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Experiential spirituality may be confused with the adaptation of new ideas or the taking on of new identities. Spirituality may be donned as another external appearance, and there will be those of strong egoistic natures who will use this new spirituality to take advantage of others and promote themselves. These trends are already evident, so much so that there may be those who may wish to reject the new
spirituality altogether.
However, these limitations are part
of a slow awakening to true spirituality from a non-spiritual basis
that must first misinterpret or misuse spirituality before really
coming to understand it. The influence of mass media-oriented
commerciality, the dominant force of the age, will naturally taint
this renascent spirituality, yet the long term trend will bring
greater light, depth, clarity and understanding through all such
initial difficulties and pain of new birth.
Though as a planet we may still be
decades, if not centuries, from a truly spiritual culture, that is
the eventual goal of all our individual and collective striving
which at least the more aware among us must recognize, wherever in
the world we may live. One of the religions which will greatly
benefit from the new spirituality is Hinduism, whose universality is
inherent in its original formulation as Sanatana Dharma, the eternal
tradition of Truth and natural law. Modern spiritual teachers from
the Hindu tradition - like Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Aurobindo,
Yogananda, Shivananda and Gandhi, to mention a few - have been at
the forefront of the new universality in religion and experiential
forms of spirituality.
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