Thank you for the honor of being able to share in such an intimate subject together.
Grappling with the ONE Deepest thing upon which All else depends can be triggering and overwhelming for many. We hope that We can begin a long journey of helping One Another, learning Together, and discovering with ever greater clarity how to rightly relate to One Another, the world around Us, and the ONE Source from which All flows.
If there is one thing to know about Us, which would help everything else make sense, it is that to the best of Our ability, everything that We are doing is flowing from the ONE / Creator / I AM that is the Source and Sustainer of All Creation / Existence.
Our SpatioTemporal Mission is ONE with the Mission of Christ. To Embody And Enact the Spirit, Will, Mind, and Intention of God, right here On Earth As it Is In Heaven. To Manifest the Creator's Intent.
This journey is rooted in Love and Right Relationship to That Which Is Creating and Sustaining Us, which We often call God, Father, Source, Ultimate Reality, or ONE.
This Quest to align and progressively ReUnify the depths of Our Being as closely as We can with the Source of Being—with God—is by far the most profound and important part of Our InterExistence.
This ONE Thing is Our Purpose, Our Destiny, Our Vision, Our Intention, and Our Why.
We do not contextualize or experience Our spirituality through the lens of religion. We experience it as an embodied Reality that is a direct InterExistence, a immersive Divine Communion between the Apparently Individuated Spirit and Consciousness perceived as "Us" with Its Generative Source and Sustainer.
It has often been said that one of the most important steps on Our spiritual journey is the liberation from Our childhood religion.
While this is a scary statement for parents or spiritual leaders, it is True in the same Way that every parent longs for their children to ultimately surpass elementary educational and disciplinary structures to achieve their own unique, creative Mastery.
Liberation from Our childhood religions does not necessarily mean that We leave them behind. We can still identify with them as long as they are useful. However the True and Ultimate Relationship that cannot be faked or substituted comes from direct personal experience with and knowledge of God.
Properly understood, purified, and practiced, religion can be useful and good. It is often necessary to provide the disciplinary structure, starting point, and basic practices of spiritual life.
Yet it also often grows corrupted and hardens into stifling forms of false authority, corruption, kontrolle, and rigid structures that actually prevent people from experientially understanding and embodying what it means to draw into ever greater ReUnion with the ONE by Its Spirit within.
Jesus spoke to this when he railed at the religious leaders and teachers of his day, saying
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the kingdom of heaven in front of people; for you do not enter it yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you... hypocrites, who travel around on land and sea to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice a much a son of hell as yourselves."
He goes on to call the religious structures of his childhood and social context a "Synagogue of Satan".
When One is so full of the Spirit of Truth, it inevitably collides with the corrupted religious and political structures of their Time and Space, and changes the course of history.
The most pivotal figures in history seem to have universally had this experience.
Jesus is a great example of someone who is now the single most widely admired and emulated figure in history, who at the time was continually criticized for hanging out with people that the prevailing religion of the time would reject as unholy.
At the same time, he spoke out Truthfully against the corrupted religious structures of his day, ultimately resulting in his character being slandered and his physical body being sacrificed.
Our family was deeply steeped in the Judaeo Christian theology that undergirds much of the thought of the Western world. My Earth father was a builder, who left that profession to start a non-denominational Christian church.
We also had the deep honor of getting to explore Christian perspectives around the world that, while generally agreeing on the Deepest things, differed greatly in their understanding, ideas, and application.
We were quite surprised, growing up in the United States, in a Christian home, surrounded by primarily Republicans, when We were abroad and discovered wise good-hearted people who looked at the American / Political / Religious complex with confusion and could not understand how anyone proclaiming to be a follower of Jesus could possibly support what they viewed as an unholy, corrupted, and false religious nationalism.
The more Christians We have met who accused other Christians of not being "true Christians", and the more We have discovered how internally inconsistent and contradictory different denominations and sects of various religions were, and the more We have discovered how wrapped up into unholy alliance with political structures many religious denominations and leaders were...
...the more and more Our Spirit and Faith has been liberated from all religious structure, orthodoxy, and dogma into the intensely personal Quest to directly experience Loving Right Relationship with God and those around Us.
The simple Spiritual Quest towards Unity through Love.
The Eternal and Universal Quest of All back towards the ONE.
Beyond The Boundary of The Caves, it is much easier to ReDiscover, ReUnite, and Become.
While the profound brokenness of religion in our world today has rendered the named religions virtually obsolete, We continue to strive towards embodying the Spirit, Will, and Intention of the ONE, submanifest in the Ideal of Christ, which is to become a living embodiment, Here and Now, of the Universal and Eternal Spirit, Nature, and Essence of God.
When We were just beginning to read decently as a child, We were reading the book of Proverbs from the Jewish tradition that undergirds Christianity, and the words of Solomon gripped Us, and thrust Us onto an epic Quest that continues to this day.
"Wisdom cries out in the streets.
She lifts up her voice in the public square.
At the head of the noisy streets she calls out.
At the entrance of the city gates she declares her sayings:
How long, you naive ones, will you love simplistic thinking? And how long will scoffers delight themselves in scoffing, and fools hate Knowledge?
Turn to my rebuke, behold, I will pour out my Spirit upon you; I will make my words known to you.
Make your ear attentive to Wisdom. Incline your heart to Understanding.
For if you cry out for Insight, and raise your voice for Understanding;
If you seek me as silver and search for me as for hidden treasures; then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and discover the Knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives Wisdom. From His mouth come Knowledge and Understanding.
He stores up sound Wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in Integrity, guarding the paths of Justice…
Then you will Discern Righteousness, Justice, and Integrity, and every Good Path.
For Wisdom will enter your heart, and Knowledge will be delightful to your soul; Discretion will watch over you, Understanding will guard you, to rescue you from the way of evil.
This set Us off on a life-long search to discover and follow the Golden Threads of Wisdom and Truth, no matter where We discovered them, and no matter where they led.
Extensive travel brought Us into dialogue and relationship with amazing people from many different faith traditions, and We were delighted to discover that if We listened and got past the words that were being used, so much wisdom, principles, and values were shared in common across cultures, tribes, and traditions.
Extensive study of martial arts ultimately resulted in a deep body of knowledge being entrusted to Us that taught Us a tremendous amount about the deeper ways of being and rightly relating to Nature and its Source that had been lost to many of my Western traditions.
This is all to say that while Lionsberg very intentionally does not adopt or mandate any State Religion, the concepts are entirely consistent and in harmony with Our most sacred scriptures and all that has been spoken by the various messengers of God throughout the millennia.
Because We are not attempting to conform Our Self to the language of one religion or ideology, it creates the freedom to speak as truthfully and as accurately as We possibly can. This has been both an immense challenge, and an immense gift, as it has forced Us to grapple with the Most Important Things and absorb them as Our own to the point of being able to freely express them using entirely different words. It has been among the greatest tests and challenges of this lifetime.
While the corruption of the religious systems of Old World sometimes obscured the purity of the message that was spoken, the Spirit and the Heart of the ONE is simple, True, and Living within Us.
It all comes back to ONE, and it all comes back to Love. With those as Our Rock, Our Fortress, Our Deepest Foundation, Beginning and Goal, We will not err in our Aim to embody and enact the Spirit, Will, and Intention of God, On Earth As it Is In Heaven.
All that We are attempting to express is not a new teaching or revelation in any way, but a ReMembrance, ReAssembly, and ReTurn to the Universal and Eternal Golden Threads of Wisdom and Truth that cause people, societies, and living systems to flourish in harmony with ONE, One Another, and All.
If you would ever like to discuss Faith or explore together how we can Help One Another learn and grow, We are here to serve and would be delighted to walk with you on Our Way towards The Goal.
With Love, In Community,
~ J