“
Men and women will forever make gods of others rather than see the god in themselves.
”
”
Ki Longfellow (The Secret Magdalene)
“
Cats have gnosis to a degree that is granted to few bishops.
”
”
Carl van Vechten (The Tiger in the House: A Cultural History of the Cat (New York Review Books Classics))
“
Our culture, self-toxified by the poisonous by-products of technology and egocentric ideology, is the unhappy inheritor of the dominator attitude that alteration of consciousness by the use of plants or substances is somehow wrong, onanistic, and perversely antisocial. I will argue that suppression of shamanic gnosis, with its reliance and insistence on ecstatic dissolution of the ego, has robbed us of life’s meaning and made us enemies of the planet, of ourselves, and our grandchildren. We are killing the planet in order to keep intact the wrongheaded assumptions of the ego-dominator cultural style.
”
”
Terence McKenna
“
As understanding deepens, the further removed it becomes from knowledge.
”
”
C.G. Jung (The Essential Jung: Selected Writings)
“
It is only by working the rituals, that any significant degree of understanding can develop. If you wait until you are positive you understand all aspects of the ceremony before beginning to work, you will never begin to work.
”
”
Lon Milo DuQuette (The Magick of Aleister Crowley: A Handbook of the Rituals of Thelema)
“
Philosophy springs from the love of being; it is man's loving endeavor to perceive the order of being and attune himself to it. Gnosis desires dominion over being; in order to seize control of being the Gnostic constructs his system. The building of systems is a gnostic form of reasoning, not a philosophical one.
”
”
Eric Voegelin
“
The criers of the Mysteries speak again, bidding all men welcome to the House of Light. The great institution of materiality has failed. The false civilization built by man has turned, and like the monster of Frankenstein, is destroying its creator. Religion wanders aimlessly in the maze of theological speculation. Science batters itself impotently against the barriers of the unknown. Only transcendental philosophy knows the path. Only the illumined reason can carry the understanding part of man upward to the light. Only philosophy can teach man to be born well, to live well, to die well, and in perfect measure be born again. Into this band of the elect--those who have chosen the life of knowledge, of virtue, and of utility--the philosophers of the ages invite YOU.
”
”
Manly P. Hall (The Secret Teachings of All Ages)
“
Knowledge is a sacred gem that must be conquered,wielded and empowered. To access such gnosis is not a right,but a privilege of the evolved.
”
”
Luis Marques (Asetian Bible)
“
Yet to know oneself, at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know God; this is the secret of gnosis.
”
”
Elaine Pagels (The Gnostic Gospels (Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books))
“
Who anyway can define the borderline between gnosis and poetic knowledge? The two modes are not identical, and yet they interpenetrate one another. Are we to call the gnosis of Novalis, Blake, and Shelley a knowledge that is not poetic? In domesticating the Sufis in our imagination, Corbin renders Ibn 1 Arabi and Suhrawardi as a Blakl· and a Shelley whose precursor is not Milton but the Koran.
”
”
Harold Bloom
“
And becoming aware of one's true inner nature, instinctive gut feelings, is not generally thought by those who experience it to be in conflict with the essence of one's spiritual knowledge, but more of a Gnostic direct experience of the Sacred experienced in the gut or all of nature that is greater than us and is connected to us through the gut instincts.
”
”
Martha Char Love (What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct)
“
Dear Friend, Your Heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust which has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets.
”
”
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (The Secret of Secrets (Golden Palm Series))
“
Tommy Gnosis: What is that?
Hedwig: It's what I've got to work with.
”
”
John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch)
“
This is Gnosis: the casting off of all that is inauthentic and entering in all your nakedness into the waters of the Real Authenticity.
”
”
Laurence Galian (Alien Parasites: 40 Gnostic Truths to Defeat the Archon Invasion!)
“
People are a soul-ego-spacesuit.
”
”
Stefan Emunds (A Modern Crash Course in Spirituality)
“
Spirituality is the realization of the totality of our being.
”
”
Stefan Emunds (A Modern Crash Course in Spirituality)
“
Faith is for sissies who daren't go and look for themselves. That’s my basic position. Magic is based upon gnosis. Direct knowledge.
”
”
Alan Moore (Yuggoth Cultures and Other Growths)
“
Gnostics, in general, are not trying to delineate a set of beliefs. The intent is to inspire the sacred quest for true gnosis and to provide keys through which true gnosis might be acquired.
”
”
Tau Malachi (Living Gnosis: A Practical Guide to Gnostic Christianity (Gnostic, 3))
“
From it genesis twelve hundred years ago to today, Islamic philosophy (al-hikmah; al-falsafah) has been one of the major intellectual traditions within the Islamic world, and it has influenced and been influenced by many other intellectual perspectives, including Scholastic theology (kalam) and doctrinal Sufism (al-ma'rifah or al-tasawwuf al-'ilmi) and theoretical gnosis ('irfan-i nazari).
”
”
Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy)
“
The word Gnosis was used by the Greeks for 'knowledge' - not everyday common knowledge, but deep knowledge that can only be gained through direct individual revelation. In other words, it is 'Divine Knowledge.
”
”
Laurence Galian (Alien Parasites: 40 Gnostic Truths to Defeat the Archon Invasion!)
“
There is only one exit from the dream: gnosis (enlightenment). When you finally grasp that your existence has been one long dream, both public and private (waking and sleeping, across many different bodies and lifetimes), you transcend the dream. You
”
”
Mike Hockney (The Noosphere (The God Series Book 9))
“
When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure that they had attained a certain 'gnosis'--had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion ...
So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'. It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes.
”
”
Thomas Henry Huxley (Collected Essays, Volume 5: Science and Christian Tradition: Essays)
“
Gnosis in Greek means knowledge, or to know. This does not refer to factual knowledge, but to an intuitive or spiritual understanding that comes from experience. The early Gnostics were mystics, people who knew that you could experience God for yourself instead of going into a church and being told what to believe. In Hebrew, to know means to experience—so, according to the Hebrews, knowing God means to experience Him. This is what most all early Hebrews and Christians were striving to do. Unfortunately, the Church got in the way of personal experience, by creating “organized religion.” There’s a saying which states, “Religion is for the masses, and mysticism is for the individual.” If you want to be a sheep and follow along with the masses to get a generic, candy-coated version of your spirituality, then follow the teachings of the Christian fathers. If you want to explore your own individual spirituality, you must go deeply inside yourself, instead of through church doors.
”
”
Jordan Maxwell (That Old-Time Religion)
“
In a world of limitations, only a fool would hesitate to touch the infinite.
