 Hey friends, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke. You're watching Behind The Scenes, Divine It To Me! Radio. In a few minutes, we're going to talk about the Mindfulness Deception. Mindfulness Deception. Mindfulness Deception. It's really a problem, but before we get to the show, I think Stephanie wants to tell you about something. Yep. Is that true? I do. I have some things here that people are going to be excited to hear about. Everybody wants to know about things. Things, no courses, events, beautiful things that are going to opportunities for formation, opportunities for drawing near to the Lord. Yeah. Okay. Well, you should probably tell them. So, the first one is our 2022 Avila Summit. It is almost sold out, folks. It is almost sold out. You're not going to want to miss it. Our speakers are this or these. Bishop Strickland, Father McManus, Monsignor Rossetti, Kathleen Beckman, and Dan and Stephanie Burke, whoever those folks are. And it is on the topic of spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits. This is our second spiritual warfare conference. The first one just knocked it out of the park. It was so amazing. You're not going to want to miss this amazing talks. I have already seen all the titles of the talks coming forth. You and I are going to be talking about spiritual warfare and marriage like that ever happens. And so, it's awesome. It's going to be at Catholic University of America in the dates of July 15th through the 17th. You can find out more at spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. You're not going to want to miss it. So, I would just say this about that. Dennis McManus was at our last spiritual warfare conference. He's an academic, Father Dennis McManus. Hopefully, I said Father. Yeah, it's Father and Doctor. It's both. Right. Father Doctor McManus. He's sort of been hidden in academia for a long time. But he is the best speaker I've ever heard in my entire existence and I'm not exaggerating. Never heard a more effective speaker ever. Yeah. He's really phenomenal. Absolutely a treasure of the church. You're not going to want to miss it. And he had some part, and I don't know the details, he had some part in the modern exorcism right and improving it, cleaning it up from if my memory serves. So, really cool stuff. Yeah, wonderful. And Monsignor Rosetti is, of course, the author of The Diary of an American Exorcist. We put excerpts of that on spiritualdirection.com. So, if you've been enjoying that, come listen to him. Bishop Strickland, of course, has his own entire fan base across the United States. We all cheer every time he sends something out on Twitter. And Kathleen Beckman, of course, is phenomenal in the area of spiritual warfare, especially in the area of families. Yeah, she coordinates, she manages the deliverance ministry in the arch, or the Diocese of Orange in California. Yeah, she's wonderful. Deficient. Dear friend, all of these are really wonderful friends of ours. Yeah. And of course, yours truly, me and Dan, we're going to be talking. So, don't miss it, spiritualdirection.com, forward slash events. And then, of course, a couple of courses that are available to you through the School of Spiritual Formation at the Avala Institute, which you can find out all information at avaladashinstitute.org, avaladashinstitute.org. And that is one course by Dr. Michael Gamma called The Transformation in Christ. It provides a systematic study of foundational means and principles to more fully respond to the call of Christ in the life of the believer. He's amazing, one of the favorite teachers. Another teacher, Father Ignatius Schweitzer, amazing, beautiful priest. Dominican. Just Dominican, full of light. And his course is St. John of the Cross and Our Journey to the Mystery of God. And it will explore the writings of St. John of the Cross as a guide to our own interior life and journey into the mystery of the Triune God. You don't want to miss these. You need to go ahead and apply to get into these courses. And that is avaladashinstitute.org. Join us. Okay. So let's jump on your mark. Get set, go. This is Dana Stephanie Burke. Welcome to Divine Intimacy Radio, your radio haven of rest. Your hermitage of the heart. Your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds, not our hearts, our hearts and minds. Marks and Heinz. That's not good. It's not. No. We lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw and to draw on the wisdom of the saints to help us to navigate the tumult of life. Is that okay? Is that good enough? It's okay. I just want everybody to know that you were hitting the head with a log this morning as you were out cleaning the proper, you know, cleaning off property and mowing. So listen y'all write in and convince my husband to wear a helmet because he just like can't go outside without wearing a helmet all the time. That would look funny. All right. So I got a question on mindfulness that I think is really, really, really important. So we're having a Q and a session today. That's what we're doing today. Yeah. Okay. So I mean, kind of. So we're going to talk about mindfulness. So the question ends with or the comments end with any thoughts. So the person is just proposing, Hey, these are some ideas. Not, we're not in any way, uh, condemning them at all in all of this, but I am