A Brief Historical Survey
The Difference Between Spirituality and Religion
Before delving into the history of humanity’s spiritual and religious traditions, it will be useful to define and clarify the difference between spirituality and religion.
General Overview
What follows is a general overview, in capsule form, of the history of spiritual evolution on Earth in the form of the main "streams" of spiritual culture and traditions:
Shamanism
The term “shaman” is believed to derive from a Siberian tribe, and has come to be a generic term that refers to the typical tribal “holy-man/woman, mystic, healer, priest”. “Shamanism” has come to mean that body of practices that encompasses the range of mystical and spiritual practices engaged in by the shaman.
In a sense, all the esoteric spiritual traditions had their origins in the shamanistic technique of “sympathetic magic”, which was a method for employing the imagination in the service of manifesting something, or bringing about a desired change -- whether outwardly or inwardly.
Goddess Deification
As indicated above, paying central homage to the Goddess archetype is one of the oldest known traditions, and survives in modern times through certain Western pagan traditions, as well some schools of Eastern Tantra. Though Tantra is found in both Hindu and Buddhist culture, it originated in the former, and is closely connected to kundalini yoga, which involves spiritual practices geared toward the arousal of the kundalini-shakti force, the latent spiritual energy within humans, an energy which has been personified as an expression of the universal Goddess.
Hermetic schools
The term “Hermetic” derives from the Greek deity “Hermes”, but has come to also be synonymous with the Egyptian deity known as “Thoth”. What is meant here by “Hermetic” is the entire field of ritual and ceremonial magic that was a central part of many of the “Mystery Schools” of antiquity, most of which trace their roots back to ancient Egypt (and in some cases, Sumeria and/or Babylonia).
Vedanta and Yoga
Vedanta and Yoga are the chief ancient spiritual traditions of India, and their essence is part of the foundation of the spiritual traditions within the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Buddhism, Tantra, and Zen
Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the “Buddha” (from the root Budh, meaning “awakened”), who was born into a Hindu culture in present day southern Nepal around 550 BCE, did not so much reform the traditions of his time as he did blaze an entirely new path. His teaching was eminently practical, perhaps a necessary antidote to the philosophical hair-splitting that was so much part of his times. His teaching was also born out of his own intensive and exhaustive personal efforts, and as such bore the stamp of authenticity that comes with a messenger who is as near as possible a perfect embodiment of their message.
Taoism
Taoism (pronounced “Dow-ism”) originates from one small, enigmatic, and brilliantly lucid book, called the "Tao Te Ching". This little gem of a book was supposedly authored by the legendary Chinese master Lao Tzu, who is regarded as an approximate contemporary of the Buddha (about 500 BCE), though in truth there is no strong evidence that he ever really existed. However, either way, the Tao Te Ching does exist, and although it has been translated many, many times, each time resulting in a somewhat different flavor, it retains a profound wisdom that is equally applicable for today as it must have been twenty-five centuries before.
Monotheism
“Monotheism” (the belief in One God only) is considered by some to have begun with the 18th dynasty Egyptian rebel pharaoh named Akhenaton, who reigned during the 14th century BCE. Akhenaton reformed the polytheistic and animistic Egyptian mystery cults which payed homage to many different (and competing) gods and goddesses. He named the One God “Aten”, and had it symbolized by the solar disc, usually depicted in the unique artistic renditions of his time with rays emanating from it, shining down on the pharaoh and his wife (Nefirtiti).
Dualism and the roots of “pure good” vs. “pure evil”
The notion of a prime “devil” was birthed in Persia (modern day Iran), through what was known as the Zoroastrian Reformation, around 580 BCE. At that time, Indian Hinduism had Shiva, Kali, Durga, etc., all fiery, destructive gods, but all equally ambiguous in nature, and certainly none opposed to the Will of the Absolute. Buddhism, which came a few decades later, had “Mara”, the “prince of temptation”, but his role was not much different from the West Amerindian concept of the “Trickster” as Raven or Coyote, or the Celtic Grail myth archetype known as the “Green Knight”. These are universal energies whose “job” it to test humanity, and without whom there would be no motivation for growth, but they are not identical with the Christian “Satan”.
Jewish Mysticism
The main stream of Jewish mysticism is associated with the “Kabbalah”, based largely on a “cosmic map”, sometimes called the “Tree of Life”, that contains ten sephirot, distinct domains or aspects of reality, and the twenty-two paths that connect them. This “map” is both a description of the external universe and the primordial elements that created it, and a description of the inner realms of consciousness.
The Roots of Christian/Islamic doctrine
The origins of the present day form of doctrinal Christianity, especially as it involves the Trinity of Father, Son, Holy Ghost, is a tripartite structure that was formalized after the council of Nicaea in 325 CE, when the young bishop Athanasius was declared victor in an official debate over his former elder mentor Arius, with the result that the “Nicene creed” was established. This creed spelled out that Jesus was no less than God Himself, but also, paradoxically, that he was the sacred “Son” to the “Father”, both of these being complimented by the “Holy Ghost” (or “Holy Spirit”, translations of which lead one back to the feminine form of the divine, the “Goddess”, which at that point had been neutered beyond recognition into this “Holy Ghost”). Arius had maintained that Christ was the most important teacher that humanity had ever known, but was not quite equal to God. For this audacity he and his ideas were branded heretical, mostly because they were not as politically useful for Emperor Constantine’s ambitions.
The Origins of the “Savior God” or “Messiah”
Concerning the Egyptian deities Osiris, Isis, Hathor, Nephthys, Horus, Set, etc., there is no solid evidence that they ever existed as “real”, corporeal people. However, such archetypal images are found within most religious traditions -- the Archangels of Christianity and Islam, the Dhyani Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of Buddhism, the many deities of Hinduism.
The argument that Osiris himself was a “retroactive creation” deriving from Jewish Messianic texts can easily be turned around (and has already been done, quite convincingly) to argue that later apparent physically incarnate avatars (Zoroaster, Buddha, Christ, Appolonius of Tyana, etc.) were simply later adaptations and modifications of the original Saviour-god as expressed by the Osiris myth.
Christian mysticism: Gnosticism
The mystical tradition of Christianity has generally been known as Gnosticism. The term “Gnosticism” derives from the Greek gnosis, meaning “knowledge”, but this is a particular kind of knowledge that results from the mystical union between a person and their Divine Source. It is close to what Zen calls satori, or direct insight -- the non-intellectual experience of truth.
There is much scholarly dispute as to whether Gnosticism predated Christian teachings, or was a contemporary offshoot, and though both sides have convincing arguments, it has never been proven definitively either way.
Islamic Mysticism: Sufism
Sufism is the mystical undercurrent of Islam. The term “Sufi” derives from the Arab "suf", meaning “wool”, a reference to the clothing worn by wandering Sufi mystics.
Modern Gurus and Spiritual Paths
Toward the latter part of the 19th century, a popular revival of mysticism and so-called “occult” (from the Latin occulere, meaning “hidden”) teachings began to arise, in large part due to the efforts of celebrated mystics and travelers like Eliphas Levi, Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater, Samuel Mathers, and many others. Levi wrote the book Tanscendental Magic, which opened up the previously secret world of Hermetic ceremonial magic to the eyes of the public. Blavatsky was a world traveler who received teachings from certain Eastern mystics, wrote the massive and famous volumes known as The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, and founded the Theosophical Society, an organization based primarily on ideas from Hindu and Buddhist mysticism, wedded to the Western occult tradition. Besant and Leadbeater were prolific authors who worked closely alongside Blavatsky. Essentially, Theosophy went a long way toward introducing many of the mystical ideas of the East to the Western psyche. It still exists as an organization to this day, though is a very loose network that concerns itself more with the dispensing of written publications from various spiritual traditions.
