RED ALERT 

Forty Day Gatekeeper Initiative for Turtle Island June 10-July 20, 2011 

Day Seven::Friday, June 17, 2011 

By James C. Stephens

I picked up a copy of Overcomer magazine and an article popped out at me written by Victor Reid, the Principle of Redcliffe College entitled, “You are special!…Beautiful!..and full of potential.”

I recall years ago, a veteran missionary at Grace Community Church refer to me jokingly as his “special ministry.”  While it was said in love, it was also used by the church as a term for the handicapped. People with ‘special needs.’  As I think about that, it seems a bit condescending and a bit Pharisaical and classist.  Who’s to say that people without apparent physical handicaps are not suffering from other unapparent handicaps?

“And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write,

‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot.

“Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelation 3:14-22).

The LORD looks at our hearts.

According to Reid, “In our very broken society many people are suffering from a negative self image.”  I don’t think Reid is coming merely from a pop-psychological perspective here. Our society is suffering as a result of general and personal disobedience. Individuals, whether they are raised in good or bad environments still make choices about the path they take. Reid continues, “Our worldview has been corrupted and distorted by experiences and/or events.” I’d say that even then, experiences and events can be viewed through lenses which shape our worldview. You can look at two children who have been raised in an abusive environment and sometimes find that they have very different views of the same upbringing and a totally different outlook about the world. Others raised in ideal environments do nothing but complain about their situation and have a morose outlook on life.

As a gatekeeper, I recall speaking to a large fellowship group of young couples at a major evangelical church and mentioned how Paul Carus, the founder of Open Court Publishers was so enamoured by Buddhism at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago that he’d written The Gospel According to Buddha. After my talk, two sets of parents came up to me independently and expressed concern about a textbook used in the Church’s elementary school published by a company with the same name. They asked if I could investigate the connection.

When I called Open Court and asked if it was the company founded by Paul Carus they proudly confirmed that it was one and the same and was now run by his son. They also volunteered that they published textbooks and used some of their profits to hire Buddhist monks in California to translate Asian Buddhist texts into English. I also discovered that Open Court was the textbook of choice for the Los Angeles County School District.

Although the administration of the seminary and school were not thrilled with my discovery, I did receive a “post it note” month’s later quietly letting me know that the textbooks were replaced with more appropriate material.

When a physician sees that someone is doing something that may harm his patient or others, they are constrained by the Hippocratic Oath to take preventive measures to protect their patient. Today, I sadly heard of the passing of one of our old Buddhist friends, but was shocked to hear that a doctor had told her husband of her diagnosis about cancer, but the husband did not let his wife know. Gatekeepers, whistle-blower’s, sounders of the alarm, gadflies, and “general disturbers of the peace” like Gandalf in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, are not always welcomed with a bouquet of roses.

Welcome to the ministry of occasional turning over tables like our Master Yeshua.

So we are sinner’s marred by the fall. And yet “When God wanted a Job (Job 33:4); and Moses (1 Samuel 12:6), an Isaiah (Is. 49:1-50); a Jeremiah (Jer.1:1-4); or a Paul (Gal.1:15), He was not reduced to rummaging around in the masses of humanity looking for one. He made one!! And He makes each one of us as He wants us to be” (Victor Reid).

We are ‘special.” We are “bara” newly created like the heavens and the earth, one of a kind for His glory. Hand made by the Master Potter “yatsar” shaped, molded, formed. Specially created. “Specially found in a way that no other element of creation was made, from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7-8). We are unique and priceless.” And He paid the ultimate price to redeem us with His precious blood.

Don’t you love Him? He lets Jacob know he’s just a worm. But what a worm! The humble will inherit the earth. He wants humble hearts. He called us by name, created us, purchased us, redeemed us, claimed us, and has given us a new heart. We are new creatures in Christ Jesus! As the worm sheds its skin, the old cacoon, it’s transformed into a glorious free butterfly. Wow! Do you get it? Do you know who you are? Shake off the shackles, exercise your faith, open your eyes friend! We’ve got work to do!

Confession: I exist as a result of the deliberate activity of YHWH! I am NOT an accident! I am made for a purpose. I am being brought to completion, to fulfillment by YHWH in order to fulfill the purpose for which He created me.” WOW.

God made us. Our brethren He has also purchased with His precious blood. Who are we to despise His choice, His work as our Master? If we devalue His work in creating us, “It not only undervalues our worth, it is destructive of our potential because we cannot hope to achieve what he made us for and we will lie twitching in the ditch of false humility (I’m not good enough), despair (life sucks), and self-pity (no one likes me, I’m not smart enough, pretty enough, tall enough, my parents didn’t….) in a state of spiritual paralysis. It is also destructive of our relationships with our fellow men and women because we will be distrustful and negative about them, not recognizing that the Creator, Potter, Maker has also made them.”

The unknown Michelangelo was given an opportunity to complete what several artisans had failed to accomplish. When he saw the huge unfinished piece of marble that was to become the famous sculpture of the Biblical hero David, he said ‘When I saw the piece of marble, I saw David in the stone. My only job was to chip away what didn’t belong there.’

The Creator knows who we really are, better than we do. Entrust yourselves to Him and His process of sanctification. “Commit your way to the LORD and He will direct your path.”

If He has called you to be involved in His work, don’t turn a deaf ear. Give yourself to the Hand of the Master. Reinhard Bonnke, an evangelist in Africa who saw hundreds of thousands of people give their life to the LORD, later asked the LORD, why did You chose me?

The LORD told him, “You were my fourth choice. The others before you were disobedient.”

So the race doesn’t belong to those who are swifter, faster, brighter, but to those who are obedient to the will of God.  Some will tell us that they’ve been disobedient; that they’ve not been about the Father’s business. But they still choose refuse to change. I can’t. I won’t.  Their pride and will holds them in bondage.

This day, choose whom you will serve.

PRAISE: Psalm 139:13-18. So in God’s sight you and I really are beautiful, gifted and ‘special.’

“To be men unashamed (Mark 9:34-38).

………….

“Anyone who preaches the Gospel has true greatness in their mouth and it’s the greatest thing that we could ever speak because it is God’s eternal Word which is confirmed as we preach it by the Holy Spirit.

I would say to anyone don’t be timid. Don’t be intimidated. Keep storming the gates of hell. Jesus says unhinge them. And we will plunder hell and populate heaven as we keep preaching the Gospel and bringing those who got saved in contact with Bible believing churches where they can be nourished and where they themselves can become preachers of the Word of God.

I think we often don’t like to offend people, but we don’t mind to offend God. We must preach the Gospel as it is. If we preach what the apostles preach we will get what the apostles got. It is no secret. It is as simple as that. So to anyone who wants to launch out to preach the Gospel, I would say preach the cross of Christ, teach the blood of Jesus Christ, make a clear, clear call for a decision for Jesus and don’t forget to pray for the sick because this is part for the Great Commission and that is part and parcel of our job. We pray for the sick to be healed and Jesus does the healing. All glory and honor goes to Him.”

Reinhard Bonnke

DAY EIGHT will address the duties of a gatekeeper through the examples of one model wherein the covenant community of Los Angeles county came together to prayerfully address a series of events.

RED ALERT_FORTY DAY INITIATIVE FOR TURTLE ISLAND GATEKEEPERS

June 10-July 20, 2011

By James C. Stephens

Day Six~Thursday, June 16, 2011_IDOLATRY AND THE BUDDHIST ARTS

“O YHWH, my strength and my stronghold and my refuge,

In the day of distress the gentiles shall come to You from the ends of the earth and say,

“Our fathers have inherited only falsehood, futility, and there is no value in them.

Would a man make mighty ones for himself,  

Which are not mighty ones?

Therefore see, I am causing them to know,

This time I cause them to know My hand and My might.

And they shall know that My Name is YHWH.”

~Jeremiah 16:20-21

Countdown…19 days before the Kalachakra. Very important for gatekeepers to sign up for the worldviews101 course on the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism. Don’t wait. You can sign up today for $1 trial for seven days to get the first installment of critical materials.  

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Twenty years ago, during the International Year of Tibet in 1991, there were a host of art museums throughout the United States which sponsored exhibits of Tibetan objects of worship, wherein we saw idolatry openly displayed and lifted up as fine art.  Personally, I observed Tibetan monks teaching young impressionable American children (now in their college years), how to make religious sand paintings, called mandalas.  Obviously, the children were altogether unaware of the deeper significance of the mandala which is designed according to ancient magic tantric rituals as Tibetan lamas chant protective rituals to keep themselves from being possessed by demons as they channel up to 722 deities (we would call demons) into these magic circles.

In July 2000, in Washington, DC, the US taxpayers funded “Tibet, Land Beyond the Snows,  a $6,500,000 Smithsonian exhibition on Tibetan Buddhist culture and religion, replete with giant prayer wheels, a Tibetan temple, pornographic tantric art,  Tibetan lamas constructing a Kalachakra sand mandala, ritual dances and Monlam Chenmo, Grand Prayer Festival lead by the XIV on the National Mall.

 All of these activities observed over time by an estimated two million visitors.  (Note: We had serious prayer teams on the ground praying against these ancient rituals which occurred under the veil of culture between the White House and US Capitol). The Kalachakra Mandala had been built in 1993 in Tower One in New York.

Then in 2003, through the funding of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the James Irvine Foundation, a consortium of nearly fifty entities, from art museums, scholars, performers, artists, cultural communities, and critics met at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center in New York to plan a major collaborative art project called The Buddhism Project. On the West Coast, another component decidedly to independently pursue its own goals and establish Awake: Art, Buddhism, and the Dimensions of Consciousness to “explore the relationship between Buddhist practice and art in America and design a meditation curriculum for secondary schools in America.

One of the major platforms occurred on the San Francisco-Los Angeles corridor where over 28 exhibits were staged at 28 museums and universities. The Circle of Bliss: Buddhist Meditational Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art funded by the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation in New York and the County of LA was designed to ‘offer a clear experience of the stages of Buddhist meditation.’

These exhibitions visually demonstrate the dangerous seduction of idolatry that has been allowed into America utilizing the guise of “art.”

The late Dr. Mas Toyotomi, a Japanese-American missionary with the Japanese Evangelical Missionary Society, wrote,

 When idolatry is camouflaged in fine art, three things happen:

1)       Intellectuals come to respect, accept and appreciate it and idolatry becomes tolerated in the upper class.

2)      Money becomes available for ever growing idolatry. Wealthy patrons will sponsor creation of idols in the name of culture (and I might add, government funding under “preservation of culture).

3)      The masses are encouraged to indulge in idolatry since the last two factors have made idolatry respectable and idols abundant.

Consequently, not even Christians today are seeing idolatry as the most grievous sin that can be committed by man. Because there is practically no preaching against idolatry in America, they are vulnerable to the temptations of modern, sophisticated idolatry.  

YHWH warns us that He abandoned Israel because it was filled “with idols” and “influences from the east.” Rather than serving God and loving Him, they “mingled with the nations and learned their practices” which were detestable to the YHWH, so He then “gave them into the hand of the nations; and those who hated them ruled over them” (Psalm 106:40b NASV).

This morning, my short study of the iconography of the Kalachakra Mandala being constructed during the upcoming ten day event in Washington, DC from July 6-16, 2011 was deeply disturbing. While it takes years of study to comprehend its spiritual meaning, there are troubling dimensions present on the surface. Suffice it to say, that from a Christian perspective, it is as if an ancient Pandora’s box were being brought to the heart of your nation. It is a three-dimensional blueprint of the Tibetan Buddhist’s Shambhala Kingdom, laying out the mandalization of Turtle Island.

All of the following facts are taken directly out of the Circle of Bliss Catalogue publically available at the LA County Museum of Art in 2003. It is not the usual one mandala, but an ancient design of the Kalachakra palace for the Chakravartin, the Adi Buddha, the Universal Religious Emperor and is designed on multiple levels each with a special mandala.

The Kalachakra system is composed of five mandalas: 1)The Great Bliss Mandala, 2) the Wisdom Mandala, 3)the Mind Mandala, 4)the Speech Mandala, and 5)the Body Mandala. The presence of the Nine ancient Shambhala Kings are invoked along with all the Kalachakra masters, the ChakraVartin(Wheel Rolling King), Chakravartin’s wife, Wrathful Gatekeepers for the Four Directions, the General, and a retinue of 722 deities (we’d call demons).

This is one of the rituals: “Eight Buddhas are surrounded by a railing, creating sixteen spaces. Thus the remaining eight spaces contain eight vases of Tantric substances that are alternated with the Buddhas. The two vases in the east contain purified marrow. The two in the south are filled with purified blood. The two in the north contain purified urine and the two in the west are filled with purified excrement. “Above and below are vases filled with purified semen and menses respectively.”