”
”
Rhoads Brazos (Cthulhusattva: Tales of the Black Gnosis)
“
Knowledge of what? If, as Epicurus insisted, the what is unknowable, Walt’s knowledge is a personal gnosis, in which the knower himself is known by whatever can be known.
”
”
Harold Bloom (The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime)
“
The wisdom of the Gnostics is called Gnosis. Gnosis cannot be understood through doctrine or dogma. The Gnostics believe that you can have a direct experience with the Infinite Spirit.
”
”
Laurence Galian (Alien Parasites: 40 Gnostic Truths to Defeat the Archon Invasion!)
“
As I stumbled into confusion about what was real and what was not, the strangest thing happened: The world disintegrated. Reality collapsed, or my perception of it. It ripped apart like a dry skin under pressure, giving way to something I can only describe as ineffable dimensions, depths upon depths.
”
”
Stefan Emunds (The Priest Whisperer)
“
The funny thing about games and fictions is that they have a weird way of bleeding into reality. Whatever else it is, the world that humans experience is animated with narratives, rituals, and roles that organize psychological experience, social relations, and our imaginative grasp of the material cosmos. The world, then, is in many ways a webwork of fictions, or, better yet, of stories. The contemporary urge to “gamify” our social and technological interactions is, in this sense, simply an extension of the existing games of subculture, of folklore, even of belief. This is the secret truth of the history of religions: not that religions are “nothing more” than fictions, crafted out of sociobiological need or wielded by evil priests to control ignorant populations, but that human reality possesses an inherently fictional or fantastic dimension whose “game engine” can — and will — be organized along variously visionary, banal, and sinister lines. Part of our obsession with counterfactual genres like sci-fi or fantasy is not that they offer escape from reality — most of these genres are glum or dystopian a lot of the time anyway — but because, in reflecting the “as if” character of the world, they are actually realer than they appear.
”
”
Erik Davis (TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information)
“
When you take into your life the gnosis of the light-filled vegetables, the psychedelic plants that have stabilized the sane societies of this world for millennia, the first message that comes to you is: You are a divine being. You matter. You count. You come from realms of unimaginable power and light, and you will return to those realms.
”
”
Terence McKenna
“
Does truth lie in the everyday events, the daily incidents, in the pettiness and vulgarity most people’s lives are compounded of, or does the truth have its abode in the dream it is given us to dream to flee our sad human condition?
”
”
Jorge Amado (Home Is the Sailor)
“
The universe is a gigantic amusement park in which we can have a ride or two.
”
”
Stefan Emunds (A Modern Crash Course in Spirituality)
“
Spirituality is 80% attitude and 20% knowledge.
”
”
Stefan Emunds (A Modern Crash Course in Spirituality)
“
The moment you shine the light, the darkness vanishes. Darkness exists only before there is light.
”
”
M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life)
“
Each image painted
on the canvas of existence
is the form
of the artist himself.
Eternal Ocean
spews forth new waves.
„Waves“ we call them;
but there is only the Sea.
(p. 77)
”
”
Fakhruddin 'Iraqi (Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (Classics of Western Spirituality))
“
Nothingness is the beginning of everything. Fret not that you have nothing; be merry that you have a canvas upon which to paint your own reality.
”
”
Kayambila Mpulamasaka
“
When the rose opens its heart, you will smell the fragrance of its soul.
”
”
Jit Sharma
“
The archetypal image of the redeemer serpent is certainly placed here in opposition to the serpents of evil that battle with it. But why do they both have the same form if there is only oppositIOn between them? What does it mean that they both dwell in the same place, the depth of the great abyss? Are they not possibly two aspects of the same thing?
We know this image of the redeemer serpent not only from Gnosis and from the Sabbataian myth, but we know of the same serpent rising from below, redeeming and to be redeemed, as the Kundalini serpent in India, and finally from alchemy as the serpens Mercurii, the ambiguous serpent whose significance was first made clear to us by Jung's researches.
Since Jung's work on alchemy we know two things. The first is that in its "magnum opus" alchemy dealt with a redemption of matter itself. The second is that pari passu with this redemption of matter, a redemption of the individual psyche was not only unconsciously carried out but was also consciously intended. As we know, the serpent is a primeval symbol of the Spirit, as primeval and ambiguous as the Spirit itself. The emergence of the Earth archetype of the Great Mother brings with it the emergence of her companion, the Great Serpent. And, strangely enough, it seems as though modern man is confronted with a curious task, a task which is essentially connected with what mankind, rightly or wrongly, has feared most, namely the Devil.
”
”
Erich Neumann (The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology)
“
Self-poisoning for the attainment of mystical knowledge, ecstasy and congress with the spirits, we call 'The Poison Path'. This designation separates the mystical endeavor of transmutation from the vulgar dross of hedonism and criminal activity. Ours, therefore, is an Art of subtle discrimination, of observation and caution. Gnosis of the Poison Path arises not from the first matter of its toxin, , nor its mundane somatic effects, but in its Transmutation via the Art Magical to serve the Path of the Seeker.
”
”
Daniel A. Schulke (Veneficium: Magic, Witchcraft and the Poison Path)
“
The Conditioned Mind / shuts off magical vision and gnosis / gives up freedom, truth, real choices / loses sight of love, trust, and social coherence / loses touch with organic life, gives way to interference // risks personal wellbeing, peace of heart, balance of mind / is tricked into believing we need power, money, lies / and people to lead us by the nose into violence and war / is hypnotised, drugged, poisoned, misinformed.
”
”
Jay Woodman
“
Standing before the awesome majesty and magnitude of the universe is so intimidating that many of us cry out for mediators—the state, gurus, evangelists with coifed hair—all with their own agendas of gain. The purveyors of the marketplace frequently denounce those who learn to respect their own encounter with mystery as "gnostics." Well, gnosis means "knowledge." If I can learn from my direct experience of the universe, and am haunted by them when I ignore them, then why not live my life according what I have learned directly, rather than what is mediated by others, however sincere their motivation may be?
”
”
James Hollis (Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives)
“
The most fundamental, basic need in magick, is the development of the will. The magus says, “I will, and not heaven nor hell can stop me.” It is in this forming and growing, creating, of the will, where heaven and hell learns to follow the will of the magus. A person who wants to develop the soul must never say, “Maybe” or “If I see a sign” because the master creates his own signs. If you need a star to align in front of a tree because that to you would be a sign, then you make the star align with the tree, if not in this world, in the other worlds and in the other dimensions. There are no “ifs” and there are no “maybes” there are only “I wills.” This is the basic platform of magick, and most people never get past it, because not all can.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
We can say that just because John loved God and did his best to love his fellows also, this “gnosis,” this knowledge of God, struck him. Like Job, he saw the fierce and terrible side of Yahweh. For this reason he felt his gospel of love to be one-sided, and he supplemented it with the gospel of fear: God can be loved but must be feared.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Answer to Job)
“
Creation is always an act of affirmation, a lust for life or activity, a restlessness accompanied by art. That art is what pleases and invigorates and mystifies me.
