After so many years of seeking the secrets of the gods, I did not imagine the hardest part will be the conclusion. Did I manage to discover them? At least a fraction of them? Or is it all just a great deception? What is the truth? And how much does it matter?
In the Asklepios text from the Corpus Hermeticum book, Hermes Trismegistos said: „The intelligence of the Divine Being, the consciousness of the Supreme God, is the only truth, and this truth cannot be discovered, no, nor so much as its shadow, in this world full of illusions, of changeful appearances and of error, where things are known only in the dimension of time” (32:3). And in a piece of the writings gathered by Ioannes Stobaeus, the same Hermes announced: „The Truth is nowhere on Earth, for it can not be born nor made” (3:14), „For the Mind and the Reason, nothing is true on Earth. On the contrary, for the true Mind and Reason, all things are fantasies, delusions or appearances” (3:15-16) and „there is nothing true on Earth” (3:19). In accordance with these statements, people who have achieved the highest level of wisdom have reached a simple conclusion, transposed best by the Athenian philosopher Sokrates: „The only thing I know is that I know nothing”. We do not know any supreme truth, but only the „truths” we have created, relying on the limits of our perceptions, depending on the concepts that have been directly or indirectly indoctrinated to us. In the 2nd century, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus said: „Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth”. We can not know for sure who we are, why we exist, how the Universe appeared, whether there is life after death. We think we know, but we just rely on hypotheses. For example, the Big Bang theory and the creationist version can not be verified, so we can not know whether any of them is real. No one returned from the world of the dead to tell us if there is an afterlife, but religions give us „the truth”. The cases of clinical death are considered evidence of the afterlife without considering the possibility of some dream-like „scenarios” made by the brain, as the Tibetan Book of the Dead actually claims. We believe that we have understood the Universe and we try to impose our hypotheses on others, when we have not even managed to fully know our planet. Or our own bodies, the human brain still hiding countless secrets. Same as the DNA.
The informations we assimilate is often mistaken for various reasons. For decades, many publications have invented more or less sensational news to sell their merchandise. The popularity of the internet has led to the emergence of an impressive number of websites that apply the same tactics of inventing the news. Neither books are credible sources of knowledge; it has been shown that many „seekers of the truth”, such as Erich Von Daniken or Zacharia Sitchin, have deliberately lied in their books, erroneously translating ancient texts or inventing myths to fit their false assumptions. Articles about these forgeries and even books have been written to successfully demonstrate the deliberate deception of the readers of these undeserved best-sellers. The media, which pursues only the aims of the politicians behind it, often manipulates through the information it conveys to the public. Politicians only follow their own interests and do not hesitate to use the masses when needed. We certainly know a few cases of their lies, such as the one of Adolf Hitler, about whom we were told that he had committed suicide in Berlin in 1945. But after seven decades the FBI files have been made public, and we found out that they sought him in Argentina long after his alleged death. Or the number of deaths in Auschwitz, about which for many decades we have been told that it has risen to two million, though today it „disappeared” a million casualties. Famous is also the Roswell incident from 1947, when the first statement of the United States military recognized that an UFO crashed there, transformed into an experimental surveillance balloon in the next day’s communiqué, which, however, in the declassified FBI files it went back to being an UFO. Not to mention the possibility that the 1969 Moon landing to be fake and the 2001 World Trade Center destruction to be directed by the Americans, as many evidences points out. And these are some of the most harmless lies of the politicians that do not care about the populations they lead.
Religion, self-declared „the sole owner of the Truth”, has proven to be just an effective method of mass manipulation. Religions are built on inventions and plagiarism and, even if they all have the same characters and events, it does not mean that they contain a bit of truth. Only that they all come from a single source about which we can not know whether it is based on actual facts or it is only an invention, just like its successors. Something the clergy know very well, which is why it does not respect its own laws and rules, being well-known the Vatican pedophilia cases, the fierce desire of the priests for enrichment or the crimes committed during the Crusades or by the Inquisition. Religion, which is the most terrible psychic illness of mankind, puts invisible yokes around the necks of people, for their rulers’ profit. For this reason, religion and politics have always worked together to the common man’s misfortune. It is said that religion was invented to stop the poor from rising up against the rich, an assertion as true as possible. Numerous kings and emperors have been declared successors of the gods or reincarnations of certain divinities throughout history, which is why they had the blind submission of their people. People can easily be convinced to carry out the most unpleasant tasks, such as the sacrifice of their own lives, when they believe they fulfill a god’s desire. It is well-known the case of the Japanese kamikaze, willing to give their life for their emperor, whom they believed to be a descendant of the goddess Amaterasu. Of course, the fear of the punishment of a divinity plays an important role in the mass manipulation, without which it could not be equally effective. Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu even said more than 130 years ago: „Religion – a phrase by them invented / to lean you in a yoke with its power…”.
