THE ORIGINAL TRADITION
The Power of Reality
2

 

 

 

 

 

THE ORIGINAL TRADITION
The Power of Reality
1

THE ORIGINAL TRADITION
The Power of Reality
2

THE ORIGINAL TRADITION
The Power of Reality
3

Our Interreligious Initiative

Christianity is in great trouble. Increasingly people turn their back to it. Pastors are faced with stress, fatigue and burn-out, desperately looking for "new inspiration". Old stories are "revived", repeated ad nauseam. How painful to see religion degenerate at such an unstoppable pace. Everything is questioned: the existence of God, the identity of Jesus, the claim of redemption, the truth of the Bible, the role of the priesthood, the truth of dogma's, the value of Church rituals, the loyalty of the laity etc., etc. Nothing is spared....One only pretends to rejoice, while deep in one's heart one daily struggles with meaninglessness and despair. For long the search for Truth has been abandoned. Instead, people cling to an illusion for dear life. At the end of the day a painful discovery is waiting for them: an emperor without any clothes on

Many try to revive their dying Church bodies through participating in interfaith groups. Through the confrontation with other religions, you somehow feel "meaningful", once again. However, reconciliation with other faiths pre-supposes reconciliation with your own tradition first. How can you contribute to openness and clarity, while your own home is still a mess? Indeed, in order to make peace with others you first have to make peace with yourself. Looking into our own tradition, the shocking truth cannot be hidden anymore. The former is characterized by continuous war! Church history is a story of exclusion, rejection, intolerance and oppression of everybody and everything that didn't submit to the power politics of the Church. For that we had to give up everything that made us alive!

The Original Tradition:
Re-integrating that which was excluded

In Jungian psychology the phenomenon of the shadow is emphasized. Everything that you reject becomes part of it. So, everything that is too embarassing to the ego - all fear, pain, anger, lust for life, joy, surrender, sex, adventure, dreams - is stored here. It is a process of rejection. Through it the ego becomes "stronger" and "stronger", not realizing that this is because more and more life is being excluded. Instead, the latter accumulates in the (unconscious) shadow. In its turn this content is threatening the "stability" of he ego, through which the latter becomes even more rigid. It is the psychology of the "authoritarian personality". However, it can be applied to organizational bodies too. For 2000 years the Church is such a body. It could maintain itself through ruthless power. Once this power weakened, like in our times, the Churches' ego is unable to control its shadow anymore. The latter breaking through like a surge.

 

Our treasures lie dormant in what has been oppressed. Logically, in the first stages of release the stream had been quite chaotic. Our ego's were overrun by an uncontrollable flow of new impressions. Instead of ego rigidity ego weakness dominated our bodyminds. We felt (feel) lost. The culture fails in providing us a new inner structure. It doesn't offer a replacement, at all. On the contrary, it deliberately sucks us into the abyss of addiction. How to get out of the morass? Luckily, as through Divine Grace, we discovered our surplus value. The Church is dead, long live Spirituality. Through the fertilizing effect of Eastern practices (Buddhism) we re-discovered our Inner Essence, the Divine Spark (Meister Eckhart) within us. Rather than rely on our ego only, we found our True Self, a new center of inner stability, a new point of reference, through which we are able to facilitate the integration of our shadow.   

The Original Tradition:
Regenerating Western spirituality and religion

The Original Tradition is re-integrating everything that was excluded in the past. Through it the dead corpse of Western religion is resurrected. What the Church killed (through its own suicidal action) comes to life, once again. Indeed, reason for great joy! Through us the True Mystery of Life - death and rebirth - enters a new stage in evolution. So what has been killed in the past? Most of us have no idea. We live in complete historical-religious amnesia, a spiritual Alzheimer so to speak. Especially the Churches themselves suffer from it. They seek "solutions" in repeating the "politically" correct dogma's. Most of them don't see, that the chance for renewal lies in those areas that were rejected and excluded in the past. Opening up to those areas will turn the crisis into a chance. The archetypes of Green Men and Wise Women are crucial in this regard. In England the clergy are increasingly aware of their renewing role. F.i. great care is given in restoring sculptures. We - as Original Tradition - see it as our mission to support people, groups, organizations and churches all over Europe and beyond in regaining their inner vitality.  

 

In order to be healed open discussion about the past is a sine qua non. We have to know the character of our wounds, as a pre-requisite for cure. After all, our regeneration lies in accepting our shadow, the place where our suffering is stored. So, some (very) painful facts have to be elaborated. Such as: The Church did not shy away from using all possible means to force people to believe in the "Christian" faith. You had to fully accept the dogma's and teachings. The one's who didn't were intimidated, sent into exile, excommunicated, persecuted, tortured or put to death. It was he Churches' ongoing crusade against freedom of religion. An entire culture suffered from the threat of oppression. In a sense, we were (are) all the "wretched of the earth". Our true spiritual longings couldn't be fulfilled. Nowadays, Church elites have been replaced by political ones. Aren't we denied to participate in society as well? The majority is deliberately excluded from equal cultural/social and political chances. In a way, whole populations are still excluded, rejected, exploited and oppressed. It started with religion. In order to heal our "souls" it is to religion we have to return first. That's why The Original Tradition is taking the lead with initiating the healing process 

The Original Tradition:
Successor to Christianity

The First Treasure

We celebrate the Cosmic Mother, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven as the Ultimate Reality from Which the entire universe originates. She is the unfathomable bottomless Mystery of All Life, giving birth to both the Divine ("God", the Light) - Her Light Body - as well as the world (the universe, the earth) - Her Material Body - both continuously returning to their Maternal Origin, where they are uninterruptedly reborn

