How the New Age Misled Me

For some people, the ultimate purpose in life is to find permanence. They try to attain it by achieving a permanent income or settling with their family. In this process, there is always scope for improvement. What is permanent is real, a lesson we already know as children. Some lessons are learnt from childhood, some exist in our mind even before we are born. However, the person seeking permanence in life encounters the stark reality that nothing we earn or amass or call ours is permanent in life. Where is permanence? Is seeking permanence a delusion?

Perhaps it is, when you seek what can be lost, like material things with an expiry date. When you seek things with longer expiry dates, they will remain with you longer. So, can we say permanence is relative, depending on the longevity of the things that matter to us? We must rightly jump to a conclusion here: permanence depends on the things that we consider, which also gives the relativity hypothesis a strong foothold. The question remains: is seeking permanence a delusion?

It took me several years, to be precise: more than a decade, to understand that permanence is real. A longer period of time indicates ample time to make observations. It also means observing complex phenomena because a longer period for observation is similar to taking a step back. It is evocative of the geologists who observe certain earthly formations from high altitudes up in the sky. Often, satellite imagery is taken too, so that observations can be made at a higher altitude, which is not possible for human eyes under normal circumstances when the subject of study is complex and larger.

Seventeen years ago, I used to think everything was relative, only nonpermanence was permanent. I was under the heavy influence of the New Age thought. Strangely, it was at the same time that I became interested in the Bible. However, I read the Bible as a self-help book mostly under the influence of New Age thought. I used to combine often contrasting ideologies together, thinking it was the best way to explain life. If you take a look at my earlier writings, this feature is prominent and visible. Let’s fast forward from that point in time to twelve years. Life is no longer just a visualisation or law of attraction wish-fulfilment. It’s more painfully real. I had manifested a career, which kept me broke, an image for myself, which made me feel more miserable, a marriage, which made me feel abused and incomplete, and so on. In twelve years, I had discovered that most New Age thoughts can produce results, but these results are always Faustian in nature.

The results are never favourable to the individual who entered the practice of New Age thought. These results often lead the person into a path of narcissism; the person acquires a world-view which is often delusional and therefore entirely destructive of the individual as well as his family and society. On the other hand, life became more fulfilling, meaningful, safe, joyous, full of hope, health, and fruitful when I left the New Age and accepted God. Also helpful was the company of writers, scientists, and theologians who belonged to what we often call “the traditional” perspective. Reading them helped me ground myself in the matters that are actually permanent. Another change was that I started reading the Bible as an inspired work of God. What I thought to be permanent, the New Age ideas, such as the magic, Eastern and Western occult, yogic practices, tarot, astrology, soul connection, the centrality of subjectivity, different gods for different things in life, etc., disintegrated.

Practising the New Age was rather risky and dangerous because the results were often harmful. However, I realised that even when I was practising the New Age, I was seeking, with a genuine heart, the nearness of God. I was searching for God. I knew God existed, but this knowledge was not based on any personal experience. It was just ‘knowing’. I wanted to see signs and wonders. The New Age was offering a shortcut. I took it and it destroyed me. Although I was struggling in life, I also wanted to receive God. That's when I witnessed the greatest miracle in my life: I became aware of the love God has for me. It was not just a “knowing” as I said previously. It was a feeling and a tangible experience like any human experience. Someone was guiding me from the cross. Suddenly, the Bible started to mean more than just personal empowerment. It became the root map showing how God expressed His love for his creation. It was a roadmap that, if taken carefully, could also lead us in the direction where it all started: yes, it could lead us to God himself.

Realising all the things that were wrong with my life was the biggest sign and miracle. Of course, it was not an easy task to turn life around at this stage. My partner was abusive, my life was mostly unproductive, with a tinge of depression hanging in the corner to pounce at me at the lowest moment. I felt shame in admitting that everything was wrong with my decisions. It offered no consolation to realise that if I walked in the path of God, I had to lose everything that I had manifested. But I made the choice right away. It was a happy choice to walk with God. Certainly, it entailed great tribulations: shame, criticism, social trials, trauma, financial struggle, legal complexities, and much more. The burden of my own choices had given me more than what I could bear. It was clear to me that I couldn’t survive if I continued living in the New Age style. I still don’t know how I got the courage to say enough is enough to my abusive partner and the relationship. Breaking the news to my family and friends was also difficult and entailed endless hours of arguments, analysis, and solution-finding.

This short write-up is my testimony that the road to heaven is narrow and full of hardships. The road to destruction is a highway. The way is difficult but not misleading or delusional. Apostle Matthew says through divine inspiration: “For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:14 NRSV.) Thank God, I found it!

I told you that I was seeking God even during my New Age days. After all these years, I was still doing that, although I had learned where to look. Yes, the only thing that was permanent in my life was my search for God. I’d like to position myself in relation to God, the only one permanent. Let’s go back seventeen years; there during my Master’s, one day a teacher asked me, “Anu Lal is the God you believe in, a Christian God?” At the time, I paused a few seconds and responded that the God I believe in is an all-pervasive, all-knowing God. Now, years later, I am closer to the truth because these years gave me a chance to observe and note the facts. The God I believe in is the God Jesus Christ showed. So, yes, since it is God shown by Christ, the best adjective to use to describe this God is ‘Christian God.’

This piece is rather short. But I am sure that it can serve as my testament to what is true, everlasting, and permanent. This is the way!