Avoid foolish questions

Avoid foolish questions. Titus 3:9

Our days are few, and are far better spent in doing good, than in disputing over matters which are, at best, of minor importance. The old schoolmen did a world of mischief by their incessant discussion of subjects of no practical importance; and our Churches suffer much from petty wars over abstruse points and unimportant questions. After everything has been said that can be said, neither party is any the wiser, and therefore the discussion no more promotes knowledge than love, and it is foolish to sow in so barren a field. Questions upon points wherein Scripture is silent; upon mysteries which belong to God alone; upon prophecies of doubtful interpretation; and upon mere modes of observing human ceremonials, are all foolish, and wise men avoid them. Our business is neither to ask nor answer foolish questions, but to avoid them altogether; and if we observe the apostle's precept (Titus 3:8) to be careful to maintain good works, we shall find ourselves far too much occupied with profitable business to take much interest in unworthy, contentious, and needless strivings.

There are, however, some questions which are the reverse of foolish, which we must not avoid, but fairly and honestly meet, such as these: Do I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Am I renewed in the spirit of my mind? Am I walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit? Am I growing in grace? Does my conversation adorn the doctrine of God my Saviour? Am I looking for the coming of the Lord, and watching as a servant should do who expects his master? What more can I do for Jesus? Such enquiries as these urgently demand our attention; and if we have been at all given to cavilling, let us now turn our critical abilities to a service so much more profitable. Let us be peace-makers, and endeavour to lead others both by our precept and example, to "avoid foolish questions."

The Lord's portion is His people

"The Lord's portion is His people." Deuteronomy 32:9 

How are they His? By His own sovereign choice. He chose them, and set His love upon them. This He did altogether apart from any goodness in them at the time, or any goodness which He foresaw in them. He had mercy on whom He would have mercy, and ordained a chosen company unto eternal life; thus, therefore, are they His by His unconstrained election.

They are not only His by choice, but by purchase. He has bought and paid for them to the utmost farthing, hence about His title there can be no dispute. Not with corruptible things, as with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord's portion has been fully redeemed. There is no mortgage on His estate; no suits can be raised by opposing claimants, the price was paid in open court, and the Church is the Lord's freehold for ever. See the blood-mark upon all the chosen, invisible to human eye, but known to Christ, for "the Lord knoweth them that are His"; He forgetteth none of those whom He has redeemed from among men; He counts the sheep for whom He laid down His life, and remembers well the Church for which He gave Himself.

They are also His by conquest. What a battle He had in us before we would be won! How long He laid siege to our hearts! How often He sent us terms of capitulation! but we barred our gates, and fenced our walls against Him. Do we not remember that glorious hour when He carried our hearts by storm? When He placed His cross against the wall, and scaled our ramparts, planting on our strongholds the blood-red flag of His omnipotent mercy? Yes, we are, indeed, the conquered captives of His omnipotent love. Thus chosen, purchased, and subdued, the rights of our divine possessor are inalienable: we rejoice that we never can be our own; and we desire, day by day, to do His will, and to show forth His glory.

Men ought always to pray

"Men ought always to pray." Luke 18:1

If men ought always to pray and not to faint, much more Christian men. Jesus has sent His church into the world on the same errand upon which He Himself came, and this mission includes intercession. What if I say that the church is the world's priest? Creation is dumb, but the church is to find a mouth for it. It is the church's high privilege to pray with acceptance. The door of grace is always open for her petitions, and they never return empty-handed. The veil was rent for her, the blood was sprinkled upon the altar for her, God constantly invites her to ask what she wills. Will she refuse the privilege which angels might envy her? Is she not the bride of Christ? May she not go in unto her King at every hour? Shall she allow the precious privilege to be unused? The church always has need for prayer. There are always some in her midst who are declining, or falling into open sin. There are lambs to be prayed for, that they may be carried in Christ's bosom? the strong, lest they grow presumptuous; and the weak, lest they become despairing. If we kept up prayer-meetings four-and-twenty hours in the day, all the days in the year, we might never be without a special subject for supplication. Are we ever without the sick and the poor, the afflicted and the wavering? Are we ever without those who seek the conversion of relatives, the reclaiming of back-sliders, or the salvation of the depraved? Nay, with congregations constantly gathering, with ministers always preaching, with millions of sinners lying dead in trespasses and sins; in a country over which the darkness of Romanism is certainly descending; in a world full of idols, cruelties, devilries, if the church doth not pray, how shall she excuse her base neglect of the commission of her loving Lord? Let the church be constant in supplication, let every private believer cast his mite of prayer into the treasury.

"The trial of your faith."

"The trial of your faith." 1 Peter 1:7

Faith untried may be true faith, but it is sure to be little faith, and it is likely to remain dwarfish so long as it is without trials. Faith never prospers so well as when all things are against her: tempests are her trainers, and lightnings are her illuminators. When a calm reigns on the sea, spread the sails as you will, the ship moves not to its harbour; for on a slumbering ocean the keel sleeps too. Let the winds rush howling forth, and let the waters lift up themselves, then, though the vessel may rock, and her deck may be washed with waves, and her mast may creak under the pressure of the full and swelling sail, it is then that she makes headway towards her desired haven. No flowers wear so lovely a blue as those which grow at the foot of the frozen glacier; no stars gleam so brightly as those which glisten in the polar sky; no water tastes so sweet as that which springs amid the desert sand; and no faith is so precious as that which lives and triumphs in adversity. Tried faith brings experience. You could not have believed your own weakness had you not been compelled to pass through the rivers; and you would never have known God's strength had you not been supported amid the water-floods. Faith increases in solidity, assurance, and intensity, the more it is exercised with tribulation. Faith is precious, and its trial is precious too.

