twists and turns. Seldom do we choose to make a tragic story
part of our own lives. And when we do, we often underestimate
how deep the anguish can be.
Our lives are shaped by others literally from birth, and
even the best of intentions can result in the most unexpected
of hurts. Each of us starts off with a minimum of
understanding, needing a maximum of input. We gradually
reach the middle stage of childhood when the input into our
lives is both from others and from within ourselves. We
process more intelligently all intimations of reality, both from
our own promptings and from our experience. Finally we
become adults, with a sovereign will and the awesome
responsibility of making our own decisions. But every now and
then a strange thought occurs to us: Are we really ever
completely our own person or have we been conditioned in
ways beyond our own imagination?
I have pondered long and hard the question of why
people turn to God. I remember a woman from Romania telling
me that she was raised in a staunchly atheistic environment.
They were not allowed to even mention the name of God in
their household, lest they be overheard and their entire
education denied. After she came to the United States, I
happened to be her patient when I was recovering from back
surgery. When I had the privilege of praying with her one day,
she said as she wiped away her tears, “Deep in my heart I have
always believed there was a God. I just didn’t know how to find
him.”
This sentiment is repeated scores of times. More recently,
I had the great privilege of meeting with two very key people in
an avowedly atheistic country. After I finished praying, one of
them said, “I have never prayed in my entire life, and I have
never heard anyone else pray. This is a first for me. Thank you
for teaching me how to pray.” It was a gripping moment in our
three-hour evening, and it was obvious that even spiritual
hungers that have been suppressed for an entire lifetime are in
evidence when in a situation where there is possible fulfillment.
Although I agree that the problem of pain may be one of
the greatest challenges to faith in God, I dare suggest that it is
the problem of pleasure that more often drives us to think of
spiritual things. Sexuality, greed, fame, and momentary thrills
are actually the most precarious attractions in the world. Pain
forces us to accept our finitude. It can breed cynicism,
weariness, and fatigue in just living. Pain sends us in search of
a greater power. Introspection, superstition, ceremony, and
vows can all come as a result of pain. But disappointment in
pleasure is a completely different thing. While pain can often
be seen as a means to a greater end, pleasure is seen as an end
in itself. And when pleasure has run its course, a sense of
despondency can creep into one’s soul that may often lead to
self-destruction. Pain can often be temporary; but
disappointment in pleasure gives rise to emptiness… not just
for a moment, but for life. There can seem to be no reason to
life, no preconfigured purpose, if even pleasure brings no
lasting fulfillment. The truth is that I have known people who in
the peak of their success have turned to God, and I have
known others, drowning in pain and defeat, who seek God for
an answer. Either extreme leaves haunting questions. God
alone knows how we will respond to either.
This struggle between pain and pleasure, I believe, gives
spirituality a more defined goal. People in pain may look for
comfort and explanations. People disappointed in pleasure look
for purpose. Dostoyevsky defines hell as “the inability to
love.” I think that is a pretty close description. But this is
where, I believe, the West has lost its way and stumbled into
the New Spirituality. We had what it took to experience
pleasure, but in the end, what we experienced took from us
what we had in terms of value. Pleasure disappointed in the
West, and in our boredom, we went searching for an escape in
the strange or the distorted, rather than looking to what God
has clearly revealed in the underpinnings of the Christian faith
that point to the person of Jesus Christ.
When we indulge in pleasure to the point that it destroys
the value within us, the ends to which we will go, both
spiritually and pragmatically, lead us into the quicksand of our
own pursuits. Looking into the face of one born with a
deformity may cause fear or revulsion within us and the desire
to look away, but plundering pleasure to the point of creating
spiritual deformity within the soul causes us to run from
ourselves. We understand so little how to define life’s purpose
because we have chased pleasure for pleasure’s sake and have
come away empty.
The Core of the Christian Message
“Truth is stranger than fiction because we have made fiction to
suit ourselves.”1 So said G. K. Chesterton. He went on to say,
“What we need is not a religion that is right where we are right,
but one that is right where we are wrong.”2 Those two cautions
will stand us in good stead as we try to understand why we
really search for spiritual answers.
In Psalm 8:4, David asks, “What is mankind that you are
mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (NIV).
What is mankind? That question lies beneath all of our
pursuits and hungers. If we do not have the answer to the
question of what man is, we do not have the right to an answer
to any other question. Are we at our core divine or nothing?
Are these the only two options? There is a very moving Indian
song that literally translates as: “I am not a God, nor am I
Satan… I am but a human.”
Isn’t it fascinating how songs rip reality from the shroud
of the sophistry we have tried to bury ourselves in? I want to
take a look at how the issues of pain and pleasure point to the
uniqueness of the Christian faith to the New Spirituality.
Sense Out of Essence
Nearly three millennia before John Lennon lived a man known
for his wisdom. His name was Solomon. He wrote more songs
and proverbs than any man before him, and probably more
than most after him. I strongly suspect that if he had lived in
our time, he would have owned most of the television stations.
He loved the arts. He, too, imagined a world without heaven
above or hell below. He just said it more obscurely in the book
of Ecclesiastes when he used the phrase “under the sun,”
which literally means “with no input from above or below.” He
boasted that “under the sun” he had accomplished every
dream and hope, every passion and indulgence, every
aesthetic and intellectual pursuit known to man at his time. He
lived as if there were no heaven to aspire to or hell to shun.
And his conclusion was that everything became a chasing
after the wind… meaningless.
Solomon was right. I cannot think of a more difficult
subject to deal with than pleasure. Every culture exploits some
segment of society in order to entertain hungers, either private
or public. We are all pleasure seekers, and what gives us
pleasure is a revelation of our values. It is not often that one
hears the subject being addressed, except as a sociological
phenomenon or a psychological description. In a society where
pornography has become a multibillion-dollar industry, it is
very evident that pleasure is both sought after and for sale. But
deep within there always lurks that burning question: How
does one define what is legitimate and what is illegitimate? A
self-reflective, self-centered New Spirituality has no answers to
give. Much of New Spirituality is actually based on
psychological theory, and if psychology is all we have on
which to base the answer to this question, we are in deep
trouble.
Very recently, a professor from Yale, Paul Bloom, wrote a
book on pleasure, How Pleasure Works: The New Science of
Why We Like What We Like, in which he argues that there must
be some underlying belief in the value of what one is doing or
getting to experience pleasure. If one believes he is buying
something once belonging to John F. Kennedy, then the
pleasure quotient goes up. Of course, one doesn’t need to
have a degree in psychology to know that. But the argument
Bloom derives removes pleasure from its sensory dimension
and lifts it to its “essential” dimension. So far, so good. He
actually has a point. The essence of an act is the determining
factor. It’s not just taste or sound or touch that should bring
pleasure; the essence of the act should determine the intensity
of the pleasure. More strictly speaking, the essence of an act
as believed by the participant is the source of the pleasure.
This takes us from the rationalist position of “I think, therefore
I am,” to “I think, therefore I feel.” It is the utilitarian
philosophy of pleasure à la Bentham and Mill (who developed
a pleasure gauge) gone postmodern.
But as one reads this exposition on pleasure from a
psychoscientific point of view, what happens when matter
dabbles in the spiritual and reserves the right to define the
spiritual quickly becomes evident. This is a Copernican shift in
the way we define our own senses and is, to me, precisely the
trap that the New Spiritualists fall into, albeit for loftier goals
and hopes. Ask yourself this question: Who would I fear more,
a person whose deformity sends me to science and faith to
look for answers to their malady, or a person who uses
science to advance sadomasochistic behavior to further
deform humanity? Academics often miss the larger point.
The reason we search for essence is neither psychological
nor ancestral; rather, it is that we are hardwired and spiritually
designed to probe into the ultimate nature of all that is real. It is
a spiritual matter. We hunger for pleasure that goes beyond the
physical because ultimately we are spiritual beings. This is the
danger the New Spirituality risks; wresting quantum and
physics and psychology to advantage in order to explain the
spiritual leaves one vulnerable to the sadomasochist, who lays
claim to essence and possibly blames his psyche for the way
he thinks.
This is a very important point I am making. When strident
atheists like Richard Dawkins vilify Christian belief as irrational,
they do so because they do not agree with the metaphysics of
those who defend it. When they mock the Deepak Chopras of
this world for building a spiritual empire supposedly drawn
from scientific jargon, they are refuting it because of the
misuse, indeed, the abuse of physics.
Life is a search for the spiritual. Whether in the throes of
pain or in the disappointments of pleasure, we strive for an
essence that is beyond the physical. Let me give you an
example. Suppose you were to raise a little child and give that
child everything he needed… love, shelter, education, support,
all the way to becoming an adult. Let’s call him Jason. One day,
there is a knock on Jason’s door, and an older person standing
outside asks to meet him. After a few moments of conversation,
the visitor breaks the news to Jason that he is Jason’s
biological father. If this is the first time Jason has learned he is
adopted, what do you think will happen? How do you think he
will cope with it? His sensory emotions will tear him apart on
the inside. “Why didn’t you tell me this?” would be his
question to his adoptive parents. “Where were you when I
needed you?” he would ask the biological father. Essence is far
more than belief. Essence is belief based on the intrinsic being
of the person. This is the hunger of the spirit beyond mere
sensory and belief components.
This is why I believe that the intertwining of pain with
pleasure is at the root of the human dilemma. These extremes of
feeling at either end of the spectrum that most of us wish to
avoid, even as we are drawn into them, are the twin realities
that help shape our search. We want to find happiness. We
want to avoid pain. We want to know who we are. We want to
know what we are. We care about our origin and our essence.
Pleasure and pain become indicators along the way on the road
that will lead us to our destiny, and they are rooted in the
question of our origin.
It is not sufficient to say nice things such as “All religions
say the same thing.” Nobody, and I do mean nobody, really
believes that. If they say they do, you can call their bluff in
moments by exposing the preconceived sovereignty they have
exercised in evaluating one religion over the other and by
which they have arrived at the conclusion that all religions lead
to the same destination, even though the religions all say
different things. How can anyone make such an assertion?
Even in broad categories they do not say the same thing.
Buddha himself rejected Hinduism because of some of its
dogmas. And literally just days after his death, Buddhism
began to fragment into a series of different Buddhist beliefs.
Some even went into hiding, lest they be killed for the
challenges they were making to the leadership. And only a
short while after Muhammad died, blood was spilled over who
his successor would be. The first three of the five caliphs in
Islam were assassinated—varnishing such facts with niceties
doesn’t do anyone a favor.
Were these divisions for religious reasons? Oh yes, that is
what is claimed. It was for reasons of essence, but the
apologists of these faiths fail to come to terms with the
essential nature of their beliefs themselves. Belief systems
must justify themselves. If they cannot, the ever more bizarre
will be required to bring the same degree of fulfillment.
We will pick this up again. For now, let me posit three
things—relationship, stewardship, and worship—that must
define life if the spiritual search as it relates to pleasure and
pain is to be understood. Such definitions, then, build into a
worldview.
CHAPTER 10
 THE TIES THAT BIND

Relationship
In the Judeo-Christian worldview, all pleasure is ultimately seen
from the perspective of what is of eternal value and definition. I
often think of that day the astronauts became the first ones to
go around the dark side of the moon. To them was given a
beautiful glimpse of the “earthrise” over the horizon of the
moon, draped in a beauteous mixture of blue and white and
garlanded by the light of the sun against the black void of
space. It was something human eyes had never witnessed
before. Isn’t it fascinating that no poem or lyric came to the
commander’s aid in lending him words to express that moment
of awe? Instead, the words that came to his mind were the first
words of the book of Genesis: “In the beginning, God…”
There are moments like that in our experience when
nothing can take away from the miracle of human life. No
amount of time can explain it. No pondering within can satisfy
all that the moment declares. There is something extraordinary
here. It is not just the miracle of life; it is the miracle of life
imbued with particular worth. The identity of the child is as
significant as the fact that it is. We all know that. The New
Spirituality distributes life into the generality of
“consciousness” and loses the particularity of personal
relationship. So it is not merely time we are talking about here,
or some pool of consciousness into which we all merge and
from which we emerge. In the Judeo-Christian worldview, we
believe that every “person” is actually created in God’s image,
in that God himself is a person, and that each person has
relational priorities that are implicitly built in, not by nature
but by God’s design.
Consider again the tragedy of the earthquake and tsunami
in Japan. Even in that stoic culture, where community rises
above everything else, each one who wept was grieving the
loss of their own loved ones: They were not grieving just for
the total loss of life but also for their personal loss. This is real.
It is not imaginary. We stand before the individual graves of
the ones we love more often than we stand before a graveyard
in general.
But there is more. Personhood transcends mere DNA.
There is essential worth to each person.
Recently in a game show, a computer (named Watson
after the founder of IBM) handily defeated two human
contestants in a knowledge contest. This had happened before
when the computer Deep Blue beat the world champion in
chess, Garry Kasparov. Computers are faster and better at
calculations and at chess. But what one article said is
interesting: In this instance, where language was involved,
Watson’s victory over its two human competitors advanced
IBM’s master plan of making humanity obsolete. I would add
that the ultimate revenge would be for Watson to deny that
humans exist or that they created “him.” You see, to create a
computer to do what Watson did required brilliance. As David
Ferrucci, the principal investigator of Watson’s DeepQA
technology at IBM Research, said,

When we deal with language, things are very different.

Language is ambiguous, it’s contextual, it’s implicit. Words are
grounded really only in human cognition—and there’s
seemingly an infinite number of ways the same meaning can be
expressed in language. It’s an incredibly difficult problem for
computers.1

