"Does it have to be new age or organized religion?"
I am assuming this question refers to whether or not we, as individuals and groups, need to choose between the New Age philosophies that are becoming more prevalent and the traditional religious organizations that have been the spiritual mainstay for several thousands of years, in order to walk a spiritual path or discover our true identities and purpose.
Personally, I believe this process of "choosing sides" is necessary at this time. I am a New Age student of Life, and what I see happening at this stage of our development is a sort of "culling" of individuals who choose one side or the other - New Age forward motion that leads to our next spiritual evolutionary stage or old age traditions that leave us continuing along the same paths we have traveled since the dawn of time. One leads to a new paradigm of functional attributes for future development, the other leads to a fulfillment of a promise of everlasting peace and repose. Having the Creator-endowed (according to almost ALL traditions)right of "free-will", there must be a choice. Some will chose the forward path to new experiences, others will choose the staid path of what is already understood and accepted - perhaps to take a "break" from the cycles of these lifetimes lived in this paradigm in anticipation of a new cycle sometime "later".
For those who are not familiar with New Age thought, it is an accepted belief, generally, that we live many lifetimes, and that the purpose of these lifetimes has been to perfect a certain level of understanding and application of fundamental spiritual principles. Obviously, none of us has "perfected" anything in these rounds of existence we have just experienced, but some are "closer" to the understanding of them than others are. Most of us tend to believe that our world goes through cycles of experience and "spiritual evolution", which take us to higher and higher understandings of the cosmic laws of the True Reality. We are now coming to the end of one such cycle, and preparing the beginning of another. I'm not going to go into all the possible physics of the multiverse and how one existence spawns many others - since I am simply not well qualified to do so. But it all relates to this one space in time we find ourselves now - where we are choosing to go to a new reality experience or we are choosing to stay in the old system of things. Some of us are graduating, while other of us are opting to take the course again.
So, for the time being, there are choices being made. While these choices are being made, the various institutions and schools of thought MUST be made available for the exploration of the choices at hand and the experience of each concept. At some point, a choice will be made by a certain majority and the "critical mass" will have been reached, and that is when the new cycle will begin for all of us - and we will find ourselves in that world that we have chosen. One has only to look at such things as the United States Presidential Election to see how evenly divided we are in this country, in terms of ideals. I am suspecting it is such, the world over - and until we reach that point where a definite shift one way or the other has been achieved, these institutions are VITAL to the process.
I believe at some point, these tools for learning, these constructs in which to experience this or that perception, will become obsolete. There is destined, just by virtue of its very conceptual existence, to come a time when the trappings of spiritual experience will no longer be necessary. We use these symbols, these institutions and organizations, these conceptual constructs, in order to create frameworks within which to learn certain concepts and explore them thoroughly. But the true experience of Spirit requires no such construct, no such tools. At the core of our existence, we ARE spirit - almost all traditions believe in this concept, as well. So, if we are spirit, then there is nothing left in the end of all experience but to return to the source - Spirit, the Creator, the Source, God, the Almighty, or whatever name one desires to adhere to that Being or Force. In the meantime, we are processing our knowledge and practicing our understanding, and we may continue to create forms within which to do so.