Divine Knowledge Has No Owners, And The
Wisest Among Men Are Humble Truth-Seekers
 
 
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
 
 
 
Two guides to the Temple Mount, or Mount Moriah
 
 
 
The Eastern concept of Karma teaches the law of equilibrium in life. It combines time, space, and movement. Worldly existence is seen as a vast magnetic field created by everyone’s actions and their effects.
 
There is an intuitive History, and a Geography of planetary consciousness. The multiple-lined chain of causation in the life of our globe seems to unfold with special strength in some special places. A higher inspiration irradiates from them in rhythms and cycles that are also determined according to the Law of action and reaction.
 
Stonehenge is well-known in Europe. Machu Picchu, in the Andean Cordillera in South America, is also one of such key-places. Its influence is quietly inspiring, just as the energy of many other points in the Andes. Each country has magnetic points in its territory. In esoteric circles, there is no need to mention the Himalayas.
 
The karma or accumulated experience of present civilization is significantly magnetized by Jerusalem, the city considered sacred by the three best-known forms of monotheism. Judaism is the oldest of these religions; it has pantheistic dimensions, as in the Kabalah, and it is the one with the strongest Ethics.
 
In simple words, an Eastern definition of Ethics would say that it is the art of sowing good karma, or generating justice and balance.  In the Pirke Avoth, Perek V, Mishnah 26, one reads: “According to the pains [taken] is the reward”. [1]
 
In the city of Jerusalem one finds the Mount Moriah or Temple Mount, which constitutes the holiest site in the planet, for Jews. It has worked across the centuries as a worldwide magnet for noble feelings. It has inspired the search for a divine view of the world and the feeling of respect for all life. It has also inspired war, hatred, fanaticism and acts of terrorism. 
 
Few Muslim leaders are ready to accept the central contribution of Judaism and the Jewish nation to human experience in the last millennia, to actively denounce anti-Semitism and cooperate with Israel. And these are pioneers of the future. The dominant sectors of Christianity also suffer from the disease of fanaticism. All is not easy in human progress, and some significant obstacles must be removed before the bright side of future can emerge.  
 
Political correctness should not prevent us from acknowledging facts. Everyone must be free to respectfully investigate and experience the mystery of the Temple Mount. The Mount Moriah is not only about the past. It holds a key to the future. A basic fact must be accepted: sensible efforts for world peace must take into consideration the decisive, if often invisible role played by the Temple Mount in History.
 
Since ancient time, its cultural and magnetic centrality in human evolution has been undeniable. From a practical point of view, one thing stands to reason: it is the natural right of the Jews to safely pray and contemplate on the Temple Mount.
 
It is also the right of Muslims, Christians and men and women of every faith or philosophy. However, true devotion does not include hatred. The Mount Moriah must be dedicated to inter-religious wisdom and to the cross-cultural practice of inner peace. The place has to be respected. It cannot be used to justify intolerance or anti-Semitism. Those who are unprepared to live in harmony with religions different from their own lose their moral right to anything that belongs to mankind as a whole. They are unable to accept anything universal in the true and interdisciplinary sense of the term. The Temple Mount has precisely this kind of universality: it must be accepted as a multi-cultural place in order to cease being a source of conflict, and start being a center of universal harmony among nations. 
 
Justice is the unavoidable foundation of harmony.  Therefore appeasing dead letter worship and fanaticism, whether it be Jewish, Muslim or Christian, cannot pave the way to peace.
 
Protecting fanaticism stimulates narrow-mindedness.  The naturally universal character of Judaism is a lesson that Israel has been teaching the world since 1948. Such intrinsic wisdom has been transmitted to many by example and not by preaching. True, there is narrow-mindedness in sectors of Judaism; and it is bound to disappear, just like the narrowness of other religions.
 
Little by little, the Temple Mount gets widely recognized as one of the main symbolical places for the spiritual evolution of mankind.  Research and bibliography expand and two carefully prepared guides to the Temple allow one to better understand the issue.
 
One of them is “Jerusalem: The Temple Mount”, by Leen & Kathleen Ritmeyer. [2] The other and equally interesting book is “Arise and Ascend: A Guide to the Temple Mount”.[3] Richly illustrated, the volumes are respectful of the inter-religious complexities of the issue.
 
A third and larger book is not a guide. A thorough study, “Jerusalem, an Archaeological Biography”, Hershel Shanks, reveals some of the common aspects between Judaism and the ancient Egyptian religion. One example is the Egyptian form of the Jewish Cherubim, in the Temple of Solomon.[4] This is no isolated evidence. It is easy to see that Moses learned more than one tenet of his secret wisdom while he lived in Egypt; and Helena Blavatsky elaborates on that. [5] According to esoteric philosophy, Moses was an initiate in the Wisdom of Hermes.[6] H. P. Blavatsky writes of “the Hebrews, whose prophet Moses was so learned in the esoteric Wisdom of Egypt, and who adopted their numerical system from the Phoenicians…”. [7]
 
No single religion or philosophy is the “sole proprietor” of truth. Divine knowledge has no owners. The wisest among men are humble truth-seekers, and the various religions have nothing to lose – except their naivete – in a frank cross-cultural dialogue. They will powerfully widen their wisdom and their horizons by talking honestly to each other. 
 
NOTES:
 
[1] “Ethics From Sinai”, by Irving M. Bunim, Philipp Feldheim, Inc., New York, copyright 1964, edition in 3 volumes.  See volume 3, p. 246.
 
[2] Published by Carta Jerusalem, Israel, 2015, 160 pp.
 
[3] Published in Jerusalem in 2015 by The Meeting Place Association and Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, and with 76 pp.
 
[4] “Jerusalem, an Archaeological Biography”, by Hershel Shanks, Random House, New York, copyright 1955 and 1983, 1995 edition, 256 pp. The Egyptian elements of Jewish Cherubim are mentioned on pp. 56 and 57.  See also “Jerusalem’s Temple Mount”, by Hershel Shanks, Continuum, New York – London, copyright 2007, 206 pp.
 
[5] “Isis Unveiled”, Helena P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, volume I, p. 228, and p. 415, among others. See “Moses” in the Index, on p. 671, volume II.
 
[6] “The Secret Doctrine”, Helena P. Blavatsky, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, volume I, p. 73, lower half.
 
[7] “The Secret Doctrine”, H. P. Blavatsky, volume II, p. 560, last paragraph.
 
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The above text was first published on January 1st, 2016 in the author’s blog at “The Times of Israel”.
 
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Read more:
 
 
 
* Jerusalem Is Israel’s Capital (by Donald J. Trump).
 
 
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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different dimensions of life.  
 
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