going to be very blunt. So I'm glad they said any thoughts. So unlike all the other times that you speak, where you are just anything but Frank, I have gotten nicer as I get am older, true or false. I can't talk to her false. Okay. She's just gonna laugh at me. I guess that means I haven't. I don't know. Okay. I'm not trying to defend these types of books. So there's, you know, books out there on mindfulness. There's, uh, the mindful Catholic and things like that. I'm not, and there was another book that that that was mentioned. I'm not trying to defend these types of books at all, but there's so much fear of the term mind mindfulness that I want to express my thoughts about how that can be a problem too. First, I have no fear of mindfulness. Okay. Um, it's important that she wasn't addressing this to me, of course, but we, I myself and maybe I need to read the questions today. Right. I know. So a group of scholars and I, uh, several scholars is, uh, one of the best, uh, spiritual theologians in the United States, maybe in the U S in the world. I don't know. Um, uh, been, uh, been the academic dean of many seminaries, uh, Dr. Anthony Lillis, um, Dr. Anthony Clark, who's a PhD. He's, uh, Byzantine Catholic. He fluent in, in, uh, Chinese, um, speaks and teaches on, uh, the history of Chinese religion, that sort of thing. All, and then a researcher, a journal, uh, uh, a researching journalists, all of us got together and we sent the journalists into the darkness of exploring if, if mindfulness, Catholic mindfulness is a, is a, is a good thing. And the, uh, so what I'm about to share is not, is not in any way based on a light understanding of mindfulness. Okay. So just to be clear, you and these scholars, Dr. Anthony Lillis, Dr. uh, Dr. Anthony Clark, two Anthony's, yeah. Okay. And, and, uh, uh, Sue Brinkman. Okay. So the four of you got together and dove into this topic of mindfulness and its issues. Right. Because it's on the rise in popularity in Catholic circles, right. And in secular. So, so the person said, you know, there's fear of the term mindfulness and it's not fear. It's a energetic rejection based on serious problems with attempting to integrate the eightfold path of Buddha with Christianity or Catholicism in order to solve emotional psychological issues. Okay. So I even went so far as to interview folks who said, who were devout Catholics, who said, I've been helped with mindfulness. Uh, we also reviewed, um, uh, current literature on the topic, you know, it was, it was a year long process or so. We dug in deep on the most popular course on mindfulness out there, had several investigators take the course and look at it, see if it was legit and what was going on. So here's the deal. It's a serious problem. And I'm just going to go through this question in detail and address each of the arguments. So I do not practice mindfulness by itself as a type of religion. Okay. So the founder of modern mindfulness promoted it. He got a vision, uh, in a retreat, not a Christian. So where do visions come when a person's not a Christian, not seeking the one true God? Where do they come from? It's not from God. It's not from God, right? And so the idea was to secularize in theory mindfulness, which Buddhist, uh, we quote in the book, in the book that we produced called a Catholic Guide to Mindfulness, uh, a Buddhist practitioner, an expert said you can't separate them. So this person is saying I do it, but it's not religion, not true. If you're using a fund, a method that's fundamental to the eight fold path of Buddha, you are using Buddhist religion. Yeah, you can't subtract it out, right? Right. It still has an effect. Right. So that's a false notion. Then the next sentence, it is a tool. Yes, it is a tool. I was introduced by a therapist years ago. There are good therapists and their therapists who jump on every popular means to get clients and they can be well intentioned and very badly misinformed, especially if their, therapy and their whole worldview is open to these kinds of things and they don't study it. They don't ask questions. Oh, this is a great idea. Let's do this. The way it was used, was used was just to help calm anxiety and depression because I did not want to take mind-altering drugs. God bless this person for not wanting to take mind-altering drugs. Jesus doesn't need Buddha to give you the peace he's promised you. Period. He doesn't. Um, I got free of what would, what at one time was actually designated as clinical depression. I grew up in a very difficult childhood. I got free through the normative means of following Jesus. Jesus said, my peace I leave you, my peace I give you, do not let your heart be troubled. Do not let them be afraid. So this said, I help, this was used to help calm anxiety. So it supplanted the means of Jesus because there's no mention in any of this that I deepened in mental prayer, that I deepened in sacraments, mass, any of it, right? Yeah. There's no mention that I learned discernment of spirits, right? And I learned to deal with thoughts as proposed, right? Exactly. Which is what I did to get free and what scripture is cleared. St. Paul says that we have a battle in our minds, a spiritual warfare and we have divine power to overcome strongholds, which are lies and incursions on our person that drive us. I'm not saying all depression is