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“Question with boldness even the existence of a God because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind-folded fear.” Thomas Jefferson |
1 – Diversity
The word religion comes from “re-ligare”or “tying again.” Religion seeks to tie us, Eternons born from the Absolute, with our cosmic origin.
We all experience some form of spirituality, if only to help in facing the prospect of our inevitable end. We all seek some logic behind the apparent absurdity of our fugitive passage on Earth.
Agnostics may refuse to bother with eternity and divinity, still they forge some personal system of belief to hold things together. Hard core materialists may think the universe is but a mechanism like their watch, still they have to wonder who is the jeweler.
Through contemplation and meditation, some humans have encountered their Lead Eternon and faced the Absolute in luminous insights. Several have chosen to share the fruits of their enlightenment. Moses, Zoroaster, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed, are among them.
But how come these fruits are so diverse. How can we reconcile the Hindu cult of a legion of divinities, the Jewish worship of a fatherly god, and the Taoist faith in impersonal principles? If Eternons are fractions of the same Absolute, why do they inspire to humans so different feelings for it?
2 – Similarity
Throughout the world, different foods, attires, and architectures answer the same basic needs from the body. Why should it be otherwise when it comes to answer the same basic needs from the soul? Eternons create humans who are different from each others. Humans, in turn, embrace different metaphysical concepts. Still, when analyzed more closely, religions present striking similarities in their doctrines and historicity.
Tales of flood and divine wrath are encountered in most mythologies and sacred texts. Five thousand year old inscriptions on Sumerian tablets already tell about the efforts of a Noah-like hero to save humankind from extinction.
In ancient Egypt, the Book of the Dead, several millennia older than Christianity, already details the principle of final judgment. Also in Egypt, 1400 years before Christ, King Akhenaton creates a religion based on love, equality, and freedom. Its ideals are those of most subsequent monotheist faiths. The goddess Isis and her son Horus will even become the archetypes of the Madonna and her Infant.
In Persia, around 600 B.C., Zoroaster teaches that Earth once was a place of delight, a paradise. Following the fall of the angels, Mazda, the creator of all things, confronted the forces of evil. Mazdeism speaks of the savior to be miraculously born every thousand years from a virgin, of the punishment and reward of the souls, and of the existence of hell and heaven. Mithraism, a cult widespread in the Roman empire during the first century B.C., promises universal salvation, and includes such rites as baptism and communion with consecrated bread and wine.
In India, the religious epic of the Mahabharata speaks of the many guises of the divine Vishnu. One of them is the God Krishna in which Vishnu incarnates to save the world. Like Christ, Krishna is born from a virgin in a stable. Like Christ, a cruel king seeks his death and for this does not hesitate to kill many children. Like Christ, young Krishna is brought to the temple where his knowledge baffles the priests.
Mohammed, akin to many founders of religions, receives the divine revelation through an angel. And like them too, he has to fight demons during his meditative retirement. Even figures as remote in time and space as Buddha and Christ, preach love and compassion in almost identical terms. Both take the same revolutionary stance in benevolence toward the destitute and the pariah.
Surely, actual encounters between the various faiths explain many similarities. But they do not account for the likeness of the original doctrines. For this, Eternism has a better explanation.
3 – Universality
Religions belongs to what the great psychologist Carl Jung called the “collective unconscious” of the human species. This collective unconscious is nothing else than the shared wisdom of our Lead Eternons.
Human Eternons have been through cosmic conflagrations of apocalyptic proportions. They have visited the hellish interiors of celestial bodies. They have roamed the heavens. They have participated in the genesis of the Earth and survived the floods that marked its evolution. Dust returning to dust, they have resurrected, reincarnated, and will live forever. Our Eternons have filled our human psyche with fragments of their cosmic experience. They have revealed to us in this way four universal verities:
1. There is infinity.
Behind every religious feeling is the fundamental intuition that an infinite reality transcends the finite world. For early humans, this transcendence was manifest in all of the surrounding nature.
Thus, are born cults such as Totemism and Animism, revering and personalizing the pervading Eternon forces.
2. There is eternity.
Humans did not start believing in an everlasting soul only to appease the anxiety of their too short lives. Eternity has always been embedded within their Eternon minds.
Thus are born cults such as those of Ancient Egypt, India, and China, in which the dead and reincarnation play a central role.
