A GNOSTIC DREAM AND OTHER APORIAS

I dreamed of the insanity of the world as the human mind is possessed and manipulated by destructive and hateful demonic forces. In my dream I, as a once-willing participant, must play along until I can actually plan a viable escape and hopefully bring others with me. This dreamview ties in closely with a Gnostic view that in descending into human form, one must acquire the powers of that human level in order to survive there; not only acquire but excel in utilizing such human powers, which are also, by the way, flaws and failings from the once-divine perspective. The Gnostics, in general, believe that humans, and all creation (including the cosmos itself), for that matter, were created by a demi-urge with much error and ego. There is an irony, a paradox here: in order for the pure, divine being to incarnate, it must become low and tainted as is necessary in its human form. It must even allow itself to become indoctrinated, as it were, in the laws and rules and afflictions of that level of being, and then slowly make its way upwards once again, realizing (by the grace of the First God) its heritage, and beginning to shed that which is of the world. And so the demi-urges, the demigods of mythology are given gifts of magic and helmets and weapons that they may be protected in the world of men and be able to win the battles they must fight in the world on their ways both through Hell and on their way back to Heaven. They must literally allow themselves to be insane, maintaining just a bare thread of sanity to hold them in their direction within this labyrinth of the world. They must give up all faith and all hope of faith in order to descend to the very bottom of Hell, otherwise its germs will still fester within them, hoping to be brought into and to infect Heaven itself. In Dante’s Inferno, he gets to the very bottom of Hell and then it reverses itself (astrologically, from the nadir to the apex or mid-heaven) and he is injected into Purgatory and its view of the Light of Paradiso (Heaven) on the mountaintop. So it is with the insanity of existence; one must plunge into it and come out on the other side in absolute sanity. It is not so much a matter of faith as it is a mere thread of sanity (and perhaps faith is a mere thread of sanity) that does lead, if unraveled step-by-step with patience and courage, out of the dark and dangerous labyrinth. The journey leads into Hell first. We take on the garments of hellish existence and live in them, slowly, gradually making our way through the trials and tribulations and utter despair and seeming eternity of Hell itself, before we finally emerge, finding ourselves blinded by the Pure Light, after our seeming eternity in darkness and suffering. We do emerge from it and we will emerge from it. In the meantime, in the process of living in bodies in the world, we must recognize the reality and power of the insanity, and curse it for its demonic presence to the world, that others may see. It is no longer a matter of degree, of relativity, but rather it becomes as clear as day. There is no reconciliation to be made. “Get behind me, Satan.” All manner of power and temptation, of falsity, of appearance are offered and are even real and true as far as they go, but they don’t go very far at all, and this I know. They are mostly gone when the body dies (though identities do remain, leading us back again into form). Krishnamurti advised us to read nothing, to not take the ideas of others into our minds, lest we become infected and overcome by ideas that are not ours. He seemed to say that we are best left to our own minds and souls to lead us. While I understand the protection he is offering, I also feel that we must weigh the truth of what is said even as we must sometimes take wrong turns in following the map of our lives. We must learn by our mistakes. As David Miller says, in so many words, “They are not wrong; they are mis-takes." We are not to stop because of them, as if we even could.  

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There is the notion of “breaking out of one’s cycle of being,” of one’s habitual way of being by which and through which one becomes one’s self, one’s personality, one’s particular “cage” in and through which one ultimately chooses to live. It’s actually a quite horrendous existence we live, particularly in all of our “creature comforts.” It is these comforts that keep us, maintain us, and contain us as lowly creatures, rather than as something much more than that in essence and quality. I can see the validity of “denying the world” by an ascetic life, for “the world” is only as a “passing fancy.” A most wonderful, temptingly beautiful passing fancy it is, but it is quite short-lived and it’s falseness in that respect is a most deceitful and painful identity for those who choose it, which is probably almost all of us. Very few escape it or can escape it, and it may be that we must immerse ourselves in it and identify with it to have a proper and necessary life experience, that is, we must pay homage to the gods of earth and flesh while on earth and in the flesh, otherwise, we cannot ever get through it. But I believe it eventually becomes a matter of doing so without producing more karma for ourselves that has the effect of bringing us back into the “worldly fold.” One cannot help but be entranced by the beauty that is in and of the world. The Gnostics (and others) believed this to be a reflection of divine, beatific beauty itself, captured and held by the cosmos (and/or Sophia) both for the sake of creating life here, for such beauty holds such power, and to remind incarnated humanity of its own divinity (when it is capable of seeing beyond only itself).

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We are as the moth that still circles the flame. We are meaning-seeking so that we may live. Without meaning we have no reason to exist. As we crumble in our bodies, the façade falls away; we begin to see through it. Everything begins not just to fall apart but to fly out as if from centrifugal force, flying out from the center. What comes to mind is Steiner’s notion that we blast out into space when we vacate our physical body at death. Does “the center” from which “we” emanate always hold? That there would be a center is either real and true, or it is something that we want to be true, which is to say that it “means” something that must be true for us. If we explode out from something or someplace that once existed on a level of being that exists no longer or was only real on its own level temporarily, did it ever exist? I understand that the only way to justify our own existence is to “learn something” from our experience of living our lives. This “learning something” is “finding (or making) meaning.” If we did not “learn,” we would not evolve, not develop, not even survive, or so it seems. It is as though the First Creator became somehow aware of Itself after eons of unconscious existence, and suddenly needed meaning, which it to say purpose, place, proof of and justification for Itself; so we have Parvati emanating from Shiva. The reflection, the mate, time and space, other, come into being.