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May 17, 2008

Um,No, that world is not an Illusion. No,sorry,nor is matter.

The concrete world, far from being illusionary, is quite immediate,
relevant and approached by the capacities which exist within the soul.
The soul cannot afford to be passive because the world is participatory
in its essence and emerges out from it; darkness repress and separates it
from its light, conforming it into its own - this darkness, while emerging
out of forgetfulness is nevertheless part of the evil which is real.

The world, material conditions, the lower soul, the counterfeit spirit
and evil - while we may find ourselves to exist in a twilight between them and
the Pleroma - has such claim upon us that it is nonsense to speak of any kind of illusion.


An illusion is some phenomenon which briefly, or in a period of extension, appears

to be real, to be "solid" - in terms of the language applied by our positivistic empiricism inherited from the thinkers of the age of enlightenment and their successors in philosophy - but which, and this is important, reveal themselves to be unreal, to be a fabrication forged by the senses, by faulty interpretation of such, or as a cluster of beliefs which in a brief period of disorientation manifests itself as immediate, solid and verified by perception. "Illusion" as a figure of speech isn't even a valid argument for or against any phenomenon, deattached from perception and the interpretation of perception.
It is impossible for you to sit down in your chair, turn your computer on, log onto the internet and open this blog, and read these words - without this sequence of events, and your interaction with certain apparatus - apart from the world of matter.

This is observed also by the Gospel of Phillip, which argues that the resurrection will occur to a body, and this body is also matter :

But tell me what will rise, that we may honor you. You say the Spirit in the flesh, and it is also this light in the flesh. (But) this too is a matter which is in the flesh, for whatever you shall say, you say nothing outside the flesh.

So this flesh goes to destruction with all things that go to destruction - what rises out of the earth, given time, will return to it. In the meantime, as I addressed earlier, the Soul embodied continues to be sacrifice on the part of all incarnate life. There will be comprehension, there will be understanding,there will be wisdom, there will be knowledge - and there will be Gnosis - in the body, in the flesh, with you now, that you are living -
but the body goes to back to its own, leaving behind comprehension, leaving behind consciousness, leaving behind the mystery of breath. So it is true, the concrete, physical
world, with all its matter, with all its limitations, with all suffering - all unions and all separations - will not last, it is not eternal. But it is not an illusion, in any capacity.

About the proper attitude towards matter, the Gospel of Philip says "Do not love it, and do not fear it" - either way it detains you and substract from you what is
needed elsewhere, by way of emotion and disposition. This dispassion with
regards to it is made possible by not being centered within a conscious
center within us whose balance is towards "flesh" and "appearance"(untruth), it might be pertinent to speak of it as the body insofar as the manifest body is a form with which we are accustomed to. If we are too disposed towards the physiology and anatomy of ourselves and others, to the degree it overshadows all else, we grow morbid -while we
loose ourselves in these things - sensually, intellectually, creatively -
notion does not escape us that this appreciation itself does not repair
its condition, which is dwindling.


The Gospel of Thomas has Jesus diagnose the "rude awakening" of one which formerly thought to know and possess the body; "when you have found the body, you have discovered a corpse".
I do not mean with this that the Gnostic dualism has to do with body vs.
spirit, for there is a tripartition of man`s priority or
consciousness-of-self within most Gnoses within the Gnostic tradition, and
the three can never achieve status as dual or duality - also a tripartite
nature of the human being - his creation or coming into this particular form
you and I have - speaking of all qualities within the former three; has
also three stadiums and natures - the dualism of Gnosticism is Spiritual:
There is Pleroma and Kenoma; Fullness and Emptiness, there is Light and
Dark which are directly relating to the acquisition of Gnosis - moreover,
and this anchors the Initiatory, progressive, calculated approach of the
Gnostic Systems; wherein the Myth of Descent and Ascent, Fall and
Redemption, Forgetting and Remembering, Exile and Return plays a
significant part - namely the divide which exist between Spirit and
Counterfeit Spirit.

In the progression of the Gnostic Myth, Sophia produces an unequated reflection upon herself apart from the wholeness - while man is disposed to do so from the
beginning of his life on earth, enforced and encouraged by wellmeaning
mediators and tutors, by parental upbringing to education and religious
instruction - this also occurs in his soul. As such, he receives that
which is excreted out of Sophia, a particular portion of the Demiurge
containing his essence, and becomes its container, for most, for the
duration of his life.. whereupon the lion briefly roars and instills fear
in the souls of this aeon, only to again be brought down into this abyss
of purificatory preparations of Man interior.


