Question about Hindu Energies (Prana, Xi, Chi) - Pastor's Podcast

On today's episode of conversations with a calvinist we're going to be answering a listener question about hindu energies. Stay tuned you won't want to miss this one. Welcome back to conversations with a calvinist.

My name is keith foskey and i am a calvinist and i'm joined today by the beautiful mrs foskey my wife. And i do want to mention as we are on the program together again today that the number one rated podcast that i have ever done in the history of the show was with you.

Yes yeah yeah. We did a history of the life of martin luther's wife. We did that a year ago and it has by far exceeded all of the other podcasts. So thank you again for being on the program and maybe today we can make it two for two.

Okay. And also wanted to mention the shirt i have on speaking of martin luther. This was a gift from the stevens family mike and rosanna and i'm very thankful this i'm i'm a wearable meme now and i've been wearing this shirt and everywhere i go i get looks about this shirt.

I love it. It says your door is fine. I'm just fixing your theology and it's got a picture there of martin luther nailing the 95 theses to the door of the church in wittenberg. Well today we're going to be talking about something interesting and the reason why i've invited jennifer to join us is because we're going to be talking about the subject of hindu energies which was a question that came on through a listener that said that they were wondering about how christians look at things like that.

Personal Experience With Chi, Prana, and No-Touch Knockouts

And i want to talk about it specifically. And the reason why i brought jennifer on is we both have a little bit of history with this. We both have in our past a time where we dealt with this and had some friends who were really heavily into it and i want to tell a story and maybe jennifer can chime in at some times and kind of share her portion of the story.

Because when we met we were how old. 17 17 years old. And uh for the listener's uh benefit what was one of the first things i did when we met you pulled a young man.

And you said watch i'm going to knock him out. I want you to see this.

Okay and now for those who think i'm crazy she's exactly right. For those who think she's exaggerating she's not. That's exactly what happened because i had gotten involved with a martial art that taught how to use quote-unquote energy to knock people out.

And at 17 years old i wasn't a christian i was not a believer in jesus christ. At that point even though i may have said i was i didn't get saved until i was 19. And as a young man i was very intrigued by the idea of being able to use what was considered to be somewhat of a somewhat of a higher level martial arts skill the the ability to be able to just to just touch someone or to just tap someone and that person go to sleep.

And uh and there was a time when i you know could could well in a sense could do that and because i mean i hit the guy and he fell over. Right it was it was it was kind of an interesting thing. And what we were told was that we were using chi that are that what we were doing when we were doing these things was that we were that we were channeling the chi uh in our bodies.

And if you don't know what chi is chi is uh believed uh by those in the um in in the eastern religions chi is seen as the life force or the energy that causes all things to to uh to go. It's it's the life force that is in all things there's just chi in everything.

And you are basically a living embodiment of chi. And as far as how this relates to hinduism because the question was specifically about hinduism in hindu it's called prana. But it's still the same idea the in fact i'll read here it says according to legend tai chi practice concentrates on balancing yin and yang.

And if you've ever seen that symbol that looks like a circle with a with with a black portion and a white portion with two little dots that's a yin and yang symbol. And it says um that tai chi practice concentrates on balancing yin and yang form of energy in the body.

This life energy which is often called chi or prana in hindu is believed to have miraculous effects on one's body balancing this energy will result in a peaceful and healthy body. Well like i said for for the martial arts that i was practicing saw it the other way chi was used as a as a destructive thing you could use it to attack and hurt people.

And um was really seen as sort of like the highest level that you could achieve in the martial arts to just be able to touch someone or hit someone. And i remember being taught all these things about it.

I remember being taught that um what i was taught very very early on was that this was scientific uh in fact you remember there were pictures that they would bring to the martial arts group of studies that they had done like supposedly done in universities and stuff.

And there were martial artists who were tapping people and hitting people and they were hooked up to ekg machines. And another thing they did was something called kirlian photography i think i'm saying that right.

You remember that the kirlian photography was where they were supposed to be taking pictures of energy auras and um and again if it just just for full disclosure this was uh something that i thought was just i thought it was just real.

I thought it was scientific. I thought it was something that was that that was it was just normal. You.

Know yeah please i remember going along with that with the auras i remember and again we weren't christians at this time yet but i remember um someone coming up to me and pulling me up to work with me and i remember him doing this like i can see your aura and i can see um and i just remember thinking this is really strange.