3. There is purpose.
The purpose of Eternons is to progress toward the Absolute. This is why complex structures like us exist. This is why universal moral values have been gradually penetrating these humans.
Thus are born religions proclaiming the ultimate power of love, such as Buddhism and Christianity.
4. There is oneness.
Eternons are issued from a single Absolute. In their spiritual evolution, humans have felt compelled to abandon multiple divinities and to worship a single cosmic power.
Thus are born religions of one God, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Thus are born wisdoms of one Principle, such as Buddhism and Taoism.
The various faiths humans have embraced have each their peculiarities, but all are expressions of the same Eternon principles. Therefore, parallels between Eternism and religions are many. A few are listed hereafter. The various elements and quotations that best illustrate these parallels have been kept in italics.
4 – Animism: Eternon Ubiquity
It all started with Eternons imprinting into humans the awareness of a transcending reality. Everywhere around the world, in the Arctic ices, the Australian bush, the African savanna, the Pacific islands, the tropical forests, and the great plains, far distant peoples adopted nearly identical forms of spirituality. These peoples had not a clear idea of this transcending reality, but they could sense it. It was within their whole environment. Totemism arose as a “re-union” with nature.
The totem, often an animal, sometimes a plant, was the emblem for the cult. It could be represented by a sculpture, a painting, a drawing, even a tattoo. It was a materialization of “Mana,” the great cosmic energy. All members of the tribe were submitted to this energy. Individuals died, generations passed; the totem’s Mana remained.
Individualizing Mana led to Animism. Each body housed a life principle, a soul. At the time of death, the soul joined the Land of Spirits. Sooner or later, most souls returned to the tangible world. Those who did not, became gods or Spirits of Nature.
Souls were within all things and all beings. Within the sun, the sea, the rain, the stone, the tree, the bird. Within the whole body and all of its parts. Within all belongings, including footsteps and shadows. One could affect any creature by acting on such belongings.
The soul could temporarily leave the body and act on it from a distance. It could be transferred or stolen, even ingested. Words and rituals inspired the forces of nature. Animism was a world of myths and incantation, of amulets and talismans. It still is the dominant creed among non Moslem Africans, Polynesians, Eskimos, and many North and South American Indians.
Guided by their Eternons, the first humans had basic convictions regarding the spiritual nature of all things and the intimacy of matter and forces. Both Totemism and Animism acknowledge the major feature of Eternism: omnipresent consciousness.
Major religions have retained numerous aspects from Totemism and Animism. Our remote ancestors would not feel estranged from today’s worshipers burning incense, venerating icon sculptures, dipping fingers in holy water, and shunning taboo food. Ancient tribal beliefs have also survived in our modern secular life. The American Eagle, the Russian bear, and the Peace Dove are among many totems alive and well. As for Animism, contemporary physics and parapsychology are rediscovering the principles that this form of spirituality has all along taken for granted.
5 – Hinduism: Eternon Oneness
There has been in the West a growing recognition of the spiritual riches of the East. The public at large may not be well acquainted with literary masterpieces such as the Bhagavad Gita, but Hindu spirituality is getting somewhat more familiar.
Hinduism has no single founder and no organized church. It has evolved through four thousand years from the teaching of the Vedic scriptures to the heritage of Mahatma Gandhi. It is practiced under many forms by a diverse population. It mixes primitive superstitions with lofty spiritual values. It honors multiple divinities, but supports unitary principles. Its various speculations may be regarded as the same truth under different angles.
In many ways, Hinduism is a celebration of the world of Eternons. In the Upanishads, one of the finest sacred texts ever written, we discover Atman, the hidden self, a striking description of the Lead Eternon: “Atman is smaller than a grain of rice, larger than the infinite universe. Atman is buried deep in the soul. It is the vital force at the center of the being. Atman exists in all vegetable and animal lives, in all realities.”
Here are even more definitive words about our Eternon nature. They invite us to turn inward, and to let our human mind discover the higher consciousness of our Lead Eternon: “We do not see Atman, but Atman is our Witness. We do not hear Atman, but Atman is the Hearer. We do not know Atman, but Atman is the Knower. Our goal is to contemplate, listen, and understand Atman.”
