Kumbh Mela:

a channel of love and light?

By TONY PEARCE

SOME comments from devotees at the Kumbh Mela, the largest gathering of human beings in history, as broadcast on Channel 4 TV (UK). Channel 4 put out a website describing the origins of Kumbh Mela:

"The festival of the Kumbh Mela is based on the ancient Hindu teachings that describe the earliest days of the universe. Exact versions differ but one common theme holds throughout. There was a time when the Devas, the demi-gods, were under the influence of a curse that made them cowardly and weak. Brahman, the Creator God, advised them to churn the cosmic ocean (Samundra Manthan) in search of Amrit, nectar that makes those who consume it immortal. The gods sought help from the demons in order to succeed in their mission. And in return for their help, the gods made an agreement to share the nectar equally. The cosmic ocean was churned using Vasuki, the King of the Serpents, as a rope around the churning rod Mount Mandara, with gods on one side and demons on the other. Eventually Dhanwantari, the divine healer, arose from the ocean with the vessel (Kumbh) containing nectar in his hands.
On seeing the nectar, the demi-gods became anxious over what would happen if the demons drank their share; so they fled with the vessel. A great chase ensued and for twelve days and nights (equivalent to twelve human years) they battled in the sky. The gods finally overpowered the demons in this primeval tug of war, but before they succeeded, some drops of the nectar fell to four places on Earth: the Indian cities of Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nasik.
The Maha Kumbh Mela (literally translating to `big pot fair') is a time when Sadhus, pilgrims and devotees converge to commemorate this divine event. Hindus believe that within the period of the Kumbh Mela the water of the Ganges turns into nectar in the place where it fell. By bathing in the Holy River they will be able to cleanse their souls and - if immortality takes effect - be able to escape the cycle of rebirth and reach enlightenment."

The holy men (Sadhus) follow a variety of ways to `enlightenment'. Most lead solitary lives, renouncing society and leading a monk like existence. The website describes their activities:

"Most Sadhus lead a life of austerity (tapasya) and a number wear heavy wooden and metal chastity belts to highlight their chastity. Some will go to extremes in self-inflicted suffering to speed up their way to enlightenment. The most unbelievable to watch are those who remain standing for 24 hours a day for years on end or who hold one arm aloft until all feeling is lost and the muscles atrophy, leaving the Sadhu permanently disabled.
Others believe in easier routes to enlightenment; viewing Shiva as the Lord of Hash, some strive to be permanently intoxicated. This results in a number of rather red-eyed Sadhus spending their days smoking marijuana, which is admittedly a little easier than standing for twelve years, and would explain why smoking Sadhus are in abundance.

Sadhus are at the heart of the Kumbh Mela. Apart from taking a holy dip in the Ganges, the aim of the Hindu pilgrims is to have the Darshan ("vision") of a Sadhu in order to receive their spiritual energy. Believers regard them as holy because of their radical commitment, and the most devout Sadhus are worshipped as gods on earth. Followers and disciples hope to gain spiritual merit or perhaps even enlightenment by touching the Sadhus' feet or listening to them - the ones not under vows of silence that is. Sadhus are also thought to transmit spiritual energy through Prasad. Pilgrims offer items such as food and flowers to Sadhus, and the ones not kept or sacrificed are distributed as Prasad, which literally means food from the gods."

(Interestingly the website goes on to describe how in the past these `gods' have fought each other over who should go into the Ganges first!)

Since Hinduism has no absolute beliefs set down in scriptures, devotees have radically different ways of expressing their faith. One sect of Sadhus, the Aghoris, is devoted to Shiva, the god of destruction. They express a morbid fascination with death, and many spend their time surrounded by corpses, and drinking from human skulls.

It is said that some take their devotion to the even greater extremities of eating excrement and having sexual intercourse with menstruating prostitutes. There are also Sakhis, religious transvestites who express their devotion to a god by acting as his lover. One such man on Channel 4 told how he takes part in public performances playing the parts of gods and goddesses. He dresses up like a woman and feels like a woman. `This is my way of serving god and my profession. When I sing and dance I feel like Lord Krishna is dancing with me. He is dark and beautiful and wears earrings.'

