The Path of Gnosis is said to be the steepest, narrowest path one can follow, and in truth it is also the most perilous. After having embarked on the path you may find that it is more than you can bear. Ignorance truly is bliss, and make no mistake all that is called evil in this world has it's beginning in ignorance. Ignorance being the lack of Truth, and if Truth is what we find in the path that leads to ultimate enlightenment, then the path which leads us away into illusion, is evil in it's essence. Love, the glue that holds the universe together, has it's enemy not in hate or fear but in ignorance. Hate is simply not being able to understand the how's or why's of something, fear is the lack of knowledge of a thing, which makes the person afraid. So as one waking from a dream, one day one realizes all truths they have been brought up to believe if not the very nature of existence is a fraud. An elaborate bunch of smoke and mirrors which hides the truth of Man's being from themselves. I think more than anything the true creation, the one of the true God, is not seen by most men because the man made world is all over it. Now I'm not suggesting to going back and living in tepees. What I mean by the wold of man is the paradigm, the idea of what reality is. What is real? What is not real? Who am I? These are all basic questions. And from the moment you are spit forth upon the face of the Earth you already have a set answer for these questions spoon fed to you. By your parents, church, school etc. These are the puppet masters. The Paradigm shift needed to see truth, which must happen if anything is a difficult step. You have to learn to see and experience things in a whole new way, a new paradigm. Existence is only a question of perception. Change your perception and reality changes also. The whole idea of reality is a dumb idea, it's a pathetic attempt at making things all nice and comfy. At putting things in neat little categories and groups. Civilized man is nothing else if not a great sorter. In becoming civilized Man moved further from his true self, until he subdivided and changed himself into a corner. This is the burden of civilization. The dramatic irony of course is that instead of making man more civilized it has made him more and more into a paranoid schizophrenic. And that my friends is what we are living in, the post-breakdown catatonia of Western civilization. And so it is. Yet it is also ironic that those that break through the catatonia and free themselves from the bonds that hold back the soul, heart, and psyche of men are then called mad. And know that in choosing to follow the path of Gnosis you take upon yourself the burden of being the only one with eyes open in a society that is blind and comfortable and likes it that way. The world can only be saved one spirit at a time, but know in doing so comes illumination.
 
 

 There has always been The Gnostic. In every religion and in every culture, dating back to the beginings of time. All the word Gnostic means is "having to do with Knowing" and a Gnostic means "one who knows or One who seeks to know". The Gnostics have been the force in every formalized religious body that tried to stir it from apahy and seeked to gain union with the divine. I don't mean to use the term as a generic word for all mystics and such, what I do mean is that there is more than one path to liberation. One involved using regulated dogma and ritual of any given faith and utilizing it as a stepping stone to higher plains. The problem is that more often than not this becomes a stale and lifeless thing. It's like a couple that have been together a long time the sex tends to become rutine and bland. The passion and rapture your lover once once made you feel is replaced by a feeling of complacency and worst of all duty. This is a bad thing. The true seeker seeks like a lover, drunk on passion for his beloved. That state most of us have experienced of being so in love, so desperate for union that it blinds and burns us. As the Buhda said, "don't look for enlightenment unless you search for it like a man whose head is on fire searches for a lake." The point is that to have a personal relation to the truth of existence, and the realization of god within yourself is the goal of the Pnuematic. Wisdom is our beloved. And sophia is not just to be seen in the books we read or write. No, that is not where the only isdom lies. She is to be felt in art, in music, and in people. If you look into someones eyes, if you feel them, you can see into them. What do you see? Is she staring back at you? Sterility in the form of blind obedience and repetition is a horrible thing. Only by KNOWING deliberately and being, not because we are but because we choose to be, wholly engulfed in the light of The Silent one, the true father. True freedom comes from knowing. Only knowledge sets us free and makes us powerful. Only the truth when all the shiny oputer garments of illusion are stripped away should be our beacon. That and nothing else.