 During the ceremony, participants are initiated into the Shambhala Kingdom and are taught Deity-yoga, to be yoked with Tantric Buddhist deities and to visualize themselves in the realm, becoming one with the Kalachakra Deity under the direction of the XIV Dalai Lama who has initiated hundreds of thousands of followers in this ritual.

WHAT TO PRAY

While respecting the freedom of religion that we as Christians have defended and promoted for many centuries, we are also called to be gatekeepers in the spirit of Ezekiel 33:4 to warn the Church of the incursion of practices of Buddhism that affect the flock and specific activities which may threaten the spiritual well-being of our nation, families, and neighbors.

Pray fervently for spiritual wisdom, health, power, compassion and resources for Gatekeepers in the face of this dangerous ceremony being held in Washington, DC. And for all the other unseen ceremonies leading up to this climax in this tantric ritual. Pray that all things that are hidden be revealed to the shame of those who are involved in these rituals. (Isaiah 28:5-6; Psalm 19:14, 20:1-2).

The first of the Ten Commandments is “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Deu. 5:7).

Pray that Christians would be alerted to the dangers of idolatry disguised in the arts and be educated to address it wisely via the internet, articles, books, radio shows, and sermons (I Corinthians 6:9-11; 2 Chronicles 20).

Expose the dangers of the Kalachakra Ceremony in Washington, DC. (Matthew 21:13; John 10:1-10).

Conviction of sin, repentance for the burial of 253 vile tantric vases imported from Bhutan where they were ritually created,  buried in all of fifty of our state capitols, major lakes, rivers, national parks, mountain peaks, and sacred places. Not included are those buried in Canada, Mexico, and other territories and countries associated with Turtle Island.

Ask for forgiveness for the Apostasy of Church Leaders who have allowed the Dalai Lama and his lamas (priests) to conduct rituals in Christian sanctuaries and institutions including the National Cathedral, to Catholic Churches, Episcopal, Prebyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Moravian, and other churches (Jeremiah 7:1-34; 22:7-9).

While it has been proper protocol to welcome foreign statesman as guests, we are constrained to issue a warning against this ceremony and call for serious public examination of the rituals about to be conducted in light of their long term consequences for the citizens of Turtle Island.

Pray that the LORD sends godly instruction and wise counsel to the Nation’s leadership both governmental and ecclesiastical.

Pray for the Salvation of Buddhists that they would find the True Refuge in Yeshua, Jesus Christ of Nazareth (Psalm 2:10-12; Jer.10:11; 18:1-17;26:13).

Pray for President Obama’s wisdom and diplomacy, and for his eyes to be open to the danger of this alliance with the XIV Dalai Lama (1 John 10-11; Is. 43:10-13).

PRAYER FOR GATEKEEPERS

Pray for the IMMEDIATE call of Gatekeepers to their watch of the Gates of Turtle Island. That YHWH would undergird those who are gatekeepers and raise up more who will chose to stand in the gap to expose unrighteousness and earnestly contend for the faith delivered to the saints.

FORTY DAY INITIATIVE FOR TURTLE ISLAND GATEKEEPERS

June 10-July 20, 2011

“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it is conquered from within.”

~Will Durant

Day Five~Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Yesterday, I was going outside to get some air and work on the blog and as I sat down a bee started buzzing me. It was aggressive and would not leave me alone. Many times I have sat in the backyard, made a phone call, wrote in my commonplace, read the Word. Sometimes sister bee has come up to me, buzzed hello and raced off to work the clover and other flowers nearby, but not yesterday. The message was very urgent. No sting, just urgency. I kept walking away and she wouldn’t stop herding me.

Some of my First Nations brothers have said that YHWH has given us brother and sister bee to bless us. At times, bees have been sent to actually prevent them from walking over a rattlesnake or warn them of some lurking danger. They’ve learned to listen to YHWH’s Creation.  In Scripture, we are taught to observe HIS Creation, to study the ants that have no ruler and watch how they work (Proverbs 30:25). In Job, to listen to the beasts and let them teach you, listen to the birds, they’ll tell you. (Job 12:7). To observe the fig tree, the times, the seasons, that the heavens declare the glory of YHWH and the firmaments show forth His handiwork (Psalm 19:1).

THE SPRING SWARM. Over the years I have observed swarms of bees in various places. One summer, I was driving and while stopped at a traffic light a swarm of bees surrounded the car. Fortunately, I had the air conditioner on. Summer swarms are not known by farmers to be very profitable. However, there is another type of swarm that forms in the spring when a hive comes to a point where it needs to divide and move. That’s known as a spring swarm and is composed of many young bees and a few old bees who know the hives code. The swarm guided by forerunner bees may move to several different locations before it settles down and creates a new hive with the new queen, but in the process it pollinates a great variety of flowers. Vegetable gardens and fruit orchards depend on them and that’s why it’s known as a very productive “spring swarm.” 

The LORD impressed upon me over the last couple of years that a youth movement would arise of young bees in a spontaneous spring swarm. As I anticipated it, I was interested to see spontaneous youth movements spreading across the Middle East. But those were not what I believe He was pointing to. I think He was speaking of a radical reformation arising among Christian youth who had grown tired of lukewarm Christianity who would spontaneously form new cells that would spread the Gospel like wildfire.   It is clear, the LORD is up to something, we have work to do and it’s going to involve many individual swarms of young bees and the wise guidance of a few old bees in each of those swarms.

 Sister Bee was saying to this old bee, “Get to the point!”

Twenty days before the Kalachakra Ceremony in Washington, DC. We’ve got work to do!  

“When an old dog howls, other dogs run after him without knowing why.”

A Thousand Tibetan Proverbs and Wise Sayings

by Rev. J. Gergan, A Tibetan Moravian Christian pastor

On March 11, 2011 a young Japanese schoolgirl stood on the seashore in Sendai, Japan with her family and told them immediately after the earthquake, “I learned in class about what the ocean looks like just before a tsunami. It looks like that… RUN.” And they ran, and others followed them to high ground. Many were saved by what that one little girl understood.      

The RED ALERT Initiative for Turtle Island Gatekeepers has arisen because of our understanding of the dangerous spiritual nature of the Kalachakra Tantra Ceremonies that will be held in Washington, DC at the Verizon Center that will occur from July 6-18, 2011.  Francis Wayland, who was President of Brown University from 1827-1855 made two profound statements that I feel are most appropriate in our present initiative. First, that “The innate affections of the heart teach us to shield those whom we love from the contaminations of vice.” 

Our knowledge of the demonic Kalachakra event that is about to transpire is of grave concern not just to us as Christians, but also to the nation as a whole. We have posted a twelve lesson briefing that may be accessed on http://www.worldviews101.com.   We are constrained to warn the Church and those citizens on Turtle Island. We are concerned for what this will mean for our children and the next generation and for the judgments which will come because we have broken our covenant with YHWH.

Her second statement encourages us to realize that, “A lie has not power to change the ordinances of God.”  For us, the battle has been already won through Yeshua’s death on the cross and His resurrection. But for millions of Buddhists, the eternal destiny of their soul hangs in the balance, be they from any of the five great continents.

We have observed the increasing intensity of judgment of America over the last fourteen years and of late, the news has reported storms in terms that include, “epic, biblical proportions, worst in recorded history, floods not seen in a hundred years.  Some demographers say that the deaths from storms have increased because of the population explosion. Scientists say it’s all a result of global warming. The other night I had dinner with an old Buddhist friend of mine and he said that the schism in their Buddhist sect resulted in the great Kobe earthquake which killed many Buddhists who had burned their objects of worship in Buddhist center the day before.  I think that Yeshua’s answer to His disciples after the collapse of the Tower is the most wise (Luke 13:1-5). 

 “And some were present at that time, reporting to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their offerings. And Yeshua answering, said to them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they have suffered like this? “I say to you, no! But unless you repent you shall all perish in the same way.

“Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Shiloah fell and killed them, do you think that they were greater offenders than all other men who dwelt in Yerushalayim? “I say to you, no! But unless you repent you shall all perish in the same way.”

John Owen, the great English theologian and dissenter wrote, “When warnings for instruction are not received, they are tokens of destruction. This is a truth none almost deny, and none almost believe. Had it been believed, many desolating judgments in former ages had been prevented; nations and cities should have abode in prosperity, which are now sunk into ruin, yea, into Hell” (“Sermon to the Nation,”  by John Owen (1616-1683).

 Early this morning, Dewey one of my First Nations brothers from Virginia called me and asked, “What do you think the LORD’s  saying?”

I said, “I think He’s concerned about His covenant community. While we’re focusing on addressing the Tibetan Buddhist issues in Washington, DC, I’m getting that He’s concerned about His people and their relationships with one another. How did we fall this far? We’ve broken our covenant’s with YHWH and we’re not right with one another.  I think He wants us to enter into a period of prayerful repentance and confession before we address the blatant idolatry of Tibetan Buddhism.

 Repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, restitution, renewal of covenants & fellowship, joy, praise, and then mission.

When I used the term ‘covenant community’ Dewey recalled a story he’d read about the Pilgrims in The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall, a former chaplain in the US Senate. It was the same group that was assisted by one brave named Squanto, the sole surviving member of the Patuxet tribe which had been wiped out by a mysterious plague and through a series of Joseph type events Squanto was captured, sold as a slave and came to the LORD and was instrumental in the survival of the Pilgrims  settlement.   

  ‘During the summer of 1623 they were suffering from a 12 week drought which threatened their entire corn crop. What they heard from the LORD was that He had withheld the rain because of all the hard feelings the community had towards one another. After nine hours of prayer and fasting, and confessing their sins to one another, they were joyfully reconciled. Before they departed, they noticed that the sky had become overcast and soon clouds gathered on all sides. The next morning, rain began to fall very softly and it continued raining softly for fourteen days. That year they had a surplus and freely shared it with their First Nations neighbors.’

After he told me the story, I recalled a dream I’d had in the night of Robby Butler and Rick Wood who I’d known from the US Center for World Mission. They were just about to go into a meeting and invited me in. I was not interested because of how our family had been so seriously hurt by them in 1997 and because the LORD had me deliver a message to them in 2007 and did not want me to set foot on the campus until there was repentance. For some reason, in the dream, the LORD was drawing us in because there was about to be a visitation of the Holy Spirit.

WHAT TO PRAY

“With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplications for all saints” (Ephesians 6:8).

Every member of a body is interested in the welfare of the whole, and exists to help and complete the other. Believers are one body, and ought to pray, not so much for the welfare of their own church or society, but first of all, for all saints. This large, unselfish love is the proof that Christ’s Spirit and Love is teaching them to pray. Pray first for all and then for the believers around you.”  Andrew Murray  in The Ministry of Intercession.

HOW TO PRAY—IN THE LOVE OF THE SPIRIT

“By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).

“I pray that they all may be one, that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me” (John 17:21).

“I beseech you, brethren, by the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me” (Romans 15:30).

“Above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves” (I Peter 4:8).

“If we are to pray we must love. Let us say to God we do love all His saints; let us say we love specially every child of His we know. Let us pray with fervent love, in the love of the Spirit.” ~Andrew Murray.

SPECIAL PETITIONS

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts” (Psalm 119:23).

“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves; know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates? (2 Corinthians 8:5).

“Those who entertain the opinion and hope of themselves, that they are godly, should take great care to see that their foundation be right. Those that are in doubt should not give themselves rest till the matter be resolved” (Jonathan Edwards’  “Christian Cautions or The Necessity of Self-Examination”).

For YHWH’s love to infill us for the body of Yeshua, the Bride of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Reconciliation in the covenant community of believers.

 “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:6-7).

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in is” (1 John 1:8)

“If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).

“The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4).

“And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.

If you now that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.

See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as he is.

And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 2:28-3:3).

……

“When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the YHWH had made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.” Deuteronomy 9:9

“For YHWH your Elohim is Elohim of mighty ones and Master of masters, the great El, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe.” Debarim 10:17 (Deut.) ISR Version.

 “You shall have no other gods before Me.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

‘You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments” (Deuternomy 5:6-10).

Go to Facebook Worldviews101 group to post any comments or prayer requests. If you’re not a member of Facebook it’s very easy to join. When you do a search for Worldviews101 group on Facebook you can request to become a member.

FORTY-DAY INITIATIVE FOR TURTLE ISLAND GATEKEEPERS  June 10-July 20, 2011

Day Four Yeshua’s Pattern of Prayer

June 14, 2011

by James C. Stephens

“And having risen very early in the morning, while still dark, He went out,

and went away to a lonely place, and there He prayed.”