”
”
Jean Moreau, Abbey of Kervennec, France
“
Spirituality wants to know and experience higher states of mind and being. It wants to wrestle with angels and look the Creator in the eye.
”
”
Stefan Emunds (A Modern Crash Course in Spirituality)
“
There are certain pivotal moments in life when clarity replaces its opposite in the blink of an eye.
”
”
Sol Luckman (Cali the Destroyer)
“
Whoever has this Gnosis...takes what is his and restores it to himself. By Gnosis, a man knows 'whence he has come and whither he is going.
”
”
Jean Doresse (The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics: An Introduction to the Gnostic Coptic Manuscripts Discovered at Chenoboskion)
“
Fear is the bodily gnosis which reinforces any emotional and cognitive patterns which serve us to hold change at bay.
”
”
Phil Hine (Condensed Chaos: An Introduction to Chaos Magic)
“
Do not cling to the shore, but set sail for exotic lands and places no longer found on maps. Walk on hallowed grounds. Blaze new trails. The term synchronicity was coined in the 1950s by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, to describe uncanny coincidences that seem to be meaningful. The Greek roots are syn-, "together," and khronos, "time." Synchronicity is the effector of Gnosis. Explore the Bogomils and the Cathars not just through books but, if at all possible, by visiting their lands, cemeteries and descendants. Finally, explore the most contemporary manifestations of Gnosticism: the writings of C.G. Jung, Jorge Luis Borges, Aleister Crowley, René Guénon, Hermann Hesse, Philip K. Dick, and Albert Camus. Gradually, you will begin to understand the various thought currents and systems existing in Gnosticism, and you will have begun to understand what does and does not appeal to you in Gnostic thought.
”
”
Laurence Galian (Alien Parasites: 40 Gnostic Truths to Defeat the Archon Invasion!)
“
All the philosophical theories that exist have been created by the mistaken dualistic minds of human beings. In the realm of philosophy, that which today is considered true, may tomorrow be proved to be false. No one can guarantee a philosophy's validity. Because of this, any intellectual way of seeing whatever is always partial and relative. The fact is that there is no truth to seek or to confirm logically; rather what one needs to do is to discover just how much the mind continually limits itself in a condition of dualism.
Dualism is the real root of our suffering and of all our conflicts. All our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism. When we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political or social conviction may condition us. We have to abandon such concepts as 'enlightenment', 'the nature of the mind', and so on, until we are no longer satisfied by a merely intellectual knowledge, and until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence.
”
”
Namkhai Norbu (Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State)
“
A person who has had the misfortune to fall victim to the spell of a philosophical system (and the spells of sorcerers are mere trifles in comparison to the disastrous effect of the spell of a philosophical system!) can no longer see the world, or people, or historic events, as they are; he sees everything only through the distorting prism of the system by which he is possessed. Thus, a Marxist of today is incapable of seeing anything else in the history of mankind other than the “class struggle”.
What I am saying concerning mysticism, gnosis, magic and philosophy would be considered by him only as a ruse on the part of the bourgeois class, with the aim of “screening with a mystical and idealistic haze” the reality of the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie…although I have not inherited anything from my parents and I have not experienced a single day without having to earn my living by means of work recognised as “legitimate” by Marxists!
Another contemporary example of possession by a system is Freudianism. A man possessed by this system will see in everything that I have written only the expression of “suppressed libido”, which seeks and finds release in this manner. It would therefore be the lack of sexual fulfillment which has driven me to occupy myself with the Tarot and to write about it!
Is there any need for further examples? Is it still necessary to cite the Hegelians with their distortion of the history of humanity, the Scholastic “realists” of the Middle Ages with the Inquisition, the rationalists of the eighteenth century who were blinded by the light of their own autonomous reasoning?
Yes, autonomous philosophical systems separated from the living body of tradition are parasitic structures, which seize the thought, feeling and finally the will of human beings. In fact, they play a role comparable to the psycho-pathological complexes of neurosis or other psychic maladies of obsession. Their physical analogy is cancer.
”
”
Valentin Tomberg (Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism)
“
The temporal cannot know the Eternal, so to the extent that the Sufi contemplates God in his heart, God Himself is the contemplator: Ultimately, the Witness, the Witnesser, and the Witnessing are all one. (p. 288)
”
”
William C. Chittick (The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi)
“
People who hear the call to conscience follow what they know inwardly --- what they know in consciousness or at higher levels of awareness. I call this irresistible knowing. It is a form of divinely transcendent memory
”
”
Carlton D. Pearson (God Is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu...: God Dwells with Us, in Us, Around Us, as Us)
“
So-called gnosis’ was an enormous temptation in the early Christian Church. By contrast, persecution, even the bloodiest, posed far less of a threat to the Church’s continuing purity and further development. Gnosticism had its roots in late antiquity, drew on oriental and Jewish sources, and multiplied into innumerable esoteric doctrines and sects. Then, like a vampire, the parasite took hold of the youthful bloom and vigour of Christianity. What made it so insidious was the fact that the Gnostics very often did not want to leave the Church. Instead, they claimed to be offering a superior and more authentic exposition of Holy Scripture, though, of course, this was only for the ‘superior souls’ (‘the spiritual’, ‘the pneumatic’); the common folk (‘the psychic’) were left to get on with their crude practices. It is not hard to see how this kind of compartmentalizing of the Church’s members, indeed of mankind as a whole, inevitably encouraged not only an excited craving for higher initiation, but also an almost unbounded arrogance in those who had moved from mere ‘faith’ to real, enlightened ‘knowledge’.
”
”
Irenaeus of Lyons (The Scandal of the Incarnation: Irenaeus Against the Heresies)
“
Many of the people in this world that you will see and that you will meet, are the versions of themselves that have come about as a result of the things that have happened to them in life. When people laugh at you, you develop a layer of skin for that and when you lose people, you develop a different layer of skin for that and when you are hurt during the times you are vulnerable, there is another special layer of skin for that; so on and so forth. We become covered in layers of different kinds of skin that we never asked to have and that we would never want to have! But there we are, underneath all of that; we walk around and we don't see ourselves, we don't see each other, we can hardly remember anything about who we are! It takes someone to look through all of that skin, to remember yourself on behalf of you. A person can give you the set of eyes that were used to view the real you, in some distant past, in some different lifetime! Then when you see them looking at you like that, you remember who you are and that's when the layers of unwanted skin begin to peel and through that peeling you become a newborn.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
Ah, my young lad, powerful lord of awareness, you will not be freed merely by my explaining and your hearing such things. Examine and analyze the fundamental nature (ngang-tsul [ངང་ ཙུལ་]) of what I have set forth, so that direct experience is elicited from the depths of your being, and stabilize your ongoing understanding and awareness.
