How Spiritual are the New Age Spiritualists?

In India we have some crowd pulling spiritual characters and establishments with a turnover of millions.Hinduism and Christianity leads the group I think, though Muslims are not far behind.These centres run by these spiritual-so called-characters have the status of a multinational, multicrore business empire. How has it come about. I have been rereading Swami Vivekananda and his observations and warnings more than a century ago about persons like these are relevant even today. "Every attempt at control which is not voluntary, not with the controller's own mind, is not only disastrous, but it defeats the end. The goal of each soul is freedom, mastery — freedom from the slavery of matter and thought, mastery of external and internal nature. Instead of leading towards that, every will-current from another, in whatever form it comes, either as direct control of organs, or as forcing to control them while under a morbid condition, only rivets one link more to the already existing heavy chain of bondage of past thoughts, past superstitions. Therefore, beware how you allow yourselves to be acted upon by others. Beware how you unknowingly bring another to ruin. True, some succeed in doing good to many for a time, by giving a new trend to their propensities, but at the same time, they bring ruin to millions by the unconscious suggestions they throw around, rousing in men and women that morbid, passive, hypnotic condition which makes them almost soulless at last. Whosoever, therefore, asks any one to believe blindly, or drags people behind him by the controlling power of his superior will, does an injury to humanity, though he may not intend it.

Therefore use your own minds, control body and mind yourselves, remember that until you are a diseased person, no extraneous will can work upon you; avoid everyone, however great and good he may be, who asks you to believe blindly. All over the world there have been dancing and jumping and howling sects, who spread like infection when they begin to sing and dance and preach; they also are a sort of hypnotists. They exercise a singular control for the time being over sensitive persons, alas! often, in the long run, to degenerate whole races. Ay, it is healthier for the individual or the race to remain wicked than be made apparently good by such morbid extraneous control. One's heart sinks to think of the amount of injury done to humanity by such irresponsible yet well-meaning religious fanatics. They little know that the minds which attain to sudden spiritual upheaval under their suggestions, with music and prayers, are simply making themselves passive, morbid, and powerless, and opening themselves to any other suggestion, be it ever so evil. Little do these ignorant, deluded persons dream that whilst they are congratulating themselves upon their miraculous power to transform human hearts, which power they think was poured upon them by some Being above the clouds, they are sowing the seeds of future decay, of crime, of lunacy, and of death. Therefore, beware of everything that takes away your freedom. Know that it is dangerous, and avoid it by all the means in your power.

Will anybody listen, I wonder.

Sounds like religion to me. New age, old age, any age.

I do not think it is just religion. It is much more and dangerous than that.Lot of groups with money power which allow these groups to control millions of people. For example all these so called Asrams- Sai Baba who had tons of Gold and money and the Amrita Asram with multi crore investament, The Sri....Sri.. foundations etc. are more than religion and so are the so called divine centres under Christian missionaries and the Muslim organisatisns having millions under their control. With all the technological support including communication these power centres are being a threat to those who are not of these groups as they also have political patronage from the powerful.They perhaps have their own religions and cults - off tangent from the original religions

The terribly slippery slope of greed that we are all trying to not slide down..

We find, that others will do what they gotta do, and most of the time they know not what the repercussions. Focus where we find good honest work and support that - in line with the beautiful notion from the Talmud, that in saving one life the whole world is saved.

Narayanvee - if you quote Vivekanand, it has to be treated with respect but if you really think about what he is saying, I get the following:

1. He is pointing to trends, which he might have seen prevalent at the time of making the statement, affecting the audience he spoke to. I agree with Nick, the form of institution may be different, but it is similar to what "Religion" does - make you less free than more.

2. He is appealing to the individuals to think for themselves not neccessarily focus on leaving others and following him (that would be going from one bondage to another). So criticising Sri Sri or others may not be the natural conclusion - they may be doing some good in their own right - who are we to judge (are we doing anything better?).

The key point to ponder is - "are we currently free". Going by the spirit of this thread, I shall not offer my thoughts on it, let each find their own answer.

I am one of those who holds that Sree Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekanand and Sree Ramana Maharshi were 3 pillars of spiritualism in India in the recent past and none of the present hi-tech spiritualists and their multi-crore arrangements are no where near these great ones. Besides these great ones I know there may be many whom we know nothing about, as there have been great men unknown to the general public ie. who do not care about the outside world.
I am also one who believe that what Swamiji said has universal applicability- beyond time or space. IMHO thinking that it is just "Smriti" and not "Sruti" is a mistake. Opinions vary, of course.