What does it mean to be a gnostic?

What does it mean to be a gnostic?

First, let’s ask: What does Gnosis mean?  Gnosis is a Greek word meaning knowledge.  Can we define it any further, or do we need to?  I talked about the differences between ideas and knowledge a while back.  Here, maybe we can talk about what Gnosis is not.

Gnosis is not a belief system.  It’s not a way of acting, nor is it a way of thinking.  It’s not a collection of ideas, words, or teachings.  It doesn’t belong to a particular point in time.  And it doesn’t belong to a particular point in space.  It does not belong to any particular person or culture or group.

To me, being a gnostic means striving to have knowledge (as opposed to ideas or beliefs), a living understanding of our life experiences in everything that we do, never settling with the easiest explanation, never settling for a belief, always testing the waters.

On the outside, a gnostic is no different than anyone else.  Being a gnostic is not an option (maybe I will, maybe I won’t, …).  A true gnostic couldn’t silence the uneasiness in his heart even if he wanted to.  And yet someone could say “I’m a gnostic,” but in their heart it isn’t true.  In their heart they are only seeking imitation, fame, powers, the extraordinary, etc.  But a true gnostic is always extraordinary even if he tries his best to be ordinary.

Being a gnostic is much more than a label.  Many people who call themselves gnostics are not, and many people that have never heard of the word are actually gnostics at heart.

Why are we here?  Why do we exist?  Why am I thinking this way?  Who am I?  Is there something, some reason to this existence of mine?  Are we really here to just go through motions between the cradle and the grave?  Why?  To the person whom these questions nag, he is a gnostic.  To the person who doesn’t already have an answer but is always open for the answers to the answers, he is a gnostic.  And for the rest, those who already have the answers, those who think they already know everything or think you just cannot know some things so don’t even ask; for them, it is okay too.  It’s not for anyone to judge on a personal level who is or isn’t a gnostic, since it is the internal part that is gnostic and no one can know that but yourself.

A gnostic’s heart will find a way to leave behind cheap imitation.  A gnostic has no reason to be afraid to live.  A gnostic will come to believe in himself, that he exists for a reason, and he will be confident to make the right choices in his life for those around him, and to be the person he needs to be when he needs to be it.  The part that is gnostic is in the heart, not on the face, not something displayed.  A gnostic has no reason to fear anything and yet has every reason to believe in himself, in his heart whose love for truth will always win the good fight one way or another.

Belzebuub Is a Good Man

Belzebuub is a good man.

I just wanted to say something about this, free from promotion, free from advertisement, free from the will to sell something to anyone.  If no one reads this blog, it will be a blessing to me, as I’m not sure how it will fare with the general population.

In our desire for something out of the ordinary, we might have the tendency to fill words with triple meanings.  But in the end, what is actually there?  Tools that work to do a certain thing.  For example, a mantra to remember dreams.  That can end up being very useful.  A ritual with an elemental for protection, that can also be very useful.  What we have is an arsenal of useful tools and weapons to aid us in our lives.  Do we have to use them?  Is there something wrong with us if we choose not to use them?  Is there something right with us if we do use them?  The answer to all of these questions is: No.  Tools are what they are.  Do you have to remember a dream?  No.  Do you have to wake up and meditate?  No.  If we feel these have to’s then it’s our own reading into things that has caused it.  If you want to remember a dream, then try.  If you can’t, maybe the mantra will help.  Simple enough.

Something else I’ve seen is the tendency to compare ourselves with people, and people with other people.  This teacher is better than that teacher, this place is better than that place.  Well maybe it is true, maybe not.  But the point is that there is really no teacher or student other than you yourself.  Who can teach you about yourself, other than yourself?  Who can teach you how to live your life?  No one can do that, and they are foolish if they wish to.  Hey everyone, look at me, yeah, follow me, I’m good, I’m what’s right, Yeah………….  No…..  Hey look, I’m well composed, I never make mistakes, I speak so eloquently, blah blah blah…  So what?

Do you want to drink soda even though so-and-so higher up in the hierarchy doesn’t?  Then do it.  Do you want to watch a movie even though so-and-so says there’s something more important to be doing?  Watch the movie.

I sense a purpose to the whole of life, a reason to our existence, and I highly doubt it is so that we can be told and tell each other how to think, how to feel, and how to act.  In the end, we’re the only ones who can free ourselves from slavery to anyone or anything, because there will always be something trying to ensnare us again and again and again.

Banned Books Week (Sep. 26 – Oct. 3, 2009) – Some Favorites

For banned books week (Sep. 26 – Oct. 3), here are my picks from the Nag Hammadi Library (scrolls hidden in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, discovered in 1945):

“The Book of Thomas the Contender”

“The Apocryphon of James”

“The Apocalypse of Peter”

Most Theists and Atheists are ridiculous

Both theists and atheists are quite ridiculous.  The majority of them seem to be stuck in their own narrow extremist ways of thinking, whether it’s left or right. For instance, I was reading comments on Reddit today and people were going on about the many-worlds theory. But they will straight-up dismiss the idea of a man who could have died and resurrected. Why not? What makes it so unbelievable? Doesn’t it fit in with your many-worlds theory? Or it’s only velociraptors that fit into that?

