The
concrete world, far from being illusionary, is quite
immediate,
relevant and approached by the capacities which exist
within the soul.
The soul cannot afford to be passive because the
world is participatory
in its essence and emerges out from it;
darkness repress and separates it
from its light, conforming it
into its own – this darkness, while emerging
out of forgetfulness
is nevertheless part of the evil which is real.
The world, material
conditions, the lower soul, the counterfeit spirit
and evil -
while we may find ourselves to exist in a twilight between them and
the Pleroma – has such claim upon us that
it is nonsense to speak of any kind of illusion.
An illusion is some phenomenon which briefly, or in a period of extension, appears
to be real, to be “solid” – in terms of the language applied by our positivistic empiricism inherited from the thinkers of the age of enlightenment and their successors in philosophy – but which, and this is important, reveal themselves to be unreal, to be a fabrication forged by the senses, by faulty interpretation of such, or as a cluster of beliefs which in a brief period of disorientation manifests itself as immediate, solid and verified by perception. “Illusion” as a figure of speech isn’t even a valid argument for or against any phenomenon, deattached from perception and the interpretation of perception.
It is impossible for you to sit down in your chair, turn your computer on, log onto the internet and open this blog, and read these words – without this sequence of events, and your interaction with certain apparatus – apart from the world of matter.
This is observed also by the Gospel of Phillip, which argues that the resurrection will occur to a body, and this body is also matter :
But tell me what will rise, that we may honor you. You
say the Spirit in the flesh, and it is also this light in the flesh. (But) this too is a
matter which is in the flesh, for whatever you shall say, you say nothing outside the
flesh.
So this flesh goes to destruction with all things that go to destruction – what rises out of the earth, given time, will return to it. In the meantime, as I addressed earlier, the Soul embodied continues to be sacrifice on the part of all incarnate life. There will be comprehension, there will be understanding,there will be wisdom, there will be knowledge – and there will be Gnosis – in the body, in the flesh, with you now, that you are living –
but the body goes to back to its own, leaving behind comprehension, leaving behind consciousness, leaving behind the mystery of breath. So it is true, the concrete, physical
world, with all its matter, with all its limitations, with all suffering – all unions and all separations – will not last, it is not eternal. But it is not an illusion, in any capacity.
About the proper attitude towards matter, the Gospel of Philip says “Do not love it,
and do not fear it” – either way it detains you and substract
from you what is
needed elsewhere, by way of emotion and
disposition. This dispassion with
regards to it is made possible
by not being centered within a conscious
center within us whose
balance is towards “flesh” and “appearance”(untruth),
it might be pertinent to speak of it as the body insofar as the
manifest body is a form with which we are accustomed to. If we are
too disposed towards the physiology and anatomy of ourselves
and others, to the degree it overshadows all else, we grow morbid
-while we
loose ourselves in these things – sensually,
intellectually, creatively -
notion does not escape us that this
appreciation itself does not repair
its condition, which is
dwindling.
The Gospel of Thomas has Jesus diagnose the “rude
awakening” of one which formerly thought to know and possess
the body; “when you have found the body, you have discovered
a corpse”.
I do not mean with this that the Gnostic
dualism has to do with body vs.
spirit, for there is a
tripartition of man`s priority or
consciousness-of-self within
most Gnoses within the Gnostic tradition, and
the three can never
achieve status as dual or duality – also a tripartite
nature of the human being – his creation or coming into this particular form
you
and I have – speaking of all qualities within the former three;
has
also three stadiums and natures – the dualism of Gnosticism is
Spiritual:
There is Pleroma and Kenoma; Fullness and Emptiness,
there is Light and
Dark which are directly relating to the
acquisition of Gnosis – moreover,
and this anchors the Initiatory,
progressive, calculated approach of the
Gnostic Systems; wherein
the Myth of Descent and Ascent, Fall and
Redemption, Forgetting
and Remembering, Exile and Return plays a
significant part -
namely the divide which exist between Spirit and
Counterfeit
Spirit.
