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per Deenas suggestion, this is a thread for folks to discuss and free-write about the phrase 'personal gnosis' - I kind of have a basic idea of what it is , but Id be very appreciative to here others outlay their thoughts and knowledge of the concept.
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New York
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, February 21, 2006 - 10:13 AMPersonal gnosis is the only kind of gnosis there is. "You can't get wise from another man's wisdom," or so the saying goes. Wisdom comes from the heart and is based upon a knowledge that transcends rational thought. Our inter-relatedness with all of creation becomes more and more clear as we progress spiritually. All of our suffering is an opportunity for growth, to transcend our attachments to the body and the senses.
"There is a power that makes all things new. It lives and moves in all those who know the self as One."
-from the liturgy of the Ecclesia Gnostica -
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, February 21, 2006 - 10:36 AMcould 'know the self as one' be a unified consciousness that actively incorporates the abilities of rational thought, the gift of the senses and a hightened awareness of the body WITH the personal gnosis that 'comes from the heart, based on a knowledge that transcends [that same] rational thought'?
And at the same time not being attached to the experience of the body and the senses, but still being highly aware of their encounter in reality, swimming through them, indulging in them?
Or do you allude to a deep dismissal of the flesh, and a progressive journey from the ego? -
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, February 21, 2006 - 11:52 AMI do not dismiss the senses; neither do I attach myself to them. Thoughts come and thoughts go, but Mind remains undisturbed. "Judge not, lest ye be judged." -
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, February 21, 2006 - 12:59 PMcould you elaborate on the use of that last quote?
"judge not, lest ye be judged" -
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, February 21, 2006 - 1:34 PMOur cultural conditioning leads us to describe some aspects of our experience as "bad" and other aspects of our experience as "good" (although this type of thinking usually leads to judging others as bad and ourselves as good.) However, this type of dualistic thinking only leads us toward further suffering. It leads us to desire certain sense-objects and to desire to avoid other sense-objects, yet our desires are limitless and unable to be permanently fulfilled. If we stop judging things as good and bad, we find peace in the here and now. The lotus flower blooms from the muddy water. All things are good in the eyes of the Lord.
Now, while I may no longer judge others or myself as "good" or "bad", I can still show discernment between those actions that will produce further suffering and those that lead to the cessation of suffering. Let us choose our actions carefully and avoid impulsiveness. -
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, February 21, 2006 - 2:08 PMwhat was it I heard today on this podcast? it was like ..
"and if you're wrong, it will help someone else : by demonstrating to them their righteousness, by being unfairly treated."
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Re: personal gnosis
Mon, May 22, 2006 - 4:50 PMI think gnosis is often about dualistic teachings, though.
While what society or religion often emphasizes as the most important dual categories, is often a distraction from more important underlying contrasts. Personal gnosis has a lot to do with distinguishing between the real nature of the spirit from mere material confusion and ignorance. Part of that is in recognizing that sociopathy or sadism, narcissism, and the like, are unhealthy to our souls. Being fixed on judgmentalism is also a trap, but I don't think we can avoid it by pretending there are no such distinctions.
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Re: personal gnosis
Mon, May 22, 2006 - 4:52 PMFollowing reason, struggling with the illogic of paradox and seeking a deeper spiritual logic, can be helfpul in leading to an intuitive knowledge. I'd insist that it is a matter of integrating our reason with our intuition and personal experience, while being open to non-verbal transcendent understanding.
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, February 21, 2006 - 12:26 PMGood stuff, Daniel.
I've got to agree. -
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, February 21, 2006 - 1:02 PMso then, in your eyes, do our day to day encounters and experiences have impact, affect on our personal gnosis?
