Gregashi

**Gregashi** is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to **Lettcor Volkost** and the **First Followers**. **Lettcor Volkost** originally founded and taught **Gregashi** in the town of Fides, located within the **Confederation of Terraorientis**. He soon travelled west and set foot upon the **Vrailine Republic**, here **Gregashi** became embraced and began its following.

**Gregashi** can be best described, not as a religion but instead as a way of life. The **Balancing of Great Spirits** is a term used to describe an individuals own unique spiritual walk through life. It is a walk of great peace and tranquillity, one of reverence and compassion for all life, including your own. It is a spiritual pathway that believes tragedy should be embraced and overcome, not discarded and shunned. When an individual overcomes a great triumph whilst on their spiritual walk, younger and older generations come together to celebrate through song and dance.

## Gregashi Concepts

### Strity: The Universe

The essence of the universe is harmony. Because of this, the universe always strives to maintain a state of Balance, much like what our bodies strive to do in order to be healthy. The **Breath of the Universe** is called **Strity**. This can therefore act for and against an individual. When you are in harmony with the world, **Strity** is working through you and a level of balance once thought impossible can be reached. When you are against the world, **Strity** is working against you and will therefore will only bring you out of your own inner harmony. The only way to return back into harmony is to connect compassionately with all living things in order to feel the **Breath of the Universe** moving within—only then may the soul evolve. It is the **Breath of the Universe** that brought us all to being: animals, sky, earth, water, trees and life. It is through this sacred breath that we are all related, not through blood but through **Strity**. By respectfully uniting with this sacred **Strity** within and around ourselves, we are able to transcend and work in harmony with those far and wide.

### Concept of Evil

In **Gregashi** tradition there is no concept of sin. Instead, it is believed that the vast majority of people are born inherently good. The **Balancing of Great Spirits** has a concept of evil, whilst an individual is on their spiritual walk through life their is a possibility for them to fall greatly out of balance. If an individual fails to return themselves back onto the path of harmony, they risk consuming evil and turning rotten. Whilst not impossible to return out of this state, it is rarely ever achieved and thus often referred to as the **Soul Death**. In **Gregashi** tradition, often when a member of the community has a **Soul Death**, they are outcasted in fear that their inner evil creates disbalance amongst the entire community.

### Concept of Heart

The concept of **Heart** is so fundamental that without it you cannot proceed upon the **Balancing of Great Spirits**. In this tradition, you would not be able to function as a healthy and whole person without being in constant connection with your **Heart**. This is the place where ones own soul can be found. It is where you connect with your sacred self, the universe, and your ancestors. Many people confuse **Heart** with emotions, and others say that it is intuition. They are wrong. Emotions and intuition are expressions of **Heart**, but they are not **Heart**. When you have been out on a beautiful day and feel in that moment completely at peace within yourself and connected to all that is, it is said you have “touched the face of your own soul.” Your **Heart** is where your soul dwells, this is why in **Gregashi** burials the heart is removed and burned separate from the body.

### Reincarnation

Within **Gregashi**, death is not the end, for some it is their beginning. When a soul has died, their soul will be reincarnated into a new life. **Strity** is all-powerful and beyond our simple comprehension. Say, for example, that one needed to learn patience and to listen better but, lifetime after lifetime, stubbornly refused to master the lesson. Then there could be one incarnation in which **Strity** makes that individual come back as a tree. There that person would learn to “listen” with their entire being. The soul would benefit from learning many countless lessons that could only be experienced by being a tree. In the end, the teachings within **Gregashi** say that we are not humans having a spiritual experience but rather spirits. This is why **Gregashi** culture consider all life scared.