In the progression of the Gnostic Myth, Sophia produces an unequated reflection upon herself apart
from the wholeness – while man is disposed to do so from
the
beginning of his life on earth, enforced and encouraged by
wellmeaning
mediators and tutors, by parental upbringing to
education and religious
instruction – this also occurs in his
soul. As such, he receives that
which is excreted out of Sophia, a
particular portion of the Demiurge
containing his essence, and
becomes its container, for most, for the
duration of his life..
whereupon the lion briefly roars and instills fear
in the souls of
this aeon, only to again be brought down into this abyss
of
purificatory preparations of Man interior.
In
one liturgy we are informed Sophia bears twins, this becomes a
subject
for both the Zervanite story of the younger and elder son,
wherein the
younger coming to realization that his destination is
subservience, breaks
through the womb before his brother and waits
there to strangle him at his
arrival – and the medieval Cathar
story of the sons Jesus and Satanael,
born to the unknown Dyadic
“Father”.
The
Myth speaks to no-one else but the soul, that means, not the soul
in
general, but yours and mine. If we are fulfilled in a greatly
focused and
discerning consciousness coupled with all-embracing
compassion for all
life, and particular that of our fellows who
suffers the same from the day
they enter into the world, we may,
through this really extraordinary,
almost unique ,.disposition,
make do without it or similar reminders. But
the world is full of
effective and ineffective, true and counterfeit
“myths”
addressing souls in this capacity, and Tradition more often than
not
are anchored with it, but often, so deep no “traditionalist”
is aware
of it and cultures are bereaved of its benefits.
Christ
is called, in some Christian traditions, “Second Creation” or even
“Second
Nature” – it is Christ, in the selfsame, who
collects and brings
together – the “Christian” himself/herself becomes
the embodiment of this Second Creation and receives it; in one
capacity as Adam, meaning the virgin “earth” which
receives
it (whose symbol the Cross and essence the Ashes, are drawn upon
many
brows on this day without any realization of this) -
another
capacity, active, as Sophia, who in iconography is the
“pregnant Madonna”
bearing within her the complete
Christ (here pious Christian Ikons
actually depict a Docetic
Christ who arrives completely formed and
transfigured out of Mary,
but in a manner of revelation rather than
fleshly form) encircled
by a Vesica Piscis, a Mandorla, a “womb of light”.
While
Catholics, ironically the most bitter polemists against
Gnosticism,
Modern and Ancient, today – thinks that the Gnostics
lived in fear of the
flesh and matter, thinking it to be the
essence of evil contradistinct to
an entirely divorced reality of
spirit; they still look toward the
Nativity on December the 25th
as an answer to the fall of man into a
predicament which equals
the fragility, vulnerability and nakedness of all
flesh, and
simultaneously offers thought to the “forebears” earthly
Adam and
earthly Eve, and essentially all mortal men and women
proceeding from them
by the generations -and their fall into this
condition which is what has
been diagnosized as the same by their
“rivals and enemies” the Gnostics;
they still apply
words pointing hope in the direction of a reintegration
into the
Kingdom of God, following the ascent of Christ, in Christ and
through
Christ, as well as a contemplation on the tomb of a man who was
born
in the sight of other mortals, “laying with him in his tomb,
entering
our death through his”. All that is lacking is an
appreciation that the
finitude of “creation” is a
beguiling lie, and the architects of the
notions have for all too
long forget the reasoning behind their craft – to
glorify the
temporal as eternal. I.e. Idolatry.
If
we possess a notion of Idolatry – the notion of a
representation,
wrought by human hands, receiving the glory and
worship True divinity,
True deity deserves; we acknowledge the
Duality of types, and the
possibility of having a relationship
towards true, revealed Reality
contra distinct to the false and
contrived appearance of Reality.
There is no both and same in
Gnosticism; at best we may be reminded of
existing things by
inspecting what is “before our eyes”, as the Gospel
of
Thomas reminds us ; if we “cleave the wood, lift the
stone” – we will see
what is hidden within_and hidden
beneath; but this requires a certain
type of seeing, which only
one certain type of eye might see.
This requires something else
than passive certainity.
Before
anything can be received into me, I must make sure I am the
space
which receives it; it demands an emptying, and a complete
disrobing. In the same way, the verified authenticity of any world,
any being, any thing – depends on there first being a verified authentic
self. If there is any doubt, we must go where it leads, and open up
that about which there is any doubt. In the case of our self, we need
to be able to empty ourselves completely of everything preconceived,
everything that has accumulated without consent, without knowledge -
of that which we know is whole.