******************************************* Copyright 2000 by Philip Teertha Mistlberger, All Rights Reserved.
of Spiritual Traditions
by P.T. Mistlberger
There is a marked difference between spirituality and religion, with the former being the original “prototype” from which the latter eventually developed. Almost all bona fide spiritual schools, no matter how loosely organized, begin with the impact of a deeply realized or awakened person. Depending on the communication skills and/or charismatic force of this person, a following usually forms around him or her, with the size and quality of the following being roughly commensurate with the depth and clarity of the teacher’s awareness (though there are no fast rules here. Jesus may be said to have been roughly comparable to Buddha in terms of depth of understanding, but Buddha had a much larger following).
In time, if the following grows to a certain number, an organization of sorts inevitably begins to develop around the teacher. The “organization” is usually led by a particular follower, or followers, who are strong-willed and highly devoted to the teacher. In time, after the teacher’s death, the organization may grow in complexity (or dwindle and disappear). In the case of where the organization flourishes, there eventually comes a time when it is run by “second generation” followers who may never have met the original teacher. At this point, the organization is becoming a religion. It teachings usually consist of written “scriptures” that were either spoken or scribed by the original teacher.
In the case of “high impact” teachers who had large followings, there is usually no one spiritual successor. There may often be a group-succession, where a body of close followers assumes administrative control of the organization upon the teacher’s passing.
In other cases, a direct spiritual successor may be appointed, in which case a lineage is begun. In these cases, where the successor is a worthy and qualified leader, the chances of maintaining the purity of the original teachings are good.
In essence, what distinguishes spirituality from religion is the focus of the teaching material. In pure spirituality, the focus of the material is on understanding Consciousness and the Present Moment. Everything is ultimately geared toward that. As such, the dignity and integrity of the individual is upheld, above all else. In a spiritual school, the individual is, fundamentally, more important than the organization.
In a religion, the reverse is true. The organization has become all-important, the individual secondary. This is perhaps understandable when dealing with large numbers of people, but inevitably the “organization” becomes only a meeting ground for people who no longer have inner awakening as a number one, or even a high, priority in their life.
The focus in a religion is more on the preservation of the past (through ritual and tradition), and the anticipation of the future. The emphasis on the Present Moment that was the core of the original teacher’s message, has faded, owing to the fact that less and less people have prioritized inner awakening.
With spirituality, the “inner work” is primary, and as such so is the emphasis on the Present Moment. Naturally, this requires vigilance and great sincerity on the part of the practitioner of the teachings, and thus the calling is steeper for those in a spiritual school. In a religion, there is much less of a demand made on the sincerity of a given member. One can, literally, pay only “lip service” to the religious party line, and remain a member in good standing.
Spirituality has minimal, or no, interest in politics. Religion, however, usually has a deep and vested interested in politics, and in many cases interfaces directly with it. Good examples of this are geopolitically driven wars, which often have the roots of their conflicts in religious differences.
Over time, with the development of a religion, a spiritual school sometimes thrives alongside it -- or underneath it, more typically. This “underground” school is generally referred to as the esoteric “stream”, with the outer, orthodox religion being known as the exoteric form, or the church.
Historically, for each main religion, there has been a corresponding esoteric movement, and most of these still survive to this day. Also historically, many times these esoteric schools were oppressed or even persecuted by their outer religions. This was due to the fact that the esoteric traditions were often deemed a subversive threat by the organized religions, owing to the emphasis they placed on accessing Truth from within, which tended to render the churches and priests expendable.
Great Spirit Stream: This ancient stream has been linked to North, Central, and South American Indian cultures, as well as Polynesian, Siberian, Tibetan, Mongolian, African, Australian, etc. Chinese Taoism may be the most sophisticated development of the Great Spirit Stream. The Great Spirit stream tradition of “shamanism” (see below) is likely the oldest known form of spiritual practice, evidence of which is found in one of humanity’s earliest works of art, the 14,000 year old cave painting in the French Pyrenees known as “Le Sorciere”, depicting a shaman performing a ritual dance dressed up as a composite animal.
Great Mother Goddess Stream: This early “stream” developed in the Near and Middle East, with its emphasis on the archetypal “Goddess” represented through such deities as Cybele, Inanna/Parvati, Ghea, Rhea, Ishtar, etc. It was connected to development of agriculture and the earliest “known” civilizations. The Great Mother Goddess tradition, along with the Great Spirit tradition (especially its “shamanism”) are the oldest recognized streams. The Goddess tradition was eradicated and/or went underground between 3,000-1,000 BCE. It still survives in some form today in Pagan/Wiccan and some Tantric and shamanistic traditions.
While ancient North American Indians, Africans, and Far Eastern cultures had strong Goddess elements, there were differences. The North American Indians saw their Source as the Great Spirit, not the Great Mother, and in Africa and the Far East, the goddesses were partners of the gods, but not their mothers. The Near East/Middle East area appears to be different, and unique in its expression of the Goddess archetype. For example, the Phrygian deity of the Great Mother Cybele was thought to take male human consorts, who then die and resurrect as demi-gods. The esoteric historian J.G. Bennett saw this as consistent with the idea that “demiurgic” (angelic or advanced) beings incarnate as a woman or many women, mate with selected men, and the resulting genetically designed offspring results in the marked advances in civilization at that time.
Creator God Stream: The growth of this stream seems to coincide, in some ways, with the decline of the Great Spirit and Goddess power in many areas (such as Africa, where many of the shamans went from prophet-leaders to mere elemental magicians, and Central America/Mexico, where many traditions degenerated into blood-sacrifice cults). The Creator God cultures were usually solar/kingly/patriarchal, beginning with Egypt about 3000 BCE. Ancient Hebrew and Arab cultures show this type of development as well, as did the ancient Vedic traditions (later known as Hinduism).
Saviour God Stream: Here we have the monotheistic (one God, and messianic ambassador) traditions in full bloom, through the Judeo/Christian and Islamic traditions. At this point, the Great Mother Goddess stream and Great Spirit stream and their cultures are weakened or destroyed outright (in particular dramatically manifested through the destruction of the Alexandrian Library). The Savior God stream reached its greatest heights through the spread of Christianity in the Western world, especially after the 4th century CE.
Methodological Stream: This is represented by Theravadin Buddhism and its sophisticated outgrowths of Mahayana Buddhism, Tibetan Vajrayana (Tantric) Buddhism, Chinese Cha’an Buddhism, and Korean and Japanese Zen Buddhism. Buddhism was pushed out of its homeland (India), successfully migrated to southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, China, and the Far East, and in current times Europe and North America. Although many of the widely ranging schools of Buddhism were to acquire the trappings of organized religion, at its heart Buddhism remains essentially a “method” for achieving realization of our True Nature, and is hence categorized as “methodological”.
Throughout all this an inner “spiritual current” has survived. The primary outer religious traditions and their corresponding “underground” spiritual schools are roughly (listed in approximate order of age):
Hinduism – Yoga, Advaita Vedanta, and Tantra
Judaism -- Hassidism and Kabbalah
Buddhism -- Vajrayana (Tibetan Tantra) and Zen
Taoism -- Taoist Yogic Alchemy
Christianity -- Gnosticism
Islam -- Sufism
Each of the outer religions suffered different degrees of corruption and doctrinal distortion, and political institutionalization, and many of them at one time or another persecuted their own spiritual, esoteric schools (with the possible exception of Taoism).
