On Descartes, Spinoza and Intuition

On Descartes, Spinoza and Intuition

by Richard Freeman-Toole

March 8, 1997

I write this paper in an attempt to assimilate some aspects of the philosophies of Descartes and Spinoza into a theory of intuitive thought, the formulation of which has preoccupied me for the last two years; this theory (in the context of a musical application) attempts to establish a relationship between the intuitive thought process and the so-called collective unconscious, or the collective mind. It was to strengthen my background for this research that I decided to take this class, and it was therefore with this work in mind that I came to the philosophers at hand.  I am aware that the the subject matter of this course historically precedes the formulation of anything like a modern conception of psychology , but in order to appreciate these philosophers it was necessary for me to translate into my own  language what was being said; the consequence of this has been that, while I reject much of the language of the texts under discussion, I have been able to relate the spirit of the text to my own special interest.  Only in this way has the writing had any personal significance for me, touched my life in any way.  Neither my theory, nor its full range of sympathetic resonance with intuitive thought processes discernible in Descartes and Spinoza will be given the space they deserve, but a general connection between my theory and their work will obtain.  Thus, this  paper must be seen as a minor commentary by a somewhat up-to-date view of psychology on thought processes which were responsible for the birth of modern philosophy

It is arguable that Descartes' most significant positive contribution to history was the example he set in breaking from the scholastic tradition with its emphasis on the handed down authority of the past. As the march of time time was leading Europe further and further away from a conception of the created world as a rigidly predetermined hierarchy of inflexible, inherited laws, toward a conception of man as a a free agent in a cosmology which allowed him the possibility of upward or downward mobility based on his individual efforts to achieve or fail, it was necessary for somebody  to come along and announce that we should start over again with a systematization of knowledge based on the new science; if in so doing we should stumble once again onto the old verities, so much the better. It was courageous of Descartes to insist that the contemporary authority of the personal, subjective experience was more powerful than the experiences of dead people expressed in musty monk-copied books. It was also prophetic of him in that the same kind of attempts to reconcile the claims of the opposing worlds of science and mysticism persist to this day; in fact, some might say that these reconciliatory attempts are approaching a particularly intense climax (not to say a resolution) in the current decade with the discoveries in quantum physics echoing and reinforcing many of the traditional propositions of parapsychology and the ancient religions.  

Aside from the elegance of his writing (not necessarily to say his logic) I found not much to commend his arguments; he seems to be a man spinning his wheels, looking for a definite answer to a definite question, in the definitely wrong place. Especially in his replies to criticism, he appears unable stand up to attack except by either stooping to  name-calling, referring to the precedent of traditional philosophical language, or invoking the natural light. However, it is the sincerity of his effort, the power of his conviction to express his vision, that most impressed me--with which I found myself resonating sympathetically. 

Descartes takes pains to clothe his concepts in the ill-fitting garb of rationalism, in an effort to align his thinking with the radically changing world view of the new science, a noble and inspired effort to be sure;  but it is nonetheless evident that the most primary tenets of his philosophy are founded on irrational  conclusions. Even motivated as he was to avoid the use of the antiquated, authoritarian language of the church, Descartes was unable to be unequivocally rational in expressing the reality of his own consciousness; aspects of my theory (outlined below) indicate that Descartes, in sorting out the paradoxical imbroglio of entangled considerations of objective rational thought and subjective religious experience, has relied heavily on intuitive  thought processes--processes which inevitably lead, via the collective mind (as we shall see),  to perceptions of a higher reality.  Descartes' efforts to justify his intuitive responses with rational arguments seem to us pretty silly, but the sensitive reader may readily go into "between-the-lines" mode to see how the collective mind is informing his subjective experience, if not his writing.

To summarize my theory concerning the collective mind : 

1. The intuitive response is a goal-oriented mental process motivated by a pre-conceived end condition. An event called re-centering  takes place during this goal-seeking process. Re-centering is a moment in time when the mind takes the components of an emotional set and radically restructures them in an effort to find the path of least resistance to the pre-conceived end condition. (Bastick)

2.  There are various states of mind that are associated with re-centering, which help initiate the process. One precondition for re-centering is redundancy; the use of familiar or repeated material (functional fixation) sets the stage for the next mental state which is psychological regression. Psychological regression is a kind of mental reversion to primitive mind states; during psychological regression there is a pronounced tendency for unconscious or so-called preconscious material to surface onto the stage of literal consciousness. Indeed, it is the manipulation of preconscious material that is the most obvious literal manifestation of the operation of intuitive forces on mental material. This preconscious material tends to express itself in forms which are universally shared archetypes; forms which are echoed and varied in the world's library of inherited artifacts, and which are universally (innately) understood without literal explanation.

3.  It is my contention that the universal quality of, and the unlearned, shared agreement about, so much of this planet's archetypal symbology indicates that the intuitive response is keying in a higher state of mind, a super-personal state of mind. This mind state represents a tangible  access to a supernatural world, (maybe even a measurable access), which defines the subjective reality of the individual as a bubble in the consciousness of a cosmic mind which includes more and more such bubbles at ever high hierarchic levels. Hence, the intuitive response uses the subject's contact with the collective mind as a first step in the multi-stage progress toward the ultimate mind of God.

4.  The tip-off that an intuitive re-centering response has been initiated is a characteristic rhythmic acceleration of the sequential presentation of the conceptual material. If the flow of ideas speeds up such that their identities become blurred or integrated into a synthetic gestalt (kind of like escape velocity), it is a safe bet that the literal mind has made contact with the higher mind.

Thank you very much for listening, and what the hell does this have to do with Descartes ?  Well, I was particularly struck by two aspects of Descartes' proof of his own existence and of God's existence. First (actually second), the fact itself, that we can have a conception of God which is quantitatively different from our conception of anything else, proves the existence of God, and second (actually first), that my experience of myself as a thought makes me real. I find the relationship between these two ideas to be fascinating and revealing. There is an implication here that the only true  reality is the reality of mind--that God exists because I can conceive of Him, and that I exist for the same reason. Therefore it is possible to say that God and I are cut from the same cloth, since the ultimate test of our reality is whether we can be mentally conceived. If this is true, then Descartes is recapitulating an ancient Hindu concept of man as a little piece of God, a piece that is momentarily lost in the time distortion of the world of material illusion, but who is destined to rejoin the creative mind in eternal ecstacy after his worldly trials are ended. Furthermore, the Christian (and Jewish) idea of the Christ, as a focus of the Creator-mind in the flesh, the mysterious worldly manifestation of cosmic reality, sounds very similar to Descartes' dualistic, subjective self-conception as both a material machine and an infinite mind.