Let not this, however, discourage those who are young in faith. You will have trials enough without seeking them: the full portion will be measured out to you in due season. Meanwhile, if you cannot yet claim the result of long experience, thank God for what grace you have; praise Him for that degree of holy confidence whereunto you have attained: walk according to that rule, and you shall yet have more and more of the blessing of God, till your faith shall remove mountains and conquer impossibilities.

He shall choose our inheritance for us

"He shall choose our inheritance for us."  Psalm 47:4

Believer, if your inheritance be a lowly one you should be satisfied with your earthly portion; for you may rest assured that it is the fittest for you. Unerring wisdom ordained your lot, and selected for you the safest and best condition. A ship of large tonnage is to be brought up the river; now, in one part of the stream there is a sandbank; should some one ask, "Why does the captain steer through the deep part of the channel and deviate so much from a straight line?" His answer would be, "Because I should not get my vessel into harbour at all if I did not keep to the deep channel." So, it may be, you would run aground and suffer shipwreck, if your divine Captain did not steer you into the depths of affliction where waves of trouble follow each other in quick succession. Some plants die if they have too much sunshine. It may be that you are planted where you get but little, you are put there by the loving Husbandman, because only in that situation will you bring forth fruit unto perfection. Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there. You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances, and if you had the choosing of your lot, you would soon cry, "Lord, choose my inheritance for me, for by my self-will I am pierced through with many sorrows." Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good. Take up your own daily cross; it is the burden best suited for your shoulder, and will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word and work to the glory of God. Down busy self, and proud impatience, it is not for you to choose, but for the Lord of Love!

"Trials must and will befall-- 

But with humble faith to see 

Love inscribed upon them all; 

This is happiness to me." 

"As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord." Colossians 2:6

"As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord."
Colossians 2:6

The life of faith is represented as receiving-- an act which implies the very opposite of anything like merit. It is simply the acceptance of a gift. As the earth drinks in the rain, as the sea receives the streams, as night accepts light from the stars, so we, giving nothing, partake freely of the grace of God. The saints are not, by nature, wells, or streams, they are but cisterns into which the living water flows; they are empty vessels into which God pours His salvation. The idea of receiving implies a sense of realization, making the matter a reality. One cannot very well receive a shadow; we receive that which is substantial: so is it in the life of faith, Christ becomes real to us. While we are without faith, Jesus is a mere name to us--a person who lived a long while ago, so long ago that His life is only a history to us now! By an act of faith Jesus becomes a real person in the consciousness of our heart. But receiving also means grasping or getting possession of. The thing which I receive becomes my own: I appropriate to myself that which is given. When I receive Jesus, He becomes my Saviour, so mine that neither life nor death shall be able to rob me of Him. All this is to receive Christ--to take Him as God's free gift; to realize Him in my heart, and to appropriate Him as mine.

Salvation may be described as the blind receiving sight, the deaf receiving hearing, the dead receiving life; but we have not only received these blessings, we have received CHRIST JESUS Himself. It is true that He gave us life from the dead. He gave us pardon of sin; He gave us imputed righteousness. These are all precious things, but we are not content with them; we have received Christ Himself. The Son of God has been poured into us, and we have received Him, and appropriated Him. What a heartful Jesus must be, for heaven itself cannot contain Him! 

BACKSLIDING FROM BACKSLIDING!

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"It is not My heavenly Father's will that anyone should perish" (Mt 18:14)
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Backsliding has become too common in the Church. Backsliding is never sudden; it is always in stages. There are two types of backsliding—one from which recovery is possible and the other for which under normal circumstances there is no remedy.

The first type can be explained by three conditions. First of all, there may be the loss of first love for God (Rev 2:4,5), and fervour in spiritual matters. Another condition is the loss of personal holiness and loss of victory over sin. Recovery from these two conditions is possible. James 5:19,20, "If anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins." Yet another state of backsliding is loss of sound faith and being led into strange doctrines. Apostle Paul calls this a spiritual "cancer" (2 Tim 2:17). By the mercy of God, this is also curable through the diligent ministry of a Bible teacher. When he would teach patiently, "God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will" (2 Tim 2:24-26).

There is another type of backsliding which is generally irreversible. It is the open denial and rejection of the Person of Christ. The seriousness of this type of backsliding is given in Hebrews 6:4-6. "It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame." The author of Hebrews quotes Esau as an example. "Esau sold his birthright for one morsel of food. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears" (Heb 12:16,17). Selling the birthright, in the sight of God, is nothing but rejecting the Messiah. This is the "sin leading to death" (1 Jn 5:16,17). Unless the person who backslid repents, there is no remedy. The fellow-believers should meet with such candidates and talk to them and remove the blocks lovingly and bring them back to the love of Christ.

"Lord, Thou hast here Thine ninetynine, Are they not enough for Thee?"
But the Shepherd made answer: "I go to the desert to find My sheep!"
                                                 (Elizabeth C. Clephane, 1830-1869)

TREE & WOOD

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"If they do these things in the green tree,
what will be done in the dry wood?" (Lk 23:31)
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"Jesus suffered for us so we need not suffer!" This is one of the most popular sayings shouted from modern pulpits. The Biblical illiterates from pews respond to this with shouts of "Hallelujah!" How much Satan has deceived us! How far he has taken us from divine predictions and revelations! Televangelism literally thrives on this stuff. By the time the listeners and viewers realize the fallacy of this teaching and that they are disillusioned, it's already too late. God, have mercy on us, this generation, as we try to find alternate routes for the way of the Cross!