Other potent surviving spiritual, esoteric streams worth mentioning are:
Hermetic/Rosicrucian: stemming from Egyptian mystery schools
Shamanism: still surviving amongst some Great Spirit remnant cultures.
In theory, the function of the spiritual schools has been for those ready to awaken to their spiritual essence, though to be sure not all initiates and spiritual practitioners have been able to stabilize and integrate their mystical insights with their everyday lives. The 20th century Sufi/Tantric master Gurdjieff used to talk about the crucial importance of learning and applying spiritual techniques to stay awake, so as to avoid the dire consequences that go with being an “unconscious machine”. From that perspective, the main purpose of the spiritual streams was to facilitate the sustained inner awakening of the initiate, beyond the spiritual sleep and even mass-hypnotic effects often brought about (if mostly unwittingly) by the established organized religions.
In practice, however, all this is, much more difficult. Genuine spiritual practitioners have been known for failing more often than succeeding in their quest for complete inner freedom, but those that do prevail break through the “veil”, into the realm of numina, or Spirit, which includes the ability to see beyond psychological projection -- into what is, and to live moment to moment from the place of direct experience and being, rather than the indirect, filtered experience known as “mind”.
In a nutshell, we can conclude that the “inner spiritual paths” have always been available for those who are ready, and in particular, ready to go beyond the mere doctrine of the outer religions. What exactly determines this readiness is a mystery, but the notion that it is connected to the Soul-weary fatigue with suffering is as good as any.
What follows is a more in depth look at the primary historical spiritual and religious traditions on Earth.
In order to understand all this, we have to visualize the conditions of the time, which in this case, is going back at least 15,000 years to the late Paleolithic epoch. There is no technology, limited control over the environment and the harsh elements, and most of daily life consists of the simple drudgery of surviving. As a result, it is easy to imagine that there would be great motivation for developing imagination, and not simply for the obvious reasons of enhancing the prospects of survival (by being able to imagine what lay over the next hill, or around the edge of the ridge, or by being able to imagine how to build an effective tool, etc.). Building on the survival-enhancing function of imagination, a primitive shaman would have sooner or later noticed that the power of manifestation worked in accordance with his/her ability to intend something. Intention is based on imagination, or the combining of personal will with mental images.
The entire foundation of spiritual realization is intention, or the desire to understand our true nature. In order to activate that desire, intention is needed. In shamanic techniques, intention is used as a means to achieve altered states of consciousness, or what the anthropologist Mircea Eliade called “techniques of ecstasy”. These are essentially trance states, wherein the shaman goes beyond “ordinary” perception, into realms where revelations, insights, healings, and even prophecies may be experienced.
From a modern psychological perspective, such “journeying” into altered states of consciousness would be understood partly as penetrating the labyrinth of the subconscious mind, in a similar way that can be accomplished via the use of certain hallucinogenic drugs. From the point of view of transpersonal psychology, shamanic journeying can also be viewed as a partial penetration into the realms of the “super-conscious” mind, our greater awareness that is normally veiled and inaccessible, owing largely to our heavy conditioning to be identified with the conscious intellect.
Typically, the shaman had a specific function within their culture, and it was not just that of a pure “mystic”. The shaman was also usually the healer or priest, functioning as an intermediary between a tribal member and the “gods”, or “spirits”, or even the “Great Spirit”. As such, their trances and visionary experiences were intended to perform specific functions, such as “retrieving the soul” of an ill person, or divining a piece of information not accessible by ordinary means. Along with all that would often be profound insights into their spiritual essence, but full Enlightenment could not be said to have always been the main aim of a typical shaman.
In the pure non-dual traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta and Zen, most shamanic experience would be defined as a sidetrack to the goal of full Awakening. As mentioned elsewhere in this book, in Zen, visionary states are defined as makyo, a form of illusion that is a distraction from the full liberation from the constraints of the mind. But again, the context must be considered. A practitioner of Zen or Advaita Vedanta ideally seeks full Awakening and nothing else, but a traditional shaman plays more than one role for the people of their culture.
Shamanism, as with several forms of paganism, has experienced a recent revival and global popularization of sorts, thanks largely to the works of several 20th century popular authors. Part of its attraction no doubt lies in its primordial roots and close relationship with the natural elements. As modern societies grow increasingly sophisticated and complex, a reaction inevitably develops that involves a desire to return to simpler ways of interacting with the universe. From the spiritual perspective, shamanism is one of those ways.
Implicit in Goddess-central spiritual traditions is regarding the physical body as an instrument of the Divine, and as a vehicle not just for our consciousness, but as a potent tool in itself for aiding in achieving spiritual realization. In that sense, the Goddess traditions are unique and often in opposition to most other spiritual and mystical traditions which only placed minimal significance on the physical body, and in many cases even regarded the body as an obstacle to awakening which must be overcome.
Western Goddess-central traditions, such as Wicca, use a form of devotional practice that in theory places equal emphasis on both female and male aspects of the Divine (usually, the Goddess, and the Celtic-based “Horned God” named “Cernunnos”), but in many cases the Goddess is given prominence, or is solely worshipped.
Wicca holds in common with Celtic Druidry a veneration of Nature, and as such can be seen as a pantheistic tradition (worship of the Divine through the forces of Nature), though the chief difference between the two is that Druidry is a solar-pagan tradition (paying homage to the Sun and doing daylight rituals), whereas Wicca is essentially lunar-pagan (moon-oriented, and doing night time rituals). But both are strongly Nature-oriented.
Wicca, as modern-day Witchcraft, has been linked with ancient Goddess-traditions, though the historical evidence concerning this link is inconclusive. Nevertheless, the fundamental premise remains of associating the Goddess archetype with vital energy, natural forces, and the body. This is the parallel that Western pagan traditions such as Wicca have with Eastern Tantric schools. In terms of modern relevance, these paths are often attractive for one who is feeling a need to address the spirituality within their bodies and the natural world. In some ways, the relative (and growing) popularity of these paths for people in Western cultures is understandable, in light of the patriarchal, monotheistic Saviour/Creator God conditioning which has often expressed in a light that can be seen as against the physical body, against its energies (especially the sexual/emotional), and against the primacy of Nature.
Examples of modern schools of similar traditions thought by some to derive from the Egyptian Hermetic schools are Rosicrucianism, the Ordo Templi Orientis, the Golden Dawn and related schools, and possibly elements of Freemasonry as well. As with Wicca, the history on all this is patchy and uncertain, but common themes can certainly be detected.
Ancient Egyptians were known to place heavy emphasis on ritual, as well as the exhaltation of certain powerful archetypal deities, some of whom were linked with the stars in the sky. From this derived the famous Hermetic maxim, As above, so Below. What this refers to is the essential Oneness of all things, and in particular, how the higher realms are mirrors for the microcosm of the human being -- or, how matter is a mirror of consciousness.
A key basis of the ritual of ceremonial magic has been the invocation of the “gods” and “goddesses”, which are understood as archetypal energies that have a corresponding significance within both humanity, and the individual. By invoking a particular deity, using ritual, intention, emotion, and visualization, the qualities of the deity get absorbed or, more accurately, activated, within the practitioner. Such an activation then presents the possibility of experiencing everything from a healing, to total identification and merging with the exhalted presence of the deity -- which is finally seen to be an aspect of the practitioner’s own spiritual essence.
