Hans Wilhelm offers a perennialist critique of organized religion, arguing that early humans had direct contact with the divine source which was progressively mediated and distorted by prophets, priests and institutions. He distinguishes the contemplative core shared across traditions from the doctrinal accretions specific to each.
Transcript
Hi I'm Hans Wilhelm and in this video in the LIFEexplained series I will explore with you how it was possible that so many different religions are claiming to represent the one and only God. I will show you why these religious organizations have ruled us for eons, and how they have influenced the path of our soul. At the beginning there was God, the Creator, also called LOVE. Like a sun, GOD eternally radiates and sustains all of creation with LIFE energy. The early humans in all cultures knew that. They were in constant intimate communication with this Source because they knew that God was everywhere. We can still find remnants of such direct communication in several indigenous people around the globe. But over time - with an increasing focus on the material world - people lost this direct communication and increasingly relied on others who would speak on God's behalf. They were prophets, gurus, shamans, priests, and all kind of leaders who claimed to have the Word of God and the only direct access to God. They gathered their flock around them and shepherd them further and further away from the Source and from Truth. This deception was not always done intentionally. But their own egos and personas distorted the Word of God more and more. And so did the negative forces that often influenced them and purposely twisted and tainted the original message. With time, new leaders replaced the old ones and lead the flock even further away. Their personal craving for vanity and power made them easy targets for the negative forces. To hold their followers together they invented laws, rules, dogmas, doctrines, morals, child indoctrination, special dress codes, taboos and severe punishment for anybody who would dare to break them. The purpose was to bind people to their group. This is exactly the opposite of what LOVE does. LOVE is always freedom. For instance, Christ said, I came to set you free. We also know that He was highly critical about the priesthood. He never wanted a religious organization using His name and acting and speaking on His behalf. He was very clear about this when He said that nobody should be called rabbi, - except The Father in Heaven. And He said that God is within us and not in any outer temples. But this didn't happen only to the teachings of Christ. It happened to virtually all sacred teachings. Different people with different levels of consciousness started their own groups and followers. So here we have Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Bahaism, Confucianism - just to name a few plus the many thousands of sub-groups. In this process these groups, that we now call religions, had removed themselves further and further away from God, the Source. We can see them as spokes of a wheel where God or LOVE is the center and on the distant peripheral are all the organized religions. But they now had a severe problem. Having removed themselves so far from the Source they were running low on energy - just like a battery. So they turned to their followers to get their vital life force through dues, contributions, donations and free working hours. And to maintain the illusion that they are the true representative of God they began erecting impressive buildings and claimed that God would live in these places and everybody had to gather there for worship. These are the temples, the shrines, the tabernacles, the churches, the synagogues, the mosques and so on. They had turned the God who lives within all of us into a God who they claimed can only be found in their grand buildings. We can also see it as a spectacular packaging that the religious organization - under direct influence of the negative forces - used to attract new followers and to hold the old ones. In addition to the buildings they came up with special initiation rituals, like circumcision, ceremonies, chanting, special Holy Days, traditions, myths, saints, and most of all - a hierarchy of people who claimed to represent God, like a pope, priests, rabbis, mullahs and so on. Furthermore, they had the audacity to insist that their flock pays for these self-appointed representatives of God. By now the religions had become mostly packaging with little or no content. Many had turned into powerful money making machines. Just think of the riches of the Vatican. But that is note all: As I said, since the religions have over time removed themselves from the Source of Life they are now getting their energy from the members of their congregation. But even that is never enough. Definitely not for the negative forces that rule them. And subsequently most of these religions finally began to fight each other in what they often called "holy wars". These are wars for energy, converts, territory and so on. Many of the so called Holy Scriptures - like the bible - are full of horrendous battles in the name of various Gods. This terrible bloodletting goes on until today. Just look around the globe. Do we now see the total contrast: Here is God (or LOVE) in the center and out here we have the opposite: hate, death and destruction that emanates a lot of loosh energy, which is the energy food for the negative forces? If you want to know more about this you may want to watch my video on WHY DO WE KILL and another one on EVIL. Now of course, everything negative also has its positive. We know that some members in these organizations also do some impressive charity work to help the needy. This is done by countless people who work selflessly and truly express the Love of God in their own personal way. But unfortunately, such good will is not found by the ones who rule and manipulate these organizations. You may ask, why does it matter so much if we are a member of a religious organization or not. The answer may be surprising. It all depends on the intensity of our identification with our religious belief. If we are emotionally strongly attached to a specific religion than this attachment influences the vibration of our soul. In can become the dominate vibration of our soul. And after our earthly life our soul will follow the Law of Attraction and will be attracted to the same religious groups of souls in the lower levels of the astral spheres. Here we will be together with other extreme Catholics, Moslems, Jews, Hindus or whatever we so much identify with. And we could be stuck here for eons and eons. Remember, religious organizations always bind us - which is in total opposition to LOVE, the highest spiritual level, which is freedom. Whether we do it here on Earth in this life time or later - level by level - in the astral and purifications spheres, eventually we must free ourselves from all these binding religious teachings and return to the Source, to God. This is the famous Return of the Prodigal Son to the Father's House. It is the return to the God within all of us. The path to LOVE and Freedom. We came from Light and our essence is pure Light. Our souls are not religious. We all have adopted our religious beliefs mostly from our parents when we incarnated into this life. These beliefs are not ours. Are we ready to question them? Thank you for watching