SUCCESS GURU JACK CANFIELD'S SON, ORAN~A LIFE AT ODDS WITH HIS PARENTS DISPROVES GODLESS NEW AGE, SELF HELP THEORIES AS DEVILISH MONEY MAKING SCAMS

It is only when the contradictory thoughts, talk, and images are removed that your desired results will manifest. The faster you remove your resistance, the faster your dreams can be realized.

- Jack Canfield

"Experience more joy, peace, and abundance by living in harmony with the vibrations of the universe"

JACK CANFIELD'S NO FAIL SUCCESS THEORY FAILS HIS CHILDREN & MARRIAGES 1&2~"CHICKEN SOUP" NEW AGE SELF HELP THEORIES DISPROVED BY CANFIELD'S FAMILY HISTORY 

My Training Approach | Jack Canfield

"NOT A GIFT FROM GOD"

WILL THIS MARRIAGE LAST AS LONG AS 

THE OTHER TWO?

https://www.jackcanfield.com/blog/successful-marriage-keys/

My relationship with my wife, Inga, is the greatest source of joy in my life. I attribute our successful marriage to 3 key factors that I would like to share with you today. http://bit.ly/2lhmKxN Learn how to use the Law of Attraction in your life and it will change your relationships with the people you care about the most. Click the link above to learn more about harnessing the power of effortless success!

A LIFE WITHOUT A RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST 

Revelation 3:17 - Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

1 Timothy 6:9 - But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and [into] many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

Matthew 6:19-21 - Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.

Matthew 6:24 - 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.

Oran Canfield: My childhood in freefall

BY CHRISTOPHER TURNER

SEE: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/16/oran-canfield-freefall-childhood; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

Musician Oran Canflield's early memories are of growing up in a punk rock 

commune, juggling in a travelling circus and hating his father, a famous self-help 

'guru'. His parents don't remember it in quite the same way.

Oran Canfield writes that his birth in 1974 was presided over by 10 ­Buddhist monks who chanted throughout the 72-hour delivery. His ­parents, Timothy Leary-types who ran a holistic health centre in ­Massachusetts, dined on the placenta. For the first year of his life, as Canfield describes in Freefall, his memoir of growing up in a dysfunctional family, he was cared for by "a community of weird therapists, early self-help freaks and drug-experimenting hippies".

It set the pattern for the rest of his childhood, which was lived in the shadow of two parents more devoted, as Canfield tells it, to the human potential movement than to their children or each other. Their two boys, Oran and Kyle, were sent to live in a succession of progressive boarding schools, libertarian communes and even a travelling circus run by Wavy Gravy, the Grateful Dead's "official clown", ­famous for his tie-dyed false teeth; aged 14, ­Canfield took his first acid trip with Jerry ­Garcia's daughter.

Canfield's humorous chronicle of his countercultural upbringing is ­intercut with the story of his struggle with heroin addiction, which saw him confined to various rehabs for much of his 20s (he has been clean for eight years). I meet Canfield, now 35, in a cafe in ­Williamsburg, the hip section of Brooklyn to which he moved from San Francisco several years ago. He arrives, hunched over against the cold, ­looking world-weary. With pensive brown eyes, a furrowed brow and circumflex eyebrows, he reminds me of one of the anxious-looking clowns painted by Jean Dubuffet.

In conversation he is spiky and funny and at ease with his past. His memoir, for all its cynicism and bitterness, is devoid of self-pity; it is a black comedy influenced, he says, by David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs, two writers who have also wittily documented their crazy childhoods and, in Burroughs' case, a journey to sobriety.

The book, perhaps predictably, ­upset his family, who remember things rather differently. His mother goes as far as describing it as "fiction". But Canfield says that writing it was "more cathartic than anything else I've done – much of the victimisation and blame that I felt throughout my life went away. A lot of the drug stuff I'd already processed and got through, but the childhood stuff was really hard to write – I'd never looked at it that closely."

He has just returned from a tour with Child Abuse, the noise band in which he plays the drums, and when I ask him if he ­considers himself to have been an abused child, he says, "I think that maybe I would have said yes to that before writing this book."

Canfield's father is Jack Canfield, the bestselling author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series of self-help books and a motivational speaker who styles himself "America's No 1 Success Coach". In 1998, seven of Canfield Sr's titles were on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously, earning him a place in the Guinness Book of Records. "At the time," Canfield says, laughing, "there was a great contra­diction between how he told other people to live their lives and how he ­interacted with his family."

Canfield was only one when his ­father left his pregnant mother for a masseuse, and he only saw him every few years after that. He demonises his father as a "lying, cheating, ­conniving, ­manipulative, inhuman son of a bitch". Canfield has read only a few pages of the first volume of Chicken Soup, which was dedicated to him, and says he was disgusted by the vacuous platitudes of its ­inspirational ­anecdotes. The working title of his memoir was Give Me Some Bread with that Chicken Soup; he describes it ­jokingly as Chicken Soup for the ­Misanthropic Soul.