It was precisely the coding of that “human-ness” into

Watson that required the effort of twenty-five of IBM’s top
research scientists, and they accomplished it with a mishmash
of algorithms and raw computing technology. “Watson is
powered by 10 racks of IBM Power 750 servers with 2,880
processor cores and 15 terabytes of RAM; it’s capable of
operating at a galloping 80 teraflops. With that sort of
computing power, Watson is able to… scour its roughly 200
million pages of stored content—about 1 million books worth
—and find an answer with confidence in as little as 3
seconds.”2
The question is, “What is Watson doing or thinking
now?” The entire question is reduced to one issue: What does
consciousness mean? It is not surprising that “consciousness”
and “conscience” come from the same root word. When you
put together terms like “consciousness,” “conscience,”
“individual,” “right,” “wrong,” “good,” and “evil,” you are on
the path to spiritual thinking. Matter alone or resorting to
quantum doesn’t create spiritual thought. Chopra can write of
an ageless body and a timeless mind all he wants, but when
you lose your child, something has been lost that can never be
replaced—even if you have another child—and can never be
explained by his philosophy. Never.
What this means is that our essence is both shared and
particular—a truth that is Judeo-Christian in its assumption.
This leads me to see the critical and defining notion of essence
and its connection to relationship. That must be defined first
before pleasure can be derived legitimately or otherwise in
concert with the essence of the thing enjoyed. So it is not
merely the essence of the object that is being enjoyed that
matters. It is the essence of the subject who is experiencing
pleasure that legitimizes or delegitimizes the experience.
There is a clear and unequivocal assertion in the Judeo-
Christian faith that God created us for his purpose: to fulfill
life’s sacred nature within the particularity of an individual life,
in relationship with him and his indwelling presence. This
particularity does not offset the fact of being part of the larger
community of fellow human beings. It does not deify us, nor
does it demean us. To be a human being is to be one who is
fashioned in the image of God, who is the point of reference in
all relationships. This is the difference between Islam and
Christianity. In Islam, a person will kill to supposedly protect
the honor of Allah. In the Christian faith, Jesus sacrificed his
own life to honor the love of God as it is revealed for all
humanity. In pantheism, the “I” dies the death of a thousand
qualifications; hence that vacuous term “duty” in the Gita or
even “dharma.” For the Christian, the I is a person valued by
God. This is a world of difference from all other religions.
In search of this relationship we pursue spiritual realities.
And often we end up creating God in our own image when we
have failed to see, or perhaps don’t like, what it is that God
intended to convey to us in his love. No, this is not the
“relativity” of physics, special or general, or of quantum
theory, or even of metaphysics. It is the relationship of a
person within himself or herself. It is who we are, not
fragmented, in the accretion of everything that makes us an
individual. It is why we even refer to ourselves as
“individuals”… indivisible… the underlying meaning being
that we cannot be divided into parts.
Even in pantheism, one cannot be content with the
Gnostic category of “knowledge.” Nor in Zen can we merely
mutter “Rupa is nothing.” That is where the monists and
Vedantists and Zen thinkers wish to leave us. Thus Hinduism
has the Gita, the most beloved of Hindu texts (not the Vedas),
in which questions of war, devotion, worship, and sacrifice are
raised. These are relational issues. How can I go to war and kill
my brothers? was the question Arjuna placed before Krishna.
Only he didn’t know who Krishna was, so reality and the
nature of the source of the answers were veiled from him in the
early stages of the text. What is good and what is evil? What is
the right thing to do? That’s what Arjuna wants to know. It
came down to duty in a play called Life.
Buddhism raises the issues of poverty, pain, sickness,
death, responsibility, and the causes of misery. All these were
not just ideas, they were evidenced in persons or in how they
impacted persons. Of all religions, Islam is the least focused on
relationships, even though it gives the appearance of being a
community. And the result is law, authority, and power over
the community. These become the rationale for Islam. Thus, it
is not surprising that the very word Islam means “to submit.”
And it’s no wonder that it is sometimes called a “pantheism of
force,” where individuality is sacrificed at the altar of authority.
Some Muslims I have spoken to admit this is what Islam is, but
insist that it was not intended to be this way. How do you even
debate such an issue when you are silenced if you disagree?
This authoritarianism and submission become the means to the
end of community. Any community there is exists only in the
narrow confines of faith, which often provides the adherents
with justification to sacrifice their own for “their faith.” The
faith, in effect, negates the person.
I have two very special friends whose lives have been a
blessing to countless children who have been deformed from
birth. They have established an orphanage to give them a
home and find medical help to correct what can be corrected.
Then they look for families who will adopt them. One little boy
had always been passed over for adoption because he has a
particular brain malfunction that is very rare. He often doesn’t
connect thoughts. At about nine years of age, as I remember
the story, he was becoming despondent as, one-by-one, he
saw his housemates being selected by families and leaving. He
began to ask those who were taking care of him why no one
was adopting him. Why didn’t anybody choose him?
Through an incredible series of events, a couple from
Texas, who had already adopted one child from the same
orphanage, called to ask if this boy was still there. Through the
goodness of the parents’ hearts, and the generosity of the
couple who established the orphanage in agreeing to cover all
the costs of his adoption, the day has been set for this little
boy to be taken to his new home. The special part of the thrill
for him is that he will be reunited with one of the little boys
who was his housemate at one time.
His actual name is quite hard to pronounce, but it is quite
a normal name in his native setting. His adoptive parents have
sent him the name they want to give him—Anson Josiah, the
initials of which are A.J. He now walks around that home,
waiting for his new parents to come for him, telling everybody
as he points to his chest, “You can call me A.J. My name is
A.J.” Is it not interesting that even with the debilitation of
disconnected thoughts, he is able to pick up the redeeming
thrill of relationship and particular worth evidenced in his new
name?
One of the great epic poems of the Middle East is
Shahnama (or Shanameh), written by the Persian poet and
author Abu ol-Qasem Mansur Firdawsi (ca. 935–1020). In it he
recounts the legendary history of the ancient kings and heroes
of Persia. It is known to English readers principally through
Matthew Arnold’s version, written in the mid-nineteenth
century: Sohrab and Rustum. I remember reading it as a young
lad in Delhi. Rustum is a mighty warrior, second to none. War
is his way of life and as the story unfolds, even though he has
a family to take care of, Rustum is constantly far from home,
taking on challenges. One day, he comes across a younger
though equally well known warrior named Sohrab. Sohrab is
reluctant to take him on because he knows that Rustum is
actually his father. Years before when he was a small child,
Sohrab had been sent away by his mother to spare him the
lifestyle of his father, and Rustum has been misled into
believing that the child who was sent away was a daughter,
born while he was gone.
Sohrab and Rustum eventually meet in one-on-one
combat. Twice, Sohrab could have fatally wounded Rustum,
but he spares him. Finally, Rustum has Sohrab on his back, and
victoriously plunges his sword into Sohrab’s side. As the life
is ebbing out of him, Sohrab tells Rustum who he is and, when
challenged, proves it by producing a locket his mother had
given him. The rest of the story is the grief and remorse that fill
Rustum when he realizes he has killed his own son, who had
spared him when he had the advantage.
I find utterly fascinating the stories of deep relationship
that are woven into the histories of various cultures, stories
that reveal the folly of succumbing to the lure of power and
prestige. What a tragedy to destroy our own children by
denying the One who gave us life. Isn’t that where we are
today, in our geopolitical and religious wars?
The good and decent among us mourn broken homes. We
mourn broken lives. We mourn shattered dreams. We celebrate
reunions. We delight in long relationships that have withstood
the test of time. This is a clue, a huge clue of how life is
intended to be lived. We are designed, shaped, and
conditioned to be in relationships of honor, and in our hearts
we wish to see those relationships triumph over all other
allurements. It has been nearly four decades since I lost my
mother. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think of her. Is
all this not an indication, given to us by the One who made us,
that we are designed to live within relationship and to find our
greatest sense of worth and fulfillment within relationship?
Relationships are multidirectional and multidimensional.
For this, physics, chemistry, even psychology, for that matter,
are all inadequate starting points. Relationship must begin with
essence, not with the essence of others but rather with the
essence of oneself. That is why pleasure and pain become
critical. It is not psychologically necessary to teach somebody
that their parents matter. We know that by intuition. My life
has been replete with examples of meeting people who wish
they could find that one friend or one relationship. It is not
accidental that in the long bibliography at the end of her book
on spirituality, which draws sparsely from Christian literature,
Elizabeth Lesser still finds place to mention C. S. Lewis’s A
Grief Observed, a powerful book on the depth of his grief when
he lost his wife, Joy.
 How and why is this so? In Christianity, the essence of
each and every person and the individual reality of each life is
sacred. It is sacred because intrinsic value has been given to
us by our Creator. Atheism is the extreme form of placing
ultimate worth in an accidental universe. For the atheist, the
only real relationship is between each person and the universe.
That is it. There is no outside voice or revelation. To attempt to
mask the loneliness of this reality, we offer parallel universes,
aliens or some other entities somewhere that will surely
someday find us if we don’t find them first. There was a play
written some years ago called Waiting for Godot. The title was
a play on words for the lonely inhabitants of the world in the
play, waiting for a God who never shows up. The play to honor
the sciences should be titled Waiting for Logo, which would
mean waiting for a word from anybody out there.
In pantheism, which is the basis of much of the New
Spirituality, the “I” is lost in the desired union with the ultimate
impersonal Absolute; there is no more “I and you.” In rebirth,
all actual relationship with what has preceded is lost, and we
are encouraged to believe there is an essential relationship
only with the deeds of the past. No one in this cyclical
framework ever answers what an individual was paying for in
the first birth. After all, one cannot have an infinite number of
lives to their credit: If there were an infinite number of births,
one would never have reached this particular birth. So, going
backward, what was the debt owed in the first life? As one of
my Hindu friends once said after he came to know Jesus, “Even
the banks are kinder to me. At least the bank tells me how much
I owe and how much time I have to repay what I owe. In karma,
I don’t know what I owe or how long it will take me to repay it.”
For Deepak Chopra to bring relief to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
by telling him that his (Chopra’s) blood would not carry his
karma to the Maharishi borders on the pathetic… the pupil
having to reassure the teacher that karma was not carried in the
blood. Where is it carried, one might ask, in an ageless body
and a timeless mind?
A relationship with God that is both individual and to be
reflected to the rest of humanity in a shared birthright is God’s
gift to us.
Stewardship
It is in the area of stewardship that I think Christians have done
an enormous amount but have also failed in a very serious
way. The priority was right, but the reach was short. Let me
explain.
The world is in great need. There is so much that needs to
be done. Ask yourself this question: Which worldview has
reached out the most globally? The numbers are staggeringly
disproportionate. I remember in the early days of my travels
walking into institutions for people with leprosy. You can go to
the fringe of the Sahara desert or to the island of Molokai in
Hawaii and see the footprints of Christian missionaries at work
there. Look at the hospitals in many parts of the world, the
orphanages, the rescue homes, the care for widows. Look way
beyond the reach of one’s own land. It is not enough to say
that America has had much and therefore Americans ought to
give. What about the wealth in the oil-rich nations of the
world… how many hospitals and universities, orphanages and
rescue homes have been built by that money? There is so
much need in India that one just grows accustomed to it and
walks by. Does Allah desire that billions of dollars be spent on
a mosque while millions of people live in terrible need?
Bangladesh, a Muslim country, is one of the poorest areas in
the world, where hundreds of thousands live below the
poverty line. In contrast go to Abu Dhabi, also a Muslim
country, where the sheikh has spent more than $3 billion to
build a mosque. Is this stewardship? Is this for God’s glory, or
is it for the glory of an earthly kingdom that forgets others of
the same faith who are living on the edge?
 But present-day Christians cannot rest on the actions of
Christians of previous generations. Today, we would do well to
also ask ourselves this same question as we build our church
megaplexes that often border more on memorials to human
icons than on anything that lifts the heart toward God.
Whatever one may say, only the blind and the antisocial
can ignore the realities of a desperately needy world.
Christopher Hitchens’s cheap book attacking Mother Teresa
showed a heart that was so hard he could not be touched even
by the reach of a little woman with a big heart.
But I have to say that there is one area in which we as
Christians have been negligent. We may have a good track
record for reaching out to the hurting of the world… to
building relationships with the world, but by and large we
forget that there is a natural world out there to be protected as
well. We have been negligent in matters of the environment,
and just because the environment has no feelings we trample it
underfoot. The pantheist deifies the impersonal and we ignore
it. Both extremes are wrong. The created order was meant to be
cared for.
If essence gave me the reason for relationships, existence
gave me the mandate for stewardship. The world exists in real
terms. It is not merely form. It is also substance.
Worship
In my study at home, I have an old Anglican prayer bench. It is
my place of refuge. It is where I come on my knees before God
and open my heart in its most deeply felt struggles and needs.
If you had told me as a young lad going to church that
someday I would long for a prayer bench, I would have
despaired even more than I already did. Kneeling in worship
and being aware of others kneeling beside me was not exactly
the highlight of my week. I would covertly glance out the
corner of my eye to see what others were doing. Worship was
nothing more than a word in my vocabulary. I saw prayer and
the repetition of creeds as nothing more than a hypnotic effort
at inducing some state of mind. It mattered little, except at
examination time and in times of crisis. It was a sort of “God, if
you are there, please help.” Now, in my adult years, I have seen
more happen during my time of prayer than any other time.
The hunger for worship is one of the greatest clues in life.
In India, temples are full, and the whole cultic experience of
priests, ceremonies, chants, blessings, fears, and superstitions
is all part and parcel of the culture. You grow up knowing and
accepting that “religion” is a vital part of a person’s life. The
interesting thing is that we seldom ask the questions that
ought to be asked. Why? It seems that whatever ceremonies
we are taught become part of our personal culture, a habit of
the heart and an expression of our community. More often than
not religious rites are performed out of fear or superstition.
And they are seldom questioned or examined.
Growing up, I noticed many culturally meaningful things
that several of my friends did. One was to touch the feet of the
father of the family to show respect. This was a very admirable
and beautiful act to watch. Each time the father would enter the
room or the son or daughter would bid their father good-bye
before heading on a journey, they would lean over and touch
his feet as a sign of respect, and there would be a quick
ceremonial blessing given by the father to his children. I had a
very dear classmate who devoutly followed that practice. But I
noticed something. The ceremony had become nothing more
than that and did not reflect any true reality. In his private life,
his values were anything but honoring to his father. What was
even more tragic was a day that I remember well, when this
young man doused himself with kerosene and lit a match to his
body. When his parents came home, it was to find his charred
body. What did this say to the parents? The son who had
touched his father’s feet in respect and the father who had
given his blessing to his son really didn’t know the other or
what the other was thinking. All the formality and ceremony
had amounted to nothing.
This is the ultimate violation of worship. All the
ceremonies in the world, all the perfunctory reverence, do not
make for worship. Worship that is properly understood and
properly given is co-extensive with life… It informs all of life,
everything we do and everything we say and think. At its core
it is the sense and service of God. Worship brings into
confluence all the questions and answers that we have and do
not have. For the answers we do not have, a relationship with
the One who does have them carries us through. It is the
submission of our will, heart, and purpose to the sovereign will
and the person of God who created us and loves us. Worship
is a relationship from which all inspiration flows and the
relationship through which all of our needs are met. It is
knowing even partly the One who knows us fully.
Worship of the Supreme Being is what makes it possible
to find unity in diversity in the world around me by enabling
me to find unity and diversity within myself, first. Worship is
the starting point.
Once you understand essence, existence, and reverence in
the context of a relationship expressed in stewardship and
worship, life’s purpose becomes clear. From that come
beneficence and the imperatives. Then love can be legitimately
defined; otherwise, it is nothing more than a word that is open
to each person’s own interpretation and context. Then
legitimate pleasure can be defined; otherwise, all pleasure is up
for grabs.
The purpose of life given by my Creator is both general
and specific. It is general in that we all are designed to have the
sacred as a starting point in everything. This even means that
the notion of truth is a sacred trust. It is specific in that love
has its boundaries. When Oprah said that she couldn’t
conceive of God being jealous, she betrayed her warped
definition of love. God is not jealous because he wants us to
himself as a private possession, he is jealous because he wants
us to have the supreme experience of love, which, contrary to
the implications of the pluralistic religions, is exclusive. It is the
nature of love to bind itself. Love is not free. Someone who
truly loves another cannot be other than jealous for the object
of their love.
Some time ago, I saw a special program on the progress
that is being made in the development of artificial limbs. While I
was awed by the incredible mechanical genius of giving a
person arms and legs, there was something else that could
have been easily missed. Two who had received these
prosthetics and were able to stand up from their wheelchairs
said something that was totally unexpected: “It is so wonderful
to be able to hug and be hugged again.” Who would have
thought of that except someone who had been in a wheelchair
and was unable to hug or be hugged because of the intrusion
of the chair?
God embraces us with his love and has given us the
extraordinary privilege of love and sexuality in a relationship
from which God has exempted himself because he is “Spirit”;
his love for us is so great that he has provided for us to have
pleasure in our material finitude. And he makes that same body
his dwelling place, his temple.
To be sure, the New Spirituality loves to talk of the sacred,
or of purpose and meaning, but the starting point of an
impersonal absolute without any of the attributes of God,
except by negation, does not justify the New Spiritualists’
participation in the categories they like to talk about. In doing
away with God and deifying themselves, they have actually
ended up losing the personal self as well. We are, in effect,
amputated, because there is no one to embrace or to be
embraced by. We are alone in a world where everything is
nothing and we are part of the divine. From the Judeo-Christian
perspective, humanity is the supreme creation of a personal,
loving God. That starting point allows values and imperatives
that find their definitions in a personal God.
Why So Much Pain?
If a relationship with God as a basis of pleasure forms the first
component, the explanation of pain forms the next. The illogic
of pain forms a thorny question on which volumes have been
written. Why do the innocent suffer? Why do we face all these
diseases? Why the suffering of millions because of natural
disasters or the tyranny of demagogues? A loving God cannot
exist in a wicked world. Among others, I have written much on
this in previous books. But let me just underscore a few ideas
that we can come to terms with:

Pain is a fact of life.

It is a universal fact of life.
There are moral dimensions in the way we phrase our
questions concerning pain.
Every religion explicitly or implicitly attempts to explain
pain.

The first thought is this: Why do we even ask these

questions about suffering within the context of morality? Why
have we blended the fact of physical pain with the demand for
a moral explanation? Who decided that pain is immoral? Almost
every atheist or skeptic you read names this as the main reason
for his or her denial of God’s existence. It is said that virtue in
distress and vice in triumph have made atheists of mankind.
New Testament scholar turned skeptic Bart Ehrman is one who
states that this unanswered question precipitated his departure
from faith in Christ. Charles Darwin said it was “the damnable
doctrine of eternal damnation” that ended his faith in God.
Many who survived the Holocaust state that when it was over,
they found they had left their faith in God behind.
We know that in the Judeo-Christian framework, pain is
connected to the reality of evil and to the choices made by
mankind at the beginning of time. The problem of pain and the
problem of evil are inextricably bound. However:

When we assume evil, we assume good.

When we assume good, we assume a moral law.
When we assume a moral law, we assume a moral
lawgiver, but that’s whom the skeptic or atheist is
generally trying to disprove.

Why does assuming a moral law necessitate a moral

lawgiver? Because every time the question of evil is raised, it is
either by a person or about a person. And that implicitly
assumes that the question is a worthy one. But it is a worthy
question only if people have intrinsic worth, and the only
reason people have intrinsic worth is that they are the
creations of One who is of ultimate worth. That person is God.
So the question self-destructs for the naturalist or the
pantheist. The question of the morality of evil or pain is valid
only for a theist.
Only in Christian theism is love preexistent within the
Trinity, which means that love precedes human life and
becomes the absolute value for us. This absolute is ultimately
found only in God, and in knowing and loving him we work our
way through the struggles of pain, knowing of its ultimate
connection to evil and its ultimate destruction by the One who
is all-good and all-loving; who in fact has given us the very
basis for the words good and love both in concept and in
language.
Not far from my home lives a young woman who was born
with a very rare disease called CIPA… congenital insensitivity
to pain with anhydrosis. Imagine having a body that looks
normal and acts normally, except for one thing: You cannot feel
physical pain. That sounds as if it would be a blessing. But the
reason it’s a problem is that she lives under the constant threat
of injuring herself without knowing it. If she steps on a rusty
nail that could infect her bloodstream, she wouldn’t even
realize it by sensation. If she placed her hand on a burning
stove, she would not know she had just burned her hand
except by looking at it. She needs constant vigilance because
she could sustain an injury that could take her life or cause
serious debilitation. When her family was interviewed some
years ago, the line I most remember is the closing statement by
her mother. She said, “I pray every night for my daughter, that
God would give her a sense of pain.”
If that statement were read in a vacuum, we would wonder
what sort of mother she is. But because more than anyone else
she understands the risks of this strange disease, there is no
greater prayer she can pray than that her daughter feel pain
and be able to recognize what it portends.
I ask you this simple question: If, in our finitude, we can
appreciate the value of pain in even one single life, is it that
difficult to grant the possibility that an infinite God can use
pain to point us to a greater malady? We see through a glass
darkly because all we want is to be comfortable. We cannot
understand the great plan of an all-knowing God who brings us
to himself through the value of pain or of disappointment with
pleasure.
James Stewart of Scotland wrote a brilliant passage in one
of his books to describe how, in Christ, we are able to conquer
through the mystery of evil:

It is a glorious phrase—“He led captivity captive.” The very

triumphs of his foes, it means, he used for their defeat. He
compelled their dark achievements to subserve his ends not
theirs. They nailed him to a tree, not knowing that by that very
act they were bringing the world to his feet. They gave him a
cross, not guessing that he would make it a throne. They flung
him outside the city gates to die, not knowing that in that very
moment they were lifting up the gates of the universe, to let the
king come in. They thought to root out his doctrines, not
understanding that they were implanting imperishably in the
hearts of men the very name they intended to destroy. They
thought they had God with his back to the wall, pinned
helpless and defeated: they did not know that it was God
himself who had tracked them down. He did not conquer in
spite of the dark mystery of evil. He conquered through it.3

The very thing that enslaves and traps us becomes the

indicator of our need for God and the means to draw us to the
recognition of our own finitude and to the rescuing grace of
God. The pain of pain clasps the lifesaving hand of God and
draws us into his arms.
In the New Spirituality, “pleasure” and “pain” become
self-reflecting terms from a mirror that deceives and distorts. In
the person of God, our Creator, revealed in Jesus Christ, we see
what legitimate pleasure is and why evil inflicts pain. These real
feelings/experiences point us to our essential worth and to our
calling into an intimate relationship with God. That relationship
has a reach that goes beyond us to others and enjoins a life of
stewardship of all creation, culminating in worship.
We’ll come back to the issue of pain before the end of the
book.
CHAPTER 11
 THE SEARCH FOR JESUS

In the 1980s, I attended a lecture given jointly by Francis

Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, the former surgeon general of
the United States. At that talk, Schaeffer made a comment that
caught me by surprise. He said that the day was coming in the
West when the name of Jesus would not be recognized by the
average young person; and if it were recognized, not a single
historical fact about him would be known. At the time I found
his statement a bit hard to swallow and wondered if he had said
it just to be provocative. But a generation later, it is appearing
to be quite true. I find it rather amazing that the name of Jesus
is used quite regularly in profanity not just in the West, but no
one would dare use the name of Muhammad in the same way.
And of course, no Hindu I know would use the name of any
one of their deities with such disrespect.
Why has Jesus met with such response, especially in a
culture that has benefited so much from his teaching and ought
to know better? The sad reality is that there seems to be very
little understanding today of who Jesus is and of what he
taught. It is said to be better that a speaker not make an
appearance at all than to show up and deliver a bad talk. So it is
with knowledge: It is better to have none at all than to have a
distortion or perversion of what is a fact. In this slippery slope
of the New Spirituality, the numerous voices that have added
to the cacophony have created more of a flea market than a
reservoir of knowledge. Actually, if many of those within the
movement who go under the same banner were to compare
their beliefs, they would mutually destroy one another’s
assumptions. Odd, isn’t it, that with all their stress in the power
of the “now,” they defend it with “ancient wisdom”?
In like manner, there are so many versions of Jesus being
offered up that one has to marvel at the numerous possibilities.
If one accepted all the plots and machinations of fiction writers
creating stories about Mary Magdalene, she would have had
to have been supernatural in order to be in all the locations she
has been placed, all at the same time. The Jesus of the New
Spiritualists is a Jesus of myth, not of fact.
Losing Him
The Jesus of history has suffered at the hands of critics who
wished more than anything else to strip him of his uniqueness
or make his name forgotten. Yet I maintain that the more I look
at the Jesus of history, and the more I see the inspirational
incentive he has been, there is no message as beautiful and
powerful as his. If an honest seeker were to sit down face-to-
face and ask Jesus the questions he or she would like to have
answered, I am convinced that in Jesus’ answers alone the
seeker would find hope for the present and confidence in the
future. At least Jesus offers answers; the New Spiritualists
really don’t have answers. For the most part, they promote
silence, literally and prescriptively.
I was recently listening to a group of mystics discussing
how serene life is when we serve “Mother Earth.” How ironic, I
thought, that following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami
nobody questioned “Mother Earth” or asked where she was in
all this. After all, it was the earth that shook. Strange, is it not,
that those who believe in Mother Earth blame Father God when
Mother Earth misbehaves? Maybe this is the ultimate revenge
for the gender exploitations of the past.
But maybe that is the key to New Age Spirituality. The
answers supplied are only the feelings that one wants to
generate, totally apart from any reasoning. That is not true of
the Jesus of history and the same Jesus of experience. If one
would only give his teaching a fair hearing… But in the volume
of words offered today, history is being repeated.
There are at least three scenes I would like to draw our
attention to in order to demonstrate how the Jesus of history
and the Jesus who offers us life and hope has been lost in the
least expected places. Understanding this will help lead us to
how and where we might find him.
Easy to Happen
When you look back in the Old Testament, you see that in
spite of all the instruction about worship, often repeated, an
astounding loss nevertheless had occurred. All that the priests
could control, they did. All that the ceremonies could control,
they used to their advantage. And when a select or elect few
control and sell salvation, the victim is always the common
person. No religion is spared here. One would think that this
New Spirituality has brought about a new Eden and that its
rivers flow peacefully and calmly. But it is not so… In fact, it
has never been so. Few arenas lend themselves to abuse and
loss as that of religion.
In the enormous temple that Solomon built for the worship
of the one true God, ceremonies were rife. All that glittered was
gold. The largesse represented was almost unprecedented…
the regal splendor of it was proverbial. Worshippers made
pilgrimages to the temple and celebrated key moments in family
life there. But Solomon lost his way, and before long, his
people were like sheep without a shepherd. The temple
remained busy; the ceremonies continued to be celebrated; but
something crucial had been lost.
When Josiah became the king many years later, he
ordered a thorough cleaning of the temple and, lo and behold!
in the midst of that massive cleanup someone found the Book
of the Law, God’s written word to his people, buried in dust
somewhere in a back room. The temple was the place where the
Book of the Law had been valued and protected. But no one
knew it was even there. And saddest of all, they hadn’t missed
it. This meant that people were still going to the temple to pray,
but God was no longer in their midst and they didn’t even
know it. They were, in effect, talking to themselves. They went
to listen, but the book was missing, so there was no one to
speak to them. They were sitting in an echo chamber, listening
only to themselves. There was no ear to hear them and no
voice to speak to them. They lived their lives and carried out
their ceremonies of worship in a vacuum.
It is hard to imagine how something like that could have
happened. But it has happened repeatedly in history. Someone
has said that the main thing in life is to keep the main thing, the
main thing… because there are always multiple options vying
to replace the main thing.
This is how the Bible describes the startling find in 2
Kings 22:8–10:

Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have

found the Book of the Law in the temple of the LORD.” He gave
it to Shaphan, who read it. Then Shaphan the secretary went to
the king and reported to him: “Your officials have paid out the
money that was in the temple of the LORD and have entrusted it
to the workers and supervisors at the temple.” Then Shaphan
the secretary informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given
me a book.” And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the
king. (NIV)

Imagine the scene. That which was the most sacred

depository had been lost… lost in the very place that had been
erected to guard that trust. The king was overcome with
emotion at the find. He gathered an assembly of his people and
read the book aloud to them. The long-lost treasure had been
rediscovered, and there was a time of national repentance
before God. It would have been one thing if they had lost the
Book of the Law while traveling, or had hidden it someplace for
“safekeeping” and the location of its hiding place had been
forgotten over years. But to lose it in the temple itself?
The Word of God that was referred to as the Law had
been the guiding light and wisdom for generation after
generation. It had been a little over seven hundred years since
the people had returned from captivity in Egypt. The same
Book of the Law had been read to the people as they reentered
their homeland in Joshua’s time, and they were reminded to
teach it to their children and to the generations that were to
come so that they would never forget how they had been
rescued by God against all odds and brought back from
captivity. This Book of the Law contained God’s instruction to
them for life, following their redemption.
I cannot ignore the need to make an observation here:
Look over the world today and observe how many wars are
being fought because of border disputes. How interesting that
we consider these wars over boundaries legitimate, but we do
not wish to allow God the prerogative to establish boundaries
for us.
When I was a child, I often played marbles with my
friends. There was a set of rules for the game, but one of my
friends introduced a new rule into the game, captured in two
words: “Everything mine!” The rule was that whoever was the
first to shout “Everything mine” became the determiner of what
rules applied, and when. Even a game of marbles loses its fun
when the rules apply only at one person’s whim. Our world has
rejected the transcendent law and is trying to play the game
according to the rule of “everything mine.” But when two
“mines” collide, if one would pardon the pun, we find
ourselves walking through a minefield of horror.
In the time following Solomon, each person began to do
what was right in his own eyes. It was indeed a time of
“everything mine.” Gradually, the teaching of the Law was lost,
and with society in total chaos, it took a massive cleaning of
the temple, led by a young monarch, to even find this
document.
I will never forget the first time I visited Russia during the
days of the Cold War. I attended an old historic church in the
city of Leningrad, which is now called St. Petersburg. I watched
as people came in for the service, most of them quite elderly.
When the pastor began to speak, my wife and I observed as
one elderly woman carefully unfolded layers of old cloth in her
lap until she finally held a Bible in her hands. She clasped it so
tenderly, as one would the most precious and fragile treasure.
She was one of very few people in the church who even had a
Bible. That was more than twenty years ago.
A few short days ago, I addressed a packed auditorium in
Moscow. The man introducing me said, “Not too long ago, if
you had come to Moscow the only Bible you were likely to
have seen would have been in the museum. Today, in this
auditorium alone there are at least a thousand Bibles. What a
great thing has happened in our country!” The audience broke
into a thunderous applause.
I sat there and pondered what America would be like
today if we had been without the Bible for ninety years. It has
been the beautiful teaching of the Word of God across time
that has given this nation its ethos. It was this Word of God
that put a song into the hearts of slaves during their darkest
days. It was this Word of God that gave William Wilberforce in
England the conviction and the courage to speak out against
slavery and sustained him in the long struggle to see it
abolished in the British Commonwealth. It was this same Word
of God that inspired Martin Luther King Jr. in his pursuit of
civil liberty. It was from the sermon Jesus preached, recorded in
this Word of God as the Sermon on the Mount, that Mahatma
Gandhi often quoted. And this same Word of God has
transformed the life of many a prisoner, and of many others I
could tell of, from some of the darkest parts of the world where
the light of God’s Word has shone. The New Spiritualists
would do well to read the Word of God again without prejudice
and find in there the treasure that God has given to all of us.
Any nation that neglects teaching the sacredness of life
and the family does so at its own peril. Any nation that
sanctions the removal of God’s boundaries will destroy its
own.
I remember asking a Hindu and a Muslim in Canada why
they sent their children to a Christian school rather than a
public one. They both in effect answered the question the
same way: “At least in the Christian school they will learn that
values are something very sacred and will not be taught
according to secular values.” “We would rather point them to
the God we believe in than have to prove to them that God
exists,” said one. What an interesting take on valueless,
godless secularism! When the Word of God is lost, the basis of
the sacred is lost and anything goes.
One of the all-time greatest books was written by John
Bunyan. I believe that other than the Bible, it has been
translated into more languages than any other book. I am
referring, of course, to The Pilgrim’s Progress. In it, Pilgrim
struggles through life with his burden, going through the
testing of Vanity Fair, the Slough of Despond, and so on. It is
only when he reaches the foot of the cross at the top of the hill
that his burden falls off him. But the journey doesn’t end there.
He is met by the “Three Shining Ones”: The first is the Angel
of the Dawn, who greets him with the words “Your sins are
forgiven.” The second is the Angel of the Daylight, who strips
him of his rags and gives him a new set of clothes. The third is
the Angel of the Dusk, who points the way for Pilgrim to the
gate of the Celestial City. This third angel also puts a mark on
his forehead and gives him a scroll so that he will have a map
to guide him on his way. The first angel meets his spiritual
need, the second addresses his physical needs, and the third
engages his intellectual needs and gives him tools to help and
instruct him along the journey.
The Christian’s walk involves all three areas of life—the
spiritual, the practical, and the intellectual. These are not
mutually exclusive. God is an immensely practical Being, but he
also guides us with reason and wisdom. God’s Word is the
scroll given to us to inform, enrich, teach, correct, and guide us
to the celestial city. If we lose that Word, we have lost the light
that guides us on the journey.
Incredible That It Happened
The second scene I want to bring before us is told in Luke’s
Gospel:

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of

the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to
the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was
over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus
stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.
Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day.
Then they began looking for him among their relatives and
friends. When they did not find him, they went back to
Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in
the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them
and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was
amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his
parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him,
“Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have
been anxiously searching for you.”
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you
know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not
understand what he was saying to them. (2:41–50 NIV)

His parents had gone through all the ceremonial

requirements and were heading home. It is ironic to me that it
was Passover time, the time when the lambs were sacrificed for
the forgiveness of sin, the foreshadowing of the ultimate
sacrifice of Jesus himself. I wonder what questions Jesus asked
these intellectuals. We are told they were amazed. It wasn’t
until dusk on the first day of their journey home that his
parents realized Jesus wasn’t with them. This could easily have
happened. These were times when family and friends traveled
together in caravans, and it was a very festive time for the
nation. One can only imagine how heartsick and frantic Mary
and Joseph must have been as they hurried back to Jerusalem.
Not until after three days of increasingly desperate searching
did they finally find Jesus in the temple, which was actually
where they had last seen him.
Their immediate reaction was to reprimand him… If you
are a parent, I’m sure you can understand how they were
feeling. “Why were you searching for me?” he asked them.
“Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” And the
Scripture tells us they didn’t understand why he said what he
did and what exactly he meant by it.
This is an amazing question for him to have asked them:
“Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” Deepak
Chopra’s thesis that Jesus attained “God-consciousness” is
just wishful thinking on his part. It is evident from this passage
that Jesus early on knew who he was. Whether it was at his
baptism by John the Baptist, at the wedding in Cana where he
turned water into wine, or at the seashore where he called his
disciples; whether it was when he cleansed the temple of that
which profaned it or when he stood before the high priests at
his mock trial or before Pontius Pilate; he knew who he was. In
fact, when he overturned the tables of hucksters and peddlers
of religion who were using the temple as a hangout for money-
making crooks exploiting those beguiled by mere ceremony, he
used the same expression: “my Father’s house.”
This is not a “higher consciousness” he is referring to.
This is a literal, physical place of prayer and worship that he
uniquely and assuredly calls “my Father’s house.” It is
interesting that when he taught his disciples to pray, he began
with “Our Father,” but when he cleansed the temple, he
referred to it as “my Father’s House.”
New Age Spirituality keeps losing Jesus because it
reduces him to just another voice and just another teacher or
master. No other claimant referred to the temple in the first
person singular. This was a house of prayer for all nations. But
it was also the place where God had said he would meet with
them as a community. The boy Jesus was lost in the very place
where he was found. I shall say more on this later and on the
fault of Christendom at large for this great and costly loss.
It Happens All the Time
First, missing the Word; second, missing the Son. Now third,
missing the Truth.
There is a third scene. This of all scenarios takes place
when the three factors of religious authority, cultural practice,
and political power converge. In John’s Gospel, chapter 18,
once again it is Passover time. Jesus is not a boy now. He is a
full-grown man, and his work is about to come to an end. The
religious leaders are at their most powerful and most self-
impressed at this nationally important time of the year as they
lead the nation in their ceremonial worship. Cultural
expressions come into play, including a custom that granted
one prisoner special grace, someone guilty of petty crimes,
practices that the culture deemed a violation of their
convictions, or even a hard-core criminal.
It is during this time that Jesus is brought before Pilate,
who is engaged in a tug-of-war between Caesar and the
religious authorities in Judea who threatened Pilate with
disloyalty to Caesar if he did not give them their way with
Jesus. If they could persuade Pilate that Jesus was seditious
and a religious extremist standing against Roman authority,
they could accomplish their goals to do away with him,
justifying his death with sound political reasoning.
At the end of John 18 we find Jesus standing bound
before Pilate. Pilate tries to engage Jesus by asking him if he is
indeed the king of the Jews (v. 33). Jesus very shrewdly asks
him whether his question is genuine or he has been set up for
it. I have said on numerous occasions that intent precedes
content. Pilate, somewhat exasperated, tells him that though he
has had nothing to do with Jesus’ arrest, his future is now in
Pilate’s hands. Isn’t this the arrogance with which political
rulers and media pundits live? We see articles, especially
around Christmas and Easter, asking, “Is there a future for
God?” It is also the question Stalin and Mao asked and
answered in the negative. They are both gone, and the Church
in China is the strongest it has ever been, while much of the
same is happening in Russia. The question should really be
whether, apart from God, there is any future for humanity.
Jesus’ response to Pilate’s question is profound. “My
kingdom is not of this world,” he says (John 18:36 NIV).
“You are a king, then!” comes Pilate’s triumphant
response (v. 37 NIV). This is something he can wrest to his
advantage.
Jesus replies, “In fact, the reason I was born and came
into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of
truth listens to me.” (v. 37 NIV).
“What is truth?” asks Pilate in disgust, and he walks away
(v. 38 NIV).
I have to think that this is one of the most defining
moments in the Bible. Pause and put this in context. In the
prophecy of Isaiah, we read, “For to us a child is born, to us a
son is given” (9:6 NIV). Note carefully that the Son is not born:
The Son eternally existed.
Note now that Jesus says, “The reason I was born…” The
incarnation of Jesus did not create him; it brought him down
into the context of our human condition. He did not need to
attain God-consciousness; he was God in the flesh, the
incarnate expression of God. He did not reach a pinnacle by
doing what he did; it was because of “who” he already was
that he did what he did. In fact, in the book of Philippians we
are told that although Jesus “existed in the form of God, [he]
did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped” (2: 6
NASB ). The very thing the New Spiritualists make of him, a man
who has attained God-consciousness (Chopra in particular), is
specifically denied in the Scriptures. The Bible goes on to say
in Hebrews 1 that in previous times God had spoken to us
through his prophets, but now in the latter days, he has
spoken to us through his Son: The “Word of God” had become
“flesh” and lived among us.
The people to whom the Word and God’s miracles were
given lost him in the bustle of ceremony. His parents lost Jesus
because they didn’t completely understand who he was. Now
we have lost him because we prefer to live a lie rather than the
truth; we prefer to believe that we are gods ourselves when, in
truth, we are the glory of creation gone wrong. We have set up
a context of rebellion within ourselves against him and are
therefore no longer on the side of truth. Jesus makes a
sweeping statement that our true intentions regarding truth or
falsehood are revealed by what we do with him.
If there is any passage of Scripture that accurately
describes our modern-day contempt for truth, our attachment
to power, and our voluntary surrender to culture, it is this. It is
not accidental that religious authorities, political appointees,
and cultural symbols have come together to crucify him once
again in our day. Barabbas was released… a cultural practice
was fulfilled. “We have a law”… political correctness was
enjoined. “He claims to be the Son of God… kill him”… all at
the behest and with the blessing of religion. The irony is that
he wanted to be owned by none of the three: culture, politics,
or religion.
It is very easy to lose Jesus in the plethora of temple
practices. It is easy to lose him in the busyness of our family
lives. It is easy to limit him in the name of our laws. This is the
strongest indictment I make against the New Spirituality. They
have violated the true Jesus and formed him in their own image.
While exalting themselves, they have denigrated him. Against
the backdrop and the evolving ethics of a culture that is lost,
the New Spirituality has manipulated the text of Scripture,
ignored history with redefinitions of their own to leverage
cultural desires to their own advantage. Consider the cultural
hits they take at Christianity, which gain them a hearing from
the same ones who would like to reject Christianity because of
their own moral choices.
Not only did culture, politics, and religion or spirituality
come together to kill Jesus, ironically, only in him do the Word,
the flesh, and the absolute come together. John says in the first
chapter of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God… [And] the Word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen
his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from
the Father, full of grace and truth” (vv. 1, 14 NIV).
In this one passage, the Gospel writer shatters the false
beliefs of the Gnostics and the legalists. The incarnation of
Jesus showed that the flesh was not corrupt, though it was
corruptible. Jesus showed us that “in the flesh” we could see
the glory of God. How wonderful it is that all that is lost can be
found in him, through grace. Today we are a little more
sophisticated than Jesus’ parents. We do not lose him in
places; we evict him from our lives and justify it with ideas.
CHAPTER 12
 RESHAPING JESUS TO SUIT OUR
PREJUDICES

The Distorted Jesus

There is something very clever about the way the New
Spiritualists deal with the Bible. A look at the extensive reading
list on spirituality in Elizabeth Lesser’s book betrays the
prejudice. As I already noted, among the numerous books of
Eastern authorship, C. S. Lewis is the only author listed who
has a high view of the Bible. So when it comes to the Old and
New Testaments, this amazing annotation comes from Lesser:

Any modern traveler in the Landscape of the Soul will find the
holy books of Judaism and Christianity helpful in two distinct
ways. First, they explain the Western psyche and worldview;
and second, they offer some of the most inspiring teachings
and parables ever written.1

“First, they explain the Western psyche and worldview.”

What an incredible statement to make by one who supposedly
displays scholarship. The Bible is an Eastern book about an
Eastern people. Explaining Western psyche by reading the
Bible, except as the Bible has influenced Western thought and
culture, is to explain Eastern psyche by reading The Book of
Mormon. This is the hermeneutical distortion that pervades so
much of the New Spirituality. But there’s a clue here. These are
really psychologists masquerading as linguists and
theologians. There are strains of William James and Carl
Gustav Jung and others as well in what they say. This is
precisely what Sri Sri Ravi Shankar does to a greater degree
and Vivekananda does to a lesser degree. In one sense it is not
fair to Vivekananda to put him in with this group. Vivekananda
was a real scholar, but his forays into the explanation of Jesus
give impetus to those of lesser credentials.
The Non-Crucified Jesus
The musings of Eckhart Tolle reveal the same word games
when it comes to the historical Jesus. Tolle is the master of
saying nothing while the masses sit and gaze at him in awe. I
find it hard to believe that his pronouncements on life’s
deepest issues are actually taken with any seriousness by his
readers. That is as kindly as I can state it. Here is his treatment
of the phrase “the way of the cross”:

There are many accounts of people who say they have found
God through their deep suffering, and there is the Christian
expression “the way of the cross,” which I suppose points to
the same thing… Strictly speaking, they did not find God
through their suffering… I don’t call it finding God, because
how can you find that which was never lost, the very life that
you are? The word God is limiting not only because of
thousands of years of misperception and misuse, but also
because it implies an entity other than you. God is Being itself,
not a being. There can be no subject-object relationship here,
no duality, no you and God… The worst thing in your life,
your cross, turns into the best thing that ever happened to
you, by forcing you into surrender, into “death,” forcing you
to become as nothing, to become as God—because God, too, is
nothing.2

I remember in my teens listening to a sermon titled

“Something About Nothing.” As we walked out of the church,
and everyone was secretly wondering what on earth that was
about, one man leaned forward and whispered into my ear, “At
least he warned us about the content.” Tolle is the most
verbose writer on “nothing” one can read. But he sure does it
well. By the time you finish the book you are no longer in the
same “now” as when you started, and, fascinatingly, you are
no longer the same “you” who began it. Such discussions,
once saved for comedian Bob Newhart in his comedy routine
as a psychiatrist, now are mass-marketed as brilliance and
enlightenment.
The Nonjudgmental Jesus
Of course, Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God
could not possibly come in one volume: It required three
volumes. Obviously, he wasn’t just living in the now. He
alerted us that there would be a “then.” Can you figure out
why? The answer is not hard. But Walsch claims to be
speaking for God. This is probably the ultimate Screwtape
scenario in its most seductive form. At least in Lewis’s
Screwtape Letters we knew who Screwtape was. In
Conversations with God, we are given the ultimate lie that this
is God or a surrogate for God, at best, speaking. Below is one
conversation Walsch imagines:

“Why did you create two sexes?… How should we deal with
this incredible experience called sexuality?”
[God’s answer from Walsch’s pen:] “Not with shame,
that’s for sure. And not with guilt, and not with fear….
Personal gratification has got a bad rap through the years,
which is the main reason so much guilt is attached to sex…
Practice saying this ten times each day: I LOVE SEX… I LOVE
MONEY… I LOVE ME! Religion would have you take its word
for it. That is why all religions ultimately fail! Spirituality on
the other hand, will always succeed. Self-denial is
destruction.”3

In a section where, in effect, Hitler is given a pass into

heaven, the chapter ends with “God” speaking thus:

Shall you then condemn Adam and Eve, or thank them? And
what, say you, shall I do with Hitler? I tell you this: God’s love
and God’s compassion, God’s wisdom and God’s forgiveness,
God’s intention and God’s purpose, are large enough to
include the most heinous crime and the most heinous criminal.
You may not agree with this, but it does not matter. You
have just learned what you came here to discover.4

There are other supposed discussions with God in

Walsch’s book that I would not even quote. It is the new
brash, crude, and vulgar way of desensitizing us to the sacred
and deforming our mind-set, all in the name of “God talk.”
But then again, it is not quite original. When society
ceases to think rationally, and when passions reign supreme to
overthrow everything that stands in the way of our autonomy,
then the more radical the teaching, the more coverage it gets.
The more coverage it gets, the more famous the propagators
become. The more famous they become, the less respect they
have for anyone who doesn’t agree with them. Their arrogance
becomes self-deification. The “noble” stance of not judging
anything or anyone has truly eradicated distinctions, and
words are used to tell us there is really no particular meaning to
anything. This line of reasoning also reflects their spiritual
sources.
Let me end this section with a quote from the Gita, which
reflects Donald Walsch’s ideas, centuries ago:

Whatever happened is good.