In one liturgy we are informed Sophia bears twins, this becomes a subject
for both the Zervanite story of the younger and elder son, wherein the
younger coming to realization that his destination is subservience, breaks
through the womb before his brother and waits there to strangle him at his
arrival - and the medieval Cathar story of the sons Jesus and Satanael,
born to the unknown Dyadic "Father".

The Myth speaks to no-one else but the soul, that means, not the soul in
general, but yours and mine. If we are fulfilled in a greatly focused and
discerning consciousness coupled with all-embracing compassion for all
life, and particular that of our fellows who suffers the same from the day
they enter into the world, we may, through this really extraordinary,
almost unique ,.disposition, make do without it or similar reminders. But
the world is full of effective and ineffective, true and counterfeit
"myths" addressing souls in this capacity, and Tradition more often than
not are anchored with it, but often, so deep no "traditionalist" is aware
of it and cultures are bereaved of its benefits.

Christ is called, in some Christian traditions, "Second Creation" or even "Second
Nature" - it is Christ, in the selfsame, who collects and brings
together - the "Christian" himself/herself becomes the embodiment of this Second Creation and receives it; in one capacity as Adam, meaning the virgin "earth" which
receives it (whose symbol the Cross and essence the Ashes, are drawn upon
many brows on this day without any realization of this) - another
capacity, active, as Sophia, who in iconography is the "pregnant Madonna"
bearing within her the complete Christ (here pious Christian Ikons
actually depict a Docetic Christ who arrives completely formed and
transfigured out of Mary, but in a manner of revelation rather than
fleshly form) encircled by a Vesica Piscis, a Mandorla, a "womb of light".

While Catholics, ironically the most bitter polemists against Gnosticism,
Modern and Ancient, today - thinks that the Gnostics lived in fear of the
flesh and matter, thinking it to be the essence of evil contradistinct to
an entirely divorced reality of spirit; they still look toward the
Nativity on December the 25th as an answer to the fall of man into a
predicament which equals the fragility, vulnerability and nakedness of all
flesh, and simultaneously offers thought to the "forebears" earthly Adam and
earthly Eve, and essentially all mortal men and women proceeding from them
by the generations -and their fall into this condition which is what has
been diagnosized as the same by their "rivals and enemies" the Gnostics;
they still apply words pointing hope in the direction of a reintegration
into the Kingdom of God, following the ascent of Christ, in Christ and
through Christ, as well as a contemplation on the tomb of a man who was
born in the sight of other mortals, "laying with him in his tomb, entering
our death through his". All that is lacking is an appreciation that the
finitude of "creation" is a beguiling lie, and the architects of the
notions have for all too long forget the reasoning behind their craft - to
glorify the temporal as eternal. I.e. Idolatry.

If we possess a notion of Idolatry - the notion of a representation,
wrought by human hands, receiving the glory and worship True divinity,
True deity deserves; we acknowledge the Duality of types, and the
possibility of having a relationship towards true, revealed Reality
contra distinct to the false and contrived appearance of Reality.

There is no both and same in Gnosticism; at best we may be reminded of
existing things by inspecting what is "before our eyes", as the Gospel of
Thomas reminds us ; if we "cleave the wood, lift the stone" - we will see
what is hidden within_and hidden beneath; but this requires a certain
type of seeing, which only one certain type of eye might see.
This requires something else than passive certainity.


Before anything can be received into me, I must make sure I am the
space which receives it; it demands an emptying, and a complete
disrobing. In the same way, the verified authenticity of any world,
any being, any thing - depends on there first being a verified authentic
self. If there is any doubt, we must go where it leads, and open up
that about which there is any doubt. In the case of our self, we need
to be able to empty ourselves completely of everything preconceived,
everything that has accumulated without consent, without knowledge -
of that which we know is whole.



Posted by terje at 11:59 PM |

May 02, 2008

Know - Be - Do

Point of departure from consciousness to consciousness
From an Hierarchial, on a Vertical level
to an Open structure (the "Circle"/Circumference) , on a Horisontal level



The Angel communciates with the Angel
The Man communicates with another
The Soul exists as much between us as in us - its
sign of vitality and life is movement between states;
there is a way from a confined way of cyclic movement, to
a free, inclusive and expansive way of cyclic movement.


