Went today to a Church called SpiritWorks: Center for Spiritual Living. It is a Church dedicated to New Age ideals... or, as their Reverend was quick to correct me, "New Thought."
I felt that the energy of the congregation was warm and welcoming. There was certainly a lot of happiness being passed around. The people were good and the Reverend spoke with a good deal of passion. I can see that this is a Church family of people looking for a chance to connect with God in a more "spiritually logical" way....
However, there is something about the New Age movement that strikes me as a tree without roots. A structure on a faulty foundation. The Reverend quoted from many sources, including one quote from the Bible taken completely out of context, and several other quotes from "spiritual" books written by "practitioners," namely Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes. I cornered the Reverend after his service and asked what exact philosophy his Church is drawing from. He seemed confused by the question. I stated that there appears to be a large mix of Buddhist philosophy and Judeo-Christian terminology (such as Spirit, Soul, and God.) At this point, he said that he draws most of his sermons from the book by Ernest Holmes.
My question is really this -- if you are teaching a congregation about spiritual Enlightenment, are you Enlightened yourself? And if you are not Enlightened yourself, then are you teaching from the words of someone who is? Anyone who has read a religious text can rephrase it, teach it, and call themselves Enlightened or "Awakened to the Spirit" or whatever correlating term there is. That does not mean they really are. God and unity is more than a concept -- it is an experience, and to call people "spiritual masters" simply for understanding an idea is extremely misleading. The blind cannot lead the blind. To practice a true spiritual path that will lead to any sort of real, permanent awakening, one needs a teacher who has reached that level of Enlightenment. The inability of the Science of Mind organizations to unify themselves into a singular structure is already a sign that their leadership is divided, meaning, not unified... meaning, ultimately, that nothing is unified in their hearts... and as we all should know, Enlightenment is the internal experience of unity, of the interconnectedness of all things.
I understand that certain people are drawn to the New Age movement because it appears on the surface to "make more sense" than older religions. A lot of people are tired of feeling "guilty" or fearing "God's punishment" so are seeking another way to connect to God. But really, if you are going to attempt to spiritually awaken yourself, you should follow the path of someone who has actually reached Enlightenment... like, say, the Buddha, or arguably Christ. All that I heard in today's sermon was a bunch of New Age terms such as "god self" and "synergy" pasted over what was really a dim shadow of Eastern philosophy, misinterpreted and misrepresented to a congregation of innocent people in search of spiritual truth.
There is no spiritual truth to be found in the New Age. Not until we have a new prophet, a new Buddha, a new Teacher who has achieved a true union with God, a true realization of the higher Self. Until then, there will be no Enlightenment from the New Age... only people squinting to see auras and attempting to feel their "chakra energy." Do some research before you decide to throw your heart into something. Don't be fooled by pseudo-logical terms and explanations. God ultimately defies logic... and the path to Enlightenment has nothing to do with definitions and mind tricks and everything to do with acts of compassion. For every hour you give in Church, give two hours to the homeless, two hours to the sick, two hours to those who are abandoned and broken... this is the path to Enlightenment.
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