My point is that, although Descartes is attempting to dress up his ideas in fancy Cadillac terminology, his basic Chevy impulse to express his thoughts comes from an intuitive  experience of himself in relation to (or in) a higher mind state.  The fact is that "the natural light" does not tell us beans about anything, does not dignify anything, is not a resource for rational confirmation of anything; however, it does sensitize us to higher mental realities which are essentially irrational, or better, super-rational. [At this point let me comment on the expression psychological regression : at face value the term seems to point to a state of mind which is animalistic, or somehow subhuman; still, if we view the regression to preconscious states as a raising of consciousness to the level of super-personal collective consciousness, then we have no choice but to see the regression  as a progression.] Thus, Descartes' experience of himself as a thought of finite dimensions, allied to God as a thought of infinite dimensions, comes not from any objective,  rational operation, but merely from the quantum leap from the literal mind state to a supernormal mind state--an effect that is typical of intuitive re-centering .  

To arrive at the foregoing conclusion, one element is missing, namely, a description of how Descartes achieves, in his meditations, the mind state whereby he comes into contact with the collective mind. In a piece of music, the progression from redundancy to functional fixation to psychological regression to inspiration, as in, say, a jazz improvisation, or the development section of a symphony, is a pretty well-marked pathway, since musical cliches are fairly easy to identify, and the acceleration of the sequential presentation of these identities is easy to detect.  In philosophy the game is not so clear, since rhythm is not usually considered to be a significant parameter.  However, one need not look very far in the Meditations to find a number of personal asides like this one from the Third Meditation  :

The longer and more carefully I examine all these points, the more clearly and distinctly I recognize their truth. But what is my conclusion to be? If the objective reality of any of my ideas turns out to be so great that I am sure the same reality does not reside in me, either formally or eminently, and hence that I myself cannot be its cause, it will necessarily follow that I am not alone in the world, but that some other thing which is the cause of this idea also exists. (p. 43)

This paragraph is a polaroid postcard report of a person who has had an intuitive re-centering experience.  It begins with the suggestion of time spent in laborious pondering ("the longer and more carefully I examine all these points"), the end condition is called for ("But what is my conclusion to be?"), four concepts flash by in quick succession (1. "If the objective reality of any of my ideas turns out to be" 2. " so great that I am sure the same reality does not reside in me," 3. "either formally" 4. "or eminently,"), and finally a feeling of ego-death, of detachment from physical reality ("I myself cannot be its cause"), and a feeling of kinship with a collective mind ("I am not alone in the world").  The culmination of the paragraph ("some other thing which is the cause of this idea also exists") is the consequence of a radical recentering process that takes the subject from an egocentric consideration of literally-defined self to an experience of super-personal reality.

Spinoza's contribution to all this is a commentary on the relationship of finite things to eternal things which supports the idea of a collective mind. In Prop. XVI of the Ethics ,  he says,

 ". . . from the given definition of anything a number of properties necessarily following from it (that is to say following from the essence of the thing itself) are inferred by the intellect, and just in proportion as the definition of the thing expresses a greater reality, will more properties be inferred. But the divine nature possesses absolutely infinite attributes . . each one of which expresses infinite essence in its own kind (in suo genere), and therefore,  from the necessity of the divine nature, infinite things which in infinite ways (that is to say, all things which can be conceived by the intellect) must necessarily follow. ( p. 309)

It will be apparent from this quote that Spinoza, with Descartes, sees mind as the ultimate reality. It will also be noted that Spinoza is in agreement with an idea that I suggested earlier, i.e. that the infinite is subject to subdivision; indeed, the subdivision of infinite essence into consciously accessible components seems to be that primary activity of intellect, bearing in mind that each definition arrived at consciously is a mere reduction of the essence into incomplete parts of the whole, a whole which becomes more and more vast as the intellect climbs back up the hierarchic beanstalk toward God. The stages in the intuitive mental process outlined above, from literal goal-oriented consciousness, to psychological regression, to the collective mind state and higher, consists of the same kind of breakdown in psychological material that Spinoza hints at here. 

Since Spinoza's idea of intuitive knowledge is that of knowledge which is initiated by rational processes, gives knowledge of ideational particulars which correspond to all the particles of nature, but which nevertheless sees nature as timeless substance, manifesting the mind of God, it will be evident that the type of progression of mind states I have previously suggested is consistent with Spinoza's assessment of things. In fact, the quoted paragraph indicates that Spinoza's conceptual picture of mind is of a very fluid two-way street running back and forth between higher and lower;  the essences  of things  are perceivable as subdivisions of the mind of God, and our internal perceptions of these things  as subdivisions of those essences. 

In particular, it is necessary to emphasize the idea that "as the definition of the thing expresses a greater reality, [so] will more properties be inferred"; this idea corresponds to my idea that the joining of the literal mind with the collective mind makes available to the subject the vast astral library of the inherited archetypal forms of Man, enabling Man to communicate with himself in an universally understood symbolic language, and to approach higher states of God-consciousness. Surely the expression of a particular idea of a particular subject will tend to be more unique than a collective generalization, but the collective generalization is actually more complex than a personal statement because the averaging process of archetypal formalization involves synthesizing the essence of many  subjective particularizations into a single composite form--thus the one includes the many, as each tiny voice in the whole cosmic chorus sings out its individual part as the whole is articulated through  the many.  

In summary,  although as a work of logic the Meditations  of Descartes fail at least as much as they succeed, as the efforts of a man seeking to articulate the truth  there is more to commend them than petty quibbling has the power to vitiate. Spinoza, not as dedicated to rational expression (we say jargon  nowadays) as Descartes, does not seem so ridiculous as a logician; Spinoza makes himself ridiculous (to the cynical modern eye) in a different way--by using metaphysical language which sounds like so much gobbledy-gook to the rationalist, who would always prefer to assign a precise value to an essence and then divide by the current rate of inflation.  From my point of view, I appreciate the heartfelt sincerity of this work, and relate to it, as I do to most things, as music; i.e. as the subtle interplay of abstractions which refer only incidentally to the material world, but which always point with prophetic finger to higher worlds.  If my work with intuition has helped create a flimsy bridge between psyche and anima it is of no ultimate consequence, mere wordplay.  But without this wordplay what would our minds do while our hearts seek out the face of God?

Urbana

March 8, 1997

Bibliography

Descartes , Selected Philosophical Writings , Cotingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch, trans. , Cambridge University Press, 1988

From Descartes to Kant , ed. T.V. Smith and Marjorie Grene, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1940, Ethics,  Part I  

Intuition  by Tony Bastick, 1982, John Wiley and Sons, New York

(Supplemental Bibliography)

Bastick, Tony

1982 Intuition  . New York : John Wiley and Sons

Borges, Jorge Luis

1964 Dreamtigers  . Austin : University of Texas Press

Brun, Herbert

1972 Compositions  (liner notes)

Durant, Alan

1989 "Improvisation in the Political Economy of Music." in Christopher Norris, ed.,  Music and the Politics of Culture (New York: St. Martin's Press) pp. 252-82

Godwin, Joscelyn

1987 Harmonies of Heaven and Earth  . Rochester, Vermont:Inner Traditions International, LTD

Ives, Charles

1947 Essays Before a Sonata and Other Writings  . New York : W.W. Norton

Keil-Feld

1994 Music Grooves  , "Aesthetics as Iconicity of Style" . Chicago : University of Chicago Press

Kosslyn, Stephen Michael

1980 Image and Mind . Boston : Harvard University Press

Kosslyn, Stephen Michael

1948 Ghosts in the Mind's Machine  . New York : W.W. Norton

Maraire, Abraham Dumisani

1971 "Introduction," Mbira Music of Rhodesia [Notes with the Recording, Mbira Music of Rhodesia, UWP 1001] Seattle : University of  Washington Press

Merriam, Alan P.