Yeah yeah and uh so all of these things so so the person who's asking i can honestly say this is an area that we have we have experienced not just read about not just uh seen on movies or in books but this is something that we have experienced.

And um even after i became a christian i always thought that it was okay because i again i thought it was scientific. The body runs off of energy just like a vehicle runs off of gasoline that produces you know a fire which produces combustion which produces energy.

I kind of thought the body must run on some form of energy and and the way that we are to understand the body is simply this this energetic thing. And again even in my younger years as a christian i didn't really see the disconnect there.

And there were those in the movement who tried to connect the christian faith with this eastern philosophy. I remember specifically a man talking about the story of jesus and the um the woman who came to touch his garment and he said you know if you read that story i remember him saying this if you read that story it says power went out from him.

And i remember him saying that was his chi that was jesus's chi and and and so so there was a an attempt by some to blend the the the beliefs of the christian faith with these energies and um and again i looked at it as uh i was there was some conflict there but i thought you know this is you know i'm learning and i'm i'm growing in my faith and and by that time i was probably in seminary and i was beginning to see some things that were really strange.

Um but the thing that again i knew christians who went to acupuncturists still do i know christians. And by the way if you go to an acupuncturist an acupuncturist is basing his his work on these same things.

The the belief is that your body has channels of energy that run through it and each of these channels of energy it's called a meridian. And you remember this remember we talked about this because we would learn how to channel these meridian energies into strikes and to knock people out and to uh or to knock people down or to take away their strength and all of these things.

Um but like for instance the um the the the channel of energy of the lung meridian i because i had to learn all these things young as a young man i learned all the the energy channels of the body and supposedly the lung meridian starts right around here and it goes down the arm and it goes across here and it goes down to the thumb and i remember that because yes do you remember one time.

I remember going to the mall and asking seeing a display of mannequins and i remember and i forgot what it was like. Maybe the person was selling hats and i said um how much for the mannequin. Because you wanted to map out.

Yeah i wanted to draw.

All the nerve the pressure points and again what we were told was these are that if you we were told if you took a nerve chart from western medicine and a pressure point chart from eastern medicine and you laid them on top of each other they'd be basically the same.

I never did that. I don't know if that is is in any way accurate but that was the claim. And again the claim was it was scientific uh and by scientific that it would that would meet this. There were the requirements of western science.

Um but i remember the day when everything changed and i don't remember if you were there but i know i was there and you may have been there because this was this was we were married at the time uh and you started doing martial arts.

Jennifer is a brown belt in uh in in karate and i of course i'm a black belt and so uh but so you were with me for a long time. We did this for a long time together. But i remember the day one of the head instructors nationally recognized internationally recognized instructor um pulled somebody up out of the audience he stood back from him a few inches and he just raised his hands and the man fell over.

And um at that point we all knew and i knew instinctively this is not the same thing because where we had thought we were hitting nerves where we had thought we were striking into you know portions of the body that were that were places that were naturally weak.

Will it be muscular skeletal or nerve that we were hitting weak spots. This wasn't hitting anything. This was the idea that by by simply willing his energy into the other person or channeling his energy into the other person he was going to he was able to knock the person out.

And then stories began to began to become very uh wild. I heard about people who were affecting energies through people over great distances over many miles. Some had talked about doing it over the phone uh some had talked about doing it uh with sound making certain noises that cause people's energy to go up or go down.

And again this whole idea of seeing energy people talked about you know once they tapped into their chi they were able to see energy and have that energy uh uh affected or they were able to move people's energy with their eyes.

And and and there's videos online uh you can go on and see you know look up the term no touch knockout and you will see people that are doing these things that um truly believe that they are affecting the energy of another person uh through their ability to manipulate that energy.

And and i want to say right now you know there are many people that are still a part of this that i love i'm not a part of this group anymore uh i've been out of this for a long time uh and um so and and this the reason for this podcast is not to say anything negative about them as people.

I think they're great people. But the question that i was asked is the question of is this compatible with biblical christianity is is the idea of hindu energy or chinese or you know japanese views of chi or in the japanese it's ki so it's a little bit different way of saying it but it's the same idea is are these things compatible with biblical christianity.

And that's really what we want to address. But the reason why i told the story and the reason why i had jennifer come on because i mean you've experienced this right. I mean you've experienced you've seen it you've seen the people do it.

You had the guy who told you he could see your aura. And we've seen people do i remember a man who was doing this sort of brush movement off of a person and he was doing this and he said you know what i really need is i need a bucket of salt because i shouldn't be throwing this negative energy into the air.

