If your life is not in jeopardy for what you
believe, you’re probably on the wrong side!
“Indeed, all who want
to live a godly life united with the Messiah Yeshua will be persecuted.” (2Tim 3:12)
It is what you actually believe that determines how you walk out your faith,
“but avoid stupid controversies, genealogies,
quarrels and fights about the Torah; because they are worthless and
futile.” (Titus 3:9)
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Please Note: Nothing on this website should be taken as anti-Church. I am not anti-anything or anyone. I am only pro-Torah and pro-Truth. Sometimes the Truth upsets our long-held beliefs. Why isn’t my theology consistent throughout this website?
Cults and World Religions
Enlightenment
Enlightenment is the ultimate goal of many religions and cults. Different groups use different terms such as heightened awareness, nirvana, satori, transcendental bliss, God-realization, expanded consciousness, Christ-consciousness, altered perception of reality, or cosmic consciousness. SOURCE]
How is enlightenment achieved,
and how does it differ from the True Biblical Faith?
The first step toward “enlightenment” is the negation of one’s rational faculties. Man’s mind is an obstacle on the pathway to a higher consciousness. Truth is not perceived to be an absolute of objective revelation. Its reality must be experienced pragmatically by psychic or supra-rational input. Logic plays no part in finally determining that enlightenment has been achieved.
When asked to explain the authority of their leader or their religious writings, the standard answer of many cultists is, “I just know.” For example, Latter Day Saints (Mormons) “testify” to the veracity of the Book of Mormon because they experience a “burning in the bosom” as they read it.
This is basically a perversion of the concept of authority. As Messianic Believers we have but one source of authority — the inspired Word of God as recorded in the Bible. The one who seeks enlightenment places his or her objective experience in a position of absolute authority, even above one’s own rational judgment.
After the rational processes have been negated, the mystic next pursues enlightenment by seeking to release his or her spirit from the limitations of the body. One intention of enlightenment is “to be one with the universe.” Since the substantial or material body clouds the spiritual perception by its attachment to the world of senses, the spirit must somehow be released from its attachment to the physical. This release may be obtained by yoga exercises, by meditation, or by astral projection. It also may be chemically induced through the use of hallucinogens such as LSD, mushrooms, and peyote.
Once the shell of flesh is left behind, time and space have no boundaries, giving spiritual entities (or “guides,” who are actually demons) the opportunity to “guide” the “true self” as it searches for the essence of life outside the body.
The “enlightenment” resulting from shedding the bondage of the physical body is generally a perception of self-deification. This exaltation of the ego leads many to conclude that they have obtained a “Christ-consciousness,” or even that they are gods. In the monist view such a conclusion is perfectly logical because the Creator and the created are all one of the same essence.
When enlightenment has been experienced in this manner, man is elevated to godhood and God is reduced to an impersonal principle. One’s own enlightened self becomes the arbiter of all actions and the gauge of all truth, and therefore, the only one to whom one may be held accountable either now or in eternity.
All procedures leading to enlightenment and all cultic systems achieving their own illumination must operate on these three propositions:
1. The mind and the body inhibit the attainment of truth by their confining sensory capacity.
2. A universal unity of spirit [like “the Force” in the “Star Wars” saga] pervades the universe, which essence includes the nature of God and the souls of men.
3. Time, space, and matter are all illusory and therefore ignorant of good, with sin being a figment of the mind and not a state of conduct.
Instead of offering enlightenment, Yeshua HaMashiach offers Himself as the light. The Shliach Yochanan (Apostle John) tells us that Yeshua is “the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:9).
Why, then, do men insist on turning their backs on the true light in favor of an artificially- or demonically-induced altered level of consciousness they call enlightenment?
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 1:22-25, NAS)
This is why God is causing them to go astray, so that they will believe the Lie. The result will be that all who have not believed the truth, but have taken their pleasure in wickedness, will be condemned. (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12, CJB)
Notice that in both of these verses Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit), speaking to us through the pen of the Shliach Sua'ul (Apostle Paul), refers to something called “the lie” [the editors of most English translations fail to translate the definite article which exists in the Greek text] that men chose to believe rather than the truth of God. What is falsehood that is so terrible, so hideous, that Ruach HaKodesh calls it not just “a lie” but “the lie”?
The answer to this question may be found by examining the very process by which Lucifer, the Light-Bringer, became HaSatan, the Accuser or Devil.
“How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ ” (Isaiah 14:12-14, NAS)
Lucifer sought enlightenment. He chose to elevate himself to godhood. But God takes a dim view of those who would want to be gods:
“I am ADONAI; there is no other; besides me there is no God. I am arming you, although you don't know me, so that those from the east and those from the west will know that there is none besides me — I am ADONAI; there is no other. ” (Isaiah 45:5-6, CJB)
“Let them stand and present their case! Indeed, let them take counsel together. Who foretold this long ago, announced it in times gone by? Wasn't it I, ADONAI? There is no other God besides me, a just God and a Savior; there is none besides me. Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God; there is no other. In the name of myself I have sworn, from my mouth has rightly gone out, a word that will not return — that to me every knee will bow and every tongue will swear about me that only in ADONAI are justice and strength.” All who rage against him will come to him ashamed. (Isaiah 45:21-24, CJB)
“Remember things that happened at the beginning, long ago - that I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me..” (Isaiah 46:9, CJB)
“You will know that I am with Isra'el and that I am ADONAI your God, and that there is no other. Then my people will never again be shamed.” (Joel 2:27, CJB)
That horrible falsehood, then, that Ruach HaKodesh calls “the lie” is that thing which HaSatan whispered in Eve’s ear in Gan (the garden of) Eden and which became the cause of the fall of man just as it had been the cause of the fall of Lucifer:
The serpent said to the woman, “It is not true that you will surely die; because God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, …” (Genesis 3:4-5, NAS)
Yeshua said: “Now this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, but people loved the darkness rather than the light. Why? Because their actions were wicked. For everyone who does evil things hates the light and avoids it, so that his actions won’t be exposed. But everyone who does what is true comes to the light, so that all may see that his actions are accomplished through God." (John 3:19-21, CJB).
So the real reason, then, behind the mystic’s search for spiritual enlightenment is not so that he may find the true radiance of the purity and holiness of God, but that he may hide from the penetrating searchlight of Ruach HaKodesh. And the enlightenment upon which he stumbles is the false glow of the one whom the Bible describes as a deceiving “angel of light” — the devil (2 Cor. 11:14).
ANXIOUSLY WATCHING FOR MASHIACH’S RETURN,
SPEEDILY AND IN OUR DAY. MARANA, TA!