After Jack left, Canfield says his mother took her two babies on the road in a camper van and spent the next two years in Central America waging a one-woman crusade against Nestlé baby formula. She returned to the US to set up a practice as a Gestalt therapist in Philadelphia, and at night would take her two small boys to watch her play jam sessions at a ­local bar. "My mum is a strong, intense woman who has always tried to expose Kyle and me to all the wild variation that America has to offer," Canfield says, taking a sip of coffee. "She's wilful and controlling, which is bad if you're her kids, but all my friends loved her."

She was the kind of mother who, when she found out her son had eaten a burger, made the manager at the local McDonald's pin up a picture of him and promise never to serve him again.

Struggling on her own, she sent the boys to a progressive community school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which consisted of a couple of trailers on a dirt lot. Lessons were voluntary and the seven-year-old Oran and his younger brother spent most days honing their trampolining skills, while the older pupils taught them how to steal golf carts and throw stones at cars. When they got into trouble with the police for smashing the windscreen of one passing vehicle, Canfield was sent to live with Fred, a former clown at Wavy Gravy's circus, where they spent the summers. Fred was now a born-again Christian and spoke in tongues. Canfield was expelled from the fundamentalist school to which Fred sent him, when it was discovered just before he was due to be beaten, that his mother had refused to sign the corporal punishment waiver – she had written "Do Not Hit My Son" in a cursive hand where the signature was supposed to be.

"Believe it or not," Canfield tells me, "I never felt abandoned by my mum. We got dropped off and lived with different people, but she was 110% involved, all the time … with every detail. Even if we spent a year without her, we still couldn't eat sugar or watch TV, eat dairy or meat – everything was planned out."

Some children dream of running away to the circus, but Oran's mother, who had always encouraged his ­juggling (in 1986 he came third at the International Juggling ­Convention), signed him up to one. Canfield moved into the Farm in San Francisco's ­Mission district, which he describes as "part circus rehearsal space, part punk-rock club, part apartment complex, part animal farm, part community garden, part preschool, and part anything else that could bring in a few extra bucks". He juggled five clubs atop a human pyramid, rode a 6ft-tall unicycle, was immersed in punk rock, and played a small part in a political commentary on the Reagan administration as told through the circus arts. The organisers got tired of having to talk to his mother by phone every day, with her constant demands, and he wasn't invited to join the circus on tour. But his time there, he says, was the ­happiest period of his life.

It was in his attempt to recreate it that he first became involved in drugs. He was a 23-year-old art-school dropout living in San Francisco, working as a ­piano restorer, drumming in a band called Optimist International, and trying to found a Farm-like events space in the converted storefront in which he and his friends were squatting. A Stanford University professor staged a performance piece there called ­Composition for Mood Swings that involved inviting an audience into the damp cellar, where a small pharmacy of illegal drugs was laid out on a table under a 120w bulb, and inviting them to choose their poison. Canfield chose heroin. He was soon a secret user, lying to and stealing from his friends, and funding his habit by selling the recording studio equipment that his father had given him a $10,000 loan to buy so that he could set up a business. "My mind wasn't involved," he explains of his addiction. "It's like muscle memory. These environmental cues happen and your body just goes and does what it needs to do." Heroin fuelled his self-loathing but it was also the only thing that seemed to soothe it. After eight years of AA, he now wonders whether he might have been more addicted to self-loathing than he was to heroin.

Ironically, it was drugs that brought his family back together. One day he fell out of his top bunk, knocked ­himself unconscious and came around three days later to find his parents, brother and 20 friends crammed into his hospital room ready to stage an intervention. His family drove him to a rehab facility, the first time that they had all been in a car together since a childhood trip to Disneyland. They dropped him at the clinic, locked the car doors and drove off as he chased them. "It was the worst day of my life up until that point," he says. Even though he had no money with him, he made it home by hiding in a train toilet and got high again, but he eventually agreed to seek help. He spent the next few years in and out of rehab clinics, none of which seemed to help him.

One of the difficulties was that the doctors all seemed to speak his ­father's language of self-help, which was anathema to him. "In a lot of ways it didn't seem like I had a chance ­because of that," he acknowledges. "It was very hard for me to get past all my criticism of that whole scene … even if it meant my life." At 16, Canfield had been ­invited to assist his father in one of his self-esteem seminars, during which he and the audience were given foam baseball bats and instructed to vent their rage. "I hate you, Jack. I hate you, Jack," Canfield shouted. He ridiculed his father's happy-clappy pop ­psychology, accusing him of being ­"essentially a drug dealer peddling temporary relief from a permanent problem". But, in the end, it was his father to whom he turned. He made the journey to his mansion and begged for help. In a phone conversation, Jack Canfield tells me how painful it was to see his son after he had been speed balling for weeks at a time. "He was in his late 20s," he says, sighing, "and he looked like he was 83 years old".

