Bad Vibrations - More on Love

Much of what I've shared on this blog relates to the stark contrasts between my life in eastern religion and conversion into Christianity.

If I can't take 30 years of striving for perfection in a yogic life, and the pitfalls I encountered with eastern religious logic, and share this with others heading "east," and warn them, then those 30 years were a waste. But we know that's not true, right? Nothing is a waste if we glorify it in Christ. We are the sum-total of our experiences. Jesus told me not to "hate" any part of my life. That's how most of us live. Denying big chunks of self and trying to do something with the part we like. We run very fast from our sins, bury them as deeply as we can so they remain hidden, lest we have to face them again and again. Horror of horrors.

The Bible's message will set us free, even though some Christians struggle with believing God hates sinners, and is angry with them. The Bible plainly explains we're not perfect, we're not going to be perfect, so stop trying. Jesus loves every single hair on our heads. Jesus wants us to embrace our true selves.

Eastern religion does not teach that there is a savior who loves us and wants to redeem us. Instead their message is that only through yogic works can we be "free" of the ego and attain a state of enlightenment, or oneness with God.

As I've shared before, leaving my eastern religion was extremely difficult simply because I'd been such good devotee of the program. My unending quest to connect with God, to seek that eternal joy within, kept me attuned with Indian philosophy and the striving for perfection. That eternal joy I embraced wasn't eternal, I eventually learned those moments of peace were as long as the meditation.

I struggled for many years with a "holy" life or "holier-than-hell" life. Eastern religion is more attuned to isolation, meaning that though Hinduism is ancient, it does not have a blueprint for those living in a modern world.

Now, where does love fit in? Being a yogi requires intellectual study and meditation, not the cultivation of relationships, which is where you'll find love.

Because karma can't be forgiven, you work out your karma through yoga, but yoga is a means not an end. There are many disciplines in yoga. I followed Raja Yoga, a "royal yoga" that is, a highway to self realization and enlightenment. The royal highway means you have work to do; you have to transform and purify yourself until all karma is burned, releasing you from the chains of this world. The ordinary man could not conceive the absolute spirit, only a self-realized yogi.

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Meditation was the place to seek wisdom, yoga postures is a way to attain the discipline of body, Bakti yoga is a way to attain devotion. Many practices but no official word from God. They often use the Bhagavad Gita as God's word, there's nothing in the document that can be verified as an actuality. It's a wonderful poem about man doing his duty, but it's not the word of God.

The Bible is roughly ignored in eastern religion. Because the church I belonged to referred to Biblical scripture on Sundays and limited it to an interpretation by their founder, no one considered reading the Bible on their own. Often we were told that it took a "master" to understand a "master," and therefore we would not understand the Bible without the guru's interpretation. I honestly didn't realize the Bible was God's word, or that it's alive. It's called a living Bible. There are over 37,000 promises to be found in the Bible, as well as history, prophecy, wisdom literature, letters and instructions.

Okay, so, again, where was the love in eastern religion? Did God love us when we went to that temple? How did we love God if we were bungee corded to the earth in a dreadful karmic cycle?

What I came to learn was God wasn't the image of man, rather we were told he was a vibration and was part of everything, including this computer screen. It was the vibration of God we loved and were to mold the vibration into an image we could understand and desire. To love God we were to cultivate the desire for God by coming up with a concept such as a guru or a statue of Krishna or a picture of a God, even the picture of Jesus. We were taught that ordinary love is selfish and rooted in desire, so we did not love in an ordinary way. We were told to talk to God in the language of our hearts, that "wanting to love God--was loving God." God would not deny anyone his love if we made a sincere effort. We were told there is no sin, and no Satan, that the world is made up of light and darkness. Good and bad. That the laws were universal and applied to everyone.

When did the holes get poked in my eastern religion faith?

The night my mother died. Sitting in a stairwell at Long Beach Memorial hospital, clutching my cellphone, having just hung up with an arrogant monk, I knew my guru was a god impostor. Sometimes life changes in a stairwell.

My eastern religion leaders told me my mother deserved to die a horrible cancer death, and that she really didn't mind dying in this way, that her soul understood. She had done something to someone, somewhere and she was paying her karmic dues. After she suffered and died, her soul would be whisked off to be reborn again in the body of her choosing. I would never see my mother again. While I sobbed on the phone, the monk told me to be happy for her. Her soul was going to be released. He felt he could do more by meditating in the Pasadena hills, where the ashram resided, than coming down to the hospital.

None of the devotees knew how to comfort me, for to show grief was to show ego earth-binding inclinations. They almost seemed afraid of me, as if I had seen what was in store for them.

No, I was to pick up and carry on in my quest to find God and let the dead bury the dead.

