Making a Place for the Light of Gnosis

The world needs my cooperation. I suppose it needs all of our cooperation too. In economics class we learn that human desire is practically endless and therefore scarcity exists. Like a PEZ candy dispenser, once one attraction or aversion is satiated, the next one is there waiting for our attention. Economic efficiency means 'more and faster'. This is the reality of the world. This is my reality, at least mostly.

I don't think desire is bad, not real desire. But often what passes for desire is merely lifeless diversions or things of a habitual nature - a reflection of things once full of life that have now become encrusted and locked into place.

I've also wondered at the question of 'justification' and what that means. What, in terms of the every day choices we make can be justified? Should everything be justified? To what degree does the need to justify favor this zombie encrustation process.

There is something in me that is eternally justifying, evaluating, calculating, protecting and holding on to. I suppose that's just the way things work but sometimes in seeing this, I recognize the sterility and pointlessness of it as well. The whole thing is a lifeless treadmill going nowhere fast.

I don't think there's anything wrong with making it in the world, but if all of my actions are 100% driven by this way of seeing things, where is there room for anything else?

Is there anything else? It seems so to me. In quite moments between the waking world and the world of dreams there is a something else. And I pursue this something else into my waking moments. I want to capture it in unsuspecting moments. I want to work with it in the way I do things too.

To me this 'something' turns the whole striving mess on it's head. Scarcity has nothing to do with it.

At this time of year as Gnostics, we celebrate the coming of the light into the world. During Advent, we waited in quiet anticipation for its arrival. During this time of Christmas we recognize its humble birth and incarnation into the world.

I imagine the world, if it could even perceive it, would see this new life as an alien intruder perhaps or even be threatened. Harod comes to mind.

What I've been slowly realizing again and again is that in my life and the decisions I make, there are no guarantees. I have to work to make space for this light. It doesn't happen by itself as far as I can tell. Like an infant, it must be protected and nurtured.

How to protect and nurture the child, I have no idea but I know making space in meditation and paying attention to dreams and fellow travelers is allowing a feedback process to happen. But I have to give it priority and make space. That's not easy.

The difficulty is that in terms that the world or system understands, all of this is unjustifiable. The infant remains unjustified because the child is non-rational. I suspect that all of us who to any degree are doing this are running against the grain of things and what do we have to say for ourselves?

As for me, I need to learn to drop the need to rationalize everything. That is likely my biggest bane and it's very tiresome. Some things just are and the best things are non-rational from poetry to jazz music to kissing to general silliness. I know this and yet...

Protecting this light against all odds is what matters most. Every time I falter I must get up and keep going. There is no other way that I'm aware of.

There is a passage in Jung's Memories, Dreams and Reflections which speaks to this I think. It was a time when he was just coming to an understanding of two sides to himself.

About this time I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment. Everything depended on my keeping this little light alive. Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me. But at the same moment I was conscious, in spite of my terror, that I must keep my little light going through night and wind, regardless of all dangers. When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was a "specter of the Brocken," my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying. I knew, too, that this little light was my consciousness, the only light I have. My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light.

Is Suffering Justified?

The title of this blog is a question posed by Father Scott Rassbach+ at the Spiral Inward forum. I had been thinking about this question quite a bit since he posted it and finally got around to posting a reply. I thought it would be good to put here on my blog as well. Many people have posted to the question so far.

******

There's a lot to think about here. First do the words go together? The word justification implies an intent or will is present as distinct from something outside the realm of conscious influence such as a tsunami.

At first it seems to me that suffering arises out of both realms, that which we could have done something about and that which is outside our control. Is that which arises outside our realm of influence suffering or merely pain? I would call someone dying a slow horrible death from an illness to be suffering. The word 'justification' doesn't seem to apply here because it is outside the realm of intent.

Yet there still seems to me to be a difference between the word 'suffering' and mere pain. One is transient while the other is not.

I think there is a metaphysical suffering from an experienced sense of separation. I think this is the type of suffering that is in question.

This suffering rests in a deeper place and endures while unconsciously influencing outlook and perception. It results in an ambient tinting of reality which often perpetuates itself because when one acts from a place of suffering there often is no clarity. Without clarity one can bumble along too and fro in a kind of feedback loop haze which amplifies and feeds itself.