Certain forms of these practices exist also in schools of Vajrayana (Tantric) Tibetan Buddhism, and have even shown up in a very simplified form in certain “New Age” teachings that have taught the practice of “creative visualization” -- a practice designed to generate internal energies that (in theory) will result in manifesting outwardly and attracting to oneself one’s highest desires.
The whole area of invoking gods and goddesses is ultimately seen to be an inner phenomenon, meaning, that the external form or existence of such deities is finally seen to be unimportant in light of the primary purpose of the invocation, which is to awaken the Divine qualities within. However, it is not difficult to see here how the original science of invocation became externalized into a ritual that did not require the wholehearted passionate commitment of the seeker. This, in essence, is religion -- strongly hinted at in the etymology of the word, which derives from the Latin religio, meaning an “obligation or oath between Man and the gods”.
In other words, what this suggests is that the original inner science of the invocation and activation of awakened qualities (personified as the “gods/goddesses”) eventually degenerated into mere rituals that were performed by people who no longer understood all the purposes behind them. At that point, the externalized archetypes become the gods or even the “God”, who must be obeyed and feared. It was only in the underground mystical schools of these traditional religions where the original inner art of invocation was preserved, which involved a deep and profound participation on the part of the seeker, resulting in mystical awareness and spiritual awakenings.
“Vedanta” derives from Veda, which is Sanskrit for “knowledge”, in particular relating to the Vedas, the oldest part of the sacred canon of Hinduism. “Yoga” derives from yuj, meaning to “yoke”, a reference to its goal of “yoking” or “unifying” the mind, making it a suitable vehicle for Awakened consciousness.
The highest teaching of Vedanta is known as “Advaita Vedanta”, with “Advaita” meaning “non-dual”, a reference to the essential Unity of Reality, and the interconnectedness of all things. This teaching of the One indivisible Reality is the heart and soul of the Upanishads, the sacred scriptures of Hinduism. Yoga is the multifaceted discipline that provides a practical approach to realizing the One Reality, although some forms of Yoga (such as “Hatha”) are not especially concerned with the ultimate truths.
In modern times, Advaita teachings have achieved some degree of popularity amongst Westerners, particularly owing to the influence of a few very effective teachers. The simplicity and directness of the approach -- represented by such well known masters as Ramana Maharshi and his “Who am I?” self-enquiry, and Nisargadatta Maharaj and his “I am That” Self-remembrance -- has been seen by many as a refreshing change from the complex doctrines of the Western theistic religions.
The Hindu Yogic traditions were varied in their pathways to the Divine, as exemplified through the various Yogic paths. But the goal was always the same, the complete merging of the seeker’s consciousness with their spiritual Source -- or, put another way, the final recognition that the True Nature of the seeker and the True Nature of the Divine Source are inherently One.
Hinduism is basically recognized as a “polytheistic” tradition, meaning that it recognizes many forms and expressions of the Divine. In this sense, it has been generally adaptable and has fostered a non-aggressive attitude amongst its people, also abetted by its central doctrine of reincarnation, which emphasizes the eternity of the soul and minimizes the importance of just “one life”. This is in stark contrast to the Western monotheistic Saviour/Creator God faiths which deny reincarnation and promote the doctrine of “one life”, partly encouraging the aggressive (at times colonial), “hurry up you’ve only got one chance” attitude.
The central figure of Hinduism’s chief holy book, the Bhagavad Gita (“Song of God”), is Krishna, who is regarded as a direct incarnation of the Divine. Like Christ in later centuries, Krishna has been (and still is) the subject of intense reverence and devotion, resulting in the unique Bhakti path of devotional love and service to the master. This sort of devotional approach has always appealed to those who have experienced it as a more natural way to enter into the Awakened condition, as opposed to the more austere approach of meditation and self-enquiry.
The tradition spawned by the Buddha has been remarkable not just for its staying power (since 500 BCE), but also for its relative lack of fusion with matters of politics and state. This has been because Buddhism is primarily a method, and only secondarily a religion. Buddha himself declared that he was no “god” or “saint”, only an Awakened man who offered humanity a path that provided a way out of suffering. The simplicity of his proclamations resulted in a tradition that arguably has yielded the most genuinely Awakened practitioners of any spiritual tradition, East or West.
Over the centuries, different schools of Buddhism formed, in part due to cultural influences as it migrated from India through both Southeast Asia, China and the Far East. In Southeast Asia (modern day Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, etc.) the “Theravadin” (“Way of Elders”) tradition has held sway, which has placed a heavy emphasis on pure forms of witnessing meditations such as vipassana, and traditional monastic codes. This tradition regards itself as the oldest and closest to what the Buddha actually taught.
In China, a particular lineage was begun around 600 CE (credited to the wandering Indian monk Bodhidharma), which eventually spread to Korea and Japan. This tradition became known as Cha’an or Zen Buddhism, and though it did employ ritual, the heart of it has always been the utilization of firm discipline and effort, in the service of attaining strong meditative focus and the direct experience of Reality and Truth. Because of this one-pointed dedication to achieving the inner breakthrough needed to attain final realization (by going beyond the intellect into the direct experience of non-dual consciousness), Zen has been regarded by many as the most pure and un-embellished of all spiritual paths.
A different, and very unique form of Buddhism evolved in Tibet, shaped by the influences of both north Indian Tantric masters like Padmasambhava, and the indigenous Tibetan shamanistic faith known as “Bonpo”. The development of Tibetan Buddhism began relatively late, around 900 CE, but within a few centuries it had evolved to such a point that it became not just state religion, but the state itself. The senior master of the Gelukpas (generally the largest of the four main Tibetan Buddhist lineages), known as the “Dalai Lama”, functioned for several centuries as both spiritual leader and secular head of the country (though at times, Tibet’s political overlord was the ruling Mongolian khan, and less frequently, the ruling Chinese emperor). This ability of the office of the Dalai Lama to function for so long was due to Tibetan Buddhism’s unique tulku system, wherein a great Lama (spiritual master) is believed to reincarnate continuously, even pinpointing the location of his next birth near the point of death of his current body.
The military annexation of Tibet in 1950 by the communist Chinese government, and subsequent brutal oppression of Tibetan Buddhism (thousands of monasteries were destroyed), became a well-known issue in the latter quarter of the 20th century, due in part to the highly effective leadership of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, who fled his country in 1959 and has operated his government-in-exile in north India since. This Dalai Lama is generally recognized as the greatest of all Dalai Lamas, bolstered in no small part by his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and his strong spiritual presence and teaching skills. As with the Hindu saint Mahatma Gandhi, he has also unflinchingly promoted a non-violent resistance to communist Chinese hegemony.
As a result of all this, many Tibetan Buddhist masters ended up relocating in the West, bringing with them Tibet’s centuries old spiritual legacies, from a culture that may have been the purest “Enlightenment-culture” ever, possibly since ancient Egyptian times. Either way, there is little question that Tibet’s tragic hardship and loss has been the world’s gain.
The chief schools of Tibetan Buddhism are the Nyingma, Sakya, Kargyu, and Gelukpa. Each has distinctive characteristics. The Nyingma is the oldest, and retains some of the shamanistic shades of the Bonpo tradition which was indigenous to Tibet. The Sakya and Kargyu traditions emphasized disciplined meditation, but not always monastically situated, in contrast to the Gelukpa schools, which were monastic and heavily concerned with discipline and intellectual training as well as meditation.
Tantra in Tibet became known as Vajrayana (“diamond-like”) Buddhism, a reference to the indestructible nature of our Awakened condition. However, Tibetan Tantra took different forms from its original Hindu form (which developed around the 6th century CE in north India), being less concerned with the invocation of the Goddess (Shakti), and more concerned with intensive visualization practices that held more in common with some Hermetic schools of ceremonial magic.