Whatever is happening is also good.
Whatever will happen, that also will be good.
What did you lose that you are crying for?
What did you bring which you have lost?
What have you created that is destroyed?
Whatever you have taken is taken only from here.
Whatever you have given is given only from here.
Whatever is yours today will belong to somebody else
tomorrow.
This inevitable change is the law of the universe and the
object of my creation. (Krishna)

Disregard all the tenses, Tolle notwithstanding, and you

have here the erosion of moral categories: In Tolle, you have
the erosion of temporal categories; in Walsch, the erosion of
essential categories; and in all the writers of the New
Spirituality, ultimately the erosion of moral absolutes. This is a
deadly word game at work. Morality, time, essence, absolutes
—all are gone by the wayside in the name of spirituality. What
is left but to deny anyone who still holds to those distinctions.
So, refashion Jesus.
The Nonexclusive Jesus
Elizabeth Lesser writes from the perspective of her own
spiritual journey that there’s no need to limit your source of
wisdom to one tradition or even to religion at all… that what
resonates with your own experience is enough to spur you on
to discovering “the vast and unified and fundamental
consciousness” that she calls God.5
This is the ultimate knife put to the heart of
transcendence. You are the transcendent one. You determine
that there is no God out there. You are the ultimate alpha and
omega. You select what suits you best. Says who? Not
necessarily you, but “they.”
Enlightened Jesus
I would have to say that if there is one book that most displays
the distortion of the thinking behind the New Spirituality, it is
Deepak Chopra’s most unfortunate book The Third Jesus. It is
a book that ought never to have been written. I will have to beg
indulgence here because it is not often that I react as strongly
to another’s point of view, but it has been a long time since I
have read such an ill-directed work on so lofty a theme. He is
outside his league here. Frankly, time and again he betrays his
ignorance of both the text and the context, and I dare say of the
languages of the text. One has to wonder whether he had
surrogate writers because the references often reveal more of
how little he actually knows on the subject than of what he
knows.
But before we even get into his text, I have some
questions. First, the book is dedicated to “the Irish Christian
Brothers in India who introduced me to Jesus when I was a
little boy.” Is the Jesus they introduced him to the Jesus of his
text?
Next take a look at the endorsements in the book. There is
not one author in that long list of names who actually believes
the Bible is the Word of God. I may as well write a critique of
Hinduism and ask Muslim scholars to endorse it. To have
Bishop Spong endorsing a book on Jesus borders on comedy.
And if Spong’s endorsement of Chopra’s Jesus means
anything, then his own thesis on Jesus in the books he has
written is wrong.
But all of this is part of the packaging of Chopra. So let’s
get on with the substance. Why does he title the book The
Third Jesus? According to Chopra, “The historical Jesus has
been lost… swept away by history.” He says that “the first
Jesus was a rabbi who wandered the shores of northern Galilee
many centuries ago.” According to Chopra, the first Jesus is
less than consistent in his teachings, “as a closer reading of
the gospels will show… And yet,” he says, “the more
contradictions we unearth, the less mythical this Jesus
becomes…. As one famous Indian spiritual teacher once said,
‘The measurement of enlightenment is how comfortable you
feel with your own contradictions.’ ”6
What is Chopra saying? He demeans the actions and
sayings of Jesus by calling them “contradictory” while
inferring that this is a positive attribute. The New Spiritualists
are the ones who accuse those who are rationally driven of
holding too narrow a view of life, but they are not slow to hurl
the charge of contradiction at Christianity. And Chopra
doesn’t mean it to be something positive when he accuses
Christianity of contradictions. But once again, he gives himself
an escape hatch by throwing in the quote: “The measurement
of enlightenment is how comfortable you feel with your own
contradictions.”
One can only shake one’s head and ask how it is even
possible to think in these terms. But this is vintage Deepak
Chopra. And supposedly, he understands what he is talking
about. So he continues:

Millions of people worship another Jesus… who never existed,

who doesn’t even lay claim to the fleeting substance of the
first Jesus. This is the Jesus built up over thousands of years
by theologians and other scholars… the Holy Ghost, the
Three-in-One Christ, the source of sacraments and prayers that
were unknown to the rabbi Jesus when he walked the earth…
the Prince of Peace over whom bloody wars have been fought.
This second Jesus cannot be embraced without embracing
theology first.
The second Jesus leads us into the wilderness without a
clear path out. He became the foundation of a religion that has
proliferated into some twenty thousand sects [that] argue
endlessly over every thread in the garments of a ghost…. Yet
in his name Christianity pronounces on homosexuality, birth
control, and abortion.7

I cannot resist a comment here. Such arrant nonsense from

the pen of an educated man is unfathomable. It is actually
deplorable and manipulative. “The Holy Ghost, the Three-in-
One Christ.” I am not at all sure what he is referring to. Who
made Jesus the Holy Ghost? Christ never claimed to be three-
in-one. Chopra doesn’t seem to understand that they are
distinct personages. I might add that if he is criticizing the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity, as he seems to be, and he
finds it difficult to believe in “three-in-one,” how is it that he
has no problem believing that all of humanity is One? And
when he ran into problematic explanations of certain behaviors
in the gurus, he tells us that each of them is actually three-in-
one. (This is relayed in more detail in Chapter 13.)
Further, is it reasonable to suppose that Chopra, a medical
doctor, an ethicist, and a person who believes every human
has the spark of divinity within them, has no pronouncements
on abortion? Coming from a country with such a huge
population, he has nothing to say about birth control? You can
be absolutely sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that Chopra
knows exactly what he is appealing to here. Does he not know
the difference between Catholic and Protestant doctrines?
These comments are stabs in the backs of his “Irish Christian
Brothers.”
The intellectual side of his statement is empty. Mr. Chopra
is blatantly resorting to cultural provocation while disguising
irrational deductions in vacuous meaning. What has this
theological Christ got to do with these issues? He knows
exactly what. These are the issues that prompt those who do
not want any view on sexuality or abortion brought to bear on
their own private choices to despise Christianity. What better
way can he find to make his thesis sound plausible to them
than to introduce a caricature of that which is the source of
their rejection? For a man positing Sanatan Dharma, there is a
heavy dose of hate-provocation at work underlying his
pronouncements. I would like to hear him instead respond to
the famed Indian guru Swami Ramdev, who pronounced
homosexuality as a mental illness and declared he can cure
cancer through yoga. Interesting that these swamis and gurus
get a pass on such pronouncements. Don’t be fooled by
Chopra’s use of serene terminology. It is obvious what
communication skill he is utilizing.
According to Chopra, these two versions of Jesus that he
has invented, what he calls the “sketchy historical figure and
the abstract theological creation,” have stolen from the world
“something precious: The Jesus who taught his followers how
to reach God-consciousness.”8 It is appalling to even think
that an honest scholar would denude the Christ of history of
his authenticity and then complain that those who believe in
that historical Christ have stolen something precious from him.
But in the introduction of his book he laid the groundwork
for his deduction, categorically declaring that Jesus did not
physically descend from God, nor did he return to heaven to sit
at the right hand of God. He states that what made Jesus the
Son of God was that he achieved God-consciousness, which,
he says, Jesus himself affirmed over and over again by
declaring that he and the Father are one.9
Such a thesis presented in the name of scholarship would
never have been taken seriously in a school that respects the
integrity of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the science of
interpretation that seeks to wrestle honestly with the text from
its history and grammar. Let me just posit three things for
starters, to show how uninformed Dr. Chopra is.
First, Chopra comments that Jesus said “over and over,…
‘The Father and I are one.’ ” He uses this text to sustain his
claim that Jesus “attained” God-consciousness. Really? Did
Jesus use this phrase “over and over”?” He stated it once and
only once, in the Gospel of John. Not only that, the context in
which he said it was that he (Jesus) is the only way to the
Father.
Chopra’s manipulation of these texts to make them say
what he wants them to say is no different from his manipulation
of Hinduism, borrowing from its underpinnings to make his
Sanatan Dharma appear eclectic and uncategorized. But there is
more. To sustain his thesis that this “third” Jesus attained
enlightenment, he misuses scores of passages from the New
Testament, the very source he has already disparaged by
denying that we really know anything about the historic Jesus.
So which is it? Are these passages true or not? If they are true
enough for him to use as references for his theory, why does
he insist their context is not true in what they say about Jesus?
Let me put it differently. It would be like me saying that the
Vedas are historically suspect and unreliable and then using
those same Vedas to prove that Jesus is the truth.
His inaccuracies continue. His description of Jesus as the
Son of Man betrays a total ignorance of the technical nature of
that title. In short, the new Sanatan Dharma spirituality that he
espouses by reducing the Jesus of history to his own distorted
hermeneutical mold is reflective of a dishonest scholarship that
cannot have it both ways. He cannot use the text to prove his
point and reject the text in order to create his book.
Then he hides inside a universal solvent ideology that
can’t be stored anywhere. This is typical of the New
Spirituality writers when they like to suggest that their
teachings also incorporate the Bible. He begins his chapter on
“Karma—Sowing and Reaping” by saying that finding out how
much Jesus has to say about karma was a great surprise to him
in writing this book. The primary tenet of karma, he says, is that
every action works like a seed that sprouts and brings fruit in
the form of a result. Once again, Chopra plays with doctrines.
That “primary” tenet of karma is not merely a connection
between sowing and reaping, but is woven into the systemic
belief that every birth is a rebirth. Into the belief that every
birth is a rebirth, the karmic cycle is introduced. He ends his
section on karma by first quoting Matthew 11:30: “For my yoke
is easy, and my burden is light,” and then saying that Jesus
promised his followers there would be no work in heaven, the
greater implication being that karma would no longer exist,
based on his own experience in heaven, and on Chopra’s belief
that the English word yoke comes from the same root word as
yoga… “union with God.”10
This is such pathetic nonsense I’m surprised he didn’t
say that this is a demonstration that Jesus also believed in a
weightloss program, since his “burden is light.”
 Second, Chopra engages in a classic misuse of sources.
He intermixes apocryphal writings with Gnostic writings, and,
frankly, I’m not sure what some of his sources are for what he
says. A quotation he claims is from the “Gospel of Thomas,”
which has 114 verses, he footnotes as “verse 144, 172 et al.”;
some of the other quotes he uses find no parallel in any
translation. There are no such verses. Unless he has his own
version, there is none that matches these quotes, even
remotely. It could be, of course, that some research person
gave him this information and Chopra didn’t even know that
there are only 114 verses in the so-called “Gospel of Thomas,”
which is actually not a Gospel and most certainly is not by
Thomas.
Third, Chopra is most distorted in his interpretations when
he comes to the hard passages. In John 14:6–7, Jesus says, “I
am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know
my Father as well. From now on you do know him and have
seen him” (NIV). Jesus said these words in the context that he
was preparing heaven for his followers and his followers for
heaven. Chopra’s comment on this verse is that the Gospel
writer was trying to confirm Jesus as Messiah beyond dispute,
as the resurrection was a fading memory after the destruction
of the temple in Jerusalem.
Where does he get the idea that the resurrection was a
fading memory? Does he not realize that the message of the
resurrection was about to conquer Rome when this Gospel was
written, to say nothing of its impact over the entire region? In
effect, he is saying that Jesus never spoke these words, that
John manufactured this verse. Chopra is all at sea here. It
seems to matter nothing what Jesus says or affirms or declares;
in Chopra’s vocabulary, “higher consciousness” is the escape
button, because that’s where he wants to take us. He does the
same thing again with the most familiar passages, such as John
3:16, which says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his
one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish
but have eternal life” (NIV). Chopra changes the context and
makes it a pretext again to reduce the truth into something that
can serve his intended ends.
I wonder if he would do such a thing with the Koran? Call
it intellectual cowardice or hypocrisy or both, but his tactic of
distorting the New Testament to prove his point is actually
self-stultifying. Unfortunately, he attains his goal of deceiving
those who don’t know any better. His is not inductive or
deductive reasoning. It is fuzzy logic garnered to suit an end in
view.
Leveling (Actually, Tilting) the
Playing Field
See the New Age Spirituality for what it is; a systemic
methodology of appealing to a cultural mind-set that despises
certain things and that follows a reductionistic approach that
actually distorts any claimant to truth that differs from those
the New Spirituality endorses in order to make them all say the
same thing. This is the goal of the New Spirituality. Bring
everything to the same level. There is a clear agenda. In their
deep prejudice against Christianity, advocates of the New
Spirituality malign the Christ of history in order to remake him
into an image that is consistent with their ideas.
In his one-volume brief synopsis of spiritual writers, 50
Spiritual Classics, English author Tom Butler-Bowdon reveals
this prejudice even more clearly. From covering all kinds of
extreme positions on spirituality, including that of Ram Dass,
and giving them all a pass even in their dangerous
recommendations, he nevertheless finds enough in his pen to
cast in negative light any Christian writer who holds to
salvation through Christ.
Some readers may remember that Ram Dass is actually Dr.
Richard Alpert, former professor of psychology at Harvard. In
the 1960s he became a drinking buddy of Timothy Leary and
discovered getting high on the black mushrooms in Mexico.
Alpert and Leary, along with Aldous Huxley, acquired a
synthetic form of this “magic” mushroom, psilocybin, which
they said produced within them visions and helped them
experience the “I” behind the facade of knowledge, the “I” of
timeless awareness. This was just what Alpert had been
looking for. Leaving his position at Harvard, he backpacked
through India and met up with another American, a guru named
Bhagwan Dass. Bhagwan Dass (we are never given his
American name) introduced Richard Alpert to the teaching of
“the Now” in his pre-Tolle version, and Richard Alpert was
“delivered” from his “sheer rationality based thinking” into a
new consciousness and became Ram Dass. Ram Dass, whose
name means “servant of Ram,” the Hindu deity, came under the
tutelage of Bhagwan Dass, whose name means “servant of
God.” He was moved, in his words, “beyond personality to
consciousness” and “beyond rationality.” Ram Dass went on
to write a book titled Be Here Now: A Cookbook for a Sacred
Life, in which he talks of the means of “awakening, from
meditation to fasting to drugs.”11
Many readers may not be aware that a vast majority of the
men in India’s holy city of Varanasi are knocked out on drugs
during Shivratri, a euphoric celebration of the third member of
the Hindu Trimurti, Shiva the Destroyer. The night is spent in a
drug-indulging stupor, no doubt Ram Dass’s kind of
celebration. I mention this because Butler-Bowden goes on to
say that Ram Dass’s book is “one of the outstanding works of
spiritual transformation” that “reminds us of Augustine.”12 It is
really too bad that Augustine is not here to request that his
name be removed from this list.
Regarding Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, Butler-
Bowden’s critique is that some readers will be offended by the
Christian fundamentalist posture of the book. He finds
Warren’s statement that one is saved only through faith in
Christ “a little threatening” and takes issue with Warren for not
giving credence to other faiths or traditions. “Religious fervor
is one thing,” he says, “but denying the truth of other beliefs is
what makes The Purpose Driven Life seem, in places, quite
narrow.” He also takes great offense at Warren’s support of
missions, or of taking the message of Christ to other people in
other areas of the world.13
Butler-Bowdon’s discussion of the meaning and
application of C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters is very shallow,
and he challenges the reader to lift it beyond its narrow
confines into their own. One gets accustomed to seeing these
comments reserved for Christian thinkers/writers and to
laments that the Christ of history and experience is lost in their
writings, and to the most pejorative words being reserved for
those who follow Christ.
Here is the summary of it all: If you take all the religions of
the world and all the claimants to divine or prophetic status
and make them all equal (but the theistic ones less equal), then
you have at work a false induction, which takes you through
the seductive use of language and reduces spirituality to a
pragmatic mysticism until it deduces that, after all, there is only
One. And that One is you. The playing field is not level. It is
tilted against any monotheistic faith and is pantheistic in its
determined starting and ending points. Writers such as Butler-
Bowdon are really not presenters of classics… they are
ideologically driven and cannot resist reserving their sharpest
barbs for Christianity.
But notice the genius. By wresting a cultural tension to
their advantage, be it the environment or sexuality or gender
conflict or political correctness, they engender a negative
attitude toward anything that smacks of the “old authorities”
(unless they are pantheistic) or of absolutes, and find then a
heart ready to rebel into autonomy. The New Spirituality
encourages a unified theory of God, which is actually a
nondefined entity, a made-to-measure religion for each and
every person. But don’t be fooled by this “Let’s get together”
spiritual talk. The reason there are so many movements and
voices and organizations and treatment centers and retreat
places is that they do not believe their own communal theory
of spirituality. It is truly a case of each one with his or her
personal brand of spirituality, grabbing the newest ancient
source to appear more esoteric than the next. What is lost, in
the end, is any distinction between God, humanity, and the
animal world. That is why all these definitions appeal to
intuition gained through introspection. The New Spirituality
will have its shelf life, and it, too, will someday suffer the same
fate as Christianity when it became commercialized.
The apostle Paul summarized this ploy two thousand
years ago in his letter to the Romans when he said:

Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his

eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made, so that people are
without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither
glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking
became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although
they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the
glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal
human being and birds and animals and reptiles. (1:20–23 NIV)
There Is a Reason
Before offering a brief critique of the New Spirituality, I must
say there are some areas in which the Church must bear some
of the blame for the discredit that has been brought to her by
the New Spiritualists:

1. Churches that do justice to the message of Christ and

his claim upon our lives are rare. “Churches,” said one critic to
me, “are country clubs for the nice people… they are really not
so nice to everyone else.” I have to admit that I’ve personally
sat through some large gatherings of Christians after which I
have walked out and wondered what I would have thought of
Christianity if that was what I had heard before I came to
Christ. For the most part there is a huge gap between the
preaching and worship of today and what faith in Christ and
the worship of God were intended to be.
I am afraid that the forms and the programs have
commandeered the message of Jesus into a kind of show and
entertainment mold, where the congregants are merely
spectators who have come to watch a show. I have friends who
stand outside the churches they attend during the music
because it is too deafening inside to endure. But they enjoy the
preaching side of it and so step into the church at that time.
Others tell me that they have stopped going to church because
there is absolutely no substance to anything that is being
taught. Still others tell me that after they had stumbled and
fallen into a lifestyle or found themselves in a situation they
had never wanted to be in, they ended up in a church. Hoping
for healing and a chance to rebuild, they instead were
pummeled with more and more guilt. “Stumble here and you’ve
had it,” said one to me. One said, “I know the Lord hates
divorce. Every person who has experienced divorce hates it,
too. But why does the church hate the divorced person?” A
probing question that brings tears to the one who asks it and
should to the one of whom it is asked.
The legalism of the Church has disenfranchised so many
that the Church has found itself speaking to just the handful
who still agree with its castigations and have lost the many
who need its healing message of love. But let me add here that
this is not so just in Christianity. In the culture in which I was
raised, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, you name it, if you
have a broken record, your name is sullied forever. So let’s not
just blame Christianity. Growing up in a predominantly Hindu
culture, I was taught that if a woman was even seen with a man,
her name would be tarnished permanently and no proposal of
marriage would be forthcoming. This attitude, by the way, is
the same basis for so-called honor-killings in Islam.
How does the Church maintain its teaching while at the
same time love the fallen in this changing world of ours? Love
does have its boundaries, but it must have a long reach. Those
who are hurting and faltering need the strong arm of God to
hold them. The Church has to provide those arms. Jesus
himself said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the
sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not
sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but
sinners” (Matthew 9:12 NIV). If we are to reflect Christ to the
world around us, we need to “learn what this means,” as Jesus
said.
2. The Church has forgotten the teachings of quietness,
solitude, and meditation that are part of our Judeo-Christian
heritage and provide great strength to the soul. We have
moved from silence to noise. We have moved from reflection to
fast-moving programs. We have moved from quietness to the
inability to remain focused on a thought for even a moment, so
that the next item on the program has to begin as soon as the
previous one has finished. There is no time in our services
anymore for quietness and contemplation. We have moved
from the progression of thought to a repetition of sounds. We
have stolen the bridge between the head and the heart and
gone to one of two extremes: either unable to engage the
culture or reflecting the culture. Every need of the soul is met in
the gospel, but like an intoxicated person, we swing between
two walls without finding balance.
The New Spirituality compels us to examine how we do
what we do. Our challenge is how to do it in form, without
compromising the substance of what we believe. The need for
community is a deep longing in the postmodern mind-set. How
we build that community will shape the Church of the future.
But while the New Spirituality points us to the weaknesses of
the Church, the one thing in the Church’s defense is that its
violations are violations of its message. The flaw in the New
Spirituality is in the message itself.
3. The institutionalization of Christianity made it
vulnerable to all of the abuses we now see.
4. The problem of pain has not always been honestly and
meaningfully dealt with by Christians. So the New Spiritualists
hide behind illusion or koans.
5. The judgmental attitude of the Christian is often harsh
and legalistic, forgetting the implications of what is being said.
The backlash is that the New Spirituality almost implicitly
subscribes to an antinomianism—implying that there really is
no moral law.

