A question of faith

• 25 November, 2022
• culture
• religion

Let's start with Judaism. Judaism is arguably the world's oldest religion. I personally regard Judaism as a great deal more than a religion. It's an archaic religion, just like Hinduism, and also very similar to Hinduism Judaism is a way of being, it's a an entire set of philosophies, religion, a lot of mysticism, a complete culture and a way of life. It's incredibly difficult to understand what Judaism really means and how extensive it is if you're not Jewish yourself. Out of Judaism we get the Kaballah, we get the westernized concept of Natural Law, in fact the Western concept of law comes out of Judaism.

I regard Christianity as a 'second wave' religion. It can be argued that Christianity is the world's first monotheistic spiritual movement, because essentially Christianity is a stripped down version of Judaism packaged for export. Christianity came into being around the same time as Buddhism in northern India around 5th century BC almost a century after Taoism developed out of the Yin Yang school of the I-Ching as a counter to Confucianism. Christianity started out as an esoteric mystical sect or cult which went against the orthodox teachings of Judaism and for much of its early history practising Christianity was illegal both in the Middle East and the Roman Empire.

"I am the truth, the light and the way"

Just like Buddhism is about 'dharma' or the 'abidhamma' which means 'method' or 'way', Christianity is about 'The Way'. This is stated explicitly in the Holy Bible - John 14: 6 - this is the ultimate Bible quote, because it gives you the fundamental premise of Christianity in a single sentence. In its first millenium of development Christianity was a set of mystical teachings which explains the recurring use of numbers throughout the Bible - three, four, twelve, seven, and so on. In this way Christianity developed very much in the same way as Buddhism but where Buddhism uses lists, e.g. the Four Noble Truths, the Five Precepts, the Eightfold Path, Christianity was developed on the basis of parables and numerology.

While Christianity originated in Judaea much of its early development took place in Alexandria by Christian mystics. This was because Christianity did not become legal until AD 70 or thereabouts and it wasn't until around 300-500 AD that Christ became the central messianic figure. At the time Alexandria was a large centre of trade between east and west and many mystics worked out of Alexandria. There were many Christian mystics, including Clement, St Cyril, Origen, and an obscure Syrian monk who passed himself off as Dionysius - St Paul's first convert in Athens - but who later became known as Dionysius The Aeropagite. Dionysius The Aeropagite wrote two short books, titled 'Divine Names' and 'Theologica Mystica' which established Christianity as a faith based spiritual movement.

What was established was the fact that God could never be known and that faith was necessary to find God. Salvation comes not by works and not by knowledge, but by faith and grace. It was this premise, that God could not be known, which led to the creation of Christ as the messianic figure, and this was done to effect the transition so that Man could become God and God could become Man. This is how Christianity arrived at the Gospel according to John and John 14: 6 where Jesus said "I am the truth, the light and the way, and none shall come to the Father except through me."

The Priest v. the Mystic

Central to Christianity it seems is an internal conflict between the priest and religious authority on the one hand, and the mystic and religious freedom on the other. This was because after the Councils of Trent, Constantinople, and Nicea the Church figured that if it were to continue as a method to allow Christians the freedom to be their own mystics, then these people would not have any time for either the Church or religious authority and Christianity would become unworkable. Having expanded into Europe the Church saw itself as the moral authority in society and so developed its hierarchy of priests, clerics, and so on, religious authorities, and out of this we get the concept of the Ego, external authority, divine grace and the concept of sin. Indeed it was the Church who coined the term 'the Fall of Man' for the evolutionary shift some 10,000 years ago or thereabouts when human beings developed settled agrarian societies and began agricultural practices and living off the land.

But in order to get across to people the concept of sin and morality they needed both moral authority and a scapegoat, i.e. someone who fell short of divine grace. They found their scapegoat - a woman.

This is how we get the Book of Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve. Let's consider the original sin in question. Eve interacted with a wild animal, the serpent and took fruit from a tree in what can be described as an act of humanity. Trees need animals to distribute their seeds so they can reproduce. Trees cannot move around and cannot copulate. Have you ever seen a tree on top of another tree engaging in sexual intercourse? I haven't. But see, she took the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, and you can only accept this if you embrace the concept of divine authority, a human-centric worldview of God as creator of the universe and the world, and the concept of religious authority and the Ego.

As a result Christianity was no longer about 'The Way', or about reincarnation and karma, and faith became replaced by ideology. The priest, the church and religious doctrines took over and from that point forward in order to receive divine grace you had to embrace the religious authority of the Church and be deserving of divine grace. This is how the Ego became a tool of oppression particularly in relation to women, perpetrators of the original sin and also a tool of oppression used against sexual minorities and those people in society who fell short.

The Woman of the Apocalypse

As you can see, when we come to the Woman of the Apocalypse, we can see that the image of this woman is taken from a composite of The High Priestess and The Empress cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot. Now please keep in mind that the Tarot was developed from the Middle Ages and originated in 15th century Italy as a card game known as 'tarocchi'. It is a relatively late method of divination, being developed as such much later than other forms of divination, such as numerology, the I-Ching, rune casting and palmistry. Any connection to such aspects of the occult such as paganism, witchcraft, magic, ancient Egyptian cosmology, the Kaballah is false and originated by 19th century French occultists. While some Tarot decks originate from the Middle Ages, the Rider-Waite deck was developed by UK occultist A. E Waite to simplify the Tarot and popularize it in 1910.

