Quest for finding yourself

In almost every person’s life, there comes a time when he becomes desperate to reach out to his inner self and seek some basic answers. They are gripped with this feeling of being lost and not knowing who they are and why they are doing whatever it is that they are up to in the present.

Have you too reached a dead-end in the quest of finding yourself? Are the umpteen dogmas and rituals of organized religion eating into your peace and leaving you in a bigger mess than you’d intended to get yourself in? Have you walked the narrow path and realized it was only a ploy to pulverize your rationale and sensibilities? Or are you just tired of following an age-old tradition that believes in taking a leap in the dark? Sometimes, life depends on the answer to these things. And then begins a quest which might not always yield the answers you’re looking for. As evolving beings, it is but natural to give in to the cravings of the inner minds, or in religious terms, the soul.
Experts say that human beings are evolving from a species that pursues external power into a species that pursues authentic power. In this pursuit, if uncertainty and confusion are the first words that come to your head, perhaps it’s time to give new age ideologies a shot. Without being sectarian, some schools of thought that have emerged in the last few years train their focus on attaining peace of mind and clarity of thought. World over, the proponents of this creed, the so-called new-age gurus, a.k.a soul doctors, have been doling out their perspectives on peaceful living and have garnered enough followers to start a cult community.
New age has two distinguishing features that separate it from old age. It doesn’t take any particular religion as the authority and secondly, it draws from all religions. New-age proponents, or the mind healers of today, are those, who have embraced the teachings from various scriptures, and given it a clever and acceptable spin for the potential spiritual pilgrims. Even though they shy away from being called the “new-age sages,” the only difference between them and their ascetic predecessors is the medium of interaction.
Noteworthy names like Neale Donald Walsch (Conversations with God), Eckart Tolle (The Power of Now), Sylvie Brown (A Guide to Common Dream Symbols) and Deepak Chopra (How to Know God) are authors of bestselling books, and they advocate a new spirituality through simple-but-effective methods.
Most of them claim to have had life-altering experiences that propelled them on to this path of enlightenment. Armed with these experiences and a short-hand knowledge on the major religions of the world, almost all the new-age sages believe in the power of the mind to restore peace and internal well-being. Although not all of them are agreed on the role material possession plays in individual lives, the general consensus does believe in the ambiguity of right and wrong. Some like Neale Donald Walsch believe that there are no “shoulds” or “shouldn’ts” in God’s world. Do what you want to do. Do what reflects you, what represents you as a grander version of your self. In other words, you cannot be good if you’ve never been bad.
The age-old anecdote of “no day without night” comes to mind. To oversimplify, the new-age gurus have extended the teachings of the original greats (Buddha, Christ, Prophet Mohammed) and made it suitable for a post-modernist society to swallow.
One idea that stands out in all new-age guru approaches is the mind’s role in transforming lives. The differences are basically to do with the methods in achieving this goal. For example, in her book Simple Abundance, inspirational speaker Sara Ban Breathnach urges her followers to “clean up their closets, shun shopping habits and wean themselves from material possessions.”
But there are others like Wayne Dyer, who believe that material possession is immaterial to attaining the truth. But both schools of thought have a substantial following. Even though the subject comprises a wide spectrum of beliefs, the fact is that spirituality is an ageless tradition and will always find takers. Only the perspective will undergo changes, if need be.