1964 The Anthropology of Music  . Evanston : Northwestern University Press

Miller, Leon K.

1989 Musical Savants  . Hillsdale N.J. : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers

Mueller

1967 The Science of Art  . New York : John Day Co.

Mukarovsky, Jan

1977 Structure, Sign, and Function -Selected Essays.  New Haven : Yale University Press

Nettl, Bruno

1974 "Thoughts on Improvisation : A Comparative Approach,"  Musical Quarterly  60 : 1-19

Pressing, Jeff

1988 "Improvisation : Methods and Models," in  John A. Sloboda, ed. Generative Processes in Music (Oxford : Oxford University Press), 

pp. 130-177.

Treitler, Leo

1991 "Medieval Improvisation," World of Music 33, no. 3: 66-91

Yutang, Lin

1967 The Chinese Theory of Art . New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons

                                                        Freeman-Toole

Gospel of Truth - 1-Truth/Error, HeavenonEarth

Gospel of Truth - 1

The last two weeks have been spent taking an overview of Valentinus as seen through the eyes of a number of experts in the field of ancient texts. But there is no substitute for the real thing, and so today I will attempt to delve, in earnest, into Valentines’ magnum opus, The Gospel of Truth.

This sermon will cover the first few sections. First we will read a short summary out of Wikipedia, then we will go directly into the book. The work begins with a salutation and praise: “The Gospel of Truth is joy!” This is followed by a discussion of language, then comes obeisance to Jesus Christ, “He it is who is called "the Savior”; then we turn to the a basic gnostic tenet: that ignorance of the Father brought about terror and fear, along with this remarkable thought, “Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, although it existed because of him.” Remember “gnosis” means “knowledge”, and in a higher sense, “knowledge of God”. Of Jesus, Valentinus states: “What exists in him is knowledge, which was revealed so that forgetfulness might be destroyed, He did not, however, destroy them because they ate of it. He rather caused those who ate of it to be joyful because of this discovery.” Opposites come into play here. Finally we wills mention various aspects of Heaven on Earth.

The Gospel of Truth is one of the more talked-about of the apocryphal works because it is, more than many of the other gnostic texts, jam-packed with doctrinal principles and sacraments. Terms like “logos” and “pleroma” appear consistently, as do the gnostic attitudes toward knowledge and spiritual manifestation. Wikipedia has this to say:

“The Gospel of Truth is one of the Gnostic texts from the New Testament apocrypha found in the Nag Hammadi codices ("NHC"). It exists in two Coptic translations, a Subakhmimic rendition surviving almost in full in the first codex (the "Jung Codex") and a Sahidic in fragments in the twelfth.

The Gospel of Truth was probably written in Greek between 140 and 180 by Valentinian Gnostics (or, as some posit, by Valentinus himself). It was known to Irenaeus of Lyons, who objected to its Gostic content and declared it heresy. Irenaeus declares it one of the works of the disciples of "Valentinius", and the similarity of the work to others thought to be by Valentinus and his followers has made many scholars agree with Irenaeus on this point.

“But the followers of Valentinus, putting away all fear, bring forward their own compositions and boast that they have more Gospels than really exist. Indeed their audacity has gone so far that they entitle their recent composition the Gospel of Truth, though it agrees in nothing with the Gospels of the apostles, and so no Gospel of theirs is free from blasphemy. For if what they produce is the Gospel of Truth, and is different from those the apostles handed down to us, those who care to can learn how it can be shown from the Scriptures themselves that [then] what is handed down from the apostles is not the Gospel of Truth.^”

After its Coptic translations and their burial at Nag Hammadi, the text had been lost until the Nag Hammadi discovery.  

The text is written with strong poetic skill (notable even in translation), and includes a heavily cyclical presentation of themes. It is not a "gospel" in the sense of an account of the works of Jesus of Nazareth, but is better understood as a homily. The text is generally considered by scholars one of the best written texts in the whole Nag Hammadi collection, considering its worth highly as both a great literary work and a gnostic exegesis on several gospels, canonical and otherwise.

Not all scholars, however, agree that the text is to be considered Gnostic. Paterson Brown has argued forcefully that the three Nag Hammadi Coptic Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth are demonstrably not Gnostic in content, since each explicitly affirms the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, which Brown argues that Gnosticism considers illusory or evil.

The writing is thought to cite or allude to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and John, as well as 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Hebrews, 1 John and the Book of Revelation--John's Gospel the most often. It is also influenced by Thomas; for instance at one point (22:13-19) it cites John 3:8 alongside Thomas 28.

The text describes a theory of the rise of Error in personified form. The ignorance and yearning to see the Father bred fear, which coalesced into a fog by which Error gained power.”

Let’s read about that far:

“The Gospel of Truth is joy to those who have received from the Father of truth the gift of knowing him by the power of the Logos, who has come from the Pleroma and who is in the thought and the mind of the Father;” 

[Sidebar: To get us started, let us make examine these terms, “logos” and “pleroma”, not out of ignorance, but because there are so many various definitions of some of these words that we must be quite clear about what is meant in the gnostic sense:

Logos From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

“Logos ; is a term in Western philosophy, psychology, rhetoric, and religion derived from a Greek word variously meaning "ground", "plea", "opinion", "expectation", "word", "speech", "account", "reason", "proportion", and "discourse", but it became a technical term in philosophy beginning with Heraclitus (c. 535 – c. 475 BC), who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge. 

Logos is the logic behind an argument. Logos tries to persuade an audience using logical arguments and supportive evidence. Logos is a persuasive technique often used in writing and rhetoric.

Ancient Greek philosophers used the term in different ways. The sophists used the term to mean discourse; Aristotle applied the term to refer to "reasoned discourse"or "the argument" in the field of rhetoric, and considered it one of the three modes of persuasion alongside ethos and pathos. Stoic philosophers identified the term with the divine animating principle pervading the Universe. 

[Sidebar: This is the definition we will come back to: “the divine animating principle pervading the Universe.”

Back to Wikipedia:]

“Within Hellenistic Judaism, Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD) adopted the term into Jewish philosophy. The Gospel of John identifies the Logos, through which all things are made, as divine (theos), and further identifies Jesus Christ as the incarnate Logos. The term is also used in Sufism, and the analytical psychology of Carl Jung.

