Why Tradition?

Why work from within a particular tradition? This is a question that many ask today.  Why does one have to root their spiritual life in community?

Richard Rohr, a writer I am particularly fond of, points out that the goal of religion shouldn't be to take claim as the only access to the whole truth, but rather the teaching of religion should be who a particular religion offers access to universal truths (he uses how religion teaches universal wisdom).  I think this is right on.  

If this is correct, and no one faith tradition offers unique access to God and Truth, then why pick one?

In the end i think this is a question that must be answered by the individual that is asking it, but i offer a few way points for exploring the question.  

When we are in the village, on the right handed path, it is clear that the community as a whole reaches towards God, rituals are shared, spiritual questions are asked in the midst of conversations and dialogues.    Having a faith tradition grounding all this is key.  It is important to point out that each community makes its adjustments to the larger cannon of the faith (and by cannon i am speaking of the entirety of the faith system), but it needs boundaries and guidance from the history of the tradition, from the wisdom of its forefathers and foremothers.  There is no reason to recreate the wheel with every new generation.

I can speak for the christian tradition, it took about 200 years for Christianity to emerge as its own tradition, still grounded very much in the much older jewish traditions and also borrowing heavily from greek philosophical thought.  In a way Christianity wasn't a new tradition, it was just a kind of Hegelian Dialectic created from Greek thought and Jewish thought.  There is in many ways no new religions, each is based on something older. The Christian Old Testament (or the Tanakh) borrows heavily from older traditions, and in some places borrows books nearly word for word (see Old Testament Parallels).    Traditions continue to evolve and emerge, but they are always linked (at least the ones that stand the test of time) to older traditions.  As they adapt to the community that surrounds them, they speak to the needs and desires and wants and fears of that particular community.    It is important to acknowledge that faith traditions can easily get off track and lose sight of their purpose and hurt more than help.  Commitment to tradition, while being able to listen also to the community that surrounds that tradition, can help with this, if we learn to remove our ego, we listen better, and are less likely to allow the tradition to become distorted to greed and power.

For those of the left handed path, those out on the journey, it is harder to rationalize a need for a tradition, but grounded oneself in a tradition will get you farther along.  The major religions all have mystic traditions that serve those on the journey well.  If you have a tradition that you grew up with, you can use the grounding in tradition from an early age as a catapult to spiritual maturity, if you did not grow up with a tradition, find one that speaks well to the environments you know best.

Religion so often because a reason not to engage in spiritual discovery, and often times it can be a huge hurdle to discovery, particularly when it has been distorted by power structures.  Religion and tradition are key to greater success, they keep one grounded and rooted in tradition.  At some point in the journey you will be able to move past your tradition, but in doing so you will become more rooted in what you already know in your heart.  If you have no tradition to move past, you create for yourself a difficult mountain to surmount, one that you may never be able to summit.

Again, the answer for why a religious tradition is so important is really only understood later on, and by the person that is doing the asking, no answer i (or anyone really) can give will be entirely sufficient.