Mark 1:35

Years ago, my Dad Carlton came up to me after work and told me he was convicted about the lack of prayer in his life. He was a mechanic at a service station and said one of his fellow employees, a Muslim would take out his prayer rug several times a day, go behind the station and say his prayers.

I asked, “Do you know why Moslems pray five times a day?”

Dad responded, “Because they’re so religious?”

“Actually Dad,” I said, “the truth of the matter is that early on in the founding of Islam, they patterned their prayer times after Jews and Christians who prayed seven times a day, but said it was too much, so they only prayed five times a day.”

Well, we’ve long since discarded the traditional patterns of prayer and few have any knowledge of “praying the hours.”  It’s quite difficult to be prayerful, when prayer is not seen as an important element in our daily lives.  Most of the prayer circles conspicuously are missing men. “It’s not that it’s not my thing, I just don’t have time to pray. I’m working.”  If you don’t see it modeled, you don’t do it. We can preach.  Now it seems that yoga classes are filling that “void” for many young women in society today even among Christians. We want to  actively participate in doing something. We don’t know what it looks like, but we are bombarded by images promoting Eastern spiritual forms that look hip. Whenever prayer is portrayed on television it is always juxtapoised in this fashion. Older grey haired women sitting around on church fold up chairs in flourescent lit rooms, whereas in Eastern spirituality its the hip trim young professional woman in her designer yoga outfit, breathing in and out in a cross legged position or a downward dog position in a well lite room with polished hardwood floors. We are the hybrid generation.  Relaxing spiritual gymnasium after work. Seeker friendly gym, that’s it! Madison Avenue at its best!  No Christian Yoga! Pleeeease. As Rabi Maharaj author of Death of a Guru and a former Hindu himself,  said years ago, “Yoga means yoked with Brahma, a Hindu god.”  Not exactly in conformity with the Ten Commandments.  Exercise is important, but what is its true intention?   

Daily we fight an invisible war.  We’re encouraged   ‘not to be anxious and to let all of our requests be made known to God through prayer and supplication.’

Some may say, “Wait a minute. Who writes this stuff anyway?! I’ve got a mortgage or rent to pay, car insurance due and the overdraft charges. I don’t have enough. And you’re telling me to rejoice? Do you know we’re in a depression? I’ve got problems.”

You think you’ve got problems. Five years in detention, shipwrecked, hunted down by Rome, hated by other Jews, mistrusted by other Christians, Paul had problems. And yet, he said, “Rejoice!” 

What are you crazy? I’ve got to work to pay the bills!”

 Of course. Paul was a tentmaker and made his own way. But he also knew who he was in the sight of YHWH. 

Many people feel that prayer is not work. That it is an unnecessary part of our existance. Others realize that prayer is as essential to life as breathing. Some just believe in action. But where, I ask, do you get the power to do what you do? Some mornings, when I am doing my morning ritual, making coffee, I pour some coffee beans into the grinder and put the lid on and start grinding by pushing on the top of the lid. On one occasion nothing happened and I pushed harder. Is it broke? Oh, duh, it’s not plugged in.  The point is, that we rely on power to do much more than we think we do. Your alarm in the morning, your cell phone, your own body waking up, sticking your leg out of the bed, the heat, stove, refrigerator, lights, radios, garbage disposal, morning news programs on television, checking your email, pluggging in your ipod, cars to get to work, traffic lights, elevators, you get the point.  We’re wired into the grid, a network as it were. Are we thankful for electricity? Probably not, until it goes off. Like the old joke, “Who are you going to miss at work more this week if he’s not around. Your boss or the janitor?”  We take alot for granted. We’re not very grateful people. Spoiled is more like it. I’ve got to take the bus? Or if there is a power shortage, “I can’t watch TV?!”

RETURNING TO SIMPLICITY

I pulled out Colin Brown’s Dictionary on New Testament Theology weeks ago looking for something on the sin of gossip. Nothing. In every commentary I looked through, nothing.  I mean they’re good commentaries, don’t get me wrong.  We don’t know Torah. We don’t know the Ten Commandments. We’ve gotten real touchy feely with Jesus.  It’s like we are in competition with other religious groups. I recall at one Urbana where we were speaking to students about the necessity of taking the Gospel to the Buddhist world. One student said, “I find what you’re doing very offensive. Buddhists are so spiritual and peaceful. Why do we need to reach them?”

It’s like we’re in the business of marketing a competing brand of soap, in this case its “peace.”  If you need peace, “Get Jesus!”  You’ve seen the tshirt. “Got Jesus?”  Cute. Yeh, I got it.  Like the milk mustache thing? Face it, they were creative, we’re lazy and ripping off slogans. The Buddhists do it as well. Even the Dalai Lama slightly complains about the commercialization of Buddhism. But then, not too much, because he’s making a killing off it at $200 a pop for some tickets to hear him speak. At least, some promoter’s getting rich. What’s my point? The commercialization of religion is whacked. I mean what’s up with the hairdo on TBN? I do feel like sorry, but gold chairs, and Crystal Cathedrals. All this is coming down. Would Yeshua suggest, “It’s time to turn over a few tables here?” Yep.  I’d be ashamed. Hey, I do know them, but ah, they, ah, aren’t what I signed up for here. Reminds me of what George MacDonald the famous Scottish writer once said, “I don’t blame you for not believing in the kind of god you think I believe in. I don’t believe in that god either.” 

Bishop Ignatius  (1807-1867) wrote, ” But we have become so complicated that it is just this simplicity which is inaccessible, incomprehensible to us. We want to be clever, we want to revive our own ego, we can not bear self-renunciation or self denial, we have no desire to live and act by faith. It is for this reason that we need a guide to lead us out of our complexity, out of our cuteness, out of our cunning, out of our vanity and self confidence, into the breadth and simplicity of faith.”

Maybe I should end here and shut up. Wow. What’s Selah there for? Continuing tommorrow? One things for sure, it’s not going to be a Catholic spiritual director or an Evangelical one either. It’s got to be the Holy Spirit that we listen to, to get us out of this mess.  We’ve screwed this one up good, wouldn’t you say? Time to pray.

Your petitions here……………………….^

RED ALERT FORTY DAY INITIATIVE FOR TURTLE ISLAND GATEKEEPERS  

June 10-July 20, 2011

DAY THREE June 13, 2011

by James C. Stephens

“I have set watchmen on your walls, O Yerushalayim, all the day and all the night, continually, who are not silent. You who remember YHWH, give yourselves no rest, and give Him no rest till He establishes and till He makes Yerushalayim a praise in the earth”

                               (Yeshayahu [Isaiah] 62:6-7)Translation  Institute for Scripture Research.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who,

in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”  Dante

“A great Christian statesman, considering the morality of a measure which will affect millions of lives, and which involves economic, geographical and political considerations of the utmost complexity, is in a different position from a boy first learning that one must not cheat or tell lies, or hurt innocent people.”                      

                ~C.S. Lewis: Essay on “Dogma and the Universe” in God in the Dock.

WHAT TO PRAY—FOR THE SPIRIT OF INTERCESSION

“That I might be more fitted for doing and suffering.”

~David Brainerd’s Diary April 3, 1742

                      (excerpt from Journey with David Brainerd by Richard A.Hasler).

“The Spirit does help in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray, but the Spirit Himself pleads our case for us with groanings unutterable. And He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the set-apart ones according to Elohim. And we know that all matters work together for good to those who love Elohim, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:26-28).

“And I shall pour on the house of Dawid and on the inhabitants of Yerushalayim a spirit of favour and prayers. And they shall look on Me whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son. And they shall be in bitterness over Him as a bitterness over the first-born” (Zekaryah[Zechariah] 12:10).

“The evangelization of the world depends first of all upon a revival of prayer. Deeper than the need for men—ay, deep down at the bottom of our spiritless life, is the need for the forgotten secret of prevailing, world-wide prayer.”  Andrew Murray, The Ministry of Intercession.

In the night, I awoke several times and wrestled in prayer over my own shortcomings. Why am I even attempting to put together this prayer initiative. I’m not good enough to do this. The fact is, none of us are good enough. ‘There is none righteous, no, not one! There is no one who is understanding, there is none who is seeking Elohim. They all have turned aside, they have together become worthless. There is none who does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open tomb, with their tongues they have deceived” (Romans 3:10).   Even the Apostles could not tarry long in the Garden of Gethsemane when Yeshua was wrestling in prayer in His great agony sweating as it were very drops of blood the night before He was to be crucified. The Apostles fell asleep.

We are on a pilgrimage together and are a body of believers called into a covenantal community with YHWH through the precious sacrifice of Yeshua Ha‘mashiach (Jesus Christ the Anointed One, the Messiah) and guided by the Ruach Hakodesh.

HOW TO PRAY—IN THE SPIRIT

The instructions in Ephesians, Chapter six which speaks about putting on the full armour of Elohim begins with a Torah lesson. “Children, obey your parents in the Master, for this is right. “Respect your father and mother,” which is the first command with promise, in order that it might be well with you, and you might live long on the earth.”

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children, but bring them up in the instruction and admonition of the Master” (Ephesians 6:1-4).

Getting our own house in order. Interesting. So, I return to what the Ruach Hakodesh (the Holy Spirit) was impressing on me throughout the night. It must be something He wants us to work through as His covenantal community.  I sensed that this journey began in earnest for me on Shavuot, the Jewish feast commemorating YHWH’s delivering of the Ten Commandments to Moses and the seventy. The Torah is our schoolmaster. Through it we recognize YHWH’s standards and how we have missed the mark, how we’ve sinned. How we need our Messiah, Yeshua.

We ALL have mother and father issues. Even if they are deceased. There is no getting around it.  In May, I was re-reading one of my old journals that I kept when I was a Buddhist (1970-1984).  I was about to celebrate my sixtieth birthday and was irritated because my Mother who was flying down to attend the party my wife Elizabeth was throwing for me later added that she was going to go to some of her favored relatives and then come to the party later. And before she was to fly home the next day that we should celebrate Mother’s Day by going out to breakfast.  

You might think, “What a jerk! Your Mom’s going out of her way to attend your birthday!” 

“Okay, I can give that to you. Well, we all have unresolved family baggage.”

You may be asking, “What does this have to do with a “Red Alert?!” Benjamin Franklin said, “Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” This prayer journey is not just any journey. It will take patience with others and in time with yourself. It’s about listening and being obedient to the Holy Spirit’s direction and discerning His voice as well. Before we even put on the complete armour of Elohim, the Apostle Paul begins with our mother and father issues.

Interestingly, when I was doing research in the course of my studies on the interaction of Buddhism and Christianity in history, I read about India’s Buddhist King Asoka who in 250 A.D. established many monuments inscribed with sayings of wisdom throughout the land and one was spoke highly of an ancient rule conducive to long life calling for children to honor their parents.

We’re on this journey together and over these days, we’ll get to know each other. I’ll be open, transparent, and honest as possible. Please post your thoughts on our Facebook page so the covenantal community can interact as well.  

Why was I frustrated? What was at the bottom of my irritation I pondered in prayer. It all of the sudden struck me. Pull out your 1971 journal. In my journal, I read an entry on May 22, 1971, when I came home from school and discovered that my mother and brother had disappeared. Basically, my mother had left my dad and was filing for divorce. It left me in a very difficult position. My father was devastated and many years later told me that if I hadn’t been his support during that time he was considering suicide.  The entry was forty years old. It was fresh, as if I was still twenty years old. Surprisingly, I discovered also that my mother Alice was twenty years old when I was born. http://intersect.com/stories/24WfvmfKrPp3.

Forgiven, but still yoked to the pain. Although I forgave her many years ago, she hasn’t forgiven my father and continues to harbor ill feelings towards him which she openly conveys to our children. He passed away in 1995. He lived with us happily for years and he genuinely loved his grandchildren who even to this day will not listen to her grievances. It is sad. So, my life was affected by her departure forty years ago when I was a undergraduate in college who unexpectedly had to take on a new role. It takes two to come to terms with issues in life and years to understand their ramifications. Sometimes others are blinded to their complicity. I was a young university student at the time. And then last night, my bride Elizabeth pulled out a letter as she was reviewing archives of our family correspondence. It was from my Mother to my Father. Elizabeth was very upset with my mother’s tone. I mean it was as fresh a wound as if it had been yesterday. I went to bed and it rested in my subconscious. It was not good. It was emasculating. A letter on May 31, 1972 to my father expressing “her concern” that I was looking so thin as I was eating only rice and attacking him for his lack of provision at the age of forty nine years old, “a man your age.”  It was as if I had been freshly stabbed in the stomach. I knew his struggles, his broken dream of wanting a happy “Leave it to Beaver” family.  We were struggling. He had lost his lease on the Mobil Service Station  he managed where he was making a very good living, good enough to fund our skiing trips to Mammoth and Lake Tahoe with my mother who we discovered was going out on him. It had all been premeditated.