Despite the conventional translation as "word", it is not used for a word in the grammatical sense; instead, the term lexis (λέξις, léxis) was used. However, both logos and lexis derive from the same verb légō (λέγω), meaning "(I) count, tell, say, speak”.^”

Now “pleroma”:

“Pleroma generally refers to the totality of divine powers. The word means fullness from πληρόω ("I fill") comparable to πλήρης which means "full", and is used in Christian theological contexts: both in Gnosticism generally, and by St. Paul the Apostle in Colossians 2:9:

“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,”

 The word is used 17 times in the New Testament.

Pleroma is also used in the general Greek language and is used by the Greek Orthodox Church in this general form since the word appears in the book of Colossians. Proponents of the view that Paul was actually a Gnostic, such as Elaine Pagels of Princeton University, view the reference in Colossians as something that was to be interpreted in the Gnostic sense.”

^{[Sidebar: It is interesting to me how much hidden meaning is embedded in our language; we all know that knowledge of a person’s position in the social hierarchy, his income, even his place of birth, may be discovered merely by listening to his accent and vocabulary. Thus, merely by using the word Pleroma, the authorities place Paul in the box marked “gnostics”. And this is not without reason— remember what Frank Zappa said:} 

^{“Everyone in this room is wearing a uniform, and don’t kid yourself.”}

^{Everything we do and say identifies us with a culture or a clique, a country or a county. If Paul used the word “pleroma” he had to have heard the word somewhere, and where else than from a gnostic philosopher? Remember that Paul was classically educated, and was well aware of the ideas underlying much of the philosophical outlook of the time. Thus, if the presence of a gnostic philosophy was felt in the pulse of the collective consciousness, surely the word pleroma would have been public domain but with an obvious and telling pedigree. I think the word “gnostics”, just like any other label you can name, is sort of like the word “politicians”—there are lots of them and they can’t agree on anything.}

^{Now back to Valentinus:]}

“The Gospel of Truth is joy to those who have received from the Father of truth the gift of knowing him by the power of the Logos, who has come from the Pleroma and who is in the thought and the mind of the Father;” 

[Sidebar: The language is very twisted here, but I think a reasonable paraphrase of this might go like this:

“The Gospel of Truth is joy to those who have received from the Father of truth the gift of knowing him (the Father) by the power of the Logos, (Jesus Christ) who has come from the Pleroma (come to where from the pleroma? here into the physical, OUTSIDE the pleroma—remember? to rescue the lost Sophia who has abandoned herself to the illusions of grief and suffering which comprise the outer darkness), who (Jesus again) is in the thought and the mind of the Father;” 

You can see here that, in just this one paragraph, there is concentrated a lot of material that requires a background in Gnostic mythology to understand. Thus did Irenaeus declare in Against Heresies 3:2:1:

"The scriptures are ambiguous and the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition."  

There is an important point to be brought home, here: the interpretation of sacred texts (or any text for that matter) must take place in the light of the CONTEXT of the material, the historical era during which it was created. To confuse things, idiomatic expressions, especially those of an abstract nature, elicit complicated sometimes contradictory definitions; also, we must be aware that these verbal nuances are specific to the life of that particular time. Moreover, we must admit that the process of using words, to express intangible things, is infected with many problems of a philological nature; thus, from a passage filled with language whose words bear many multiple meanings, no LITERAL interpretation of a sacred text will yield any eternal truth. A literal interpretation demands a fixed definition of static realities—and yet there ARE NO static realities—we say that “reality” is a verb, and “time waits for no man”. There has never been a single moment in time that has ever stopped flowing like a river to the sea.

Thinking about the river flowing to the sea, I began to see it as an apt metaphor that could apply to several other metaphors we have been developing. We think of the river as constantly flowing—moving—to empty into a vast becalmed ocean of bliss, where still and silence reign. Thus, the endlessly flowing river represents time, while the ocean represents timelessness. Also, in terms of the Father/Mother God dichotomy, the river represents the masculine, and the ocean represents the feminine.

Back to Valentinus; this is where he attributes to Jesus, the Savior, the qualities of Hope, Infinite Knowledge, and Humility.]

“He it is who is called "the Savior," since that is the name of the work which he must do for the redemption of those who have not known the Father. 

For the name of the gospel is the manifestation of hope, since that is the discovery of those who seek him, because the All sought him from whom it had come forth.” 

[Sidebar: This is a complicated issue: seeking. The passage states, somewhat ambiguously, that the one separated from the Pleroma SEEKS to return to the Source, HOPES to return to the Source. But then it says, “the All sought him from whom it had come forth”; this implies the ALL (the Pleroma) also sought the lost one. There is a law of mutual attraction here that cannot be ignored, a law of opposites, possibly of a masculine/feminine nature. [Sing:] “Oh how I love Jesus, because He first loved me.”]

Valentinus goes on to explain:

“You see, the All had been inside of him, that illimitable, inconceivable one, who is better than every thought. This ignorance of the Father brought about terror and fear. And terror became dense like a fog, that no one was able to see.” 

[Sidebar: The sentence structure is somewhat confused, here, but I think a proper annotation for the passage would go something like this:

“You see, the All (the Pleroma, that illimitable, inconceivable one) had been inside of him (the protagonist). The All, who is better than every thought (the ALL Who is beyond thought in the Cloud of Unknowing). This ignorance of the Father (ignorance engendered by false thoughts (or any thoughts)) brought about terror and fear. And terror became dense like a fog, that no one was able to see. (This fog may be thought of as the illusory material from which the Physical universe was created.)

Back to Valentinus:]

“Because of this, error became strong. But it worked on its hylic substance (of matter; material, the opposite of psychic) vainly, because it did not know the truth. It was in a fashioned form while it was preparing, in power and in beauty, the equivalent of truth.” 

[Sidebar: This passage gets a big hooray from me, because it recapitulates a point I have made several times: that false doctrine springs from an adherence to a tangible form, a form which deludes the observer with an EQUIVALENT Truth, a truth with a bright glowing surface, but whose innards are defiled by subtle misdirections of language. 

The next passage returns to the Logos (Jesus); notice that the descent into the Outer Darkness, to rescue Sophia, was not a humiliation for Him. From this (no humiliation) is true humility born.]

“This then, was not a humiliation for him, that illimitable, inconceivable one. For they were as nothing, this terror and this forgetfulness and this figure of falsehood, whereas this established truth is unchanging, unperturbed and completely beautiful. 

For this reason, do not take error too seriously. Thus, since it had no root, it was in a fog as regards the Father, engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears in order, by these means, to beguile those of the middle and to make them captive. The forgetfulness of error was not revealed. It did not become light beside the Father. Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, although it existed because of him.” 

[Sidebar: Embedded in this paragraph are several deep concepts. Recall our numerous discussions of the  parable—we have suggested that Jesus spoke in parables to protect the uninitiated from too much too soon. Now, this passage from Valentinus makes reference to “the middle”, the people who have become the target of Satanic fascination: 

“engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears in order, by these means, to beguile those of the middle and to make them captive.” 