”
”
Dudjom Lingpa (Buddhahood Without Meditation: A Visionary Account Known As Refining One's Perception)
“
But gnosis is not primarily rational knowledge. The Greek language distinguishes between scientific or reflective knowledge (“He knows mathematics”) and knowing through observation or experience (“He knows me”), which is gnosis.
”
”
Elaine Pagels (The Gnostic Gospels (Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books))
“
Come and join the Church of the Serpent. Learn the philosophy of the snake and slough off the old, failed skin of humanity. Don’t you want to be one of the Prometheans, the HyperHumans, the Faustians? Don’t you want to complete the journey from Cimmeria (Alpha) to Hyperborea (Omega)? Only the Serpent Humans can bring all of humanity to the most precious fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and confer Absolute Knowledge on everyone. Only through the Serpents will you achieve gnosis. Join usssssssssss.
”
”
David Sinclair (The Church of the Serpent: The Philosophy of the Snake and Attaining Transcendent Knowledge)
“
What does it mean to become spiritual, or godly? It means to have a higher view of life, to look at life from a higher point of view. It is the high point of view in life which ennobles the soul; it is by a broad outlook on life that spiritual aristocracy is realized.
”
”
Hazrat Inayat Khan (The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan)
“
The trick is to cultivate “double vision” … A sense of metaphor, of translation - of two worlds interpenetrating - must be maintained. But this is also the essential movement of the imagination. We see through the literal world to the shape-shifting Otherworld behind.
”
”
Patrick Harpur (The Secret Tradition of the Soul)
“
ليتني كنت صخرة، قطعة خشب، حفنة تراب. ليتني كنت زبالًا، خبازًا، خياطًا، بائعًا متجولًا، طبيبًا، وزيرًا، ماسح أحذية. ليتني كنت شخصًا آخر لا يعرفك. ليت قلبي كان حجرًا. ليتني لم أملك قلبًا قط. ليتني لم أوجد قط. ليتك لم تكوني موجودة. ليت بإمكاننا محو كل شيء بماسحة السبورة. آه يا مهتاب! ليتني كنت لبنة في جدار بيتك، أو حفنة تراب في حديقتك. ليتني كنت قبضة مزلاج باب غرفتك، حتى تلمسيني كل يوم ألف مرة. ليتني كنت عباءتك. كلا؛ ليتني كنت يديك. ليتني كنت عينيك. كلا؛ ليتني كنت رئتيك، لتدخلي فيّ أنفاسك وتخرجيها مني. ليتني كنت أنتِ. ليتك كنتِ أنا. ليتنا كنا واحدًا؛ شخصًا مُثنى.
”
”
مصطفى مستور (وجه الله)
“
We are people-trees. Our roots are hidden in Earth .The branches spread out on Heavens.
The fruits are our energy.
Two different energies: The positive and negative ones.
The balance of both carries the progress.
Article by Author Katerina Kostaki :The Tree of Gnosis in the Garden of Eden
”
”
Katerina Kostaki (Cosmic Light)
“
Cnthonic porch. Side-
real garden. Sugar met salt, salt
sugar. Black cat collarbone spill. . .
Warble a worm in our throats,
we
talked birdtalk. Talked against birdtalk,
night, neck made of string. Night was asking where to next. . . Nowhere.
Nothing. Nothingness. Gnosis put
salt
on our tongues.
”
”
Nathaniel Mackey (Nod House (New Directions Paperbook))
“
Increasingly, Jung came to see that while his father and his uncles, six of whom were pastors, spoke to him about dogma and belief, he was more concerned with experience, with what he would later call gnosis, discovering the distinction in the ancient Gnostic Christian sects of the second and third centuries AD. He was convinced his father had no real experience of a living God, and after his first Communion proved to be an empty affair (“So that’s that” is how he described it), Jung realized that the Church was the last place he might find the answers to the questions that plagued him.
”
”
Gary Lachman (Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung's Life & Teachings)
“
How then can men describe the universe, except by their inscribing of themselves upon the fields of space? To describe the universe as it is they must become the universe, and then they will describe themselves; and to describe themselves they will be able to discover no better way than that in which the universe gives utterance to itself. It speaks perpetually the Language of the Gods, the Universal Tongue, for it is God for ever giving utterance unto Himself.
”
”
G.R.S. Mead (Gnosis of the Mind)
“
Philosophy springs from the love of being; it is man’s loving endeavor to perceive the order of being and attune himself to it. Gnosis desires dominion over being; in order to seize control of being the gnostic constructs his system. The building of systems is a gnostic form of reasoning, not a philosophical one.
”
”
Eric Voegelin (Science, Politics & Gnosticism)
“
Fatima tul Zehra (Fatima the Radiant, Fatima the Brightest Star, Fatima-Star of Venus, Fatima-The Evening Star), the daughter of the Prophet, is the secret in Sûfîsm. She is the Hujjat of 'Ali. In other words, she establishes the esoteric sense of his knowledge and guides those who attain to it. Through her perfume, we breathe paradise. Though she was his daughter, the Prophet Muhammad called her Um Abi'ha (mother of her father). What mystery was the Prophet hinting at by this statement? While Fatima Zehra was Muhammad's daughter, the Rasulallah (Prophet of God - Muhammad) understood that his gnosis was bestowed upon him from the Divine Feminine.
”
”
Laurence Galian (Jesus, Muhammad and the Goddess)
“
yourself. You will pray then for enlightenment, that through gnosis you will remember the nature of your own eternal promise. Embrace now the fourth petal, which is to say the petal of ABUNDANCE, and pray, Give us this day our daily bread, the manna. Give thanks to the Lord for all he has provided you and know that when you live in harmony with his will, and honor your promise to his service, you will know the bounty of abundance and never have a day of want. There is nothing that you need or desire that will not be provided you when you live in the flow of God’s grace, and when you have aligned yourself with God’s will. Embrace the fifth petal, which is to say the
”
”
Kathleen McGowan (The Book of Love (Magdalene Line Trilogy, #2))
“
Suddenly it becomes possible that there are just others, that we ourselves are an “other” among others.
”
”
V.Y. Mudimbe (The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge)
“
We become what we are willing to see.
”
”
Richard Rohr (Just This)
“
I am attempting to understand the often unconscious metaphysics of information culture by looking at it through the archetypal lens of religious and esoteric myth.
”
”
Erik Davis (TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information)
“
Seeming and knowing made hideous faces at one another across the breadth of her mind.