The Woman of the Apocalypse is of course inspired by the Virgin Mary, a woman so immaculate and untainted by sin that she can give birth to a messiah, the only son of God. But while the Virgin Mary was the mother in the first incarnation, she returns as the Woman of the Apocalypse to give birth a second time around when Christ returns. This is second wave religious stuff as Revelations is New Testament.

Similarly the Bible has had many revisions throughout the ages. The Bible is not the divinely inspired word of God received in the Middle Ages or the English language around the year 1611. This is a very dangerous assumption to make. This brings us to the thorny question of religious, and indeed mystical authority. I am not going to claim any authority over what I have written here, despite calling myself a mystic. What I am doing here is merely pointing out to you the evolution of Christianity based on what I have managed to understand from my research of the history behind Christianity.

I will leave any claims to authority to the Christian Church. It is after all their Bible and their holy scripture. I will grant you that the four gospels are a fairly accurate historical description, in particular the 'source' gospel according to John. But when it comes to the miraculous stories and the parables, this is where the authority of the Church is based on very shaky ground. For example the Book of Genesis and the parables of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and of Noah and the flood. I write this after a great deal of training in Theravada and decades of self-study in the occult and magic.

You see we in the West through sciences have achieved some pretty amazing things. The Ego has developed into various branches of psychology and we have the technology to both enslave the planet and even destroy it. Buddhist shamen and Taoist magicians have never promised to be able to do this. However I'm concerned with the growing discussion and debate into religious freedom simply because religious freedom which is not backed up by mystical insight and conscious awareness amounts to nothing more than a dangerous ideology. We have already witnessed what can happen when you get Christianity combined with a dangerous ideology lacking in mystical insight. I am of course referring to the Shoah, or the Holocaust. Jihad is another example, albeit a Muslim one, of a dangerous ideology lacking in mystical insight and conscious awareness.

My unsolicited advice to Christians (and Muslims)

Please keep in mind that I'm neither rejecting or dismissing Christianity or Islam here as a religion or belief system. A lot of what has gone into the Bible has come from different mystics, St Gregory of Nyssa, Clement, Origen, Dionysius The Aeropagite, St Thomas Aquinas, and others. A lot of mystical work has gone into the Bible over the centuries, just as the Jewish Torah and the Hindu Vedas before it. The Bible wasn't complete in its first version until 382 AD and you got the Bible on the authority of the Catholic Church.

But what you really need to work out here, and work out for yourself, is whether Christianity is a matter of religious authority or a matter of religious freedom. It cannot be both. If Christianity is for you a matter of Church and religious authority then you have to consider how well you yourself measure up to the doctrines and dogma of the Church. Are you living your life completely to Christian doctrines and the word of God? Have you never sinned in your life? However if Christianity for you is a matter of faith, as it is for many Christians, then surely Christianity is all about the method, the path and the practice, and with this the mystical work necessary to be able to properly interpret the Bible. This is where Christianity becomes about religious freedom.

Now you may claim that the Bible is divinely inspired and the word of God, delivered to the angels and apostles. You can quote to me as many Bible passages as you like, and you may claim that I am going to hell or will face the day of judgment, but ultimately this is just your opinion and nothing more than this. I don't agree with you. In fact I will even go as far to say that you're deluding yourself even if I won't say it to your face. I will just play along and let you continue to live in your own little dream world. So don't expect my support or sympathy when you scream about the rights of unborn children or demand execution for a convicted murderer or you claim that the gays and transgendered are an abomination. I don't support liars and fakes. The truth you claim exists in the word of the Bible is still your opinion and belief and truth are two completely different, unrelated things.

However if you are a practising Christian, or Muslim, then we share some common ground because while I've made many many mistakes and messed up along the way, I have actually lived my life according to the strict practices of Theravada Buddhism since the age of 17. I am in a position to say this because divine grace and divine inspiration cannot be found in words. It is something which can be sensed, felt, experienced, and if you are truly enlightened you will not find a way to put it into words. What I am referring to is enlightenment, something which is freely accessible to everyone, not just me, not just you, but everyone.

You see religious freedom, if it means anything, means freedom from religion, or more specifically, freedom from religious authority. It means you are spiritually awake, aware of your path, aware of your karma, and aware of the nature of the soul work you need to get yourself through in life. Not everybody who walks into a church (or a mosque) becomes spiritually awake. They get caught up in the words, and believing the truth to exist in the words, they get caught up in the conflicts, the struggles and the distractions. I've met many Christians and Muslims who were spiritually awake, totally at one with themselves and others, and when you look into their eyes you know that they cannot ever be distracted from their path. Furthermore they cannot be distracted from their soul work either.

Let me also be clear that there is no blame for those who stray from the path and get lost in the words, just as there is no merit or reward for walking the path and doing the soul work. It's just that some people are born into a life and an incarnation where they have additional work to do before they can even begin to spiritually awaken, while others are born into a life and an incarnation where they can more easily find that divine grace and be in a position to do that necessary soul work. I'm still writing about the same thing here, religious freedom. What I'm writing here is no different from the teachings of Christ. Some people are born into a different karma, have a different agenda, and part of this spiritual awakening and religious freedom is to recognize this and not put other people down because they have a different karma or agenda.

Religious freedom through spiritual awakening is also known as faith. If Christianity is about anything, then surely this is what Christianity is really all about.