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Re: personal gnosis
Sun, March 5, 2006 - 8:12 PMWhen I was 16 years old, I went away to a political camp to stay in Tallahasse, Florida for two weeks. I grew up in a divorced household and never really attended church or had a religious background. I believed in God, in the sense that young children believe blindly. Away at this camp, I got lost and felt very afraid. I had no phone, no money, and no clue where I was in Tallahassee. I thought I had found the dorm on campus that we were staying in but walked in and no one was there. I sat down crying and felt as though I was suddenly uplifted. I felt that warm safe feeling you get when your mom hugs you after a nightmare, as a child. I had an instant knowledge, awareness, awakening (call it what you will) , that God is a reality. It has grown since then, and when I started reading the nag hammadi writings, I felt this stuff is so much easier to trust in, than a corrupted, edited form. I like the Bible, but I want to better understand the truth. I feel this awakening, this inate feeling that there is something greater than I, is the inbred gnosis we all possess. -
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Unsu...
Re: personal gnosis
Sun, March 5, 2006 - 8:34 PMSuch a beautiful story Clarissa. I understand completely. I feel like I was never out of touch with my Gnosis with God. My parents say when I was little she would just see me sitting around by myself, praying and talking with myself. It caught her off guard because I was usually up and dancing, singing, performing, laughing. I was "so peaceful and happy" as she would say. I just had the hardest time being in church and reconciling what I felt was true and what they would teach us at our Baptist Church (I grew up in North Carolina). So naturally, constantly struggling with that as a child always made me question the very essence of who I was. So I had high self esteem, but little confidence in myself because I wasn't 100% sure of anything. (Does that make sense?) Maybe that had something to do with the fact that I liked to be positively sure of my emotions. Anyway, when I went off to college, and I was away from home, I flourished. I'm back in NC for a few months helping take care of my parents and living at home. I've been known to have a short temper and sharp tongue...no matter how much I meditate :-) How do I reconcile or come to terms with this church that I attend, because I feel pretty much alone back here in the bible belt. I understand that this church is pretty liberal and isn't extremely Baptist, but I still feel so out of whack. I apologize if I'm off topic, but my fingers just kept typing.
A side note: I just glanced at some of your pictures, Daniel, and I can feel peace radiate from you. Every day I pray that my God centeredness and his light expands from my core and touches people. It certainly does for you. -
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Re: personal gnosis
Fri, June 16, 2006 - 8:14 AMTo me, discovering my personal gnosis was a deeply spiritual experience. I grew up in the Mormon faith, raised by intellectual freethinkers who instilled in me a passion for rigting injustice and standing up for one's beliefs. However, the Mormon religion leaves much to be desired for a "freethinking" feminist woman, and I was dissapointed by the fact there was no recognized female diety. In order to satisfy my need for the missing Goddess I spent a large amount of time trying to find one to embrace, and to put a name to my "inner truths". However, no matter how much I was awed by or felt respect for different religious paths, nothing was a perfect fit. Paganism in of itself wasn't right, nor was Taosim, or any of the numerous Christian sects I researched. I got to the point that I was sure that the only way to find my one true path was to forge it myself, and so I did. I started collecting various books on the subject until one day I stumbled across "Jesus and the Lost Goddess". Now, I had never heard about the Goddess of Wisdom before. I was stunned to find that there was a whole philosophy on life that does not take the literal word of GOD to heart, and respects women and men alike. It fit so perfectly, so encompassingly, it brought tears to my eyes not only out of joy, but also out of relief of frustration. I finally found GOD, or Gnosis, or Tao or whatever name you choose to place upon it, because as far as I believe it is all one and the same. -
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Re: personal gnosis
Fri, June 16, 2006 - 7:17 PMThe Jesus Mysteries, by the same authors, really opened me up, too.
They aren't technical in backing up all their conclusions, they enthusiastically make claims that aren't always substantiated with their footnotes, but they do inspire and lead people to re-consider 'heretical' alternatives in a way that brings such ideas to life personally, and for that they are excellent and serving a great purpose. -
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, June 20, 2006 - 1:36 AMIt would be good to read some counter-arguments to the recent outpouring of gnostic thought. St. Irenaeus (www.newadvent.org/cathen/08130b.htm) addressed many of these ideas a very long time ago. St. Ignatius, too. It would only be fair to seriously consider other points of view (keyword: seriously).