It is interesting that on the Kumbh Mela programmes that I saw there was no critical comment about what was going on. To do this of course would not be `politically correct'.

On the other hand it is okay for Channel 4 to ridicule the origins of Christianity as it did in the `Real Jesus' programme shown before Christmas in 1998 and then to refuse to give Christians any opportunity to answer the allegations made, as I requested them to do.

All of this is part of the brainwashing programme going on in our society to undermine Christianity and to impose inter faith paganism on us as our official religion. Most people, including many professing Christians, appear quite happy for this to happen.

The appeal of Hinduism to western society is very great. Since The Beatles went to India and were influenced by Maharishi Yogi, Hindu ideas have been drip fed into our thinking via the popular media. For example The Beatles song, I am the Walrus with its line `I am you and you are he and we are one together, I am the Walrus' is pure Hindu thought (all things are interconnected and we are all part of one another and part of god).

So-called New Age thought is for the most part a recycling of Hinduism plus magic and occult ideas and practices in a way that is acceptable in the West.

The use of drugs, especially the so called harmless drugs like marijuana, is a way in to the altered state of consciousness, which opens the mind up to the Hindu way of looking at life. Yoga and Hindu meditation have now become mainstream, often offered in church halls, with no understanding that `there is no yoga without Hinduism and no Hinduism without yoga' (Hindu saying).

So what is the appeal
of Hinduism?

Hinduism is basically pantheistic. It has one formless all pervading god, the Brahman, and millions of gods and goddesses. Since everything is believed to be a part of god it follows that all created things including humans are potentially divine. The basic problem of humanity, in Hinduism, is that we do not know that we are divine and need to be enlightened. The Sadhus are thought to be enlightened and are worshipped as gods.

Hinduism is also a non-dogmatic religion. You can express your spirituality by extreme asceticism (raising one arm above the head for years) or by extreme indulgence (getting permanently high on hash). You can be a religious transvestite, have sex with prostitutes or take a vow of chastity. You can use astrology and fortune telling to find out your future. It is also apparently very tolerant allowing you to find god whichever way you choose. The Hindu proverb says, "Many rivers lead to the same ocean, many paths go to the top of the same mountain".

All of this fits in very well with the mind set of post Christian life style and thought in the west. Abandoning the worship of God as creator who is separate from his creation, human thinking inevitably falls into pantheism, the idea of god in everything. This in turn leads to idolatry, because people look for certain `power points' where they can make the connection to the divine. These can be supposedly sacred mountains, rivers, rocks, man made temples, idols, crystals etc. The Ganges is one of the supreme examples of such thinking.

The next stage of the deception is as old as the garden of Eden - "You shall be as God". This appeal to the pride of human beings comes from the serpent (Satan) and nothing has changed in his strategy to work for human destruction. No doubt those who give in to this temptation do have counterfeit spiritual experiences of love and light, but these do not last and give way to tormenting spirits of destruction and degrading behaviour (obsession with death and corpses, sexual perversions, drug abuse, painful torment of the body, fear and superstition).

The supposed tolerance of Hinduism fits in well with the modern mind set. People do not like to be told that something is right or wrong, so the idea of a religion where basically you can make up the rules yourself is very appealing. Biblical Christianity, which condemns such practices described above (astrology, drug taking and transvestism), is seen as being narrow minded and bigoted.

Hinduism also offers many opportunities to find salvation through the cycle of death and reincarnation (samsara) and many ways to find god. This is considered much more enlightened and tolerant than the Christian concept of one way to God through Jesus the Messiah and only one life in which to find Him. In practice Hinduism is not at all tolerant and there has been much persecution of Christian groups by Hindus in India.

The biblical worldview is in conflict with Hinduism at almost every point. It teaches that there is one God who is holy, separate from his creation and who can only be approached through the way He has provided. He is opposed by Satan, a fallen angel (i.e. a created being) who will ultimately be condemned to the lake of fire along with all who are not redeemed through the blood of Jesus. When we look within ourselves we do not find a `god within' but the reality of our sin nature from which we need to be set free. This deliverance is available to everyone who calls on the name of the Lord in repentance and faith in the one final sacrifice for sins - the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the blood He shed for us which cleanses us from sin and gives us eternal life, not any washing in the river Ganges.

