New Age or Age Old?

     “You can live your own little life as “you” or you can surrender to the source of who you really are – your soul. It is in that realm that real greatness, magic, and miracles happen. This is the Gandhi zone, the Jesus zone. It’s a level of consciousness that the miracle makers of our world are living in.

     When you surrender, that is when the big magic happens…What if you could live life that way? Living in a state where you are always alert to what may be seeking to happen through you, instead of asking why things aren’t happening. A state where you have let go of the way things should happen and stand openhandedly ready to receive whatever is coming.”

     This quote from author and inspirational speaker, Kute Blackson, sounds a little like psycho-spiritual babble to me. His use of the phrase “a level of consciousness,” and the words “zone,” “miracles,” and “magic,” makes me a little skeptical that there is any real depth to the surrender he’s advocating. But the possibility of being locked into a way of thinking and acting that is vital, alive, and energetic, is attractive to say the least.

     Perhaps it is only a thin line that separates New Age thinking from age old wisdom; it may be just a matter of semantics that distinguishes one from the other, for like the “zone” referred to by Blackson, the teachings and traditions of most mainline religions invite their adherents to experience life fully, freely, and forcefully. At their best, religious teachings encourage passion, not passivity, they promote letting go of control and the willingness to follow the lead of the Spirit. This is faith at its best – yielding, trusting, “openhandedly ready to receive whatever is coming.”

     In a desire to conform to religious teachings, we can easily lose sight of their invitation to live not just according to the letter of the law, but to its spirit. When the former becomes our modus operandi, we end up with a “little life,” one whose focus is on keeping our scorecard clean in the eyes of God. A more soulful way to live, one that resembles the “Gandhi zone, the Jesus zone,” is articulated by journalist Hunter Thompson who wrote: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow…What a Ride!”