Legends of Tibetan adepts commanding extraordinary powers (telepathy, flying through the air, etc.) were no doubt fostered over the centuries by Tibet’s forbidding mountain ranges and remote geographical nature, as well as its political xenophobia (intense resistance to outsiders). However, there is little question that there was an element of truth to the legends, as Tibetan Buddhist practitioners have been renowned for their extraordinary commitment to practice.
The “Dzogchen” teachings of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, are perhaps the simplest and purest of all Tibetan teachings, being concerned with the direct experience of consciousness itself, free of techniques or methods to achieve this consciousness. Dzogchen, like Advaita and Zen, is concerned solely with “bottom line” truth -- being the resting and abiding within our True Identity as pure, formless consciousness.
Taoism is unique in its strong advocation of the ultimate illusory nature of the personal will. Similar to Advaita and Zen, it retains a purity and one-pointed concern with ultimate truth, free of any religious ritual of paying homage to a special symbol or icon of that ultimate truth.
“Tao Te Ching” translates roughly as “The Way of Life”, and this “Way” that Taoism counsels is supremely simple and non-aggressive. Taoist philosophy is the path of surrender par excellence, and the dissolving, through pure awareness and deep “let-go” (non-resistance) into the Flow or Way of the universal Will (the “Tao”). It points directly to the non-separation between our True Identity and the Source (Tao) of life. But in pointing there, Lao Tzu also clearly and very originally points out the tendency of the personal mind to block the way, through its foolish delusions of personal will and personal ambitions and desires.
Lao Tzu’s “successor” was Chuang Tzu, a wandering Taoist mystic whose existence is better documented. Chuang Tzu wrote some powerful Taoist literature that survives to this day. His famous line, delivered after a disturbing dream -- “Was I a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming I’m a man?” -- has come to represent the fundamental paradox of the mind and its perceptions that Taoism so uncompromisingly reveals.
The heart and soul of Taoism is revealed in the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching:
“The way that can be told is not the eternal Way;
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.”
This speaks to the ultimate impossibility of knowing the Source, or ultimate Reality, through the mind, and its functions of categorizing and conceptualizing (“telling” and “naming”). It also implicitly speaks to the final Unity of the Tao, or ultimate Source, with our True Nature or Identity as pure consciousness. In that sense, the “bottom-line” essence of Taoism is basically identical to that of Advaita Vedanta, Tibetan Dzogchen, and Zen.
Akhenaton’s attempt at introducing a form of monotheism was ill received by the Egyptian priesthoods, and the pharaoh soon disappeared, with his temples and city being destroyed not long after. But there is a possibility that prior to his death the rebel pharaoh had contact with the young Moses, whose later revelations on Mt. Sinai, with the “One God” and his I am That I am credo, formed the foundation for Judaism, and the subsequent appearances of Christianity and Islam.
The Jewish faith begins with the “Torah” (the first five books of the Old Testament), and its centrally overpowering figure of the “Lord God” known as “Yahweh” (a name later rendered as “Jehovah” by medieval scribes). The overpowering exclusivity of this One God is made explicitly clear, for example in Exodus 20:3,5:
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
“I, the Lord God, am a jealous God….”
Whatever one’s judgments of such a “Lord God”, the Jewish mystical tradition retained an understanding that was free of threatening admonishments or a Deity that demanded exclusive worship and obedience, and spoke to the fundamental unknowableness of the ultimate Deity (or Source). Even the Old Testament contained clear hints of the teachings of the purely spiritual traditions, for example Exodus 20:4:
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image...”
This need only be compared with the above passage from the Tao Te Ching, to see the similarity. The hidden meaning being that the ultimate Source cannot be understood through the mind, and its mental images, any more than it can be “told” or “named”. It can only be experienced.
The first book of the Old Testament, Genesis, has been determined by some scholars to be a modification and adaptation of the much older Sumerian/Babylonian Creation epic known as the Enuma Elish. This epic told the story of the creation of the universe and life via the combined activities of many “gods”. The word used in the Hebrew language to represent “God” in the Old Testament is Elohim, which technically refers to a plurality of gods. But over time, the Sumerian deities got unified into a one singular “Lord God”, and the result was the Yahweh of the Old Testament.
Monotheism carries both an auspicious, and manipulative quality. Auspicious because it is essentially aligned with the core teachings of the great wisdom traditions that remained purely spiritual -- because all have agreed that in the end it is seen that there is indeed only One Supreme principle of Truth, that is the Source of all.
The manipulative aspect arises from the fact that monotheistic religions can potentially be the most abusive in terms of psychological conditioning based on fear, guilt, and shame. The very expression “fear God” speaks volumes to this. But quite simply, the spiritual truth of only One Source can easily become a political tool with which to exercise control over masses if the religious leaders are, after all, representatives of the “One God”. Worse, a monotheistic faith in conflict with another monotheistic faith runs a high risk of engaging in geopolitical warfare, as the very belief in One God easily becomes the belief that only “our” One God is the real One God. This is all underscored by the observation that the three chief monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) have all suffered deep enmity, ongoing conflict, and geopolitical warfare with each other.
The Sanskrit Rig Veda, finished (in its current form) perhaps by 1200 BCE but very likely begun much earlier, was adapted by Zoroaster, who was born into the cultural descendent of the Vedic empire that stretched from India to North Africa, and from the Black to the Caspian Seas. Persian Vedism was polytheistic, and was based largely on the asuras and devas (higher dimensional entities), much as in the surviving Buddhist cosmology. The main ruling entities were Ahura Mazda and Mithra. At that time, there was no prime “devil”.
Mithra was a savior god, whose birth took place in a sacred cave, was foretold by prophets, and was presided over by the appearance of a special star. At Zoroaster’s birth in 628 BCE, Persia was recently unified, and in need of a unifying religion, much like the Roman Empire of Constantine in 325 CE, when Christianity was established as state religion largely for the purposes of unifying the land (and, at which time, the supreme “divinity” of Jesus was proclaimed by the Nicene creed).
Bowing to political needs, Zoroaster imbued his “Gathas” (scriptures) with the presence of the dual forces of Light and Dark: Ahura Mazda (Good) and Ahriman (Evil). The notion of such entrenched dualism, perhaps a given with the stark monotheism initiated by Zoroaster, was politically useful, much in the same way 20th century state leaders frequently demonized their enemies (Iran vs. “Great Satan”, the USA; or Ronald Reagan vs. “Evil Empire”, the Soviet Union; or George Bush vs. “next Hitler”, Saddam Hussein).
The Persian Gatha, Zoroaster’s restructured Vedism, spoke of the “Wise god”, Ahura Mazda, and the Evil god, Ahriman (whose followers were the dregvant, those of the “lie”). This entity, Ahriman, is the “first” spirit representing pure, unambiguous evil, in recorded history.
One of Ahriman’s servants was known as “Azaziel”, a demon of the wild who usually took the form of a goat. This is the oldest probable connection with medieval Europe’s conventional association of the “Devil” with a goat-like creature, especially through the imagery of “Baphomet”, the supposed ass-headed idol of the Knights Templar, whose last Grand Master Jacques de Molay was first crucified, and later burnt, for daring to proclaim his non-allegiant stance to this “Devil” (though really King Philip, aided by his puppet pope Clement, simply needed the Templers’ money and power).