The bible clearly teaches that we only have one life on earth - "It is appointed to man to die once and after death the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).

The spread of Hindu and New Age ideas worldwide lines up with Jesus' warning that "Many false prophets will arise and deceive many" (Matthew 24:11) in the last days of this age. We have a bible study available giving the answer to the Hindu / New Age view which is available on request.

Anybody wishing to receive this bible study can write to Tony Pearce, Light for the Last Days, Box BM-4226, London. WC1N 3XX, UK

Postscript:

Optimists or Pessimists?

Sometimes I am accused of being pessimistic in my writing. I do not accept this, as I am basically extremely optimistic about the long-term future. There will be an end to wars and nations will live at peace together. The earth will be full of the knowledge of God and there will be abundance of food and shelter for all. This will happen after the Lord Jesus returns and rules the nations from redeemed Jerusalem and the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh. My basis for this optimism is not any visions or dreams I have had, but simply my belief in the inspired Word of God. You can read about the coming glorious time on the earth in such passages as Isaiah 2:1-4, 11, Joel 2:21-32, Zechariah 14 and Revelation chapters 20 and 21.

On the other hand I accept that in the short term I am pessimistic about the future of this planet and the human race. Again this pessimism is not based on my own thoughts, but on the Word of God where Jesus tells us clearly that in the days before His return there will be great tribulation such as has never been before and never will be again, and if God did not cut short those days no flesh would be saved (i.e. it would be the end of all life) -Matthew 24:21-22.

You can read about this coming time of trouble in Isaiah 24, Zechariah 12-13, Matthew 24, and Revelation 6-19 to mention just a few such passages. Since this time of trouble centres on a conflict over Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:3), happens at a time when the world is becoming unified in a one world antichristian system (Revelation 13), a time of great falling away morally and spiritually (2 Timothy 3;

2 Thessa-lonians 2), when there is a great increase in wars, earthquakes, plagues, persec-utions and false prophets (Matthew 24:7-9); "It is not unreasonable to suggest that our time has something to do with this".

Most people would rather not think that we are heading for a time of great trouble, so we have an abundance of hopes for the future expressed both by believers and non-believers, who tell us that things are going to get better. The millennium celebrations last year gave rise to some really fatuous expressions of this hope, for example the statement in the British Daily Express that "We are paving the way for a century - a millennium perhaps - of real world peace" (1/1/00).

Christians too are constantly telling themselves and others that things are going to get better. For some this will happen because the churches are coming together in ecumenical unity. For others it is because of prophecies of revival - revival because of the Toronto Blessing (people falling to the floor laughing hysterically), revival because of flowers being laid out for Diana, revival because of the Alpha Course. We have one thing after another creating momentary excitement, but the progress in society and the church is generally from bad to worse. The hope of revival is usually based on someone standing up and saying "Thus says the Lord, such and such is going to happen". When it does not happen (as it never does) people carry on believing in it because they cannot face the fact that it was not the Lord speaking at all. The revival psychosis in our churches today is because people cannot come to terms with the reality that the Christian basis of our society has been destroyed and is being replaced by a political, economic and spiritual system, which will end up persecuting biblical Christianity. Today the reality is that people who hate the message of the gospel are running our media, educational system, social services, law enforcement agencies and even many of our churches. We keep hoping things will go back to how they were and imagine that `revival' will do it. This is in fact a delusion.

Jesus warned us that the last days of this age would be like the days of Noah (full of violence) and the days of Lot (full of sexual depravity) (Luke 17:20-37). The only hope for the future is His return - "When these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near" (Luke 21:28). The message we have to give people is that those who repent and believe in Him will be safe from judgement as the people who went into Noah's ark were safe. It is better to give a warning of trouble coming and point to the way of salvation than to give false hope that things are going to get better which then leads to disillusion and despair. I am all in favour of evangelism and hope to see many people saved in these last days. But I think the Christian church would be much better at getting on with this job if it deleted the word `revival' from its vocabulary.

About
the Author...

[ TOP ]

Appeared in Issue 13 March 2001
"...contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" -- Jude v3