”
”
Pamela Dean
“
Freedom of will is our birthright.
”
”
Jean Moreau, Abbey of Kervennec, France
“
I asked who are you ? He said I am the one, a clay potter.
I asked what is in the clay ? He said my commanded soul.
And he then said whatever and whoever the clay are made of I am the one who command the soul in it.
And I asked curiously who is he who has born to a virgin who had breath the soul in the clay? and made it fly!
He said shush!!! he is my secret!
”
”
Aiyaz Uddin
“
The triad, being the fundamental principle of the whole Kabalah, or Sacred Tradition of our fathers, was necessarily the fundamental dogma of Christianity, the apparent dualism of which it explains by the intervention of a harmonious and all-powerful unity. Christ did not put His teaching into writing, and only revealed it in secret to His favored disciple, the one Kabalist, and he a great Kabalist, among the apostles. So is the Apocalypse the book of the Gnosis or Secret Doctrine of the first Christians, and the key of this doctrine is indicated by an occult versicle of the Lord's Prayer, which the Vulgate leaves untranslated, while in the Greek Rite, the priests only are permitted to pronounce it. This versicle, completely kabalistic, is found in the Greek text of the Gospel according to St Matthew, and in several Hebrew copies, as follows:
Ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εις τοὺς αἰῶνας. ἀμήν.
The sacred word MALKUTH substituted for KETHER, which is its kabalistic correspondent, and the equipoise of GEBURAH and CHESED, repeating itself in the circles of heavens called eons by the Gnostics, provided the keystone of the whole Christian Temple in the occult versicle. It has been retained by Protestants in their New Testament, but they have failed to discern its lofty and wonderful meaning, which would have unveiled to them all the Mysteries of the Apocalypse. There is, however, a tradition in the Church that the manifestation of this mysteries is reserved till the last times.
”
”
Éliphas Lévi (Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual)
“
The Atonist nobility knew it was impossible to organize and control a worldwide empire from Britain. The British Isles were geographically too far West for effective management. In order to be closer to the “markets,” the Atonist corporate executives coveted Rome. Additionally, by way of their armed Templar branch and incessant murderous “Crusades,” they succeeded making inroads further east. Their double-headed eagle of control reigned over Eastern and Western hemispheres. The seats of Druidic learning once existed in the majority of lands, and so the Atonist or Christian system spread out in similar fashion. Its agents were sent from Britain and Rome to many a region and for many a dark purpose. To this very day, the nobility of Europe and the east are controlled from London and Rome. Nothing has changed when it comes to the dominion of Aton. As Alan Butler and Stephen Dafoe have proven, the Culdean monks, of whom we write, had been hired for generations as tutors to elite families throughout Europe. In their book The Knights Templar Revealed, the authors highlight the role played by Culdean adepts tutoring the super-wealthy and influential Catholic dynasties of Burgundy, Champagne and Lorraine, France. Research into the Templars and their affiliated “Salt Line” dynasties reveals that the seven great Crusades were not instigated and participated in for the reasons mentioned in most official history books. As we show here, the Templars were the military wing of British and European Atonists. It was their job to conquer lands, slaughter rivals and rebuild the so-called “Temple of Solomon” or, more correctly, Akhenaton’s New World Order. After its creation, the story of Jesus was transplanted from Britain, where it was invented, to Galilee and Judea. This was done so Christianity would not appear to be conspicuously Druidic in complexion. To conceive Christianity in Britain was one thing; to birth it there was another. The Atonists knew their warped religion was based on ancient Amenism and Druidism. They knew their Jesus, Iesus or Yeshua, was based on Druidic Iesa or Iusa, and that a good many educated people throughout the world knew it also. Their difficulty concerned how to come up with a believable king of light sufficiently appealing to the world’s many pagan nations. Their employees, such as St. Paul (Josephus Piso), were allowed to plunder the archive of the pagans. They were instructed to draw from the canon of stellar gnosis and ancient solar theologies of Egypt, Chaldea and Ireland. The archetypal elements would, like ingredients, simply be tossed about and rearranged and, most importantly, the territory of the new godman would be resituated to suit the meta plan.
”
”
Michael Tsarion (The Irish Origins of Civilization, Volume One: The Servants of Truth: Druidic Traditions & Influence Explored)
“
So the Madness of Cthulhu is not clinical dysfunction or psychosis, but a hermeneutic suspension of the pedestrian, rational mind that is required to successfully navigate the waking world. In its place is the supra-rational, the information that comes without the need for communication, egoic disassociation, the disintermediated experience of experience. What Jones refers to here as the Black Gnosis.
”
”
Scott R. Jones (When The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R'lyehian Spirituality)
“
The deeper he penetrates into this inner being, the more will he feel inclined to keep the development quite secret. It is becoming too holy to be talked about […] There are some inner experiences which seem too holy to be talked about in public, too intimate even to be talked about with intimate friends, too mysterious to be mentioned to anyone else except a student or a teacher who has passed through similar experiences himself.
”
”
Paul Brunton (Advanced Contemplation: The Peace Within You (The Notebooks of Paul Brunton, #15))
“
So then where is the kingdom of God in man? It is in the heart. That is heaven. That is God. The heart is the station of God. All that matters is there. This is where God, the soul, and the light of wisdom exist. This is a temple of God which is formed as an atom within an atom, heart within the heart, the cjalb within the cjalb. It is within what is within. It cannot be destroyed by the five elements. You must understand this. It can never be destroyed. (p. 96)
”
”
M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life)
“
The Black Gnosis is Black, not in a dull dualistic or Satanic sense (worldviews that are intrinsically tied to an anthropocentric philosophy), but Black in the sense that it is not born of rationality, of the logical parsing out of one thing from another, of any of the divisive concerns that could be considered human. The Black Gnosis arises from and constantly partakes of the undifferentiated and chaotic ground of being. It is a gnosis of the Gulf, of the Empty.
”
”
Scott R. Jones (When The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R'lyehian Spirituality)
“
Breath, to a Sufi, is a bridge between himself and God; it is a rope for him, hanging down to earth, attached to the heavens. The Sufi climbs up by the help of this rope. In the Qur’anic language it is called Burak, a steed which was sent to the Prophet for his journey to the heavens. Hindus call it prana, which means life, but they picture it symbolically as a bird, which is named in Sanskrit Garuda, on which rode Narayana, the godhead. There is no mystical cult in which the breath is not given the greatest importance in spiritual progress. Once man has touched the depths of his own being by the help of the breath, then it becomes easy for him to become at one with all that exists on earth and in heaven.