rooted in this, but I, but I, if somebody can be free from focusing on their breathing and all this, which is just self-focus, not God focus, they could, they could far more, that's, that's an impoverished view of freedom. Right. It's a, it's a, it's a very, it's a bandaid on an issue that really requires the physician, the great physician, the divine physician, right? Right. So good intentions, good desire turned to the wrong thing and they were ripped off. I mean, I don't, I'm not criticizing this person. They just have been deceived. So mindfulness is just an idea by itself is not dangerous, not true. And I'll give you one very clear example. If you go out on the internet and you search mindfulness, you're going to be taken dead center into non-Christian Eastern spirituality. It's a gateway drug. Similarly, it's a gateway spirituality. Similarly, there's a, and I can't remember if we quoted in this book or another book, but there's a book that talks about, I think it's actually it's in a series on yoga done by Father Ezra, a Dominican scholar on, on spiritualdirection.com. There's a yogic institute that studies that when people practice yoga, they're frequently drawn to non-Christian Eastern spirituality. Right, right. And, and I think you, you just flew by a comment that I think is really important. So we have an amazing series on yoga and the problems with yoga and mindfulness on spiritual direction. We have a bunch of stuff on spiritual direction. It's phenomenal. So you go there and you just search either or, and you're going to find all kinds of information that are from scholars and, and it's well researched. It's well explained. Yeah. It's really going to help. So this person was lied to and, and was told that mindfulness, because this is what it states is just an idea that is not dangerous. It is simply calling your attention to your thoughts and then evaluating them and clearing and distracting troubling ones from your mind by focusing on your breathing and becoming aware of yourself in the present moment. Exactly the opposite of what spiritual masters teach us. Here's, here's, if I could reword it. Christian spiritual masters. Our faith, right. Yes. So I could reword it. You don't focus on breathing. You focus on Jesus. You focus on prayer. You do become more aware of your thoughts, but how do you, how do you deal with your thoughts? You say in Jesus name, I reject thoughts that are lies. In Jesus name, I embrace thoughts that are true. You invoke spiritual warfare. You invoke the exercise of the will, but it's not to self, which is an impoverished way of solving this. It's a band-aid. It will never last, but it's to God. And I believe one of the reasons it's a band-aid. It will never last because I think it's demonically inspired and it'll have demonic implications in your soul by opening your mind up to approaches that are, that they have inspired themselves. Yeah. And we're going to be coming up on a break pretty soon, but I want to share the story years and years and years ago, probably 10 years ago. We lived in another city. You know, I was, I crossed paths with a beautiful family, husband, wife, two gorgeous children. You know, really honestly, these people look like they came out of GQ. Hard working, successful, you know, all going to church together, all of that. The woman came to me expressing some concerns. You know, she was looking for a little direction. We talked about her own prayer life, put it all on the right track, right? Beautiful woman. She said, and she shared with me at one point that she was concerned about her husband because he had started practicing mindfulness. And these are Catholics. These are Catholics. Yes. Catholics. I expressed to her that it was problematic. Right. That it would not lead to the Lord. Right. And then watched in horror over the course of the next two years as he buckled down, got insistent that this was his way of finding peace. And God. And God. He ended up, at the end, the fruit of it, he ended up drawing away from his wife, having an affair, leaving his family and just completely blowing out. And these are people who are near to you, not a distant thing. Right. No. But he was insistent that mindfulness was helping him find peace. It did the exact opposite and took a wonderful father and turned him into a complete narcissist. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen. So we get back from the break. We'll come back and we'll continue this talk about the deception of mindfulness. When your market said go. This is Danis Ebony Burke. Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio. I almost said mindfulness radio. Oh, Lord have mercy. We're talking about the deception of mindfulness. You know, just a side note, catholictherapist.com. Allison McCarty is the founder of that. She's a psychologist has rejected like you cannot be a part of their association. And if you overtly practice mindfulness, she's put out a statement against it. She and Dr. Sue Bars, who is I think one of the best, not the best right now in terms of her and her father's long research Conrad Bars in Catholic psychotherapy world. And they both said this is a junk. It's bad stuff. All right, so let's go back to this person's question. And I just want to say regarding my little story right before the break, I'm not saying all people that practice mindfulness are going to end up turning into narcissists and leaving their families. I'm just saying that was the fruit of watching somebody buckle down, reject the the the cautions. And he went the opposite direction and it completely wrecked him. Right. If you'd like to learn the real scoop on mindfulness, the book, A Catholic Guide to Mindfulness by Susan Brinkman is exemplary. It's awesome. It has endorsements by Father Wade Manesis. Carl Olson, the editor of Catholic World Report, who also isn't has a solid understanding of Buddhism. And they both been on UWTN about their their research. Okay. So let's see this good person didn't want to take mind offering drugs is saying that it's just focused on breathing. So it helps to calm the mind and body. You know, when we seek outside of Jesus to bring, give us the things that he promised, we're seeking in a very destructive way. St. Paul said, have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your request be known to God in the peace which passes understanding will guard your hearts and minds of Christ Jesus. Right. So I wrote a whole book about this, how I got free from all of this junk from my past, which includes abuse and all of that. And it's called spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits. You can get it at spiritualdirection.com, UWTN's religious catalog, whatever. Yeah. So it is the person goes on. It is a good practice. It is it is good to practice this discipline to discipline your body and mind to be still. No, it's not. Okay. It isn't for your mind to be free, truly free and not have a false bandaid, because it's not it. I guarantee you if this person and I could be wrong, but we work a lot in deliverance ministry. And I hope I'm wrong about what I'm going to say. If they start pushing deeper into what it means to be an authentic disciple of Jesus deeper, like everyone needs to go deeper. I'm not saying they're bad or they're not practicing. I'm just saying deeper. I would be shocked if they didn't find out at some point that there was, there's something began, manifestations began to happen because they will make the demonic energy or the related influences of that start to surface. We've seen it over and over and over again. Yeah, you know, what's interesting in saying that, and this is what came to mind as, as you were talking about this, is that it reminds me of our Lord going into the desert for 40 days, right? To fast and to pray and to be tempted by the enemy. And the enemy always promised some sort of false version of what God alone can give, right? And it was just fascinating. The world, the flesh and the devil, you know, if you'll do this, I'll give you X. If you'll do this, I'll give you Y. If you do this, I'll give you Z. And what did the Lord always answer with every single time? He didn't answer with some sort of secular version or, you know, that's okay, but the Lord has a better way. He always answered with scripture and said, God alone, God alone, God alone, right? Yeah. And so that's something we need to understand. Awesome. When we all use mindfulness when we prepare ourselves for prayer, no, we don't. You know, breathe deep and slowly. Christian prayer doesn't care about how you're breathing. That's a non-Christian Eastern obsession, not a Christian obsession. And being aware of your breath helps you to make room for God's presence. No, it doesn't. Yeah. And I can tell you my own experience. I've prayed seriously every single morning for 17 years since we met. Right. I never, in the entire time, in my entire time in 17 years, I have never counted my breath. Does that mean that I don't sit down and take a breath? Yeah. You know, that's different. I don't need to be aware of my breathing. Yeah, I need to be aware of my Lord. Right. Amen. Preach it. Preach it. Right. Okay. It actually helps you to become aware of the presence of God, and that is your goal. It does not help you to become aware of the presence of God. It helps you become aware of yourself. Of yourself, yeah. It actually, let's see, I guess the danger would be in making it a religious practice for itself and not being open to God's presence, but it can be a valuable tool for prayer. No, it can't. These books certainly are not good, but mindfulness itself is not a bad thing, any thoughts. Mindfulness itself is a very bad thing, and we've demonstrated it here. Read the book. Even the studies, like, you know, in this book, there's a reference to a survey of the science of mindfulness. It's page 33, and I'm talking about the Catholic Guide to Mindfulness. And it had some researchers go over thousands of studies on mindfulness, and the researchers, based on just fundamental scientific methods, said, this is junk. There's a secular book out called The Buddhist Pill, which I read years ago, which is an exploration of some of these things. And it gives stories about how people just completely become unhinged, because I believe when you start drawing to yourself, and I mean, I shouldn't say I believe, I know we've experienced it. And I will say this, if people don't know, and we haven't talked about it in a long time, you and I have been in countless numbers of exorcisms, countless realms of deliverance. We've seen the patterns. We work with people in deliverance. We work with exorcists. We've seen the patterns