Inner Gnosis Episode 4 - The Afterlife

In this episode of "Inner Gnosis" I talk about what I have come to believe regarding the Afterlife.

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www.innergnosis.com

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"For me, to live in Christ and to die is gain!"

-Philippians 1:21

 (There is an unexpected volume issue with this episode that I will do my utmost to prevent in the future. If you turn up your volume its more than loud enough but I apologize for the inconvenience.)

Inner Gnosis Episode 2 - Jesus Christ and Perfect Thought

In this episode of "Inner Gnosis" I talk about Jesus Christ, the Way, and Infinity.

"Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."
-Gospel of Thomas,2

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The Universe is Illusionary

I maybe getting into psuedoscience here but its an interesting way to look at reality and backed up by all the great mystical traditions so humor me.

Everything we see all around us is energy.

Energy = Mass x the Speed of Light.

More than that everything all around us is connected.

When we die our consciousness does not end but goes on and hopefully becomes part of the One. Energy CAN NOT be destroyed,it can only change.

If we do not unite with the Oneness permanently we merely transforms into another life form back on the Wheel.

According to the Kybalion matter is only spirit or energy at a lower ALMOST stagnant vibration. As we attain higher levels of consciousness we vibrate at higher and higher frequencies. At the highest frequency,lets say the speed of light, we become pure energy,pure spirit.

All of reality as we see it is only illusion,the universe is but a hologram.

The realm of light,the Pleroma,the Divine Oneness,Heaven is all around us right now in this the eternal moment!

Inner Gnosis Episode 0

Been secretly working on putting a podcast together for awhile now and the first episode is up!

Its a little loud (turn your volume down if you have headphones on) and could have used another rewrite but perfection is the enemy of progress for it is impossible.

Give my new show a listen,follow, and subscribe. I can only get better with practice. Its been a long time since I've done radio and I'm rusty.

The Holiest Day of the Year

 Christmas is almost upon us and I couldn't be happier.

While western Christendom generally considers Easter a more holy holiday because they believe Jesus Christ's death saves us as a Gnostic Christian I think differently.

For me the ultimate sacrifice of the Aeon Christos was not his death but his incarnation into limited corporeal form. Understand that before Christos had a body he was pure spirit and without any restriction.

The wonder of my faith is that the Absolute loved us so much he sent his salvaic aspect to incarnate and teach us the way to liberation because we were so lost in the illusion of materiality and multiplicity.

So for me and those who think like me while easter is very important there is no more holy holiday than Christmas.

By the way I am well aware that the 25 of december is not the true date of Jesus Christ's birth but that hardly matters to me. The date is seared into the western consciousness and for me its the commemoration that counts not the day.

 Merry Christmas!

What is a REAL Christian Anyway?

What is a real christian and who gets to decide? Do you? Do I?

Understand the implications of such a thought. If you say, "That women isn't a real christian because she is divorced!" or "That man isn't a real christian because he uses tarot cards!" or "That old man isn't a real christian because he drinks!" etc what are you really doing?

You are not judging others so much as you are

condemning yourself to such judgements and the circle of negativity never ends.

Jesus said,

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

-Matthew 7:1-2

 I think that the evil we see in others is the evil we fail to see in ourselves.

I know we have the capacity to be Christ not simply Christians but that comes from a higher state of consciousness that reflects out an inner love and inclusion not a lower state that is full of exclusion and arrogance. I try my best but I am not anywhere near that level and almost no one else is either so lets all open our hearts and try our best to be brothers and sisters IN Christ.

With hard work hopefully one day we won't have to TRY anymore and will instead just BE!

How Many Angels can Dance on the Head of a Pin?

My father relayed a recent incident at his church to me which is interesting.

He is a pentecostal and it is quite common for pentecostals to randomly come up to you,lay their hands on your shoulders,and pray for you.

Now one of the deacons got it into his head that laying your hands on the pastor to pray was wrong and the pastor tended to agree.

So last Sunday a churchless pentecostal was invited to my fathers church and when it was time for all those to come up and pray for the pastor who wished too this man did and put his hands on the pastors shoulders. Then the deacon in question stormed up and forcefully removed his hands from the pastor.

Needless to say this caused the visitor to feel unwelcome and a bit angry. I doubt he will come back.

Now the main interest to me in this is why do churches do such things?

Shall we alienate everyone who doesn't act in a certain way at a certain time because we deem it to be inappropriate based on our own limited understanding?

As I hear it the deacon didn't like this because a member of the church use to lay  her hands on people to pray all the time and later she was exorcised.

Really? Regardless of whether demon possession exists or not is putting on the hands and praying a sign of possession? I personally think if someone were truly demon possessed we'd know it,it would be impossible not to see and they would certainly never pray for anyone.

This all sounds like superstition in the worst possible way to me and I am reminded of a heated medieval theological debate,

"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"

I am certainly not perfect but I try my utmost never to squabble over such meaningless little things anymore. I have no right to judge but this little story is just so ridiculous to me.

