Featured Speaker Promotes Eastern Meditation and the New Age
Aug 10,
2006 -
"I attended a meditation-intensive
day at an ashram [Hindu spiritual
center]to support a friend. As I
sat in meditation in what was for
me an unfamiliar environment, I
suddenly felt and saw a bolt of
lightning shoot up from the base
of my spine out the top of my head.
It forced me to recognize something
great within me ... this awareness
of my own divinity." (from The
Highest Goal, Michael Ray,
foreword by Jim Collins, p. 28,
2005)
Jim
Collins, who wrote the foreword for
The Highest Goal will be one
of the featured speakers at this year's
Leadership
Summit, hosted by Willow Creek.
The conference will be attended by
more than 70,000 Christian leaders,
in over 130 locations.
In
1982, Collins took Michael Ray's course,
Creativity
in Business. The course (and
the book named after the course) "takes
much of its inspiration from Eastern
philosophy, mysticism and meditation
techniques" (from the book). In one
section of the book it talks about
"your wisdom-keeper or spirit guide-an
inner person who can be with you in
life.... We meditate to unfold our
inner being." The book also presents
Tarot cards.
Collins was so inspired by Ray's course
in 1982 that he wrote the foreword
for Ray's 2004 book, The Highest
Goal: The Secret That Sustains You
in Every Minute. Collins says
the book is "the distillation of years
of accumulated wisdom from a great
teacher." Collins says he discovered
"the path to my highest goal" by reading
the book. What is this highest goal
that Michael Ray speaks of? Realizing
the divinity within. And how is this
realization obtained? Through meditation.
In the book, Ray tells readers to
"[p]ractice emptying your mind," "[e]xperience
not thinking" and to "[m]editate regularly."
Other quotes in the book include those
of Eastern religion gurus such as
Ram Dass, Jiddu Krishnamurti, and
Swami Shantananda.
For
Willow Creek to include a speaker
at the Leadership Summit who agrees
with Michael Ray's Eastern/New Age
philosophies on spirituality to the
point of actually writing the foreword
to this book, is almost unbelievable!
Over 70,000 Christian leaders, in
churches and auditoriums across North
America, will be introduced to Collins
at a conference that is advertised
as offering "you and every leader
on your team a place to rededicate
yourselves to God's life-changing
work." If the spirituality that Jim
Collins promotes is a part of this
" life-changing work," we fear it
will not be God's work but rather
that of deceptive doctrines of demons,
and Michael Ray's "spirit-guide[s]
" that take place.
Special Note: This news about Jim Collins connection
with Willow Creek (named recently
as the most influential evangelical
church) may be as significant as the
news
last year that New Age sympathizer
Ken Blanchard (with strong ties to
the Hoffman
Institute) signed on with Rick
Warren to help implement the global
P.E.A.C.E. Plan. And incidentally,
both Collins and Blanchard have spoken
with Mikhail Gorbachev and former
President Bill Clinton in international
leadership conferences. Their influence
world-wide is tremendous. How is it
that the two most influential evangelical
pastors have each linked up with someone
who is a promoter of Eastern style
meditation and the New Age? Lighthouse
Trails is confident that the facts
speak for themselves, and we encourage
you to check this out for yourself.