Remember he said i should be sending it into salt so at least the salt can absorb the energy so firm belief that this energy is not only exists but that it is that they're that they're it's capable of being uh manipulated like this.

And again you know these people are very very firm in their beliefs. And again i was a part of this for a long time so i'm not i'm not sitting here trying to condemn them. I'm answering the question of is this compatible with biblical christianity.

And um and again it takes it there's a bigger step to this because the bigger step is the step. Well if it's not does that mean that christians should not be doing things like acupuncture. And that's a big question because again we or yoga yeah uh yoga i know john macarthur took a lot of grief because he came out a few years ago and discussed that his opposition to christians doing yoga because yoga has within it built within it poses that are intended to be religious in nature and and and so really what i want to address is the issue of the religious side of this because remember what i said i i was told early on that this was scientific and i and i and and and for for a long time i believed that it was.

And you know i was a young man i i believed what i was being taught was was true to the science. And so um there are those who when they go to an acupuncturist or when they go to do yoga or whatever they believe that they are engaging in something that it simply has physical benefits.

You know. No you know you know diamond dallas page remember that. Remember him. No okay all right. You were not a wrestling uh fan in the 80s probably. Well diamond dallas page was a wrestler and he injured himself.

I mean people talk about wrestling being fake. Wrestling is not fake in the sense that those guys really take hits. And you know a steel chair still a steel chair when it hit when it hits you across the back.

And so diamond dallas page was tremendously injured and so he went through a process of sort of self-healing and he used yoga. Well now he sells a program called ddp yoga. Now you're now you're remembering right.

And ddp yoga was his version of yoga which helped him to regain his strength helped him to regain his posture because he was bent over all the pain that he was in. And there's a man one of the great success stories of ddp yoga was a man who couldn't even walk.

He was on he had the braces on his arms with the um with the uh crutches and he and he couldn't even barely walk. And now he can do handstands and stuff because he was able to you know overcome the the physical limitations he had with the yoga.

So uh you know so is there a physical benefit you know to to to some of those exercises. Absolutely i know guys who do gracie jiu-jitsu who do a a jiu-jitsu form a bjj yoga i think is what they call it.

The First and Second Commandments, Idolatry, and a Biblical Worldview

So there's a lot of there's a lot of questions about you know is it scientific. Is it real. Is it something that can really benefit or really help. And i think all those are legitimate questions that we can ask and that we can talk about.

But the where it becomes an issue is when we begin to move into the side of the religious side. Um the the big issue we have to consider is where does this fall in. When we think about the first and the second commandments you know the first commandment is that we have no other gods before the lord.

And the second commandment is that we do not create an idol. And the difference between those two is often confusing as people say well isn't that the same thing. No the first thing is that we are to have only one god and not have any other gods.

So you can't have god and baal you can't have god and allah. You can't have god and uh buddha. If if somebody thinks of buddha as a god which i know buddhists don't see buddha as they see him as a divine figure.

So you can't have that you can only have one god according to the god who exists. He says he is a jealous god and they're not allowed to have any other gods. Right. And the second thing the the second commandment is you are not to make any idols.

Now the difference between the first and second commandment is the second commandment is saying that you're not allowed to call anything god. Like if i took your cup you know with your with your with your pumpkin spice latte which uh my wife is so excited that it's fall y 'all this is this is her time of year and uh this is her i can smell it her pumpkin spice latte if i said this latte is the god who sent his son to die on the cross.

Now we would all think that's ridiculous. But that's exactly what happened in the wilderness when the when the israelites took all of their gold moses had been up on the died or he's gone or something.

So we're gonna we're gonna take all the gold out of our ears and all. And we're gonna melt it down and and and make this golden calf. And what did they say when the golden calf was was created they said this is the god who led you out of egypt.

Yeah. And so that's the difference is the first commandment is you can't have more than one god. There's no polytheism. There's no henna theism. There's only biblical monotheism. There's only one god.

And the second commandment is you can't call anything else that god except for the god who is and you. And as john calvin said the human mind is a factory of idols. We create idols all the time. And so when we think about religions that promote chi uh and again karate sort of notwithstanding because there are people who treat karate like a would you agree.

Yeah that we met some people that would experience some of that. Yeah that we met people who this was basically the way that they they found their peace though. This was the way they found their strength.

This was this was what.