I think mass communication is just accelerating this split, because as people group together, then one side gets more and more absurd, then those who recognize it tend to go to the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. It’s kind of like you have a lot of people who start an “I-Like-Apples” club, and generation after generation it gets bigger, at first people actually eat apples and like it so they join the group, they want more people to like apples. After a while though, they just want more people in their group, they forget about the apples, identified with a purpose to get more people to join their group, even to the point that many of its members have never eaten an apple. Then you have the group who doesn’t like apples, I-Hate-Apples, which started with very few (who doesn’t like apples?). But as the ILA gang grows in numbers and their ways become more and more absurd, then those who recognize how stupid those in the ILA group have become will start to join the IHA group. It no longer has anything to do with apples, although all of the members on both sides are convinced otherwise..

So basically what I’m trying to say is that we are not very concerned with the apples, but more with the group to which we belong.

Why can’t there be gods? Why can’t there be people who have existed who had extraordinary abilities? It doesn’t matter what we say those abilities belong to. Your eyesight is a miracle to someone who doesn’t have it, it is a mystery. Likewise if someone can see something in their mind although they’re at a distance, or if someone can rise from the grave, or whatever, that is a great mystery to someone who can’t do it, but that doesn’t dismiss it scientifically. Even that it is rare does not dismiss it scientifically.

Mathematically though, God can be understood, not as some separate entity or thing, but just the collective of all things, the source. The source of something is the sum of its parts, so if you add all the numbers on a number line, you get positive infinity plus negative infinity, which results in Zero, which is just a concept, but it actually is the source of all things, so in separating from its source, every number and its opposite exist. And what is anything except number gathered into some order?

I wish more people would want to make sense out of principles instead of being so concerned about taking sides.

Ideas vs. Knowledge

It’s one thing to be open to “ideas”, but a totally different thing to know something.  Ideas are dead, are they not?  They are based in uncertainty.  Idea is the same as belief.  They are things which are stated without knowledge.  But knowledge only comes from within, it can’t be given from outside.  So fine, be open to ideas, but find knowledge within yourself, and when you have it then no one can take it away from you.  2+2=4, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says, that is knowledge in myself.  But to someone who doesn’t know that, or understand that, then I can show them how I know, but the understanding ultimately has to come from within that person.  Back in high school, I used to spend hours trying to help my friend with her math homework.  I explained things as well as I could, and my answers were right, but she would get so frustrated she didn’t understand, and she would tell me things like “that’s stupid, what you just said is stupid”, but it certainly wasn’t…  Math was my thing, my answers and explanations were right, but she just didn’t understand..

Imagine you have traveled to a distant land and tasted of some exotic fruit.   It was a difficult road you took, but one that anyone else can take.  But instead of taking that road, people tell you that what you say doesn’t mesh with their ideas..  Well you know that what you say is true, whether their ideas about it agree or not.   When you try to tell them the road to take, and how to take it, they say “well my ideas say this or that”, well then it’s not really about you being open to their ideas, it’s about them being open to your knowledge and willing to take the steps you say it will take to reach that destination.  There is a huge playing field here in this age when it comes to religion, and it’s just a big fat mess of IDEAS and BELIEFS and DIS-BELIEFS, which have very little to do with KNOWLEDGE which is what we want, right?  Sometimes true knowledge gets mixed in with them, to such an extent that it fascinates people in a lifetime of theories and illusions like playing some mystery game, but this whole thing they live out is EXTERNAL, and it results in death, the brain dies and what’s left?  The ideas that were bouncing around in their brain died with their brain!  Real knowledge is completely INTERNAL and is found through searching there, and when it’s known then it’s no longer an idea.  But this knowledge isn’t even in facts, it is about a living knowledge, a direct connection with the divine in each moment, building a world of divine vigilance, and this kind of knowledge is eternal, it does not die with the brain.   If we think of what a village of perfect beings would be, what would it be like?  Would they be talking about ideas, theories, etc.?  Lifetimes are wasted like this.

So then how do we use the intellect to go beyond the intellect and find the divinity inside us?  I agree the intellect is a useful tool.  It’s the intellect that will understand where the map is pointing in order to even take it up to begin with.  Without the intellect, the map wouldn’t make any sense.  But once a step makes sense, then it has to go into action in real-time inside ourselves.  Without having fallen from simplicity into complexity then we couldn’t return to simplicity with knowledge of the complexity.   But the path has always been this: falling in order to rise.   As we are fallen and in the complexity, then it is time to take up the sword and return to simplicity, right?  Right.. otherwise we are just wasting our time.   Some point has to come when we say, okay it’s time to go home, like the Prodigal Son, and actually do it.

The Lion King – The Circle of Life

The Lion King
The Circle of Life
(lyrics)

Getting Through Suffering to Reach Peace

An inspiring video by Belzebuub.

Getting Through Suffering to Reach Peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN0-Mg_juU4

The Stories That Really Mattered (Lord of the Rings)

Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam..