All Christians are called to suffer with and for Christ (2 Tim 2:11,12; Phil 1:29). Suffering is in the eternal plan of God. In history Christ died 2000 years ago. But according to God's calendar, Christ was slain even before the creation of the world. This event of eternity past will be the song of eternity future (Rev 13:8). According to Jesus, Christian life will be one of suffering from commencement to consummation. That's why He spoke about "daily cross" with reference to discipleship (Lk 9:23).

The "green tree vs. dry wood" analogy refers to the ill-treatment we will receive from men. The Jews once said to Jesus, "You have a demon!" (Jn 8:52a). What did they mean when they told Him, "We were not born out of wedlock"? (v41). Were they indirectly hitting at how He was conceived before His mother got married? His own brothers and sisters once commented, "He is out of His mind" (Mk 3:21). If folks could say such things about the Son of God who committed no sin in thought, word or deed, why are we upset at the mildest verbal abuse? Most of Christ's sayings were misunderstood, though He was wisdom personified and He spoke not a single word more or less than what was necessary. Can we then escape the cross of misunderstanding?

Nothing is more hurting than when a man's own family folks become his foes. But sometimes we cannot escape this also (Mt 10:36). "Wounds from friends" are another tragedy (Zech 13:6). How would you feel if someone like Judas whom you trusted with money betrayed you for money? How would you feel if someone like Peter whom you promoted to cabinet rank denied and cursed you? How would you feel when someone like John whom you loved most deserted you when you needed him most?

OX WEDS DONKEY!!! (Marrying an Unbeliever)

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"Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor 6:14)
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Many a young Christian has ruined his life because of unholy alliance in marriage. Marriage is a yoke. The Bible forbids unequal yoke (2 Cor 6:14). "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together" (Dt 22:10).

Both the Old and the New Testaments strongly condemn intermarriage with unbelievers. Intermingling the "holy seed" with the unconverted is called as "trespass, transgression, iniquity and guilt" (Ezra 9:1-6). Even a widow who is a believer is not permitted to marry an unbeliever. "She is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord" (1 Cor 7:39).

Even if your parents press you to marry an unbeliever, for whatever reason, you can firmly refuse. Obedience to parents also must be "in the Lord" (Eph 6:1). If you have fallen in love with an unbeliever, break the affair unless your fiance or fiancee gets genuinely converted. Beware of baptisms just for the sake of marriage!

True in some cases the unbelieving spouse gets converted after marriage. But no truth can be established from this. The Bible challenges, "How do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?" (1 Cor 7:16). Marriage is too serious a matter to take risk. If you have already made the mistake of marrying an unbeliever, you can now do nothing but pray and believe God for his or her salvation.

When young people from non-Christian background embrace the Gospel, they find it extremely difficult to find suitable believing partners. Casteism is prevalent even among Christians in India. Christian leaders and pastors must voluntarily take sincere efforts to settle marriages for the non-Christian converts. Believing young people from Christian families should come forward to marry non-Christian converts. Why not? Sometimes the families of these converts may throw them out of their community. The Church should support such with all sensitivity.

Thy way, not mine, O Lord, however dark it be;
Lead me by Thine own hand, choose Thou the path for me.
I dare not choose my lot; I would not if might;
Choose Thou for me, my God, so shall I walk aright!

VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL

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"Love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt 22:39)
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A son was dragging his father to an old age home. When they reached a bridge the father started crying uncontrollably. When the son asked why, the father answered, "Several years back I dragged my father exactly like this over this bridge!" Ours is an inconsiderate society.

Arguments and fights have become the birthright of Christians. We are not concerned about the health of our brothers and sisters, the problems of our colleagues, the financial needs of God's servants and the needy. We justify ourselves saying, "I am alright with God."

When the self-righteous lawyer asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment in the Law, Jesus replied, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…soul…mind." As far as the questioner was concerned the answer was complete. Not so with Jesus. He went on to say, "And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt 22:35-39). The religious Pharisees of that day forgot their duty to man in their zeal to fulfil their duty to God. Walking in love with one another is the other side of offering sacrifices to God (Eph 4:3-12).

Vertical relationship with God is not acceptable if the horizontal relationship with people is not alright. It is contradictory for a worshipping tongue to go wrecking someone with malicious words (Js 3:9). "He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" John restates the answer Jesus gave the lawyer, "He who loves God must love his brother also" (1 Jn 4:20,21).

Here lies the reason why Jesus insisted on "first" reconciling with an offended brother before offering gifts to God (Mt 5:23,24). Reconciliation involves humility and self-denial. It is difficult. America's great revivalist Charles Finney (1792-1875) always emphasized reconciliation with man.

Only a very few of his converts went astray. One more hour of praise can become an easy substitute for going the second mile. But such worship is void of fragrance. God loathes it. Respect for man is the other side of fear of God (Lk 18:2,4). Think of a coin without imprint on any one side!

The Gospel is the Message of the Cross. The vertical staff of the Cross speaks of man's relationship with God, and the horizontal that with fellowmen. Have we experienced the full blessing of the Cross?

SALT OF THE EARTH

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"Your Kingdom come,
for Yours is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory forever" (Mt 6:10,13)
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God is not interested to pour out His Spirit on His people just to excite them or make them feel good. No! He is interested in the "world!" He sent His Son to die for the world. He sent His Spirit to convict the world of sin and woo sinners to the Saviour. He anointed the 120 disciples on the Day of Pentecost that they might be His witnesses throughout the whole world.

Evan Roberts (1878-1951) of Welsh Revival prayed, "Lord, bend the Church and bless the world!" Most of the revivals of the past have given birth to great missionary and evangelistic movements. But there are also stories of revivals which died out too soon, one of the main causes being the failure of the leaders to channelise the revival blessings into aggressive evangelism and soulwinning.

