New Thought and Hinduism, by Fredrik H Robison

NEW THOUGHT AND HINDUISM

by Fredrik H. Robison

The following helpful article was found among the papers left by our beloved brother F. H. ROBISON, and seems to have been written for insertion in the Watchtower. Since it was penned the evils of which it speaks have grown apace. God is being pushed back more and more, and, even among His own saints, self has often become the center of life. Selfishness is the great ruling principle of the world and is bearing an appalling harvest of misery and despair. The normal and "successful" career in such a world is humiliation and suffering with Christ, for this glorifies God and will lead to eonian glory. To reign now, to enjoy what is so contrary to His heart, will only lead to eonian loss when He is revealed. A memorial volume, which will be duly announced when ready, is about to be issued, containing further writings of our brother. --A. E. K.

Question: Are the teachings of New Thought and Christian Science new, or are they traceable to older religious conceptions?

Answer: We cannot as a rule attempt to give the lineage of all the unscriptural teachings in the world. To do so would be to take our time and attention away from the positive and edifying things of God's Word. But this question is worthy of a brief answer, because it proves that the Adversary merely plays from one hand into the other, and that these modern movements are modern in name only.

New Thought is identifiable with Hinduism on the broad basis of the fact that all heathen religions contain an esoteric (inner circle) philosophy, the knowledge of which was anciently confined to the priesthood and was sedulously concealed from the multitude of ignorant and superstitious worshipers. In India this once entirely esoteric philosophy first appears to have become popularized to some extent and to have spread among the masses. From India it was carried in recent years to western lands and adapted to occidental habits of thought as New Thought. There seems to be no room for doubt that both Theosophy and Christian Science are derived directly from Hindu source.

The Hindu philosophy of existence is based on the Upanishads, which are classified into six Sastras, and variously interpreted by three schools of thought: the Sankhya, the Vedanta, and the Nyaya. The Nyaya teaches that the chief end of man is deliverance from pain. This is attained by total cessation from all action, good or bad. Perfectly simple.

The Sankhya school declares that matter is self-existent and eternal--which our Western scientists also taught as an axiom until recent studies of radio-activity convinced them that the elements are not immutable and that there is a leakage of energy which cannot be accounted for. This Indian theory further teaches that the soul is distinct from matter, and is also eternal. (Practically all heathen creeds embody Satan's first lie). When the soul attains true knowledge it is liberated from matter and from pain. (This smacks strongly of "Science and Health," with its "development of spiritual understanding" and the self cure of disease). The same Sankhya school declares the existence of God unproved. How strongly this agrees with the average opinion of scientific man!

The philosophy of the Vedanta school is embodied in the "Vedanta Sara" treatise, which maintains that "the whole universe is God." (This is the "God mind" of Mrs. Eddy.) "God is existence, knowledge, and joy." Ignorance makes the soul imagine that it is different from God, that it is a distinct entity. To show how closely these oriental ideas are copied in modern healing cults we quote from page 184 of "Christian Healing:"

"The purpose of this lesson is therefore to take as a workable principle the proposition that any ideal for the body or mind or the spiritual life, may be firmly held and steadily insisted upon, until it becomes a reality in the realm of things. To do this, we must first attain to the state of consciousness with the Absolute life. Let us accept fully and without question, the corollary that whatever belongs to the Divine nature is inherently in us, ready to move up to full expression just as soon as we attain Divine consciousness."

Ignorance, say the Vedantists, "projects the appearance of an external world." (Or, as Mrs. Eddy would say, "lack of spiritual understanding" and "wrong thinking" cause the soul to accept the "false testimony of matter"). Everything except God has only a seeming existence. (Mrs. Eddy again with her spiritual "oneness with God" and the "illusion" of the "carnal senses"). When he who is the First and the Last is discerned one's own acts are annihilated. Meditation without distinction of subject and object is the highest attainment of thought. (Concentration or semi-trance for the admission of spirit control). It is considered a high attainment to say, "I am God," but the consummation is reached when thought exists without object--when you allow something else to use you as a medium for its thoughts! Indeed that seems to be the ultimate purpose of New Thought: spirit control.

Christ's teachings alone among religions inculcate real unselfishness. Buddhism ostensibly teaches it, but so exaggerates and perverts the meaning of it that it becomes preposterous, Hinduism incarnates selfishness as the rule of life, and New Thought tacitly accepts this rule. The Atman, or doctrine of self, teaches that there is one great pan-self present in all human minds, and that man, if he be awake to his supposed privileges, discovers his unity with this real or supreme self. In so doing he can justify his selfishness by reflecting that whatever he wills to do must be right, since he is part of God's will. This is a very subtle deception, containing a powerful appeal to certain instinctive human desires. Most human beings retain a latent sense of duty toward fellow creatures, a certain realization that the law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is just and proper. But Buddhism explains benevolence as conferring benefits on dissociated fragments of one's self. So it justifies selfishness, calling altruism enlightened selfishness. This is Mrs. Eddy almost verbatim; and all New Thought justifies selfishness and declares the unity of our selfhood with that of God.

The denominations of Christendom today teach Hinduism rather than the gospel of Christ; though in so doing they ought to include unexpurgated studies of Hindu mythology, art, ceremonial and social customs, and laws.

Most heathen religions have their "holy trinities;" Babylon had its Anu, Ea, and Bel; Egypt its Osiris, Isis, and Horus; so the Vedic triad was Agni, Vayu, and Surya--fire, air, and sun; and later Hinduism had its Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, or the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer.

