All language subtitles for This Path Is NOT Working - Karim invested 8 years in spirituality and self-improvement (English)

We really wanted to know God. So we decided to sell everything

and go to a trip in South America. We had heard

about ayahuasca, which is one of the psychedelic,

most potent ones that is used in ancient tribes

like in the Amazon. We wanted to experience that.

I had seen documentaries who talked about people

who had experiences and who had seen the spirit world

and all these visions. So I thought to myself,

well, I know there is something now. I'm not an atheist anymore,

but if I can see the spirit world, then I will have no doubts anymore.

My wife was already kind of

in a spiritual search. She was more in what's called the New Age.

So she would do meditation, yoga, a bit of beliefs like that, the universe.

But at the time, I was still an atheist. But one day we had a long road trip

from Montreal to New York City. And on that road trip,

there was three people: myself, my wife and a friend who was a muslim.

And we, all of us, we explained our worldviews.

One was the universe. One was the Islam

and myself was an atheist.

So we came from the monkey. There is no God.

And at the end of this conversation, I realized that what I was explaining

was not my belief system, it was just what I had been taught at school.

So I was just repeating.

So I thought to myself, maybe I'm wrong on this question,

very important that maybe there is a God.

I started to look for who is this God? Who is the Creator?

I knew at the time that I wouldn't find God in Islam

or I thought in Catholicism either. So I went in this path

of Buddhism and Hinduism. I started to pick up on conferences

from different people. One was Alan Watts, who talks a lot about Hinduism, Taoism,

meditation and also the psychedelics. And then I started to listen

to Terence McKenna, who talks a lot about psychedelics

in a spiritual way.

And so I studied this path, which was part of it was experiences,

and part of it was trying to understand the theology behind it.

What is the meaning of life?

If there is a God, then there is a purpose.

There is a meaning, there is... So I was trying to find what it was.

And at the time we had a company with my wife.

It was very successful. We had a lot of money,

a lot of time, a lot of friends. We were in love.

So we had, in a way, everything that you would want to be happy.

But something was missing. So there was an emptiness in our heart,

We decided to sell everything and go to a trip in South America.

We had heard about ayahuasca

I had seen documentaries who talked about people

who had experiences and who had seen the spirit world

and all these visions. So I thought to myself,

W ell, I know there is something now.

if I can see the spirit world, then I will have no doubts anymore.

So we went we went to the Amazon in Peru, and we did that experience.

I had the idea to write a book

during this experience, and I said to myself,

once you will write the book, you will go back to the Amazon

to have more visions.

And so after that, we came to Spain and we decided to, um,

to buy a house a little bit isolated from the civilization.

To focus really on this spiritual search

My wife was an artist. She started to paint

and I was focusing on writing this book.

This book was going to be about spirituality and personal development.

But you cannot just talk about spirituality

without knowing what you're talking about. So I was doing a lot of research.

And at the time I had encountered a man called Manly P. Hall.

He has done a lot of conferences and talks, a lot about esotericism,

about different religions of the world. And through this guy, I came

to another set of people, Annie Besant and Leadbeater,

who were disciples of a woman called Helena Blavatsky.

She had written a book called The Secret Doctrine,

and this book is kind of the basis of all the theology that these people use,

and that all the modern books talk about spirituality.

They use the same ideas coming from this book.

Talks about reincarnation, karma, the spirit world.

Once I wrote my book, I wanted to promote it.

I opened the YouTube channel and I started to talk about spirituality,

On the side I was also still doing

some psychedelic experiences like LSD or mushrooms,

and I had some experiences that showed me that

and I had some experiences that kind of showed me

that something was not exactly what it seemed.

At the time, I didn't have children, but my wife was pregnant

and at the time I had picked up meditation.

I would meditate every day, 30 minutes in the day,

and I lived in a very peaceful area in the nature.

But when my wife gave birth to our first child, our lives changed.

Because when you have a child, well, you get tired

because they don't sleep much at night. They are very demanding

and so that comfortable life well has been shaken.

And then I realized that I was not as peaceful

as I thought I was. I was not the Zen master

that I believed I was because I would lose my temper.

Sometimes I would be aggressive.

The second one is that once I had finished my book,

I was ready to go back to the ayahuasca because this was

the promise I made to myself.

Through that ayahuasca retreat,

I could see the mirror of all my intentions

that I had been selfish.

It was a way of escaping my responsibility as a father.

So it was like a big shock that I thought I was a good guy

and that I was teaching people online that I was a spiritual, uh,

but in fact, I was really selfish.