...what
>sucks about being at a higher level of consciousness, or at least trying
>to get there, is that you still have to deal with the humdrum bullshit
>of everyday life. You he to deal with school, with work, with problems
>with women, with family problems, with temptations , and on and on and
>on. sometimes i wish i could go to a cave somewhere and spend my life in
>meditation and communion. But that's not gonna happen. Nor do i really
>want to.

The key, i think is that you have to reach a certain level of
>detachment. I mean what we have to do to survive, to a mind that's
>reached a certain level and a spirit that yearns for more seems devoid
>of meaning. To detach oneself is to allow the ebb and flow of this world
>without letting it get to you too much. In other words, not letting it
>take control of your life and your thoughts. It's hard, because temporal
>concerns are a necessity. We must eat, we must have a place to live, and
>we have to interact with others. It isn't easy...

 I wonder sometimes if
>Valentinus or Basilides had day jobs. Or like Socrates did they just
>hang out in the gymnasium and crash at a friends house. of course this
>world is different from that of Athens or Alexandria two thousand years
>ago. Though wisdom should be praised, it isn't. It seems we are told
>that the point of life is to get some job and make money so you can have
>a nice house and a nice car and marry somebody and have a littler or
>two, then retire in Florida and die. I reject this on principle.

The
>beginnings of my group were like so. My friend Mike and i were in the
>gym at Mount Carmel High. We were in Physical Ed, and we hadn't dressed
>out to play, cause we didn't feel like it. He and i were sitting on the
>stage that overlooks the basketball court where everyone else was
>playing. Mike had his walkman, and he and i were both listening to it.
>We were listening to Pink Floyd's The Wall. And then, we paid attention
>to the lyrics. They were true! all these people are just bricks in some
>giant wall that has been built around man's soul. And the essential
>question is, is there a way out of the Wall? Mikey and i realized we
>were already on the other side. And that all of these fools swimming in
>their ignorance, were lost and trapped. that was it. it was a revelation
>in Gym class.

The point is that you can't let this worlds bullshit drive
>you crazy. You have to learn a certain level of "Ah fuck it!". And i'm
>not saying you, i'm just speaking in generalities.  Yaldaboath, which
>represents the sleeping condition of the human soul apathy and
>ignorance, holds us in bonds of apathy and mediocrity. It is this which
>we as Pneumatics must resist. Bitter is the road that leads to
>illumination,  we just can't allow ourselves to choke on it's poison.
>
 

The illusion is a really bad one, like at a David
>Copperfield show. And it's just as painful...maybe more so. I think the
>World of the Demiurge, which is what most percieve of as reality is like
>pro wrestling. It looks like something is going on, but it isn't.
>There's alot of screaming and overdone acting and lot's of bad dialogue.
>It's distracting...they wear lots of colors and they're looud. but
>nothing real is going on. It's all an elaborate poorly made and
>lucrative illusion...
 

you see what we have
>figured out is that life as it is lived on this spinning rock, is a
>joke. It is a ballet of absurdity.  So, we use humor, as do the
[subgenii] But i assure you, we are serious, though vailed under a
>blanket of goofiness. I believe Goofiness and wisdom go hand in hand...
...We are fighting a
>battle against ignorance and apathy, two things in whose grip the herd
>of humnity wanders...

it was "The other Bible"
>that got me into [gnosticism.] I searched for a philosophy i liked, i have
>read on every religion, cult, or group that has ever existed, and none
>did it for me. When Muhammed Ali found those Scrolls at Nag Hammahdi how
>could he have known the Pandora's box he was opening?

new ideas frighten
>people... The Fundamentalists are scared
>shitless. they know that their days are numbered. Christianity in it's
>present for has been on the decline since the Enlightenment, and the
>charismatic movement is it's last gasp before slipping into oblivion.
>the Churches are empty except for little old ladies. At The protestant
>ones they gonad they shake and go into convulsions. They speak
>gibberish and ask God to forgive them, and they go right back out and do
>the same crap over again! It is a farce. in the bible Jesus called them
>"Hypocrites and Whited Sepulchres". The televangelists and preachers are
>the Pharisees of today. and If Jesus does come back he is gonna bring a
>falmethrower and finish them off...

[G of T quote - behold, I have set fire to the world and behold I am keeping until it catches]

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