### Walking in Balance

One of the most important concepts in **Gregashi** tradition is the idea of **Walking in Balance**. **Walking in Balance** is learning to move through your life in such a way that you achieve inner harmony by creating a life that is the perfect mix of healthy interactions in your public life whilst taking valuable time for your private life. It is being in touch with yourself so that you achieve inner peace, while seeing how it relates to the greater picture. It is knowing when to act and when to be still. But for enlightened **Gregashi**, it also includes the ability to walk in between the physical world and spiritual realms. The enlightened **Gregashi's** job is to help create balance wherever they may be. This includes helping an individual achieve balance within themselves, within their community, within nature and with spirit beings. It includes bringing balance to those in the spirit realm: for example, helping people cross over from one lifetime to the next. Walking in balance is a dynamic state much like walking with the physical body.

**Lettcor** believed in balance because he saw that suffering arises from craving and attachment, which are caused by an imbalanced mind. When our mind is imbalanced, we tend to cling to things that bring us pleasure and avoid things that bring us pain. This creates a cycle of craving and aversion, which leads to suffering. Furthermore, balance allows us to develop wisdom and insight into the nature of reality. When our mind is imbalanced, we tend to see things in a distorted and limited way, based on our desires and fears. But when we cultivate balance, we can see things clearly and objectively, without the distortions caused by our attachments and aversions. Ultimately, cultivating balance allows us to live a life that is free from suffering and full of joy and contentment. It allows us to appreciate the beauty and richness of life without becoming trapped in its illusions and limitations.

*"Balance is not a destination, but a journey. It is the path we walk to harmonize the rhythms of our body, mind, and spirit. Only by taking this journey can we find peace, joy, and enlightenment. Just as a tree requires balance in its roots and branches to withstand the winds of change, so too must we find balance in our thoughts and actions to weather the storms of life." -*Lettcor

## Gregashi Practices

**Gregashi** practices may seem peculiar or even strange to outsiders, however this is due to the religions uniqueness. With a strong importance of ones own philosophy, spirit and health, **Gregashi** practices are often large grandiose affairs fit with loud drums, meaningful chants and spiritual dances. **Gregashi** practices are incredibly important to its followers and therefore see little change through history. It is often a way for communities to come together and express themselves deeply with one another, this in turn creates strong tightly bonded groups.

### Gregashi Music Tradition

**Gregashi** followers sing and play a variety of different music. However primarily **Gregashi** music consists of vocal art, usually choral, although some regions favour solo singing. **Gregashi** music is entirely melodic; there is no harmony or polyphony, although there is occasional antiphonal singing between soloist and chorus.

**Gregashi** music is performed for a vast amount of different reasons and therefore different songs are fit for different circumstances. **Gregashi** music can be heard and performed during burials, weddings, celebrations, gatherings, teachings and even whilst travelling.

*Gregashi Spirit Journey (Performed during celebrations of ones own personal spiritual walk)*

*Passing of Souls (Performed during Gregashi funerals)*

*Gregashi War Song (Performed usually before or after a battle)*

### Gregashi Art and Literature

Along with music, art and literature are seen as just as important in **Gregashi** cultures. Art and especially literature allow the passing down of knowledge and insights onto newer generations, always encouraging the pursuit for new revelations to be found. Many great **Gregashi** teachers prefer to incorporate their teachings into books that can be copied and then carried into **Gregashi** cultures across the world, however some prefer the more creative alternative, that being art. This form of insightful expression is much more rare and thus **Gregashi** artwork is usually kept safe and secure in temples to maintain the preservation of knowledge. It should be noted that anyone can produce Gregashi art and literature, it is not something that can be taught but is instead a skill developed by inner connection.

## Gregashi History

The history of **Gregashi** is one of great beauty and passion but also great tragedy and misfortune. But these polar opposites are what would become the foundations of the **Gregashi** way of life. Without darkness there would be no need for light, just as you cannot have good without first having bad. **Gregashi** teachings like this are found in all corners of the world, but this was not always the way. Just like all things, it first required a reaction for there to be a beginning.