of what happens when somebody dips into non-Christian eastern spirituality, which is this. And I wanted to say this like a million times. And so I need to calm down, because I really care about people, and I don't want them to get lost. Jesus does not need Buddha to give you peace. The way, when Jesus says, my peace, I give you my peace, I leave you not as the world gives, non-Christian religion, which is where mindfulness comes from. Not as the world gives. Do I give to you? Let not your heart to be troubled. So when he reaches out and says, here's my gift of peace, you don't turn to the writer to the left, and go to Buddha and say, wait, show me how to focus on my breath, show me how to focus on my ankles, how I feel the temperature of the air around me, my own thoughts. He doesn't say any of that. He says, come to me. You know, what I think is fascinating. We always want to consider that they're trying to find peace. They're trying to find something, right? Anybody that goes into this realm. And I think there's this very, very uncomfortable spot when you start to practice prayer. And I think that's what they're trying to avoid, right? Because prayer is difficult. You're not accusing this person. No, no. I'm saying in general that leaning on non-Christian, eastern Buddha, Buddhism or spirituality, whatever it is, and these methods is circumventing what needs to happen, which means you need to be a little bit uncomfortable when you go to prayer, and you need to meet the Lord in your discomfort and in your brokenness. It's difficult to go to prayer and you don't need a method to overcome that because it actually delays you. It can be dangerous, but it also delays you from receiving the goodness that the Lord has. Because when we meet Him in our difficulty, in our uncomfortableness with being in the silence and looking into the one who created us, there is this moment of, I'm not worthy, right? That's a good place to be in our spiritual poverty, and He will meet us there because then we can offer our brokenness, our hearts, our minds, and I talk about this in my talks, the alabaster jar of our life and where it's brought us up until that point. And when we surrender that to God in that moment of quiet and silence, He will meet us there. It's the fast road. You don't want to find a method that's going to circumvent that because you are going to delay your spiritual growth and you could wreck it. Father Dismas, who was head of the Grand Chartreuse Formation for 24 years, Grand Chartreuse, a Carthusian house in France, the main house, said that those who delve into non-Christian Eastern spirituality and the way they deal with thoughts and the way they deal with prayer are always, and I'm interpolating, you can find the quote out there. He says it's impossible for them to understand the Christian mystery. It's a French to English translation. I'm sure it's not impossible because nothing's impossible for God, but what he means is every time people delve into this realm, and this person who wrote this question, you can see they've read books that have been tainted by non-Christian Eastern spirituality, obsessed with method, controlling your thoughts, controlling your posture and your breath, which is all non-Christian Eastern junk. It is very hard. He says, he said it's impossible, and I would say it's near him because I've dealt with this as well. It really wrecks your understanding of what authentic prayer is. I'll say this last thing. Well, I want to ask you one more thing before you do your last thing. You shared a video with me. We watched it together on this last trip. Oh, Father Jacques Verlinde? Yes. He explained it so well, and it's such a fascinating journey. Can you share that with our listeners? Yeah, and Jordan can put it in the show notes. It's J-A-C-Q-U-E-S-V-E-R-L-I-N-D-E. Father Jacques Verlinde, and he was into this realm of spirituality, traveled all through it, and then came out and became a priest ultimately. But if you look up Jacques Verlinde in English, you have to use that whole thing, Jacques Verlinde in English. You'll find it out on YouTube, and it's a half hour. It's fascinating. We also have it inside Apostoli VA website. If you're a member of the site, you can look at it in the library. It's there. But yeah, that is excellent. It's a phenomenal video. So think of yourself back in the first century, and you're with Jesus, or he's in your proximity. Let's say he's 20 yards away, and you're stressing, and you're struggling, and you're feeling dark, depressed, you're in desolation. He looks at you because he knows that you desire to be free and that you're hurting, and he says, come unto me, all you are heavy-laden, and weary, and I will give you rest. I'll give you peace. And then you turn aside and go to a psychiatrist or a psychologist who is using Buddhist methodology, and you say, no, I found a good way over here. I don't know what else to say. Yeah. The proper posture is humility and at his feet. Draw near to him. Yes. Mary Magdalene, Zachariah. I am nothing. Lord, help me. And you will be free. And you will be free. Okay. Well, until next time, may the God of peace make you perfect in holiness. May he preserve you whole and entire, spirit, soul, and body, irreproachable at the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ, amen. Amen. The Lou.