They hoped in. I mean and that's something i think we need to all remember that. Um everyone even if they don't worship the god of the bible we're all religious people. They're going.

To find something to worship. Yeah we are easy as the uh we are homo sapien the wise being. We're also homo religiosus the religious being. Every person worships something. Even the atheist tends to worship something typically themselves or or their knowledge or their understanding something like that.

And so yes a person karate certainly can become a religion in that way. It's bad. It's not good. Um but uh but i'm speaking today i want to really address those who the religion focuses on this energy.

And what we find is in those religions the religions themselves are contrary to christianity. That's the part that i think we need to note is um because if somebody asked me do you believe that she is real today uh in the way that you did when you were 17 i would say no i don't believe the same things i believed when i was younger um and and that was an evolving process it became sort of you know uh you know i i shed those things as i became as i as i began to understand more things and as i began to to go through the process of sanctification and learning and learning scripture.

I would say today i don't believe in chi like i did at one point um but i also say this there are those there are religions that depend on that and part of the reason is because those religions have an unbiblical worldview.

They are uh they are religions that are based on concepts of uh dualism. And dualism is the idea that there is a positive force in the world and there's a negative force. There is a yan which is the positive and yin which is the negative.

And that the goal is is not really the overcoming of one or the other. You don't want to have necessarily all positive or all negative. It's the idea of balance. And again going back to the yin yang symbol it's the idea of that symbol was is the idea that that one doesn't overcome the other but that there is a there is a balance in it.

And then there's a little bit of the white in the black and there's a little bit of black in the white. Because nothing is wholly positive nothing is wholly negative you understand. So so the idea is is very much religious in nature because that is not the worldview that the bible presents.

The bible does not present a worldview that is compatible with the uh the eastern view of of how life began and neither how life will end. And this is a huge problem because the belief especially among like buddhists is that the idea of life and the goal of life is is not to uh is not to please god who created us and it's not to be with god after death.

But the goal of of hindu religion or excuse me uh of buddhist religion is is something called nirvana. Now nirvana was a band in the 90s but that's not what we're not what we're talking about. The idea of nirvana is a perfect state of nothingness.

And the goal of buddhism is to is to shed those things that are uh that that we are holding on to and to into and to basically hold on to nothing to to to to to reach a point where you can be satisfied in the nothing to be satisfied in nothingness to be satisfied in this to be one with the universe to be one with the the the void to be one with nothing and the and and again that is not the biblical model.

And here's where the issue of chi comes into that all of the religions that teach chi and teach the energies are based on that model. They're based on that yin yang positive negative energy flow model.

And so what we have is we have a a religion based upon a unbiblical worldview. And and i really believe that worldview is where all this ends is. What is your worldview. Is your worldview that god created you in his image to glorify him and you glorify him through uh obedience and through uh loving him and loving your neighbor is that's the the biblical worldview you know.

And then of course that we are sinners and that god sent his son into the world to save sinners and he died on the cross as a substitute for sinners. And when he died on the cross god credited our sin to him.

And the bible says he absorbed our sin on the cross and that his righteousness became ours. We call that double imputation. Our sin is imputed to him his righteousness is imputed to us. These are the this is the biblical worldview.

And the bible says one day god is going to judge this world in righteousness. We're not going into the nothing. We're not going into the void. We are going to face god one day. Hebrews 9 27 says it is appointed unto man once to die.

And after this is not nothing after this is judgment yes and also something else too.

Is um you can't have take a little bit of this and then say well it's okay i still have my christian worldview. I can just take a piece of it that i like the bible says do not be conformed to this world but be renewed transforming your mind.

Yeah um you can't. You know there is no karma there is no yeah that's another good vibes and all of that stuff is just it's not biblical.

And that's a good point. I'm glad you mentioned that the idea of karma is very much tied to the idea of balance and the idea of this whole energy system that you know if you put out good energy good things are going to come to you.

If you put out good vibes which is just silly what is a vibe. It's energy. Right. If i put out good vibes good vibes are going to come back to me. That is not the biblical worldview. Now somebody may say now wait a minute.

The bible says um you know that we are to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. And that we are going to reap what we sow. And essentially karma is just reaping what you sow. But that is not the same thing reaping what you so is what we call the the the reality of consequence.

If i go out and i spend all of my money on frivolous things and my and my children don't eat. That's not karma. That is reaping what i sow. That's the the the i did something foolish and i'm and i'm dealing with that foolish thing.

