Last Sunday, 36,000 people from destinations near and far packed into the football stadium of Rutgers University in New Jersey to hear the teachings of the Dalai Lama.

According to a next-day article on the event in the New York Times, the Tibetan leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner opened his speech with, "I have nothing to offer, no new ideas or new views."

As he looked out at the field of bright-green Astroturf, he joked, "We are living things, like trees and grass. . . I don't know if this grass is true grass."

Reading this in the paper, I was reminded of the Dalai Lama's best-seller book from a couple of years back, "The Art of Happiness at Work," which I flipped through once hanging out inside a Barnes & Noble after my mom mistakenly locked me out of her house by closing the garage door after I had moved my car to let her out of the driveway. I had on only pajamas and slippers. My car's ashtray had just enough toll-booth change to buy a coffee.

In the preface of the book, which I picked up again the other day at a Borders Books to include in this piece, is an account of a mostly penniless and destitute group of newly arrived Tibetan refugees who are weary from having just journeyed across the rugged Himalayas, either crossing on foot or hanging a ride in the back of a pick-up truck.

"A mere glimpse of the Dalai Lama, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, was enough to revive their withered spirits and infuse them with renewed hope and joy," relates author Howard C. Cutler, M.D.

In response, the Dalai Lama, who had graciously agreed to meet with these new arrivals, offered as a piece of advice, "Now you men should be careful of going with prostitutes—you can catch a disease."

Another compassion-filled gem of infinite wisdom was, "Education is critical for success."

Self-entitled "His Holiness The Dalai Lama," this beloved figure inside the growing celebrity-religion world, given the ceremonial key to the city Sunday from New York City's Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who called him "one of the great spiritual leaders of our time," is by Buddhist terms said to be an incarnation of a bodhisattva, meaning, "One whose essence (sattva) is perfected wisdom (bodhi)."

"Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings, ranking below Buddha status, but above ordinary mortals," explains the 2001 book, "The History of Religion," by Karen Farrington. "Their compassion for the plight of others prevents them from entering Nirvana and instead they devote themselves to the redemption of others."

In other words, the Dalai Lama represents a world savior of sorts who's "approached the achievement of the buddhahood but has postponed entrance into Nirvana in order to work toward the salvation of all sentient beings," says Merriam-Webster's "Encyclopedia of World Religions." (Note: Nirvana is defined as "the transcendent state of freedom achieved by the extinction of desire and of individual consciousness.")

The Dalai Lama is the incarnation, or physical manifestation of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara who "guards the world in the interval between the departure of the historical, Buddha, Gotama, and the appearance of the future Buddha, Maitreya," informs Merriam-Webster's. "Avalokitesvara protects against shipwreck, fire, assassins, robbers, and wild beasts. He is the creator of the fourth world, the universe in which we live."

Avalokitesvara's female counterpart, Tara, the Buddhist savior-goddess widely popular in Tibet, "is a compassionate deity who helps human beings 'cross to the other shore,' " says the encyclopedia. "She is the protectress of navigation and earthly travel, as well as spiritual travel along the path to Enlightenment."

The reality is that while Buddhism is said to be a godless philosophy devoid of authority—and even a nihilistic philosophy, meaning not only does God not exist but ultimately nothing exists—it's really an ancient pagan religion steeped in superstitious idolatry and ritual-myth worship of gods.

Obviously the contradictions are enormous.

"Human beings must save themselves without spiritual aid," writes Buddhist proponent and popular religious author, Karen Armstrong, in her glowing 2001 biography of Siddhartha Gotama Buddha. "Buddhists must motivate themselves and rely on their own efforts, not on a charismatic leader."

Buddha, according to the religion, is not worshipped as a god and yet there are statues and shrines dedicated to him all over Asia and Southeast Asia. Adherents bring offerings of flowers, incense and burning candles. They bow and pray before their idols.

Inside Buddhism's most famous shrine, the 300-ft. high Golden Pagoda of Rangoon, adorned with Buddha images made from 25 tons of gold, are the sacred hairs of Siddhartha, as well as the robes and sandals of past Buddhas. Relics and other reminders of the Buddha are used in worship rites.

Tibetan Buddhists emphasize the use of meditation mantras, such as Aum or Om, to invoke a blessing or protection. The number one mantra phrase is om mani padmehum, frequently translated "the jewel is in the lotus," and is specifically aimed at invoking help from Avalokitesvara (of which the Dalai Lama is the human embodiment).

Other worship practices, according to Merriam-Webster's encyclopedia, include the "widespread deployment of visual or iconographic symbols (including sacred Mandalas depicting various configurations of the Buddhic cosmos) and—in some relatively rare cases—yogically-disciplined sexual activities."

The late Huston Smith, considered a foremost writer on world religions, confirms in his classic 1950s book, "The Religions of Man," that in Tibetan liturgies, "monks visualize the deities they are invoking with an intensity that makes them seem physically present."

He writes, "It is a spiritual technology, designed to lift the human spirit to the level of the gods in order to partake of their power."

Of course, this type of thinking dates all the way back to Genesis 11 and the Tower of Babel the people wanted to build to reach heaven, thereby putting themselves on the same level as God. All pagan religions stem from the Baal worship system that emerged from this period. It involves sacred temple towers (also ziggurats), engraved gold and brass statues and shrines, incense and burnt sacrifices, sexual rites, repetitive chants, on and on and on.

Idolatry, which is at the heart of Satan's lie program, has to do with making a god out of something other than God Himself. It's about worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator.

In the Bible, the term "gods," with a little "g," is used over and over as a reference to the fallen angels under Satan's headship. They are the angels who've taken part in the satanic rebellion against God and they seek to have men worship them rather than God Almighty, in part through the making of images to represent themselves. Idols are simply the visible representations of these invisible gods.

"Demons inspire the making and the creating of these idols in order to represent themselves and to stand for them and make shrines unto them so that men will bow down and worship them by worshipping the idols," explains my pastor, Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill., in a study I have on tape. "These gods are real creatures, they're real beings and they inhabit the universe and are active in the world in which you and I live."