Used with permission: http://herescope.blogspot.com/search?q=spiritual+breathing   The following entry is an excerpt from chapter 6 of In the Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth at the Altar of Unity by Tamara Hartzell. This is an in-depth critique of Rick Warren's promotion of what is called Spiritual Formation: “One way [to ‘pray all the time’] is to use ‘breath prayers’ throughout the day … You choose a brief sentence or a simple phrase that can be repeated to Jesus in one breath …” (PDL; p. 89) “With practice you can develop the habit of praying silent ‘breath prayers’ for those you encounter.” (PDL; p. 299) “Confession is ‘spiritual breathing’. Exhale your sins, inhale God’s love.” —Rick Warren (Emphasis added)5Aside from the fact that exhaling your sins, etcetera, is sheer nonsense, “spiritual breathing” is an occultic method taught by Eastern gurus, such as Sri Chinmoy, for exhaling one’s impurities (sins) and inhaling things of God. It is based on the Eastern belief in pantheism that All is One -- All is God and God is All.“We are all seekers, and our goal is the same: to achieve inner peace, light, and joy, to become inseparably one with our Source …“To live in joy is to live the inner life. This is the life that leads to self-realisation. Self-realisation is God-realisation, for God is nothing other than the Divinity that is deep inside each one of us, waiting to be discovered and revealed.” —SriChinmoy.org6“When you breathe in, if you can feel that the breath is coming directly from God, from Purity itself, then your breath can easily be purified. Then, each time you breathe in, try to feel that you are bringing infinite peace into your body.…“Feel that you are breathing in not air but cosmic energy … and that you are going to use it to purify your body, vital, mind and heart.… It is flowing like a river inside you, washing and purifying your entire being. Then, when you breathe out, feel that you are breathing out all the rubbish inside you … Anything inside your system that you call undivine, anything that you do not want to claim as your own, feel that you are exhaling.…“When you have perfected this spiritual breathing, all your impurity and ignorance will be replaced by God’s light, peace and power.” —Sri Chinmoy Centre (Emphasis added)7In The Hindu-Yogi Science of Breath, in a chapter titled “Yogi Spiritual Breathing,” Yogi Ramacharaka also points out the goal of “spiritual breathing.” Basically, it is to come to the realization or “consciousness” that the true “identity of the Soul” is Divine (“a drop from the Divine Ocean”) and is connected with “the Universal Life” (i.e., All is One -- “at-one-ment with All”).8Occultic practices, which originate from “doctrines of devils” regarding universal energies and forces, do not suddenly become acceptable to the holy Lord God merely because churches have “Christianized” them and refer to them as “Christian.” On the contrary, these practices have been designed by the evil spirit world to bring unity and “connection” with the god of this world, “the God of forces,” whom the Antichrist will honor (e.g., see Daniel 11:38-39).Those who try to “Christianize” occultic practices are playing with “strange fire.” It is not a coincidence that professing Christians who practice the occultic Eastern methods of “prayer” are being gradually drawn into the interfaith Oneness of the world and its (New Age) New Spirituality. This “New” Spirituality is actually based on the so-called “Ancient Wisdom.”The fruit of the unholy spirits who lie in wait to deceive all who enter the Angel of light’s realm is destructive. Their ultimate goal is to get mankind to believe in its own divinity -- the ultimate defiance against the Lord God.To further their goal, the spirit world approached Alice Bailey to spread its teachings (the Ageless/Ancient Wisdom). Bailey was a theosophist and occultist who “telepathically” channeled many teachings from one of her spirit guides known as “the Tibetan,” or “the Master Djwhal Khul” -- “one of the Masters of the Wisdom.”9 (Appropriately, Bailey’s Publishing Company, which is now called Lucis Trust, was originally named Lucifer Trust.)Together, in numerous books, these two detailed “the Plan” of the spirit realm (a.k.a. “the Spiritual Hierarchy”) for the coming New Age/New World Order/New World Religion and its (counterfeit) “Christ” and his kingdom (which will be elaborated on later). In fact, coining the term New Age has even been attributed to Bailey.10 She and her spirit guide also detailed the methods and fruit of occultic practices, such as the following:“… by surrendering himself to the life at the center and there holding himself poised and still, yet alert, the light will break in and reveal to the disciple that which he needs to know. He learns to express that inclusive love which is his major requirement and to let go the narrow, one-pointed attitude which he has hitherto regarded as love. He welcomes then all visions, if they serve to lift and comfort his brothers; he welcomes all truths, if they are the agents of revelation to other minds; he welcomes all dreams if they can act as incentives to his fellow men. He shares in them all, yet retains his poised position at the center.