The reality of the Aeon is a living revelation - from a singular, solitary
and temporary visitation towards a true reflection of the Pleroma itself.



Our proliferation begins with steadfast dedictation - a living "sacrifice"
- not of integrity, but of whatever is detained by our sitation in this world
, it continues with a persisting devotion towards the work itself, a thankfulness - this thankfulness can be shared with others without a word being uttered, without a jot of
explanation - a thanksgiving shared between two - spread out.



This action creates a new ground for our relationship with others

thus having sucessfully overcome the condition, the predicament - the strategies in the mind which resists and reproaches intimacy at this level; our stay - our resolve - our emphatic participation - becomes exemplary as well as mediatory;if we decrease the distance between each other (I mean every one of "us" - that is
humanity, expand it beyond humanity as far as you wish and can, but this is the important thing) in value , in judgement, in celebration (we constantly celebrate the fact of our friendships, our intimacies, our relationships, our "affiliation"- with our closest friends and this is to some degree the substance of our friendships,intimacies and relationships; even if we must fight battles, climb mountains, overcome terrible trials, and suffer the most cruel persecution - all in ourselves; because of our selves - or in spite of it) - we begin to function in this capacity, and this capacity is a mighty and wondrous thing with human beings; for which reason we have survived to this day.

When we forget to remember not to forget - the essential thing - which is to hold, to reside in, to take "shelter" in the True - not as an abstraction, but as the experienced reality, which informs anything lasting, anything valued, anything worth our bother in this world - we loose our self, and when we loose this self, we loose another; we are enstranged because we are enstranged to ourselves.

The first portal to the City of Seven Portals is the answer to the question;WHO AM I? - the further we are from our selves, the more we have forgotten of all that we have received already - the more complex, neurotic and compromised is the path back to the starting point; all the while this is the remembrance of the most basic of all our conscious actions ("thoughts") - the Silence.

When we loose hold of this knowledge, we loose hold of any consciousness, any awareness concerning that which we do, that which we know, that which our senses bring back to us, that which is subjected to us through the body - that which we are.
KNOW -

BE -

DO.

Posted by terje at 11:36 PM |

The Embodiment of the Soul is a continual Sacrifice



I.

Whenever a Chalice is lifted,
and a Bread broken, in the memory of Christ
and according to the type of the Logos,

the chains of the authorities are broken,
the portals to Hades burst open, and all
the dead arisen and put in the presence of
Almighty God.


Whenever a Soul enter the world, Light and Life
enters with Her. Whenever a Soul departs from
this World, the Light and Life restores itself,
its semblances, its forms and all of its offspring,
who had fallen beforehand, to its own.


  • We hear the words spoken in the Gospel of John, receiving these words
    in the respect and perspective that we as modern individuals can afford them.
    We hear spoken of, through these words, the Word, out of which the all arrives
    , take shape and enter into life all around us. Inspecting Space, afforded a new
    perspective through the uncommitted stance of our witness, we discovered that

    nowhere is the place where this Life and this Light is received in this universe.
    Although it is from the Word, Logos, that they have their existence and continuity,
    the All does not recognize its own root, its own foundation.
    Therefore it is us that hears these words, therefore it is to us that they are spoken.
    Inspecting Time, afforded a new perspective through the committed stance of our
    witness – we discovered that there are myriads of generations spoken to; we
    are bidden to acknowledge the great descent of messengers, prophets and sages
    throughout the entire expanse of the generations; each of whom may have spoken
    and each of which might have received the words spoken thusly. But it is to us
    that it is given a new foundation, a new root, and a new structure of consciousness
    through the anointed Logos, who came amongst us, entered into our birth, in
    its Life and its Light, and who enter our death – and thusly becomes, verily,
    as foreshadowed in our reception, our assimilation, our appropriation and our
    living the Light-Life of Christ, our Resurrection.



II.



O Soul, while you are in the midst of this life,
do not be hesitate to seek access to your
redemption - with which word I intend to
speak of The Resurrection.
The words spoken through the body of
generations address it as the Cross.
They raise their eyes up to the Cross,
and fixed to its crossbeam, its centre,
they see a light that endures all of history,
this they call Salvation.

Ask to what does all that lives in you goes,
Ask to what death all that dies through you go.
Ask what is returned to the Eternal, the Good,
Truth herself and Being, through you, O Soul.