After two more spells in rehab, he made a last-ditch attempt to get clean, signing up to an expensive experimental treatment with ibogaine, a psychedelic that is still illegal in the US (he was test subject no 121). He travelled to the Bahamas to submit himself to the powerful mind-altering nightmares the drug induces. "It was horrible," he says, "but I came away from it realising that I'd been living the bad acid trip for the past four years". Ibogaine induces a huge serotonin boost, which numbs the addict's usual painful experience of withdrawal and, though he did relapse, Canfield says, "The drugs weren't doing what they were supposed to do. I was done." His father says he is proud of his son for staying clean: "The cure rate is only about 15-20% at best, so Oran beat the odds."

Canfield tells me that his relationship with his father "actually kind of started as a result of writing the book – he was overwhelmingly supportive, weirdly so". When I speak to Jack ­Canfield, he admits that he was hurt when he read the "sarcasm and ­cynicism" directed at him and his work, but that he could empathise with his son's point of view: "I was teaching things about love and relationships and going for your dreams and yet he wasn't that included in my life at that point."

To deal with the emotions that the book opened up, Jack Canfield says, the entire family have gone on a series of therapeutic family retreats. "All ­anger is really traumatised fear layered over hurt," he says. "There was a need to just be in a safe place where he could talk and I could listen."

Of his relationship with his mother, Canfield says, "It's not great right now. I knew my dad could take the criticism, and I know my mum can't." She threatened to sue him if he included her name in the book (he didn't), and she was horrified by his portrayal of her in it. "She tells me that I've ­defamed her, ruined her life, stuff like that. It's touchy," he adds with some understatement. Both Canfield and his father doubt that she will talk to me, but I phone anyway and she does, but demands: "My name is not to be used. There is a lawyer involved. I am a ­professional person." She ­explains, "I'm in a huge bind. I love my son and I support my son but I can't give ­credence to the book … What I've read of the book is so far beyond anything that I recollect." She made a list of all the factual inaccuracies. "I was a 24/7 mum. I don't know anything about Nestlé and baby food, I didn't play jazz piano … it's one story after the next. So it's very hard for me."

"The book is fiction," she claims. "Oran lived at home, except for the one year when we did the transition from Pennsylvania to California … it's false memory syndrome."

It is all very reminiscent of the ­debate (and court case) that ­surrounded Augusten Burroughs' ­Running With Scissors; his stepfamily, the children of an eccentric therapist, sued him for exaggerating and twisting the facts of their lives in damaging ways. Coincidentally, Canfield told me that he was born in the same town where Burroughs grew up and suspects that his parents knew this rogue ­analyst. In person, Canfield is persuasive, but when I listen to the tape of our conversation, I find myself wondering if he has elaborated on the truth for comic effect. I'm struck by how he talks about his book as if it were ­fiction – of ­"having empathy with all the ­characters", of how he realised in writing it that "really everyone in the story did the best they could with what they had". But then Canfield's mother denies that they've been ­engaged in family therapy, which both he and his father had talked about and it becomes hard to know what to believe.

The Canfields are caught in the strands of their competing narratives, and the book, though entertaining to those outside its orbit, has created a sticky web that has reunited, strained and entangled them. "Everyone's got their stories that they've been telling themselves over the years," Canfield says, "and to read someone else's ­version can be jarring."

_____________________________________________________________



SEE BIOGRAPHY AT: http://www.orancanfield.com/bio.html; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Oran Canfield was raised in Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Central America, New Mexico, Arizona, and the San Francisco Bay area. While attending the San Francisco Art Institute, Oran began his career as a drummer and became heavily involved in San Francisco's flourishing underground music and art communities. Along with his involvement as a drummer for numerous bands in the nineties, he also owned and operated a recording studio and cooperated a music venue featuring experimental and creative jazz music. He has also been a bike messenger, piano restorer, housecleaner, limo driver, and sex-toy maker. Early in 2001, after seven separate stints in rehab, he got clean after attending an experimental treatment center in the Caribbean islands. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and works as a musician and freelance art handler.

_______________________________________________________________

SEE ALSO:

https://www.harpercollinsspeakersbureau.com/speaker/oran-canfield/

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/healthy-living/daddy-dearest-the-son-of-a-self-help-guru-reveals-all-1888522.html

THE APOSTATE "CHRISTIAN" YMCA & HINDU YOGA; CLEARLY NOT JUST EXERCISE~PREACHING A PAGAN FALSE GOSPEL OF THE "INNER DIVINE" & SELF CENTEREDNESS

INTRODUCTION TO THE DEMONIC PLURALITY OF MANY GODS IN HINDUISM THROUGH HER

THE APOSTATE "CHRISTIAN" YMCA & HINDU YOGA; CLEARLY NOT JUST EXERCISE~PREACHING A PAGAN FALSE GOSPEL OF THE "INNER DIVINE" & SELF CENTEREDNESS

Once Thought To Be Purely "Stretching" Exercise; 

the Evidence Proves Otherwise

FLYER FROM THE KENNETT SQUARE YMCA, 101 RACE STREET, KENNETT SQUARE, PA 19348

TEL. 610-444-9622

www.ymcagbw.org

HER ESTATE WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES IN WEALTHY CHESTER COUNTY, PA:

WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD AVOID YOGA:

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/search/search.php?zoom_query=YOGA&x=0&y=0

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?cat=96
SEE: http://www.spiritual-research-network.com/yoga.html

RELATIVE SOURCES TO THIS POST:

SEE: https://svaroopa.org/

AND: https://yogainternational.com/

AND: https://svaroopa.org/archive-of-selected-talks

EXCERPTS FROM ABOVE LINKS:

About Swami

Swami Nirmalananda (formerly known as Rama Berch) is the originator of Svaroopa® Yoga as well as the founder of Master Yoga and of Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram. In 2009 she was honored with initiation into the ancient order of Saraswati monks.