The theme of the discourses of the risen Christ with His disciples before Pentecost was the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). When the disciples mistook the mind of Jesus and asked Him, "Lord, will You at this time restore the Kingdom of Israel?" (v 6), He explained to them that He was talking about the spiritual Kingdom that would be established in the hearts of men and women through the preaching of the Gospel all over the world beginning with Jerusalem (vv 7,8). The Great Commission, as it is called, was given just before Ascension. He commanded them to GO! To all the nations! Throughout the whole World! To preach the Gospel! To reach every creature! To teach all the Truths! In His authority! As His witnesses! In the power of the Holy Spirit! With His presence with them always! (Mt 28:18-20; Mk 16:15-18; Lk 24:47-49; Acts 1:8). Revival is not an end in itself. It's a means to an end, the end being evangelism.

David prayed, "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with Your enthusiastic Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways and sinners shall be converted to You" (Psa 51:12,13). It is necessary that we understand why we pray for revival. Revival is not evangelism, but revival begets evangelism.

We are living in a time in Church history when revival is not a luxury but a necessity. Revival delays because prayer decays. Let's repair the broken altar of our prayer life so that the fire of God may again fall on us. Then every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Christ is Lord! (1 Ki 18:38,39).

A Spiritual Journey -Michael Graham.

Perhaps the most rapidly expanding form of spirituality today in the Western world is Yoga and Meditation. Actually the two words belong together. Today, practised in its many forms, yoga promises physical wellbeing and spiritual growth. But for the yogis of old, the mystics of the ancient East, Yoga was far more than a life style choice; theirs was an ardent quest for Enlightenment--a release from all bonds of suffering and unsatisfactoriness both here and beyond the grave--a reach for Ultimate Truth.

The word yoga actually means: to be yoked to or united with God or Ultimate Reality. The word refers to both an end and an activity. In its active form it involves the practice of a variety of techniques, both physical and mental. There are up to fourteen types of yoga, each with different practices designed to lead to the desired goal.

I was one such person captivated by the promises and practices of yoga from a young age. The quest that I undertook threw me into a heady world leading to many remarkable personal encounters and mystical experiences. 

On one particular day I was astounded. I found myself right in the middle of what is regarded in the Indian spiritual tradition as the classic fourth state of consciousness called the Turiya¹ state. The yogis consider it to be  one of the marks of Enlightenment, existing beyond the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep that are familiar to all people. I’d read about it, but to have the experience was quite another thing. My attention was riveted. It was as though I had entered another reality. Though my surroundings looked the same, every trace of the weight and sting of life had vanished.

The first sign of its appearance was a widening of my field of vision. Fascinated, I walked a few paces into a room where two men were talking. One was standing; the other was seated leaning against a wall. They were fixed in earnest conversation. As I watched them they seemed no more real than puppets in a puppet show. The meaning and significance of their conversation was as nothing. Every sense in me was alive; the people and the physical environment were as I’d known them, but the sense of “realness” was gone. Nothing of the human condition with its concerns remained.

The veil of ignorance had lifted and from this new perspective life wasn’t what it seemed to be. It was more like a dream--a mere apparency. Half an hour passed and this perception started to close down. Was this the Ultimate Truth?—no, not even in this tradition. That realization and beyond was to be realized later, and is described in the book I have written, of which this booklet is a short synopsis.

Many adventures were to follow.

So, this quest for Truth began at the age of sixteen. I began reflecting on the meaning and significance of life at a time when I was unclear about my interests and future direction and was restlessly unable to chart my course.

My father was a doctor, a psychoanalyst and something of a philosopher. Two books on the Eastern spiritual tradition, from the shelves of his huge library grabbed my attention. They promised a life free of suffering, personal transformation and an experience of the Highest Truth. That was enough for me. I had found what I was looking for.

By the time I was twenty-two, after motorcycling throughout Sri Lanka and India and having high adventures in Afghanistan, then traveling all the way across to London, I returned to India to the ashram, or abode, of Swami Muktananda Paramahansa. He was a guru. He came to me on very strong recommendation as one whose mere touch or presence could transform a person’s life.

Upon my arrival, he was away. Thankfully, within a few days he was due back. About twenty-five of us assembled outside the front of the ashram to greet him on his return. There was an American, an Englishman and myself, an Australian. The others were Indians.

The first sign of his arrival was the honking sound of a Klaxon horn. A blue, 1962 Mercedes Benz pulled up, and out stepped a handsome sixty-year-old man in silk orange robes, wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses. This was not quite the image of a holy man that I’d imagined. Muktananda glanced at me as he swept through the crowd of prostrating Indians, lightly kicking them with his feet saying, “look out, look out, this is a fast train” (someone translated that to me).

Within two days I had a private audience with him. He probably spoke no more than forty words of English. Through a translator, I told him that I had come to have my meditation fixed. All attempts to meditate successfully in Australia had failed. Instead of settling down into a quiet state, I’d become positively knotted up. He simply said, “Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”

A week passed, and I was meditating all alone in the meditation room, on a real tiger’s skin. All of a sudden I was startled. Muktananda was standing over me. He stroked both cheeks, passed his palm over my forehead, turned on his heels and left. It took all of three seconds. Well, I thought that was wonderful. The guru had touched me and I knew that was supposed to be auspicious. I expected something to happen. It didn’t. Each day thereafter, Baba (as we affectionately called him), would ask me in his few words of English, “Good meditation?” “No Baba,” I would reply. This must have gone on every day for a week; his asking me and my saying no. I got a bit frustrated.

A few days passed and I was not to be disappointed. One afternoon, while meditating all alone, a strange phenomenon began. All of a sudden my body began to revolve in a circular motion. I thought to myself, “How interesting.” I’d stop it, and off it would go again. Up to this point whenever my body moved, it was I that moved it. With each minute that passed this movement grew stronger and stronger. I was delighted. I knew that I had received the “awakening” that Muktananda was distinguished for being able to activate--the awakening of   kundalini² or the divine power within. All the while I was in a cool state of mind, watching with fascination. No suggestion or hysteria were involved.