### The Kapia Tribe

In a time before any major civilisations had emerged, small tribes first existed as life began to spread across the land and soon build their kingdoms. History from this time is relatively unknown due to the simple inability to record information, thus many of these communities remain unknown and will likely stay this way forever. However one of these tribes are known, this being the **Kapia Tribe**. The **Kapia Tribe** was tribe located in southern Iaddithis, here they lived peaceful lives living entirely off the land and within harmony of the world around them. Due to their secluded nature, they never made contact with other neighbouring tribes, instead finding peace in the small community they had established. This would soon change after they were discovered by a young **Lettcor Volkost** in search of answers. **Lettcor** had found himself trapped deep into a past he was never apart of and never meant to be apart of... or so the thought at the time. He spent a few months travelling through the empty hills and valleys before accidentally stumbling across the **Kapia Tribe**. The tribe was hostile at first and there was a clear language barrier between the two sides, but **Lettcor** was allowed to stay and was quickly adopted into the tribe. It took a few long years before **Lettcor** could fluently speak their ancient tongue, however time was one of the few things the immortal being had.

**Lettcor** joined the **Kapia Tribe** filled with chaos and despair, but it was not long until their teachings of peace and harmony would be embraced. **Lettcor** would prove himself to be a valuable member of the tribe and stayed with them for lifetimes. He was taught the concept of **Gregashi** for the first time, which simply meant "Balance" in the **Kapia Tribes** ancient language. As the young grew old, new generations would emerge and **Lettcor** would become their timeless teacher, teaching them the same lessons their ancestors had taught him. But this beautiful cycle of insightful preservation would be forced to come to a saddening end. A dangerous viral illness broke out within the tight knit tribe, killing them all within a matter of weeks. **Lettcor's** modern body was already adapted against the virus leaving him as the only survivor. He gave the entire tribe a proper burial and mourned their deaths for two whole months. Despite the travesty, **Lettcor** was never sad for he knew this was merely the world maintaining its perfect harmony. After his two months of mourning, **Lettcor** hibernated inside an unknown cave. It is unclear exactly how long he stayed meditating in the cave for, but it was long enough for him to catch back up with time and re-enter the world he had left all those millennia ago.

### The Foundation of Gregashi

As **Lettcor** left the cave he had come to know so well, he slowly began to reintegrate himself back into society. For the people who knew **Lettcor** before, he had only been gone for a year or two, but for **Lettcor** it had been many, many lifetimes. But **Lettcor** was never without purpose, in fact that was the main change that had occurred deep within him. He was no longer following the wills of others, but instead following the will of balance and harmony. In his old house in Fides located in the **Confederation of Terraorientis**, **Lettcor** officially established **Gregashi**. Using the teachings he had learned and mastered in the **Kapia Tribe**, **Lettcor** wasted no time in teaching the world of his new found knowledge. It was slow to begin with but as time went on more and more people began to follow the new way of life. **Lettcor** first began teaching in his home of Fides and it was during this time the first holy book of **Gregashi** was written, the **Inakkam**. **Lettcor** would soon begin to move onto new towns to teach to, he packed up his essentials and travelled west before landing in the newly established **Vrailine Republic**. The nation was still early in its foundation and when the citizens listened to the **Gregashi** teachings, they not just tolerated it but embraced it.

*"Truly I say to you, my beloved ones, your open hearts and attentive ears are a testament to the great power of love and compassion. For in the light of your willingness to listen, my words have found a home and my message has taken root. May your hearts continue to be receptive and your spirits lifted, as we journey together towards a brighter tomorrow."* -Lettcor after completing his first public teaching in Vrailine.

**Gregashi** would soon see a massive rise in popularity and quickly began to spread throughout Iaddithis. Different nations in all corners of the world openly accepted **Gregashi** into their borders. As a result new teachers of **Gregashi** started to emerge, branching off the original teachings given to them by the one who they now call the "Teacher". However despite the worldly embrace of **Gregashi**, **Lettcor** never stopped or slowed down. He would travel place to place teaching to crowds filled with thousands of people eager to listen to his insights and lessons.