At the same time, there are fundamental errors in the New

Spirituality that I shall point out here before I move to the
Christ of history and what he really taught:

1. New Spiritualists misunderstand or misuse the laws of

logic. For them to say that they have transcended reason or
rationality is to fail to understand the laws of logic. It is one
thing to say that reason alone cannot point you to God. That is
not new. Blaise Pascal and numerous others pointed that out.
But logic does not merely point to the truth; more important, it
points to error. Something that is systemically contradictory
cannot be true. Yes, there can be paradoxes. Yes, you can have
two poles of an argument. But systemic contradiction, where
the laws of logic foundationally destroy the base on which the
infrastructure stands, simply cannot be defended by
“transcending reason.” All spirituality has to transcend reason,
but it dare not systemically violate it.
For example, Buddhism is atheistic. Some strands of
Hinduism, but not all, are not: Which is it? God or no God?
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are monotheistic. To be
consistent within itself, the New Spirituality will have to
consider the monotheistic religions wrong. But in considering
them wrong, they have to use the law of noncontradiction,
which means they rely on logic to disavow another system of
belief but “transcend logic” when they defend their own
system. Gautama Buddha renounced some of the Vedas and
the caste system. Was he right or wrong to do so? From the
Hindu’s point of view, to deny the caste system is to deny
karma.
Keep asking. To argue for the “now” in a chronological
isolation, while borrowing from “ancient” wisdom and looking
to enlightenment in the future, is to toy with time-laden
terminology where each term has died the death of a thousand
qualifications. Maybe that is why Redfield of The Celestine
Prophecy coined the term “the longer now” to appreciate
humanity across the ages… a clever qualification.
2. Advocates of the New Spirituality falsely absorb two
different questions into one. By denying the right of the
Christian to legislate on morality, they deny the Christian belief
that life and sexuality are sacred. But since they give legitimacy
to the destruction of life in the womb while espousing that all
life is sacred, their own belief that all life is “sacred” is
illegitimate.
3. In personalizing spirituality, they actually end up
snuffing out the person. That is an unaffirmable position. To
say, in effect, that “I” do not exist is a self-stultifying
proposition.
4. They are ultimately unable to define evil, and the core of
spirituality is crushed by the wheel of time and human
character.
5. They have no transcendent basis for love because spirit
in self-reference cannot define love. Love is an “ought.” Its
prescription has to be from the very source of love. For that,
only God is big enough as a person to define it. More to the
point, love is not free. It has to have boundaries; otherwise, it
is not love at all. It is the nature of love to bind itself.
6. In the process of exalting the individual and his or her
right to make a spiritual choice, the New Spiritualists make
individual intuition the ultimate test rather than the objectivity
of testing truth claims when examining conflicting worldviews.
That test itself is not intuitively sustainable.
7. The notion of erasing time and Tolle’s notion of the
power of “now” play a dangerous game with the mind. Values
past, present, and future are necessary to understand how we
must think. I have often put it this way: The traditionalist lives
for the past; the utopianist lives for the future; the existentialist
lives for the present. When Jesus Christ took bread and broke
it to share it with his disciples in what is called Holy
Communion, he said, “Whenever you eat this bread and drink
this cup [in the present], you proclaim the Lord’s death [in the
past] until he comes [in the future]” (1 Corinthians 11:26 NIV).
The remarkable thing here is that he places importance on all
three tenses of time, fusing them with meaning. It is so
important that we invest value in time but live for eternity.
Jesus and his Word constantly remind us to be delivered from
the tyranny of the immediate.
8. No matter how loudly the New Spiritualists deny duality
and try to argue for a monistic or single-entity framework,
worship, prayer, and rituals all assume a distinction between
the “I” and the “you.” Advaita, the idea of nondualism, dies on
the altar of human hungers and relationships.
Meeting Jesus Where We Need Him
Most
Just as there were three key passages in which we saw where
we have lost the real Jesus, let me move to three passages in
which we find him in the most unexpected places.
The first is early in the Gospels when Jesus is on a
journey and he passes through Samaria. To call a person a
Samaritan was the meanest racial slur one could have cast in
that day. The Samaritans were considered an impure race of an
impure religion and were despised by the puritanical. The
disciples had left Jesus and gone to fetch some food; it was
lunchtime. Jesus saw a Samaritan woman coming to draw water
and did a most extraordinary thing. He asked her for a drink.
Quite taken aback, she asked him why he, a Jew, would bother
to ask a Samaritan for a drink of water, especially a woman. She
was shocked. And when his disciples returned to find him
talking to her, they experienced their own dose of shock.
Jesus’ answer to the woman has become a historic
passage of Scripture, preached from for centuries. He told her
that if she only knew who she was talking to, she would have
asked him for a drink, because the water he offered was of a
spiritual nature and would satisfy every hunger. Her immediate
response was to deflect attention from herself and her hungers
and focus on the divisions between the religious sects of her
day in their methods of worship and debates over the
appropriate holy places. But Jesus was a master at disclosing a
person’s heart, and he told her that her real problem was not
the divisions between religious sects, but her own torn heart.
“You have had five husbands,” he said, “and the man you now
have is not your husband” (John 4:18 NIV).
I ask you this question: Which religion in the world today
would have chosen this woman as their first evangelist? Think
about it. Not Islam, not a typical Hindu man, not even
Christendom, the way religious power brokers have distorted it.
But Jesus rescued her from herself, not from the wars within
religion but from the war and rejection within herself. She ran
back to her village and said, “Come, see a man who told me
everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (4:29 NIV).
The fascinating unstated line is, “And he didn’t reject me!”
No one in that day would have expected Jesus to
converse with this Samaritan woman of five shattered
marriages. There are several surprising elements here.
Christianity is often portrayed as being anti-woman. The
gender wars that have raged over the years are not without
reason. This painful subject of gender inequalities, often aided
and abetted by institutions of power, has sent many thinking
women into a gold mine of rescue in the Gnostic writings of
feminine deities and worship. I often wonder if they are really
aware of what some of those sources even contain.
Take again, for example, the so-called Gospel of Thomas,
which is neither a Gospel nor written by Thomas, as I have
already said. Gnostic writings are not Scripture but the writings
of some spiritual sect that rejected the historic Christ in order
to create their own privatized spirituality. Readers will
remember the Jesus Seminar some years ago that attempted to
debunk the gospel of Jesus, using the text called the Gospel of
Thomas. Supposedly, that shed new light on Jesus’ teaching
and showed a better way. I would like to quote from the
definitive Gnostic text about women, the Gospel of Thomas,
Saying 114:
Simon Peter said to all the other disciples, “Let Mary
Magdalene go out from among us because women are not
worthy of life.”
Jesus said, “See, behold, I will lead her so that I can make
her a male; so that she, too, by becoming a male can become a
living spirit resembling you males. For every women who
makes herself a male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Is this the Gnosticism that is supposed to rescue women?

I would suggest just one counterperspective to this, but there
are many more I could discuss. The most important moment for
Christianity came at the resurrection scene of Jesus Christ. To
whom did Jesus first reveal himself? In that society, the most
important people would have been the high priest and his
entourage. In fact, Jesus himself sent the lepers he had healed
to the priests in Luke 17:14. The next would have been the
disciples who followed him, most of whom were men. It is an
incredible thing in that culture that he revealed himself first to
the women, whose testimony at a court in that day would not
even have been taken as reliable. And that is precisely the
counterperspective of the gospel. To those who think
Christianity has done a disservice to women, it is critical that
they understand from whom the gospel first came. The
standards of institutions, even those that claim to represent
Jesus, ought not to be made synonymous with the person of
Jesus.
There’s another point to be made here. The apostle Paul is
often made the scapegoat for a male-dominated church. In one
of his final letters to his son in the faith, Timothy, Paul reminds
Timothy that the Scriptures that were able to make him wise to
salvation were taught to Timothy by his mother and his
grandmother. That hardly smacks of chauvinism. A particular
teaching is often taken out of its larger context and made into a
pretext for attacking a system of truth. It is ironic that as
humanism has come to the fore, life has been reduced to the
essence of a game, and games have been elevated to become
the essence of life.
Racial prejudice and gender discrimination are still strong
realities in this world, yet race and gender are the only things
one does not choose for oneself. In contrast, the opportunity
to decide moral imperatives is being taken from us, while in
fact, these are the things we do choose. That alone ought to
tell us what happens when we choose to redefine good and
evil, and morality is buried in spiritual or political talk with no
transcendent source of authority. We victimize people for no
culpable reason and exonerate people in spite of their
culpability.
We end up with theories that put Hitler in heaven and
consider the disciples fools for being willing to die for the
truths of the gospel. But there will come a moment in which we
will all stand before the ultimate Judge of the universe, a God
who loves us and gave us the beautiful offer of salvation, and
he will do that which is ultimately right. The Jesus who was
lost where he should have been found, and who is found
where we might not expect him to be, is the Jesus who is
wantonly misplaced by the New Spirituality. As Alexander
Pope suggested:

Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod;

Rejudge his justice, be the god of God!
The Alabaster Touch
This, again, is a story in which we would never expect to find a
religious teacher. Jesus is at the home of a respected Pharisee
named Simon when an uninvited and unwelcome woman of
dubious reputation forces her way into the room and over to
the table where the guests are reclining to eat, falling at Jesus’
feet. She begins to weep so profusely that her tears fall on his
feet and begin to soak them. She unties her long hair and uses
it to dry her tears from his feet and then, before the silenced
guests, she opens a small alabaster jar and pours the costly
ointment, the aroma of which fills the room, over Jesus’ feet.
The most interesting thing about the incident is that so
little is said about her and who she was… just enough that her
story would be told wherever the gospel was preached. The
Pharisee, with his sense of self-righteousness, was convinced
that Jesus obviously didn’t know the character of the woman
who dared to lay a hand on him or he would never have
allowed such a thing.
But Jesus not only knew who she was, he knew what
Simon, the Pharisee, was thinking and caught him off guard by
asking him a question:

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed

him five hundred [dollars], and the other fifty. Neither of them
had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of
both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger
debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said… Then Jesus
said to [the woman], “Your sins are forgiven… Your faith has
saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:41–50 NIV).

Jesus very subtly pointed out that it was not so much the
extent of the debt that was important, but the sense of the
indebtedness. The woman recognized something the Pharisee
had not: that she needed forgiveness. This is so much at the
core of the gospel. The worst effect of sin is that one may not
even sense his or her sin. That is the ultimate pride. The
woman gave her richest possession for her most impoverished
self. Jesus did not respond to the monetary value of the
ointment, but to her tears, which reflected the depths of her
remorse for her sin and motivated her to part with the only
thing she could have claimed as her treasure. This, again, is a
story of contrasts. The one who was rejected is the one who
was actually accepted by Jesus. The self-righteous Pharisee
was far from him in spirit.
Childlike Beauty
The final story I want to mention where we might not expect to
find Jesus is told in Luke 18. It is the story of the little children
who came to Jesus to sit on his lap and play with him. The
disciples were askance at their impudence and with their
familiarity with him and rebuked them, sending them away. The
idea was, “Don’t you realize Jesus is too important to be
spending his time with children? He’s a famous man. And he’s
too busy to take time to play. Don’t waste his time.” They were
clearing his calendar for the more important people he had to
meet, and the more important conversations he had to have.
But Jesus surprised them. If there is one thing about
children, it is their complete dependence on someone else.
They simply cannot take care of themselves. Their entire
existence is based on someone outside themselves. Jesus said,
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for
the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you,
anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little
child will never enter it” (Luke 18:16–17 NIV).
Today, some would use children for suicide missions;
others would use their exalted philosophical prowess or
techniques to destroy the innocence and faith of children.
Jesus pointed to the little ones as a reflection of his kingdom.
He meant that it was only our total dependence on God and our
trust in him for our salvation that secured us a place in heaven.
Just as the children wanted to lean on Jesus, so do we need to
lean on him for everything.
Look back for a moment: The Samaritan woman, an ethnic
outcast; the woman with the alabaster ointment, the moral
outcast; the children with their childlike trust, the intellectual
outcasts. There are no breathing exercises necessary here.
There is no highly developed philosophy of quantum or
highbrow theorizing here. No priority is given to birth or
ethnicity here. Of such is the kingdom of heaven… totally
unexpected, totally unearned.
God meets us in the most unexpected places, just as we
lose him in the least expected places. It was not the prodigal
son who returned to the father who missed the gift of grace, it
was the older brother who was confident in his own
righteousness and believed he deserved to be celebrated who
missed the feast. These are startling reminders that we are
talking about a person and a relationship, not a place and an
idea.
So, the next time you hold a little child in your arms, look
into that sweet face and remind yourself, “Unless I become like
this little one, trusting in the arms of God, I will never have the
resources to live the life God intended.” To know such
dependence upon him, you can call on him anywhere.
Why Jesus? He is the Lord who makes reality beautiful
and helps us to find him, even in the darkest corners of the
world; not because of what we know or who we are or what we
have accomplished, but because of who he is. He is truly the
“Hound of Heaven” who says, “Thou dravest love from thee
that dravest me.”14
CHAPTER 13
 THE GREATEST OF ALL

The most astounding thing about the following poem is not its
pathos or its beauty, but that it was written by Oscar Wilde. He
was incarcerated in Reading Gaol for a short period of time and
one day witnessed the execution of a man who had brutally
killed his wife. It is a very lengthy poem. What follows is just a
fraction of it:

And every human heart that breaks,

In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean leper’s house
With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! Happy day they whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in.1