This was the awakening of the Kundalini Shakti³, an intelligent aspect of the life force itself, which lay “asleep” or dormant in potential until awakened through the guru’s grace. It was to be surrendered to or given over to, since it was the spontaneous “grace-driven” means to Self-realization--a most attractive concept. In the fullness of time one would be cleansed of all impurities that veiled the recognition of one’s true identity as being identical to the Supreme Reality--Brahman.

Some days later a Canadian chap turned up. We decided to go and meditate together. As we sat, he began to recite the famous Twenty-Third Psalm: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His names sake. Even though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” I remembered that from a light Christian enculturation during my schoolboy days. Being deeply moved by its beauty, that second, the “awakening” that had begun a few days before, exploded into ten times its power. I was flung down and started crawling my way across the floor, growling like a lion, with the strength of ten men coursing through me. It was not as any ham actor could do; it was devastatingly real. I was amazed. I didn’t resist it, since that wouldn’t have been the idea. The poor Canadian chap (as he told me later) had never seen anything like it. He commented that the nearest thing he’d seen to it was an LSD⁴  drug freak-out; but this was something else!  He was scared out of his wits and was trying to settle down the situation by repeating the mantra⁵, guru om, guru om, over and over.

From that day on, whenever I gave over to the “awakening”, there was continuous spontaneous activity. There were  powerful breathing rhythms (pranayama), movement into classic dance formations, vigorously executed hatha⁶ yoga-like postures, utterances like the sound of different birds so real sounding, speaking in an unknown language, weeping bitterly in one second then laughing hysterically in the next with nothing to weep or laugh about, cross-legged hopping across the ground like a frog juddering of the body, classical hand gestures  (mudras), the seeing of inner lights, journeys out of the body and innumerable other experiences. It wasn’t as though I was tuning in to some impulse to move in a certain way and going with it, as in psychodrama. It just grabbed me in a powerful non-volitional (spontaneous) manner and moved me about. And there were moments of “dynamic” stillness. The predominantly physical manifestations were called kriyas⁷.  They were said to have a purifying effect, but as to why some of the more bizarre manifestations took the form that they did only theories could be given.

All this was set into a typical Eastern framework of thinking. Muktananda would say, “God dwells within you as you,”--the inner self or Brahman or God were identical. Sadhana⁸ or spiritual practice consisted of faith in the guru as the Self-Realized master. It required surrender to his person and to his instructions, singing chants in the Sanskrit⁹ language to his glory, and devotional service. Its purpose was spiritual purification leading to the experience of one’s own divinity, called Self-realization or Enlightenment.

This particular path was SiddhaYoga; the word Siddha meaning “perfected being”, and yoga meaning, “yoked to God”. So this was the union with God that was to take place through the grace of the perfected Master.

It sounded like an appealing truth. It was promising. It had an engine that moved things.

So I stayed on in the ashram for five and a half months, participating in the rigorous daily routine. We’d arise at four in the morning for ninety minutes of meditation. If you were fortunate enough to receive the “awakening”, you’d surrender to its workings as a dispassionate witness. If it had yet to stir in you, you’d sit in formal meditation repeating the Guru’s mantra, Soham meaning, “He I am” or “I am God”, in the hope that it would happen soon.  That was the understanding in those days. However, instructions changed over the years.  Then we took a cup of chai; a spicy Indian tea. This was followed by ninety minutes of chanting the Bhagavad Gita¹⁰ in Sanskrit. Then we were off into the beautiful gardens or marble courtyard to do a couple of hours of work, a form of devotional service to the Guru, followed by thirty minutes of chanting the mantra, Om Namah shivaya (meaning: I bow to Shiva) before lunch. I called it “Hindu army chow”--delicious. Then there was a one-hour voluntary chant followed by another two hours of work, followed by forty-five minutes of meditation before dinner. Finally, a sixty-minute chant was sung before we collapsed into bed at 9 p.m. Phew! Not a routine for the faint hearted. This went seven days a week, three-hundred and sixty-five days a year. It was like something you might find in an eleventh century Benedictine¹¹ monastery.

This path of spirituality became my core spiritual practice for the next sixteen years. I returned to India many times. I spent a total of four years in the country. But despite all the amazing spiritual experiences, signs and wonders (many more of which are described in my book), my deepest hopes for inner fulfillment were unmet. But the dynamism and apparent intelligence of that “awakening” had me tantalized.

At the same time, I had been casting around for supplementary means to add to this Eastern practice that might have opened a crack to the light I had been looking for.

So, in the seventies, eighties and nineties I did a number of the leading edge personal development programs of the day: Landmark Education (once called EST, then Forum), a sort of no nonsense pragmatic¹² spiritual boot camp and Silva Mind Control, a get-down-into-low-brain-wave process, heal people, throw open some doors of psychic perception, and reprogram yourself for success, type of program. Then there was The Hoffman Quadrinity Process, an expensive turbo-expunging of impeding parent-induced past psychological impressions. And then I studied and sought to practice A Course in Miracles (a book) a very well developed argument for transcendence, which I buried into for a year with great discipline. I was intrigued by the observation: that though I understood and believed something, I would continue to think, feel, act and perform as though I’d never heard of it. My other friends on the Course had the same experience. I was starting to discover that the mere cognitive approach to transformation is impotent to do anything much. 