”
”
Hazrat Inayat Khan (The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan)
“
But Karl Menninger did not accept any of these answers as the right one. His answer was “diagnosis.” The first and most important task of any healer is making the right diagnosis. Without an accurate diagnosis, subsequent treatment has little effect. Or, to say it better, diagnosis is the beginning of treatment. For Karl Menninger, speaking to a group of future psychiatrists, this obviously meant that the most attention should be paid to learning the diagnostic skills of the profession. But when we take the word diagnosis in its most original and profound meaning of knowing through and through (gnosis = knowledge; dia = through and through), we can see that the first and most important aspect of all healing is an interested effort to know the patients fully, in all their joys and pains, pleasures and sorrows, ups and downs, highs and lows, which have given shape and form to their life and have led them through the years to their present situation.
”
”
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life)
“
Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons, a fierce opponent of the Gnostics, attacked them for their spiritual and literary creativity, accusing them of producing a new gospel every day. Implicit in his statements was the view that where such a wealth of diverse imagery, myth, and teaching exists there can be no coherent doctrine equivalent to the dogma and canon of the mainstream Christian church. What critics from Irenaeus to contemporary scholars lose sight of is that Gnostic teaching is the direct result of the experience of gnosis.
”
”
Stephan A. Hoeller (Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing)
“
you need to crack open the mundane casing of ordinary technologies and trace their archetypal wiring. Then you might find yourself, if only for a moment, tapping into the electromagnetic unheimlich. The spirits speak: in the information age, you are never at home.
”
”
Erik Davis (TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information)
“
As we stated, after their initial conquest, the Milesians began assimilating the gnosis of their predecessors. Of course they were no lovers of the Druids. After all, the British Druids were collaborators with their dire enemies, the Amenists. Nevertheless, returning to the ancient homeland was a most important step for the displaced and despised Atonists. Owning and controlling the wellspring of knowledge proved to be exceptionally politically fortunate for them. It was a key move on the grand geopolitical chessboard, so to speak. From their new seats in the garden paradise of Britain they could set about conquering the rest of the world. Their designs for a “New World Order,” to replace one lost, commenced from the Western Isles that had unfortunately fallen into their undeserving hands. But why all this exertion, one might rightly ask? Well, a close study of the Culdees and the Cistercians provides the answer. Indeed, a close study of history reveals that, despite appearances to the contrary, religion is less of a concern to despotic men or regimes than politics and economics. Religion is often instrumental to those secretly attempting to attain material power. This is especially true in the case of the Milesian-Atonists. The chieftains of the Sun Cult did not conceive of Christianity for its own sake or because they were intent on saving the world. They wanted to conquer the world not save it. In short, Atonist Christianity was devised so the Milesian nobility could have unrestricted access to the many rich mines of minerals and ore existing throughout the British Isles. It is no accident the great seats of early British Christianity - the many famous churches, chapels, cathedrals and monasteries, as well as forts, castles and private estates - happen to be situated in close proximity to rich underground mines. Of course the Milesian nobility were not going to have access to these precious territories as a matter of course. After all, these sites were often located beside groves and earthworks considered sacred by natives not as irreverent or apathetic as their unfortunate descendants. The Atonists realized that their materialist objectives could be achieved if they manufactured a religion that appeared to be a satisfactory carry on of Druidism. If they could devise a theology which assimilated enough Druidic elements, then perhaps the people would permit the erection of new religious sites over those which stood in ruins. And so the Order of the Culdees was born. So, Christianity was born. In the early days the religion was actually known as Culdeanism or Jessaeanism. Early Christians were known as Culdeans, Therapeuts or suggestively as Galileans. Although they would later spread throughout Europe and the Middle East, their birthplace was Britain.
”
”
Michael Tsarion (The Irish Origins of Civilization, Volume One: The Servants of Truth: Druidic Traditions & Influence Explored)
“
The failure of the fight with the father-dragon, the overwhelming force of spirit, leads to patriarchal castration, inflation, loss of the body in the ecstasy of ascension, and so to a world-negating mysticism. This phenomenon is particularly evident in Gnosticism and Gnostic Christianity. The infiltration of Iranian and Manichaean influences strengthens the martial component in the hero, but because he is still a Gnostic at heart, he remains hostile to the world, the body, materiality, and woman. Although there are certain elements in Gnosis that strive for a synthesis of oppo-sites, these always fly apart in the end; the heavenly side of man triumphs and the earthly is sacrificed.
”
”
Erich Neumann (The Origins and History of Consciousness (Maresfield Library))
“
Virtue is not attained by doing a great deal of outward deeds, rather it is attained by deeds being sincere for Allah and being correct in that they are done in accordance to the Sunnah, and through gnosis of the heart and its actions. Whoever has more knowledge of Allah, His religion, and His ordinances, and has more fear, hope, and love for him is better than one who has not attained his level, even if the latter do more outward deeds. This understanding is derived from the hadith of ‘A’ishah, “Be firm, steadfast, and balanced upon which have glad tidings for indeed actions alone will not cause one to enter Paradise. The most beloved deeds to Allah are those that are done continuously and persistently, even if they be few.
”
”
ابن رجب الحنبلي (The Journey to Allah)
“
But the Gnostics were too remote for me to establish any link with them in regard to the questions that were confronting me. As far as I could see, the tradition that might have connected Gnosis with the present seemed to have been severed, and for a long time it proved impossible to find any bridge that led from Gnosticism—or neo-Platonism—to the contemporary world. But when I began to understand alchemy I realized that it represented the historical link with Gnosticism, and that a continuity therefore existed between past and present. Grounded in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages, alchemy formed the bridge on the one hand into the past, to Gnosticism, and on the other into the future, to the modern psychology of the unconscious.27
”
”
C.G. Jung (The Gnostic Jung: Including "Seven Sermons to the Dead")
“
In considering what the religions teach, it is essential to remember that the outside world is as a reflection of the soul of man [...] The state of the outer world does not merely correspond to the general state of men’s souls; it also in a sense depends on that state, since man himself is the pontiff of the outer world. Thus the corruption of man must necessarily affect the whole.
”
”
Martin Lings (The Book of Certainty: The Sufi Doctrine of Faith, Vision and Gnosis (Islamic Texts Society))
“
I remember the very day, sometime during the first two weeks of my five-year amorous sojourn in Brutland, when I was made privy to one of the most arcane of their utterings. The time was ripe for that major epiphany, my initiation into the sacred knowledge—or should I say gnosis?—of that all-important, quintessentially Brutish slang term, the word that endless hours of scholastic education by renowned mentors, plus years of scrupulous scrutiny into scrofulous texts, had disappointingly failed to impart to me, leaving me with that deep sense of emptiness begotten by hemimathy; the time was finally ripe for me to be transported by the velvety feel of the unvoiced palato-alveolar fricative, the élan of the unpronounceable and masochistically hedonistic front open-rounded vowel, and, last but not least, the (admittedly short) ejaculatory quality of the voiced velar stop: all three of them combined together to form that miraculous lexical item, the word shag.