I think this process is associated with the Wheel of fortune tarot card.

It's through spiritual practices of one kind or another that suffering is brought to the surface to where it is directly felt or seen. Sometimes a caring person who can see the suffering in another may point them to their own suffering as well. In buddhism I think this kind of action is referred to as “skillful means”  but am not sure about that. I think there is a corollary in Gnosticism but don't know if it has a name either. It may be experienced that the practice of meditation, magic or whatever is what brings about suffering.

And then at this point it may be asked “Is suffering justified?”. But in this case the suffering was already there and merely brought to the surface. When this happens it is experienced as pain and there is an opportunity for healing to happen if one doesn't try to bury it again where it remains as suffering.

There is a verse in “The hymn of Jesus” that speaks to this:
“If thou hadst known how to suffer, Thou wouldst have power not to suffer.
Know then how to suffer, and thou hast power not to suffer.”

It has been my experience so far that the suffering is removed or healed in bits and pieces rather than as a big chunk.

The question still remains, was and is all that suffering justified? Was it necessary in any way?

I don't understand why suffering exists in the first place but only that it does. So I don't understand the answer to the question but hope to have more insight into it.

I suspect at one level it wasn't meant to be but because of our stupor or sense of disconnection from the Pleroma or the All we err and let suffering happen where it doesn't need to. For the most part if not the whole part it is through us that suffering happens. I'm not talking about pain which comes and goes but suffering. It is pain that is in the nature of things but suffering doesn't need to be.

I don't believe in running away from it or escaping it but facing it the best we can because that is where our humanity lies. I think real human warmth and love lie where the suffering is, not somewhere else. I read somewhere that there are two sides of the equation that are a part of reality. There is pain in creation but also love. Pain is okay because it is part of the whole but without love it turns ugly and becomes suffering.

So it might sound a little corny, but perhaps we are meant to wake up to love so that suffering can be healed. A real love that was never not there because it was always the case.

I agree with Sr. Shilo that it is for us not God or rather God manifesting as our actions that love can happen in the world and suffering can be mitigated. I like what Father Stratford+ said about the demi-urge being a construct or fabrication. When we evade our part of the responsibility for the way things are we often project it on the other. The demi-urge is a perfect projection canvas.

Holy Archangel Uriel

"And Uriel said to me: 'Here shall stand the angels who have connected themselves with women, and their spirits assuming many different forms are defiling mankind and shall lead them astray into sacrificing to demons 'as gods', (here shall they stand,) till 'the day of' the great judgment in which they shall be judged till they are made an end of. And the women also of the angels who went astray shall become sirens.' And I, Enoch alone, saw the vision, the ends of all things; and no man shall see as I have seen." ~Book of Enoch

Currently I'm trying to understand Uriel. It seems now to me that Uriel sheds light on where energy is being given to the creative act in conjunction with lower powers. Where the act of invisible seduction is happening by the powers of fate.

Perhaps personally Uriel can show us where we're giving too much energy to the false gods of this world or the system.

"We Dance"

When Joseph Campbell was in Japan for a conference on religion, he overheard an American delegate say to a Shinto priest, “We’ve been now to a number of ceremonies and seen many of your shrines. But I don’t get your ideology.  I don’t get your theology.”

            The Shinto priest paused as if in deep thought, and then slowly shook his head.  “I don’t think we have an ideology.  I don’t think we have a theology.  We dance.”

~From The Power of Myth series

Valentine for Denise

Your dark eyes

the curves that grace your face

There is something about your presence

When I'm with you I know I'm home

where I've always belonged

This moment

This time

with you

A universe in a grain of sand

that is our life together

This one life

me, you and our children too

All eternity held in this moment
this one life we have together

I love you my darling Denise
I've always loved you
and all my longings are resolved in you

Happy Valentines my dear Denise

What is this longing?

What is this longing that hurts this way?

How can such sweetness make me undone?

I don't want anything else

only to be here with you.

To cry a thousand tears

a thousand years.

I don't want anything else.

Just this moment

just this one time with you.