Now wearing the traditional orange, she has openly dedicated her life to serving others. Usually called Swamiji, she makes the highest teachings easily accessible, guiding seekers to the knowledge and experience of their own Divine Essence.

© 2005 S.T.C., Inc., All rights reserved. Rama Berch is the founder of Master Yoga Foundation and the originator of Svaroopa® Yoga. She served as founding president of the Yoga Alliance and of San Diego’s Yoga Teachers Association. She has been a yoga teacher since 1976.

For more information on Svaroopa® Yoga or to find a teacher near you, contact Master Yoga Foundation at 1-866-LUVYOGA (588-9642) or info@masteryoga.org, or visit the teacher directory at www.masteryoga.org. Rama’s clothing was supplied by Blisswear. To see more of their line visit blisswear.com or e-mail debby@blisswear.com.

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"I remember the first time I looked into Swamiji’s eyes and saw consciousness. I had to look away. It was like being blinded by the sun. Today I yearn to look into her eyes and I do it whenever I can." Melissa H., Australia

Sadguru Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati is the spiritual head of the Svaroopa^®Vidya Ashram.  She was honored with the title "Sadguru" in 2015 by the Brahmin priests in her Guru's home town of Ganeshpuri.  As a Kundalini Master and renunciant, she has dedicated her life to serving those who want to become Self-Realized.

“She has so much love, compassion, understanding, and awareness. She sees so much."  — Phil (Krishna) Milgrom, Warren MA

“Hosting Swami Nirmalananda in Brisbane, Australia, I found her wonderfully personable and relatable.” — Lyndall (Leela) Madden, Bulimba QLD, Australia

As a modern-day sage and Guru, she awakens Kundalini, your inner spiritual energy, through Shaktipat. She is a Kundalini Master, addressing your yearning to know your inherent Divinity by propelling you into it. She supports you in the process of learning to live in the recognition of your own Divinity as well as to recognize the Divine in everyone and everything. With Swami Nirmalananda as your teacher, the inner process is deep and easy.  

Affectionately referred to as "Swamiji", she pioneered the Svaroopa^® Sciences, based in the ancient teachings of Kashmiri Shaivism. She learned them from her Guru, Swami Muktananda, which enlivens these comprehensive practices including:

• Shaktipat
• meditation
• mantra
• chanting
• sutra study
• guided self-inquiry
• breathing practices
• yoga poses (asana)
• and seva.

One branch of the Svaroopa^® Sciences is Svaroopa^® yoga. Swamiji created it in order to bring asana practice back to its original purpose, the awakening of Kundalini and the knowing of Self. Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram continues to offer Svaroopa^® yoga teacher training, with Swamiji serving as Master Teacher, directing and supporting our other Teacher Trainers.

In “Yoga, Sweat and Mysticism,” an article written for Yoga Alliance, she explains,

"Yoga itself claims to be a science. It uses proven methodology to get predictable results, just like the battery in your car. On the physical level, the methodologies provide reliable results, often likened to medical therapies, yet the sages always targeted a deeper goal… [to] become one with consciousness… to know your own Divine Self (svaroopa), inherent within you.

The results are reliable:  if you do what the sages teach, you will experience what they promise. This is yoga — pure mysticism, meaning it is about the mystery of life, the mystery that is hidden inside every human heart and being."

This perspective informs all of Swami Nirmalananda’s teaching. Warm, lighthearted and down-to-earth, she makes the mystical teachings accessible through examples from our everyday lives and relationships. Students cherish their relationship with Swami Nirmalananda, as it carries them forward into yoga’s ancient promise:

"Swami Nirmalananda never ceases to amaze me… she is a master teacher and is both forthcoming and real in every moment.” — Rosemary (Rudrani) Nogue, Calgary AB, Canada

"Her presence is like tapping into the main stream. The hot socket." — Lori (Priya) Kenney, Portland OR

“She knows my mind better than I do.” — Melissa (Yogeshwari) Fountain, Southborough MA

Swami Nirmalananda credits her own Guru, Swami Muktananda, with everything. She describes that years of living in Baba’s Ashrams in the USA, Europe and India allowed her to indulge her total focus on Baba and his teachings. She says, “Six weeks before he left this world, he sent me back to America to raise my children and to teach.”

Now Swami Nirmalananda ensures these ancient teachings are alive and thriving. In Downingtown PA, the Ashram provides Lokananda, your “Bliss Place,” a full-service retreat facility for immersion programs, including Swamiji’s Shaktipat retreats, immersions for deeper practices, and professional training courses for yoga teachers, yoga therapists and meditation teachers.  Weekly, Swamiji offers satsangs (free meditation programs) including chanting, meditation and teachings to guide you on your path.