Could this kind of conduct perhaps have something to do with the fact that most mainstream Christians look everywhere for the second coming of Christ except within themselves?

Symbols and Images

"Truth did not come into the world naked, but in symbols and images. The world cannot receive truth in any other way. There is rebirth and an image of rebirth, and it is by means of this image that one must be reborn. What image is this?
It is resurrection. Image must arise through image. By means of this image the bridal chamber and the image must approach the truth. This is restoration.

Those who receive the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and have accepted them must do this. If someone does not accept them, the name (Christian) will also be taken from that person. A person receives them in chrism (anointing) with the oil of the power of the cross. The apostles called this power the right and the left. This person is no longer a christian but IS Christ.

The master (Jesus) did everything in a mystery: baptism,chrism,eucharist,redemption, and bridal chamber.

For this reason He said,
"I have come to make the lower like the upper and the outer like the inner,and to unite them in that place."

He spoke here in symbols and images."

-The Gospel of Philip, 67:9-32

We are Strangers

Each of our spirits is a pure spark of Divine consciousness and of the same essence as the God of All.

We are not merely animals or minds.

We are strangers in a strange land.

God can not be whole while we remain trapped in the illusion of material reality so He calls to us. He calls always in our dreams and imaginings. He calls and we only need learn how to listen to hear His Holy Voice.

Do not be discouraged by past or even present misdeeds. According to the secret revelation of St.John the God of All,the Monad,the One,the Unknown Father,the Pleroma,the Light freely gives mercy and love. He is not these things but he freely gives them.

As we are engulfed in the darkness of ignorance the Light does not judge. He is forever calling us home like the father who when he saw his son coming from afar prepared a great feast and welcomed his return with open arms even though the son had stolen from him.

Our God is not a god of second chances. Hes a God of infinite chances until we get it right!

Ignorance

We have to stop denying that we are fools
otherwise we will remain spiritually dead.

I hated Gnosticism once.

Why did I hate it?

I can't say really outside of a general sense from my conservative christian upbringing that such things were evil.

 How could there be other books of the bible? How could I believe such heresy?

I didn't even ask myself these questions. I just ignored or made fun of it.

I made fun of what I did not understand and never tried to learn.

That is called ignorance my friends. Willful ignorance.

In fairness to myself let me add that I was so propagandized to believe that anything different, anything with even the veneer of "paganism" must be evil and the work of satan.

In other words I was afraid.

I was a blind fool because I was afraid to know.

Not unlike Adam in the garden of Eden I wanted to remain in a perfect prison of ignorance forever but my better nature convinced me to eat the fruit and my eyes were opened.

After an existential crisis no doubt caused by Holy Wisdom herself I began to detest jehovah but I still loved Jesus so I searched through christian history and found Marcions work. Then finally I came to Gnosticism only this time I actually read and meditated on what the ancient "heretical" church fathers had to say.

My life has never been the same since.

We all let the ego get the better of us much to often. We fight,we argue, we think ourselves wise but the truth is such things are the way of the fool,the blind fool.

Only when we realize we are fools,when we come to understand that we don't understand,when we open our mind to things we once thought wrong will the light be able to get in.

However it is comforting to know that we all start out as blind fools when we first make our way on the fools journey towards the Crown.

You and I are not alone.

The Unity of Opposites

"The One is the all."

I use to think I had a fractured personality but I know now that the illness is in thinking that the shadow and the light are separate.

There can be no light without darkness.

They must merge,there must be an alchemical transmutation.

We are flux and we are constant. We do good and bad and we are both. We regress and progress and are always doing both.

We are a unity of opposites or else we are completely broken.

"Light and darkness, life and death, right and left are mutually dependent; it is impossible for them to separate. Accordingly the 'good' are not good, the 'bad' are not bad, 'life' is not life, 'death' is not death."

-Gospel of Philip

"What am I telling you?
All at once the living die.
How do they live in illusion?
The rich become poor,
kings are overthrown,
everything changes.
The world is illusion."

-The Treatise on Resurrection

The illusion (or in my case delusion) of multiplicity shall completely vanish once I come to KNOW the true reality.

The very moment the black head of the snake eats his white tail individuation and eternity has come.

We are all part of the One,All things emanate from the One but I only believe that now. I will KNOW it one day through experience with the help of Christos and Sophia.

Gnosticism and Christianity are Inseparability Entwined

"Historically and geographically speaking, Gnosticism developed at the same time and in the same places as early Christianity, with which it was, and remained, entwined-Palestine, Syria, Samaria, and Antolia, and later, Ptolemaic Egypt. Since the deciphering of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it has become apparent that at least some elements of the Gnostic tradition go back to the Essenes. The theory of some scholars that ascribed the origins of Gnosticism to Iranian or even Indian influences has now been largely discredited. The land of Middle Eastern spirituality-with its visionary apocalypticism and revelations, its messianic fervor, and its mystical and ascetic communities-are now assumed to be the cradle of Gnosticism."

-Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing pgs. 93-94