Dear Reader,

In 1980, philosopher Jacob Needleman wrote a very important reexamination of Christianity, entitled Lost Christianity: A Journey of Rediscovery. He adroitly assessed that Christianity had become lost because it had forgotten its roots. Christianity had become a tradition ignorant of its own holy Source searching for meaning and relevance in various identities but each uninformed by its sacred taproot. Christianity was somnambulating without essential purpose.

When the soul has fallen asleep, as Gurdjieff taught, human beings act mechanically. As with a machine, there is no interior depth, only the surface of gears grinding away in patterns that are set in a groove that only becomes more rigid with time. Neurologically, neurons that fire together wire together, which in this case means that a neurological groove has become almost hard-wired such that humanity becomes blind to what lies beyond habitual perceptions, habitual feelings, and reactive behaviors. The repeated neurological firings create a neurological groove like a canyon, over whose rim is terra incognita. The fullness of Reality remains hidden from view, and the small neurological path is mis-taken for the whole. The canyon groove becomes the only path the sleepwalker travels.

More precisely, there are many slices of Christianity each mis-taking its small canyon for the whole. Lost, yet unconsciously longing for and fearful of there being more, the ego searches for something to do that feels “normal,” which means believing and acting in ways that keep a person aligned with whatever it is they have known themselves – historical patterns feel secure and safe: be they tribal identity, political activism, doctrinalism, ritualism. An “ism” is an unexamined life – unconscious and reactive, as well as unquestioning and uncreative.

The root of Christian spirituality lies in Jesus’ own awakening of his Christic nature.

Christianity’s root, which it shares with the other great spiritual traditions, consists in being a way of realizing our true nature. This means the essential purpose of Christianity lies not in any “ism” or in being a conventional religion, or in even helping people to cope. Rather, the core of Christianity is spiritual awakening, or as philosopher Beatrice Bruteau writes – “God-realization is the only thing that matters, and everything else is to be ordered to that.” We exist as human beings to awaken to the truth of who and what we are. Christianity exists essentially to help us realize this truth. The mystical path is the human path, which is the path of penetrating the ground of being and knowledge (T. Merton) and realizing that God and I are one. “Transcend psychology for religion and religion for spirituality discovery through experience that boundless love is all in all as all.

Christianity shares this spiritual core with the great spiritual paths of the world. God-realization, which is the awakening of our Christ-heart, is love permeating every nook and cranny of existence: softening the hard shells of tribal identities, settling the mind in the expansive heart open for political transformation, rendering doctrine as a servant to human curiosity, and infusing ritual with playful joy.

~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester Ph.D.