This “middle” must refer to the common layman, the poor peasant who cannot be trusted with the secret truths of Jesus, but only the parables of Jesus. Unfortunately, the mediocre spirit consciousness poses the most convenient target for the beguiling powers of Satan. All this points to a recommendation of “Knowledge” over “Forgetfulness”, and the affirmative moral imperative of the initiate to rescue the uninitiated, as Jesus came to rescue Sophia.

Notice the use of the term “forgetfulness”; remember that at the heart of Gnostic doctrine is the idea that: through Gnosis, Knowledge, the Truth will be revealed. Coincidentally, a primary article of New Age theology is that: we all already know who we are and where we come from, but we have merely forgotten. Gnosis is not discovering something new, but is, rather, uncovering something ancient.

And this part kills me: “Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, although it existed because of him.” Again I sense an attraction of opposites i.e., 

forgetfulness is bad because it separates us from the All, but forgetfulness is good because it comes from the Father, and only good can come from the Father, and, as many Hindus would say, this forgetfulness may be seen as God’s play.

Also, don’t forget that God created EVERYTHING, the good with the bad, and set up the whole lost-soul-redemption thing.

This is one of two references, close together, to God as the Source of all evil as well as good. The first is: “Thus, since it had no root, it was in a fog as regards the Father, engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears.” This sentence is confusing; it can either mean, “It—the error—was engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears,” or “the Father was engaged in preparing works and forgetfulnesses and fears.” If we choose the latter meaning, the one where the Father prepares forgetfulnesses and fears,we clearly portray a demonic God who curses His creation at the same time He blesses it. 

It is difficult to come to grips with the idea that God created Good and Evil at the same time, perhaps as expressions of gender; we like to think of spiritual life as a constantly forward-moving progress, down a path toward some bright ineffable star— but what if William Blake’s idea of the Contraries is true, and all there is, is opposition of opposites?

I’m sure that, on some level, any description of reality you can think of may be said to be true; but the following paragraph gives this GoodGod/BadGod scenario a happy ending, as we read that Knowledge is the cure for Forgetfulness.

Back to Valentinus:]

“What exists in him is knowledge, which was revealed so that forgetfulness might be destroyed and that they might know the Father, Since forgetfulness existed because they did not know the Father, if they then come to know the Father, from that moment on forgetfulness will cease to exist.”

The next section describes Jesus as having been sent down by God to remove ignorance. Jesus was a teacher confounding the other scribes and teachers, and asserted they were foolish since they tried to understand the world by analyzing the law. But Error grew angry at this, and nailed Jesus to a cross. It also proceeds to describe how it is knowledge of the father that grants salvation, which constitutes eternal rest, describing ignorance as a nightmare.

“That is the gospel of him whom they seek, which he has revealed to the perfect through the mercies of the Father as the hidden mystery, Jesus the Christ. Through him he enlightened those who were in darkness because of forgetfulness. He enlightened them and gave them a path. And that path is the truth which he taught them.

For this reason error was angry with him, so it persecuted him. It was distressed by him, so it made him powerless. He was nailed to a cross. He became a fruit of the knowledge of the Father. He did not, however, destroy them because they ate of it. He rather caused those who ate of it to be joyful because of this discovery.”

[Sidebar: I find this paragraph amazing! It begins with the statement that “error”, (the power of Darkness personified), was angry with Him, and so persecuted Him; persecuted Him through the power of dominion over the Earth that had, for a time, been given by God to Satan. Jesus’ crucifixion is described as “a fruit of the knowledge of the Father.” Thus, is the suffering of Jesus justified in the inexorable bonds of Fate. This Knowledge, this fruit, is Knowledge not unlike the fruit that blossomed from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, but THIS time, instead of bringing down a curse,

“He rather caused those who ate of it to be joyful because of this discovery [of Knowledge].”

This shocking revelation is similar to the many shocking turns of plot in the Bhagavad Gita. It seems that religious literature thrives on paradox, little crusts of doctrine stuffed between the cracks of short parenthetical statements. Where physical reality touches eternity—there is the essence of paradox; hence, a new spirit of Mankind is born out of the suffering of a single person. Jesus’ death gives new life to an ailing world, His Ghost rises out of His body, nailed to the cross, and He thus makes us all free.]

Back to Valentinus: 

“And as for him, them he found in himself, and him they found in themselves, that illimitable, inconceivable one, that perfect Father who made the all, in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks, since he retained in himself their perfection, which he had not given to the all.”

Wikipedia provides some summary remarks:

“In this gospel we see darkness and Satan recast as 'error', which can be taken as another way of describing the same thing. It's a poetic way of presenting the data of life: the world is dark, Jesus is the light. But Jesus is also the path to the father. What the father brings, according to this gospel, is 'fullness' for the 'deficient'. But this is clearly the same thing as the 'inexpressible joy' and the peace that passes all understanding discussed in the canonical gospels. It's the place of rest. It's the Kingdom of Heaven, which followers of Jesus find, and live in, while they are still on earth.”

A key point here is:

“It's the Kingdom of Heaven, which followers of Jesus find, and live in, while they are still on earth.” 

The idea of Heaven on Earth is one we have visited many times in the past. Last week we read this from the Brons article on Valentinus:

“Valentinians describe the process of union with the divine in terms of a general eschatology that can be realized in the individual here and now. First the person spiritually ascends above the Craftsman and the lower powers to join Sophia, the Savior and their angel. Rejoicing with all of the saved, the person is joined with their angel and enters the Fullness. Such a person is "in the world but not of it." They have already attained a spiritual existence such that, for them, the world has become the Fullness.” 

There are numerous references, in scripture, to a Heaven on Earth:

1 Chronicles 29:11-12

"Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. "Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone.

Jesus’ promise of a Heaven on Earth is well documented:

 Matthew 6:9-13 Jesus taught us to pray:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

Matthew 5:16:

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” 

In Matthew 16:19 Jesus tells his disciples, 

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

• 
  
• Luke 13:29:

“People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.” 

• 
  

Luke 9:1-2: 

“1And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 

2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” 

The apostle Paul has many comfortable words on the subject:

• Colossians 3:1-7:
• “1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 
• 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
  
• John sees the ending of the old and the beginning of the new world:
• 
  

Revelation 7:13-17:

“13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” 

14 I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

15 Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 

16 ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’nor any scorching heat. 

17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’ ”

Revelation 21:4-8:

4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 

7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 

The mistake people make, when interpreting Revelation, is in thinking that these apocalyptic visions are descriptions of some tangible event, in the history of time; many of us New Agers agree that these visions are merely metaphoric expressions of the soul’s migration from one consciousness level to another. And thus it is that on visiting the Kingdom, the soul’s victory over temptation delivers the devotee to his own personal Heaven on Earth.