#### The Teacher Lettcor Volkost

**Lettcor Volkost**, also known more simply as "The Teacher," was an illegitimate child to the former leader of **Ethnos,** **Knightmare Van Krachtig**. **Lettcor** thus grew up an orphan along with his other two brothers **Beskon** and **Volsztar Volkost**. The brothers would fight themselves out of their lower class positions and claimed nobility through their service to the former nation of **Bostadir**. They would soon go onto larger aspirations with each of the **Volkost** brothers leaving the nation to lead nations for themselves. **Lettcor** revived the fallen nation of **Gewebe**, re-establishing it into **The Gewebian Sovereignty**. But against his will, **Lettcor** was forced to watch his mighty empire fall under the weight of its own ambition. He had been stripped of everything that once proudly defined him, his power, his royalty, his passion were all gone. In desperate search of his own self, **Lettcor** began to travel. He travelled beyond the known borders, beyond the boundaries of time, beyond the limitations of the self. On his return back to Iaddithis, **Lettcor** found himself deep in the past where he soon discovered his future teachers of the **Kapia Tribe** and founded **Gregashi** based on their ancient teachings. **Lettcor** can now be found in **Gregashi** temples all across Iaddithis, teaching to the new generations of Iaddithis. He is always seen in his white **Gregashi** robes, a colour of robe that all **Gregashi** monks refuse to wear.

### The First Followers

**The First Followers** is a name given to the first group of individuals to actively follow **Gregashi**. Because of this a large majority of **The First Followers** were citizens of the **Vrailine Republic**, although there were some exceptions. The importance of **The First Followers** cannot be understated for it was their bravery and passion for peace that paved the way for the new generations of **Gregashi**. It was members of this group who began producing the first literature, art, music and lessons that would begin to help expand **Gregashi** beyond southern Iaddithis. **The First Followers** is not an exclusive group but instead a simple term used to distinguish the legendary teachers that first took forth the teachings of **Gregashi**. Therefore some of **Gregashi's** most famed teachers are apart of **The First Followers**, such as **Gerissen Vertauscht** who founded and taught the martial art form of **Santulana**.

### The First Gregashi Temple

The **First Gregashi Temple** was built and designed by The Innovator, **Gerrisen Vertauscht**, in the town of Verlies. The temple itself was of incredible significance not only to the **Gregashi** followers in Verlies, but to all **Gregashi** followers. Because of the **First Gregashi Temples** construction, dozens of **Gregashi** specific spiritual sites started to blossom throughout the world. Because of this, the first temple is considered as one of the more important **Gregashi** sites to visit. **The First Temple** was a place where practices such as meditation, contemplation and cultural preservation were taught and perfected.

The design of **Gregashi** temples varies depending on the region and culture, but they all share certain common features. For example, most temples have an image or statue of a **Gregashi** teacher, which serves as a focal point for appreciation and meditation. Temples are also often built with elements of nature, such as gardens or water features, to create a peaceful and tranquil environment conducive to meditation and contemplation. In addition to serving as a place for spiritual practice, **Gregashi** temples also serve as a community centre where people can come together to celebrate festivals and other important events.