The book "Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words" is worth a read. The Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on Gnosticism is informative as well: www.newadvent.org/cathen/06592a.htm. -
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, June 20, 2006 - 2:37 PMWhat did you get out of such materials, more specifically. It's been a while, but I have looked at the Catholic Encyclopedia entries, and I do read Irenaeus, Hyppolytus, and Epiphanius from time to time. -
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, June 20, 2006 - 4:09 PMWell, the one thing I can say off the top of my head is Christology. Most of the disputes between the early Catholic Church and the Gnostics revolved around Jesus Christ's true nature.
The Gnostics typically held that matter was inherently corrupt, so therefore Christ could not actually walk in the flesh, but could only appear as an image (Docetism). Therefore he didn't actually suffer as a man would suffer and die as a man would die. Hence, the resurrection became ridiculous. According to the Gnostics, Jesus merely put on a show. It was a lesson, rather than an act of redemption.
I believe it was St. Clement who warned people of the time against this teaching, saying that Christ was actually born of a virgin, was actually beaten, was actually nailed to a cross, actually died, and actually resurrected. His nature was fully human and fully divine. He wasn't the impersonal cosmic force of the Gnostics, but an actual man with an actual body. He wasn't one of many Masters, but the one and only Word of God.
The gnostic sect I was once involved with taught that Jesus was an ascended master of the 4th degree or something along those lines. We were taught to call him in the astral plane using the name "Yeshua Ben Pandira". Origen talks about this name in Contra Celsus, saying that it is little more than an insult, a "your mama" joke, basically. Yet we were taught to call on this name for spiritual enrichment!
Here's a little more material to ponder over -- www.opusdei.us/art.php
Best wishes,
Denny -
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Unsu...
Re: personal gnosis
Wed, June 21, 2006 - 10:41 AMDenny,
Those are good points. A basic grounding in Christology can be very helpful in clarifying one's thoughts. The Catholic Church's official theological position that Jesus Christ was at once fully Divine and fully human is the closest that the theology of a personal God can get to non-dualism. It is also espcially worth noting that exactly how Jesus Christ can be both at the same time is revered as a mystery that transcends human intellect. Amen to that! :-)
It is a generalization to say that Gnostics view Christ as an impersonal cosmic force. Some certainly do, but others consider Christ the archetypal Soul, aware and intelligent in ways that transcend the personal consciousness of human beings. In fact, if Christ lives and acts through his followers (as the Apostle Paul teaches and as is affirmed in mainstream theology), it can only be a contradiction to think of the personal consciousness of Jesus as the one and only expression of Christ in the flesh.
Finally. while the true nature of Christ may be a Holy Mystery that transcends such reasoning, it is nonetheless wise of us to constantly be refining our concepts of Christ.
Peace,
Griffin
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Unsu...
Re: personal gnosis
Thu, June 15, 2006 - 7:00 AMIt is like a lover
who quickly covers
her naked body,
pretending she
does not want to be seen.
She turns off the light,
and once more
you are lost in her bed. -
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Re: personal gnosis
Mon, June 26, 2006 - 7:32 PMto me, gnosis means direct experience of god.
it's pretty simple, really -- just god.
nothing between me and that -- no dogma, no religions, no human beings pretending to teach something they may or may not understand in actuality about the divine -- nothing in the way.
the tricky part is this: it's not between my MIND and god. it's between my soul and god.
that's why it's not something anyone can teach or explain, verbalize or lecture about. it's an experience of the Truth-with-a-capital-T, and an experience that the soul has. (the mind may not necessarily even register or believe what it's experienced, because the divine doesn't, in my experience, happen on the level of that goofy trickster, the mind.)
Alx -
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Re: personal gnosis
Tue, June 27, 2006 - 7:25 AMI agree with your statement, it is between yourself and commune with the Divine, and nothing else, no dogma, rules, law or condemned by man kind.
revpo
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