The marriage covenant was broken. God hates divorce. I can thoroughly understand why. It is devastating to the family unit. It is selfish to the core. I’ll never forget her lie when I was up skiing and awoke in the condominium one morning as she slipped in the door around 5:00AM. “Hi Mom. Where you been?”

“Oh, out to get some donuts,” she hastily replied.

“Really. What kind did you get?” I asked. There was no reply, because there were no donuts. Children are not blind.  “And you, fathers [mothers as well], do not provoke your children, but bring them up in the instruction and admonition of the Master” (Ephesians 6:1-4).

Painful consequences follow. Thank YHWH I have an understanding bride. It’s taken years to rebuild trust in my life and that’s another story, but not for this journey.

Maybe you’re ready to check out here. Maybe you relate.  It’s okay.  Remember, Yeshua in the Garden of Gethsemane who in His prayer of agony was bleeding drops of blood? The disciples checked out. They couldn’t handle it. They were sleeping and couldn’t pray. What is it that may be blocking your life? If your favorite team or program was on television right now, maybe you’d be good to go. But, this processing, can be draining. On the other hand, maybe this is just what Abba, our Heavenly Father wants. It’s about family! And you’re saying, “Shoot! I thought we were going to pray about Turtle Island! I’m an intercessor! A Gatekeeper! What’s the point?”

The point is that prayer is difficult personal work and as members of the family of God, we are family. When one part of the body hurts, all parts of the body should hurt. Have we become numb?  Do you truly believe that the prayer of faith can move mountains? Heal families? Transform a city? Transform a nation? I’ll be straightforward with you, sometimes when people are extremely stubborn and you know that they are headed in a direction that will end up in them harming themselves and others, I pray that YHWH would chasten them unto repentance. He knows how to shepard the sheep. Seriously.  Prayer is not just some kind of feel good exercise where we snuggle up to Jesus and present our Santa Claus Christmas list of needs to Him. He is not some type of magical Disneyesque genie who we can beckon whenever we have need. He is the Creator and we’ve got to get our perspective of who He is straight off. Yes, He constantly makes intercession for the saints. But, Confession is in order. An agreement with Him that His judgments are right and we are out of order. That’s a lot of hard work. First of all we must put our own house in order.

WHAT IS PRAYER?

“Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to His Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God.”

John Bunyan wrote Praying in the Spirit in 1662 in an English jail where he was later to have his ‘immortal dream’ after which he wrote the allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress.

“Without the Spirit, man is so infirm that he cannot, with all other means whatsoever, be enabled to think one right saving thought of God, of Christ, or of his blessed things; and therefore he says of the wicked, ‘God is not in all his thoughts,’ (Psalm 10:4).”  “For every ‘imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil.’

So, if our hearts which we struggle against even as the redeemed of God be ‘continually’ wicked and depraved Gen.6:5; 8:21, how can we address God “without the Spirit helping this infirmity?” We cannot.

Bunyan continues, “Many ask and have not, because they ask amiss; and so are never the nearer the enjoying of those things they petition for (James 4:3). It is not to pray at random that will cause God to answer. While prayer is making, God is searching the heart to see from what root and spirit it arises (1John 5:14). ‘And he that searcheth the heart knoweth,’ that is, approves only, the meaning ‘of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.’ For in that which is according to his will only, he hears us, and in nothing else. And it is the Spirit only that can teach us so to ask; it only being able to search out all things, even the deep things of God.”

“Nothing but the Spirit can show a man clearly his misery by nature, and so put a man into a posture of prayer. Talk is but talk, as we accustomed to say, and so it is but mouth worship, if there be not a sense of misery…How far short are the people…who count it enough to teach themselves and children to say the LORD’s prayer, the creed, and other saying; When, as God knows they are senseless of themselves, their misery, or what it is to be brought to God through Christ! Ah, poor soul! Study your misery, and cry to God to show you your confused blindness and ignorance, before you be too ready in calling God your Father, or teaching your children either so to say.”

Bunyan reasons, “poor blind, ignorant, foolish one. It may be your chief prayer is, “Our Father which are in heaven. Do you know the meaning of the very first words of this prayer? Can you indeed, with the rest of the saints, cry, Our Father? Are you truly born again? Have you received the spirit of adoption? Do you see yourself in Christ? Is not the Devil your father? (John 8:44).

When I was in much spiritual confusion as a Buddhist, I recall saying to a business associate who was a strong Christian, “We can fight for world peace. We Buddhists will help do it in Asia and you Christians can work for peace in America. Right brother?”  He paused and looked at me directly in the eye and sincerely said, “You are not my brother.”  At the time it seemed cruel, but later I recognized as a new Christian, that his honest rebuke, was the most truthful and caring thing he could have said at that moment. The fact is that we must be adopted into the family of YHWH through our confession and belief in the ONE True Sacrifice Yeshua, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It is quite strange to hear the Dalai Lama refer to everyone he speaks to at conferences as my brothers and sisters. While it may sound like a nice gesture from a grandfather figure, it is the antithesis of how Yeshua honestly addresses others.

Bunyan asks, “Do you indeed say, “Hallowed be thy name’ with your heart? Do you study, by all honest and lawful ways, to advance the name, holiness, and majesty of God? Do your heart and conversation agree with this passage? Do you strive to imitate Christ in all the works of righteousness, which God commands you, and prompts you to do? It is so, if you are one that can truly with God’s permission cry, ‘Our Father’. Or is it not the least of your thoughts all the day? And do you not clearly make it appear that you are a cursed hypocrite, by condemning that with your daily practice, which you pretend in your praying with a dissembling tongue?

“Would you have the kingdom of God come indeed, and also his will to be done in earth as it is in heaven? Nay, even though, according to the form, you say, Thy kingdom come, yet would it not make you run mad, to hear the trumpet sound, to see the dead arise, and yourself just now to go and appear before God, to give an account of all the deeds you have done in the body? Nay, are not the very thoughts of it together displeasing to you? And if God’s will should be done on earth as it is in heaven, must it not be your ruin?  There is never a rebel in heaven against God, and if he should so deal on earth, must it not whirl you down to hell?”

These are serious words from a wise and persecuted patriarch of the faith. Wisdom is greater than weapons of war. As I weigh these issues in my own family, I wrestle deeply recognizing that our family issues are intimately tied to one another. We care for our parents. At times, we speak words of truth at the gates of hell.

My mother who told me that she was flying down for two days to celebrate my birthday told me that she was going to visit some relatives on Saturday before the party and then on Sunday we could celebrate Mother’s Day. Control.  Then she became ill and was not able to fly. Within two weeks, she called and was going in for heart surgery to install a pacemaker. Over the years, many people have asked for my counsel about their serious operations and have also asked about their funeral plans. When I first asked my Mother about her preparations, she told me everything was in place, but then upon asking about alternative scenarios, other sensitive issues arose. Arrangements were not something I was made aware of, but would be expected of an elder son in the ministry. Words were exchanged as forty years of undealt with emotion were addressed. I would not be abandoned again. She was not going to tell me about her serious operation, except that my daughter who is living in her area and going to school said “You must tell your son.”  She told me that it felt just like it must have when she left you with no knowledge of leaving you forty years ago. Nothing in her modis operandi has changed. Just words of justification.

Why is this important? Old wounds open the door to further assaults. The Red Alert will look at historical National wounds that may have been topically addressed, but not healed that are festering below the surface on Turtle Island.  

 “Our Lord gave His disciples on His resurrection day the Holy Spirit to enable them to wait for the full outpouring on the day of Pentecost. It is only in the power of the Spirit already in us, acknowledged and yielded to, that we can pray for His fuller manifestation. Say to the Father, it is the Spirit of His Son in you urging you to plead His promise.” Andrew Murray

SPECIAL PETITIONS

Pray for the healing of broken family relationships. Pray for YHWH’s  healing of our childhood wounds and their consequences.  Pray for our Mothers and Fathers and their salvation. Forgive them for their transgressions against us and express our gratefulness to YHWH for His tender mercies and for ministering to our needs as no one on earth can possibly understand.

John Bunyan’s prayer:

The Lord awaken you, and teach you, poor souls, in all humility, to heed that you be not rash and unadvised with your heart, and much more with your mouth! When you appear before God, as the wise man says, ‘Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything (Ecclesiastes 5:2); especially to call God Father, without some blessed experience when you come before God.”

Open our eyes to the offenses still harbored within our covenantal community and help us to delve deeply into the causes through the Spirit who helps us in our infirmities and allows us to take the plank out of our eye, so that we can take the splinter out of our neighbors.

Help us get our own house in order before we endeavor to address the root iniquities and defilements occurring on Turtle Island.

Hebrew culture used qahal for a very important concept: gathering to accept the covenant. Qahal is a word that carries the idea of calling by appointment to a particular purpose of God.  This is an event, not a place!  It is focused on God’s purpose, not our participation.  However, when it comes to “congregation,” the word is almost always ‘edah.  123 times this word is found in the Torah.  It is related to the verb “to appoint.”  It is all about the unity of those appointed, not about the individuals gathered.  It is not bound to a special place or time.  It is always about a special people appointed as one unified whole before God.

The covenant community does not exist as the local assembly. Just as God’s covenant does not apply to the individual, so it does not apply to the collection of individuals who meet at some building and call themselves a church. The covenant community is the whole family of God. There is one God. There is one covenant. There is only one covenant community. Perhaps it’s time for us to start thinking and acting according the Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God. The Lord is One.”

Skip Moen

RED ALERT

FORTY DAY INITIATIVE FOR TURTLE ISLAND GATEKEEPERS

Day Two—June 12, 2011

What to pray. For the Power of the Holy Spirit.

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Master Yeshua Messiah, from whom all fatherhood in the heavens and earth is named, in order that He might give you, according to the riches of His esteem by power, to be strengthened in the inner man, through His Spirit, that the Messiah might dwell in your hearts through belief having become rooted and grounded in love, in order that you might be strengthened to firmly grasp, with all the set-apart ones, what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Messiah which surpasses knowledge, in order that you might be filled to all the completeness of Elohim. And to Him who is able to do exceedingly above all we ask or think, according to the power that is working in us, to Him be esteem in the assembly by Messiah Yeshua unto all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” ~Ephesians 3:14-21

 “He presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them for forty days, speaking concerning the reign of Elohim. And meeting with them, He commanded them not to leave Yerushalayim, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which you have heard from Me” (Acts 1:3-4).

“And I shall ask the Father, and He shall give you another Helper, to stay with you forever—the Spirit of the Truth, whom the world is unable to receive, because it does not see Him or know Him. But you know Him, for He stays with you and shall be in you. I shall not leave you orphans—I am coming to you” (Yohanan (John) 14:16-18.

“The fuller manifestation of the grace and energy of the Blessed Spirit of God, in the removal of all that is contrary to God’s revealed will, so that we grieve not the Holy Spirit, but that He may work in mightier power in the Church for the exaltation of Christ and the blessing of souls.

“God has one promise to and through His exalted Son; our Lord has one gift to His Church; the Church has one need; all prayer unites in the one petition—the power of the Holy Spirit. Make it your own prayer.”  Andrew Murray in The Ministry of Intercession.

How to Pray—As a Child asks a Father

“If a son ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? (Luke 11:11, 13).

“Ask as simply and trustfully as a child asks bread. You can do this because “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your heart, crying Abba, Father.” This Spirit is in you to give you childlike confidence. In the faith of His praying in you, ask for the power of that Holy Spirit everywhere. Mention places or circles where you specially ask it to be seen.”  (Andrew Murray)

Special Petitions:

That YHWH would pour out a spirit of intercession and the Fear of YHWH upon Turtle Island believers (Canada, the United States, every reservation, territory, Cuba & Mexico).         

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. (27) And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”       

That YHWH would awaken Turtle Island gatekeepers, quicken our hearts, open our spiritual eyes and ears, so that we can see and hear what our Heavenly Father would have us do. Give us holiness and purity, and the courage, boldness, clarity, discipline and strength to perform their calling.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not fight according to the flesh. For the weapons we fight with are not fleshly but mighty in Elohim for overthrowing strongholds, overthrowing reasonings and every high matter that exalts itself against the knowledge of Elohim, taking captive every thought to make it obedient to the Messiah” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

That YHWH would turn the hearts of the followers of Jesus Christ of Turtle Island back to Himself repenting in sackcloth and ashes (humility). For a spirit of reconciliation and restitution for historic wrongs that are in keeping with the Father’s heart.