In the Paranas sacred hooks Vishnu is the most important deity of one sect. According to the doctrine of Avatara, Vishnu from time to time, through the ages, descends to earth and is incarnated in a human life. Krishna was one of these Avatars. He came to live on earth for the "preservation of righteousness and destruction of wickedness." Buddha, on the contrary, say the Hindus, lives to promote the overthrow of religion and to lead humanity to destruction. Krishna's life was one of unmitigated lasciviousness, which his worshipers have thought well to emulate, according to his example; and they have commemorated these things in obscene pictures. Yet this is the god whose latest Avatar certain Theosophists pretended to discover in a Hindu boy whom they brought to the United States a few years ago to be educated for his mission of the new Messiah!

Not only in the Krishna myth but throughout, Hinduism is polluted with unspeakable depravity. Indeed the Hindu's moral sense appears to be atrophied; for, arguing that God is the source of every sin, he feels no sense of personal guilt, except in the case of ceremonial defilement, or in the infraction of some one of the myriad religious rites.

The Hindu really worships self, and considers himself to be a detached part of God. In so doing he is, of course, bowing before Satan's master idea. That personage became puffed up with pride and considered himself worthy to determine his own course because he failed to give his due place to God. Like Mrs. Eddy, the Hindu believes that matter is a reflection of thought, and he says: "Where there is faith there is God." So if you have faith in a stone it becomes God, veritably. So, having a superabundance of faith, he lavishes it upon three hundred and thirty million gods. His religion inspires and sanctions the most cruel and revolting customs. It is saturated with snake worship and all that that implies. Its keynote is despair. Yet from this, and its offshoot Buddhism, springs that pernicious system of error, New Thought, which, in one form or another, is virtually the religion of the present day.

The modern European applications of these ideas lead on toward spiritism. The celebrated Maeterlinck has published a lot of profound flummery about od, the "liquid of life," that magnetic vital fluid that is said to emanate from men and mice in uninterrupted waves; and not from animals only, but from vegetables and minerals. According to this theory, "holy water" is efficacious because it is water mesmerized by a priest possessed of psychic powers, who charges the water with curative suggestions. It is obvious where this twaddle leads to—even though there may be the weakest shimmer of truth in the odyllic theory.

These theories gently pave the way for spiritism; for it is alleged that the seven hundred authentic apparitions recorded by the Society for Psychical Research are merely "odyllic manifestations from beyond the grave." This is the Maeterlinck philosophy.

New Thought prepares the mind for spiritism. It also, by encouraging intense selfishness and "incarnating" the human will (that is, by letting the desires of the flesh be the determining factor in the life), leads to universal jealousy, suspicion, hatred, and eventual anarchy. Myriads of people are shortsighted and never count the cost, but consult only the temporary and immediate gain. Flamboyant promises of "success," of "get what you want," of "power of will," and all the rest of their bespangled but morbid companions, are made to a curious, ambitious, and befuddled world, which does not realize that the greatest power on earth among men is not the power of the will but the power of reality. Absolute frankness of purpose and life is more potent than all the false psychology and semi-voodooism which could be crammed into a lifetime.

But to those who think differently New Thought appeals. They do not realize that in nature there are certain well defined laws which keep the world in order, standing as walls to separate the things of intrinsically different functions, and if these are broken down the result is chaos. This latter-day world is undermining its own mentality. Divine law limits man's activities according to a just appreciation of his capacities and welfare. It appreciates the fact that his meddling with certain occult mysteries will prove disastrous to him; but, disregarding this law, man is being permitted willfully to break down those walls which might protect him. It seems alluring to be admitted to the fellowship of those superhuman intelligences that urgently invite it. But they admit man not once as a guest of honor, but always as a victim. In former times these powers to work mischief were limited, but now they are being allowed to entangle themselves in a net of their own weaving, from which they cannot extricate themselves, or be extricated, save by divine power. Surely, in spite of all its boasted inventions, in spite of all its scientific wonders, the world of today is a terrible place to live in--not an unsafe place for the Lord's people in view of divine power, but an undesirable place from the standpoint of human happiness. It has become too complicated and too fantastic. The insidious enemy has bewildered human understanding with subtle sophistries and ingenious delusions. He has undermined the human will, while persuading humanity that its own will is God. As for the Lord's people in the midst of this hubbub, they should properly take heed to the command: "Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest to your souls" (Jeremiah 6:16).

Blessed hope! That we shall enjoy rest and peace and purity and sanity and honest brotherly love not only now in the midst of this turmoil, but fully when our glorious Master and King assumes His great power and reigns. This rest and peace and understanding will then come to fill all the earth. Where else is there any hope? What has Science, or New Thought, or Theosophy, or Hinduism in any form, to offer to those who have no hope--the vice-wrecked, the crippled, the blind, the incurably diseased, the spawn of the fetid slums, the bereaved parent or child? How can anyone reject the reasonable terms of the gospel to pin a faith in the vague and nightmare uncertainties of spiritism, with its proven lies and impositions, its weird and preposterous shadow world, its malicious and spiteful influences, its shuddery possibilities? On the one hand is the vision of a sane, decorous world, wherein exists justice, peace, and safety. On the other an Omorka abyss, peopled with irrational dreams and monstrosities. Should not anyone fear death, if it meant a plunge into this frightful unknown, populated with gibing, unrepentant evil spirits, and distinguished even more by conscious pains and terrors?

New Thought and Spiritism promise nothing really tangible in the way of hope and consolation. Only the message of present truth does that.

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