At the heart of Yiguandao’s religious vision stands the Eternal or Unborn Mother (Wusheng Laomu, also called Wuji Laomu), revered as the supreme, primordial source of all beings and the ultimate Lord of Heaven. She is regarded as the highest reality, the one who sends down saving teachings through different cosmic eras, and thus becomes the central focus of devotion, worship, and hope for salvation. Under her overarching authority, the traditional Jade Emperor and a wider celestial bureaucracy are acknowledged, yet they remain subordinate to her transcendent status. This structure already reveals how Yiguandao reorders familiar Chinese religious figures around a single, maternal absolute.

Within this overarching framework, a series of Buddhist figures play a crucial salvific role, especially in relation to different cosmic epochs. Yiguandao emphasizes the “three Buddhas of the three epochs”: Dipankara Buddha as the Buddha of a primordial age, Śākyamuni Buddha as the teacher of the middle era, and Maitreya Buddha as the lord of the present and future age. Maitreya, in particular, is seen as the key figure for the current “final” era, the one through whom the Mother’s compassion is most immediately at work. Other Buddhist figures such as Amitābha and Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara), the bodhisattva of great compassion, are also venerated, though they remain secondary to the Mother and the epochal Buddhas in the movement’s internal hierarchy.

The pantheon further incorporates Confucian sages and Taoist immortals, reflecting Yiguandao’s syncretic character. Confucius is honored as a sage and moral exemplar, and Mencius may also be revered as part of the Confucian line of wisdom. From the Taoist side, the Jade Emperor and various immortals, including figures such as Lu Dongbin, are respected as powerful spiritual beings and models of cultivation, even if they do not occupy the same central soteriological place as the Mother or Maitreya. Folk deities like the Kitchen God, City God, and other local spirits can also be included, especially in ritual and temple life, illustrating how the movement embraces the broader religious landscape while reinterpreting it under the Mother’s sovereignty.

Finally, Yiguandao accords a distinctive place to certain semi-historical or legendary figures and to its own lineage masters. Ji Gong, the eccentric “Living Buddha” monk, and Patriarch Lu (often identified with Lu Dongbin) serve as important spiritual guides and patrons within the tradition, bridging the human and celestial realms. Modern patriarchs such as Zhang Tianran and Sun Suzhen are revered not as independent deities but as divinely authorized intermediaries, manifestations or agents of higher powers like Maitreya or the Heavenly Mother. Through this layered pantheon—Eternal Mother, epochal Buddhas, bodhisattvas, sages, immortals, folk gods, and lineage patriarchs—Yiguandao articulates a cosmos in which all worthy beings ultimately participate in the Mother’s compassionate project of universal salvation.