I saw a gain here and there. Whenever I was exposed to a new perspective, information, data or technique, there would be a slight shift, just enough to lead to an increase of interest. Then there would be a plateau, a falling off and then a “what’s next?” Within days there was always a leak-back to the old familiar self. This stuff wasn’t delivering on its promise. I wasn’t a dilettante¹³. I usually drilled down close to the bottom of these things, enough to see whether I was dealing with iron pyrites¹⁴(fool’s gold) or something more substantial. My basic Siddha Yoga practice kept on as the mainstay.

In 1982 Swami Muktananda died. Shortly thereafter, for one tour, I fell into the role as one of the international tour managers of one of his two successors, the young Swami Nityananda. Months after I left this work a “coup” took place. Gurumayi, his sister and co-successor ousted him, for unseemly gallivanting, among other things. The whole affair unfolded like a palace intrigue that Shakespeare would have made something of.

At this time I was in New York and got a call from an Australian friend who’d just landed a huge Corporate Cultural Change contract with Australia’s second largest company, Telecom Australia. He asked me Down Under, and together with a team of five others we put together a broad range of personal and organizational development strategies to set Telecom up for success in an emerging competitive telecommunications market place. It consisted of facilitating the creation of a corporate Vision Statement, establishing Core Values, defining Company Objectives and delivering a range of personal development strategies, such as customer service orientation, communication skills, negotiation skills, possibility thinking, goal setting, belief engineering and so on. I believe it was the biggest corporate programs of its type ever undertaken in the Southern Hemisphere¹⁵.

By now I’d had a broad and deep experience of the Eastern “Old Age” movement out of India, the pragmatic world of corporate consulting and the “New Age” personal development trainings.

Further, in 1988 and still a dedicated spiritual practitioner, I spotted this program called Avatar®, created by a fellow called Harry Palmer. It was a belief management program, not dissimilar in theory to what we’d taught corporately. But this guy claimed that he had the techniques that could really make the difference. Up till then I had found that core beliefs were not amenable to change. This was a “create your preferred reality” program. Beliefs are real forces; they determine the way you think, feel, behave and perform; change your beliefs and thereby change your life!

So I jumped on a plane for Los Angeles and found myself in the home of Marilyn Ferguson, author of the million- copy best seller book The Aquarian conspiracy. She was a participant along with me and nine others. It was an expensive course at two thousand dollars. It included tea and biscuits but no meals or accommodation. It went for four or five days. How interesting; one of the facilitators was Ingo Swann; a man I’d heard had the most accurate strike rate among psychics tested by Stanford University under controlled conditions. He’d been their research subject for sixteen years and later worked twelve years for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) experimenting with Remote Viewing (visual perception beyond the range of bodily senses) procedures. I got to know Ingo well and stayed with him in New York City. He was teaching this course quite independently of his psychic abilities. He’s no longer associated with Avatar.

The course was impressive. I experienced a temporary expansion of awareness and a peacefulness for a time. Knots inside me that I didn’t know were there unraveled. It was looking good. I was sufficiently impressed to fly to New York, spend another three thousand dollars for nine days of training so I could deliver the program under license.

I became one of the more successful teachers of Avatar around the world, delivering the program in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, USA and Canada. Further to this, I delivered my own program, the Decision Principle Training® in France as well. It proposes decision as the first principle of existence. 

Palmer’s top Avatar course was called Wizards®. At seventy-five hundred dollars it promised the dominion of the gods. It didn’t deliver.

But again, with all this, the substance wasn’t to the level required. Nevertheless, those years 1988 through 1993 were kind to me. All the time I’d kept meditating.

Now, some of this work wasn’t silly. There were some accurate observations, coherent thought systems, ingredients of truth and some clever techniques that created effects. I was often grateful and never felt cheated, but admittedly nothing I’d discovered came close to the claims made for it. There were experiences, insights and shifts, but nothing sustainable. Further there were some absolutely spectacular spiritual experiences described and elaborated on in my book.

By now, I had many years of experience, thousands of hours of meditation, charismatic¹⁶ phenomena, study, and the company of spiritual luminaries¹⁷. By providence, I had arrived at these people’s doorsteps before most people in the West had heard of them. To name some: Swami Muktananda, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), Rudi (later, Swami Rudrananda), Sathya Sai Baba, Anandamayi Ma, U.G. Krishnamurti, HWL Poonja, J. Krishnamurti, Douglas Harding , Barry Long and Sailor Bob (with whom I ran a seminar). There were a couple of others. Israel Regardie, the esoteric writer, was a family friend. I was influenced by the works of Alan Watts, Wei Wu Wei, Franklin Merrell Wolffe; and then there were the Christian mystics. So, it went on. It sounds a bit like a dilettante’s line-up. But I do believe my walk was characterized by a considerable degree of discipline and application and it wasn’t too much to cover over a twenty-eight year span.

I observed over the years, that people had different motives for following a guru or getting involved in such groups. Some sought personal development or victory over personal limitations. I was partially motivated by this. Some sought community; for others it was a life style choice. Some wanted position and power. Others wanted to be loved. Yet others were spiritual hedonists¹⁸ thirsting for the next experiential high. Being looked after was a priority for some. And the search for meaning may have been high among the reasons. In most people, motives were probably mixed, and not thoroughly reflected upon. Very few, I believe, went looking for wheat that it might be divided from the chaff. What was of interest to me, was what was actually true or false amidst all this. The Buddha repudiated¹⁹ the Vedic²⁰ scriptures. Shankaracharya, the eighth century Vedantic²¹ Master, repudiated the Buddha’s teaching, putting a huge dent in Buddhism on the Indian subcontinent from which it never recovered. Ramanuja, another Vedantic Master from the twelfth century repudiated Shankaracharya’s view of Ultimate Truth and so it went, ad nauseam. Lord Chaitanya of the sixteenth century from the Lord Krishna tradition, repudiated the lot of them, declaring as heresy, the “I am God” statements of some of the others. This wasn’t just mean spirited.  They believed that the objects of their critiques were teaching error.