In the Old Testament (first begun around 600 BCE), Yahweh-Jehovah (the “Lord God”) seems ambiguous in his relationship to Good and Evil, and Satan is not clear as a so-called pure spirit of “opposition” to God either. Only with the New Testament is the Devil clearly defined as a “Prince of Evil” in immutable opposition to God. But the New Testament came hundreds of years after Zoroaster, the Persian Gathas, and Ahriman, this latter whom is virtually identical in function to the New Testament Satan. Thus, the “Devil” of Christianity is largely derivative, and nor is it found in even a majority of Earth cultures.
Kabbalism drew on numerology and “gematria”, the ancient art of assigning numerical values to letters. But the final goal was deeply mystical and in alignment with the Eastern traditions, in that it aimed toward a complete merging with the Divine Source -- a Unio Mystica.
The Kabbalistic path was concerned with three essential pillars, known as tikkun (the return to harmony, both inwardly and outwardly), kavvanah (meditation), and devekut (final merging with the Divine Source, or “God”). Where Kabbalistic mysticism differs significantly from orthodox Judaism is in the notion of the Ein Soph, the ultimate Source, which is viewed as unknowable and not directly connected to the manifest universe Ż very different from the Old Testament Creator God known as Yahweh.
A common translation of Ein Soph is “Infinite Nothingness”, a reference not to its absolute non-existence, but rather to its unknowableness through the mind and its duality-consciousness Ż very similar to the Buddhist idea of shunyata (emptiness) as being symbolic of the formlessness of our True Identity as pure consciousness.
Jewish mysticism taught that the Ein Soph created the heaven-realms by extending a spark of itself, but that the physical universe was created by a dimmer version of its brilliant light. As a result, the physical universe is essentially a darker “copy” of the higher realms, making the Kabbalistic view equal to the Hermetic view of “As above, so below”.
Kabbalism, and especially its teachings of the Tree of Life, became key cornerstones of the Western mystical and occult revival at the turn of the 20th century. The modern Tarot deck of such Hermetic organizations as the Golden Dawn was based heavily on Kabbalistic mysticism.
Athanasius’ view, though containing all the seeds of fanaticism, was much more powerful politically, in terms of its potential to unify the scattered nations of the Roman Empire.
Henceforth was formalized and gradually established what was to become the dominant organized religion on the planet for the next seventeen centuries, Martin Luther’s 16th century “Reformation” notwithstanding. But not long after the crystallization of the Roman Catholic Church through the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries CE, a new phenomenon appeared -- Mohammad and Islam.
Most religious historians are unanimous in agreeing that the appearance of Mohammed around 600 CE and the birth of Islam was a direct counter-reaction to the implementation of the Nicene creed, and especially the ultimate deification of Christ and the formalization of the doctrine of the Trinity. This can be seen in the clear attempt of Islam to return to simpler roots. The “Son” and the “Holy Ghost” are erased (though archangels and other heirarchical spirits are retained), and only God (Allah) remains. The famous Islamic maxim is,
"There is no God but Allah -- and Mohammad is His prophet."
The Islamic faith eventually split up into different factions, many of which ended up warring with each other, but such division has occurred with every organized religion. What was unusual with Islam, was the power and influence with which Mohammad’s faith swept around the world, and especially through such a crucially important zone, namely the Middle East -- important from both an historic context, as cradle of human culture, and from the modern geo-political context of oil and its world-dominant mega-industries.
Further, Christianity and Islam, as organized faiths, as of the early 21st century dominate the planet not just in terms of economic punch, but in terms of sheer numbers as well (Christianity claims 2 billion, Islam 1 billion, combined which is about half of humanity’s 6 billion at this time [late 2000]). Clearly, such preponderance is a potentially dangerous imbalance, all the more so as the New Testament and the Koran are doctrinally incompatible, even provocatively so.
These divisions between Christian-Islamic interests are deep -- going back to the carnage of the Crusades -- and probably vaster and more potentially destructive than the Jewish-Islamic conflict, which tends to get more press, largely because of the tightly constricted geopolitical situation of Israeli Jews and their tragic history. But nonetheless, looking at it dispassionately and from the big perspective, one sees that the roots of this polarized situation lie in the events related to the Nicene council and creed, and the later counter-reaction which was the birth of Islam.
What the common themes were around the lives of Osiris, Dionysius, Attis, Adonis, Mithras, Christ, and others, were
1) Is of Divine Origin.
2) Suffers mutilation/death and the hands of secular powers of evil.
3) Rises again (overcomes death).
4) Assumes new position as Lord of the Afterlife and Judge of the Dead.
5) Through his attainment he becomes a vehicle for those who are pure of heart and sincere of intent to go beyond the “world”. He comes to symbolize a spiritual rebirth through sharing in the “transcendent passion” of his life and Presence.
The “chicken/egg” argument leans in favour of Osiris, when we consider his mythos is much older than the others mentioned above, including being the possible source of the Jewish Messianic godman teachings. However, chicken/egg disputation does not carry much weight. The whole doctrinization of which savior came first, and who “sits on God’s side”, may be said to be mythologized, sectarian, and a distraction for those concerned with true inner liberation.
What the authentic spiritual traditions taught was that each person carries an intrinsic personal connection with the Divine Source, which can be accessed with sufficient clarity of intent and personal effort. These spiritual traditions were often associated with the term “mystery school”, because God was recognized as a Mystery that was beyond the intellect, something that can never be quantified or categorized or, effectively, mentally known in any way that renders it a “non-mystery”. Implicit in such a “Mystery” is also that God cannot be known and explained by an authoritative body who has special access to the Divine mysteries, hence the rejection of the mystery schools by the organized priesthoods and religious “authorities” of most orthodox faiths.
A fundamental difference with Gnosticism is in its essential non-dualism. As such, it is very close to Buddhism, on deep examination. Gnostic teaching is considered non-dualistic because it argues that the true God did not create the Universe, unlike Christian teaching, which proclaims that He did. In the Gnostic view, the World is a grand illusion created by lesser “Creator” gods, such as Ialdaboath and/or the Archangelic “Demiurges” (depending on the particular Gnostic version, as they do not all agree with each other concerning the details).
In many Gnostic myths, the Creation of the Universe originated with “Sophia”, the feminine aspect of the True God, who desired to experience the act of Creation alone. The lesser Creator god Ialdaboth then created the rest of the universe, including Man, but in a lowly, primitive state. Sophia took pity on this creation and “blew” divine sparks into Man, accelerating his evolution. However, these “sparks” (Souls) became trapped in the realms of matter, as did Sophia herself. In order to rescue them, Christ was sent to Earth, to provide a direct bridge back to the “Pleroma”, the perfect realm of Light where the True, Unknown God resided.
In one Gnostic version, Sophia appears in Genesis as the Serpent, who provides Adam and Eve with a way to get free of the tyranny of Yahweh, who is not actually the True God, but rather is Ialdaboth, the lesser Creator god. This interpretation of Genesis came about partly from the difficulties the Gnostics had with reconciling the domineering, angry God of the Old Testament with the loving God of the New Testament.
According to this view, the entire Universe is fundamentally a creation of consciousness (strikingly close to some speculations of modern physics, and basically identical to the doctrines of Hinduism and Buddhism). In the Gnostic view, the “World” is ultimately a Projection of one fundamental Error, which is the belief that we are intrinsically flawed and have thus been cast “out” by God into the infinite nightmare of Separation.
In Christian doctrine, the Holy Ghost functions as the bridge or lifeline back to this One Source, and the concrete manifestation of this Source, aided by the bridge of the Holy Ghost, was/is Jesus, who functions as both the clarion call and the “Door” to return to God.