The world is created by Atman but Brahman is the Absolute. Brahman is the alpha and omega, the perfection from which Eternons have come and to which they return. Eventually, Atman-Eternon and Brahman-Absolute are one: “Brahman is the ultimate reality, the essence of all things. It is without beginning, endless, and limitless. It is unimaginable, incomprehensible. One may worship various gods, but Brahman is all the creation, all the gods. The identity of Atman and Brahman is the thread that ties all things together.”
Hinduism proclaims the fundamental unity of the universe through Eternons: “What is in the depths of the human and what is on the sun are the same and the one.”
More than any other religion, Hinduism stresses the link between consecutive lives. The Lead Eternon we are assembles successive structures according to its experience. It is a dogma of gradual self-perfection: “Our life is determined by our acts during the previous ones. It is the karma. Likewise, behavior during this life determines our reincarnation in this or in another realm.”
Eternons have no other purpose than to increase awareness till they return to the Absolute: “Salvation comes through knowledge. Eventually, Atman and Brahman, the human soul and the cosmic soul, will merge. Eternal freedom will have been reached. It will be the end of the cycle of deaths and rebirths.”
6 – Buddhism: Eternon Healing
Buddhism has much in common with Hinduism. Both are comparable interpretations of the Eternon reality. The religion of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, originated in the middle of the sixth century B.C. in Northern India and eventually spread to most other Asian countries.
The Buddha is a therapist. He analyses the suffering of humankind and proposes a cure. His Eightfold Path is a prescription for a rewarding life. Its long and patient discipline aims to reach superior awareness and to experience the bliss of salvation as we merge with the cosmos.
Twenty-five hundred year old Buddhism offers a stunningly fresh vision of the world. In many respects, this vision parallels that of Eternism and modern physics: “All things and events are intertwined. The world we tend to separate into material and spiritual realms is constituted by discharges of a single form of energy. Vegetable, animal, and mineral forms are manifestations of this energy. They impress our senses through various types of vibrations: that of light, air, and other substances.”
Change comes from the naturally flowing and undulatory nature of the universe.
All creations eventually disintegrate and reach a state of pure energy.
Impermanence is both a basic law among Eternon structures and a pillar of the Buddhist doctrine. Indeed, the last words of the Buddha were to remind that: “Decay is in the essence of all assembled things.”
According to Eternism, beings do not reincarnate, Eternons do. The Lead Eternon is the living energy that animates structure after structure. Which brings the Buddhist analogy: “In the round of death and rebirth, beings succeed each other like a flame passing from candle to candle. The being who is born is both the same and another one.”
To start a new life, the Lead Eternon has to vitalize the egg after fertilization by the sperm. Buddhism develops precisely the same notion, although in words of its time: “The mother and the father may unite, but if consciousness does not enter, no new life will be created. A new life can only exist when the three elements are combined. Consciousness and Names-and-Bodies are inseparable.”
Consciousness has a wide connotation in Buddhism: it is awareness, but also knowledge, intelligence, information. It applies perfectly to the creative energy of Eternons. “Names-and-bodies” are the perceptible and tangible elements of the universe, including humans.
Every human is primarily a Lead Eternon. Admitting this fact is a condition to reach perfect awareness. The Buddhist’s access to Nirvana is the equivalent of the Lead Eternon’s return to the Absolute: “Originally, everyone is a Buddha, an enlightened being. To enter Nirvana, the infinity of space, time, and idea, one must have faith in one’s Buddhahood. Salvation is the liberation from the chain of reincarnations through personal awakening.”
Buddhism recognizes that even the smallest speck is a conscious Eternon.
7 – Taoism: Eternon Wisdom
Chinese culture has always been sensitive to the dualism so representative of the Eternon universe: plurality-unity, matter-energy, body-soul, reason-intuition. Yin and Yang are opposite but complementary principles whose harmony ensures cosmic order.
Against this background, a new school of philosophical and religious thought appeared during the sixth century B.C. According to tradition, Taoism originated with Lao Tzu. The Taoist Bible is the Tao Te Ching, “The Way and Its Power.” It is a short poetic writing, the only we have left from a man who never preached and did not even organized a church.
Tao is the very Absolute: “Tao is the ultimate and indefinable reality of the universe. Tao is beyond human conscious understanding, but its existence is beyond doubt. Tao, the mystery of all life, may only be known through mystical insight.”