Much of what we know about the world is based only on hypotheses that can not be verified, not on evidences, hypotheses that are imposed upon us as truths. We are „bombed” from all sides with lies meant to sink us as much as possible into the darkness of ignorance. Even if we can not find the truth, at least we have the power to recognize the lies. By removing them, we can hope not only to get closer to the truth, but also to give up the slaves status, freeing us from the yoke imposed by the manipulators. Which can be done by passing each important information through the filter of critical thinking. Blind faith is the fastest way to deception and, implicitly, to the removal of truth.
If we come, like Sokrates, to realize that we really know nothing, it mean that we can not be sure of the existence of the gods either. For this reason, religious faith and atheism, the two extremes of the problem, seem to be erroneous. As we can not know for sure whether there are any entities other than us, we can not draw a conclusion on this. In this case, agnosticism (the philosophical conception that the truth of the theological assertions about the existence of the gods is either unknown or impossible to be known) may be the best choice. In fact, the great thinkers of the world, especially the Oriental ones, urge the search for the middle way to achieve mental and spiritual balance. If we can not be sure of the existence or the absence of the gods, regardless of the conceptions we have been indoctrinated, we can not draw a conclusion in this case which we may regard as a truth. At best, only as a hypothesis. But if these beings exist, one thing is certain: we should not worship them as gods, not to turn us into their slaves. Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus seems to have understood this idea: „Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones”.
We do not know who we are, why we are here, how and why the world has beem made, if we have any mission, if there are any gods or if they influence our lives in some way. But knowing these answers would it help us in any way? The truth about the world we live in would change our lives? We seek knowledge, but is it as important as we think? In the Asklepios text of Corpus Hermeticum, Hermes Trismegistos argued that „the foundation of knowledge is the supreme kindness” (16:2). We do not know whether we are parts of a deity or just a small amount of cosmic dust, but we can see that we are parts of light. Light that often emerges, regardless of the many negative parts of mankind. The goodness is the one who can not necessarily change the whole world, but at least parts of it. The truth will not set us free, as we are told, but the love. And, of course, all the positive feelings that spring from it. We are parts of a whole that we do not see because of our selfishness. We influence each other deliberately or not and if we want a better world, this influence must be based on love. Those who lead us inflame the negative feelings, following the Latin proverb „Divide et impera” („Divide and conquer”). But if we learn to ignore the differences between us and to get closer to each other, the „prison” in which we live in might turn into a true terrestrial paradise. It is true that we can not know whether the world is indeed a prison in which spirits are sent for punishment or rehabilitation, but we see that our facts and thoughts influence not only our own lives but also of those around us. As long as we do our best to eliminate or to ignore the negative elements that surround us, choosing the positive ones, we will be able to achieve the ultimate goal of each of us: happiness. We really do not need rewards on the other side, countless reincarnations or blessings from the gods, but only to live properly now. Together.
It’s not easy to forget everything you’ve ever learned and to fight not only with the negativity around you, but also with yourself. But good things never come easy. And it is not necessary to come easy, because every overcomed obstacle is a victory that strengthens the character and prepares it for the other fights of life. The best advice I received in this regard comes from the Moise, le pharaon rebelle book by Bernard Simonay, where the high priest Bakhenkhonsu taught the young Mose: „Observe the world. Love it and respect it, for you are part of it. Master your anger and impulsivity and learn to dwell in yourself, to meditate, to think, to open your spirit, to let your intuition speak. Intuition is the subtle way through which the gods express themselves in your soul. It is a hard way to follow, for no scholar, no matter how great he may be, he will not be able to guide you. You will have to find the way that Maat (the personification of Truth, Order and Justice – n.a.) has drawn into you. Never let your pride blind you. Learn to be humble. But be careful not to underestimate yourself. The hardest task is to find out who you really are. If you know how to open your spirit, your consciousness will lead you to new stages, steps you will have to take before going further. And no one knows where these steps will take you. And also learn to know people. Have the patience to listen to them with your heart. Never brag that your intelligence will allow you to see farther than most people. You will have to thank the gods with humbleness, saying that the others did not have your luck. Your duty will be to help them, to protect them, not to judge them or to dominate them”.
I tried through this book not to offer „truths”, but hypotheses. Not answers, but questions. Because everybody teach us what to think, not how to think. And a wrong question can not bring the right answer. I do not know if I have been able to discover the secrets of the gods or even a small part of them. But I do not need to know that. I only know that in the five years that I wrote this book, I learned that the secrets of the gods do not matter as much as the secrets of the humans. To know the world we must know ourselves first, each man representing a small world with a unique story. To respect everything that is alive and to realize that we are just a part of the nature, not its masters. To learn to accept our fellows not only because of their qualities but in spite of their flaws. To remove all kinds of barriers between us to truly become a whole. To help each other and, above all, to begin to love each other. Because the greatest secret of the gods is, after all, the love.
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