tion; we want to worship ourselves….do our own thing” (Aubin, 23). Clark and Geisler have observed the same idea. “Zen,” they wrote, (p. 34), propounds a philosophy of life that fits these times. For example, without the moral constraints of bodhisattva vows or the discipline of the master in the temple, Zen can degenerate into a rationalization for self-centered living….All of us should ‘do our own thing’ and ‘get in touch with ourselves.’ And, why get in touch with ourselves? Why, because we are ‘gods!” That’s the message that people were paying $300 to hear from Shirley MacLaine (Friedrich, 1987, cited by Clark and Geisler, p. 9-10). Swami Muktananda, the “guru who got former California governor Jerry Brown, among others, into yoga, put it this way: ‘Kneel to your own self. Honor and worship your own being. God dwells in you as you’ ” (Minnery, 1987, cited by Clark and Geisler, p. 9).How does this substantiate the observance of internalization as a factor in New Age persuasion? As Baron observed, “the classes constantly stressed that obedience to the higher self is a very important requirement for progress to be made on the path to God-consciousness,” (59-60). “Obedience?!” “ Requirement?!” How is it that these words, which have been rejected as the ‘dogmatic downside” of organized religion, pop in the wonderful New Age? Baron found that getting in touch with self was a matter of making the inner self available to the “teachers” of the spirit world. He believes that it was not his inner self who told him to break off his relationship, quit his job, and send himself almost into bankruptcy to financially support “the cause,” but his inner mind, “emptied of self,” being commanded to obey. And, what took him, and so many others so long to react against...
