By:Thomas M Easley

In the beginning, a disciple in search of meaningful insight looked for a teacher to help him awaken the flame. To gain strength and a will more masterful than his own required that he make a conscious sacrifice to the authority of those ahead of him. This entreaty, once consummated, became the presumptive devotees first act of conscious will and the beginning of a lifetime of equitable service and study.

The modernist world of popspirituality refutes this premise. Pop-spiritualists celebrate self-help, self-potential, self-fulfilment, self-praise, selfishness, amarauding corporal egoism at labour to gain popular acceptance by semantic manipulation and progressive marketing.

Rather than contribute personal responsibility towards the well-being of the whole, popspiritualists promulgate an I-I-I, me-me-me canon. Pop-spirituality is a trend created by market forcesbut pop-spiritualists mistakenly believe that an individual, if he is truly individual, cannot mislead himself. But there is a difference between honest and dishonest spirituality, between real and imagined revelation. Because pop-spirituality is fashionable and followers of fashion must follow, pop-spirituality cannot create a mature leadership; it cannot enlighten our lone moment of death.

Having scant recourse to the mysteries, traditions of proven knowledge or self-sacrifice, pop-spirituality is paradigmatic of harbingers forecasting an inevitable rendezvous with the last disciple.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Talk of pop spirituality - Times of India (blog)