“If I shut up the heavens and there is no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people upon whom My Name is called, shall humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their evil ways, then I shall hear from the heavens, and forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Dibre haYamim (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Remember, “If you turn away and forsake My laws and My commands which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other mighty ones, and bow yourself to them, then I shall pluck them from My land, which I have given them, and this house which I have set apart for My Name I shall cast out of My sight and make it to be a proverb and a mockery among all peoples. And this house, which has been exalted, everyone who passes by it is shall be astonished and say, ‘Why has YHWH done thus to this land and this house?’ Then they shall say, ‘Because they forsook YHWH Elohim of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Mitsrayim, and embraced other mighty ones, and bowed themselves to them and served them, therefore He has brought all this evil on them.’” 2 DIBRE haYAMIM 7:19-22 (2 Chronicles 7:19-22).

Pray for the repentance of Christians and Jews who have gone astray and have been seduced by the teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Shamanism, the occult and other aberrant teachings.                           

Pray that the YHWH will raise up apologists to preach to them in a way that their consciences will be convicted and in a manner that they will understand.

 YHWH was very displeased for “the children of Yisra’el and the children of Yehudah have done only evil before Me, from their youth. For the children of Yisra’el have only provoked Me with the work of their hands,” declares YHWH.” Many of the leading proponents of the Dalai Lama are J’Bu’s, Jewish Buddhists, e.g., Richard Gere, Diane Feinstein. 

“For this city has been a cause for My displeasure and My wrath from the day that they built it, even to this day that I should remove it from before My face.” Yirmeyahu Jeremiah 32:30-31.

YHWH is displeased with the freemason, Greek, and other foundations of Washington, DC.  

“If you love Me, you shall guard My commands” Yohanan (John) 14:15

Prayer for the Tibetan Buddhist World.

There are over 654,000,000 Buddhists around the world by some estimates. Not unlike Christianity, there are many denominations. There are three major streams of Buddhism. Theravada or the ‘school of the elders’ found in India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Kampuchea. Mahayana or the ‘Great vehicle’ whose primary concept is the Bodhisattva who works for the salvation of all beings, is found in China, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Korea. The third school which is still technically under the Mahayana label is Vajrayana Buddhism, popularly known as Tibetan Buddhism made popular by the XIV Dalai Lama, the god-king of Tibet is found primarily in Tibet, parts of China, Inner Mongolia, Mongolia, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Tuvinia, Buryatia, and Kalmykia (Three Autonomous republics in the C.I.S., the former Soviet Union).

Within the Tibetan Buddhist World there are sixty-six distinct people groups. Although we will not be able to highlight every group during our forty days, we hope to begin by first highlighting those groups which reside on Turtle Island which have resettled here as part of the Tibetan Resettlement project or who have immigrated here over the years.  

We began to pray for the Tibetan communities resettling in the US back in 1992.  I recall when I visited Kathmandu in 1994, a Tibetan woman came up to me and in English asked, “Where are you from?”

I replied, “The United States.”

“No, I mean, what city do you live in?” she persisted.

“Los Angeles,” I replied.

She happily said, “I’m from Chicago!” She then invited my friend Chris and I up to her Kathmandu home for refreshments. During the course of our conversation she mentioned how lonely she has been in the US during the resettlement process. Every once in awhile she returns back to Nepal to visit her old home, family and friends.

Pray that the LORD Jesus would connect Tibetans with loving Christians in their community that will cultivate deep and enduring friendships. I do think that it’s important to recognize that the salvation of any human being is not in our hands. We are but a living witness and our friendship should not merely be a device to win them to the LORD, but out of a sincere concern for their well-being for them as persons. We are reminded in Scripture not to make merchandise out of people. We are fellow travelers, pilgrims as it were on the road of life. Some may never come to know the LORD. At the same time, I have personally met Tibetan Christians who were lamas, priests in our parlance, who over a period of thirteen or fourteen years made conscious decisions to become followers of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Pray for the discipleship of the handful of Tibetan believers in the United States and for Tibetan Christians from overseas who are studying at seminaries in the west.

Here’s a list of some of the Tibetan resettlement sites:

1. Los Angeles
2. San Francisco
3. Portland, Oregon
4. Seattle, Washington
5. Boise, Idaho
6. Salt Lake City, Utah
7. Albuquerque/Sante Fe, New Mexico
8. Missoula, Montana
9. Minneapolis—St. Paul, Minnesota
10. Chicago, Illinois
11. Madison, Wisconsin
12.  Ithaca, New York
13.  New York, New York
14.  Darien, Connecticut
15.  Amherst, Massachusetts
16.  Boston, Massachusetts

Forty Day Initiative for Turtle Island Gatekeepers

June 10, 2011-July 20, 2011

by James C. Stephens

Graduate of a Buddhist Study Academy, former Buddhist leader of fourteen years (1970-1984). Following an accident in Japan in 1981 and a three year spiritual search, became a disciple of Yeshua in 1984, attended Grace Community Church (1985-1996) served as a deacon, established a training center in 1988 to equip the Christian community to share the Gospel with Buddhists. Has conducted trainings in Europe, Asia, and the US. , Graduated in 1999 with an MA in Intercultural Studies and Leadership Development  from Fuller School of Intercultural Studies in Pasadena, California. Launched a multimedia curriculum company  http://www.worldviews101.com.

“For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.”

“If I bring a sword upon a land, and the people of the land take one man from among them and make him their watchman; and he sees the sword coming upon the land, and he blows on the trumpet and warns the people, then he who hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, and a sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head. ‘He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood will be on himself. But had he taken warning, he would have delivered his life” (Ezekiel 33:2b-5).

There were signs. Prophets and watchman declared what they were witnessing over many years about a god-king, originally funded by the C.I.A. in Psychological Operations with China, funded by the Federal Government to speak in Universities, and protected by the US Secret Service, who has been and continues to skillfully weave sophisticated webs and seigeworks in our cities, states and nations that have appeared to be have been designed for peace and yet have possessed the distinctive seductive aroma of an ancient political enchanter’s lab drawn not out of the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli,  but drawn from the  religious political court intrigues of his historical mentor, the Great Fifth who ruled as the chief priest under the ancient  Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan who had converted to Tibetan Buddhism and conquered China in 1279.

Fast forward to 2007. Presidents, Primeministers, Senators, and Representatives, Church and religious leaders, film stars, corporate executives, academics, media and press gathered round him like a modern pied piper and praised his cause, crescendoing in the prestigious award, the Congressional Gold Medal. They clamored to be seen in a photo shoot with him.

Is it a remix of the ancient Patron-Priest design? Rev. Billy Graham, the ailing spiritual confidant to Presidents, spoke to the United States on the first anniversary of September 11 in 2001, followed by a dark spiritual change which began to surface as the exiled Tibetan god-king, the XIV Dalai Lama was invited in as the new “pluralist pope” of peace to address the world during the second anniversary of 9/11 from the National Cathedral.  For years from behind the scenes, letters, emails, phone calls to Congressman and journalists calling for a serious investigation of his deeper intentions were all but ignored as being alarmist, out of touch, and conspiratorial.

There were unheeded warnings. On May 9, 2011, the Dalai Lama was awarded the Hart Global Leadership Award at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.  Speaking to an audience of 2,000 hand-picked high school student leaders from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and 500 invited faculty and guests, including the former President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush and their daughter,  the XIV Dalai Lama proudly proclaimed three times towards the conclusion  of his talk that he was a Marxist. He concluded with, “I am proud to say that I am a Marxist especially here in a capitalist country.”   I was shocked when it was accompanied by much applause from the audience. After that bomb was dropped, the students were abruptly dismissed and he was rushed off the stage.

Was it Code? Shortly after returning to India, the Chinese government announced through various channels that the doors are open to the return of the Dalai Lama with conditions. Presently, the Tibetan-Government-in-Exile and the Office of the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet is preparing to conduct what many Dalai Lama watchers believe is his greatest achievement, conducting the Kalachakra Tantra, a ten day high religious ritual with his shamans and the Nechung Oracle transforming the Verizon center into the Land of Shambhala and initiating attendees into their global Tantric Kingdom. This will all transpire from July 6-16, 2011 in the heart of Washington, DC, in honor of the Dalai Lama’s 76 birthday.  There are more dire warnings about the resulting judgment that will befall our nation after this ancient shaman’s ritual is conducted from those who were previously involved with the Dalai Lama in Europe, disillusioned and have intimate knowledge about the true intentions of his skillful means to establish the Shambhala Empire, a global Buddhist theocracy. America is playing with dangerous strange fire that potentially will end in its great harm.  Indeed, if these rituals were so true, holy and peaceful, then why did they not prevent the destruction of 7500 Buddhist temples and monasteries in Tibet and the death of over one million Tibetans? Is there more than meets the eye to all this than the easily touted line “we come in peace?”  How many nations have been deceived before by this line?

For the next forty days, we call on those North American gatekeepers on Turtle Island (Canada, United States, First Nations Reservations and Mexico) and around the world to stand in the gap against one of the most serious spiritual assaults about to be launched in history against a country that has stood for true religious liberty. It’s greatest strength, may also be one of its greatest weaknesses. Pride comes before a fall. We thought we couldn’t be deceived.   The tales of the Trojan Horse are not just old tales. Our global naivete, spiritual blindness and in some cases, political schemes may be our Achilles heal. And yet, we too have need to repent as National Gatekeepers for opening the door to this vile religious system. “New gods were chosen and then the enemy was in the gates.”

It is recognized that this door was historically opened by the Government and Church’s complicity in implementing an ungodly doctrine of manifest destiny in which the US Government  broke over 900 treaties with First Nation’s tribes.

Secondly, the  dual allegiance and compromise through membership in secret societies such as the Freemasons, Knights Templar, and Skull and Bones.  For as followers of Yeshua Ha’Mashiach, our Master Jesus Christ of Nazareth, we can have no other King, but Him.

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24)

If we don’t stand in the gap against these vile ceremonies and proclaim their heinous nature, repent for our historical complicity in allowing these idols into our nation, leaving our posts and not bearing a witness to the alien and new immigrant in our midst; our nation will cease to know the Hand of protection of the One True and Living YHWH and we will suffer national humiliation and further divine judgment as those who have allowed these abominations to multiply in our land (Ezekiel 6:1-14).

“How can there be peace, Jehu replied, “as long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel abound (2 Kings 9:22)?”

Witness the multiple ecological crisis from the Gulf Oil disaster, to the millions of dying fish, birds, and bees, to the border violence, drug wars in Mexico, meth and drug epidemic in Turtle Island, abortions, renegade courts, earthquakes,  historic tornados, epic floods and fires, Great Depression, financial meltdown, foreclosures, bank closures. These are tokens and signs of the increasing disfavor and judgment of  YHWH.  Indeed we had grown fat and forgotten the mercies and favor of the LORD during day of our prosperity  and now each of us has turned to our own way and is eating the fruit of our deeds. Our nation is divided. Lawlessness has increased. Everyone  is doing what seems right in his own eyes.  (Read Deuternomy Chapter 28 On Blessings and Curses).

While we may live in a day in which we could be convicted of the crime of iconoclasm, desiring to destroy these idols, we know that YHWH has His weapon, The WORD which we still yield against the Kalachakra altar about to be established in Washington DC and everywhere else idols are lifted up against YHWH.

“This is what the Sovereign LORD says, “Repent, turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices (Ezekiel 14:6).”

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and all its towns the entire calamity that I have declared against it, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words’” (Jeremiah 19:15).

The LORD God of Israel declares, “As I live! I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O House of Israel? (Ezekiel 33:11).”  All of us, not just the Tibetans, all of us like sheep have gone astray and turned to our own way. There is none good, no, not even one. Only Yeshua, the Great Shepard. He is the ONE PERFECT Sacrifice. He desires and will call in His sheep from every tribe and nation.

YHWH’s promise is that “If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14-15).

We have designed a prayer & gatekeeping initiative with five simple components.

1. Online Intensive. We encourage gatekeepers and intercessors to take the intensive twelve lesson course on “The Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism” found on http://www.worldviews101.com.
2. Daily Blogs on http://www.worldviews101.com will provide prayer information and updates.
3. Social Networking allows you to post your questions, prayers, and comments on Facebook. In search type WorldViews101. it will say closed group. Up in the right hand corner it will ask you to join the group. Subject to approval. For those who also use Twitter you can access that on Worldviews101 Twitter page located at  http://twitter.com/#!/worldviews101
4. On site Prayer Initiatives. Over the last twenty years many defilements have occurred because of the ritual activities of Tantric Buddhist lamas from burying tantric vases at each of the State Capitols and Washington, DC, in high places, sacred sites, major rivers, lakes, state and national parks, to building sand mandalas,  the idolatrous Blood Relic tour raising money for the Maitreya Project, Buddhist  art exhibits, exposing elementary children to pornographic Buddhist art exhibits,  ritual chanting and curses.  Each site needs to have prayers of repentance and cleansing and asking for YHWH’s forgiveness for the defilement of the land. We also will be praying on site in Washington, DC against the ritual and for the salvation of those attending and Buddhists worldwide.                                                                                                                          
5. Proclamation of the Gospel. There are testimonies of former Tibetan Buddhist lamas who have come to know Christ in the Bonus area of http://www.worldviews101.com.  Whatever your gifting, know that are many who are willing to cooperate in whatever the LORD may call you to involve yourself in, be it radio, television, film, photography, journalism, preaching, plays, and pray walking.

