Origins of the diverse religions and spiritual traditions

It seems that we have a lot of different religions and spiritual traditions today. At school, you learn only a few things about what they believe, what kind of rituals they have and who has founded them. So in fact, the most and the really interesting questions are not answered. Quite the contrary, it seems that suddenly somewhere a new religion is born because suddenly someone had special experiences or ideas to start something new. It is very strange but it is what people teach at school and say in public. Everything has happened “suddenly” and “no one” knows “why”.

But when you make more research and get a brighter knowledge about the history of mankind, of culture, traditions and religions, then you can see the true origins of the diversity of beliefs and cults.

Imagine that there is one big family with a lot of grown-up children, all certainly brothers and sisters. Everyone lives somewhere and develops in a specific way and one day they all meet. On this day, a stranger comes and sees all the obviously different people, in different clothes, different behaviors, etc. And because of these superficial and obvious differences, he believes that these are all strangers too. He asks an old man of this meeting and the old man says “Look, these are all my children. We are one big family. And on the second sight you will become aware of all the characteristics which we share.” The stranger is surprised and indeed, on the second, closer look, he sees that they are really all members of one family. The old man sees that the stranger is surprised. “You know, the differences come from the different areas where my children live, the different conditions of life. They all have developed specific, individual behaviors and they use dialects and unique cloths. So on the first sight, it is not easy to understand them as members of one family.” The words of the old man were like an enlightenment for the stranger and he understood all well.

This example shall illustrate the main problems people have to face when they make research and the true reality behind the superficial appearance of things. So in conclusion, we are easily distracted by differences in the outer appearance of things but when we look behind these veils, we see the true nature and the common origins.

When we look now at our present world, then we see a lot of countries, a lot of different nations, a lot of people with different languages, cultural habits, traditions and beliefs. But this is the surface and in the core mankind is one big family with common origins. And these origins, the history we all share is the key for a deeper understanding of everything, including the different religions and spiritual traditions.

A general problem is that not much knowledge about the development of mankind is handed-down. So today we have some sources of information and indicators based on scientific research which offer a picture of the history of mankind.

From the few things we know, we can assume that there was a high culture before the oldest Indian civilization. This ancient culture was living in parts on land which sunk in the ocean due to natural disasters. From this high civilization we can assume that it was completely developed in all aspects of society, spirituality, technology, etc. Parts of this civilization were able to rescue themselves in the area of the ancient India, probably also in other areas. So what we know as India is the follower of this perfect ancient civilization. India started directly on this level of development, so indeed there was nothing new to develop but everything was given from the former civilization. We still find today in the old writings of India all kinds of sciences, technology, medicine and philosophy in completeness. In ancient times India was a great empire, larger than people can imagine today, probably covering great parts of Europe, Near East, Asia, etc. It was the one, dominating civilization with kingdoms everywhere. When you think about such a big size, then it is no wonder that people in the different areas have developed own characteristics in appearance, in language, in tradition, in religious rituals, etc. It is also imaginable that people have changed in the color of skin, eyes and hair. So indeed, we can still see the deeper connections from various people in Europe with old India, – in language, in legends, religion and in genome.

In parts people emigrated from the core land to outer areas, new continents, etc. This happened from time to time in waves due to natural disasters, changes in nature and society. For example the big river Saraswati in old India run dry and people were forced to migrate to a new area. And certainly there were wars which caused major changes.

The religions and spiritual traditions of old India were based on a holistic perception of creation with the different planes of existence, the different spirits and beings and also the different aspects of God. So in fact there was a complete and deep understanding about The Divine, mankind and creation. On this basis, people set different focuses in their religious and spiritual activities like it is normal in life in general. Some have a focus on divine love, others on divine wisdom, or the development of cosmic consciousness, etc. Corresponding to these different focusses, different gods/ goddesses were worshipped and different rituals, etc. were applied.

From time to time high spiritual souls have incarnated to renew religious traditions, to vitalize them but also to change the focus. In this way also seemingly new religions were born. And certainly not only high spiritual souls worked in this way but also souls with lower intentions or bad ones.

While the Indian religions and traditions were esoteric, we see in Europe and in the Near East an unhealthy separation into esoteric teachings for the leaders and exoteric teachings for the simple followers. By the passing of time, the esoteric teachings were dropped in parts or completely, so that only exoteric teachings survived with all the negative limitations, half-truths and partial evil teachings. Today, we experience the negative effects.

Especially interesting is here that the esoteric teachings are in main based on the hermetic knowledge which was translated and adapted to the different cultures, traditions and official religious teachings.

The whole history of mankind with all religions and traditions is in main a matter of copying old teachings and adapting them to present needs and conditions of life. Like there is no tree without roots, there is no religion and no tradition without roots. All the seemingly different religions and beliefs are just the branches of one tree and the roots of this tree are the universal laws and teachings including the cosmic religion. Everything is based on metaphysics and mysticism which is called today the hermetic science.

And at last – through all these processes of copying and adapting, the later copies cannot be as good as the old original. There is always a loss of quality when you copy something.

So those who want the maximum of quality have to go back to the roots.

These were a few hints for orientation. More could be said but it is not healthy to do so. The interested researcher will find more and can get a holistic understanding of this topic. I also want to point at the nonsense today that automatically all ancient civilizations are flattened to the term “Atlantis”. This is similar to saying that the world today is all China or all London. The world and our history are more complex than this superficial simplification.