This article was revised on 6/20/2019.

The Hindu and New Age Spiritual Philosophy

by Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer



The New Age draws heavily from Hinduism. The Hindu scriptures teach that Spirit emanated/created an subordinate Divine supernatural Being who after it sinned against Spirit created this corrupt universe that we perceive with our five human senses-by manifesting a corrupted and degraded (less-than-divine) illusionary (not what it appears to be) expression of Its Self. It also has a Divine expression of Its Self that manifests as the real or non-illusionary universe that we live in.

For people who have attained a Divine state of consciousness, the universe appears as an essentially undifferentiated mass of light permeated with Divine Christ/Krishna/Buddha Consciousness. After people attain this state of Divine Christ Consciouness they then go through It (Jesus said, "the only way to the Father is through me.") to become One with Spirit (the Father). Becoming One with the Spirit is the ultimate state of Divine consiousness. A Hindu scripture says that after this created supernatural Being sinned against Spirit, Spirit said to it "You will never be worshiped," and did so because after it sinned it lost its divine status and became less than divine.

The Hindus and New Agers believe that after the created supernatural Being sinned it became the world soul, and that he is not divine, and that he is therefore not worthy of worship.

When referring to the world soul, David Spangler, one of the founding figures of the modern New Age movement, wrote: "It is generally not accorded the status of being the ultimate source, or Creator, but might be looked upon as a great angelic or archangelic being presiding over the well being of the world, or as the gestalt, the wholeness of all the lives and patterns that manifest upon, and as, the earth."

Spirit is the "ultimate source, or Creator." Spirit did not want the universe to have to be created by a part of Itself that had been separated/emanated from Itself, but because this emanated part of Itself sinned the universe had to be created as a backup plan so that the created supernatural being could eventually be reconciled with Spirit. This reconciliation will occur when all human souls, through many individual incarnations, experience divine consciousness once again.