I noticed that many contemporary seekers had no concept of error and seemed to swallow all they were told, hook, line and sinker, without discrimination or sufficient reflection.

Actually, I didn’t go into all this stuff, preoccupied, as though with a magnifying glass, like a truth sieve. I was openly interested, but with due reflection, learning where I could and tending to trial things experientially to see what was of substantive value or just ephemeral²². My life has been like a laboratory experiment but lived out in a very un-clinical manner.

With all this under my belt--exposure to luminaries, the spiritual experiences, and understanding I’d developed, I still believed that breaking through the Gates of Heaven in a sustainable way was possible. I took what I had been given in personal revelation and the best of what I had been exposed to: the Muktananda “awakening” described earlier, (which, by some mystery, I was able to powerfully transmit to others) and more. I put it all together calling it The Reality Training, fully believing that this amalgam of practices would build the momentum for breakthrough.

By now, for some reason, I’d become weary of trying to excite others’ interest in this or that program. So, as my professional life as a deliverer of personal development training, meditation teaching and corporate consulting started to wind down, so did my personal spiritual practice start to increase.

I’d begin my day in Melbourne Australia, at 4:30 a.m. with sixty minutes of meditation followed by a thirty-minute contemplation, then forty minutes of chanting the Guru Gita²³--a Sanskrit language text referring to the guru’s teaching and virtues. I’d end with forty-five minutes of surrendering to the spontaneous workings of the “awakening”. From time to time, friends would bang on my door and join me for this early-morning vigil.

As if this weren’t enough, I decided to go into isolation. Since my late teens, I had thought of this as an interesting experiment and had never had the chance to do it. Now was the time. At the back of my home was a tiny apartment. I asked an accommodating friend to fashion wooden panels to cover the windows and a trap door through which food could be passed. I was sealed up thus, and spent ten days in there. Great; I came out on a Monday and it was as though, through new eyes, that the world sparkled. By Tuesday the old familiar perception had returned.

Seeing some potential here, I repeated the experiment some time later. On the second day a remarkable event took place.

I was settling myself onto a couch. I was in a completely ordinary state of mind—no meditation; nothing like that, and suddenly the image of Jesus Christ formed up within my chest cavity. And with this image came the conviction of who it was. One second following, there was an experience beyond all words can tell. If I were to step it down into the poverty of language, there was an openness and love coming from Jesus to me, of cosmic proportions, and an invitation and a welcome, as if to say “Give me your life and breath and I’ll take care of you.” Well, I was staggered, amazed, delighted all at once. The absolute and ultimate nature of that love was its feature. It was utterly real and personal, but I didn’t know how to respond. I was so committed and used to the Eastern oriented understanding and practice that I kept doing precisely that. This encounter, however, I could never forget.

A year passed and I’d gone to Berkeley, California to conduct introductory programs for The Reality Training I’d created. Here a second significant event took place. What happened was this: Over a three-day period, as if pressed  into me from outside myself, came the conviction that everything I had done, the thousands of hours of meditation, the realizations and spiritual experiences, had all added up to a  huge fat zero. It was a though a twenty-eight year investment had tipped over. It felt as though I’d been trying to draw water out of an empty well. Wow! I was sobered. “Well,” I thought, “I’ll just run plum ordinary now, and live out my span and do what I can. Simple.”

However, at the time I was doing a twenty-five minute run in the car to Marin County near San Francisco each day. I kept catching these evangelical preachers on the radio teaching the historic faith from the Bible. They were good speakers. It was a bit interesting and besides I was interested in the five Great Traditions (unlike the cults), that had stood the test of time: Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. So, here was Christianity being explained better than I’d heard it before, at least the biblically oriented form of it. At first I was noticing the similarities between elements of the Eastern and Christian teaching and worldviews; then it became the differences that got my attention. Listening to the broadcasts themselves, plus sending away for the tapes advertised on the radio over the next few months, I must have put a couple of hundred hours of this information through me.

With still no contact with Christians I was now being educated to the first principles of Christianity. I noted the claims Christ made for himself; his claim to Deity²⁴, and the promises he made--it really got my attention. Thus, remembering my personal encounter with him, having been reduced to nothing, and therefore having nothing to lose, I resolved to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Yikes! Those words seemed uncomfortably religious to me. No matter.

This was going to be the most important decision I’d ever made. I knew about decision: its power, place and importance. I’d taught my Decision Principle® Training around the world. I could have made the decision in my living room, but I wanted to make a marker of this one.

I’m still not a Christian. So I see a billboard promoting Billy Graham coming to town. I’d heard of him, the biggest evangelist of the Twentieth Century. I thought he was dead. “What a perfect opportunity to make a decision in front of thousands of witnesses,” I thought.

This was 1997. So with considerable anticipation I awaited the day of his arrival.  At the appointed hour I was probably the first one at the stadium and mounted the stands. He talked. When he invited people down to make that decision for Christ, down I went and was so close to the podium that I could have almost polished his shoes. When the moment came to decide, I made that decision, surely, definitely, no turning back.

It was from that moment, I was never the same again. It happened silently, undramatically. I knew what it meant to be born again (that strange phrase). A peace came over me that was back of feelings and experiences. With it came new meaning and purpose and above all there came a substantive change of heart and mind, which had eluded me throughout all those years of experience, meditation practice and charismatic phenomena. And this had come as a pure gift of the Grace of Christ independent of all my efforts or practice.