The book of proverbs is all about that. It's all about the the distinction between the wise and the foolish. And so getting back to the the you know we see karma. We see uh you know like you said vibes and things like getting back to the chi getting back to these energies um it really is dealing with a religion that's not based on a biblical worldview.

And as a christian as a pastor as a father and a husband. Um you know i still do karate and i want to be clear about that because somebody may ask the question well wait a minute are you being hypocritical.

No i i no longer practice the the uh the stuff with the chi. Uh we we just don't we don't even talk about that anymore. Um i i teach shotokan karate which is japanese karate. Um somebody may say well that's still tied to it somewhat historically.

Um but there is no there's no point where i'm talking about hidden energy or secret chi or anything like that in my classroom uh but again it this is an important distinction that's made in the same way that some christians believe that they can do yoga.

And some christians believe that they can do uh uh acupuncture. And some christians believe that they can practice those types of martial arts. My my biggest concern is how that addresses your faith how that addresses your faith.

Because and the idea and yoga the namaste.

What is that like emptying your mind. Yeah.

It's just not biblical. These are not we should be thinking.

You know that's right. Mind on scripture we should be.

To just completely empty ourself. That's not. And we see like there's new apps that have come out that are focused on the idea of meditation. And you understand what. They're all based on eastern philosophy.

All of these apps and things that are trying to help you be a better businessman or be a better wife be a better husband whatever. Through meditation. A lot of these are using. They're not using biblical meditation.

You know the bible uses words like meditation. But when the bible says to meditate it's talking about focusing on god. It's talking about focusing on god's word. It says in the first psalm it says uh that his the delight of the of the righteous is that he delights in the law of the lord and on his law he meditates all day not on nothing.

He's not had the goal. And again it comes back to your pursuit. If a person came to my church and they were all about talking about energy and talking about chi and things like that my immediate address to them would be why is this your focus.

This is not really part of the biblical worldview. Now again some people might look at the bible and see well this could be an exercise of chi or this like i said about the guy earlier pointing to what jesus did and saying this is chi but again that it is not it's it fails in so many areas when we look at the biblical worldview.

When we look at the biblical worldview we we see ourselves as being created by a personal god who is in control of this world. He is in charge. This world is not controlled by two random or not or not random but it's not controlled by two competing energy forces.

We do not live in a dualistic universe. We live in a monotheistic universe. The devil is not equal to. That's right. The whole idea of the devil being god's equal that is foolish and wrong. The bible never presents god and the devil as equals.

Just read the book of job. Yeah if the job could not be touched by satan was it not for god's uh approval god. You know one of the things people don't like to hear the devil is on a leash and god is holding the leash.

There is no thing in this universe that's outside of god's control. Even the devil job is not getting bad karma. That's right. Job's not experiencing bad karma. So again uh you know if you are a person who is uh listening to this program and something that i have said has offended you.

And you have a question and you want to send in a question. Feel free. I'd be happy to to engage with you. My attempt today is not to offend or certainly not to to uh diminish other people or make anyone uh to destroy anyone or anything like that.

But i was asked a question specifically about how i view hindu energies which i see as we saw earlier it's the same as chi. It's it's prana chi ki whatever you call it. It's all related to an eastern view of the world.

An eastern view of what we what some call eastern mysticism. But it's an eastern view of how the world was created and where the world is going and how the world continues to function. And it's a dualistic worldview.

It is not a biblical worldview. And so those who are heavily influenced by this will inevitably find themselves in conflict with the word of god. So my encouragement would be to strive to have a biblical worldview and if you're caught up in these things to strive to learn what the bible says about who you are about how the world came to be and about what's going to happen when.

You leave this earth and exercising you know is great karate martial arts i mean those things are great but it can.

You can go down them. Be careful where these things lead. Be careful what you're being taught always always always compare everything to what the bible says. The bible is the only infallible rule for faith and practice.

Closing Exhortation and Podcast Sign-Off

Jennifer thank you for being on the program today. Thank you for having me. Thank you listener for being with us and i appreciate you listening to conversations with a calvinist. My name is keith foskey and i've been.

Your calvinist may god bless you. Thank you for listening to conversations with a calvinist. If you enjoyed the program please take a moment to subscribe and if you have a question you would like us to discuss on our future program please email us at calvinistpodcast at gmail .com.

As you go about your day remember this. Jesus christ came to save sinners. All who come to him in repentance and faith will find him to be a perfect savior. He is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through him.

May god be with you.