In the 1980s I found that what you find in the U.S. called New Age didn't exist in Asia then

(unless it was brought to Asia by People from California, the U.S. or Europe basically)

Instead what I found was more of a way of thinking that what we call New Age is really a form of mystical Christianity blended with some of the ideas of Eastern Religions like Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism like this.

However, then you have to deal with completely different cultural contexts for all of this that go back 10,000 years or more in India, Nepal and Thailand and places like this.

So, what I found in 1985 and 1986 was a way of thinking that was more like that the Religions were sort of a practical thing which had to do with surviving Asia more than anything else which is completely logical but not anything like the New Age thought you might find in California or Hawaii for example.

So, the assumptions many people made about what the philosophy of their ideas are were mostly wrong then in 1985 and 1986 which was quite surprising for me at the time.

It reminds me of all my mistaken assumptions about Texas never having been here before this week.

I assumed (wrongly so) that Texas was much like Arizona and New Mexico and it's true that West Texas might be like that. However, where I am now which is Austin reminds me more (this time of year) of Hawaii maybe 10 degrees warmer than I was used to in Hawaii this time of year. For example, the heat index this week will be around 107 degrees because of the humidity here which might be fatal to many homeless people who don't have shelter from the heat.

So, people's assumptions of what people think around the world is often wrong including my own.

So, what I found in Asia was something completely different than I thought before it could be. 

For example, around Tibetan Buddhists the idea I got while there was that spiritual evolution comes more from compassion towards yourself and all others more than anything else.

This also made complete practical sense to me because being compassionate to yourself as well as all others in the universe one becomes basically harmless (but also capable of self defense too).

There is a concept of Idiot Compassion (which might get people killed or maimed) and what is called "Right mindful Compassion" where you use your intelligence to manifest things in a compassionate way for yourself and all beings around you.

This I really liked and still like because it moves a person away from all forms of conscious or unconscious racism which all cultures naturally have against each other and these conscious and unconscious racist tendencies then tend to cause wars and thousands or millions of people die as a direct and indirect result.

So, in this sense having compassion for yourself saves yourself and having compassion for all others saves them too in an ongoing way.

By God's Grace