“The LORD is with me like a dread champion; therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail.” (Jer 20:11).

An Interview with Victor and Victoria Trimondi (Germany)
By James C. Stephens
September 11, 2003
Stephens: This September 11 on the second anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, the keynote speaker at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. was not the American evangelist Billy Graham, but Tenzin Gyatso, better known as the XIV Dalai Lama, the exiled God-King of Tibet. Accompanied by five Tibetan Lamas from his New York Monastery, he officially began with Buddhist ritual chanting followed by a talk to an audience of 7,000 on “Cultivating Peace as an Antidote to Violence.”

Our interview today from Germany is with Victor and Victoria Trimondi, who previously worked to promote the Dalai Lama’s message in Europe. They are co-authors of a critical European bestseller entitled The Shadow of the Dalai Lama: Sexuality, Magic and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism.

How did you first come to know the Dalai Lama?

Trimondi: We first met the XIV Dalai Lama in the eighties and became friends while publishing his writings in our publishing house, Trikont-Dianus-Verlag. While organizing international conferences with him and other famous speakers on interreligious and intercultural topics and specifically securing governmental level invitations to Germany and Austria for him, we began to seriously explore Tibetan Buddhism. However, after many years of extensive study and reflection, we seriously questioned some of the fundamental tenets of the Tantric Buddhism the Dalai Lama professed and eventually became one of his sharpest critics.

Stephens: Today, the Dalai Lama was warmly received by the Christian clergy of the National Cathedral who invited him as the keynote speaker and allowed him to perfom his religious rituals with several Tibetan Buddhist lamas on the second anniversary of September 11. How should we as Americans view his visit?

Trimondi: Frankly speaking, the Dalai Lama has two faces. He makes his official contact with the West under the maxim of Mahayana Buddhism and then deftly assimilates the highest values and ideals of western culture (Christian, Jewish and humanist). On his present trip to America he has met with Muslims like Mohammed Ali, Jesuits at the University of San Francisco, political leaders from Republican and Democratic persuasions, and then will comfortably meet with ethicists and scientists at MIT and Harvard.

Through diplomatic tolerance he wins Agnostics as well as the hearts of unsuspecting Jews and Christians, to whom he preaches in the tongue of “a man of peace” and as a human rights activist relates passages of “compassion, love, and non-violence” from the “Sermon on the Mount.” Nearly all of the speeches the Dalai Lama delivers in public are extremely tolerant, human and compassionate. You can only agree. And yet, there is another face that peeks out from behind the mask of goodness, charity and kindness, which gives one pause to think more deeply about the shadow of this “man of peace.”

Stephens: I understand what you mean. I recall attending his press conference at the 1993 Parliament of the World Religions in Chicago and being somewhat stunned by his response to a journalist’s question, “Have you studied the life and teachings of Jesus?” He commented about the Tibetan Bible translation in the 1930’s and then said, “I learned something reading these books, but I learned a more deeper way from my personal friend, the late Thomas Merton.” Although it revealed that he had a relationship with a Catholic, it also showed at that time another side to me that he didn’t have much feeling for Jesus or for the Bible. In light of your first book, The Shadow of the Dalai Lama, could you spell out your concerns about his “shadow side” and his forays into the West from your experiences in Germany?

Trimondi: The XIV Dalai Lama, the God-King of Tibet is the highest representative of Tantric Buddhism, established in Tibet in the 8th century, A.D. Tantrism, the last stage in the history of Buddhism (since the 5th century A.D. in India) is based on ritual and magic formulas. Not unlike other religions it also has “skeletons in its’ closet” which it carefully conceals as a guest in the Western world. Tibetan Tantrism is a belief in spirits and demons, secret sexual practices, occultism, mind control, and an obsession with power. In contrary to every democratic custom, the present Dalai Lama consults with the Nechung Oracle, a monk who is possessed by a Mongolian war God, on all important state decisions.

What primarily concerns us about the interreligious ceremony in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. is the level of naivety in the West. For the past 25 years, the Dalai Lama has quietly performed the Kalachakra Tantra (“The Wheel of Time”), the highest of all ancient Tantric initiations for tens of thousands of spiritual novices in the West; introducing Tantric ideology, secret sexual practices, and magic rituals integrated into the context of his religious-political worldview. Critical voices have been raised, while he continues to secretly transmit the Kalachakra’s prophetic vision of the establishment of a universal Buddhocracy (Shambhala) in which spiritual and worldly power are united in one person, the “world emperor”(Chakravartin), wherein other religions will no longer exist.

Stephens: Samuel Huntington, Director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard warned in 1993 in his essay on The Clash of Civilizations that, “What ultimately counts for people is not political ideology or economic interest. Faith and family, blood and belief are what people identify with and what they will fight and die for.” In light of this what is your concern about the ideology that the Dalai Lama is promoting in the Kalachakra Tantra?

Trimondi: In the Kalachakra Tantra is prophesized the establishment of a Buddhocratic Empire, a clash of civilizations will arise as the military forces of Buddhism wage war against the armies of non-Buddhist religions. Murderous super-weapons possessed by the Buddhist Shambhala Army are described at length and in enthusiastic detail in the Kalachakra Tantra Text (Shri Kalachakra I. 128 – 142) and employed against “enemies of the Dharma (Buddha’s teachings).”

Over the last five years in the German speaking countries, these shadow-aspects of Lamaism have lead to a vast, steady and increasing stream of criticism in the media. During the Kalachakra-Initiation of the Dalai Lama last year in Austria there were very controversial debates on TV and Radio Stations and Press Media. The internationally well known newspaper “Der Standard” published an article entitled “A Warrior Ritual with the Dalai Lama: The Kalachakra”. The German Weekly of Christian intellectuals “Der Rheinische Merkur” entitled an article: “What is hidden behind the Kalachakra Tantra? Supremely ferocious warriors!”

Stephens: Who are these non-Buddhist enemies spoken of in the Kalachakra Teachings? I’ve seen articles in the Buddhist magazines the Shambhala Sun and Tricycle about Lamas dressing up in military uniforms. I thought Buddhism was a peaceful faith?

Trimondi: The secret text of the Kalachakra explicitly names the “leaders” of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as the opponents of Buddhism: “Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mani, Muhammad and the Mahdi” describing them as “the family of the demonic snakes” (Shri Kalachakra I. 154). The final, Armageddon-like battle (Shambhala war) ends in the total victory of the Buddhists. The official Kalachakra-Interpreter Alexander Berzin openly compares the principles of the Islamic “Jihad” with that of the Shambhala war. As in the Islamic martyr-ideology Shambhala-Warriors, who will be killed in the last battle have earned passage into the [Buddhist] paradise.

The military scenarios in some Buddhist Centers such as the Shambhala training camps of the deceased Lama Chögyum Trungpa, have until now only a symbolic meaning, and yet they are interpreted as a spiritual preparation of the prophesized great Shambhala War. In the imagination of some Lamas all participants in a Kalachakra initiation have the questionable privilege of being reborn as “Shambhala Warriors” in order to be able to participate in the coming apocalyptic battle either as infantry or officers, dependant on rank. High lamas of particular lineages have already been assigned to commanding positions in the future.

Stephens: Of late, the scandal of sexual abuse among Catholics and other Christian clergy has hit the news. I recall that a number of years ago, we spoke to members of Dharmadhatu in West Hollywood who openly mentioned that their founder Osel Tenzin had knowingly infected many of their members with the aids virus and that nine lamas had died in Boulder, Colorado. We were humbled by their vulnerability on the subject. They obviously felt terribly violated. Another Christian woman we met in Seattle who was formerly a sexual consort to a local Tibetan lama was so severely wounded by her experience that she would not even speak of it in detail. On October 5 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art an exhibit entitled, “The Circle of Bliss-Buddhist Meditational Arts” opens the largest Tantric Art exhibit in the Western Hemisphere. What should the public be aware of about the dangers of sexual practices of Tantric Buddhism?

Trimondi: The sexual practices of Buddhist Tantrism are not to be confused with normal sexual abuse by some Lamas. The latter also has been a great problem in the Buddhist communities, which were rocked by scandals caused by such prominent leaders as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of Colorado’s Naropa University, who was accused of having sex with his women students. In 1993, 21 Western Buddhist teachers met the Dalai Lama in India and issued an open letter that lamented various teachers’ “sexual misconduct with their students, abuse of alcohol and drugs, misappropriation of funds and misuse of power.” The group urged believers to confront teachers and publicize their misconduct.

Here in Europe, one of the most well known and discussed cases involved the Scottish Buddhist June Campbell and the attempt of her teacher, the most honorable eighty year old Lama Kalu Rinpoche, to misuse her sexually. The 10. February 1999 headline of the British newspaper The Independent read: “I was a Tantric sex slave.”

But Campbell shows also in her confessional book Traveller in Space that the sexual misuse of women is not only a blameable attitude but that it is a central part of the Lamaist Tantric religion. The sexual magic practice exercised by a Lama with a woman has the specific goal to transmit the erotic and female energy into the spiritual and worldly power of the male partner. Such sexual rituals are the core of Tibetan Buddhism. Also in the secret higher initiations of the Kalachakra Tantra sexual magical rites take place. The ritual texts can be interpreted symbolically or real (!). Both are possible. The originals say that eleven-year-old girls may be used as sexual partners.

Stephens: Shocking! Especially in our society where so much sexual abuse of children is being exposed in religious circles. That public money is being appropriated to promote this in the name of culture is of great concern, especially as many children go on field trips to these exhibits. Another concern in America has been the rise of the Neo-Nazi movement. I understand that you have since co-authored another bestseller on the influence of Asian religion on the foundational ideology of Adolph Hitler. Evidently, this has unleashed quite a debate in Europe. What’s the cause of the controversy?

Trimondi: In our historical essay “Hitler – Buddha – Krishna – an Unholy Alliance from the Third Reich to Today” we show that the warlike and racist ideas of Heinrich Himmler of the SS and of other well known Neo-fascists have been fundamentally inspired by elements of different Asian religions, such as Vedism, Buddhism, Lamaism and that prominent German Zen Teachers-Dürckheim & Herrigel have been convinced Nazis.

It’s really shocking, in the “SS-Ahnenerbe” , which was the academic brain trust of the SS, that its’ Chief Heinrich Himmler, was openly engaged in ongoing discussions with the most distinguished German Orientalists of his time in the construction of a new Indo-Arian Nazi-Religion. After WW II this discussion was continued by prominent neo-fascist ideologues. Both of our books have stimulated a great discussion about the ideological sources of religious fundamentalism and about the clash of civilisations.

Stephens: I recall attending the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in 1996 when the Dalai Lama was awarded “The Simon Wiesenthal Peace Prize” and the director equated him with “Aaron, our man of peace.” What should the Jewish community be concerned about in light of your research on his connections with Nazism?

Trimondi: It is a fact that the Shambhala War Ideology of the Kalachakra-Tantra has led to aggressive behaviour, megalomaniacal visions and conspiracy theories both in the history of the Asia as well as in that of religious fascism and neo-fascism. Already in the SS-Ahnenerbe, where Heinrich Himmler’s Nazi-Religion was born, there was an interest in the contents of the Kalachakra-Tantra. The influential fascist and cultural philosopher Julius Evola saw in the mythic world of Shambhala an esoteric centre of a sacred warrior race. This vision is today still firmly anchored in the religious ideas of the international far-right movement. That alone makes it necessary for the Dalai Lama to distance himself clearly from the war-mongering Shambhala Myth.

Instead of this he has cultivated friendly contacts with people such as the ex-SS men Bruno Beger (convicted as helping to murder more than 86 Jews) and Heinrich Harrer, author of Seven Years in Tibet (a chronicle of his experience with the Dalai Lama over seven years prior to his exile to India). The Homepage of the Government of Tibet in Exile www.tibet.com/Status/statement.html shows the XIV Dalai Lama between Bruno Beger on his right and Heinrich Harrer on his left. Beger has been a member of the famous SS-Tibet Expedition organized by the SS in 1938/1939 whose primary goal was to find traces of an ancient, lost indo-Arian religion in the Himalayas. Some occult leaders in the SS were convinced that Tibetan Lamas are the key holders of these Indo-Arian Mysteries. Beger is highly respected by the Government of Tibet in Exile as a chief witness for the political independence of the country in the 30’s and 40’s of the last century.

