While a multitude of New Age religions, cults, and philosophies emerge at the end of this millennium, the shapes of traditional religions are changing to allow increasingly individual liberation as a focus for its followers.

It seems a daunting task to keep track of the directions in which  the various schools are going and, more than ever, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell the sheeps from the goats.

What can be rightfully called a religion? What can be expected to work towards liberation rather than the coffers of its leaders? Are there limits of tolerance, limits of acceptance as a genuine path towards spiritual unfolding?

The schools of Baha'i and Buddhism have been praised as being the most tolerant forms of religion, meaning they respect all other forms of religion as such. Some others, like the Islam, have been critized of demanding to kill anyone who 'doesn't believe'.

Yet, even Gotamo Siddharto, 'the Buddha', made it very clear that tolerance doesn't mean a recognition of the validity of another path and he openly outlined the fallacies of some of the religious schools that prevailed during his time in India.

To complicate the picture, the published history of mankind shows a repeated pattern of unholy alliances of religious leaders and governments.

This circumstance has led many honest and earnest spiritual seekers to distance their own ideas from the concept of 'religion' altogether. 'Individual liberation', for them, became incompatible with 'religion' at all - the title of this article has the extension '...and Liberation Philosophies'
for this very reason.

While theories and practices of religions and liberation philosophies are now splitting up and drift apart, the parts they do have in common become clearer at the same time.

From an observation of these common parts, the following new platform for a mutual understanding and acceptance of divers religions and liberation philosophies has been derived:

                  INTEGRITY

  A liberation philosophy strives for wholesomeness. The
  core of traditional Western religions is the unity with
  their god (whatever name they may give it).

  Integrity, being integer, whole and clear, is thus a
  sliding scale that culminates in invididual liberation.

  Without integrity, religions and liberation philosophies
  alike, would not be worth its name.
 

 
                   CONSISTENCY

Since liberation is aimed at a (very!) long-term solution to the problems that arise by being within this Universe, its foundation must necessarily be invariant over time and space. In other words, 'truth' is the same, whether here or on Alpha Centauris, whether yesterday or tomorrow.

This does not mean that 'truth' would appear the same to everyone or that its formulation would not be bound to the context of the time and culture in which it was formulated - it just means that the theorems of a religion of philosophy do not arbitrarily change within time and space.
 

                  COHERENCY

While a recognized 'truth' should be invariant in time and space, it should also be free of internal contradictions.

Since any such recognized truth will be an abstraction in the process of its perception, the mandate of coherency extends to all its derivations as well.

If a view from a 'higher' domain is being called an 'integration' of the recognized truth, its representation in this 'higher' domain should be free of internal contradictions as well.

Likewise, if a view from a 'lower' domain is being called a 'differentiation' of the recognized truth, its representation in this 'lower' domain should also be free of any internal contradictions.
 

This triad of coherency, consistency, integrity follows the rules of a 'triangle relationship', for example:
 

     If integrity is lowered, consistency and coherency will decrease as
     well. If coherency raises in a given philosophical system, consistency
     and integrity will increase, etc.

It would be an illusion to expect that a platform like the triad of coherency, consistency, integrity would play a significant role in global politics. The mingled interests of bank accounts, political rulership, and personal pride are prohibiting any sane approach to a true mutual understanding of divers religions and philosophies.

However, this triad can be used quite well to gauge the  validity of any one teaching for one's own purposes.

Because, even though the ideal scenario would be to find one's own liberation completely by oneself, it is extremely helpful, to say the least, to look around and learn from others.