And the third one is the origin of evil. Because through all that teaching,

And the third one is the origin of evil. Because through all that teaching,

reading all this, I didn't feel that I had found the truth

with a big T. I have answers about the meaning of life

through reincarnation and karma, but it was superficial,

the origin., I couldn't understand what is the origin of evil,

I didn't feel like I had really found it.

And by studying the books on this problem,

the origin of evil, from the people

that I was studying, I got answers that didn't make sense.

They said that evil doesn't exist, that it's just relative.

For example, cancer is a bad thing for the person who dies from cancer.

But if you take the point of view of the cancer itself,

it's good because he has he has food from the body that it kills.

It doesn't make any sense, right? This is madness to me.

But this is what they explain. When I digested these three things,

I was not as zen as I thought. This path is not working.

I was worse than I thought I was, and I was not even aware

that I had all these selfish intentions in my heart.

And I didn't find the truth. I realized this path is not working.

So it had been almost more than seven years, almost eight years.

And so one day I cried out to God. I really, with the bottom

of my heart crying. I said, God help me, I cannot do it

myself, please help me. And very shortly after that, I had the first reply.

I got in contact to Christian content. So first of all, I heard more about Jesus.

I heard more about the Christianity, the message.

Until one day I was doing some research on the fallen angels.

I found a documentary. And in this documentary

they talk about the fall of man, the deception of Satan,

who wants to deceive people away from God, the fallen angels who are demons,

who pretend to be spiritual guides and men in this world

who are part of an organization called the Freemasonry, who actually

worship Lucifer and are connected to so-called masters, ascended Masters,

spirit guides who guide them to illumination

to become as gods. And so this is exactly what the theology I was following

in this new age. All this meditation, all the yoga that you do,

is to attain illumination, to realize that you are actually God.

In this documentary, they explained that it's actually

the exact same deception that Satan used with Adam

and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And so I realized:

it looks like I had I have been deceived. But what really opened my eyes was that,

first of all, they quoted a lot of things from books,

from these people who I had translated some of the conferences

had put on my YouTube channel, and the quotes

were saying that Lucifer is their God

and all these people were Freemasons from the 33rd degrees.

And the second one was a quote

from the Bible, Ephesians 6:12 'we do not fight

against flesh and blood, but against spiritualities,

against spirits in high places'. When I read that, I understood

that we are part of a spiritual world, and the weapons of this war

is not swords or bullets or guns. It's lies, ideas.

I understood, it looks like I've been deceived.

But more than that, when I saw Ephesians, I said,

But more than that, when I saw Ephesians, I said,

What is Ephesians? I don't know Ephesians.

I've read a lot of books about spirituality,

but I've never heard about Ephesians. Ephesians is obviously

it's part of the New Testament. And I had not read the Bible

because these people, these Freemasons, they say that the Bible

has been corrupted, that we don't have the real Gospels.

When I saw that documentary, the first thing I did

was to do some research about the Bible. Has the Bible been changed?

And I realized that no, it has not been changed.

We have six, almost 6000 manuscripts of the New Testament in Greek.

The Old Testament has been preserved. What we have, what when we read the Bible,

is what has been written.

There was a split moment when my flesh didn't want it, this truth,

because I had put a lot of work in all these videos,

and I had also prepared that image of me being a spiritual leader.

So part of me didn't want this to be true. But once you taste the truth,

if you are sincere, it doesn't matter the cost

because you want the truth. So I decided to change.

To block all my videos that was teaching this lie

and started to tell people about this deception.

And when I read the Bible, I started from Genesis to Revelation

when I arrived at the New Testament, when I read Romans chapter two: 'you

who think you are teaching others, do you teach yourself?

You who say, do not steal, do you not steal?'

So it was like the Bible was talking to me directly

and I felt convicted. And so at the end of it understood

that the truth that I was looking was in the Bible

because the truth is in Jesus. Jesus is the truth, the way and the life

and the origin of evil is from is coming from the deception of the devil.

So I understood also, I couldn't change myself because it's impossible.

Only God can change you when you surrender.

And the last one is: I had all these selfish intentions.

I had a broken heart because I was a sinner

and I needed redemption. I needed to be forgiven.

I went with a tent in a mountain

and I confessed all my sins in front of God.

I ask forgiveness for all my sins, and I asked him forgiveness

for having been fooled and having been deceiving other people

also through the YouTube channel. And I said I wanted

to give my life to him.

to sleep on the tent on the mountain. And that night I had a dream.

but it was more than a dream. It was like a vivid experience

that one man, very evil man, came with a long knife

and he wanted to kill me. And behind him, standing with a peaceful presence

was Jesus Christ, who just took his arm like this.