Gnosticism differs in one crucial way, holding that the entire process of the creation of the World was an error (which is why they believe it was not created by the True God), and that the “Christ Principle” exists equally in all beings, and only requires re-awakening to. Thus, Gnosticism downplays the significance of the Resurrection, which organized Christianity holds as most crucial for maintaining the supremacy of Christ, although Gnosticism does recognize Christ as a direct incarnation of the Divine.
In time, certain Gnostic schools seem to have become corrupted (as so often happens) and their view became distorted into the “World” being evil, and opposite of God. The teachings of the original Gnostics such as Basilides, Mani, and Plotinus suggests that these views became distorted over time. Needless to say, after 325 CE and the empowerment of Christianity as state religion by Holy Roman Emperor Constantine, Gnosticism was gradually forced underground, and declared heretical.
Gnosticism still survives as a teaching today, in particular receiving a strong boost in popularity after the 1945 discovery in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, of the “Gnostic Gospels”, and extensive cache of texts dating back to the 1st-3rd centuries CE, which in general contain radical re-interpretations of the essence of who Christ was. The most famous of the Gnostic Gospels has probably been the Gospel of Thomas, which presents a mystical view of Christ that is similar to Eastern spirituality, emphasizing the universality of the Christ (or Awakened mind) principle, much as the Hindu idea of Atman (essence of the individual soul) = Brahman (God), or the Buddhist concept of the “Buddha-mind” existing equally in all conscious beings.
As mentioned, Gnostic teachings regarded the Resurrection as a symbolic event, placing much less import on its literal reality, and this alone was enough for it to seriously fall out of favor with the orthodox Christian church, for whom the literal, bodily Resurrection of Christ is crucial and central to the Christian faith.
At the heart of the Sufi tradition lies fana, a term roughly meaning “destruction of the self in the fires of God”. It is the mystical teaching that lies beneath the entire faith of Islam, as the word Islam is Arabic for “submission” or “surrender”, which in truth refers to the plight of the individual ego, or Separation Consciousness, in the face of our True Source, for one fully committed to inner Awakening. However, to those uncommitted to the personal sincerity and strength of intention that such a “destruction” or “surrender” entails, Islam just becomes another label with which to identify with, and worse, carries the implicit danger of a “false surrender”, a state of fierce “ego-loyalty” to a tradition that is capable of breeding the mind set of “holy warrior” who must believe his faith superior to all others, thus converting a spiritual teaching into a political doctrine.
The true Sufi mystic was a warrior in battle only with his own ignorance, and his own resistance to surrendering totally to the inner Divine Source. This surrender was accomplished by a number of intensive, at times ascetic, spiritual practices, such as breath control, prayer, meditation, and dance. One of the main meditation techniques was known as Zikr, the constant remembrance of God. Another famous method was the attainment of ecstatic union with the Divine via “whirling” on the spot, an activity for which the “whirling Dervishes” were renowned.
Sufism, in common with the Bhakti Yoga of India, was always a heart-centered path par excellence. The Divine Source becomes the “Beloved”, and the aspirant is the “lover”. It is in “loving God” that one develops direct knowledge of God, perhaps an ultimate amplification of Christ’s maxim, “As you give, so shall you receive”.
Similar to Vajrayana (Tantric) Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the Indian Vedic traditions, the master-disciple relationship in Sufism was usually crucially important. A deep trust and surrender in the master became the doorway for a direct surrender to God, much as the Tibetan Tantric monk was required to regard his master as a direct expression of the Buddha-mind itself.
The famous 9th century CE Sufi mystic Al-Hillaj Mansoor was executed in a brutal fashion, much as with Christ, partly for declaring “anal-Haqq!” (“I am the Truth!”). This declaration perfectly illustrated the contrast between spiritual schools and genuinely realized mystics, and religious orthodoxies. To proclaim “I am the Truth!” is simply to express one’s final Unification with the Source or True Identity, or the realization that the personal consciousness is, and has always been, One with the Universal Source of Consciousness Ż exactly what Hindu Vedanta meant by Atman (Soul) is finally understood to be One with Brahman (God).
However, from the point of view of orthodox religion (in this case, Islam), such a declaration as made by Al-Hillaj Mansoor is the ultimate arrogant blasphemy, made even more intolerable because it renders the so-called Divine intermediaries (the priesthood, known in Islam as the imams) expendable and without true purpose. This was the same reasoning that lay behind the orthodox Christian church’s suppression of the Gnostic movements, which claimed a direct, inner connection to their Divine Source. And, it should be added, it was also the factor that lay behind the rejection, and subsequent crucifixion, of Christ by the orthodox Jewish priesthood of his day.
A similar argument could also be made for Socrates’ death, essentially forced by the Greek authorities who were greatly threatened by his radical, inwardly-reliant approach. What has revealed all spiritual (as opposed to religious) practitioners has been there consistent orientation toward the inner as the Home of the Divine Source -- i.e., our consciousness itself being the answer to that which we seek.
Mathers and William Westcott founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1888, which was an outgrowth of Hermetic Rosicrucianism, and grew to become a somewhat influential modern expression of ancient Egyptian-based ceremonial occultism. A number of high profile intellectuals and seekers were initiated into the ranks of the Golden Dawn, such as W. B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley. Crowley in particular would go on to become a potent influence in the continued 20th century occult/mystical revival, writing many scholarly texts on Hermetic “Magick” (his unique spelling) and the Jewish Kabbalah. He was a controversial figure who alienated as many people as he inspired and fascinated. Crowley’s famous maxim, Do What Thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of the Law was adopted by the 1960s counter-culture “hippie” movement (though Crowley had died in 1947) and diluted down into the free-spirited “Do your own thing.” However, what Crowley meant by his maxim was the complete surrender to the Higher Will of our Source, brought about by sincere practice and intense inner purifications. Although Crowley was regarded as an anti-Christian and reviled by many during his era, his “Do what Thou Wilt” is, ironically, of the same ultimate meaning as the Christian “Thy Will be Done”. Both refer to the complete surrender of the personal will to the Universal Will.
Other key, high profile figures in 20th century Western spirituality were Rudolf Steiner, George Gurdjieff, Peter Ouspensky, Carl Jung, Swami Vivekanada, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Paramahansa Yogananda, Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, Osho Rajneesh, Franklin Jones, Helen Schucman, and the 14th Dalai Lama.
Steiner, who lived during the late 19th – early 20th century, was something of a Renaissance man who professed advanced mystical powers and spiritual understanding as well as his intellectual gifts. He founded Anthroposophy, as well as the Waldorf schools for children. He authored a number of books synthesizing the most arcane forms of mysticism with the Western intellectual areas of study of his time. Steiner has often been considered one of the least-recognized spiritual giants of the 20th century.
Gurdjieff and Ouspensky had a famous association during the early part of the 20th century, the former being an enigmatic spiritual master from Armenia, who had been trained by Sufi masters and developed a complex system of personal growth, and the latter being a Russian intellectual whose writing and speaking skills served to popularize Gurdjieff’s powerful and effective “System” for the West. They eventually had a falling out, but both these men were strongly influential forces in instigating much of the Western interest in esoteric spirituality during the latter quarter of the 20th century. Ouspensky’s work In Search of the Miraculous, published in 1947, documented his apprenticeship to Gurdjieff, and is considered one of the most influential classics of modern spirituality.