There’s the reference to the woman with the alabaster

ointment again. Wilde shows an amazing knowledge of
Scripture. Actually, even on his grave in Paris, which has a
giant phoenix as its mascot, are words from this poem, coupled
with a verse from the book of Job. From the first time I read his
story and some of his writings, it was impossible to miss his
genius and his tragedy. Wilde died fairly young. It was at his
deathbed that he called for a priest, telling his friend Robbie
Ross that he wanted to make things right with God. The lines
“The crimson stain that was of Cain / Became Christ’s snow
white seal” find a similar echo in his Picture of Dorian Gray.
For Wilde to ask for the Eucharist on his deathbed signaled
that he was serious about making it right, through Jesus.
Let me switch scenes to several decades later. There lies a
man in a hospital room. He was not an author, he is not
renowned, he is just a man of high integrity, devout in his faith.
He has spent many hours of his life in a temple, and everyone
he knows describes him as a man of near impeccable character.
The man is in his eighties and once held a high post in India’s
Finance Ministry. He has spent hours with us over the years,
his son and I, speaking about spiritual matters, probing,
questioning, challenging us, and reading heavily on spiritual
themes. Stricken with cancer, he has been admitted to the
hospital. At his request, all his friends have come to the
hospital today, straight from the temple with their “Prasad,”
their sweet offerings, to give him their good wishes and a
blessing from the priest. They mill around his bed, talking
softly to one another. They do not know what awaits them.
Suddenly, he sits up in bed and speaks to them in clear
terms. He says that he believes his moment to die has come
and he wants to share with them, his family and friends, what
he has just experienced. “I have lain here in bed asking myself
the most important question,” he says: “What or who is the
way to God? I have pondered this for years… You know how
faithful I have been in my service to the temple and to my
belief. But I have come to this all-important moment and
question: What is the way? Who is the way?”
He pauses as they lean forward to listen. “I have thought,
reflected, and have finally concluded that there is only one
way, and I want you to understand I am making that
commitment.” His voice lifts and his passion deepens. “That
way is Jesus.”
In the stunned silence that follows his declaration of faith
in Christ he does something amazing, something only an Indian
family could fully appreciate. He has lived a life of honor,
married for more than fifty years through an arranged marriage,
and has raised two sons. He turns now to his wife and says to
her, “I have never told you that I love you. But I want you to
know that I do love you and that you are my sweetheart.” His
wife is very embarrassed and dismayed by what he has said
and doesn’t quite know how to respond. He turns to his
granddaughter and asks her to sing his favorite Christian
hymn. With that, shortly thereafter he breathes his last breath.
His friends are dumbfounded and stand in awkward silence
around his bed, not knowing how to think about what he has
said and done, what to say or what to do.2
As I write this, I think deeply. How is it that a man who
had heard almost nothing of Jesus until he was well into his
middle years came to this conclusion? How is it that a man so
devout, whose house I visited frequently, where there was
always an altar set aside to the pantheon of divinities in
Hinduism, came to such a clear conviction of salvation through
Jesus? How does one so totally consumed by his faith, and
active in the temple, come to the end of his life and take a fork
in the road?
This is something the New Spiritualists have to deal with
honestly. How do they explain it? Did this honorable, devout
man, and others like him, come to this intuitive conclusion
wrongly? Did he make up a truth that was totally unsustained
in his entire life prior to that point? From Oscar Wilde to
thousands today in the Middle East and China, the same story
is being repeated. These things are happening in lands where
the name of Jesus has been maligned or evicted by political or
cultural decree. Yet they have found him.
I have no doubt that many might well be offended by the
challenges I have made to other beliefs in this book. I must
expect that and will make every effort to defend my approach.
Some might even consider the tone of this book too strong or
harsh. That is not my intent. But it is hard not to get passionate
when you read the bizarre twists of truth offered by
proponents of the New Spirituality. I have been fairly blunt
because I want readers to be brutally honest with themselves.
True spirituality is not a game we play. It is not merely a
preference for some position over another. Nor is it at its core a
search for some healing balm. It is an ultimate choice of
ultimate definitions that require one’s utmost commitment. One
had dare not make a commitment to a belief for secondary or
tertiary reasons or to “feel good.” The issues of gender and
sexuality are extremely important… I understand how important
they are. But they are secondary to why we are living and for
whom we are living. To be driven to adopt a combination of
myth and mysticism because of blunders made by cultural
exploiters in society is to run from the arms of a lion into the
arms of a bear. There is little comfort in that.
In the beginning of this chapter, I highlighted two
personalities to demonstrate that the pleasure-loving artist and
the disciplined civil servant had each tried, in their own way, to
find life’s ultimate thrill. One, dying from a disease probably
brought on by promiscuity; the other dying merely from the
breakdown of the body in aging, who found out as all of us will
that the body is not ageless, no matter how much we would like
to believe otherwise. One lived a life of abandonment in the
West; the other persisted in a morally and spiritually
disciplined existence mainly in the East. One flirted with the
law; the other upheld the law rigorously. One lived with
multiple options and partners; the other was stoic in his
commitment right to the end. One was a hedonist; the other
devoutly spiritual. To both, the answer was in the same person:
Jesus Christ. Why?
The Divine Conqueror
The words of Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) often
come to my mind: “Thou hast conquered, oh pale Galilean. The
world has grown grey from thy breath.” These words were not
originally stated by Swinburne; “Thou hast conquered, oh pale
Galilean” was originally spoken by the Roman emperor Julian
about the acceptance of Christianity under the emperor
Constantine. I am reminded as well of the words of historian
Will Durant, that Caesar and Christ had met in the arena and
Christ had won.
Both of these statements are unfortunate. Jesus is not a
political conqueror, nor is he a gladiator. He did not teach a
political theory as the superintending boundary for people.
The aligning of politics with his name is a huge risk to both a
political position and to the Christian faith. History is replete
with such examples. Various nations have claimed that he
walked there or have yearned to be the site of the New
Jerusalem, as in the imaginings of William Blake.3 These
sentiments may be moving and powerful, but they bring
fearsomeness to the scene. Making England the site of the
New Jerusalem (or the seat of God) may be a noble idea, but
throughout their history the English have certainly not
behaved as citizens of a holy city. For that matter, neither have
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and now more recently the story
is retold in America. A man recently made a strongly critical
remark to me about America and added, “How can a Christian
nation act like that?” I surprised him by asking, “Who told you
it is a Christian nation?” It made for a fascinating discussion.
It is true that the unshakable principles and ideas on
which America was founded are clearly Judeo-Christian. But
with each succeeding generation there has increasingly come
the desire to shake off the lessons and ideas from the past.
America is rich in wealth but poverty-stricken in understanding
the reasons for its wealth and has an abysmal ignorance of
history, its own as well as anyone else’s. In fact, aided and
programmed by the news, anything a week old no longer holds
any interest. We live with the remote control in our hands,
changing scenes by the minute. I remember one politician
telling me that most politicians don’t even fear a scandal
anymore because they know it will soon be swept away by the
next day’s news.
Our inability to focus or stay the course is reflected in our
spirituality in America. It is amazing how jelly-like it is, how it
shifts and shapes itself to the individual as truth is remade in
his or her image. We would do well to remember the famed
aphorism that anyone who refuses to learn from history is
forced to repeat its mistakes.
To that end, the message of Jesus Christ is both timely
and timeless. He continually contradicts us in the way we
experience ourselves as alive and compels us to redefine what
we mean by life. His answers are absolute because both love
and truth are absolute, as is evil. These are the issues that
ultimately haunt our souls. For Elizabeth Lesser to cavalierly
say that twenty-first-century spirituality prides itself in being a
dynamic blend of myth and beliefs is to say that the truth is
only the truth today and may change into something else
tomorrow. How can one build a life on such a foundation? She
is right in admitting that the New Spirituality has myths within
its scope. It sounds very magnanimous to present the cultures
of some of these myths as unspoiled and worthy of being
restored. But the truth of these cultures is often very different.
The victimization of women and children was rampant and
brutal in many pagan beliefs.
And Lesser has ignored that the most serious myth of the
New Spirituality is that untruths can co-exist with truth without
making the system toxic. She should know this is not possible
from her own sad experiences that she herself points to. And
she is not alone… We all have learned through personal
tragedies and mistakes that mixing the truth with untruth
creates a toxic environment. None of us are spared. A lie
seldom comes in recognizable form. It is usually smuggled in as
small grains that poison the whole. That is why Jesus referred
to the enemy of our souls as the father of all lies.
I propose to explain in this chapter why Jesus is the Truth
and why he dispels the myth of mere spirituality.
The Law Is Not an End in Itself
In the twelfth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, we are given three
statements by Jesus that will give us profound insight into the
distinctness of his teachings from the practices of established
religion and from mere spirituality as well.
On a Sabbath day, Jesus and his disciples were walking
through grainfields. Observation of the Sabbath was key in the
religious practice of the day. It was part of the covenantal
relationship between God and his people. The Sabbath was
intended for two principal reasons—for worship and for rest.
By inference, we can understand that it provided built-in family
time and provision for physical, emotional, and spiritual
replenishment from a hard week of work.
As they walked through the fields, some of the disciples
who were hungry began to pluck the ears of corn and enjoy a
little bite here and there. The Pharisees, legalistic guardians of
the law, took note of it and immediately censured Jesus for
allowing his followers to “work” on the Sabbath. One thing
they should have learned very quickly in being around Jesus
was that he knew the Scriptures better than they did and that
he knew how to turn the question around to show how
misguided those religious teachers really were. He knew that
David was a big hero of theirs. So he borrowed from a chapter
in David’s life and asked them if David had violated the law
when he allowed his soldiers who were hungry to enter the
temple and eat the consecrated bread that had been set apart
for the priests. Their response was silence. They knew they
had stepped onto a religious minefield with their accusation
and with Jesus’ response to them.
 Religion is a scaffolding for faith, but when it becomes the
faith itself, it kills faith. We are often inclined to ignore the
beauty of what is beneath and be distracted by the scaffolding.
It was no different in Jesus’ day; worshippers’ attention to
their religious ceremonies and customs had become so onerous
that they had forgotten the purpose of their worship. Jesus not
only drew their attention to their mistake, he shocked them
further when he said, “I tell you that something greater than
the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I
desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned
the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath”
(Matthew 12:6–8 NIV).
These phrases he used in his answer—“greater than the
temple,” “Lord of the Sabbath,” “mercy sacrifice”—are alone
worthy of a whole study. Let’s consider them briefly here.
“Greater than the temple.” Just imagine what the temple meant
to the nation and what it had cost to build it. It was the
quintessential definition of a people. It was where God had said
he would meet with his people. In so being, it had become the
power base for a few.
Wars have been fought over similar settings. In India
today the religious buildings are showplaces, with each one
trying to outdo the other in magnificence and artistry. Nobody
visiting the Kali temple in Calcutta can come away without
deep questions of the soul. The same applies to the great
cathedrals of Europe, as well as the mosques. The Muslims
recognized the importance of the “place,” and when they
conquered a city they almost always identified the most sacred
space of the local people and either turned it into a mosque or
built a mosque beside it and set stringent laws limiting where
other holy places could be built and how high they could be.
This has been carried through to today, in spite of the belief of
some westerners that this is no longer true of Islam. It is almost
impossible to get permission to build a church anywhere in the
Middle East, even a small place of worship.
And it is not accidental or innocent that the followers of
the religion whose holy men coached those who uttered
prayers to Allah as they turned the twin towers of the World
Trade Center into an inferno, are determined to build a mosque
in the same vicinity now. To the promoters of this project it is
the ultimate slap in the face to the traditions of a nation whose
founding beliefs are different from their own. Regardless of
their smooth talk and reassurances, have no doubt that they
know exactly what they are doing. I have Muslim friends who
clearly condemn this effort because they know why it is being
planned.
Some time ago, I was visiting the Grand Mosque in
Casablanca, Morocco. It is magnificent. As we walked through
the lower level, we noticed two rows of water fountains where
men would do their ceremonial washings before entering to
worship. I asked if the two rows of fountains were for men and
women. “Oh, no,” came the reply. “One is for the elderly and
the other is for the younger ones. If we do not separate them,
the young men will just elbow and push their way through and
the older men would never get their turn.”
How odd, I thought. Going in to worship without even
common courtesy and decency? But that was not all. The
whole group of us, men and women, were then ushered into the
restroom area before we left. A naive American in the group
asked if the facilities were normally used by both men and
women. The Muslim guide was shocked. “Oh, no! The number
of rapes would be unimaginable!” I was startled at his
comment: A woman was not safe even in a mosque? But if you
dare to profane the mosque or the religion by what you say or
do in support of your own political or religious beliefs, blood
will flow.
Mathura and Ayodhya, areas in India sacred to Hindus,
are now occupied by Muslims and also the focus of many
religious battles. The beautiful church built in Istanbul by the
mother of Constantine has now been made a museum by
Islamic forces, its Christian inscriptions defaced.
The tragedy is not just interreligious; it is also
intrareligious. Many Christians will tell you that the biggest
opposition to their mission in some countries comes not from
those of other beliefs but from the mainline, so-called orthodox
churches there. Probably the most incredible quarrel I have
heard of is within the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in
Jerusalem. Divided among five Christian sects, the parties do
not even talk to one another. A few years ago, I personally
went there and asked one of the archbishops to confirm that
what I had heard was a fact. “Sad to say, it is,” he said. This is
the fanaticism that buildings and “holy sites” can engender.
They have often been built by great political personalities as a
reflection of their ego, and access to them is often restricted to
a favored group.
Even modern religious edifices can be the targets of such
perversions. Some years ago I was in a Buddhist country, and
one night I heard a lot of noise and sirens outside my hotel
window. The next morning I heard what had happened. A man
had used an ax to deface some of the Buddhist statues.
Another man rushed over to him, overpowered him, and with
the same ax cut his body into pieces. When I heard that, I had a
sick feeling in my stomach. Later, it was realized that the man
had a history of mental illness. He paid for his actions by being
mercilessly slaughtered himself. I ask you, if Gautama Buddha
had been there, what would he have said? Shrines often
become sacred beyond the very desires of the religious
teacher. Buddha would never have endorsed or sanctioned the
merciless action of the man defending his statue.
The New Spiritualists are no exception here.
But in the New Testament, God raises the question: “Who
asked you to build these places?” That was an amazing
question to a religious people who revered David and
Solomon. This was not to indict them for something wrong
they had done, but to ask them how something so noble could
have gone so wrong.
Jesus said he was greater than the temple. In what way?
The temple is a place; Jesus a person. The temple has a special
authority and a hierarchy; all who wish to have equal access to
Jesus. The temple was drowned in ceremony in an effort to
attain intimacy with the Almighty; a relationship with Jesus is
an intimacy that transcends ceremony. In a temple, you go to
the place; Jesus comes to you. The temple is made of stone
and mortar; the new temple Jesus spoke of, where he has
promised to live and commune with each of us, is within the
body of each believer. You can lie to a building; you cannot lie
to a person with impunity.
In the book of Revelation, in the midst of John’s
description of the “New Jerusalem” he is startled and declares:
“I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God
Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (21:22 NIV). Consummate
worship requires no temple. Just as the sacrifices of the temple
system pointed to the reality of Jesus on the cross, the temple
itself foreshadowed ultimate communion with God, who is
distinct from us and invites us into that intimate communion
with him. There is no need for priests, no need for a temple, no
power structure. Take note that this is not an absorption into
an impersonal, absolute consciousness. This is not union with
the divine: This is communion with the God of the universe. It
is not Advaita (nondualistic). This is an I-You relationship with
our Creator. There is all the difference in the world.
How sad that a truth as grand and beautiful as this is
reduced to spirituality and gender conflicts when it is intended
to teach the transcending of both. Maybe this is the ultimate
blinding of our eyes by our pride and prejudice toward one
another: We make it all about us rather than all about God. He
revealed himself in terms that had meanings by analogy so that
we could relate to a concept, not be distracted by it. We still
make the same mistakes the earlier religionists made. “Why are
you violating our Sabbath laws?” Is it any different for us to
raise our contemporary cultural or religious prejudices in
asking the wrong questions?
Jesus said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Think of the
scene on the days of national sacrifice when thousands of
lambs were sacrificed and the blood flowed out of the temple in
rivers as new families poured into it to offer their own
sacrifices. The same people could leave the temple and go back
to exploiting the poor and the needy. The temple blinds us to
the reality of our own hearts, making us think we have done all
we need to do to be right with God. But the God who made us
can see what is in our hearts beyond the sacrifices we have
made and the laws we have kept in his name.
Age-Old Corruptions
The corruptions that blind religion are clearly shown in God’s
Word. In the passage in Matthew discussed above, we read
that as Jesus was talking about being “greater than the
temple,” his mother and brothers came to see him. The crowd
was so great around him that they couldn’t gain access to him
or find a place to sit down. Can you see what that meant in the
culture of the day? Somebody came to him and told him they
were there and trying to get to him through the crowd. Jesus
reminded the person that those who were following him had
equal access to him and were part of his larger family. There
was no nepotism here.
Jude was the half brother of Jesus. Yet he begins his book
with the following salutation: “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ
and a brother of James.” I find this salutation utterly
fascinating. By this time James had become the head of the
Church in Jerusalem, and I would have thought that Jude
would describe himself as “Jude, the brother of Jesus, serving
under James.” But no, he clearly recognized the lordship of
Jesus, whom he was gladly willing to serve.
Jude then proceeds to warn his readers of three
personalities in the Bible that he felt best represented the
corruption of religion: Cain, Balaam, and Korah. Cain killed his
brother out of jealousy because God saw Abel’s heart and
accepted his sacrifice, while he refused Cain’s. Jude must have
understood the temptation of sibling rivalry. Comparing
oneself with another is the breeding ground for creating
distinction in the very place where distinctions are supposed
to cease. Jealousy in serving God has always been at the core
of religious “one-upmanship.” Jude warned of being jealous of
another’s service to God, of another’s calling or station in
life… an attitude like Cain’s.
But he went further. The comparison to Balaam is more
sinister. Balaam was a prophet known for his gift of making
pronouncements that came true. Enemies of God’s people came
to him and offered him money if he would curse the people of
God, “For I know that whoever you bless is blessed, and
whoever you curse is cursed” (Numbers 22:6 NIV). The
fascinating story of how Balaam struggled with the temptation,
wishing he could do it and take the money, makes for an
intriguing study of motives as people toy with their
convictions. He never actually cursed God’s people, but in his
heart he did, and he told their enemy how they could
accomplish their goal to destroy them while still looking
spiritual. There are Balaams in our ranks today for whom
money and prestige are worth skirting the truth, all while still
managing to look spiritual.
The third person Jude mentions is Korah. That name
would have brought to mind for the reader the day of the
rebellion Korah led against Moses, God’s chosen servant.
Korah was not willing to follow God’s way through his servant.
He believed his own ideas were better and wanted Moses’
position as leader to exercise his own agenda. Cain, Balaam,
and Korah—in the case of all three, the backdrop to their
actions was religious zeal, which stood in the way of a godly
relationship.
Cain—jealousy and hate; Balaam—greed and
manipulation; Korah—power and sectarianism. Has anything
really changed? That is why there will be no temple in heaven.
God will be the object of all worship in consummate expression,
in person. Jesus was greater than the temple.
The Prejudiced Prophet
On another occasion Jesus referred to himself as “greater than
Jonah” (Matthew 12:41 NIV). There are two very important
points here. We live in a world of hate and racial prejudice. It
has always been so. More than twenty-five hundred years ago
Jonah was commissioned by God to take his message of
repentance and forgiveness to the Ninevites. The Ninevites
were renowned for their cruelty and were feared and hated by
all the surrounding peoples, including Jonah and his people.
The last people in the world that Jonah would have felt
burdened to reach with the love of God were the Ninevites.
Just imagine the extent of his prejudice. He did not want to see
them even extended an opportunity to receive the love of God.
He wanted to see them punished by God and destroyed. Such
is the extent of hate that even those called to preach can
nurture. God had to do a deep work in Jonah to bring him to the
place where he could understand and appreciate God’s love for
all mankind, even the most unworthy, and embrace the depth of
his forgiveness.
There is a second aspect to Jonah’s resistance. He was
preserved from death for three days in the belly of a great fish
in a supernatural way by God’s protective power. Under
natural circumstances, he would have died. His survival
against all odds was a reminder to the people Jesus was talking
to that God himself would conquer the grave and restore his
Son, who would bring the message of forgiveness and
demonstrate, by his resurrection, that he is the Son of God with
power.
Jonah was called to love the people whom he hated, and
the best expression of his love was to tell them of God’s love
for them. That, as Carlyle said, is the “greater miracle” in the
story. People often misunderstand what this means. To
question how God could ask us to love our enemies is to
reduce love to a feeling and ignore the worth that God places
on the object of his love. There is no such imperative within
naturalism or pantheism.
Some years ago, it was my privilege to give the address at
the Annual Prayer Breakfast that marks each new session of
the United Nations. I had been asked to speak on “The Search
for Absolutes in a Relativistic World” in twenty minutes, and
to be cautious in talking about God. So in those few minutes I
talked of the four areas in each of our experiences in which we
search for absolutes: evil, justice, love, and forgiveness.
Try defining these from a pantheistic worldview, or any
other worldview, for that matter. What is evil? How do we come
to terms with what it is, as a reality? When you think about it,
evil can be defined or understood only in a world where there
is a duality and where purpose is clearly identified. How does
one define evil in a world of one? As consciousness into which
all other appearances merge? In Christian terms, evil is both a
condition and an action. Our condition is that our default
position is rebellion against God, and our actions are the
outcome and demonstration of that rebellion. I have seen evil
in the closest of proximities. All one needs to do is visit a war
museum to see how much bloodshed humanity is responsible
for.
But we have been seduced into thinking that evil is
defined only in its cruelest form. That is categorically untrue.
Or we think of evil in degrees, as in, how could so much evil be
justified? But that again misses the heart of what evil is. How
often in my own heart I have sensed desires and machinations
that remind me of how vile the human heart can be. The escape
doors here—that something is evil only when in its cruelest
form or if there is an extreme expression of evil—make the New
Spirituality look devoid of reality. Let me give you two
examples of this.
When Maharishi Mahesh Yogi passed away, Deepak
Chopra wrote an article attempting to defend his not-so-nice
side. I will not go into the stories that had circulated about him.
Chopra’s article was called “The Three Maharishis.” Why am I
not surprised? He seems to love the triads for his explanations.
There were three Jesus figures, according to him, so why not
three Maharishis? Writing for the Huffington Post on February
6, 2008, after the Maharishi died, Chopra said the following.
Read it carefully:

You could be walking down the hallway to his private

apartments with the weight of the world on your shoulders and
feel your worries drop away with every step, until by the time
your hand touched the doorknob, by some magic you felt
completely carefree. But if you were around him long enough,
the older Maharishi in particular could be nettlesome and self-
centered; he could get angry and dismissive. He was quick to
assert his authority and yet could turn disarmingly child-like in
the blink of an eye.
The Maharishi who was an Indian felt most comfortable
around other Indians… He adhered to the vows of poverty and
celibacy that belonged to his order of monks, despite the fact
that he lived in luxury and amassed considerable wealth for the
TM movement… In the end the movement’s money went to
preserve the spiritual heritage of India by opening pundit
schools and building temples….
For good or ill, these two Maharishis are the only ones
that the outside world knew. If you came under the power of
his consciousness, however, Maharishi the guru completely
overshadowed every other aspect.4

I have to wonder to what extent the mind can deceive

itself with word games. Maybe that is part of the mystery of
evil. So the darker side is explained away as not the real person,
because there are really three of them: the not-so-nice side of
him; the public side of him; and oh, when you came under the
power of his consciousness, there was the divine and magical
side of him. These are brilliant trisections to explain the human
heart in its depravity. Actually, Chopra may have accidently
blundered into the right. In a strange way there are three
Chopras, too, and three of each one of us: There is who the
world thinks we are, who we think we are, and who God knows
us to be. Maharishi at his core was like all of us, as is Mr.
Chopra. Verbal magic will not do here. Evil stalks us and we
know it. To play word games is a ploy to escape the obvious.
The more we deny reality, the more mindless our solutions
become. The story of Jonah is the story of both the preacher
and the audience, if you’ll pardon the pun, in the same boat. It
is terrible to be the victim of hate, but it is even worse to be the
possessor of it. Jonah simply despised his audience and
wanted them to have no share in God’s forgiveness. But
through the storm and the story emerges the greatest miracle of
all—a transformed heart, fresh with the hope beyond this life.
Take a closer look at the implications of this story—love,
forgiveness, and hope. This is the sum and substance of the
gospel: love, forgiveness, and hope—because of Jesus Christ.
He is greater than Jonah.
Supreme Wisdom
There is the third “greater than” that Jesus used to describe
himself: “greater than Solomon” (Matthew 12:42 NIV).
Proverbially, literally, and figuratively, the name Solomon is
synonymous with wisdom. His name represents that even three
thousand years after he lived. After visiting him, the queen of
Sheba said that not even half of his greatness had been told.
The Bible tells us that he was without peer in virtually every
discipline. Yet he was his own liability. Knowledge without
character is deadly. Solomon knew all the answers. He just did
not live them. In the end, Solomon’s is a sad story and a grim
reminder that even the dispensers of wisdom have a breaking
point. Highly gifted people are not gods, even if they think
they act or speak for him.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a powerful writer in his day.
When he died, thousands of people lined the streets of St.
Petersburg to bid him farewell. His Brothers Karamazov and
numerous other works were lofty in skill and far-reaching in
impact. But Dostoyevsky was an inveterate gambler and went
to the grave quite poor by virtue of that addiction.
Alexander the Great conquered the world but could not
conquer his own thirst for alcohol. Dying a young man in his
early thirties, he went to the grave a loser.
Michael Jackson—what an incredibly gifted entertainer
and dancer, considered by those in the field almost
superhuman in the scope of his gifts! But what a tragic end to a
tragic personal lifestyle. He was almost a replica of Elvis
Presley in his success and failures.
Stephen Hawking—one of the greatest minds to have ever
lived. How enviable a capacity! But he lives in a wheelchair,
communicating with the world by the movement of one finger.
We all have our breaking points. For some it will be moral
or spiritual. For others, a physical malady of dreadful
proportions. For still others, it will be the sudden stopping of
their lives like an engine in midair. For all of us, life comes to an
end in this world. All of us.
In giving the answers to our deepest struggles and
breaking points, Jesus also embodied what character was
intended to look like and what eternal life is. But there is more.
He spoke it, lived it, and is able to empower those who seek to
live that way. The temple, Jonah, and Solomon. All memories of
what is real and transitory. Jesus Christ is greater than the
temple, greater than Jonah, and greater than Solomon. He alone
offers you and me the fulfillment and joy of walking with God.
For that privilege we need a Savior.
As we look back upon history, we see dark spots of
human behavior. Among them, few are as dark as the scourge
of human slavery. The name that was most influential in
bringing that horrific trade to an end is that of William
Wilberforce. I have referred to him in a previous chapter.
Wilberforce was converted to Christ at the age of twenty-six
and was to give the rest of his life for the noble cause of
breaking the chains of oppression and the demeaning of
human beings in the massive phenomenon of slavery. Oddly
enough, physically he was quite dwarfed. One writer said, “The
hand that struck the shackles from the galled limbs of our
British slaves was the hand of a hunchback.” He was brilliant
and extraordinarily gifted, a master of mimicry, a born actor, an
accomplished singer, and a perfect elocutionist.
James Boswell said of him, “I saw a shrimp mount the
table but as I listened he grew and grew, until the shrimp
became a whale.”5 And “when he rose to address the House of
Commons, he looked like the dwarf that had jumped out of a
fairy tale; when he resumed his seat, he looked like the giant of
the self-same story.”6
As a member of Parliament, he fought his entire life to
defeat this dreadful practice. So many discouraged him from
the fight, saying that it would never be corrected. With more
than a million souls in this dreadful traffic, some thought they
would appease him by agreeing to a bill that made the fresh
importing of slaves illegal. It took him twenty years just to get
that bill passed. But he continued to work relentlessly to bring
the whole practice to a halt and was literally on his deathbed
when the word came to him that the bill illegalizing slavery had
made it through the Parliament. Fifty years of his life had been
dedicated to that cause. His words in response: “Thank God! I
have lived to see the day.”
I have often seen the dark scourge of human trafficking as
a reflection of self-enslavement and plunder. We ourselves are
in chains. This is at the root of all human discrimination.
There is an impact on the world when we ourselves are
freed from our own enslavements. Those who would deny the
Christian the privilege of sharing the Savior with others deny
the Christian the beauty and power of Jesus Christ. Of all
people, it was Bertrand Russell who attributed Gandhi’s
success in India to the fact that he was appealing to the
conscience of a Christianized nation. That is quite a statement
from an atheist, crediting the success of a pantheist to
Christian theism.
CHAPTER 14
 FALSE ASSUMPTIONS AND
MAGNIFICENT TRUTHS

