ENCOUNTERING GODThough Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu,
quite familiar with Mantra Yoga, he echoed the
Christian writer, John Bunyan, who said:
“In prayer, it is better to have a heart
without words than words without a heart.”10/*
Admittedly, mantras, spoken in a dull, lifeless
way, are “words without a heart.”
Pantheism or Theism?
One of the most important issues in this list of
comparisons concerns pantheism versus theism.
Most New Agers and adherents of Far Eastern
religions believe in pantheism (a term meaning
“All is God”). It stems from the concept that the
universe is not a creation, but an emanation of God
- that in the beginning, the Godhead emanated
the universe out of ‘Itself’ (in most Far Eastern
and New Age worldviews, ultimate reality is an ‘It,’
not a “He” – an impersonal force, not a personal
God). Therefore, if pantheism is correct, all things
have a divine essence. The universe is really the
Godhead veiling Itself in the ‘appearance’ of
physical matter. But in reality, the material world
is an illusion (Hindus call it maya).