Readers of Antiquity

Do we worship at the First Church of Ego? Jesus made a humorous remark about man worshiping himself. He said that our only god was our 'stomach.'

This is also the state of man according to Karlfried Graf Durchheim, or, rather, this is what Alphonse Goettmann said Mr. Durchheim believed.

Mr. Goettmann wrote Dialogue on the Path of Initiation about the philosophy of Mr. Durchheim. It is electronically published by Nottingham Publishing Company.

The meeting between the author and the philosopher was described as a 'Saul of Tarsus' experience. After years of spiritual struggle, the student had finally found a worthy teacher. School began in a remote village suspended a thousand meters above the Black Forest. This is where, in prayer, the master led him to his 'Master.' This secluded Disciple of Christ had found his own disciple.

Thus began the years of conversation that would later evolve into a book and a spiritual Center of Meditation. "To speak with this old sage was joy unspeakable," says Mr. Goettman. So, what were these grand discussions about? What is the essence of this wisdom found?

The teachings are profoundly simple. When searching for God, man should look inwardly as passionately as he has looked outwardly. Human beings have a double origin: the 'Celestial' and the 'Earthly.' We are Citizens of two worlds. Our destiny is to bridge the gap between the two. We must become able to witness the Transcendent Reality. This is not an easy task.

The mastery of science, technology, and organization holds us captive to this 'Earthly Realm.' Only isolation, meditation, and prayer will allow us the ability to peek behind the veil, when we will know for sure that 'the kingdom of God is within.' This work speaks of original sin: That man has tried to reach God by his own means. He uses external religion and ritual to reach the internal, which is impossible. By saying, 'I have done this spiritual thing or I have done that,' we only bind ourselves more to the natural world. Man petrifies this unfathomable universe with his concepts and ideas. By reducing consciousness to mere objects, he exiles himself from the 'True Reality.'

It is as Andrew of Crete has said, 'Man is idolatrous of himself.' Instead of focusing on the 'Essential Being,' he has looked to his puny self. Thus we need to be initiated into the 'Celestial Realm,' to throw open the 'Door of Mystery.'

Abandoned is the idea of mastering the world. "We must understand that life has meaning only as a witness to essence, to the whole of life, which is the word, the inner universal Christ, present in each of us and in all things.

Like Moses before the burning bush, we suspect His presence, but we will not recognize it until we have, like him, taken off the sandals of self."