There are clearly mistakes made both by the New Spiritualists

and by Christians that are of deep significance. The New
Spiritualist assumes that there is no mystical side to
Christianity, or if it is acknowledged, it is eviscerated of any
truth claims. The New Spiritualist sees in Christianity only hard
doctrine that lays down rules for people and is ready to punish
them when they break the rules, rather than drawing people in.
And sometimes I fear that their caricatures of our heartless
preaching and legalistic interpretation of the gospel are correct.
The same mistake is often made by those of us who see in the
New Spirituality nothing more than sitting in the lotus position
with eyes shut and an inward look, with no dogma to proclaim.
In this book we have come to see that neither of these
generalities is a fair representation.
There is actually a rich and varied historical tradition
among Christians who sought the path of mysticism to find
tranquillity and serenity apart from the hustle and bustle of life.
Unfortunately, more often than not, it became an escape from
the real world. There are also legitimate criticisms from those in
this movement toward the way Christianity is often presented
or perceived.
Very recently, I was the guest of a leading figure from an
old and historic Christian tradition in the Middle East. He had
done his preparation work for Christian ministry in another
Middle Eastern country. Just to be courteous, I asked him if he
had enjoyed his seven years of preparation there. He managed
a smile and said, “Enjoyed? That would be the one word that
does not come to mind. We were in prayer or chanting all day.
Then at six o’clock every evening the doors to the monastery
were locked and we were not allowed to go out anywhere. The
only diversion was an old television with no programming but
religious programs. After seven years of that, I was ready to
leave the ministry. I did, in fact,” he said. “But my uncle
persuaded me to return to the ministry and so here I am now,
heading up this historic church.” I shall say no more lest I
reveal more than I should. But how sad it is when the lead
voice in a historic church says enjoyed is the one word that
doesn’t come to his mind in the context of preparation for the
Christian ministry.
Christian mysticism has gone to extremes and retreated
from the world. It was a mistake. You do not win over life’s
struggles by hiding in rocks or barricading yourself from reality
and from other people. Although Jesus said his followers were
not of the world, as he was not of the world, they were in the
world. In fact, he prayed to his Father, “My prayer is not that
you take them out of the world but that you protect them from
the evil one” (John 17:15 NIV). In Matthew 5:13–16, he
commanded his followers to be salt and light to a deteriorating
and dark world. How can one be salt and light when one has
removed oneself from the world? This question can also be
applied to modern Christians who remove themselves from
society, associating only with those with whom they are in
agreement.
Today on Mount Athos in Greece, there is a monastery
where nothing female is allowed, not even chickens or cows. In
fact, the ship we were on could not come closer than a
prescribed distance because there were women on board.
Readers may remember that the famed Cretan scholar Nikos
Kazantzakis, author of the controversial Last Temptation,
spent some protracted time on Athos in his search for
communion with the divine. How sad that so many throughout
Christian history have subjected themselves to such things in
their efforts to commune with God, when Jesus stands simply
before each of us and says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and
knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will
come in and eat with that person, and they with me”
(Revelation 3:20 NIV).
I actually thought of going to Mount Athos and staying
there for a week, just for the experience, and I was told that it
could be arranged. But with my very serious back problems I
decided it could be a costly mistake, since one has to mount a
donkey to even get to the last several hundred feet. Yes, that
would have been my “monk for a week” experience.
The New Spiritualists make the same blunder, but from the
opposite position. In their stress of quietude, retreat, and
escape from the bustle, they act as if they have no doctrines.
As if there are no rules. As if they have no authority except
themselves. It is all about the mysticism and meditation. That is
simply not true. The histories of the religions on which their
beliefs are principally based have books and sects and rules ad
nauseam. The metaphysical scaffolding of the authors they
quote is based on a prior commitment to a very particular form
of reasoning. Should it not strike us as odd that those who live
in “the now” nevertheless sign contracts for the future? That
those who are so big on the notions of silence and of emptying
the mind of all thought write big books on concepts intended
to make you think? That they say the world is illusionary and
there is no I/you, and yet they are obviously writing these
books for “you”? That enlightenment comes from within in
isolation, yet they use the mass method of communication to
their own advantage?
The Three All-Important Questions
All worldviews and religions need to take a hard look at
themselves and at how they answer three inescapable
questions:

1. How do they answer the question of exclusivity as it

relates to their own belief?
2. What is the source of their authority?
3. How relevant is what they believe to the common
experience; what difference does it really make?

Why are Christians so dogmatic? Why do they think their

way is the only way? These lines are repeated again and again
and reveal a prejudice on the part of the questioner. What else
can be expected but exclusivity when truth claims are
expressed? Growing up in India, it was always assumed that
the predominant worldview was the only worldview. It was not
uncommon to have pictures of gurus and teachers or some
verse from the Gita or pronouncement of Krishna on the wall in
every office and school. Should it have occurred to us who
held different beliefs to question why they were being so
exclusive? I do not ever recall in all my school days a Christian
coming to speak to the student body. I heard principally—
exclusively—from Hindus. I accepted that fact because they
formed the large majority and theirs was the prevailing
worldview.
Anyone who thinks that the Hindu message is not being
“propagated” is simply blind to reality. It subsumes the culture
of a nation of more than a billion people and it is the logical
outworking of prior commitments to belief. Hindusthan, which
is the Hindi word for India, means “the land of the Hindus.”
And Hindusthani, or Hindi, as it is popularly called, means
“the language of the Hindus.” The religion and its worldview
inform every aspect of society and culture. Hindus themselves
do not see their religion as inclusive of other religions;
otherwise, why would Buddha have felt the need to reject the
defining tenets of Hinduism in his quest for truth? And why
would the parents of young people who are brought up as
Hindus but have become Christians—young people like my
brother-in-law—mourn their decision as a death? Hinduism is
propagated, and I would expect it to be if that is what is truly
believed by the person.
It is clear, abundantly clear, that all religions without
exception are exclusive. All religions ultimately collect cultural
trappings and in turn become identified with culture. Buddhism
is not Hinduism. Islam is not Christianity. Jainism is not
Judaism. Each has its own uncompromising moorings. Each is
distinct from the others.
When I was in Turkey recently, a Turkish man told me that
one question is asked of him more often than any other. When
he gives his name and identifies himself as a Christian, the
person talking to him will say, “But aren’t you Turkish?” “I
am,” he replies. “But you just said you were a Christian.” He
says, “I am Turkish and I am a Christian.” The questioner
always looks totally bewildered. I guess people don’t remember
anymore that most Turks were Christians until their country
was conquered by Islamic forces and the people were forced to
convert to Islam for economic reasons or for protection. But so
go cultures everywhere. We have short memories.
When I became a committed Christian, a close Hindu
friend said to me, “You have lost your originality.” He loved
that word. What he meant was that only if I believed as he did
was I an original, or unique. By my decision to follow Jesus, I
became, in his eyes, no longer unique… “nonoriginal.” Before I
became a Christian I actually believed very little about any
spiritual matters. Is that what he would have preferred of me?
The answer is yes. To believe nothing would actually be closer
to his supposedly “believe all” faith.
Truth by definition excludes. We have to understand that
by definition, truth excludes the denial of what it asserts. My
ethnicity puts me in a certain category; my language puts me in
a certain category; my education puts me in a certain category.
All designations exclude something else. The problem with
religious belief is that nobody wants anyone to preach a
destiny that excludes anyone else, and so we reserve the
description of evil for only the most heinous. And now some
New Spiritualists would not even want that separation. Let’s
examine the notion of truth.
Some years ago, I was to address members of the Bar
Association of a particular state. As I sat down at the lunch
table, the president of the Bar Association commented to me
that I had to be pretty bold to come and speak at an event
where people made their living by working with words. I took
note, because in a way, one can reduce my profession to that
as well, if nothing else is taken into consideration. Anyhow, I
just smiled and waited till the lunch was over and I had been
introduced. There was a sense of discomfort in the air… any
time you are before an audience for whom everything is relative
and they know someone is going to introduce you as an
absolutist or holding to a hierarchical position, the sense of
unease is almost visible. How odd that those who argue for the
law are the least trusted with the truth.
As it happened, my talk was during the days of the
Clinton presidency, at the time that he was accused of some
indiscreet behavior, which he had denied. You may recall that
when he was asked, “Is it true?” he brilliantly answered, “It all
depends on what ‘is’ means.” That was the quintessential
postmodern answer. We have gone one better now. The
newest term for a lie is “I misspoke.” I am not even sure how to
spell that.
As I stood up to speak to this rather skeptical and jaded
audience, I began this way: “I have just come here from
watching the news in my hotel room. May I give you the first
three items in the headlines? The first was from a reporter with
his roving microphone, asking people on the street if words
had any particular meaning or whether the speaker reserved the
right to infuse his or her meaning into the words. In our
‘salvation by survey’ culture, the answer was predictable: ‘The
speaker has the right to assign any meaning he or she wishes
to the words used.’
“The second item on the news was the roving reporter
asking people whether morality has any point of reference or
whether each person has the right to their own moral reasoning
The answer was that each person has an individual right to
determine their own morality.
“Those were the first two items on the news.
“Now let me tell you the third item: The United States has
sent a warning to Saddam Hussein that if he doesn’t stop
playing his word games, we will start bombing his cities.”
The facial expressions of those in the audience, dedicated
to the practice of the law, suddenly changed. Isn’t it ironic that
as a culture we have reserved the right to define words and
determine morality for ourselves, but when someone else plays
word games with us or is morally duplicitous, we threaten to
bomb them? This is the hidden menace masquerading as
enlightenment: We tell people they are free to choose their own
deities because there is no ultimate Authority, but when
someone chooses to believe in an ultimate Authority, on the
basis of truth, at best what they believe is distorted by society
or their representatives, and at worst they become the objects
of ridicule. What if what they believe came from a flash of
insight in quiet reflection? Is belief in an ultimate Authority by
definition a wrong insight? Suddenly democracy and diversity
disappear. To deny the law of noncontradiction is to affirm it at
the same time.
I want to be careful here. I realize that this kind of
“rationalistic apologetic” is evicted in the thinking of the New
Spirituality. But I must remind the critics that all of their links to
thought and to philosophy actually originally subscribed to
this basic law of logic: Sankara, Buddha, as well as the Greeks.
The mistake in the spiritual journey was making logic the only
test, thereby carrying something legitimate to an illegitimate
extreme.
Building a Worldview
There are generally two tests for truth: the correspondence
test, where assertions of fact can be tested against reality; and
the coherence test, which ensures that all the assertions that
make up a worldview cohere with one another, or are
consistent with one another. Correspondence to fact and
systemic coherence make for the test of any worldview.
Let me carry this a little further. How does one actually
build a worldview? Invariably, give or take some minor points,
a worldview is based on eight basic components:

1. A good worldview must have a strong basis in fact.

This point alone has a two-edged reality: First, can the
assertion being made be tested against reality? And
second, is the assertion clearly false? If one assertion in
the system is clearly false or cannot be tested against
reality, there is a failure to meet the test of truth.
2. A good worldview must have a high degree of
coherence or internal consistency. The New Spirituality
fails miserably here. I shall demonstrate how as we
come to the end of this section.
3. A good worldview must give a reasonable and logical
explanation for the various undeniable realities that we
sense all around us.
4. A good worldview will avoid the two extremes of either
being too complex or two simplistic.
5. A good worldview is not explained by just one line of
evidence.
6. A good worldview must explain contrary worldviews
 without compromising its own essential beliefs.
7. A good worldview cannot argue just on the basis of a
private experience, but must have some objective
standard of measurements.
8. A good worldview must justifiably explain the essential
nature of good and evil, since those two alternatives
are the principal characteristics differentiating human
beings from all other entities or quantities.

Once a worldview has been established, it becomes the

grid for making particular judgments. To say that there are no
moral absolutes and then castigate Christians for being
hypocritical assumes that hypocrisy is a moral flaw and a
contradictory position and, therefore, is to be vilified. To say
that there is a spark of divinity in all of us and then treat the
lower castes as “less divine”—to even create such a system
that categorizes people like this—is again to run afoul of
reason. Worldviews begin by definitions. Definitions create
boundaries. Violations of those boundaries elicit
condemnation. That condemnation itself excludes. It is
impossible to sustain truth without excluding falsehood. All
religions are exclusive.
Authority
This is a key issue with the New Spiritualist: What or who will
be my authority? To move the final authority to a subjective,
albeit an intuitive flash of enlightenment, an awful lot must be
explained away. It is impossible to grant that right to each
person.
One of my friends tells this story of a doctor trying to talk
his patient in a psychiatric ward out of believing that he is
Moses. But the patient is adamant that he is Moses. Finally,
the doctor asks in frustration, “Who told you that you are
Moses?”
“God did,” comes the confident reply.
“I did not!” comes an indignant voice from the next bed.
Seriously, how does one know when people like Donald
Walsch or Deepak Chopra speak with such authority whether
they are speaking for God or whether they are themselves
divine, or neither? Their own lives are clearly and indisputably
flawed, by their own admission. So where does their moral
authority come from? They have every right to debate,
dialogue, dispute, argue, whatever. But when they speak with
self-referencing conviction, as if they have the consummate
answer, you have to ask, “Says who?” It is not enough to
brush it off as one of them does by saying, “My children know
that I’m a work in progress,” or write it off by creating “Three
Maharishis” in order to cover up the shortcomings of his
mentor.
Jesus asks of his accusers, “Which of you convicts Me of
sin?” (John 8:46 NKJV). Pilate said of him, “I find no fault in this
Man” (Luke 23:4 NKJV). The dying thief on the cross next to
him said, “This Man has done nothing wrong” (Luke 23:41
NKJV). The purity of Jesus’ life and his unassailable example to
us have won the adulation of millions, including Gandhi and
Buddhist thinkers. The historian Lecky attested that he was
unique and without parallel in history.1
Over the fifteen hundred years of recorded history in the
Holy Bible, more than forty different authors either pointed to
Jesus’ coming or lived and walked with him, and speak of him
as the One with authority. He warned against legalism that was
content to administer harsh applications of the law. He showed
the shortcomings of a religion that was empty, nothing but
dogma. He avoided the political limelight. He never charged his
audience for speaking. He lifted up the broken. He conversed
with the rejects of society. He held the little ones in his arms
and asked us to become like them in their propensity to trust
him. In his defining conversation with another teacher who
came to him with honest questions, he said that the answer to
knowing God ultimately lay in a new birth that only the Holy
Spirit of God could bring about. Mystified, the teacher asked
how a grown man could enter the womb again. Jesus presented
a “koan” of his own, if you will: “The wind blows wherever it
pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes
from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the
Spirit” (John 3:8 NIV).
This new birth that Jesus talked about is not self-caused
or self-induced or self-engendered. Nor is it by the will of any
human teacher or by anyone’s recommendation. You can do
nothing to earn it and nothing to make it happen. You cannot
make yourself worthy of it or give yourself rights to it. New
birth comes from God, who alone puts right what is ultimately
wrong with the world—our broken souls. No amount of
meditation or silence or retreat from the world will accomplish
that. Only God in his grace is big enough. The only reasonable
conclusion to any self-examination is that we cannot mend our
world on our own, we cannot mend our broken spirits; we need
someone from the outside to enter our world and our lives and
set things right. We need a Savior.
The big question of authority is on the authority of the
Scriptures. Many capable scholars have addressed this. I have
included a bibliography at the end of this book for anyone who
wants to do further reading on the authority of the Scriptures.
One of the most capable critics of the Bible is Bart Ehrman, who
studied under one of the most knowledgeable Greek scholars
of recent times, Bruce Metzger, of Princeton. I would strongly
recommend Ben Witherington’s outstanding response to
Ehrman, as well as the interaction on the subject between
Ehrman and N. T. Wright.2
This is what I believe it boils down to: If you are
determined to find flaws in the Bible, you will find them,
especially in a book that has been around for so many
centuries, was written by such diverse authors over a great
period of time, and has been translated into so many versions
and languages. So it is with the texts on almost any subject. It
can be done. Ideas are easy to quibble over, debate, dissect,
and reject. One has to start by looking at the big picture, at the
overall truth that is being asserted. Then one puts the main
ideas of the argument to the tests that I mentioned earlier, and
sees how they have been borne out in life, in history, and in
personal application.
When Deepak Chopra opines that John 14:6—where
Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through me”—is nothing more than Jesus
attaining God-consciousness, one who is serious in the quest
must ask, “Really? Would the disciples have laid down their
lives to support Jesus’ claim that he had attained a certain
status if all humanity can also attain such status on their
own?” What would be the reason for that? There would be
nothing unique in that, nothing worth dying for. Is this not a
sham and a shame to make such a pathetic distortion of the
facts when it is clear why he died and that his claim to be
uniquely God was understood by his persecutors? Did they all
get it wrong—Jesus, his disciples, his persecutors, Pilate, the
millions throughout history who have believed—and Chopra
get it right? Is this not the ultimate hubris? The big picture
presented in the text within its context is indisputable.
The Big Picture and Particular Truths
There is nothing like the Bible in all of history, considering the
span of its writing and the varied writers. Nothing. The genre
of literature behind the New Spirituality doesn’t compare. The
cumulative evidence for Jesus’ claim to divinity and the
prophetic specifics that had to congeal clearly make for a book
with the power of the supernatural. That is why writers such as
Peter, Paul, John, Jude, and Luke, from highly different
backgrounds, nevertheless paint a similar picture of the Word
of God who became flesh and dwelled among us, whose pure
and impeccable life accompanied his teaching, and that he was
the fulfillment of the prophetic voices from Moses to Malachi,
who, over more than a thousand years, predicted his coming,
his death, and his resurrection. From carpenters to fishermen to
educators to theologians to civic leaders to a medical doctor—
they all converge on the same truth. These don’t sound like
people who would make up a story and one by one go to an
early death to support it! Take Paul alone—a Hebrew by birth
who studied in Greece and was a citizen of Rome, a highly
educated man and a leader in his community. There was
nothing he wanted to do more than to disprove Jesus as the
Messiah. Yet he ended up writing one-third of the New
Testament and paid for his faith in Christ with his life. Why
would he make up such a thing?
One of Ehrman’s criticisms is that Jesus, he said, could
not have been God because when he was asked when he was
going to return from heaven, he answered that no one knows
about that day, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but
only the Father. It is fascinating how colored one’s glasses can
be! I remember that the first time I read that passage of
Scripture (Mark 13:32), I put the Bible down and shut my eyes,
filled with awe at the beauty of this Savior. If he were a self-
aggrandizing charlatan, why would he have answered the
question that way? He wouldn’t have. He would have
answered it by saying, “I know the date, but I am not going to
tell you.” No one could have proven him wrong. He could have
said, “About forty years from now,” when he wouldn’t have
been around to face the embarrassment. Nothing would have
been more Western than for him to have given an unfalsifiable
date. Nothing would have been more Eastern than for him to
have answered it in a riddle, and no one would have been able
to discern whether he knew the date or didn’t.
Instead, he said the most extraordinary thing… that he
didn’t know. So often he spoke of emptying himself of his
divine prerogatives and of denying himself access to the power
that was legitimately his in order to become the Word of God in
the flesh. Paul says of him in Philippians 2:7 that “he made
himself nothing” (NIV). In his self-denial, that knowledge was
not his to demand as he humbled himself before his own
creation, even to death. Is this any more a mystery than his
agonizing prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? Renouncing
his rights as the Son of Man, he made it possible for the Son of
God to be the sacrifice that he was. Everything about his story
has the ring of authenticity to it.
After one gets the big picture, by all means the finer texts
can be studied and the verbs parsed and the truths examined
and the forms, the texts, and the extrabiblical sources studied.
That is fair and expected. But so many critics take a pen and
treat it as a penknife, coming to so many different conclusions
that it evidences at the least that they themselves are at
variance on what the variants really are. Maybe, just maybe, it
is because whatever the cost, they want to find any way other
than the one Jesus offers. Actually, he wished there were
another way, too. But he committed himself to pay the ultimate
price for us to be able to come to the Father. C. S. Lewis, who
seldom replied to his critics, once made the comment that they
were so wrong about certain sources attributed to him, some of
which he had never even heard of, that he wondered how much
more in error would they be in their critiques of a text two
thousand years old.
Jesus said that the Word of God abides forever. His very
life was the fulfillment of numerous verses of Scripture—an
amazing confluence of hundreds of passages that would be
almost impossible to design by collusion. When the tempter
faced off with Jesus in the wilderness, he used Scripture texts
to try to seduce Jesus. And in response to each temptation
Jesus put those texts back into their contexts, which enabled
him to resist Satan’s schemings. Psalm 119 gives us scores of
valuable insights into the Scriptures. It reminds us that it is a
lamp for our feet and a light on our path. In the grim darkness
of temptation, the light of Scripture shines upon the seduction
and sends the seducers scampering. Truth will ever trump
deceit when the text is applied within its context.
Relevance
Knowing Jesus and walking with him daily bring relevance to
every thought and intent of the heart. I have walked with him
nearly five decades now. Even as I say that, I find it almost
impossible to believe. When I think of the self-rejection and
alienation I felt before and the incredible worth God has placed
upon my life, I am humbled by his call. When I think back to
the things I hated then and love now, the contrast is
unimaginable. I hated reading. Today I can hardly wait to get to
the books I so dearly long to read, the history of thought, of
philosophy of religion, but most of all, to those books that
draw me nearer to God.
Indeed, the great mystics fascinate me as well. I
recommend the finest volume I have read that pulls together
the best-known Christian mystics, a book titled Water from a
Deep Well by Gerald L. Sittser. From Bernard of Clairvaux to
John of the Cross, there is a gold mine here for thought, for
reflection, for example, and for sensing God’s near and dear
presence. One statement in the book that caught my attention
is: “The prayer of silence is not natural. Our attempts to pray
this kind of prayer will expose how trivial and superficial our
thoughts are, how noisy our world is, how inattentive we are to
the reality of God’s presence.”3
The message of Jesus is totally relevant in connecting the
greatest distance in life—the distance from the head to the
heart—a journey that each one of us must take. The intellectual
rigor of the gospel does not rob us of the mystical and
mysterious depths of the very person of God. Charles Haddon
Spurgeon said this:
The proper study of the Christian is the God-head. The highest
science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy,
which can engage the attention of a child of God, is the name,
the nature, the person, the doings, and the existence of the
great God which he calls his Father. There is something
exceedingly improving to the mind in the contemplation of the
Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in
its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity.
Other subjects we can comprehend and grapple with; in them
we feel a kind of self-content, and go on our way with the
thought, “Behold I am wise.” But when we come to this master
science, finding that our plumb-line cannot sound its depth,
amid that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away
with the thought, “I am but of yesterday and know nothing.”4