C. G. Jung was a Swiss psychoanalyst who broke from an association with Sigmund Freud to found his own school of psychology, which emphasized his ideas of the “collective unconscious”, “archetypes”, and “complexes”. Jung was a brilliant thinker and writer who practically single handedly introduced many in the West to a hitherto unknown approach to the subconscious mind, one which was immensely respectful of both the nature of symbolism, and those cultures which had placed heavy importance on symbolism. Jung was renowned for writing comprehensive introductions to obscure Eastern mystical texts, such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and the Taoist Secret of the Golden Flower.
Swami Vivekananda was one of the very first bona fide Eastern masters to travel to the West, where he introduced Yoga and Vedic spirituality in the early 20th century. His life was short, as he passed away in his 30s, but his work was seminal and a key opening for Eastern wisdom to flow to the West, especially America.
J. Krishnamurti was discovered as a young boy by the Theosophist Charles Leadbeater in India in the early 1900s, and recognized as an “advanced soul” whom the Theosophists wished to groom for the role of being the Earthly vehicle for Maitreya, generally recognized in the East as the “next Buddha to come”. The young Krishnamurti eventually balked and then rebelled against this role, and from his mid-30s to his death at age 90 he wandered the world as an iconoclastic spiritual mystic. He was famous for his brilliant lectures that were clearly borne out of deep spiritual realization, not mere intellectual acumen. His legacy includes a number of books, as well as his famous videotaped conversations with the theoretical physicist David Bohm. Krishnamurti has been considered by many to have been one of the most deeply Awakened of modern mystics.
Ramana Maharshi, however, has been the one generally recognized as the most venerated, respected, and cherished of 20th century spiritual masters. He lived and taught in south India, at the holy mountain Arunachala, for over fifty years from his Enlightenment at age sixteen to his death in 1950. He was an Advaita Vedanta master par excellence, never varying from his teaching of the essential Oneness between personal consciousness and Source consciousness. His method was self-enquiry, “Who am I?” Though he never sought disciples and did not consider himself a guru, there is no question that he was one of the more influential mystics of modern times, and many have considered him to be their ultimate teacher -- including many who had never been to see him while he lived.
One of Ramana’s disciples, Harilal Poonja, in the latter years of his life attracted a strong following in northern India, as many responded to his deeply Awakened presence. Several of Poonja’s Western students would go on to become Advaita teachers themselves, hosting Satsangs (formal meeting dedicated to self-realization, and nothing else) in the West, and drawing thousands of people toward the inner experience of the non-dual, consciousness of the Source.
Paramahansa Yogananda was another of the more famous traveling Swamis, who brought his “Self-Realization Fellowship” to the West during the mid-20th century, inaugurating many centers dedicated to his version of Yoga and meditation, and influencing the lives of millions with his highly popular books, such as his classic Autobiography of a Yogi.
Nisargadatta Maharaj, like Ramana, was in the tradition of the Advaita sage, though his means was slightly different from Ramana’s “Who am I?” self-enquiry. He emphasized the constant remembrance of “I am”, which in time would shift naturally into the awareness of our real nature, where the separate “I” dissolves, leaving behind only radiant pure consciousness. Nisargadatta’s book I am That is recognized as one of the modern classics of spirituality. As with Ramana, his essence touched many who never met him bodily.
Alan Watts was a one-time Christian priest who also was a devotee of Zen, and thanks to his intellectual gifts and writing skills he became the chief popularizer of the Eastern traditions of Zen, Vedism, and Taoism for young Westerners during the 1960s. His grasp of Oriental philosophy was masterful and he proved to be a towering figure in the building of East-West spiritual “bridges”.
Joseph Campbell was possibly the 20th century’s greatest mythologist, possessing a broad scope and depth of understanding of the main wisdom traditions that may even have surpassed Jung’s. He was incomparable in his ability to write and speak with an understanding that synthesized East-West teachings and symbolism. He was especially effective for touching those who were intellectually or academically inclined, and needing to approach the perennial philosophy from that angle.
Osho (previously known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh), born in India in 1931, experienced his full Awakening in his early 20s, and then went on to acquire a master’s degree in philosophy and to teach philosophy in an Indian university for several years. Such intellectual training was necessary for the task that lay ahead of him, which was to involve him establishing a large ashram in Poona, India, and to lead a movement that was eventually to touch the lives of millions of people worldwide, most of whom were educated Westerners. Osho was a Tantric master par excellence, but he had a full grasp of all significant wisdom traditions, and, like Gurdjieff, spared no effort to spur his followers on to deep and lasting inner transformations. To this end, he was unique in being an Eastern mystic who made full use of Western style psychotherapies, especially group work. Several prominent Western therapists apprenticed themselves to him, and effectively served as mediums for his energy while working directly with thousands of seekers.
Osho himself mostly restricted his teaching to daily lectures, most of which were eventually transcribed and captured in hundreds of books and videotapes. He would prove to be one of the most exposed Eastern mystics ever, and has been credited with having one of the most powerful and dynamic effects on Western seekers in the 20th century. Reviled by many world governments for his outspoken criticisms of politics and religion, his health failed and he died in his late 50s.
Franklin Jones, basically a contemporary of Osho, was unique in being a Western man, born and raised on east coast America, who was to become recognized as a fully Enlightened, bona fide Western spiritual master. Over the course of many years of teaching, he was to change his name many times, to the point where it was difficult to remember them all, but some of his more well known appellations were “Bubba Free John”, “Da Free John”, “Da Avabhasa”, and “Adi Da Samraj”.
Jones was originally a disciple of the American yogi Swami Rudrananda, and later the Indian Vedic Yogis Swami Muktananda and Nityandanda. He eventually characterized himself as surpassing all their teachings, and attained to his self-realization in a complex process described in compelling depth in his famous spiritual autobiography, The Knee of Listening. He is an especially powerful writer and speaker, using his keen intellect, charismatic presence, and pure force of being to facilitate many seekers into profound states of consciousness and Awakening. Though he did not attract as many followers as Osho, Jones has generally been considered a master of similar stature, and equally controversial as well.
Helen Schucman was an unassuming research psychologist working in an American college in the 1960s when she found herself in off hours slipping into a trance state, and receiving messages from an inner “Voice”. After much doubt and fear for her sanity, she eventually surrendered to the “Voice” and began writing down its dictations. The writing lasted seven years, after which she was left with a massive three part book known as A Course in Miracles. The “Voice” claimed to be that of Jesus, who was essentially imparting to Schucman, in spirit form, a teaching that could roughly be characterized as an “updated” and “corrected” Bible.
While it can be said confidently that much of so-called “inspired” or “channeled” literature is mediocre in quality and generally not very original, Schucman’s book was definitely both high quality, and very original. Though the teachings of A Course in Miracles hold similarities with Buddhism, Vedism, Gnosticism, and neo-Platonism, they are not quite exactly like any of these and contain a very unique expression of the ultimate truths. The book itself is written in Christian-style languaging, which unfortunately alienated some and prevented others from reading it, however, it is probably true that the languaging made it possible for many conditioned in Judeo-Christian societies to relate to the teachings.
Tibet’s 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, has undoubtedly been the most effective bridge in the 20th century for linking genuine spiritual principles with politics and the public eye. The tragic plight of his country (overrun by the Chinese in 1959), the Tibetan version of the Diaspora of his people and their spiritual teachings, and his receiving of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988 all contributed to his powerful public image, made all the more effective by his authentic and unwavering inner Awakening. Along with Mahatma Gandhi, he probably accomplished the most outwardly for promoting genuine world peace and interfaith dialogue in the 20th century.
Over to:
Home