New Age to Jesus phenomena

[Kushu2000]

  Hey guys, my first post here  I'm not religious, in fact, ATM I'm practicing meditation and yoga and am huge into personal development. One thing , however, that I've noticed after lots and lots of research is what I like to call the "New Age to Jesus phenomena". I've encountered lots and lots of testimonies (some of them I've attached below) of people converting from New Age spirituality (meditation, yoga, astral projection,...) to Jesus (Holy Spirit). What I found interesting is that these experiences and testimonies seem very heartfelt, touching and compelling. 

  I guess what I'm trying to ask is, is there anyone who has any clue as to what this means? Are these experiences just something we can't really explain? Why do people in the Christian faith deem everything that's not Christian demonic? What is the correlation between Kundalini energy and the Holy Spirit? 

  I'm praying for the first time in my life, I guess I'm conducting a sort of an experiment, trying to figure out whether Jesus is real or not. Please, do not view me as a Fundamentalist/Stage Blue person. I'm extremely open-minded and I've had an awakening experience about a year ago, brought on by LSD... so it's not like I was raised Christian. Not at all. I was an atheist since I can remember.

  I also find it interesting that the New Age philosophy is "You are God"/"Everything is God" whereas the Christian philosophy is "We are separate from God". Could BOTH be true? Could God be impersonal or personal?

  Thanks in advance.

 

 

[ColdFacts]

My guess is that their ideas or whatever spiritual skills they gain fail somewhere along the road and so in order to keep alive that dream of the impossible being possible they jump to the next best thing that has survived the test of reality while still being in a way supernatural or with that aspect of imagination.

[mandyjw]

It's funny that you just posted this now because I've been going through this, only for me it's a revival. I was raised as a Christian and my parents had already left the church and were bitter about the organized religion part of it when I was very young. I took an interest in it myself and studied my Bible on my own, mostly just the gospels but I also loved Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. There were a lot of verses that I would read again and try to understand.

As a teenager and young adult I deeply, deeply hated other Christians and the status quo. It's like I wanted to suffer because most of the friends I made were Christian and those friends judged me for being friends with other people that they thought were "bad". I even had a Satanist friend and he was a blast. I was always trying to separate out the truth of Jesus from all the bullshit. 

I let go of the whole idea, shortly after getting into Buddhism. It's a really scary thing to step away from the thing that you've been taught is your "salvation" and "hope of eternal life". But I knew I had found the truth with nonduality. 

Those verses that perplexed me and frustrated me, one by one I understood them as epiphanies. My new dogma was nonduality. My new dogma was letting go of my past, not putting hope in a future. My new dogma was the present moment and nothingness, no attachment. 

Then after a few years it stopped serving me. My entire purpose for nonduality was so I could have mental peace. I became depressed and old patterns flooded in but at the same time, I started connecting deeply with different types of energy from places, and having inexplicable attractions to them. It all unfolded into an awakening in which I accepted that I had always tried to be good, and never recognized the devil in myself. 

I had been raised to be a moral, good Christian girl and I had truly wanted to be one. When I outgrew it I turned to Buddhism and non duality to serve the same purpose, so I could see myself as a good person. 

After I recognized the Devil in myself I truly experienced what is meant by the Holy Spirit, it is the same as kundalini energy. Of course! This is nonduality! My eyes were opened to the true mystic, Gnostic Jesus I had loved all along, more fully himself/myself. 

Christians have buried the nondual teachings and they don't understand the ones that persist in the Bible. They weeded out hundred of years ago. That's why it's so very dangerous, without an open mind, without wisdom and understanding you will turn nondual teachings into the worst kind of hell. 

I highly suggest reading the gospel of Thomas.

Jesus goes way deeper than Buddha. He has an outrageous sort of love, and there are predictions and signs and tough riddles to understand that aren't present with Buddhism. It takes a very open mind to dive into this stuff. 

 

 

[ajasatya]

24 minutes ago, Kushu2000 said:

I also find it interesting that the New Age philosophy is "You are God"/"Everything is God" whereas the Christian philosophy is "We are separate from God". Could BOTH be true? Could God be impersonal or personal?

