GNOSTICISM
New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing
by
Stephen A. Hoeller
Quest Books
Theosophical Publishing House
Paper, 257 pages
ISBN 0-8356-0816-6
The term gnostic derives from the Greek word gnosis, meaning knowledge or insight. Gnostics believe we must find a spark of divinity within ourselves, not in faith in an exterior power. While Hoeller argues for a kind of pan-gnosticism, incorporating teachers from Buddha to Jesus and many others down through the ages, the argument need not go so far. And while he also posits a type of Paradise Lost view of a benign universal power above the chaos caused by a secondary deity (the demiurge, the originator of evil and imperfection read Lucifer ), the argument need not go that far, either.
If gnostics say life is hard and then you die, it is easy to agree with them. If they say the world is flawed because it was created in a flawed manner, it is again easy to disagree, as a Darwinian struggle might not be so much a flaw in design but a means by which the design occurs.
But all of this detracts from the basic gnostic idea insight and knowledge.
Consider this view of Jesus resurrection: We may be entombed in darkness, but through insight into our own spirit, the stone of the tomb can be rolled away, and we can awaken from the death of our life.
Then this version of Eden: Eve was not born of Adam s rib, but created out of part of God s own dyadic nature consisting of both male and female characteristics. Nor was the serpent the symbol of evil, nor Eve a temptress. The serpent, the wisest creature in paradise, offered the fruit of knowledge, and woman was man s teacher of knowledge; not subordinate, but superior to men in their insights. But what they saw with their new knowledge was not beauty; they saw the faces of gods like animals, loathesome in appearance; and Adam and Eve recoiled in horror.
In the gnostic gospel of Thomas, Jesus came to make the inner as the outer, and the outer as the inner, and the above as the below, so that they all be made into a single one. Or as Hoeller says: the perfected Gnostic is not a follower of Christ but a deified human being; he is another Christ.
The concept of oneness is seen in the mystery of the Bridal Chamber; gnostics advocate the marriage of a human s male and female identities by which one becomes whole by absorbing Their opposite sexual image.
Men must become united with
their female selves, and until they do, they can experience the opposite sexual
image only vicariously in a woman; women must be married to . . . their
masculine internal opposite . . .
According to Hoeller, gnostics reject a blind belief in a vicarious salvation by way of the death of Jesus. He asserts we don t need to be saved, we need to be transformed by gnosis. He relies on Valentinus (born 100 CE) who believed the basic problem of humanity was ignorance ignorance of the authentic values of life, substituted by inauthentic ones. This is akin to the Buddhist theory of ignorance and enlightenment.
An unenlightened
person, the Buddhists say, is deluded and thus will choose on the basis of his
or her own delusions.
One must first recognize the lack of enlightenment, then diminish and remove delusions. What gnosticism offers is to know one s deepest self is tantamount to knowing God. Thomas, disciple of Jesus, emphasized the importance of knowing oneself, and thereby knowing that you are the children of the Living Father.
If you bring
forth that which is within your selves, what you bring forth will save
you. If you do not bring forth what is
within you, what you do not bring forth will kill you.
Or as Shakespeare more succinctly said, To thine own self be true.
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