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Emphasis added)11“Contemplation has been described, as a psychic gateway, leading from one state of consciousness to another.” —Alice Bailey (Emphasis added)12“In contemplation, a higher agent enters in. It is the Soul that contemplates. The human consciousness ceases its activity and the man becomes what he is in reality - a soul, a fragment of divinity, conscious of its essential oneness with Deity. The Higher Self becomes active, and the lower or personal self is entirely quiescent and still, whilst the true spiritual Entity enters into its own kingdom and registers the contacts that emanate from that spiritual realm of phenomena.…“The man’s consciousness, therefore, is no longer focused in that waiting mind, but has slipped over the borderland into the realm of spirit and he becomes literally the soul, functioning in its own realm, perceiving the ‘things of the Kingdom of God,’ able to ascertain truth at first hand …” —Alice Bailey (Bold added)13“… on the higher planes we are all one. One life pulsates and circulates through all … This is part of the revelation which comes to a man who stands in the ‘Presence’ with his eyes occultly opened.…“Faith is lost in sight, and things unseen are seen and known. No more can he doubt, but he has become instead, through his own effort, a knower.“His oneness with his brothers is proven, and he realizes the indissoluble link which binds him to his fellowmen everywhere.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Bold added)14Sadly, warning people to compare all subjective experiences with the final authority of God’s Word is commonly dismissed with scornful and fallacious worldly reasoning. Subjective experience is now more important than truth to people and is even now viewed as “truth” itself. Refusing to acknowledge the dangers shows a tremendous lack of understanding of the occult and of the devices of our spiritual enemy.The journey down this occult path will not lead to becoming “like Christ.” But it will lead to the deceptive “awakening” of the “Christ consciousness” within, which is defined as the following by Ray Yungen in A Time of Departing: How Ancient Mystical Practices are Uniting Christians with the World’s Religions:“Christ consciousnessTaught by New Agers to be the state of awareness, reached in meditation, in which one realizes that one is divine and one with God and thereby becoming a Christ or an enlightened being.”15“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)Endnotes:5.“‘The Purpose-Driven Life’: Author Rick Warren,” Talk Today: Interact with people in the news, March 25, 2004, USATODAY.com, http://cgi1.usatoday.com/mchat/20040325002/tscript.htm.6. Spirituality, Introduction, SriChinmoy.org, http://www.srichinmoy.org/spirituality/.7.“Breathing Exercises,” Sri Chinmoy Centre, http://www.srichinmoycentre.org/meditation/meditation_exercises/breathing_exercises.8. Yogi Ramacharaka, The Hindu-Yogi Science of Breath, Chapter XVI - Yogi Spiritual Breathing, © 1903 (Expired), Online Magical Library, http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/ScienceOfBreath.pdf, see pp. 62-65.9. Alice Bailey, The Unfinished Autobiography, Appendix - The Arcane School - Its Esoteric Origins and Purposes (Appendix written by Foster Bailey), (Caux, Switzerland: Netnews Association and/or its suppliers, 2002), http://www.netnews.org -- http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/autobiography/auto1103.html. See also this book’s Appendix - My Work (Appendix written by the Tibetan), http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/autobiography/auto1084.html.10. Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing: How Ancient Mystical Practices are Uniting Christians with the World’s Religions, 2nd Edition, pp. 28, 112.11. Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul, Esoteric Psychology II, Chapter II - The Ray of Personality, The Coordination of the Personality, (Caux, Switzerland: Netnews Association and/or its suppliers, 2002), http://www.netnews.org -- http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/psychology2/psyc2149.html.12. Alice Bailey, From Intellect to Intuition, Chapter VI - Stages in Meditation, III. The Stage of Contemplation, (Caux, Switzerland: Netnews Association and/or its suppliers, 2002), http://www.netnews.org -- http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/intellect/inte1043.html.13. Ibid., http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/intellect/inte1042.html.14. Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul, Initiation, Human and Solar, Chapter XII - The Two Revelations, (Caux, Switzerland: Netnews Association and/or its suppliers, 2002), http://www.netnews.org -- http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/initiation/init1047.html.15. Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, p. 196.