All those years, I'd believed dying to be part of the karmic wheel. Well, here was death. I can say I lived in shock for a good long time after mom passed. The one person I needed to accept me, died, and her last word to me was "shit." I was trying to make her more comfortable, telling her it was okay to pass, to let her pain go, and she jerked her hand from mine and said, "shit," and then she lapsed into her final coma.

I found a bathroom and vomited. I heard someone tell my father of my state and I heard him say in an angry voice, "she'll be fine." I was not fine. There was no way out. There was nothing I could do. It was absurd. 30 years of meditation was not going to save my mother nor give me an ounce of grace. I was on my own. The pain was so unbearable that I was chewing pain pills and Xanax.

It was my inability to reconcile mom's death--or find peace about it, that eventually, though not entirely at once, turned me toward Christ. Because I had been so completely brain washed about the nature of God, when I first began reading the Bible I couldn't grasp the message. In talk therapy I learned I'd formed a religious addiction. Through meditation I sought escape, and so did everyone else I knew that was striving for this oneness, perfection with God. Within their lives, broken marriages, alcohol, drugs, affairs, deceptions, continued but while in they meditated they could numb out, and all these other problems would go away--but they don't go away. They cling to you like tar and feathers.

We would escape into this unreal mythical world where a guru, his monks and nuns, along with rules and regulations put a divide between us and God. There was so much perfectionism running amok that it became alarmingly difficult to do anything within this church without someone pointing out that it wasn't good enough. Silly things like using a ruler to measure the exact location a plastic spoon and fork should be set on a table. The devotees used this perfection system to humiliate and wound "lesser" devotees and to pump their egos. These helpers would be reduce to tears and told they were ego bound, and that "master used to upbraid his devotees," and they were only doing what the master would do. Or, "they were doing (fill in the blanks of abuse) because they loved the master, and we should be more understanding if we loved him.

My eastern religion prescribed to toxic shame in the name of God. They severed my soul. They brought me feelings of distrust, worthlessness, inferiority. Because I came from a shameless home, where abandonment, ridicule, abuse, neglect and perfectionism existed, eastern religion became my new family. Many devotees were from similar abusive families and they passed it on to others through control, perfectionism, contempt, criticism, blame, envy, judgment, power and rage.

When I began to seriously question the flaws of the teachings, I was excommunicated. They excommunicated me by abandonment. I was so wounded I wasn't aware I was being excommunicated. They didn't need me. Not really, there was another putz who'd just joined. Why keep the trouble makers? Hadn't they been really good at getting rid of them? What about those mysteriously missing monks who quit? Where'd they go? Where do people go when they are excommunicated? Don't think we didn't ask! We lost many monks to mystery. The really good ones never stayed.

Spiritually, I was a zombie. I could not pray, nor meditate. I drifted. I tried to read the Bible.

Everything I'd studied was now in direct conflict with the God of the Bible. The Bible was telling me I didn't have to do anything but accept Jesus Christ, that Jesus loved me. He loved me so much that he died for me. I didn't understand this kind of love. I didn't believe it. The Bible is just something made up, I told myself because that's what my church told me. They said Jesus orchestrated his Crucifixion, like a play, that he cast his own characters, that it was just done as an example of how much one could be devoted to God. We could all be Christ-like, or attain Christ consciousness. Jesus Christ had gone to India and had learned Kriya Yoga and that's what he'd taught his disciples, but the secret teachings were written out of the Bible, don't you know? And now Jesus was working with an Indian Avatar named Babaji, and together they were running the World. They were the CEO's. I believed this remake, and so does thousands of world wide devotees, even still, if not more.

The Bible says love compensates for our sin. Eastern religion says you have to work off karma to know God. There's no hall passes. The guru can not release of the work you must do; he's more of an adviser.

While I was in spiritual recovery, I came across this poem, and it seemed to be Jesus speaking to me.

Welcome to the world, I've been waiting for you.
I'm so glad you're here.
I've prepared a special place for you to live.
I like you just the way you are.
I will not leave you no matter what.
Your needs are okay with me.
I'll give you all the time you need to get your needs met.
I'm so glad you're a girl.
I want to take care of you, and I'm prepared to do that.
I like feeding you, bathing you, changing you, and spending time with you.
In all the world, there has never been another like you.
God smiled when you were born.

(John Bradshaw, Home Coming, Bantam Books)

When I began to do inner child work, I began to develop a new relationship with God. It didn't come quick, and God dropped a few wake-up calls into my life to move things along. Jesus' warnings about false teachers hit me hardest. The closer I examined the Bible the more I realized that though some eastern religion has nice-sounding messages, they do not agree with God's message in the Bible. I learned God's love is truly complete. How great is the love of the father! Never had I read so much about love, or how it could change my life. In just a few years as a believer my life is completely changed.

Now I know I will see my mother again. She believed in Jesus Christ. She is already glorified in heaven.

The Lord our God is a merciful God. 2 Sm 24:14