But Tao is also Eternons, the vital energy within all things and all beings: “Tao is the order of nature, the way of the universe, the force behind all things. Where is Tao? Everywhere; in the ant, in the herb, in the brick.”
Wu Wei is an essential notion of the Taoist doctrine. It says we can easily achieve results if we draw on the wisdom and experience from our Lead Eternon: “We must let flow in us the same invisible power that is guiding the hand of the artist. We must silence our superficial ego and follow our inner self.”
Tao, like the Eternon, has no gender. To reach Tao, we must find the balance between male and female consciousness: “Tao is the perfect harmony of the masculine and feminine principles.”
Taoism, like Eternism, recognizes that all is alive and dynamic in the universe. Even what looks inanimate: “Stillness is not real stillness…a spiritual rhythm pervades all in Heaven and on Earth.”
Taoist principles often sounds like an ode to Eternons:
Tao not only is the ordering principle behind all things.
Tao also assumes the likeness of dust.
Tao is the creator of all things.
Tao is the food and the growth of all things.
Tao is the maturity and guidance of all things.
8 – Monotheism: Eternon Law
About half of the world’s population worships one of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These religions are all monotheistic and conceive God as unique, transcendent creator and the source of moral law. God is also immanent or involved in the word and guides humanity through revelation to prophets. God as such can be seen as a humanized interpretation of the Absolute discussed earlier.
Long before Moses, the peoples of Judah and Israel had established animist rituals. They would honor various divinities with magic and sacrifices. But around the sixth century B.C., Judaism became a strictly monotheist religion. The Torah, the first five books of the Bible, shows the transformation of the anthropomorphic and nationalist Yahweh into the transcendental and universal Lord God.
Jews understood that reality and mysteries were not explicable through senseless matter and random laws. There was will and purpose in the universe. The originality of Judaism was to declare that it all came from a single, supreme, and personal God.
Another innovative aspect of Judaism was its view of the material world. Whereas Buddhism saw the body as a prison for the spirit, Judaism saw the body as a host to the spirit. Far from considering physical existence illusory or worthless, Judaism exalted it.
The Bible is more than a mere chronicle of the relationship between Middle Eastern nomads and their fatherly divinity. It is a message, a teaching. Behind the humans who wrote it, we perceive the wisdom of their Lead Eternons.
Throughout the text, we are reminded how and why we are on this Earth. From Genesis, where “light and darkness, matter and void, emerge from the Absolute”; to Ecclesiastes, where our “dust turns to dust again”. From Exodus, where the Commandments become “foundations for spiritual and social order”; to the revolutionary words of the Prophets, where “justice and progress are claimed for all children of God.” The Bible offers to us, embodied Eternons, a moral frame to fulfill our humanity.
Eternons let mysticism dominate in the East. Through Judaism, they encouraged materialism in the West. In doing so, they paved the way for the development of sciences and a faster evolution of humans. The next great era of spirituality will blend the best of the Orient and the Occident.
Judaism has fathered Christianity which is founded in events we know through the New Testament. Whereas the Old Testament is basically the Jewish bible, the New Testament and its Gospels begin at the birth of Christ.
During his life, Christ never traveled more than 90 miles away from his birthplace, but his teaching is the most widely spread. He did not write a single line, but his words are the most widely read. He lived only a brief existence, but his passage has marked the following millennia like no other Lead Eternon.
Christianity’s originality lays in its powerful message of love. Deep inside each of us, there is an unlimited potential of love. It is released by the love of God, and , in a chain reaction, flows in turn toward others.
Christ appears fully and simultaneously divine and human. This duality is the very one we observe with the Lead Eternon and his human structure. The wisdom of the Eternon comes to light in the deeds of the human, while the human is shining from its cosmic origin.
Christ, a superior Lead Eternon, used expressions and parables targeted at a simpler audience. What would have been the reaction of his listeners, had he spoken of Absolute and energy field? Instead, he described a fatherly God and a Holy Spirit. Likewise, he did not mention quantum waves but flames and light, not psychic healing but communion, not ethereal Eternons but angels and demons, not the cosmos but heavens.
After Judaism and Christianity, Islam is the third great faith born in the cradle of the Middle East. Islam regards the Jewish and Christian Bibles as authentic but incomplete revelations. Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus are early prophets. It is only in the sixth century A.D. that God made the definitive revelation to the last prophet: Mohammed.