Interesting questions. Keep it up.

Just keep in mind that there is no other authority than direct experience. Whether I tell you that you're right or wrong is just another dogma at this point. So, at the same time that you're helpless in a sense, the very source of you BEING holds all the mysteries of existence. Nothing is inaccessible, nothing is hidden. Truth is public!

[Nahm]

@Kushu2000 Welcome to the forum. Truth can’t be thought. Love ya. 

[jbram2002]

I would encourage you to separate the religion of Christianity (and its thousands of forms, each unique) from a spiritualist belief in Jesus.

Religion is a set of rules governing a specific belief system. Christianity suffers immensely from having many religions around it. People see these religions and assume all Christians follow those rules. For example, they see that Catholicism abhors birth control in all forms, then assume any Christian must also hate birth control. They see the fallacy of many priests and their sexual misconduct with altar boys and assume that the entire church is hypocritical and spiteful.

Although it's true that a lot of Christian religions have rules that many non-Christians strongly disagree with, that doesn't mean that all followers of Christ follow those rules. A spiritualist belief in Jesus transcends the religion and focuses on the truths that Jesus spoke. Mandy talks about this in her beautifully-wrotten post.

Keep in mind that you can find religion anywhere you see a dogma. There's religion in atheism. There's religion on this forum. Whenever you place rules on someone else in order to accept their beliefs as valid, you are creating a religion. The turn from New Age spirituality to Jesus is not a backslide, but rather an expansion in a specific direction, grasping onto new and beautiful truths that were previously held hidden.

[Nahm]

27 minutes ago, jbram2002 said:

beautifully-wrotten

Freudian slippage?

???

 

[Hellspeed]

Any religion has the truth in his essence, kundalini and everything. But the approach in religion is that you have to follow their norms and their acceptance, and this is where one goes with the flock or not.

Any religion book teaches enlightenment in the metaphors, not in the literal.

Christians usually are brainwashed into taking the bible literally, so they are dormant and dangerous at the end of the day.

[seeking_brilliance]

I would love a thread which explores the non dual teachings in the Bible and its extra-canon... 

@mandyjw

@Kushu2000

'Why do people in the Christian faith deem everything that's not Christian demonic?' 

Because this is what they are taught in church.  They truly love their God and truly believe they must accept Jesus christ as their savior in order to go to heaven.  Some denominations believe you have to ask Jesus into your heart again every time you sin, in fear that they will not go to heaven. My denomination believed that once you are saved, you are always saved, but you should still ask for forgiveness of your sins.  And all this neurotisism for those that already believe!  On top of all this, they truly want to save the world and don't want to see anyone go to hell.  Especially the people they love.  So they spread their neurotisisms around the world like a Christian plague.  

Praying is good. Helps you focus your intent into something. As long as you realize that at the end of the road, you are praying to yourself. 

[mandyjw]

9 minutes ago, Nahm said:

Freudian slippage?

???

 

 Are you suggesting that I'm rotten? One bad apple ruins the whole bunch I guess. 

[mandyjw]

As a Christian you separate the world into strong shades of black and white, so there is God and good and there is evil and demons. It's duality on steroids. As a kid I had impulses to accept the devil into my heart, and they drove me crazy. I later learned that those impulses were obsessive compulsive disorder, or I thought that they were. There would also be impulses to go places, pick up things and say or confess things. 

Those impulses were intuition, trying to get me to do a kind of shadow work and discover the truth of nonduality. They were my inner spirit. My love, faith and desire for Jesus and Truth was an open window to spirit at that young age. I was afraid and I slammed it shut. 

Only after I grew up and let go of my faith did that window open again. It kind of felt like someone threw a rock through it, but I guess I asked for it in a way. 

 

[jbram2002]

1 hour ago, Nahm said:

Freudian slippage?

???

 

Hard to type on the phone sometimes. I suppose being beautifully rotten is an interesting concept too~

[Jkris]

@Kushu2000 Adwaitha - Non duality is first of all not a new age phenomena.

The Vedanta or Nonduality of Hinduism predates all  religions and the exact time when they were written is also not known exactly.

Jainism predates buddism.