Swami Nirmalananda also travels throughout the USA, Canada and Australia, offering free programs as well as weekend Shaktipat Retreats. She regularly leads pilgrimages to Ganeshpuri India, the home village of her Guru with the Samadhi Temple of his Guru, Bhagawan Nityananda.

Her generosity is legendary, including an enormous library of free online teachings on this website. They include contemplation articles, daily e-quotes and recordings from her satsangs. She also offers tuition-based, multimedia distance learning in a year-long programme, beginning each spring.

Under her guidance, the Ashram runs charitable projects in the USA and India.  In Downingtown PA, we offer Stress Relief Inservice, training schoolteachers in centering self-care, so they can better serve their students.  In India, we have partnered with Fire Mountain Ashram to offer Yoga in the Village, bringing yoga to school children in impoverished areas.

Swamiji says, “It is such a privilege to give yoga back to the land of its origin, especially in the local schools in Ganeshpuri and the whole Tansa River valley. The native population of this region never had access to the yogic or Vedic tradition. Like Native Americans or Australian Aborigines, they were the forgotten people, now working to find their place in mainstream society in India. To bring them the heritage of their own land is a deeply fulfilling project.”

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Lokananda - Your Bliss Place

Downingtown Yoga & Meditation Center

116 E Lancaster Ave, Downingtown PA 19335

https://goo.gl/maps/awHx86oE3HL2

We call our building Lokananda - your Bliss Place, but the sign on the front says "Downingtown Yoga & Meditation Center."  This is our downtown Downingtown campus, which houses two types of programs:

Meditation & Yoga:  

We offer free meditation programs two or three times weekly, plus 5 or more yoga classes and periodic Half Day Workshops.  Formal meditation courses are offered every two or three months.  We have a well-stocked yoga shop for your convenience.  Click here for more info.  

Yogimmersions:

Our retreats and professional trainings are now housed in our "new" 130-year old historic building.  Massive renovations have been completed with more underway, to make this beautiful "old dame" ready for modern-day yogis.  This move offers two great benefits:  lowered housing & meals fees plus the bliss of a dedicated spiritual environment.  

 Ashram — Residential Facility

1400 Hampton Drive, Downingtown PA 19335

This is Swami Nirmalananda’s residence, which she shares with other committed yogis.  Residents have taken vows as brahmacharis (temporary monkhood) and participate in several hours of daily practice with Swamiji.  She frequently welcomes invited guests for meals and other events.  Click here for more info.

Airport Shuttle

We are happy to welcome Lyft and Uber to our area.  They are now well established, providing cost effective transportation which you book through your smartphone.  Due to their availability and affordability, we no longer provide airport shuttle service.

On Time Transport, our previous limo service, is also available and gives you a discounted rate when you use the name “Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram.”  Call them at 610-647-1354.

We email you the course roster when your program is confirmed so you can coordinate shared rides to reduce your expense.

You may prefer to take the train from the airport to the Downingtown train station.  We provide free shuttle service to and from this train station during these times:

Monday to Friday: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm

Saturday & Sunday:  from 2 hours before your program begins and up to 2 hours after your program ends.

You must arrange our train shuttle service at least 48 hours in advance so that we have a staff member available.  For further information visit: septa.org or amtrak.com.

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What is an Ashram?

Since ancient times, the Sanskrit word ashram names the place where the Guru lives. The Ashram houses the Guru’s physical being, as well as the shakti, the divine energy of Grace, that flows through the Guru. If you have spent any time with Swami Nirmalananda, you have experienced this current of shakti. While it is present in everything that exists, it is stronger and more concentrated in a yogi who has dedicated herself to serve in this way. The deeper Swamiji takes her own practice, the stronger the shakti flows through her. The Ashram serves as a place to house it, to nurture it, and to “plant it” on the physical plane. As a visitor you will feel it, perhaps when you first enter, or after you’ve been there for a while, or even after you leave. Swamiji wants us to consider the Ashram our home, as well as hers.

What is it like to visit the Ashram?

If you are enrolled in a Svaroopa^® Yoga & Meditation course in Pennsylvania, you will likely be invited for lunch at the Ashram. The house appears from the outside like any other large suburban home in the neighborhood. You’ll be greeted at the door with a traditional arati, a waving of a candle flame, and a dot of sacred ash on your forehead. These honor your inherent Divinity, which is the that which Swamiji bows to in herself and in her Guru.

Upon entering, you’ll remove your shoes and coat, and be invited to walk through the downstairs rooms, which are filled with photographs of our lineage and murtis (divine statues), all to invoke your profound and deep experience of your own Self. You’ll sit in the meditation room for a few minutes with Swamiji and participate in the lunchtime japa, mantra repetition, one of our three daily sessions that Ashram residents share with Swamiji.