The Second Treasure

We celebrate the unbroken tradition - The Original Tradition - ranging from the earliest of times in which the Mother and Her Divine Sons/Daughters are worshipped as a unity. Christianity isn't that unique beginning - as claimed by the Church - but a continuation of Divine Revelation through Goddesses and Dying and Resurrecting Gods. Think of Inanna and Tammuz, Isis and Osiris, Anat and Baal, Astarte and Jahweh, Cybele and Attis, Zeus, the heavenly Bull, Son of the Mother, Aphrodite and Adonis, Dionysos and yes....Mary Magdalene and Jesus. There appears to be an ongoing link between Jesus and his predecessors, a fact that the Church has tried to hide with all means. Ironically, almost every part of the Churches' tradition had been stolen from ancient times, subsequently distorted to suit the Churches' purpose. We, on the other hand, are aiming to restore the original ongoing Revelation and Realization, renewing the tradition while at the same time returning to its roots.

The Third Treasure

We celebrate the Truth as the ultimate Goal of our Path. In a world totally corrupted by lies only an uncompromising surrender to Divine Reality can save us. Only the Truth can stop the decay e.g. the degeneration on all levels of existence. The source is the corruption of religion. Therefore, we have to unmask all Church manipulations, with the purpose to reveal the sufferings we have gone through. Subsequently,  we celebrate all saints, all those (or their teachings) that have been persecuted by the Church because of the testimony of their inner Truth: from Simon Magus to Mary Magdalene, from Montanus to Origenes, from Hermes Trismegistos to Emperor Julian the "Apostate", from Pelagius to Julian of Eclanus, from the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit to Meister Eckhart, from the Cathars to the Templars and the Grail Legend, from the Troubadours to the worship of the Black Madonna's, from the Beguines and female Mystics (a.o. Hildegard of Bingen, Birgitta of Sweden) to the "Witches", from Giordano Bruno to Thomas Müntzer, etc. etc.

The Fourth Treasure

We celebrate the (Gnostic) Teachings of God-Realization, our own Divine Nature within. Contrary to Church dogma ("original sin") we are inherently good, born from and through Original Grace. Therefore, we follow the teachings of Jesus, where he emphasizes this very fact. "The Light is within you" and "The Kingdom of Heaven is among us". Not in a "christological" sense, though, which is an attempt to return to Church dogma (in which people speak of "Christ within me"). No, it is the Divine itself, exceeding every limitation, that is at our Innermost Core. Thus, follow Jesus, yes!, provided you not only copy his virtues, but also and foremost realize his Cosmic Essence, from which these virtues are arising. Holiness should be a pre-requisite for everyone who claims to guide others on the spiritual Path. Additionally, we reject the Churches' manipulations with the Bible, resulting in the fact that only approximately 15% is genuine. Instead, we embrace the Truth of the original scriptures of all traditions - to begin with classical, mystery, neoplatonic, gnostic and hermetic texts - as equal paths to Unity  

The Fifth Treasure

We celebrate The Universal Way, sharing a common spiritual practice, aiming at Self-Realization, Healing and Integration. Practice is leading to Unity with the Divine and with each other, while theorizing - concepts, convictions, ideas - is leading to division and separation. It is due to Buddhism that the West got to know about awareness as one's innermost Core. To Christianity, the idea that deep within we are all Divine was the greatest possible sin ("blasphemy"). Buddhism - Vipassana and Zen - and Vedanta have broken this taboo. Reason to be eternally grateful. Crucial is not to (mis)use these practices in order to once again strengthen old beliefs and dogma's, but to accept the challenge of total renewal. To this purpose the Divine granted me the gift of guiding you on your spiritual Path. The Way consists of an integrated approach of 7 steps*

* See: "The Universal Way"

The Sixth Treasure

We celebrate the sacredness of nature. For 2000 years the Church has denounced, villified, cursed, demonized and destroyed nature, calling it the source of all evil. Its ruthlessness with regard to cutting holy trees, sacred groves, poisoning holy wells, destroying altars and other sacred objects in nature has no equivalent. It was Christianity that desecrated nature! Stories about "heroic" missionaries like Boniface, Ludger and Amand are legendary. Famous is the story in which a blind woman was cured (sic...) from blindness, after she had been forced to cut a sacred tree. The consequences were grave. Seeing that the Church was "victorious" over the forces of nature, people lost their awe for them e.g. started exploiting the latter. Instead of being part of nature people were seeking dominion over her. Despite that, in the Middle Ages, Green Men emerged in and on churches. The Original Spirit of Oneness with the earth proved to be still there. A great triumph, indeed! Hence, Green Men and Wise Women are the hopefuls in restoring the sacredness of nature, indeed a New Step in Evolution*

* See: "Sacred Heritage"

The Seventh Treasure

We celebrate the Transformation of Self and Society. Isn't the global crisis a symptom of the collapse of a blown-up ego? Because the Church has prevented us from becoming deeply Ourselves, we replaced Being by having. Deep within we long for the Divine within us, though. In fact, the Divine is longing for us! By preventing God unifying Itself with us the Church committed a major crime. It blocked the road to God-Realization as our innermost Core, this in order to dominate our souls. Once the road to our Spirit was blocked - the inquisition terrorized us for many centuries - we started yearning for a substitute. We became addicted to money, status and power. The latter can never satisfy our original longing, though, hence our additiction becoming an obsession. Everything was eventually dragged down by it, resulting into an ego-centric, individualistic, materialistic, injust, violent and destructive society. Society being the manifestation e.g. reflection of our ego's! Realizing this, we have accepted our responsibility toward healing the world through taking the lead with our Healing the Planet Initiative*

* See: "Transformation/Healing the Planet in 7 Steps"     

A New (Wo)Man for A New World

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Last revising: 08/09/12