Nearly unknown until now are the contacts of the Dalai Lama with the French SS-collaborator, convinced anti-Semite, recognised Orientalist and Kalachakra Tantra Expert Jean Marquès-Rivière (in his absence convicted and given the death sentence for turning Jews over to the Gestapo in France). The founder of an esoteric Hitler movement the ex-Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano (promoter of an extremely racist SS-mysticism, which is based on Tantric practices and on the idea of the Shambhala Warriors) met the Dalai Lama four times.

Well known became his relationship with the Japanese terrorist, Shoko Asahara, whom he described, even after the Tokyo sarin gas attacks, as his “friend, albeit an imperfect one”. Only later he did distance himself from the Guru. Asahara’s Doomsday Philosophy was mainly influenced by the Shambhala Ideology and by Tibetan Tantrism.

Stephens: It seems that this ideological discussion is being raised globally. For us in California, it is quite relevant in light of the California recall and recent political attack on “Terminator” candidate Schwarznegger’s Austrian Nazi connections with Waldheim. But after probing more deeply we understand that he’s actually one of the largest contributors to Holocaust Awareness education and the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance. I was concerned however, about the uncritical acceptance of the Dalai Lama at that ceremony, understanding some of the connections he has with prominent Neo-Nazis.

Trimondi: Yes, it is astonishing why the Jewish Community is so uncritical vis-à-vis the Dalai Lama. On 09.04.03 the Swiss Newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported, that the Tibetan religious leader said on a journey in Jerusalem,

Hitler would also have the potential of a good man in himself. Hitler was not born as a wicked man, his hatred of the Jewish people made him malicious and this hatred must be battled. But this doesn’t mean that there was not also lying dormant some Goodness in Hitler. A wicked man can be tomorrow a good man, said the Dalai Lama. For this we have to fight.

Also if such a statement can be interpreted as an expression of Buddhist compassion, it seems tasteless remembering the murdering of six million Jews by the Nazis and the death of millions and millions of war victims on the account of Hitler’s madness. There would be a worldwide protest, if for example the Pope or a Western statesman made such a sympathetic remark on the most prominent mass murderer in human history, especially if such a remark is done in Israel, where many survivors of the Holocaust and their children are living.

Stephens: And then there’s the Hollywood connection. Exactly, what is so attractive to the Dalai Lama about Hollywood?

Trimondi: Hollywood films are the most powerful vectors of fantasy ever known to humankind. So the extensive and well known connection of the Dalai Lama with the film world and with famous actors and actresses is certainly an effective propaganda instrument. Since the nineties, Tibet, the Tibetan God King and Tibetan Buddhism have been glorified by the most prominent film-directors, neglecting even a minimum of critique of Tibet’s feudalistic and bloody past controlled by a despotic monk aristocracy with absolute power.

Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Little Buddha” or Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun” are constructions of a virtual Tibet, which never did exist. Even the ancient anti-Nazi tradition of the American film-fabric was broken, when Jean Jacques Annaud brought out “Seven years in Tibet”. This film with Brad Pitt is a mystification and hero worship of the former SS-man Heinrich Harrer who in the forties became the teacher of the young Dalai Lama. In his book Virtual Tibet (2000) Orville Schell details the “incredible” story of one of the most effective delusions in the film world: The Tibet Fantasies of Hollywood.

Stephens: I remember running into Richard Gere at the Wiesenthal Museum Peace Prize presentation and discovered that his Foundation has financed the building of over 300 sand Mandalas throughout the continental US. What exactly is a sand Mandala? Do these Monk’s Mandala tours have some other purpose than an art display? Why should we be concerned?

Trimondi: A Mandala is a sacred pictogram; one also can call it a “magic circle”. It is an instrument to evoke the gods, goddesses and demons of the Tantric pantheon. For a modern Western approach, in which religion and arts are not yet unified, the Mandala is a work of art. However, in the Lamaist tradition where there is no difference between the aesthetic and the sacred and where art is always sacred art, the Mandala is a spiritual power vortex, an assembly point of gods and demons, a palace of the divine, a spiritual battery from where powerful energies are radiating. It is also connected with the Lamaist idea that the place, where the Mandala is erected, stands under the absolute control of its divine or, we would say, demonic “inhabitants”.

The intricate Mandala, constructed during the Kalachakra Ceremony, is made with coloured sand and symbolizes the whole universe. At the end of the ritualistic performance the sand construction will be destroyed by the Tibetan monks. The so called “dismantling” of the sand Mandala symbolizes the destruction of the world and of the universe. This is part of the apocalyptic Doomsday Scenarios in the Kalachakra prophecies which culminate in a final battle and the End of our planet. Nevertheless the construction and destruction of the Mandala is presented by the Dalai Lama as a contribution to world peace.

Although one would desire to believe in its peace producing energy, realistically one has to accept, that the construction of this magic circle after more than 25 years in the West has brought no more appeasement to the people than it did in Tibet which has suffered much. The aggressive and terrorist energies have become more and stronger in our world and the clash of religions has become an everyday-problem in politics. Is it not evident that the construction of 300 sand Mandalas throughout the U.S. you are speaking of has not contributed peace to this country? History on the contrary has proceeded in the opposite direction and is on the way of destruction and war.

In our studies it was alarming to find that following the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 a Wheel of Time (Kalachakra) Sand Mandala was built in the lobby of Tower One. For over thirty days, many of the World Trade Center workers and visitors were invited by the Tibetan Monks to participate in the construction of this Mandala. When the Dalai Lama visits New York in the next days, we would ask: Why the terrible event of 9/11 could happen at the World Trade Center that was consecrated by the so called “Circle of Peace,” the Kalachakra Sand Mandala, the same mandalas that were unable to prevent the destruction of 7500 monasteries of Tibet? In this context a sentence of the Tantra expert and Indian scholar Shashi Bhusan Dasgupta may be remarkable: “The word Kala means time, death and destruction. Kala-Chakra is the Wheel of Destruction.”

We just did find in the Internet a statement of a participant of the WTC Kalachakra Ceremony, which seems really revealing especially because it is made by an initiand of the Tantra: “The topic shifted to the Kalachakra Mandala that was made at One World Trade Center. I was at the dissolution ceremony there, may be around ‘96. The monks gathered up all the sand from the Mandala at 1WTC, put it in a vase, then carried it across the bridge into World Financial Center through the Winter Garden, then dumped the sand ceremoniously into the Hudson River for the sake of World Peace. The surface of the river glittered with the afternoon sun, and I cried. 5 years later, the whole building is gone, just like the sand Mandala.”

In contrary to this, Robert Thurman, the “academic godfather of the Tibetan cause” (Time Magazine) saw a dream (September 1979) the Dalai Lama as an absolute King and Kalachakra God reigning New York City. “The night before he [the Dalai Lama] landed in New York, I dreamed he was manifesting the pure land mandala palace of the Kalachakra Buddha right on top of the Waldorf Astoria building. The entire collection of dignitaries of the city, mayors and senators, corporate presidents and kings, sheikhs and sultans ,celebrities and stars—all of them were swept up into the dance of 722 deities of the three buildings of the diamond palace like pinstriped bees swarming on a giant honeycomb. The amazing thing about the Dalai Lama’s flood of power and beauty was that it appeared totally effortless. I could feel the space of His Holiness’s heart, whence all this arose. It was relaxed, cool, an amazing well of infinity” Thurman did interpret this dream as a prophecy.

Stephens: From your experience in the Kalachakra Debate in Europe and your observation of mass media’s romantic portrayal of Tibet, what are the potential dangers to other faiths, including Buddhism and democracy of this growing Shambhala myth?

Trimondi: Tibetan Buddhism, like the New Age of the eighties appears to be the “trendy religion” of the new millennium. But it is much more than the charismatic appearance of the Dalai Lama and his speeches about compassion, peace and happiness. The danger lies in that the Kalachakra Tantra ritual subtlety builds an ideological foundation for a future “war of religions.” If the problematic contents of this archaic belief are not openly discussed, they may present a dangerous ideological challenge to the positive legacy of Western Civilization and Democratic institutions. There is also no doubt that the Kalachakra ideology proposing the establishment of Buddhocratic rule, a universal Emperor (Chakravartin) , violence, the licence to kill and the waging of a Buddhist holy war are in direct opposition to the original peaceful teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha. Concerning this discrepancy between the aggressive contents of the Kalachakra Tantra and the original peaceful Dharma, taught by the historic Buddha, we have formulated Eight Questions to the Dalai Lama.

Stephens: Serious talks of the Dalai Lama’s return to China before the Olympics are beginning to leak into the media. How will this impact the future of the West?

Trimondi: We are really uneasy, if you ask us, as to what may potentially happen if this “Buddhist-Jihad-Ideology” of the Kalachakra Tantra will become a new vision of the Chinese political self-understanding. Will the much more peaceful and softer philosophy of Daoism and Confucianism be replaced by the “Shambhala Warrior Doctrine”, which was once propagated in thirties by the Japanese Shinto-Fascists to mobilize the Mongolian minorities of Manchuria and West China? If the present situation in Europe is any indicator, we must say that we are alarmed as we witness the rising interest in Germany of Fascist, Neo-fascist and Nazi-intellectuals and in Asia of a terrorist like the Japanese Doomsday Guru Shoko Asahara in the ideological concepts of the Shambhala War of the Kalachakra Tantra. This should be a Menetekel, that the “writing is on the wall” as a major wake-up call for the West.

Friday, May 27, 2011

New Study Suggests “Born Again Christians” Have Smaller Brains?

Thank you to Brannon Howse for his show today which discusses a newly released study that makes the startling claim that born again Christians have “smaller brains” than their Protestant counterparts who do not claim to have had this spiritual experience. The study, which was conducted by Duke University Medical Center, ruled out depression as a contributing factor and assessed 268 adults over an 11-year period. According to the USA Today article which ran this story on 5/27/11, the study:

“found an association between participants’ professed religious affiliation and the physical structure of their brain. Specifically, those identified as Protestant who did not have a religious conversion or born-again experience — more common among their evangelical brethren — had a bigger hippocampus.”

Christians today seem to be the last group that it is acceptable to demonize, but articles such as the one cited above are not new strategies. Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood, widely known for championing women’s rights, was also a racist who advocated that blacks ought to be sterilized for the “purity” of the Caucasion race.  Hitler despised the Jewish race to the extent that he came up with the “Final Solution” which he implemented in his attempt to exterminate them from the earth.”

MY REPLY: So, let’s say my brain’s smaller than my Protestant counterparts. Does it just make Him more precious as He uses the humble to confound the wise? I love the quote by Jim Eliot, “He is no fool who gives what he can not keep, to gain what he …can not lose.” Or the aft quoted statement “If I’m God’s fool, who’s fool are you?” When I think of all this brain measurement stuff, I often think of how the Dalai Lama and his group are specifically becoming increasingly engaged in mind sciences. Mind control. I think of secular teachers who were attempting to discourage little Johnny in his class who believed in the Bible. The teacher said, “Johnny, it wasn’t the Red Sea, it was the Reed Sea they walked across and it was only two feet deep.” “Wow!” Little Johnny replied. “God destroyed Pharoah’s Army in just two feet of water!” Yes! Unless you have the faith of a child, you can not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. What is my MA and all my honors and a big/small brain if I choose to go my own way and not the way of our Master Yeshua? When I was at USC and prayerwalking the campus, I was struck by the verse of Scripture carved on the philosophy building, “He that loseth his life, shall keep it unto life eternal.” Basically, what does it profiteth a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Universities like USC have forgotten their founding principals. What drives us? What is our core motivation? Should it not be “To serve the LORD YHWH with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourself?” To give God the Glory?

Welcome to Los Angeles.  You’ve seen his smile on Apple Billboards along the Santa Monica Freeway. Think Different! He wears Gucci Shoes, sports a Visor like the USC Trojan Football Coach, talks like Yoda and has a bad case of the giggles. So, for question number one. It’s getting around dinner time here in LA and that means only one thing, It’s time for Jeopardy!We’re the trivia capital of the world here. So for $500 let me ask you,  “What seven year old king did FDR give a Rolex to in 1952?”  If I haven’t already given the answer away in all those clues, you should go back to start. Or is that Monopoly? Yes, the one and the only lovable CIA agent from Tibet,  on his annual Spring tour of the United States, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso.