Sam: I know, it’s all wrong.  By rights we shouldn’t even be here.. but we are.  It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered – full of darkness and danger they were.  And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy?  How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?  But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow.  Even darkness must pass, a new day will come.  And when the sun shines it’ll shine out the clearer.  Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.  But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.  I know now.  Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t.  They kept going, because they were holding onto something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.

Jesus says:

Jesus, from The Apocryphon of John:

Those on whom the Spirit of life will descend and (with whom) he will be with the power, they will be saved and become perfect and be worthy of the greatness and be purified in that place from all wickedness and the involvements in evil. Then they have no other care than the incorruption alone, to which they direct their attention from here on, without anger or envy or jealousy or desire and greed of anything. They are not affected by anything except the state of being in the flesh alone, which they bear while looking expectantly for the time when they will be met by the receivers (of the body). Such then are worthy of the imperishable, eternal life and the calling. For they endure everything and bear up under everything, that they may finish the good fight and inherit eternal life.

~Jesus

On the Bible, Modern Christianity, and Beliefs

The Bible has not always been around in the form it is today.  If we think it is “the only word of God”, isn’t that the same kind of thought that the pharisees had when they rejected the teachings of Jesus, because their books/laws were the only word of God?  If God spoke to the prophets of the Old Testament before Jesus, then He spoke to prophets of many different ages in different languages, and he will speak to us today if we will seek Him out in ourselves.

In one age He is called the Father, yet in another age He is called Brahma, yet in another age He is called The Way. In some places spiritual beings were called “angels”, yet in another they were called “gods”. Every religion is monotheistic, because every religion has a Father of all ‘gods’.  “Gods” is just the different word for “angels”, spiritual beings that are divine but not God Himself.

I think of how many years go by, the birth of worlds, ages come and go, planets, entire galaxies are born and die, and we want to build a belief system which is by definition based in uncertainty (to believe is not to know) as if the entire universe and all the ages were made so that we could have our neat little Bible and say “Jesus is my Saviour” and then magically be saved from all evil.  This just seems a bit off to me.  “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you [of] heavenly things?”

One person will say “I believe this”, while another says “I believe that”, but which one is true?  The fact is neither of them knows, they only believe, this is why I think beliefs are futile.  Faith in God is something much different than belief, it is something someone knows deep down, but how can someone say “my God is the only God” when “The Lord thy God, the Lord is ONE”?  – in other words, the Lord is all-inclusive, which means He doesn’t belong to any religion, any certain group of people, God is all-inclusive.  So what is the difference in the name if what it is referring to is that which is everything, the source of everything, the beginning and the end?

I think the Bible is a great source of wisdom if we can learn to think for ourselves and push for a deeper understanding instead of always going with the easiest one.

Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all [these] things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and [their] sins should be forgiven them.

~Mar 4:11-12

Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?

The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

~Jhn 10:32-34

And he said to me, “Peter, I have told you many times that they are blind ones who have no guide.  If you want to know their blindness, put your hands upon (your) eyes – your robe – and say what you see.”

But when I had done it, I did not see anything.  I said “No one sees (this way).”

Again he told me, “Do it again.”

And there came in me fear with joy, for I saw a new light greater than the light of day.  Then it came down upon the Savior.  And I told him about those things which I saw.

And he said to me again, “Lift up your hands and listen to what the priests and the people are saying.”

And I listened to the priests as they sat with the scribes.  The multitudes were shouting with their voice.

When he heard these things from me he said to me, “Prick up your ears and listen to the things they are saying.”

And I listened again, “As you sit, they are praising you”.

And when I said these things, the Savior said, “I have told you that these (people) are blind and deaf.  Now then, listen to the things which they are telling you in a mystery, and guard them, Do not tell them to the sons of this age.  For they shall blaspheme you in these ages since they are ignorant of you, but they will praise you in knowledge.”

“For many will accept our teaching in the beginning.  And they will turn from them again by the will of the Father of their error, because they have done what he wanted.  And he will reveal them in his judgment, i.e., the servants of the Word.  But those who became mingled with these shall become their prisoners, since they are without perception.  And the guileless, good, pure one they push to the worker of death, and to the kingdom of those who praise Christ in a restoration.  And they praise the men of the propagation of falsehood, those who will come after you.  And they will cleave to the name of a dead man, thinking that they will become pure.  But they will become greatly defiled and they will fall into a name of error, and into the hand of an evil, cunning man and a manifold dogma, and they will be ruled without law.”

[...]

“Some who do not understand mystery speak of things which they do not understand, but they will boast that the mystery of the truth is theirs alone.  And in haughtiness they shall grasp at pride, to envy the immortal soul which has become a pledge.  For every authority, rule, and power of the aeons wishes to be with these in the creation of the world, in order that those who are not, having been forgotten by those that are, may praise them, though they have not been saved, nor have they been brought to the Way by them, always wishing that they may become imperishable ones. For if the immortal soul receives power in an intellectual spirit -. But immediately they join with one of those who misled them.”

~from The Apocalypse of Peter, in the Nag Hammadi Library