Joseph Campbell agrees with this:

“Our world as the center of the universe, the world divided from the heavens, the world bound by horizons in which God’s love is reserved for members of the in group: That is the world that is passing away,” said Campbell. “Apocalypse is not about a fiery Armageddon and salvation of a chosen few, but about the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end.”

William Blake gives us this assurance:

“In your own bosom you bear your heaven and earth, 

And all you behold, though it appears without, 

It is within, in your imagination, 

Of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”

From Nikos Kazantzakis we read:

“I lack nothing, I tell you!”

“Nothing?” I asked. “Not even heaven?”

He lowered his head and was silent. But after a moment:

“Heaven is too high for me. The earth is good, exceptionally good–and near me!”

“Nothing is nearer to us than heaven. The earth is beneath our feet and we tread upon it, but heaven is within us.”

Finally, I offer these remarks by Rudolf Steiner from his An Esoteric Cosmology Chapter XI: THE DEVACHANIC WORLD (HEAVEN):

“Thus man is bound up with all the kingdoms of Nature. Plato speaks of the symbol of the Cross, saying that the soul of the world is bound to the body of the world as it were upon a Cross. What is the meaning of this symbol? It is an image of the soul passing through the kingdoms of Nature.  In contrast to the human being, the plant has its root beneath and its organs of generation above, turned towards the Sun. The animal is at the intermediary stage, its organism lying, generally speaking, in the horizontal direction. Man and the plants stand vertically upright and with the animal form a Cross — the Cross of the world. In future ages there will be conscious participation on the part of man in the higher worlds after death in the work of building up the lower kingdoms of Nature. The consciousness of man will govern the circumstances whereby a new civilisation comes into being, concurrently with the appearance of a new flora. The divine mission of the Spirit is to forge the future.  A time will come when there will be no question of ‘miracle’ or chance. Flora and fauna will be a conscious expression of the transfigured soul of man. Creative works on Earth are wrought by the Devas and by man. If we build a cathedral, we are working on the mineral kingdom. The mountains, the banks of the holy Nile are the work of the Devas the temples on the banks of the Nile are the work of man. And the aim is one and the same — the transfiguration of the Earth. In future ages man will learn to mould all the kingdoms of Nature with the same consciousness with which today he can give shape to mineral substances. He will give form to living beings and take upon himself the labours of the Gods. Thus will he transform the Earth into Devachan.” This concludes this first installment from Valentinus’ The Gospel of Truth. In this sermon we have established that:  Mankind’s Fall from Grace was initiated by error—error in thinking, false thinking almost certainly inspired by Satan’s perversions of language;  Knowledge of the Logos is the key to the Kingdom of God, and Having entered into the Kingdom, Heaven is available to all on any dimension of existence. I find this doctrine to intellectual satisfying without demanding allegiance to the language in which it is expressed. Such a deal. Let us pray: Jesus inspire us to overcome our spiritual forgetfulness and see what is before us, visible by the spiritual eye. Amen.

Gospel ofTruth —II--Forgetfulness; childlike; naming

Gospel ofTruth —II

Last week we plowed into the first section of the Gospel of Truth, attributed to Valentinus, ending with numerous descriptions of a Heaven on Earth. The last section that we read was this knotty Zen puzzle:

“And as for him, them he found in himself, and him they found in themselves, that illimitable, inconceivable one, that perfect Father who made the all, in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks, since he retained in himself their perfection, which he had not given to the all.”

A wondrous concept is embedded in the descriptor: “in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks”. And it generates much food for thought, much revamping of our WASP visual image of God as a benevolent Grandfather with an unconditional forgiving kiss for all his erring children. This sentence implies that God exists inside and outside of Himself, and was Himself responsible for the flawed universe that Valentinus complained of. Remember, last week we heard Valentinus accuse God of creating evil: 

“Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, although it existed because of him.”

In other words, God created the forgetfulness which drew Sophia away from the Pleroma. With the phrase, “in whom the All is, and whom the All lacks” is summarized the Gnostic attitude toward the Father. To be sure, as a mythologem, mind you, God is still the “illimitable, inconceivable one, that perfect Father who made the all”, but, “he retained in himself their perfection, which he had not given to the all.” God has held something back for Himself, the I AM Presence has declared its sovereignty over All, including anything in the NOT ALL. Here, again, we find the portrait of an infinitely loving God face to face with an evil, self-centered, demonic God.

Let us review Wikipedia’s summary remarks on the Gospel of Truth, which try to reconcile Valentine doctrine with the doctrine of the Catholic Church, by citing parallel meanings found in the accepted gospels; equating, specifically, Valentinus’ “error”, with the canonical gospels’ “Satan”, and Valentinus’ “fullness' for the 'deficient” with the canonical gospels’ “inexpressible joy”:

“In this gospel we see darkness and Satan recast as 'error', which can be taken as another way of describing the same thing. It's a poetic way of presenting the data of life: the world is dark, Jesus is the light. But Jesus is also the path to the father. What the father brings, according to this gospel, is 'fullness' for the 'deficient'. But this is clearly the same thing as the 'inexpressible joy' and the peace that passes all understanding discussed in the canonical gospels. It's the place of rest. It's the Kingdom of Heaven, which followers of Jesus find, and live in, while they are still on earth.”

Thus, we arrive again at this phrase:

“the Kingdom of Heaven, which followers of Jesus find, and live in, while they are still on earth.”

Knowledge of the God of Light and the God of Dark, the God of existence and the God of non-existence, frees the devotee to enter the celestial realms from any dimension, including Earthly existence; knowledge, of the God of the All, allows the devotee to enter the inarticulate Cloud of Unknowing and Know All in union with the Father, while yet retaining a memory, an image, of the lower world. Moreover, knowledge of the God of Light and the the God of Dark, ensures that the devotee may live a righteous, purposeful life with one foot in Heaven and, still, one foot on Earth.

Going on with Valentinus:

“The Father was not jealous. What jealousy, indeed, is there between him and his members? For, even if the Aeon had received their perfection, they would not have been able to approach the perfection of the Father, because he retained their perfection in himself, giving it to them as a way to return to him and as a knowledge unique in perfection. He is the one who set the All in order and in whom the All existed and whom the All lacked.”

Once again, we see a God who is satisfied with His creation including its flaws, or more generally put, its deficiencies, its negative charge. I have heard it said the material world, including all of us, is God’s “play”. This idea certainly smacks of anthropomorphism, and yet the paragraph above makes it seem almost as though God’s creation is a little game He plays with Himself; He takes away knowledge of the Pleroma with a cosmic forgetfulness, and then leads the way back to Himself, somehow made more perfect through the disciplines of mundane existence.

Going on:

“As one of whom some have no knowledge, he desires that they know him and that they love him. For what is it that the All lacked, if not the knowledge of the Father?”

