Bettye Johnson ©
Mystery. It appears that all the world loves a mystery and one of the most intriguing is the mystery of the Holy Grail. According to some records, the earliest writing came from a French poet named Robert de Boron who lived in the 12th – 13th centuries and his poem Joseph d”Armathie tells of Joseph bringing the Holy Grail from Palestine after the crucifixion of Jesus. The Holy Grail has been depicted as a magic cauldron; a silver chalice, a dish, bowl, plate or the cup used by Mary Magdalene or Joseph of Arimathea to catch the blood of Jesus after a Roman soldier supposedly named Longinus pierced his side with a spear. It has also said that it was the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. Many have portrayed Mary Magdalene carrying the Holy Grail to Europe in the form of her children after the crucifixion.
In the 12th century, the wonderful tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table emerged and the search for the Holy Grail became their mission. From these stories came the age of the romance stories passed around by bards and troubadours.
There are some writers who say that the myth of the Holy Grail originated from a Celtic myth of Bran the Blessed, which tells the tale of Bran an archetypal British Celtic hero. It is possible that Bran became the basis of the character known as the Arthurian romance Fisher King. Within all myths and legends there is a seed of truth with many of the facts becoming distorted. If you have ever played the ‘Telephone’ or ‘Whisper’ game, then you will understand my meaning.
When one looks at the etymology of the word Grail, it is an adaptation of the Old French word graal meaning cup or flat dish; or it could be from the M.Latin gradalis meaning a dish brought to the table in different courses of a meal. Meandering from this definition, we can go to the Greek word krater whose meaning is mixing wine with water.
The word graal or grail evolved into saint graal or sang real meaning Holy Grail. This, in turn evolved into sang rial meaning royal blood. From this we have a proliferation of books and stories regarding the Merovingian lineage as being the royal blood of Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
I am going to digress for a moment and bring in King David from the Old Testament. It is written that he had 300 wives. If each wife had only one child, then David would have 300 plus children and if each of them had two children, then picture a huge pyramid of a dynasty. There would be deaths, wars, and inter-marriage and considering some did not live to be an adult, it brings the lineage to an extravagant number of descendents. Mary Magdalene and Jesus had two children and if each of these children had children and they inter-married, think of how many descendents they would have and not all would be only the royalty of Europe. The myth of the Holy Grail is found only in the Western world and spawned by Christianity.
What are the attributes of the Holy Grail? It has been written that it is a goal that is distant and an almost impossible or unobtainable goal to achieve. We have only to read the stories of the Knights of the Round Table to get the picture. When I was a little girl, there was a comic strip titled Prince Valiant. It was created in 1937 and this Nordic Arthurian prince traveled the world over and is still in print telling of his heroic deeds and the perils he surmounted. In the beginning he was searching for the Holy Grail.
The Holy Grail stories have always portrayed the male as the seeker and usually there is a fair maiden that he rescues from time to time. As with most his-stories, the female is relegated to a lesser role. However, lets examine other attributes. The hero must prove himself worthy and must grow spiritually and mentally. It is said that it is a symbol of God’s grace and available to all and only fully realized by those who seek and prepare themselves spiritually. This includes the females. Now, we are getting to the crux of the issue.
It is time to take the wrappers off of the symbol of the Holy Grail and reveal its true meaning. The wise ones, both female and male, who have gone before us, prepared the way by leaving a trail of symbols whose meanings have become meaningless or distorted on one level. However, there is a code within our brain that resonates with certain symbols and we know they have a deeper meaning. The Holy Grail is one such symbol.
The greatest deterrent to one’s Journey is religion. Religion and spirituality are not the same. Religion has become a form of control and it doesn’t matter which sect one is affiliated with, the message is the same that one must conform to their set of beliefs and rules. One must believe that a god outside of self is the only way to salvation and redemption and usually this includes a belief in the devil or Satan. Anything else is labeled the anti-christ.