Knowing this God and having him work in us is the

difference between life and death.
What Difference Does It Make?
In a great church in Brooklyn, New York, where thousands
gather weekly, I was introduced to a twelve-year-old girl. Some
months ago, she was brought by somebody to meet the pastor
because she was being courted by one of the roughest gangs
in the area. The initiation into that gang involved taking a razor
blade and slashing some random person’s face. The pastor
talked to her at length and, sensing an intense anger within her,
finally asked, “Who are you angry at?” Gritting her teeth, she
replied, “I’m angry at my father, I’m angry at my mother, I’m
angry at God, I’m angry at Jesus…” The list went on and on.
The pastor gently spoke to her, telling her that God could
change her heart from hate and anger to love and peace, and
finally he prayed with her.
Today she is at that church every day. She helps in the
offices, in any way she can. She’s a sweet little thing but could
fight the toughest gangster because she has come from a
rough background. One day recently, the pastor asked her how
her week had gone. “Oh, fantastic, just fantastic,” she said.
“Jesus was so good… so good.” Then she paused, raised her
index finger, curled her lip and said, “Except on Thursday…”
The pastor said it took everything he had to keep from bursting
into laughter. “Jesus was good, except on Thursday.” That’s
as transparent as one can be.
The Lord transforms us with extraordinary power and
makes his truth relevant, even to the point of knowing that his
own children can sometimes be disappointed in him until they
realize and accept that his message does not mean an escape
from the sharp edges of life. In this church there are so many
nationalities that when I asked the question “How many?” the
answer was, “It would be hard to think of any nationalities that
are not here.” They are people from disparate backgrounds,
with hurts and fears and facing economic struggles, all finding
Jesus’ message relevant to their own particular need.
A few years ago, the noted English journalist Matthew
Parris wrote an article that caught all of his readers by surprise.
Parris is known as an avowed atheist. This is how he describes
a recent visit to Malawi, the country of his birth:

Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that

as a boy I knew was Nyasaland. Today it’s Malawi… It
inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development
charities. But traveling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too:
one I’ve been trying to banish all my life… It confounds my
ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and
has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God. Now a
confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous
contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply
distinct from the secular NGOs… Education and training alone
will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It
brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The
change is good.5

He continues that he wished he could conclude that the

answer for Africa is to be found in enough aid and in
education, but that does not fit the facts he saw. The
missionaries’ faith in God and the character of their lives had
been transferred to the people, bringing an enormous change
in their ethos and in their way of thinking and acting… the
smiles of confidence that put them on equal footing, shaking
off a servile and servant look. So much change within them was
impossible to explain away. He takes issue with the long-held
belief among Western academic sociologists that tribal value
systems developed over centuries by tribes are “best” for them
and are intrinsically equal or of equal worth to ours, observing
that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours and in fact,
suppresses individuality. People are forced to think
collectively, which feeds into the gangster politics of the
African city, an exaggerated respect for the leader, and a literal
inability to understand the concept of a “loyal opposition.”
The whole structure of rural African thought is weighed down,
he says, by anxiety, fear of spirits, ancestors, nature, and the
wild, and it is a weight that grinds down the spirit.
Acknowledging the heartache and destruction that have
come to Africans as a result of this, he ends with these
staggering paragraphs:

Christianity… with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way

link between the individual and God, unmediated by the
collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being,
smashes straight through the philosophical/spiritual framework
I’ve just described…
Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century
global competition must not kid themselves that providing the
material means or even the know-how that accompanies what
we call development will make the change. A whole belief
system must first be supplanted. And I’m afraid it has to be
supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from
the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a
malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and
the machete.6
 This is an incredible acknowledgment, by an avowed
atheist, that mere spiritual or altruistic ideas are not enough; it
is only the message of Jesus to change the heart that will
change a continent. I admire Mr. Parris’s bold recognition of
this. If Christians would live out their faith with confidence and
in love, I suspect he would say this is true not just for Africa,
but for the world as well… perhaps even for Mr. Parris.
G. K. Chesterton was right: The problem with Christianity
is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it has
been found difficult and left untried. The message of Jesus is
beautiful and magnificent and life-changing. If you have not
already discovered that for yourself, may you discover it now.
Spirituality is not good enough.
Jesus proclaims the truth—that is why it must exclude all
that is contrary to it. He lived and spoke with authority—that is
why what he said applies to each of us. His message bridges
the greatest gulf within us—that is why it is relevant even
today, two thousand years later.
Picture This Scene
In Luke 4:14–21, we are told of this incident:

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news

about him spread through the whole countryside. He was
teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and
on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his
custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet
Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place
where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he
has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has
sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of
sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the
year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant
and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were
fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this
scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (NIV)

This is the message of freedom for those in bondage, a

message that will open the eyes of our darkened spirituality to
the bright light of his grace, that will convince a Church to live
the love of God by taking care of the poor and taking up the
cause of the oppressed, that assures us there is an end of time
where eternity awaits, and that all who long for his presence
will live in the fulfillment of their faith to the grand
consummation of seeing the Ultimate One, face-to-face.
The Christian believes, too, in justice and liberation and in
caring for the neediest among us. The Christian believes, too,
that the mind will suddenly grasp the Ultimate. The Christian
believes, too, in the ultimate synchronicity of all that is true
and good and beautiful. The Christian believes, too, in
moments of deep reflection and meditation and in God’s self-
disclosure to the one who truly seeks after him. The Christian
believes, too, that the harmony of the soul that is longed for is
to be sought. But the Christian believes all that is
foreshadowed in the now is consummated in the divine
presence of God when we are called to be with him. It is not in
us. It is in him that we find it all.
The songwriter captured this well:

Seated one day at the organ,

I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys;
I know not what I was playing,
Nor what I was dreaming then,
But I touched one chord of music
Like the sound of a great amen.
It flooded the crimson twilight
Like the close of an angel psalm;
It lay o’er my feeble spirit
Like the touch of infinite calm;
It quieted pain and sorrow—
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed a harmonious echo
From our discordant life;
It linked all perplexed meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence,
As if it were loath to cease.
I have sought and I seek it vainly—
That one lost chord divine—
Which came from the soul of the organ
And entered into mine.
It may be that death’s bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,
It may be that only in heav’n
I shall hear that grand Amen!7

That will be the sound of ultimate harmony and the silence

of ultimate awe.
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APPENDIX
 SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE
AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES

Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The

Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2008. A seminal work on the Gospel writers’ use of
original eyewitness testimony, with an updated examination of
the role of oral tradition in biblical times.
Blomberg, Craig. The Historical Reliability of the
Gospels. 2nd ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press
Academic, 2007. For more on this book and Blomberg’s
response to supposed Bible errors, see also
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2008/03/26/interview-
with-craig-blomberg/.
Dickson, John. Life of Jesus: Who He Is and Why He
Matters. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010. An engaging
look at the life of Jesus in his first-century environment from a
historian of ancient history.
Ehrman, Bart, and N. T. Wright. “ ‘Dialogue Between Bart
Ehrman and N. T. Wright: Is Our Pain, God’s Problem?’ ”
Available online at http://bit.ly/bundles/ehrmanproject/3.
Ehrman Project. Various biblical scholars respond to Bart
Ehrman’s challenge to the credibility of Christianity and
reliability of the Scriptures. Available online at
http://ehrmanproject.com/index.
Evans, Craig A. Fabricating Jesus: How Modern
Scholars Distort the Gospels. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 2008. New Testament scholar Evans looks at the biblical
and ancient sources that provide a portrait of Jesus and the
arguments made by The Da Vinci Code and the Jesus Seminar.
Kitchen, K. A. On the Reliability of the Old Testament.
Annotated ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006. An
examination of the correspondence between archaeology and
the text of the Old Testament by an emeritus professor of
Egyptology and archaeology at the University of Liverpool.
Lennox, John. Seven Days That Divide the World: The
Beginning According to Genesis and Science. Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan, 2011. Although the focus of this work looks at
the origins of the universe from scientific and biblical data,
Lennox, professor of mathematics at Greens College, Oxford,
provides great insight for approaching biblical literature and
scientist theories and evidence.
Witherington, Ben. “Review of Forged (by Bart Ehrman).”
Available online at http://bit.ly/bundles/ehrmanproject/4. See
also his lecture “Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up,”
available online at
http://www.patheos.com/community/bibleandculture/2011/02/28/will-
the-real-jesus-please-stand-up-a-vertical-jesus-in-a-world-of-
horizontal-analysis/.
 NOTES

Chapter 1: Movie Making or Soul Making

1. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy:
Personal and Social Transformation in Our Time
(New York: Tarcher, 1987), 296.
Chapter 2: How the West Was Lost Through Its Gains
1. William Blake, “The Everlasting Gospel,” in The
Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, ed. D. H.
S. Nicholson and A. H. E. Lee (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1917), emphasis added.
2. Steve Turner, The Gospel According to the Beatles
(Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006),
188–89.
3. Sri Ravi Shankar, “The Ancient New Age,” as
addressed online at
http://www.parauniversal.com/2007/10/the-ancient-
new-age-august-1996-santamonica-california/_.
4. Sri Ravi Shankar, Hinduism and Christianity: A
Talk (Kendra, India: Vyakti Vikas, 1998), 70–71.
5. The choice of taking either that which has been
offered or nothing at all. This term is named after
Thomas Hobson of Cambridge, England (1544–
1630), who rented horses and gave his customers
only one choice: the horse nearest the stable door.
Chapter 3: Exhaling the Old, Inhaling the New
1. Elaine Woo, “Writer Was Pivotal Figure in New
 Age Movement,” Los Angeles Times, November 2,
2008, accessed online at
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/02/local/me-
ferguson2.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Elizabeth Lesser, The New American Spirituality:
A Seeker’s Guide (New York: Villard Books, 1999),
31.
7. Elizabeth Lesser, “Insider’s Guide to 21st Century
Spirituality,” Spirituality and Health, Spring 2000,
accessed online at http://www.spirituality-
health.com/NMagazine/articles.php?id-738.
8. Ibid.
9. Ted Turner, quoted in David Friend and Life
magazine, The Meaning of Life: Reflections in
Words and Pictures on Why We Are Here (New
York: Little, Brown, 1991), 73.
Chapter 4: From Oprah to Chopra
1. Bill Adler, ed., The Uncommon Wisdom of Oprah
Winfrey: A Portrait in Her Own Words (New York:
Carol Publishing, 1997), 3.
2. Janet Lowe, Oprah Winfrey Speaks: Insight from
the World’s Most Influential Voice (New York:
Wiley, 1998), 37.
3. Ibid., 38–39.
4. Adler, The Uncommon Wisdom of Oprah Winfrey,
4.
 5. Ibid., 7.
6. Ibid., 28.
7. Marcia Z. Nelson, “Oprah on a Mission:
Dispensing a Gospel of Health and Happiness,”
Christian Century, September 25, 2002, 24–25.
Used by permission.
8. Kitty Kelley, Oprah: A Biography (New York:
Crown Archetype, 2010), 97.
9. Ibid., 419.
10. Ibid., 49.
11. Ibid., 54.
12. Ibid., 87.
13. Ibid., 86–87.
14. Ibid., 337.
15. Ibid., 73.
Chapter 5: The Religion of Quantum
1. Deepak Chopra in “Quantum Healing,” interview
by Daniel Redwood, accessed online at
http://www.healthy.net/asp/templates/interview.asp?
PageType=Interview&Id=167.
2. “Deepak Chopra,” in The Skeptics Dictionary,
accessed online at
http://www.skepdic.com/chopra.html.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. See also “Alternative Health Practices,” in The
Skeptics Dictionary, at
http://skepdic.com/althelth.html; “Faith Healing,”
at http://www.skepdic.com/faithhealing.html; and
 “Readers Comments: Ayurvedic Medicine &
Deepak Chopra,” at
http://www.skepdic.com/comments/chopracom.html.
For further reading, see John Ankerberg and John
Weldon, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs
(Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1996); Kurt Butler, A
Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine”: A
Close Look at Homeopathy, Acupuncture,
FaithHealing, and Other Unconventional
Treatments (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books,
1992); Heinz R. Pagels, The Cosmic Code:
Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1982); and Douglas
Stalker and Clark Glymour, eds., Examining
Holistic Medicine (Buffalo: Prometheus Books,
1989).
7. Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws of
Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of
Your Dreams (San Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen
Publishing, 1994), iv, v.
8. “Deepak Chopra,” in The Skeptics Dictionary.
Chapter 6: Go West, Young Man
1. Aseem Shukla, “Dr. Chopra: Honor Thy Heritage,”
Washington Post, April 28, 2010, accessed online
at
http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/aseem_shu
2. Plotinus, quoted in Michael Cox, Handbook of
Christian Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper and
Row, 1983), 39.
3. Albert B. Simpson, “Himself,” in Hymns of the
 Christian Life (Harrisburg, PA: Christian
Publications, 1962), 237. Public domain.
Chapter 7: The Three Gurus
1. Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of
Swami Vivekananda, accessed online at
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_
2. “Swami Vivekananda,” Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Vivekananda.
3. Bhupendranath Datta, Swami Vivekananda,
Patriot Prophet: A Study (Calcutta, India:
Nababharat Publishers, 1954), 212.
4. Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami
Vivekananda.
5. Swami Vivekananda as reported by the Chicago
Tribune, September 20, 1893, quoted by David L.
Johnson, A Reasoned Look at Asian Religions
(Minneapolis: Bethany, 1995), 106.
6. Paramahansa Yogananda, accessed online at
http://www.anandapaloalto.org/joy/gurus.html.
7. Marianne Williamson, “A Spiritual Response to
Terrorism,” December 17, 2008,
http://blog.marianne.com/journal/archives/2008/12/a_spiritual_re
8. Deepak Chopra, “The Maharishi Years: The Untold
Story,” Huffington Post, February 13, 2008,
accessed online at
http://www.huffintonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-
maharishi-years-the-u-b-86412.html.
9. Ibid.
10. H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Celebrating Love
(Udaypura, Bangalore: Sri Sri Publications Trust,
 2005), 35.
Chapter 8: Smiling Your Way Through Puzzles
1. Quoted in Li Cheng, Song of a Wanderer:
Beckoned by Eternity (Cincinnati, OH: Foundation
for Chinese Christian Authors, 2002), 88.
2. For further details of all these stories, see E. F. Wu
et al., The Five Great Religions of the World
(Hong Kong: Holy Literatures, 1989).
3. Isshu Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki, The Zen Koan:
Its History and Use in Rinzai Zen (New York:
Harcourt, Brace, 1965), x1.
4. Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen: Enlightenment, Origins
and Meaning, trans. from the German by John C.
Maraldo (Boston: Shambhala, 2007), 67.
5. Elizabeth Lesser, The New American Spirituality:
A Seeker’s Guide (New York: Villard Books, 1999),
113.
6. A crucial Buddhist doctrine of the cyclical cause
and effect of suffering. Also used as a way to
approach problems in daily life or forms of
collective suffering.
7. David L. Johnson, A Reasoned Look at Asian
Religions (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1995), 50–51.
8. Ibid., 53–54.
9. An ontic referent is that which in and of itself is
objectively real, apart from anything anyone can
contribute to it.
Chapter 9: Do You Really Want to Live?
1. G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, accessed online at
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/470/470-h/470-
 h.htm.
2. Quoted in Dale Ahlquist, G. K. Chesterton: The
Apostle of Common Sense (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 2003), 63.
Chapter 10: The Ties That Bind
1. Alec Liu, “IBM’s Watson Computer Wallops
‘Jeopardy!’ Champs in Trial Run” (January 13,
2011), accessed online at
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/13/ibm-
watson-takes-jeopardy-champs/.
2. Ibid.
3. James Stewart, The Strong Name (Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker, 1972), 55, italics mine.
Chapter 12: Reshaping Jesus to Suit Our Prejudices
1. Elizabeth Lesser, The New American Spirituality:
A Seeker’s Guide (New York: Villard Books, 1999),
410.
2. Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to
Spiritual Enlightenment (Novato, CA: New World
Library, 1999), 223, 225.
3. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God:
An Uncommon Dialogue, book 2 (Newburyport,
MA: Hampton Roads Publishing, 1997), 74, 75, 80.
4. Ibid., 57.
5. Lesser, The New American Spirituality.
6. Deepak Chopra, The Third Jesus: The Christ We
Cannot Ignore (New York: Random House), 8, 9.
7. Ibid., 9–10.
8. Ibid., 9.
9. Ibid., 3–4.
 10. Ibid., 111, 112.
11. See Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Spiritual Classics
(Boston: Nicholas Brealey, 2005), 76.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 286.
14. Francis Thompson, “The Hound of Heaven.”
Chapter 13: The Greatest of All
1. Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,”
accessed online at
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/301/301-h/301-
h.htm.
2. Story used by permission.
3. See William Blake’s poem “And Did Those Feet in
Ancient Time” (ca. 1804–1810), in M. H. Abrams,
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 3rd
ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1975), 1,342.
4. Deepak Chopra, “The Three Maharishis,”
Huffington Post, February 6, 2008, accessed online
at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-
chopra/the-three-maharishis_b_85432.html.
5. As quoted in EricMetaxas, Amazing Grace:
William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to
End Slavery (New York: HarperOne, 2007), 37.
6. F. W. Boreham’s comments on “Wilberforce” as
excerpted in “29 July: Boreham on William
Wilberforce,” accessed online at
http://thisdaywithfwboreham.blogspot.com/2006/08/29-
july-boreham-william-wilberforce.html.
Chapter 14: False Assumptions and Magnificent Truths
1. See W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals
 from Augustus to Charlemagne, vol. 2 (New York:
D. Appleton and Company, 1890), 8.
2. See the appendix: “Suggested Bibliography on the
Authority of the Scriptures,” for these and other
excellent resources.
3. Gerald L. Sittser, Water from a Deep Well:
Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to
Modern Missionaries (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1997), 185.
4. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, quoted in A. W. Pink,
The Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker,
1975), 88.
5. Matthew Parris, “As an Atheist, I Truly Believe
Africa Needs God,” Times, December 27, 2008,
accessed online at
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_
6. Ibid.
7. “The Lost Chord,” lyrics: Adelaide Anne Proctor
(1825–1864); music: Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900).
Public domain.
 CONTENTS

Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction

CHAPTER 1: Movie Making or Soul Making

CHAPTER 2: How the West Was Lost Through Its Gains
CHAPTER 3: Exhaling the Old, Inhaling the New
CHAPTER 4: From Oprah to Chopra
CHAPTER 5: The Religion of Quantum
CHAPTER 6: Go West, Young Man
CHAPTER 7: The Three Gurus
CHAPTER 8: Smiling Your Way Through Puzzles
CHAPTER 9: Do You Really Want to Live?
CHAPTER 10: The Ties That Bind
CHAPTER 11: The Search for Jesus
CHAPTER 12: Reshaping Jesus to Suit Our Prejudices
CHAPTER 13: The Greatest of All
CHAPTER 14: False Assumptions and Magnificent Truths
Appendix: Suggested Bibliography on the Authority of the
Scriptures
Newsletters
Notes
Copyright
 Copyright

Copyright © 2012 by Ravi Zacharias All rights reserved. In

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Scripture quotations noted KJV are from the King James

Version of the HolyBible.
Scripture quotations noted NASB are from the New American
Standard Bible®.
Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977,
1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations noted NIV are from The Holy Bible, New
International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984,
2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved
worldwide.
Scripture quotations noted NKJV are from the New King James
Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.,
Publishers.

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