Note the phrase, “he desires that they know him”; such is God’s game: He creates All, inflicts forgetfulness on It, and then He DESIRES its return unto Himself; thus, in the last analysis, the devotee’s motivation to acquire knowledge, gnosis, is Love of Self; it is Self-Love that generates the DESIRE in God the reclaim His lost Selves. God hides Himself from the insensitive, but for the initiates He manifests His Cosmic Personality through every sign and wonder emanating from the material world. God loves the world as He loves Himself; and, even in disguise, His Presence can be felt. This sentence makes me realize how every minute of my life is filled with Love, the connectedness of Love, the artifacts of Love. I don’t think Love motivated the creation of Man, but Love pervades every molecule of my existence, pulling me back to the Source. Are we really little cosmic yo-yos, endlessly going up and down the heavenly stairs, or is there a point of stillness where all activities cease, and peace reigns over the waters? Who can know?

Going on, we encounter a change in narrative direction; we have turned from a discussion of the Father to what can only be understood as a discussion of the Son; in fact, the paragraph almost seems to refer to the episode in Jesus life when He, a 12-year-old boy, instructed the doctors in the synagogue:

“He became a guide, quiet and in leisure. In the middle of a school he came and spoke the Word, as a teacher. Those who were wise in their own estimation came to put him to the test. But he discredited them as empty-headed people. They hated him because they really were not wise men.” 

This doesn’t necessarily have to refer to the 12-year-old episode, because Jesus had this negative reaction to His teaching often enough, during His career spent trying to change the world’s mind. Sometimes, because we esteem Jesus so highly, we kid ourselves into thinking that Jesus was universally hailed as a hero and a saint, that Jesus’ enemies were an exception not the rule; but there was probably more negativity attached to His reputation among His contemporaries than we think. It is interesting that Christianity took hold in the hearts of the common man—the experts rejected Him. It just goes to show that power over others corrupts itself, and moral acts performed on the basis of Law are dangerously infected with Evil Intent. A doctrine based on the Law has no heart. On the other hand, Jesus’ Doctrine contained, among so many other things, the seeds of democracy: the seeds of a universal equality among Men—a new idea that could, only after ages of evolution, flower into a kind of freedom, a freedom inexorably driving toward a Heaven on Earth.

We will recall Jesus’ declaration that Heaven is only available to a child-like heart. Perhaps this is why it was easier for the uneducated (child-minded) peasant folk to resonate with Jesus’ message, than it was for the San Hedron to abandon their Law. Here, Valentinus refers to the child-like knowledge of children—innocent but knowing, intimate with the inarticulate truth:

“After all these came also the little children, those who possess the knowledge of the Father. When they became strong they were taught the aspects of the Father's face. They came to know and they were known. They were glorified and they gave glory. In their heart, the living book of the Living was manifest, the book which was written in the thought and in the mind of the Father and, from before the foundation of the All, is in that incomprehensible part of him.”

This paragraph is so rich in meaning I don’t know where to start. It begins by reminding us that, to acquire knowledge of the Father, Child-like innocence is necessary as a starting point; but it goes on to say that spiritual progress is made through the acquisition of deeper knowledge. “When they became strong they were taught the aspects of the Father's face. They came to know and they were known.” This sentence reiterates the suggestion, I have made several times, that spiritual progress is made in the physical; the energy of motion, of time, has a mysterious effect on the spirit, and growth acquired in the physical translate to growth in the celestial. 

I was pondering the question of why innocence is required of the initiates, when it occurred to me that this is not an unheard-of concept in my field, music teaching. For instance, it is customary for new music students to relearn their technique, because teachers prefer to build a student from the ground up—preconceived ideas will often come between the student and the new concepts he has come to the new teacher to learn. 

I had a friend who won a prestigious performance competition on the cello; her reward was to get to play the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the New York Philharmonic, and to get free lessons for the summer with a famous French cellist. So she played what is arguably the hardest cello concerto in the literature with one of the world’s great orchestras, and then she went to this teacher who wouldn’t let her play anything but open strings for a month! She had to relearn her bow technique from the ground up; that is to say, she had to UNLEARN a lot of bad habits. We have bad mental habits too, and we must unlearn them in order to experience the virgin birth in the Kingdom of the Father. That does’t mean we have to STAY childlike—we just need to be childlike enough to start over; then the work begins. 

Once again we return to the issue of language. Remember that our thoughts are made out of words, and that misdirection of semantic meaning is one of Satan’s favorite tricks. Therefore, the more a verbalized doctrine dominates a person’s thinking, the harder it for him to tear all those verbal structures apart and start over; also, the easier it is for Satan to feed us false thoughts. 

Notice that the passage ends with:

“They came to know and they were known. They were glorified and they gave glory. In their heart, the living book of the Living was manifest, the book which was written in the thought and in the mind of the Father and, from before the foundation of the All, is in that incomprehensible part of him.”

So, the innocent mind state, you might say the “tabula rasa”, offers a perch for the new knowledge of the Father to take hold and grow into an expanded awareness of the Father. But the devotee does not acquire this knowledge by sustaining the ignorance of childhood—he comes to know, he becomes KNOWN, he gets himself NAMED, and, once his name is inscribed in the Book, he joins the Father in the incomprehensible realm of the Cloud of Unknowing.

Then there is the “Praise” factor: 

“They were glorified and they gave glory. In their heart, the living book of the Living was manifest, the book which was written in the thought and in the mind of the Father,”

It seems the drive to “manifest” is essential to our spiritual structure; the desire to bring spiritual knowledge into physical reality motivates our every mundane act. In fact, the manifestation of spiritual reality may be properly thought of as “Praise”. Therefore, every note of music we hear, every word we read, every image we project onto the screen of visual sensation, is Praise. And Praise is a direct manifestation of the Face of the Father. Thus, every physicalization of an inner reality, any idea, any image, any project, MUST be thought of as Praise, and therefore, sacred.

Now what about this section?

“In their heart, the living book of the Living was manifest, the book which was written in the thought and in the mind of the Father and, from before the foundation of the All, is in that incomprehensible part of him.”

For me, the key to this passage is the idea that the “book”—by this we can safely assume is meant the “akashic record”— the “book” “is in that incomprehensible part of him.” The book cannot be written and cannot be understood, and yet it is written on the heart; it LIVES in the heart. This sounds like the Cloud of Unknowing to me.

I will now quote a lengthy section without interruption. It is all about Jesus’ teaching, the mystery of His purpose on Earth, and His ultimate demise on the cross. It opens with the statement that the truth of the “Book” was reserved for the Christ (the anointed one) alone, perhaps because He is the only One Who could understand it:

“This is the book which no one found possible to take, since it was reserved for him who will take it and be slain. No one was able to be manifest from those who believed in salvation as long as that book had not appeared. For this reason, the compassionate, faithful Jesus was patient in his sufferings until he took that book, since he knew that his death meant life for many. Just as in the case of a will which has not yet been opened, for the fortune of the deceased master of the house is hidden, so also in the case of the All which had been hidden as long as the Father of the All was invisible and unique in himself, in whom every space has its source.