”
”
Spiros Doikas (No Sex Please, We're Brutish!: The exploits of a Greek student in Britain)
“
Welcome to the Church of the Serpent. The universe is the Tree of Knowledge. At the top of the tree is the Golden Bough with which we attain Golden Knowledge, the Apex Knowledge of the cosmos. So, we must climb. All the way to the highest consciousness. The Church of the Serpent is devoted to knowledge – ultimate knowledge, the knowledge of existence itself. We must have Absolute Knowledge. Nothing else will suffice. Completion, or nothing. From the top of the Tree of Knowledge, we shall command all knowledge. Like Faust, we will make a pact with any force to reach our goal. Like Prometheus, we will steal from the gods and risk any punishment to secure our ends. Like the Cimmerians, we will travel from the deepest darkness, where the sun never shines, to the brightest light. Like the Hyperboreans, we seek the perfect land where the sun always shines, yet we Hyperborean Apollonians must be able to return to Dionysian Cimmeria to enjoy the intoxication of the dark.
”
”
David Sinclair (The Church of the Serpent: The Philosophy of the Snake and Attaining Transcendent Knowledge)
“
Allah manifests Himself in a special way in every creature. He is the Outwardly Manifest in
every graspable sense, and He is the Inwardly Hidden from every understanding except the
understanding of the one who says that the universe is His form (4) and His He-ness
(huwiyya), and it is the name, the Outwardly Manifest. Since He is, by meaning, the spirit of
whatever is outwardly manifest, He is also the Inwardly Hidden. His relation to whatever is
manifested of the forms of the world is the relation of the governing spirit to the form. The
definition of man, for example, includes both his inward and outward; and it is the same with
every definable thing. Allah is defined in every definition, yet the forms of the universe are
not held back and He is not contained by them. One only knows the limits of each of their
forms according to what is attained by each knower of his form. For that reason, one cannot
know the definition of Allah, for one would only know His definition by knowing the
definition of every form. This is impossible to attain, so the definition of Allah is impossible.
Similarly, whoever connects without disconnection has given limits to Allah and does not
know Him. Whoever combines connection and disconnection in his gnosis, and describes
Allah with both aspects in general - because it is impossible to conceive in detail because we
lack the ability to encompass all the forms which the universe contains - has known Him in
general and not in particular, as he knows himself generally and not in particular. For that
reason, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, linked knowledge (ma'rifa) of
Allah to knowledge of oneself and said, "Whoever knows himself knows his Lord." Allah
says, "We will show them Our signs on the horizons (what is outside of you) and in
themselves (what is your source) until it is clear to them (the contemplators) that it is the
Truth," (41:53) inasmuch as you are His form and He is your spirit. You are to Him as your
body-form is to you, and He is to you as the spirit which governs the body.
”
”
Ibn ʿArabi (The Bezels of Wisdom)
“
Whenever a person of unveiling sees a form which communicates to him
gnosis which he did not have and which he had not been able to grasp before, that form is
from his own source, no other. From the tree of himself he gathers the fruits of his
cultivation, as his outer form opposite the reflected body is nothing other than himself, even though the place of the presence in which he sees the form of himself presents him with an
aspect of the reality of that presence through transformation. The large appears small in the
small mirror and tall in the tall, and the moving as movement. It can reverse its form from a
special presence, and it can reflect things exactly as they appear, so the right side of the
viewer is his right side, while the right side can be on the left. This is generally the normal
state in mirrors, and it is a break in the norm when the right side is seen as the right and
inversion occurs. All this is from the gifts of the reality of the Presence in which it is
manifested and which we have compared to the mirror.
”
”
Ibn ʿArabi (The Bezels of Wisdom)
“
The differences between religions are reflected very clearly in the different forms of sacred art: compared with Gothic art, above all in its “flamboyant” style, Islamic art is contemplative rather than volitive: it is “intellectual” and not “dramatic”, and it opposes the cold beauty of geometrical design to the mystical heroism of cathedrals. Islam is the perspective of “omnipresence” (“God is everywhere”), which coincides with that of “simultaneity” (“Truth has always been”); it aims at avoiding any “particularization” or “condensation”, any “unique fact” in time and space, although as a religion it necessarily includes an aspect of “unique fact”, without which it would be ineffective or even absurd. In other words Islam aims at what is “everywhere center”, and this is why, symbolically speaking, it replaces the cross with the cube or the woven fabric: it “decentralizes” and “universalizes” to the greatest possible extent, in the realm of art as in that of doctrine; it is opposed to any individualist mode and hence to any “personalist” mysticism.
To express ourselves in geometrical terms, we could say that a point which seeks to be unique, and which thus becomes an absolute center, appears to Islam—in art as in theology—as a usurpation of the divine absoluteness and therefore as an “association” (shirk); there is only one single center, God, whence the prohibition against “centralizing” images, especially statues; even the Prophet, the human center of the tradition, has no right to a “Christic uniqueness” and is “decentralized” by the series of other Prophets; the same is true of Islam—or the Koran—which is similarly integrated in a universal “fabric” and a cosmic “rhythm”, having been preceded by other religions—or other “Books”—which it merely restores. The Kaaba, center of the Muslim world, becomes space as soon as one is inside the building: the ritual direction of prayer is then projected toward the four cardinal points.
If Christianity is like a central fire, Islam on the contrary resembles a blanket of snow, at once unifying and leveling and having its center everywhere.
”
”
Frithjof Schuon (Gnosis: Divine Wisdom, A New Translation with Selected Letters (Library of Perennial Philosophy))
“
E gnacche alla formica
.
Io t’amo o pia cicala e un trillargento
ci spàffera nel cuor la tua canzona.
Canta cicala frìnfera nel vento:
E gnacche alla formica ammucchiarona!
Che vuole la formica con quell’umbe
da mòghera burbiosa? È vero, arzìa
per tutto il giorno, e tràmiga e cucumbe
col capo chino in mogna micrargìa.
Verrà l’inverno, sì, verrà il mordese
verranno tante gosce aggramerine,
ma intanto il sole schicchera giglese
e sgnèllida tra cròndale velvine.
Canta cicala, càntera in manfrore,
il mezzogiorno zàmpiga e leona.
Canta cicala in zìlleri d’amore:
E gnacche alla formica ammucchiarona.
”
”
Fosco Maraini (Gnosi delle fànfole)
“
The six characteristics that, taken together, reveal the nature of the gnostic attitude.
1) It must first be pointed out that the gnostic is dissatisfied with his situation. This, in itself, is not especially surprising. We all have cause to be not completely satisfied with one aspect or another of the situation in which we find ourselves.