The true seeker may dabble in a religion for a time, but becomes dissatisfied and seeks something that will bring inner peace and knowing. There is a longing to know more and this is part of the Journey. Over the ages, women and men have been kept in a proletarian state of mind – or a captive mind. The seeker is seeking to break out of her or his captivity.
Each society has its own set of morals and values and it is up to the individual to examine hers or his and discard those that do not serve Self. Self is the higher aspect of self and it is the seat of our spirituality. We have been taught conformity and there comes a moment when we know we must break away from our past programming. This is all part of the Journey – the Quest.
Buddha has been quoted as saying that it is better to conquer yourself than to fight a battle and Ramtha the Enlightened one has said, go and conquer yourself. There have been many messages left to us such as the inscription of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, Greece from 6 B.C.: Know thyself. Even Plato said know thyself. Shakespeare wrote in his play Hamlet: This above all: to thine own self be true. Sir Francis Bacon left a profound message: Knowledge is power.
The Holy Grail represents the Quest or the Journey that each of us has undertaken when we left the house of our Creator. We hold within us the tools to carry us through life or lifetimes, but the perils we have to battle are those of our fears, emotions and beliefs. We become ensnared in our own fears, judgments, biases, prejudices, and the emotions of jealousy, resentment, anger, and in the hopes of redemption we think there is something or someone outside of our self while not realizing that we must conquer our self in order to know Self.
I can only share knowledge and wisdom I have gained during my own Journey, which has been one of many twists and turns. Sometimes it appeared I was butting up against a stone wall, but by perseverance I went through the wall. Each twist and turn has a gift in the form of wisdom and it is up to each of us to discover the wisdom in our own experiences. The Great Labyrinth in the Cathedral at Chartres, France is a lasting symbol left there by the Knights Templar and it represents the Journey of each individual. This is why so many visitors to the Cathedral resonate to it whether they are Christian, Atheist, Agnostic, Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim. It is a universal symbol.
My quest began at the age of forty when a thought came into my head, by the time you are fifty, your life will be different. At that time I was becoming a disillusioned a WASP Republican housewife. For those of you who do not know what WASP is, it stands for “white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant. “ At age fifty I had a ‘coming-out’ party celebrating my new status of being a divorcee and on my Journey of discovery. I was like a sponge soaking up all the knowledge and experience I could get. I studied Religious Science, Divine Science, Unity, metaphysics, meditation, a multitude modalities of healing, the tarot, astrology, crystals and perhaps other modalities that I do not remember. A well-known and often repeated statement is, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
It was the last week in December of 1982 when my new husband and I attended a weeklong spiritual workshop at Asilomar, California with Dr. Brugh Joy and David Spangler. On the 30th of December, the evening program was three people who would channel their entities and talk about peace. I was not into channeling and I lay back on the floor thinking how boring. The first two people did their thing and then the third was a petite blond from Tacoma, Washington who left her body and the moment her entity took over and said “Indeed!” I shot up into a sitting position and was mesmerized. I knew that I knew him and that I had heard him before. I also knew he was a Master Teacher. I had never heard of Ramtha the Enlightened One, but I knew this teacher. Later I knew I recognized him from a soul memory.
I did not fully understand this encounter and still caught up in my new relationship and becoming a minister of Divine Science, I now realize I was completing unfinished business and did not reconnect with Ramtha until 1985 when I was invited to see a video of him. I have been a student of Ramtha ever since and my husband and I moved to Washington state in 1986.
Each of us is to connect with a teacher at some point in either in this life or a lifetime to come. Ramtha is not necessarily the teacher for everyone. He so happens to mine. The Ramtha School of Enlightenment in Yelm, Washington is an academy of the mind and also of Gnostic teachings. We are each one a facet of the Creator and it is an individual journey so that the Creator may know itself.
Ramtha has taught that we are here to make known the unknown and that is the quest for the Holy Grail. There is no one path for all because we are each a facet of the Creator and we are each individuals with our own destiny. The Holy Grail is the unique facet of the Creator in you. You are the Mystery.
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