Chinese oriental culture and religious traditions are fast fading into history. Many of the more educated, world savvy and influential and capable are embracing Western culture and religious styles to be in tune with the globalised western world. This is in a way good and an inevitable reality that is happening to all cultures with globalisation.
The West is becoming less West and more East and the East is becoming West. There are more obvious reasons.
For the West, the inability of cultural religious beliefs to withstand scrutiny of science and logic is one. How can one in right mind just believe out of blind faith?
For the East, with special reference to Chinese, the adherence to traditions and rituals is out of phase with the adopted Western culture and education that have taken over the cultural landscape. It is simply too onerous to stick to traditions of ancestors that have become no longer meaningful and purpose driven.
Rather than overhauling the culture and religious traditions, many educated and world savvy just adopt the simpler western culture and the more simple and the often less onerous religious traditions introduced by the West. But many are still at ease with oriental culture but would rather keep the distance if they could. This is indeed unique.
On top of this, one deciding factor is that among the English people of Chinese origin, it is better to adopt new ways that are often more western as that is often a sure and convenient way to have solace and social support in the modern world. Then, one reality may come to the fore.
What can an often old fashion and oriental traditional set-up offer compared to westernised and more sophisticated westernised set-up, more so when the latter set-up may well be in part instituted by fellow men of Chinese ethnicity?
Generally speaking, the men of today are more pragmatic. They do want worldly and social advantages, not dabble with intricacies of science and analysis. What do they stand to gain and what can they have here and now such as the friends and the right connections? It is immaterial if the new and more acceptable cultural and religious beliefs cannot stand well to scrutiny of science and analysis.
The choice is between having connections and friends rather than be deeply logical, rational and philosophical. Philosophy and the invoking of logic of science if inopportune will only serve to alienate them from the masses.
Only with the maturation of society like in the advance western societies will science and philosophy have their places in the hearts of men. Only then, will they question till kingdom come whether culture and religious practices are in tune with science and analysis.
Thus we find the rolling of the East towards the West and the West towards the East. This is not strange but to be expected.
What men fail to see is the oneness of the basic truth in all culture and religious traditions. Men see only the stark differences in the presentations but not that the core truth is same in all cultures and religious ways.
The good lord Lord Bo Tien descended in 1969 to reawaken men to have insight on the basic truth of God and the need for inner peace in life across religious and cultural divides. This inner peace is of God and makes us one with God regardless of social and religious divides.
The good lord refers to this basic truth as the Four Pillars Doctrine. Religious and cultural ways in the four cardinal directions are one in basic truth of God and inner peace that all men need.
But men will always be men and they go for the ways of the world and not the ways of God and saints. That is why we see the rolling of East towards The West and the West towards the East - sort of musical chairs.
In time, it is difficult to tell the West from the East and the East from the West. Perhaps, there may be new normals - a new West and a new East. Then as always said above, the hold of basic truth on men of the world will no longer be evident.
The Buddha Gotama never minced his words and said centuries ago that the doctrine of truth he revealed to the world will in time be swept under the carpet and ignored. He even said that the monks in his lineage will too lose their grip on the doctrine and be swayed away by what the masses want. The crowd dynamics call the tune.
He predicted that the true doctrine will fade away. But yet Lord Bo Tien is not giving up. Why is he so confident and persistent. Perhaps, he is the forerunner of the next savior what Buddhists refer to as Maitreya.
But the next savior may not be named Maitreya. He must be acceptable to the world and to all religions. The forerunner must pave the way by revealing to the world that all the religions and sects are one though different.
The next savior may be in neutral ground where all religions meet. He will have an uphill task to prove that he is the one and he will certainly need the forerunner to pave the way. Like Lord Bo Tien, he is not here "to start a new religion or to favor any"
These are the very words of Lord Bo Tien that he favors no religion or sect or is starting any new one either... But the good lord is in a Chinese temple to prove the point that even in a Chinese temple, there is the inner or basic truth and there is God - no different as in any religion or sect of any religion.
But mind you, the true temple of the lord is the world and the sky or heaven is the roof and religions the pillars. All beings are in this universal temple. The good lord is paving the way for the next savior to descend and be in this universal temple.
But the next savior may not be named Maitreya. He must be acceptable to the world and to all religions. The forerunner must pave the way by revealing to the world that all the religions and sects are one though different.
The next savior may be in neutral ground where all religions meet. He will have an uphill task to prove that he is the one and he will certainly need the forerunner to pave the way. Like Lord Bo Tien, he is not here "to start a new religion or to favor any"
These are the very words of Lord Bo Tien that he favors no religion or sect or is starting any new one either... But the good lord is in a Chinese temple to prove the point that even in a Chinese temple, there is the inner or basic truth and there is God - no different as in any religion or sect of any religion.
But mind you, the true temple of the lord is the world and the sky or heaven is the roof and religions the pillars. All beings are in this universal temple. The good lord is paving the way for the next savior to descend and be in this universal temple.
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武天菩萨
Lord Bo Tien