For this reason Jesus appeared. He took that book as his own. He was nailed to a cross. He affixed the edict of the Father to the cross. Oh, such great teaching! He abases himself even unto death, though he is clothed in eternal life. Having divested himself of these perishable rags, he clothed himself in incorruptibility, which no one could possibly take from him. Having entered into the empty territory of fears, he passed before those who were stripped by forgetfulness, being both knowledge and perfection, proclaiming the things that are in the heart of the Father, so that he became the wisdom of those who have received instruction.”

It is the intercourse of temporal and eternal values in this paragraph that make it so mind-bending; man’s mind, however fervently it seeks clear-cut answers to cosmic questions, seems doomed forever to receive paradox instead of verbal reassurance. Indeed it is the ability to see two things at once that enables higher spiritual sensitivities to emerge.

There are so many beautiful, heroic expressions in this paragraph:

“Oh, such great teaching! He abases himself even unto death, though he is clothed in eternal life.”

This paragraph identifies the sacrifice of Jesus as a LESSON; by example, Jesus shows us the impotence of death, as well as the possibility of an Earthly life suffused with heavenly light. The drama of it excels all possible fiction, the flamboyance of it takes my breath away. Jesus knows no shame, for His knowledge of the Father repels all attacks on his ego; Jesus has no false ego structures, like the ones we languish under, because He is all-knowing and never falls for Satan’s sleight-of-hand. The armor of God has nary a chink, nary a scratch; it keeps out Evil and holds in the Good. Likewise must we be shameless, even in the shadow of Original Sin, because the gnostic experience cancels all Karmic debts, and frees us to explore ever-higher spiritual frontiers.

I want to emphasize this last point:

“he passed before those who were stripped by forgetfulness, being both knowledge and perfection, proclaiming the things that are in the heart of the Father, so that he became the wisdom of those who have received instruction.”

The heart of the Father became wisdom. The HEART of the Father. How are we to be instructed by the Father. I’m glad you asked:

“But those who are to be taught, the living who are inscribed in the book of the living, learn for themselves, receiving instructions from the Father, turning to him again.”

Well, so much for that question—we learn for ourselves, receiving instruction from the Father. This instruction must be of a type that cannot be written. One time at an interview for a church choir job, an earnest young assistant pastor asked me, in close, inquisitorial tones, “Who do you think Christ is?” Well the question pissed me off right away, because the term Christ is a TITLE not a name—if he had asked me who I thought the Christ was, or who I thought Jesus Christ was, I would have liked it better. Still, unperturbed, I gave the answer that I couldn’t say, that was a very personal thing, my relationship with Jesus is very private, and also inexpressible. Anybody who can describe a spiritual experience has not had one. My answer was not in this guy’s playbook. I did not get the job.

Going on, the soul’s aspiration to ASCEND to the Father is supported by the magnetism of the Father drawing the soul back to Himself:

“Since the perfection of the All is in the Father, it is necessary for the All to ascend to him. Therefore, if one has knowledge, he gets what belongs to him and draws it to himself. For he who is ignorant, is deficient, and it is a great deficiency, since he lacks that which will make him perfect. Since the perfection of the All is in the Father, it is necessary for the All to ascend to him and for each one to get the things which are his.”

The sentence, “it is necessary for the All to ascend to him and for each one to get the things which are his”, refers to things which are already his. What are these things? Clearly they are the self in God which has been forgotten. The devotee’s ascent to God is an ascent unto himself—the self he has always known but has temporarily forgotten.

Here, I will read another long quote without interruption. This is a very powerful section and speaks for itself with the tongues of angels.

“He registered them first, having prepared them to be given to those who came from him. Those whose name he knew first were called last, so that the one who has knowledge is he whose name the Father has pronounced. For he whose name has not been spoken is ignorant. Indeed, how shall one hear if his name has not been uttered? For he who remains ignorant until the end is a creature of forgetfulness and will perish with it.

If this is not so, why have these wretches no name, why do they have no sound? Hence, if one has knowledge, he is from above. If he is called, he hears, he replies, and he turns toward him who called him and he ascends to him and he knows what he is called. Since he has knowledge, he does the will of him who called him. He desires to please him and he finds rest. He receives a certain name. He who thus is going to have knowledge knows whence he came and whither he is going. He knows it as a person who, having become intoxicated, has turned from his drunkenness and having come to himself, has restored what is his own.”

It’s no wonder that this material was rejected by the Nicean Council—it is jammed full of mysticism: calls from invisible voices, astral communication with spirits (probably angels), merging of wills, turning from drunkenness into what is his own. Claiming a cosmic birthright doesn’t quite jive with the Catholic emphasis on guilt and spiritual sobriety.

I want to emphasize the sentence: 

“If he is called, he hears, he replies, and he turns toward him who called him and he ascends to him and he knows what he is called.” 

These words so are full of comfort and hope. I particularly like the phrase “and he ascends to him”. There is such an interplay pf magnetism and intention here. There is actually a little story here, told in steps, one stage to the next: 

“God calls the forgetful devotee, whose face is turned away, the devotee turns toward God, and God’s magnetism (His Love) pulls the devotee ever closer the Source.” 

It is the ASCENT that brings Heaven to earth—in other words, Heaven does not come down, we go up to meet it. Remember the passage from last week’s sermon:

“The apostle Paul has many comfortable words on the subject:

• Colossians 3:1-7:
• “1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 
• 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
  
• I really hate to admit it, but sometimes Paul hits the nail on the head! The secret to creating a heaven on Earth is to simply will it, and there it will be: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”. This advice is based on the proposition that where your mind goes, your body follow. Heaven on Earth is a tangible reality for me—I reach with my imaginative self into a place beyond where I can see, and there is Heaven vibrating with colors and sounds unheard in the physical dimension. It falls over me like a blanket, and my cosmic memory suggests traces of ancient doings, times out of memory.”

In conclusion, let me reprise some of today’s discussion: today we have contemplated unusual perspectives on the Father, and considered the purposefulness of physical incarnation. For me, the operative word in this section is, above all, “ASCENT”. Religious texts are usually scantily supplied with actual play-by-play descriptions of the interplay between spirit and flesh, but this section describes the process of communication with heavenly intelligence. They are simple, vague instructions, to be sure, but there is still a very recognizable series of steps, that the initiate will already understand and the novice may soon discover by opening his attention to an abstract realm above and beyond his limited mundane ego structure. Here they are again:

1. If he is called, he hears, he replies, and he turns toward him who called him and,

2. he ascends to him and he knows what he is called. 

3. Since he has knowledge, he does the will of him who called him. He desires to please him and he finds rest. 

4. He receives a certain name. 

Oh to hear one’s name in the BOOK. What glory!. What a relief!

Let us pray:

Jesus, the majesty of your overwhelming personality leaves us speechless; and perhaps that is a good thing. Amen.