Lunch is in the sunny dining area off the kitchen, and consists of a vegetarian meal, served by ashram chefs who follow Ayurvedic cooking guidelines. Swamiji eats with her guests, making sure everyone is well fed. After a delicious dessert, she presents you with a blessed gift of a rudraksha bead (sacred bead).

May I stay or live at the Ashram?

Yes! Swami Nirmalananda encourages those who are committed to the exploring the deeper science of the Self to deepen their practice and experience of the Self. If we have available space, you may apply for residency. We also have a B&B program so that visitors may experience the gifts that the Ashram offers.

Click here for a residency application.

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Foundations of Svaroopa® Yoga 

SARAH SILVERMAN'S TV SHOW MOCKS JESUS CHRIST AS "PANSEXUAL"

 

 WARNING OFFENSIVE & INAPPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN & THE IMMATURE

 SARAH SILVERMAN'S TV SHOW MOCKS 

JESUS CHRIST AS "PANSEXUAL" 

SEE: https://beginningandend.com/sarah-silvermans-tv-show-mocks-jesus-christ-as-pansexual/; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

Sarah Silverman has repeatedly mocked the name of God – now depicting Jesus as “pansexual.”

In just the latest of attacks on The Lord Jesus Christ and the Christian faith, comedian Sarah Silverman used a skit from her newest TV show to portray Jesus Christ as a profanity spewing pansexual seeking to ban crucifixions. Silverman who has spent much of her career mocking, attacking and ridiculing Christianity not only demonstrated the current state of TV when it comes to its treatment of the Christian faith but also how far society is falling from any fear of God at all.
According to reports:

“Comedian Sarah Silverman, who has made a career out of mocking religion, took her crass humor to another level last week with an Election Day skit involving a cursing “Jesus” who is promiscuous.
The skit, which appeared on Hulu’s I Love You America, shows Silverman in a line on Election Day when she spots “Jesus” (played by Fred Armisen) at the front and calls out his name. Newsbusters first reported about the controversy.
“Sarah, my child, how are you?” she asks.
“I’m great, how are you?” he responds.
The discussion quickly devolves into a discussion of his genitalia – which he happily talks about – before the conversion turns to politics.
“I don’t want to say who I’m voting for,” he says.
Silverman asks him which issues are most important to him.
“I just want a law that says you can’t force your kid to die publicly by bleeding to death on a cross,” he says.
The discussion then turns back to sex, with Silverman saying she wished he wasn’t celibate.
“I’m essentially pansexual,” he says, before adding that he had “sex” with an oak tree recently.
When Silverman lets an f-bomb slip, he curses, too, saying, “I curse all the time. F— f— f—. D–. P–. H–, B—-. S—.” (source).

Sarah Silverman’s History of Blasphemy

Silverman makes many comments with the intent to anger and “trigger” Christians.

Silverman has devoted much of her comedic efforts ridiculing Christianity. Here is just a portion:

• In 2015, on Christmas Day she sent out a tweet stating: “Merry Christmas! Jesus was gender fluid!”
• She filmed a skit featuring herself in bed with an actor portraying Jesus discussing abortion rights.
• One of her first major comedy shows was called “Jesus Is Magic” in which she made stated Jesus was “magic” because He turned water into wine.
• In 2007 she was depicted having sexual relations with God on her Comedy Central Show.

Webster’s 1828 dictionary (based on the English of the King James Bible) defines blasphemy as:

“An indignity offered to God by words or writing; reproachful, contemptuous or irreverent words uttered impiously against Jehovah.
Blasphemy is an injury offered to God, by denying that which is due and belonging to him, or attributing to him that which is not agreeable to his nature.” (source).

The Bible warns: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7). Denigrating the Name of God is a serious offense in the Bible:

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” – Galatians 6:7-8

And yet, Silverman has relentlessly attacked God in her comedy skits and shows. Why? The Bible is clear that the farther someone moves from God, the more their anger and animosity towards The Lord grows:

“For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.  For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” – Romans 8:5-7.

All people are born with a corrupted, sinful nature as a result of the first sin in the Garden of Eden. And thus, we are “carnally minded” focused on satisfying the sinful desires of our hearts that we all have. But in addition to wanting to sin – the carnal mind is at “enmity” or at war, with God. So, the problem for an unbeliever like Silverman is not that she does not believe in God – but that she hates God. Hence her spending so much time attacking, mocking and challenging a God she claims does not exist and a faith she says is “magic.”

An Outspoken Support of Murder In The Womb

A “joke” made by Silverman during her “Jesus Is Magic” comedy show.

To no surprise, much of Silverman’s public anger towards Christianity centers around abortion. She is an ardent supporter of Planned Parenthood – the abortion corporation Beginning And End has repeatedly detailed for its racist history, encouraging minors to have abortions and having workers on video encouraging the cover up of statutory rape. At a pro-abortion telethon Silverman berated laws that seek to prevent corporations from using the body parts of aborted children for commercial use. In response the comedian said: “If anything has ever made me want to eat an aborted fetus, it’s this law.” (source).
In response to laws that seek to provide funerals for babies killed in the womb she stated: “F— funerals for f—aborted fetuses? I would like to speak at those funerals. He lived the way he died. He died the way he lived. The size of a sesame seed with no discerning brain function.” (source).
She’s also tweeted her support of abortions on a regular basis:

Silverman pretending to be pregnant with “before and after” photos of an abortion with her then boyfriend, Alec Sulkin, a writer for the Family Guy cartoon which also has mocked The Lord Jesus Christ.

