Sacred scripture from around the world brings us the profound truth of our primal spirituality. Often, that scripture has been written down, translated, and preserved by the world’s religions and spiritual lineages. We can be grateful for that. At the same time, the truth brought by the original authors is, all too often, covered over by dogma, doctrine, and mistranslation from over the centuries. The result is that to find the pure gold within our spiritual legacy, we can’t just pick up and adopt, without thinking, all the beliefs of religion and spirituality today. We have to purify the lineage we receive to tap into its original truth. That original truth, by its very nature, is not just out of the past. It is eternal. And it is eternally present now.

The essay Self-Reliance is from 19^th-century American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. In it, he addresses the need for spiritual self-reliance this way:

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the Eternal was stirring at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not pinched in a corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay under the Almighty effort let us advance on Chaos and the Dark.

It takes self-reliance for a person to discern and uncover their purified spiritual lineage. We are all called to spiritual self-reliance, to take responsibility not only for our life in the usual sense but to take responsibility for our spiritual connection, for the spiritual lineage that we include ourselves in. This empowers us to take our place in that purified lineage—not the lineage of autocratic religiosity but the lineage of awakening.

The great spiritual teachings of the world today began with a teaching of enlightenment.

If you look at what the Buddha was teaching, what Lao Tzu was saying, what Abraham and Moses were teaching, it was a teaching of the highest knowledge. With this in mind, I’d like to reflect on some of the oldest texts available to humankind.

The authorship of the Hebrew Bible is traditionally attributed to Moses and other leaders of the Israelite period, and the Jewish leaders that came after them in the centuries prior to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Its books tell the stories and teachings of the Israelites and Jews. Yet as you read the Old Testament—which was translated from the Hebrew Bible—you might find portions that seem to come from outside that historical period. Sometimes they carry a transcendent tone and an eternal truth. In this blog, I have previously invoked the truth that spiritual things are spiritually discerned. I invite your spiritual discernment of these things.

One of the stories in the Book of Genesis that predates Israelite times is the story of the Flood. It is easy to toss it off as a fairy tale, with animals coming into the ark, two-by-two. The reality is that there are stories of a great flood from traditions around the globe, including from the aboriginal people of Australia, the Inca, the Chinese, the Hawaiians, the Hindus, and more.

Now reflect on the possibility that there were ancient sages who had a premonition of the calamity that would befall humankind—floods and more. From that perspective, consider the story of Job. It is a biblical book that tells of a man who would lose almost everything. His own body breaks out in boils, from head to toe. And his wife tells him to curse God and die. 

Most of the Book of Job tells of his calamities, with the people around him giving him disheartening counsel. But finally, it all comes around right. This is how the story tells it:

So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. 

He had also seven sons and three daughters. 

And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Keren-happuch. 

And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren. 

After this lived Job a hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, even four generations. 

So Job died, being old and full of days. 

Job 41:12-17

If you wanted to give a message to people who had experienced a calamity, what more inspiring story could you tell? No matter what happens, it’s all going to come around right if you stay spiritually centered and keep steady through it all.

This is a message given to humanity from before time, as we know it. It is a message of true hope. As you read it in the Old Testament, it seems out of place, plopped down in the middle of it, having little obvious relationship to what comes before or after it.

This is from the very beginning of the Old Testament in the first chapter of Genesis:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 

Genesis 1:26-28 

Can you imagine a more powerful reminder of what we are as human beings and what our role is on Planet Earth? This is a picture of co-creation with the invisible dimensions of Reality. It is a picture of agency—the empowerment to create on earth.

Sometimes people criticize the use of the word dominion, blaming it for the dominating attitude that modern civilization has toward the natural world. An Israeli friend wrote a book in Hebrew, The Keepers of the Ten Commandments, now being translated into English. In it, he suggests that the Hebrew word translated as dominion also means “to pave the way.”  He offers this translation of Genesis 1:28:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and

replenish the earth, and pave the Way in order to serve the fish of the sea, and the fowl of

the air, and every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

I understand this to be paving the way on a spiritual basis, setting the vibrational pattern for Creation.

Now consider these words from Isaiah, some of the most beautiful poetry in the English language:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 

Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. 

Isaiah 55:8-13

At first the words might seem hard-edged, possibly even a putdown. But with a closer reading and a greater level of spiritual discernment, something else is apparent, something that echoes the story of Creation in Genesis—agency. After claiming his own authority as the Creator, the LORD invites human beings to participate in Creation—the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing…

It is a picture of the working of the Law of Karma and the torus—the shape of Creation. My word—the radiant power of Creation—moves out from the Invisible Center and manifests in form, bringing back to the Center the fruits of Creation.

Like so many profound spiritual truths, it is set forth in poetic language. But it tells of absolute scientific truth—the process of Creation from the atom to the galaxy, and in human experience.

Psychologist C. R. Snyder identified three elements of hope: goals, agency, and pathways. Goals are a vision of ourselves and what we are here to fulfill in our lives. Agency is the empowerment to fulfill those goals. And pathways are the realistic opportunities to express that agency and fulfill the vision we have been given.

These messages from before time are full of these things—full of hope. They share a vision of who we are and what we are here to fulfill. They grant us agency to fulfill it and show us the pathways to do so. They are some of the most hopeful words given to humankind. I invite you to see them for what they are. Embrace their message of hope and thus know the profound soul activation that lets you fulfill that hope in your own life and in the world.