- Concerning this Cross, it is where the dying of the world meets the resurrection to the real.
The sacredness of the treasures of the Holy of Holies is not that of a refined and super-essential
metal, but that of a light that descends upon it.
This light is essentially different from all light in the world outside of the Temple; It is
prefigured and accentuated through all the spaces of the Temple, in each of the Holies,
in the antechamber and in the courtyard in front of the Temple proper. Wherefore not a jot
nor a fragment of that which is made holy by its participation in light within the Temple might ever be desecrated,
decreased or destroyed; for each exists truly in its participation in the sacrosanct
light, while none of them exists outside of this light. The Temple itself is rubble, ruin and deprecit
- it's architectural, ritual and ceremonial beauty, its glory and its function of transfiguring the senses,
the mind and the bodies of whichever soul sees,approaches or touches – remains transcendent, unapproachable,
unsullied and intangible with anything worldly.
Wherefore, I speak of a specific Cross which elevates, rather than sinks into the ground,
whose verticality can only be compared to the verticality of super-essential,divine Light itself.
Which is to say, its descent is the decent into the proximity of The Soul; it goes nowhere else,
for nowhere else is established on account of receiving it.
Contrast against that image the horizontality of history; We learn at an increasing rate from the studies made of the past
that the Idea of the Sacred and Divine, of God, itself cannot be restored from History, rather that which exists of religious
ideas exists in tandem, but also independently, of the progression of events which make up recorded History,and which
bolster our "historical identification". Wherever there is a dissolving of the ties with the historical in human consciousness,
individual or in a more collective capacity,wherever the fixtures of Tradition itself is shaken to its very foundation -
what arise is not new news as such, but an acute, immediate yet pre-historical identification
with the Sacred as primary rather than secondary capacity in the experiential, creative and imaginative life of our civilizations.

The Soul persists longer than the idea of God.
There is always someone left who could cry out at the sight of the vacated,desecrated and destroyed sanctuary ; "Woe is unto us",
Always a widow, or a mother lamenting at the unmarked grave of some Prophet or friend of God. Always a generation that asks questions whose
answers have become a crime to give, always some mind which dreams the ancients alive again. This will not die.
It will, however, in the course of its living moment, be fixed to the world; lifted up on the crossbeam of existence and bidden to
contemplate its living and dying. This befalls the Soul. This also befalls its relationship with God. If this does not happen to its relationship
with God, with Divine Reality, it is no relationship at all. What it beheld when it was first spoken of, what it sees when it addresses it outwardly,
and what it goes to meet at the threshold of this life will be the selfsame abstraction, a spectre that is not quite dead because it was never quite alive.

That is not to say that The Soul does not go to dissolution with the contents it carries,but in a world
dominated by the Soul and fed as if by a fuel the tension in the Soul between incarnative and de-incarnative movement; descent and ascent,
materialization and spiritualization - the idea of God, the perception of a centre, the dissolution of local contextuality (in the immanent/incarnate "God"
theologies and theogonies) - fluctuates with the Soul's movement.




III.

Pain sits in the Soul,

the Soul rests in Life,

Life dwells in the Body.



- Wherefore you must look for the Son of Man in Man, through the eyes of spirit
rather than the eyes of flesh. This indwelling of Life in the Body
consists in the animation of dead tissue.The Body is on its own already a corpse at birth but through this extended existence it develops and express diverse forms, even beautifully –
despite its condition, rather than because of it.

The Soul's experience of the Body depends on the continual Sacrifice in the Mind and Senses of power and consciousness.

This progression through forms, which through the mind assumes kinds and varieties - is what Nature is.

Such a paradox, that Reason in order to be understood, takes upon itself the flesh, elevate it to a world,
situates the centre of consciousness within it; filling it up completely with Wisdom. Drunk from Reason, Drunk with Wisdom,
the Soul sees itself scattered, torn, spread out thin - into a world which does not receive it, which resists, which rejects, which blasphemes
against it; a world full of rulers that demand justice and tribute for a theft of power and light which never belonged to them, a power and
a light that does not belong among them. But it is there that the Soul discovers its mate, there She sees Reason, and does receive Him,
there She resist Him not, there She accepts Him fully and there where She sings thanksgiving and glorifying hymns unto Him.

Posted by terje at 05:53 PM |