The Moslem doctrine flourished among Bedouins who till then worshiped scores of spirits and divinities. Yet it expresses strongly the unity of God as a pure spirit, hidden and unapproachable by human science. God is the Truth, the Light from Heavens and Earth. Islam agrees with Eternism that the power of God is not to be sought in the supernatural world but in the magnificence of Creation.
Muslims believe humans are accountable for their deeds. Following a cataclysmic ending of the planet, there will be days of reckoning. The Koran gives the most vivid description of hell and paradise. Hell is a fire boiling and melting the hardest rocks and metals. It reduces all substances to ashes. Paradise is peace and abundance, with all beings living in harmony.
Similar assertions are found in several religions. Interestingly, they make sense when we go beyond their literal content. Like many religious elements, the concepts of hell and paradise have their source in the experiences of our Eternons. On one hand, Eternons who do not progress remain in primitive nuclear reactions, such as those in the burning core of stars. On the other hand, enlightened Eternons participate in ever more noble and enlightening creations.
Terrorism and radicalism have smeared the Moslem heritage. It is difficult to discuss today the contribution of Islam without stirring passionate emotions. But let’s not forget that Christianity too, and for that matter most other religions, have engendered immense human suffering.
9 – Tolerance: Eternon Lesson
We could look at further religions and creeds. For example, at Manicheism which believes the soul is a light passing from reincarnation to reincarnation before returning to God. Or at Shintoism which claims that death leaves us with the supernatural power to create and transform the natural world. These faiths, like all the ones discussed earlier, have many valid aspects. Although humans venerate different conceptions of the Absolute, this veneration is always inspired by common Eternon ideals.
Yet, embarrassing questions come to mind. How come Eternon ideals have been so unsuccessful at bringing peace and harmony upon Earth? How come messages of love, tolerance, and respect for life have become sources of hatred, discrimination, and death?
One reason is that seers and prophets have usually been ahead of their time. The average human mind was and remains too primitive for what they have taught.
Another reason is that the founders of the great religions spoke instead of writing. The Buddhist canon and sutras were passed on by oral transmission for at least 500 years. The first Christian Gospel, that of Mark, was not put down until 30 years after the death of Christ. Humans have been rather careless when memorizing, copying, or translating.
Also, schisms have plagued almost every faith. Following the death of their founder, both Buddhism and Islam split into two branches. In Christianity, two thousand years of interpretation have produced a disconcerting diversity. Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and over three hundred Protestant denominations dispute Christ’s legacy.
With all the theological squabbling going on, how can we believe that someone is right and someone is wrong? Take suicide, for instance. A Catholic will regard suicide as an odious crime against God. A Buddhist will say it is the noble gift of one’s more precious possession. Both views are mere human preconceptions. For Lead Eternons who never die, suicide simply does not exist. True spirituality is above petty human disagreements.
Most churches have become as flawed as the secular organizations they imitate. Sober rituals have been replaced by ostentatious pomp. Noble doctrines have degenerated into shallow dogmas. Letter and spirit have been twisted to justify oppression and destruction. Perhaps today’s most unacceptable aspect of religions is their total lack of integration within our modern world. How can we expect millennia-old propositions to be forever valid in their most minute details? In light of our intellectual evolution, religious accounts often seem puerile legends.
Any serious metaphysical reflection should, like Eternism, enfold all forms of knowledge. Religions ought to interpret scientific findings to develop more rational doctrines. If Buddha or Christ had known organ transplants, super computers, space probes, and atomic energy, the essence of their messages would still be the same, but not their dialectic.
The various religions are merely beacons placed by Eternons on our path to enlightenment. Our aim is the enlightenment, not this or that type of beacon. Some will observe that all efforts to establish a universal religion have failed. But is there a need for one? It is not uniformity that the world longs for, it is solidarity. We all are separate structures. We all may choose our creed, even forge our personal one. But our individual convictions should bring us together like threads tying us to the same Absolute.
We must discount the cultural divergences of the various religious doctrines and embrace instead their common teaching:
To have faith in infinity, eternity, purpose, and oneness.
To have faith in enlightenment and love.
To have faith in the Eternons we are.
