The next time you visit your local library, keep your eyes open. They’re not always pushing safe and/or appropriate subjects. For instance, JM, one of our regular blog readers, commented on how her local library was handing out flyers to children hawking the latest Twilight movie, Eclipse. They were also handing out flyers for a presentation by Dr. Zaslove on “Total Healing – The Meditation Prescription – Learn how meditation can support good health.”
Marshall Zaslove, M.D. is a physician who studied homeopathy and alternative medicine in England. He has been applying relaxation and meditation techniques in his hospital and clinic practice for the last ten years.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Dr. Zaslove gives a talk based on a book by Ranjinder Singh entitled Inner and Outer Peace Through Meditation. Singh is the spiritual master of the Sawan Kirpal Ruhani Mission, also known as the Science of Spirituality (SOS). This group promotes a form of eastern meditation to people of all faiths and claims it doesn’t conflict with their religions.
However, even a cursory review of their meditation techniques, which are obviously being promoted by Dr. Zaslove and, indirectly, JM’s library, tell a much different story.
The SOS claims to be in the business of helping “seekers from all over the world and all walks of life” to “experience the inner Light and Sound of God reverberating within themselves.”
The Light and Sound of God is supposedly two “principles” that emanated from God when He created the world. “The Light and Sound of God can be contacted within through a process of meditation as taught by the living Master of Sant Mat (Sawan Kirpal Ruhani Mission/Science of Spirituality),” the website explains.
It goes on to say that the “living Master has been commissioned by the previous living Master to initiate souls so they can come in contact with the Light and Sound of God within, and traverse the spiritual journey back to their divine source.”
This Living Master is believed “to have completed the spiritual journey and can connect souls with the Light and Sound within.”
The meditation techniques that allegedly enable students to experience the Light and Sound of God include an introductory form known as Jyoti meditation. This method of meditation focuses on the “single or third eye – behind and between the eyebrows – where divine Light manifests within.”
For those who are unfamiliar with the “third eye,” it is believed in the east and by New Agers to be a kind of gateway into realms of higher consciousness. It is often associated with psychic powers such as visions, clairvoyance, precognition and out-of-body experiences.
Once a student has mastered Jhoti meditation, they can advance to Shabd meditation, a higher form that teaches students to meditate on the inner manifestations of the divine Light and Sound of God.
There are many obvious conflicts with Christianity here, not least of which is the belief in a third-eye and the psychic powers it allegedly develops as well as the concept of needing a Living Master to guide us to the god within ourselves. Catholics believe that God dwells within us by grace, not that we are all divine and need only to “connect” with the divinity within as the SOS methods imply.
Why a public library – who receives public funds – is pushing these kinds of religious beliefs, I can’t say. The SOS makes a big deal out of how their meditation can be practiced by people of all faiths and the authorities at the library either didn’t check to be sure this was true, or are actively promoting alternative religious practices.
Tomorrow I will address another flyer that was being distributed by JM’s local library – an invitation to participate in a Day of the Dead celebration.
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