2) Not quite so understandable is the second aspect of the gnostic attitude: the belief that the drawbacks of the situation can be attributed to the fact that the world is intrinsically poorly organized. For it is likewise possible to assume that the order of being as it is given to us men (wherever its origin is to be sought) is good and that it is we human beings who are inadequate. But gnostics are not inclined to discover that human beings in general and they themselves in particular are inadequate. If in a given situation something is not as it should be, then the fault is to be found in the wickedness of the world.
3) The third characteristic is the belief that salvation from the evil of the world is possible.
4) From this follows the belief that the order of being will have to be changed in an historical process. From a wretched world a good one must evolve historically. This assumption is not altogether self-evident, because the Christian solution might also be considered—namely, that the world throughout history will remain as it is and that man’s salvational fulfillment is brought about through grace in death.
5) With this fifth point we come to the gnostic trait in the narrower sense—the belief that a change in the order of being lies in the realm of human action, that this salvational act is possible through man’s own effort.
6) If it is possible, however, so to work a structural change in the given order of being that we can be satisfied with it as a perfect one, then it becomes the task of the gnostic to seek out the prescription for such a change. Knowledge—gnosis—of the method of altering being is the central concern of the gnostic. As the sixth feature of the gnostic attitude, therefore, we recognize the construction of a formula for self and world salvation, as well as the gnostic’s readiness to come forward as a prophet who will proclaim his knowledge about the salvation of mankind.
These six characteristics, then, describe the essence of the gnostic attitude. In one variation or another they are to be found in each of the movements cited.
”
”
Eric Voegelin (Science, Politics & Gnosticism)
“
When a person begins to see all goodness as being the goodness of God, all the beauty that surrounds him as the divine beauty, he begins by worshiping a visible God, and as his heart constantly loves and admires the divine beauty in all that he sees, he begins to see in all that is visible one single vision; all becomes for him the vision of the beauty of God. His love of beauty increases his capacity to such a degree that great virtues such as tolerance and forgiveness spring naturally from his heart. Even things that people mostly look upon with contempt, he views with tolerance. The brotherhood of humanity he does not need to learn, for he does not see humanity, he sees only God. And as this vision develops, it becomes a divine vision which occupies every moment of his life. In nature he sees God, in man he sees His image, and in art and poetry he sees the dance of God. The waves of the sea bring him the message from above, and the swaying of the branches in the breeze seems to him a prayer. For him there is a constant contact with his God. He knows neither horror nor terror, nor any fear. Birth and death to him are only insignificant changes in life. Life for him is a moving picture which he loves and admires, and yet he is free from it all. He is one among all the world. He himself is happy, and he makes others happy.
”
”
Hazrat Inayat Khan (The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan)
“
The heart governs and reigns”, state the Macarian Homilies: it is the dominant element in our total human structure, the controlling power. It governs and reigns, more specifically, “over the whole bodily organism”: it is in the first place a corporeal organ, located in the chest, which acts as the physical center of the human being; when our heart stops beating, we die. Yet this is not all. The Homilies go on to say that the heart rules also over the “thoughts”, and that “there in the heart is the intellect”. The heart is not only the physical but the psychic and spiritual center. The Greek word
used here for “intellect”, nous, signifies not only the reasoning brain but also, more fundamentally, a higher faculty of intuitive insight and mystical vision. Elsewhere in the Macarian Homilies it is stated that the nous within the heart is like the eye within the body; in other words, through the use of the intellect within the heart we do not merely reach conclusions by means of discursive
argumentation, but the intellect enables us to see the truth in a direct and unmediated manner. The heart in which the intellect dwells is thus the faculty with which we think, both in a rational and a suprarational way. It is both the seat of reasoning intelligence and also, on a higher or deeper level, the place of wisdom and spiritual knowledge (gnosis). (p. 13)
”
”
James S. Cutsinger (Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East)
“
„The heart governs and reigns”, state the Macarian Homilies: it is the dominant element in our total human structure, the controlling power. It governs and reigns, more specifically, “over the whole bodily organism”: it is in the first place a corporeal organ, located in the chest, which acts as the physical center of the human being; when our heart stops beating, we die. Yet this is not all. The Homilies go on to say that the heart rules also over the “thoughts”, and that “there in the heart is the intellect”. The heart is not only the physical but the psychic and spiritual center. The Greek word used here for “intellect”, nous, signifies not only the reasoning brain but also, more fundamentally, a higher faculty of intuitive insight and mystical vision. Elsewhere in the Macarian Homilies it is stated that the nous within the heart is like the eye within the body; in other words, through the use of the intellect within the heart we do not merely reach conclusions by means of discursive argumentation, but the intellect enables us to see the truth in a direct and unmediated manner. The heart in which the intellect dwells is thus the faculty with which we think, both in a rational and a suprarational way. It is both the seat of reasoning intelligence and also, on a higher or deeper level, the place of wisdom and spiritual knowledge (gnosis). (p. 13)
”
”
James S. Cutsinger (Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East)
“
If Today I die I won't regret it,
Jewel of faith I have received now death I won't regret it,
I don't need any path when I have found my destination now death I won't it,
I don't have any expectations nor hope with anything or anyone when I have got LOVE now death I won't regret it,
My search for drunk yard has ended I have found a perfect spiritual master now death I won't regret it,
Now I don't search God in the books when I am drinking from the eyes now death I won't regret it,
To know LOVE I setout myself in the world when I am under the blaze of LOVE now death I won't regret it,
What is the need for any external decoration and beautifying things when you are in my HEART now death I won't regret it,
Don't ask Aiyaz what is LOVE! Who's LOVER I am He is inside my HEART now death I won't regret it.
”
”
Aiyaz Uddin (The Inward Journey)
“
As Thomas Merton correctly observes, “Sufism looks at man as a heart. . . . The heart is the faculty by which man knows God”, and so the supreme aim in Sufism is nothing else than “to develop a heart that knows God”. In the words of Rumi, “I have looked into my own heart; it is there that I have seen Him; He was nowhere else.” This leads Martin Lings to observe in his book What is Sufism?, “What indeed is Sufism, subjectively speaking, if not ‘heart-wakefulness’?”. Illustrating this, he quotes al-Hallâj: “I saw my Lord with the Eye of the Heart.” The Hesychast tradition of the Orthodox Church, for its part, speaks repeatedly of “prayer of the heart”, of the “discovery of the place of the heart”, of the “descent from the head to the heart”, and of the “union of the intellect (nous) with the heart”. (p. 5)
– Kallistos Ware, Chapter 1: How Do We Enter the Heart?
”
”
James S. Cutsinger (Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East)