God says of those who come to belief and faith in Him and the mindset of those who willfully reject and deny Him:

“For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord.  But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.” – Proverbs 8:35-36

Notice the verse above does not say “all they that do not believe in me…” but rather rightly identifies the many people who hate God. And along with that becomes a love of death. The pro-abortion movement has continually linked attacking Christianity with their political movement – one stark example being when a group of pro-abortion activists shouted, “Hail Satan!” during a rally at the Texas Capitol building.

Pray For Sarah Silverman

Without a doubt, some reading this article will be incredibly angered at the brazen disrespect and blasphemy carried out by Sarah Silverman for over a decade. And that anger stems from a love for God and the defense of the Christian faith. But remember that the Bible says: “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.” (Ephesians 4:26-27). The Lord Jesus Christ commands believers to pray for those who persecute Christians. Pray for Sarah Silverman and the many entertainers who use their platform to blaspheme the name of God. And pray for society to move away from viewing blasphemy as entertainment.
Silverman is a lost soul whose heart has been seared from years of rebellion and enmity at God. But that does not change the fact that the same Jesus Christ she disrespected gave His life for her, just as He did for the soldiers who mocked and attacked Him as He walked to the cross. God loves her just as He does all the lost souls in the world today. Pray she repents and receives the free forgiveness that can be found through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, taking her punishment so she could be forgiven. If you are a Christian tune out blasphemous entertainment. And if you are not a Christian, understand that Jesus Christ predicted this would take place as the end times approached. And He gave a stern warning about how we speak to Him:

“A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.  But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.  For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” – Matthew 12:35-37

Lord willing Sarah Silverman will repent of her words before the day she stands face to face with the real Jesus Christ.

ROMA DOWNEY PROMOTES NEW AGE DOCTRINE (PANTHEISM & PANENTHEISM)~CHRISTIAN LEADERS SAY NOTHING

ROMA DOWNEY PROMOTES NEW AGE DOCTRINE (PANTHEISM & PANENTHEISM)~

CHRISTIAN LEADERS SAY NOTHING

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2018/newsletter20181105.htm; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

Proclaim 19

First she’s there; now she’s gone, or is she? New Age sympathizer Roma Downey was scheduled to speak at the National Religious Broadcaster’s 2019 convention, Proclaim 19. Sharing the docket with her are highly popular evangelical names like John MacArthur, Rick Warren, Greg Laurie, and Kirk Cameron. Lighthouse Trails reported on the story with the release of Greg Reid’s booklet, Butterfly Illusions (which unveils the strong New Age messages in Roma Downey’s new book, Box of Butterflies).

Shortly after the release of the booklet, Lighthouse Trails learned that Roma Downey’s name (along with her husband Mark Burnett) had been removed from the speakers list for Proclaim 19. Calls to the NRB office in Washington, DC by Lighthouse Trails editors provided no answers as to why Downey’s name was gone other than being told “it has not yet been decided” if she will be speaking there. As has been the “normal” protocol for Christian leaders when they get challenged, there is just dead silence from NRB as well as from the evangelical figures who are involved. But new information about Roma Downey’s beliefs will hopefully prompt NRB and Christian leaders to be responsible and do the right thing.

God “In” Everyone and Everything?

The crux of the New Age is not Ouija boards and Tarot cards but rather is the foundational belief that God is “in” everyone and “in” everything. It is the prevailing doctrine throughout all New Age teachings as well as the root of mystical meditation. To believe that God is in everyone and in everything is to ultimately reject the Cross (whether one realizes that or not). If God is in everyone, then there would have been no reason for Jesus Christ to go to the Cross as a substitute for humanity’s sins because we would already be divine and not need a Savior. That is why one prominent New Age leader quoted his “God” as saying, “the era of the Single Savior is over”1 (because we are all Saviors). It would stand to reason that Christian teachers and pastors who profess to know God’s Word and His ways would easily recognize the contrast between New Age spirituality and biblical Christianity. But in the case of Roma Downey and today’s Christian leaders, this is not so.

For many years now, Roma Downey has consistently and publicly shown herself to be strongly aligned with the New Age. Her long-time spiritual mentor was New Age/New Thought pastor and teacher Della Reese whom Downey considered to be a mother figure. Downey then attended and, in 2010, graduated from the University of Santa Monica (one of the most popular New Age schools in the world). And she favorably quotes the school’s New Age leader and founder, the late John-Roger2 (who claimed he was inhabited by the “mystical traveler consciousness”).  Shortly after her graduation from USM, Downey came on the evangelical Christian scene (calling herself a devout Catholic), producing Bible-story movies and being wholeheartedly welcomed by numerous Christian celebrities (see some photo examples below) including Rick Warren, David Jeremiah, Greg Laurie, Samuel Rodriguez (she wrote the foreword to his 2017 book, Be Light), and Joel Osteen. And now, most recently, her open-armed welcome to speak at Proclaim 19 with John MacArthur, Rick Warren, Greg Laurie, and Kirk Cameron.