What do I mean by a change of heart and mind? Well, my temperament or disposition started to soften and change, among other things. I noticed it; my son noticed it. That was good enough for me. The seeker had died. I’d come to rest. Perhaps I could have used terms like that in the past, but no, this was new coin. And the old Michael Graham would have said, “Yes, I know what you mean,” and I would have had to reply, politely of course, “No, you don’t.” You see, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

So, here I was having found my sufficiency in Christ--no supplementation required. “In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” as the Bible states.

And my attitude toward the concept of God changed substantially, was renewed and made proper.

Further, the Bible as a text came alive to me with a quality and a texture unlike other written works of an intellectual or spiritual nature. It became to me like sweet milk and meat to the soul. This didn’t mean that I had to like everything it said. Nevertheless I believed it. The adjustment had to be mine. I was no longer on the throne as arbiter of all truth. I had submitted myself to Christ and the living Word. This was quite a leap, and as I came to observe later, becomes a mark of someone who has enjoyed a genuine turnaround in Christ or conversion. 

So here I was, reading the Bible with new eyes, spending time in prayer, listening to excellent expository²⁵ preaching and enjoying church fellowship. What a change. This was a U-turn such that I couldn’t believe possible.

Now this was a radical turnaround—a turnaround at the root and a most surprising one at that. Nothing else but the Holy Spirit, not the spirit of the kundalini Shakti, or the spirit of the guru, could penetrate to the core of my ruin. What was the fruit of Christ’s Grace? Rest—existential rest—a rest pertaining to my existence, most assuredly superior to any passing interior states or dance of marvels on the periphery of my being--the yield of the cosmic conjurings²⁶--the dance of Shiva²⁷.

So I walk on in gratitude. With a thorough basis for comparison I cannot hesitate to declare the preeminence and supremacy of Christ, his Grace and the super-abundant sense of life He imparts to those who enter into a personal and trusting relationship with Him.

He said, “Come to me all those who are weary and heavily laden and I will give you rest.” He said, “I am the Way, Truth and the Life”; “I am the light of the world”, and “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.” And he said, “Whoever drinks the water I shall give him, will become in him, a fountain of water springing up to Eternal Life.” He also declared, “I am the Alpha²⁸ and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” Further, he said, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will eat with him, and he with me.”

His invitation beckons! The “God”-word was big in those days, yet he pointed to himself as having a special saving relationship to the world. He wasn’t speaking as the “Christ Consciousness” or as the “Christ Michael” or any other contemporary, fashionable or mystic phantom, but as the once historic and now ever present eternal figure of Jesus Christ, “…the same yesterday, today and forever.”

I’ve been around. I’ve seen a lot. Only pride would bar one from reaching for this marvelous Grace by turning to him, who, on that cross at Calvary, consumed in one cosmic act of sacrifice, the groaning momentum of sin (and “karmas”²⁹) that bind all persons interminably to an eternal separation from God.

This is not a light and fluffy subject. It warrants deep reflection. Its ramifications³⁰ extend into life, the mystery of death and beyond. Take in more. That is why I have written the book titled “The Experience of Ultimate Truth”.  It takes you on a ride beyond the veil and into the depths of this subject such that you might responsibly consider what’s at stake and perhaps be pointed towards “The peace that passes all understanding” and the “Truth that sets you free.” 

Clearly, it is beyond the scope of this short account to trace out most of the incredible reasons to consider placing one’s trust in Christ. But it is the story of how one man did so and thereby found inner peace. Read on…

Michael Graham.

WORD DEFINITIONS:

1  Turiya: Sanskrit - fourth state of consciousness.

2 Kundalini: Sanskrit - coiled, as in coiled serpent.

3 Kundalini Shakti: coiled/sleeping spiritual power within. Outwardly expressed as the Divine Mother in Hinduism.

4 LSD: psychedelic drug leading to hallucinations.

5 Mantra: Sanskrit - thought or mental devise intended to 'to free from the mind'.

6 Hatha yoga: a form of yogic practice focused physical postures and breathing procedures.

7 Kriya: Sanskrit - 'action', refers here to outward physical manifestations of awakened kundalini.

8 Sadhana: Sanskrit - 'practice', means of Self-realization.

9 Sanskrit: ancient language of the Vedic and other Indian scriptures.

10 Bhagavad Gita: Sanskrit - 'song of God'. India's most well renowned scripture featuring a dialogue between Lord       Krishna and Arjuna, his disciple.

11 Benedictine: an ancient order of Christian monks

12 Pragmatic: of practical worth (as opposed to idealistic). Impacts something.        

13 Dilattante: one who just dabbles in things - amateurish.   

14 Iron Pyrites: a mineral found in the ground often mistaken for gold.

15 Southern Hemisphere: the area and countries below the Equator.

16 Charismatic: in spiritual terms, spiritual experiences and manifestations (as opposed to there being none)

17 Luminaries: people who influence and inspire others.

18 Hedonist: a pleasure seeker.

19 Repudiate: reject, disown, or protest.

20 Vedic, Veda: Sanskrit - 'knowledge'. Particular ancient Indian scriptures.

21 Vedanta: Sanskrit - 'last portion of the Veda'. Claimed to be  the culmination of all knowledge.

22 Ephemeral: very short-lived, fleeting.

23 Guru Gita: Sanskrit - 'song of the guru'. Describes function, virtues and powers of  the guru.

24  Deity: god or God. Refers to Christ's claim to be God in the flesh; the Creator not the creature.

25 Expository: to make clear the meaning of something, explanatory.

26 Conjuring: calling forth as if by magic.

27 Shiva: the high God in some schools of Indian thought. Here, refers to Shiva's sport of creation, Lila or play.

28 Alpha and Omega:  the first and last letters  of the Greek alphabet.

29 Karma: Sanskrit - 'action'. Those actions (good and bad) done with attachment that lead to eternal entrapment.

30 Ramifications: complex results of particular thinking, action or events.