Heroic Doses of Gnosis
WHILE THE PURSUIT OF ENLIGHTENMENT is an aspirational quest of great spiritual consequence, we must never forget that “lightness of being” is as much a desired result of that pursuit as being enveloped in a serious sense of the sacred, for to “know” God, the Supreme Creator of All That Exists, is said to be an immersive experience into the very Source of love and light.
If such is true, therefore, can it possibly be wrong to “make light” of our humble aspiration as we pursue such an end? Can we not cultivate a keen sense of humor as we go about our pursuit and nurture a lightness of being at the same time? After all, wisdom masters throughout the ages have always said that like goes to like and if we are to believe what those who espouse “the law of attraction” say, we must act as if we already possess that which we want in order to draw the object of our desire to us.
In other words, we should trust what the wisdom masters have said and feel free to lighten up as we go about our pursuit of higher spiritual truths, especially if the greater goal is to experience the Divine directly for ourselves.
In the ancient times, prior to Roman Emperor Constantine convening the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. and institutionalizing the Christian movement into what became known as the Roman Catholic Church, there was also a movement among the general populace called Gnosticism. It was not a single standardized religion as such, but appealed to those of a mystical bent who understood that having a direct epiphany of the Divine was far superior to harboring mere beliefs about the Divine based on what others claimed to be true. At the time, there were esoteric paleo-Christian sects who subscribed to this approach to spirituality, as well as likeminded Jewish and Sufi traditions of a very similar constitution.
One was not a genuine Gnostic, it was said, unless one had had a direct revelation of the Supreme Divinity, for “to know” God is what gave the movement its name. “Gnosis” means “to know.”
To this day there is great divide among people who seek higher spiritual truths, but that divide is not anywhere near half and half. In fact, the “many” are clearly quite willing and happy to accept their spiritual beliefs based on what others have said. The truths these good souls espouse are derived from what the mystics and prophets of the past have said and the sermonizers of the present endlessly quote. The sermonizers, whether priests, preachers, rabbis or imams, do not just quote the ancients, however. They explain what those mystics and prophets of the past “meant” when they said what they said. These sermonizers officiate as intermediaries between the “masses” and God, claiming to “know” what God wants and what God expects from humanity in return for his love and blessings.
In stark contrast, the “few” prefer to make a private effort on their own through prayer, meditation and contemplation away from the crowds and the authorized officials, in order to know the higher spiritual truths of the Supreme Source of the universe by experiencing the Divine directly for themselves.
In practical terms, there are two major ways of gaining knowledge about anything. We can know a thing through direct experience for ourselves or we can know a thing through a source of information, one which comes to us either by way of what others have said or by what others have written.
There are many ways to distinguish these different modes of knowing in terms of metaphor. For example, there are two very well-known sayings: “The menu is not the meal” and “the map is not the territory.” In simple terms, you cannot know what something tastes like simply by reading what ingredients are in a dish or by studying the label on any food product and so on. As for the map versus the territory, you cannot know what it is like to trek across the Rockies, the Alps or the Himalayas, for example, by merely reading about what someone else experienced while doing so. You must walk it for yourself.
In this way, experience becomes the arbiter of truth at a personal level. Indeed, it appears that the greater the effort at deepening whatever revelations one may attain, the more pronounced the acceleration of one’s personal spiritual evolution.
As Jung once put it: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” He also once wrote, “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.”
What life “means” is up to each of us to decide. Indeed, each of us is endowed with free will for this very purpose, for all things “spiritual” are down to the individual. We make of life what we will, but what could more divine than love, light and laughter? What could be more joyous than eternal immersion in the ultimate Source of love and light? What could be better than experiencing all of that directly rather than merely having theories and beliefs about the ultimate Source of Creation?
“Know thyself,” the ancient wisdom masters advised, for therein, we find the meaning and significance of life. So why not busy ourselves cultivating laughter and a lightness of being, while secretly seeking heroic doses of gnosis in our own way? If such talk sounds a bit flippant or irreverent, we need only remember that it is intent that matters; it is what we harbor in our heart which determines everything.
To find love and light at the core of our very being is to know we are at one with the Divine itself.
