III/ MEANING OF TITLE OF GREAT WAY-THIRD PERIOD-UNIVERSAL SALVATION

2/ THIRD PERIOD:

The humankind’s history through the current of time is a competition for existence and evolution. It is the natural principle, but the more there is competition, the more the condition is violent. Consequently, the humankind has ever stood for many times at the abyss of huge annihilation. In front of the extermination danger, many religious heads appeared with religious doctrines to spread in humankind in order to guide people to return the good life. The influence of Religions helped society to certain degree for a specific period. Before that dimmed influence, another new doctrine appeared to be suitable for intellectual standard of people.

With the humankind’s spirit development of two trends of good and evil, many religious heads descended the earth to show the suitable training method to guide the people to unite with the God that the arising notion was clearer and clearer. At that point, there was no exact number of calendar to fix the time milestone of periods. Moreover, it is difficult to do that because the development of humankind’s heart to the evolution current is the general of many wonderful individuals and dull individuals.

People just remember prehistoric stage ambiguously that many religious heads appeared, there were famous persons with their work handed down and they are proclaimed as religious heads. Nobody can imagine how their figures and activities are.

The reports of legends are not easy for us to know the certain events of physical body. However, at least, they represent the meanings containing some theologies.

In the second salvation, the history still records appearances:

• 
  The Sakyamuni Buddha ameliorated the Buddhism.
  
• 
  The Lao-Tzu ameliorated the Taoism.
  
• 
  The Confucius ameliorated the Confucianism.
  
• 
  The Jesus opened the Catholicism.
  

• 
  Quan Yin [觀音].
  
• 
  Ly Tai Peo [ 李白].
  
• 
  Quan Thánh Đế Quân.
  

That point can be found in the Caodai disciple’s ideology and expression in worship rites. The activities of Divine Beings belong to the half-visible aspect. Consequently, it is not easy to verify for unbelievers.

The sketch is about figures mentioned much in the Caodai doctrine. How are about the religious heads on over the world? For any religion with the faith forms where they are, there are also embodiments of God as the venerated subject for believers. Thus, the list to the name of religious heads of three universal salvations due to the way mentioned, just takes the available symbol for the trend to gather all.

Any symbol is relative, therefore we should understand that after the list, there are many blank dots and parenthesis waiting the continuous fill from when the humankind’s mind develops to a level that people can imagine all titles of religious heads or same figures who obtained such positions in ancient society.

Consequently, the separation to three periods of salvation takes the machinery mathematical meaning, it means that after some epoch, people assign the religious heads and faith forms of huge and small religions in a same group. In contrary, this separation takes the general nature and a meaning that the humankind history is a circulation by prosper and decline. For every decline period, the Religions seem to try to restore the people’s noble spirit to trend to their sacred source.

The Third Period of God’s Amnesty is marked by the Caodai religion’s birth about the beginning of 20^th century. However, this general doctrine had appeared in many places such as the Bahai religion in 1863. The religion research movements compared in countries of America and Europe from the beginning 20^th century are same the Supreme Being’s confirmation:

“I did not come by mysterious communication writing to establish religion in Vietnam, however Buddha, Immortal, Saint, Deity had used this mysteriousness to preach religion in many nations” [Divine Messages Collection, teaching on 12^th November 1926].