I understood that it was God showing me that I am no more

under the power of the evil, and that now God is protecting me.

And after that we decided to baptize each other in water.

My wife and I, at the time we were living in an isolated area.

We didn't have any Christians around us. We just obeyed

to what we read in the Bible. And so we baptized each other in water.

But one day during that period,

someone sent me a commentary to my YouTube channel

and ask me my opinion about a movie. And the movie

was from The Last Reformation. It was The Life.

And when I watched the end of the movie at the end,

when it was the last song I felt the Holy Spirit.

At that time, I didn't know it was the Holy Spirit,

but I felt an experience that overwhelmed me

with a very strong conviction that you should be baptized

in the Holy Spirit and you should sell your house and go.

I was so shaken that I lay on the floor for like ten minutes with this.

I went to the website of TLR and I found someone on the Map.

Elizabeth who is a sister now in Barcelona and I told her what happened to me.

Can you come to our house and pray for us? And she came with a couple of brothers

to our house, the week later. They prayed, first of all for my wife,

and she started to cry. She received the baptism

of the Holy Spirit. But from the outside, what I saw was she was starting to cry.

She was starting to be very emotional and started to speak in tongues.

So I thought, okay, this is working because at the time I wasn't sure

if it's going to it was going to happen or not.

Even though I had checked on the Bible that yes, this

is what we read in the Bible. And so then it was my my turn.

We prayed for the baptism of the Holy Spirit

right away, it it fell on me from,

from below with a very strong love presence and a heat.

I was sweating very profusely and with this

very strong conviction that I want to do the will of God now,

not just my will. After that, I decided to pray

and fast for a week about the second thing,

which was you should sell your house and go because I really

didn't want to leave Spain.

After six days

I received a reply from my prayers. I felt God was telling me

that your place is not here. Your house is not in this world.

You have a place in the sky, but this is just a small period of time

and with a peace also. So I said, okay, this is this is what we should do.

So we put the house on sale and for about three months

until we really left Canada, this sister Elisabet,

with a couple of brothers, they came every week

to a house to disciple us. So we started to learn

about praying for people on the streets, trying to share the gospel.

And after about three months we left and we arrived in Canada.

It was a very difficult time, especially for my wife,

but also for myself because it was very cold.

We were used to living in Spain. A very comfortable life.

Through that God was working in our heart and trying.

It was revealing things that, you know, character that was important to change.

And after nine months we decided to to come back to Spain.

All the doors were blocked in Canada, so we understood

that we were not meant to be there, but we were sent to Canada

so that it could work in our heart. Before we left Canada, I went for a PTS,

which is a Pioneer Training School for two weeks

with Olivier and Julian and his teams. It was a wonderful time.

I felt really connected with God, could hear His voice, His presence,

and that was a really wonderful time. And so I thought,

that would be a good thing to do for my wife also.

And so when we came to Spain, we did the PTS,

but this time it was for my wife and it was in the south of Spain

with Robbert and with you guys. And obviously

this was also a very powerful time, especially for my wife.

We bought an apartment where we live now, and we went to a process of renovating it.

It was kind of a being completely involved again.

And I felt disconnected a little bit from God

because I didn't pray as much as I used to.

I didn't have a lot of fellowship, and I felt a little bit

distanced from God. But I also couldn't do videos on YouTube

as I used to before. And at first, I kind of felt bad about it

because I had the idea that I have to perform,

I have to do things for God, but I couldn't.

So I felt like I was not doing the right thing.

But God was working in my heart to so that I could understand

that it's not just about doing, it's also about being,

about connecting to God and being close to Him.

And being aligned to His will. Because yes, He does want to save souls

and He wants us to share about the gospel, to pray for people.

But He also has a will. And there are seasons in our lives.

And I understood that, that it's better to be aligned

with the will of God than just doing things on our own flesh,

on our own will. So I had to learn that, and I'm still learning it.

So in conclusion, I would like to say that I have often regretted

that it took me so long to find Jesus.

But now I believe that God allowed me

to spend all this time in reading a lot of spiritual books,

doing ascetic practices, and spending time and money

in spiritual retreats so that others don't have

to do it when they realize it doesn't lead to God.

The Christian path is not an easy one, but the peace and love

that is found in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior

are worth giving up everything, and it is the only path

that will take you through the storms of this life to the everlasting peace

in heaven. If you haven't been born again. I really want to encourage you

to repent and believe in the gospel. Be baptized and follow Jesus.

I pray that the Holy Spirit will touch you today,

that God will heal you, that he will restore you,

and that he will use you for his glory. I pray in Jesus name, Amen.