I personally had no clue he was coming, until a notification popped up on my LinkedIn account about a BIOLA University Professor I know whose profile mentioned that he had been the Co-Director of the MIT Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values! I was shocked. Wait a minute! Then I discovered that the same Center was a co-sponsor of the upcoming talks of the Dalai Lama at the University of Southern California which was originally founded by the Methodists.  I emailed the Biola Professor in the School of Intercultural Studies, who I was relieved to find was never a member or associated with the organization. It was mysteriously posted to his profile.

The Dalai Lama will be conducting the Highest Yoga Tantra in Long Beach on May 1, two talks at UCLA on May 2, two more talks at University of Southern California on May 3, followed by talks at UC Irvine on Wednesday, May 4.

They’ve been busy building sand mandalas in preparation for his arrival. They built one in the Memorial Chapel early in April at the University of Redlands which was originally founded by Baptists and also home to the CS Lewis Institute, and another mandala on the 33 degree parallel in Encinitas at the Seaside Center for Spiritual Living. After its dissolution on Easter Sunday, they distributed a portion of the dissolved sand mandala’s “ritual sand” to paying patrons and dispersed the rest into the Pacific Ocean to “bless the ocean and its creatures. The sand mandala in Long Beach will be begun on Thursday, April 28 at the Terrace Theater and will be dedicated to Chenrizig, a manifestation of Avalokitsevara, the Patron Deity of Tibet, believed to indwell the XIV Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.  On Tuesday, May 3, Tibetan Lamas will begin their ritual to build another sand mandala at UC Irvine dedicated to Chenrizig’s consort, White Tara, a Tibetan Buddhist goddess,who is said to have emanated from the reified compassionate tears of Avalokitsevara. She is also known as the Mother of all Buddhas being built just in time for Mother’s day! Does anyone else see the operational paradigm of the Tibetan Buddhists? I recall hearing Tibetans at the Seventh International Buddhist Christian Dialogue talk about the mandalization of politics.  Albeit at Hsi Lai Temple, the same temple where former Vice President Al Gore, a crypto Buddhist, received illegal campaign contributions from Taiwanese Buddhist nuns.  Since, I’m on the subject.  I’m not quite sure I read the LA Times Correspondent Morris correctly, but she seemed to say that Robert Thurman, the Dalai Lama, and Al Gore were going to make a film on the Quest for World Peace along the lines of Inconvenient Truth.  Some speculate that the Free Tibet Movement has almost run its course and that they want to redirect that energy that focused on Saving Tibet to Saving Planet Earth. Slick. I’ve wondered if the Dalai Lama was going to visit his home in Santa Barbara and talk with Al Gore at his new home about the new documentary before he flies off to the University of Minnesota, SMU in Dallas, and to receive a doctorate at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville, founded by Fulbright, mentor of Bill and Hillary Clinton.  Btw, last time the lamas built a sand mandala there they mentored two Fulbright scholars teaching them how to make a sand mandala as well. “Do not imitate the detestable practices of the nations.”

He’s done Larry King Live, probably will do the Brit soon, maybe he’ll ask him what he thinks about the royal wedding, how to treat your bride. Wait, he’s not married.  Oh, that never stopped him from giving advice to 20,000 women at the California Woman’s Conference hosted a few years back by Maria Schwarzenegger where he received thunderous applause when he suggested that we need to introduce values and ethics to our youth, without of course religion! And then he taught the women how to meditate, which of course is secular.”  You’re getting sleepy…, sleepy.  Drink the kool-aid.

Sarcastic? A bit. Why? Tired of pop culture and everyone putting their brain on hold.   The Tibet wave has crested and the Dalai Lama is doing his victory lap. What do you mean? Well, since you probably won’t take my twelve session on Worldviews101.com course, I’ll give it to you in a nutshell.   The other day, a leading Free Tibet spokesman, who needs to study his own brand of Buddhism,  said it has been in Tibet 2600 years.  Not really. Tibetan Buddhism is a migrant strain of Tantric Buddhism which  arrived in Tibet in the 7th Century AD. That’s, let’s see, about, ah, give or take,  1300 years ago? The iconoclastic Muslims who believed in ONE GOD, basically obliterated their idols in India, defaced the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, because they really believed in the commands not to have any other gods before Allah, the Name for the Muslim God.  Interestingly, the Tantric Buddhist adept, “shaman”  Padmasambhava, flies into Tibet, a Chinese territory.  The Indian Tantric systems were a sophisticated system utilized by kings to institutionalize pluralism by assimilating indigenous cultures over a period of eighty or more years  conquering them philosophically and physically through ritual. You may recall that the original Buddha was from the “warrior caste.”  It was said, he was skilled in war.  Tibetan Buddhists say that the Kalachakra initiation which is the ritual initiating devotees into a literal Tibetan Buddhist Shambhala Kingdom, originated with the Buddha himself.

So what? Well, those rituals happen to be tied to a colorful seemingly harmless art object called a sand mandala.  It so happens that those mandalas are not so innocent after all.  In fact, the Tibetan lamas do many rituals prior to their construction in order that they do not themselves get possessed by malevolent demons, or so I was told by lamas at the Pacific Asia Museum many years ago.  One look at a mandala map of the United States, including all the buried tantric “peace vases” gives you a cozy little feeling like our country should be doing very well since they’ve all been buried in our lakes, mountains, state parks, state capitols, sacred sites, etc.  We should be the magical world of Shambhala where mystical flower blossoms drift down on the earth and rain falls so lightly, not even a clod of earth is broken. No fires, no tornados, no floods, no droughts, no economic distress.  Everyone is happy in the new Shambhala Empire. We all now believe in World Peace, there is no such thing as jihad.  Don’t listen to those weird researchers who say that Tibetan lamas would sacrifice their enemies and mix their blood with those beautiful butter sculptures as part of a sympathetic magic ritual to gain power over them.  Those type of things just don’t happen anymore. Right? Mmm.  Do I know something you don’t about their plan? Do they have a plan for conquering the West? One that is done under the banner of peace?  On July 6, 2011 the Kalachakra Ceremony will be conducted in Washington, DC by the Dalai Lama. The same Kalachakra sand mandala, a magic circle that was built in Tower One of the Trade Center in New York City, will be the same one built in Washington, DC.

So,  beginning on April 28, 2011 in Long Beach, a sand mandala dedicated to the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet, their god-King, will be built at the Terrace Theater in preparation for a special high level ceremony called the Highest Tantra Ritual for Tibetan Tantrik’s to be conducted by the XIV Dalai Lama.  The vortex gate is being opened on the West Coast. Maybe I’m kidding.  Mmm.  I earlier read that the sand mandala being built in Long Beach was dedicated to Yamantaka, the god who destroys death, the fierce defender of Buddhism.  Btw, Yamataka is the guardian of the West Gate of the Kalachakra Mandala, a blueprint of the Shambhala Empire being constructed in July in WDC.

How quaint. I can see a “Far Side” cartoon caption now. “Being a lover of fine machinery, the Dala Lama naturally fell in love with his Rolex watch.”  Any student of “Harry Potter” must know that machinery is but another name for witchcraft. A simple Tibetan Lama, also known as the Time God, wearing his Rolex and sporting a visor visits Tommy Trojan at USC. A University whose new President Max Nikias in his inagural speech believes is “the epicenter of global influence belonging in the pantheon of world class universities.” A University leading the way in the global pacific age “engaging in the pressing debates of the day” leading the “ongoing rebellion against the conventional order of things as we help individuals create limitless possibilities for themselves.”  A University that will fulfill the “Destined Reign of Troy.”  Strangely, while proudly pointing to their diversity and entrepeneurial roots, their is no sign of even a nod to their founding fathers, the Methodist Conference of Southern California.

“President C.L. Max Nikias established the U.S.-China Institute in 2006 to focus on the multifaceted and evolving U.S.-China relationship. The Institute reflects the university’s commitment to fostering path-breaking research in the broadly defined field of U.S.-China relations and aims to be among the world’s most influential voices on the many issues involving U.S.-China relations.”

“The USC Student Interfaith Council is deeply honored to host His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, who embodies the religious pluralism and interfaith cooperation which we stand for,” said Interfaith Council President Sarrah Shahawy. “We anticipate that his visit will greatly enrich our USC community and enliven our discussions on interfaith dialogue, social responsibility, and spirituality and science.”

Well, here, the diplomatic rubber meets the road. Three things can happen. (1) “The Dalai Lama comes and goes like he did in 1989 when he spoke at the Shrine Auditorium across the street from USC. Everyone,  politely looks the other way, saving face[By the way, his English has improved quite a bit when I heard him speak there with no security stations. I gave him a copy of the Gospel of Matthew in Tibetan. He rolled down his limo window and took the copy I offered him. I used to attend Buddhist general meetings at the Shrine when I was a Buddhist for fourteen years); OR (2) OR the Dalai Lama-Student Interfaith Council,-US-China Institute discusses the transition privately; OR (3) The “proverbial yak dung may hit the fan.”  It’s hard to say.  There are always wildcards. The only one missing is Hu Jintao.

This trip of the Dalai Lama to the United States represents one big difference. On Wednesday, April 27, the new elected leader of Tibet is supposed to be announced.  This trip, he can honestly say, well, sort of,  “I’m just a simple Buddhist monk.”  Oh, I didn’t mention earlier that President Obama recently gave the Dalai Lama a copy of the original Letter that FDR sent to Tibet along with a letter introducing him to two American spies, I mean representatives,  addressed to his “pontificate”.  I guess that my statement then is not too far off when I call him the “pluralist pope.”

Prior to the Dalai Lama’s arrival on Sunday, May 1, the Dalai Lama’s frontman, Columbia Professor Robert Thurman, actress Uma Thurman’s father, and called the Billy Graham of Buddhism in America,   will be speaking in Santa Monica at Eli Broad Stage on Saturday, April 30.  It’s a small world. I remember as a Buddhist, filling in one day as his chaffeur for Paul Diamond, one of my members who was Broad’s chaffeur. Little did I know that he was to become the wealthiest philanthropist in Los Angeles as a result of his development business Kaufman and Broad.  “Pick up three newspapers on your way to his house. You’ll drive his Jaguar to the UC Regents meeting in Long Beach.  Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.”  At least that’s what I remember.  Now, who’s opened the doors to the Dalai Lama in the United States? Senator Diane Feinstein, then Mayor of San Francisco. I recall the political ad which featured her standing with  a statue of Avalokitsevara, the patron Deity of Tibet, aka the Dalai Lama in the background, pictured over her right shoulder. She married Richard Blum, the Director of the Himalayan Arts Foundation. Their marriage was blessed by the Dalai Lama god-king in Dharamsala, India. Blum  is now the President of the UC Board of Regents and introduced the Dalai Lama last year when he spoke at the University of California at Santa Barbara at the invitation of Professor Jose Ignatio Cabezon, the Department Chair of the XIV Dalai Lama Chair of Tibetan Buddhist Studies.  Hmm. Maybe Universities are the Left’s Seminary.

And practically every member of the US Congress and President G.W. Bush when they awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal.  The Nechung Oracle, the “demon-possessed” Tibetan shaman who the Dalai Lama consults on all important state decisions was hosted and introduced by the chaplain of the US House of Representatives to one the Christian leaders in Capitol Hill.  Are the Gatekeepers of our nation asleep?

This Passover I read with concern the passage in the Second Book of Kings where Elijah says to the King via his messengers, “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? (2Kings 1:6-8).”  Isaiah the prophet, proclaimed the Word of YHWH, “O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray, and confuse the direction of your paths” (Isaiah 3:12b).   Remembering the Commands of the LORD, “Do not turn to idols, and do not make for yourselves moulded mighty ones. I am YHWH your Elohim” (Psalm 19:4).  Remember, the blesses and curses in Deuteronomy chapter 28 that are appointed to those who chose to either obey YHWH or to fall under the curses written in His Torah if they walk in paths they call their own.

And on May 9th, the Dalai Lama will be a speaker at Southern Methodist University, home of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, where he’ll receive the Hart Foundation’s Global Leadership Award.  I sadly remember that First Lady Laura Bush after 9-11,  desired to see the Bamiyan Buddhas restored that were defaced by the Taliban.

According to LA Times correspondent Nomi Morris, ” Thurman is optimistic that autonomy will come to Tibet, under Chinese President Hu Jintao or his successor. The Dalai Lama “does not expect to die in exile,” Thurman said.”

Morris continued, “Thurman has written 20 books related to Tibetan Buddhism and in 2008, the year China hosted the Olympics, published “Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet and the World,” which outlined a 10-point plan for China to make Tibet an autonomous region under a “one country, two systems” model.”  It may be an interesting turning point in the history of Tibet or China or the United States. I guess that some perceive that the Dalai Lama is the lynchpin of US-China Human Rights Relations.

The Words  of Prophets of old still hold true, “New gods were chosen, and then the enemy was in the gates.”