Question: The current dispensation has frequently pointed out traditions as a sign of a nation’s lack of progress. While sometimes colorful and artistic, they seem to be holding back the mindset of a group. Sometimes they make good returns in tourism, appreciation and visitation due to its cultural imagery. People create identity around them and social expression, I myself seem to enjoy them. But reckon that I do so from an outsider perspective. To talk against them will turn one into the target of ridicule and disregard of appreciation of the historic past. Are traditions meant to serve as transitions to moments in history and then let go for new cultural expressions? Can the masters comment more on the role of traditions, and the mixture of them with the lies of antichrist.
Answer from the Ascended Master Saint Germain through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2022 Webinar for America – The Resurrection of Democracy.
Well, you understand that the nature of a tradition is that it looks back to the past. And the nature of progress is that it looks to the future. Now, certainly, there has to be a balance. “He who does not learn from the mistakes of history are destined to repeat them.” So you need to have an awareness of the past, you need to be willing to look back to the past. And of course, human beings have a need for continuity. I am not here saying that a country should abandon all traditions and only look forward, you need to look backwards also.
Nevertheless, you will see that there is a tendency, especially in the most modern democratic nations, that traditions are sort of fading away. You will see, for example, that in many European nations, they had these traditional folk costumes, and folk dancers. And there were groups of people that would keep that tradition alive by making the costumes, doing the dances, and so forth. But there are fewer and fewer people that do this, because it is mostly older people who do it, and they naturally pass from the screen of life and are not able to carry on the tradition. And the young people are not interested—this is too old fashioned for them, so they move on.
When it happens this way, you can say, well, this is a tradition, that is not really holding back progress in a negative way. It is in a sense, holding back progress, but not in a severe way. But there are of course, other traditions that become much more of a tool for really closing people’s minds to progress and being focused on the past. It maintains people, a group of people, in a certain sense of identity that they ideally should transcend and move on from. One example is native peoples from around the world where you see that there is this tendency among native peoples that they feel they have to remain loyal to their past and keep their traditions alive. And this often prevents them from integrating in life.
We have talked before about the native peoples of America who are in many cases stuck in the past, trying to maintain a lifestyle that just is not practical in the modern age. They are living on reservations, separating themselves from society, and therefore in a way, telling the universe that they want to be discriminated against because they do not want to be like other people. Whereas the better scenario for them would be that they were able to move on, forge a new sense of identity based on the reality of how life is today. It makes no sense really, to maintain a tradition in modern day America, where you want to live in a hunter-gatherer culture that could barely sustain itself as it was 150 to 200 years ago. I know that many people will resist this, will be angry over it. But truly, you can see that these people are held back—many native peoples around the world are held back. And it prevents them from embracing the progress that their nations have actually gone through.
Copyright © 2022 Kim Michaels