Christian Leaders Say Nothing

Until concern was issued by Lighthouse Trails and others, none of the men listed above had any apparent problem with being associated with Roma Downey. But do they even know or care about what she believes? Or have they just benefited from their association with her and ignored what she really stands for? (After all, she has gained the affection and following of millions and millions of people since her Touched by an Angel days—those associating with her would clearly glean from her substantial popularity.) On this point (i.e., the motives of the leaders), we can only speculate. But on the issue of Roma Downey’s New Age beliefs, we can know this for sure. For example, on two different interviews, one in 2012 (during the making of The Bible series) and one in April 2018, Downey stated that she believes God is “in” everyone and everything. (See videos below.) And as Greg Reid shows in his booklet Butterfly Illusions, Downey’s new book Box of Butterflies echoes this same message that God is in everyone by stating that separation is an illusion.3 Reid confronts Christian leaders (many of whom gave their hearty endorsements for Box of Butterflies) for not being more discerning and also for not correcting Roma Downey and her husband about their New Age beliefs and showing them that such beliefs are the antithesis of the message of the Bible and the Gospel, and the two absolutely cannot mix or be joined together. (We must interject here that recently Greg Reid had the opportunity to hand Roma Downey a copy of Warren B. Smith’s biography The Light That Was Dark: From the New Age to Amazing Grace—can Christian leaders say they have done even half that much to point Roma Downey in the right direction?)

In Warren Smith’s own booklet, Be Still and Know That You Are Not God (God is NOT in Everyone and Everything), Smith states:

Our Spiritual Adversary would have everyone believe that we are all “one” because God is “in” everyone and everything. Using every promotional means possible—including a creative and ingenious perversion of quantum physics—he is attempting to convince the world and the church that while Jesus was Christ, so is everyone. And while Jesus was God, so is everyone else. To underscore this heretical New Age doctrine of God and Christ “in” everyone, he would have us further believe that nothing of any significance happened on the Cross of Calvary. However, the Bible makes it very clear that something extremely wonderful and overwhelmingly significant did happen on the Cross of Calvary. For it was on that Cross that Jesus Christ died to save the world as He defeated sin (1 John 2:2), death (2 Timothy 1:10), and the Devil himself (Hebrews 2:14). As the one and only Christ, He is our Rock (1 Corinthians 10:1-4), He is our Foundation (1 Corinthians 3:11), and in every sense of the word He is the Saviour of the world (1 John 4:14).

The tragedy about this situation between Roma Downey and Christian leaders is that the leaders are using Roma Downey, Roma Downey is using the leaders, and our Adversary is using them both—and countless naïve and undiscerning Christians are buying into the whole thing.

Is Roma Downey going to be speaking at Proclaim 19? We don’t know. NRB is saying nothing about the removal of her name except the unofficial comment to Lighthouse Trails that “it has not yet been decided.” We urge NRB as well as John MacArthur, Greg Laurie, Kirk Cameron, and the other leaders to do the right thing—to speak the truth in love to Roma Downey about the dangers of her New Age beliefs that directly contradict the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Washington Post Interview – 2012 (If you cannot see the two videos below, please click here.)

100 Huntley Street Interview – April 2018 (start at 1:30 min. mark) (100 Huntley Street is Canada’s equivalent to the 700 Club in the U.S.)

PHOTOS THAT SAY  A THOUSAND WORDS:

 

Roma Downey with Mark Burnett and Mr. and Mrs. David Jeremiah (2015) (photo from David Jeremiah’s Twitter account; used in accordance with the US Fair Use Act for the purpose of education, critique, and review)

 

Greg Laurie (and his wife) with Roma Downey and Mark Burnett (2015) (low resolution photo from Greg Laurie’s Facebook; used in accordance with the U.S. Fair Use Act)

 

LOS ANGELES, CA. August 11, 2016: Della Reese & Mark Burnett & Roma Downey & Rick Warren at Hollywood Walk of Fame Star ceremony for actress Roma Downey. (photo from shutterstock, used with permission for editorial purposes only)

 

March 2018 – Calvary Chapel KWAVE Radio program Interview with Roma Downey promoting Box of Butterflies (photo from emergentwatch.com)

Endnote:
1. Neale Donald Walsch, The New Revelations: A Conversation with God (New York, NY: Atria Books, 2002), p. 157.

2.  On Roma Downey’s August 4th 2011 Twitter.

3. To understand the “lie of separation” heresy, read Warren B. Smith’s booklet, Oneness vs. Separation Heresy “Now” in the Church

(Photo of butterflies from bigstockphoto.com; used with permission)

 Note from LT reader: [Contemplative proponent] Priscilla Shirer [see photo below] with Roma Downey at a [spring 2018] charity event where Roma said Oprah was full of the Holy Spirit. As screen captured below: