Who are we?
Are we heretics, plotters, conspirators, Non-believers, Satanists? Because all totalitarian regimes, religions and dictatorships regard us as such because in the history of mankind we are the oldest democratic community of free conscience and knowledge unrestricted by dogmas.
From when does our Brotherhood date?
From the moment of creation of the world to this very day - every day. And the charm of every beginning is hidden in the secrecy of conception and, after it’s birth, it develops into a list of parents and relatives or dates and events. It becomes history, (and perhaps, though necessary, merely boring statistics) as the geographical map of an archaeological object, as a historical décor, which may become live and acquire sense only through the premonition of the immortal historical memory. In our eternal historical memory is hidden the Truth about the origination of Masonry, which is not based upon the restrictive foundations of empirical knowledge, but is connected with the axiomatic knowledge built into us by the Great Architect of All Worlds. That is the hermetic wisdom and the esoteric essence of human cognition; that is the romantic key of Hiram from the past, which is always in the present if we succeed in opening the right door to the Temple where I am You and You are Us and all of Us are Him. And He is the complete Temple because the Temple is in Us.
What does this all refer to?
Maybe it refers to the mythic constructors of the Pyramids; or the mysterious Sabians; the uncompromising Templars; the unappreciated Bugri; the calumniated Cathars or the adamant Bogomils and their escape from South Eastern Europe, and their subsequent path to the heart of the West. Maybe it is about those strange men, united not by nationality, not by the autocephalous freedom of Eastern Orthodoxy or by the aggressive infallibility of Catholicism or by the religious intolerance of Islam but by the idea of the Temple of Humanity, in which there is rom for all. These were the strange men working up the rough stone over thousands of years in order to construct the walls of the pyramids, or those of the cathedrals and churches; their aim to dematerialize and to point them Heavenward, because they have known the spiritual dimension of the wall of Faith and did not force the believer, kneeling at the base of the stone idol, to grow petrified with fear in front of an anonymous God and unknown Sin, but to levitate in Love and fly upward toward Him - the Great Architect of All Worlds. It also refers to Poimandres, Oziris and Tot, Hermes, Asclepius and Pythagoras, Buddha, Shiva and Brahma, Jehovah, Jesus and Mohamed and so on - these being just some of the names from the knowledge lost to us, hidden within us from our own sight. We are also They. Because we are talking about all of Us, about the Light, about the Temple, about the Great Architect. And that's why we acknowledge and recognize anyone who works on the Great Construction. We do not recognise odium or hatred and do not wage war against anybody. Our Truth is achieved through calm, constructive and wise Masonic labour. We do not subscribe to the motto of aggressive mediocrity: "He who is not with us is against us." No. Even he who is not with us is yet a part of us. He is a part of the road that we have travelled which he has yet to travel in order to arrive at the place where he will be met with Love should he choose the right path. And that is so because Masonry is, above all, a frame of mind that believes in the unifying quality of Faith; in the common goal and the human desire to attain it.
Who are we?
Brothers from the Order of the Freemasons.
What do we build?
The Temple of Humanity.
What guides us in it’s construction?
The delicate equilibrium of Strength, Wisdom and Beauty.
What are the construction materials?
The stone is us, the people, and the mortar is human Love.
How do you enter the Temple?
By free choice: with a good heart and a clear conscience, regardless of party affiliation, nationality or religion, as long as you believe in God the Creator and Architect whoever he may be.
What do they teach in the Temple?
The education of each of us in Humanity.
What advice do they give us in the Temple?
The same as that in the Temple of Apollo: to know oneself.
What do they impress upon us in the Temple?
The words of Seneca - HOMO RESSACRA HOMINI.
Who will we discover in the Temple?
Ourselves and the Great Architect of All Worlds, because inside I am You and You are us; because inside We are Him. We are not a religion. But we have Faith; faith in the sense and the necessity of the Great Construction because in the Architecture of Knowledge and Infinity, Time as we know it does not exist in this greater Space. There, we are Stone, Mason, Architect and Temple. In the Greater Space there are no idols. There we can only Be.
Knock. Only three more steps. The rest is Light.
VWBro B.K. PGDC