Buddhism too originated in India 2500 years back the only difference between Adwaitha - Nonduality and the Buddism is that Buddha kept silent about the realisation and the buddhists disagree with the Final realisation that You are god to You are void.Adwaitha says Atman - Brahman  - Parabrahman - Sat chit Ananda to the One Absolute Infinity.

Buddism on the other hand says Annatta - No atman or nothing like Absolute Infinity God - Its just a void shoonya.Rest karma,Rebirth no difference between Adwaitha - Hinduism and Buddism.

The buddism here I refer to the early buddism in India.

Hence the debate between vedantins and Bhuddists says history.

Later Buddism spread to Tibet,China,Burma,Thailand,Japan and I am not sure about their final conclusions.

Jainism,Buddism is very strict about non violence,non killing of animals for food.

Hinduism accepts the formless and form as gods and god in everything and hence

God is worshipped as creator,protector,destroyer and

Earth,Sun,Moon,Rain,ocean,Stars,Fire,Air,Animals,Trees,Plants all are worshipped.Literally everything - nature is worshipped( The religious part ).

Yoga vashishta - the non dual teachings which were Given to king Rama by sage vasishta which was believed to be approximately 7000 -  7500 years back.So it is believed Vedas upanishads - predates that.

Hindus never convert people.They dont say it is your religious duty to convert others to Hinduism.

Church on the other hand says Christianity is the only true Religion rest all are false.It is duty of christians to convert others to christianity.

Idle worship is a sin etc.

The demeaning of other religions is part of conversion.

I happened to hear a indoctrination on children about Yoga in TV.The child says pastor said Kudalini is said to be Serpant power and we know Satan is a Serpant and hence it is a sin forbidden to do yoga.It is against christianity and yoga will make the person impotent ???. 

I dont know what holy spirit is meant in christianity.

But kundalini yoga is just one of the many yogic paths or ways to realize truth.

Welcome to the jungle of Spirituality ???

 

[jbram2002]

@seeking_brilliance I think that's a good idea. Since you were the one with the idea, feel free to start up the topic. I wouldn't mind a ping when it's up!

[Jkris]

@Hellspeed I disagree Non duality books are not taught in metaphors.It is very direct.

 

[Kushu2000]

  Cool, you guys' replies match with a lot of my own realizations. I delved into the Bible a bit, there are clearly some non-dual teachings there. ("Take no thought for tomorrow, tomorrow will take care for itself.") It looks like these people (as we all do) had some traumas from their childhoods that got released as they prayed to Jesus. Hence the saying: "I'm saved!" That's my theory for now. 

@mandyjw So you're saying enlightenment doesn't gurantee "Infinite love" like Leo says? How can Jesus be deeper than Buddha? When I had my awakening it caused a bliss and a sense of Unconditional Love for everything and everyone. How could it go any deeper than that? (But then again, hearing some of the stuff that happens when people take 5-Meo DMT, anything could be possible, lol.)

  There's also Christian mysticism which I think is the optimal way. I have a theory that Christians have a "Born again" experience, which is great, but they stop there. They just stop growing spiritually. I know a guy in my town who is "Born again" and now he just wanders around town, condemning anyone who isn't Christian. Yes, you can have mystical experiences, but you can interpret them in a way that is completely counterproductive and can even set you back. I'd say having a Born again experience is a Stage Turqoise experience, while becoming a Fundamentalist Christian is a Stage Blue perception of that experience. Just like with any other religion. 

@ajasatya You're right. Gotta go back to my"meditation cave" and find the Truth for myself  

 

[Bill W]

@jbram2002 @seeking_brilliance

2 hours ago, jbram2002 said:

@seeking_brilliance I think that's a good idea. Since you were the one with the idea, feel free to start up the topic. I wouldn't mind a ping when it's up!

Me as well. Count me in. 

[Shadowraix]

Jesus whoever he was was just another enlightened teacher pointing to the same thing. It's just many Christians cling to the mental model it builds through its belief system. Christianity can lead to enlightenment but I don't think it really works well. You end up with too many half truths. High consciousness wisdom to low consciousness people is tricky.