Hi Jason,

Good question. Gnosis can be thought of as a momentary experience, as a path of study and practice, or as an ongoing state of mind. You specifically referred to it as a path, so let's work with that for a minute. :-)

I would say that the Gnostic path does beg us to try to see both sides of the metaphorical/metaphysical coin at once. Gnosticism sometimes gets a bad rap for being dualistic and setting the physical against the spiritual. The traditional literature does indeed contain such language, but it must also be understood that the literature of Gnosticism is meant to be mythical, and thus have some literal value while having yet more to reveal in layers that transcend and subsume the literal.

So, as with the different stages or phases of realization discussed in Buddhism and Vedanta, it can be argued that there are different levels or degrees of gnosis. Some of these are purely conceptual and do not require any genuine mystical experience in order for people to "get it". The highest layer of conceptual understanding is the metaphysic of non-dualism, which many people can accept as making sense to them on a purely intellectual level.

Once non-dualism is embraced, then a person is inwardly challenged to integrate it into his/her life. That means becoming aware of how one plays the games of limitation (definition), opposition, polarity and division. As a non-dualist, how can one rationally acknowledge some condition as essential to life without simultaneously acknowledging its opposite as equally essential?

Furthermore since conceptualization requires defining things in dualistic terms, an even deeper challenge to integrating non-dualism is working with the realization that we cannot conceptualize the Ultimate Truth that we call the One, or God, or the Non-Dual. We can only come up with words and other symbols that point our minds in that direction.

Still, gnosis is about actual "knowing", not just having a faith or a philosophy. But it can be hard for us to understand what "knowing" means if it doesn't mean conceptual understanding or at least an powerful emotional conviction. We forget about the experiential and intutive (actually a form of experience itself) aspects of knowing. But that's pretty foolish, because you can ask any super-genius egghead if he knows that he loves his wife and he will insist that he does, but damned if he can really explain exactly what love is! <LOL> His knowledge of that love really boils down to his experience of it manifesting in different ways (thoughts, feelings, and actions), but if he's honest he also knows that the love itself cannot be reduced to a conceptual sum of the ways it is experienced.

So, gnosticism urges us to get back to the root of knowing -- actual experience. That is why gnostics focus on experience of mystical states of consciousness (loving God with all your heart and mind...). But the non-dual metaphysic also urges us to realize that every experience is an experience of some aspect of the Ultimate. In turn, that means to embrace one side of anything while denying the other is to try to deny God's fullness, reject some aspect of Reality, close ourselves off from part of a more complete gnosis, and thus create delusions, conflicts and disease for ourselves.

Gnosis, in its sharpest form, is indeed the middle or hidden path that you spoke of.

Peace,
Griffin

Two concepts that surround this idea in Gnosticism are Pleuroma and Entirety.

Pleuroma is considered to be the realm of unity, that which is transcendent of creation and that aspect of being that is utterly unified with God. Entirety is the world we know of, and many of the inner dimensions, including the "Heavens of Chaos" which are the Heavens that could be thought of as those "Gated Communities of the sky" which, as Jesus says, "The HEAVENS and the earth will pass away, but my word will remain."

But another Gnostic friend of mine recently helped me recognize the idea of the Pleuroma WITHIN the Entirety. Basically, we ARE the Pleuroma, but in our self-identity with name and form and our belief in it's substantial self-existence, we ARE the Entirety. They are one reality, but manifest according to view.