#### The Innovator Gerissen Vertauscht

**Gerissen Vertauscht**, also known more simply as "The Innovator," was once a scientist for the nation of **Gewebe**. After the nations collapse, **Gerissen** would travel down south, where he travelled from town to town before landing in the town of Verlies. However it was not long before an interesting old figure landed upon the shores of the town. Crowds of people gathered around the visitor. **Gerissen** was curious about what all the fuss was about and so made his way to the front of the small crowd. At first he did not recognise the old man but after a few seconds of identification, **Gerissen** realised who it was. It was his old friend, **Lettcor**, although much older. **Lettcor** explained to **Gerissen** what had happened. How he got stuck in the past, how he met the **Kapia Tribe** and how he founded **Gregashi**. Interested to learn more, **Gerissen** became one of the first **Gregashi** students learning directly under **Lettcor**. No student understood, practised and implemented **Gregashi** teachings as quickly and effective as **Gerissen** did. After only a few months, **Gerissen** made his way into the the **First Gregashi Temple** and entered into a deep state of meditation. **Lettcor** and **The First Followers** watched on in song, as they witnessed **Gerissen** reach enlightenment, becoming the second individual to reach enlightenment through **Gregashi**. This proved to everyone that **Gregahsi** was the truth and as a result granted him the name "The Innovator." After reaching enlightenment, **Gerissen** became a master and teacher himself. He founded the martial artform of **Santulana** and is credited with establishing the first **Gregashi Monastery**, where he famously fought a mythical beast who once occupied the sacred mountain.

*Song by The First Followers during Gerissen's Enlightenment*

### The Gregashi Monastery

The **Gregashi Monastery** is the most notable location in the entirety of **Gregashi**. It came about soon after the enlightenment of **Gerissen**. **Lettcor** had ideas about starting up a monastery that was entirely dedicated to the **Gregashi** way of life, fascinated with the idea, **Gerissen** offered to take on the mission of establishing the first **Gregashi Monastery**. **Lettcor** had planned the monastery to be built within the mountain that was formerly occupied by the **Kapia Tribe**, he stated that the mountain possessed a powerful spiritual essence. And so **Gerissen** set off through the cold, snowy tundra. It was not long before he finally arrived at the mountain **Lettcor** had described to him. Immediately setting foot upon the land, **Gerissen** could feel the spiritual power flow through his body. As he began examining the mountain, besides the occasional snow fox he was completely alone. But suddenly the ground beneath him began to shake and loud footsteps entered his ears. A giant fourteen foot tall humanoid monkey by the name of **Jianhong**, had claimed the mountain his. **Jianhong** was born from the magical and spiritual waters of the mountain and thus possessed many unique abilities. He had incredible strength and speed, and his memory skills were unfathomably advanced. It took only seconds for **Jianhong** to figure out why **Gerissen** was there and thus the two quickly engaged in a long lengthy battle. Despite being a master in the martial artform of **Santulana**, **Gerissen** knew he was no match for the sheer power and skill that **Jianhong** possessed. **Gerissen** was quickly suffering from fatigue and knew he could not fight for much longer. In a final effort to bring down **Jianhong**, **Gerissen** used all his power, both physical and spiritual, and performed a final powerful strike into the body of **Jianhong**. The strike shook the ground and threw **Jianhong** into the mountain itself, almost completely hollowing it out in the process. But **Jianhong** had a final trick, he leaped up onto his feet and prepared to swiftly squash **Gerissen** with his giant fists. However, a majestic Snow Fox that also called the mountain home, appeared and launched itself at **Jianhong**. The Snow Fox gouged out one of the eyes of **Jianhong**, buying **Gerissen** enough time to knock the beast unconscious. The fight had finally concluded and **Jianhong** would later be imprisoned underneath the **Gregashi Monastery** by The Teacher, **Lettcor**.

After securing the site, construction of the monastery soon began. In a short matter of time, the overall monastery was complete and opened to the world. Thousands of followers all across Iaddithis travelled far and wide to visit the new **Gregashi** site. The monastery had no doors and was thus open to everyone and anyone. It soon became a sanctuary for all and flourished the enlightenment of many devote followers.

*"Today, we are opening this new monastery with the hope that it will serve as a sanctuary for all those seeking inner peace and spiritual growth. It is a place where one can come to quiet the mind and find refuge from the distractions of the world. Let us not forget that the ultimate purpose of this monastery is not to glorify ourselves or our achievements, but to inspire others to embark on the journey of inner transformation. May this monastery be a living embodiment of the Gregashi teachings, and may it serve as a catalyst for the transformation of our own lives and the lives of others. Thank you."* -Gerissen after announcing the monastery open.