Spirit and Gnosis

The spirit lies within all of us. It teaches, if we choose to listen, about every wonder within this Universe and beyond. We learn that we are all one, man, woman, child, animal, plant, even the very soil we walk on, we are all one. We learn that everything that happens is not without ourselves but within. Every experience, every hardship, every joy, every minute is within us.

The spirit can probably be best described as a big pool of dark water. Many are afraid to go near it because to the naked eye we can not see the bottom. When we look in the water all we see is what we think is a disfigured mirror image of ourselves, but in reality that is our true image and the image that we perceive every day is the disfigurement. As we dive deep into the water and become engulfed in its darkness we feel the helplessness that comes from the pressure of the water pounding around us. Some of us become scared, begin to struggle to the top, some of us lose all control and are lost within the water for ever. Others, precious few others, allow the water to overcome us willingly, begin to move with the water instead of pushing away from it or against it. Then the water carries us, it opens up its wonders to us, and does not allow us to become lost, it carries us to safety. Takes us up, to breathe the breath of new life, a new air that seems more precious than any air you have breathed before. Anyone who has gone swimming knows this feeling. When you dive under the water and swim, looking at all that is under the water, then you come up for that breath. It is unlike any ordinary breath, it is deep and it is long, it fills your lungs and you feel this great feeling of relief come over you. This is the same breath of new life you feel when you dive into the spirit and allow it to show you its wonders then bring you to the surface. If you remember every time you've emerged from the water the sun seemed that much brighter, the air seemed that much crisper, everything around you for the split second that you emerged seemed newer than it was before, different. Then it comes to you, you begin to remember that it is just the same as it was before, it is you that is different. Just as it is in that moment you emerge from swimming, it is the same as you emerge from the depths of the spirit.

Unlike diving in a lake or an ocean, or a pond, it is much harder to allow yourself to just dive into the spirit that is within you. It takes a lot more will and strength to do so. Many that have gone before have not been able to overcome the obstacles set in front of them. The obstacles of fear, of pride, of arrogance, of the ego. Though these obstacles seem very superficial they are ingrained deeply within all of us. The greatest of occultist faced the obstacles and though they were able to overcome some of them, other obstacles stopped them from really reaching Gnosis. Gnosis is best described as the point when you have reached spiritual completeness, you are no longer just a man, you are one with the spirit, one with everything around you, you have all knowledge of all there is to know, both material and metaphysical. Gnosis, is knowledge, it is enlightenment.

Aleister Crowley struggled to achieve gnosis all of his life. He used drugs, sex, anything that he thought would get him there. He overcame his fears of the spirit but he did not overcome his ego. Therefore he was engulfed in the depths of the spirit, he drowned within it because he pushed against it. We can tell by his writings that the spirit did speak to him, he did write and teach of it, but he did not truly understand it himself. In the end he allowed his ego to drown him, and leave him lost forever.

The Ego is our greatest obstacle when trying to reach the Spirit. It holds us back and it even drowns us. The Ego contains our fears, our pride, our arrogance, it contains all that is on our surface. Though we know consciously the ego is a thing that holds us from our true selves, we still hold on to it, because we are afraid of the self that we are. We look into the mirror images of ourselves reflecting off the dark waters and fear the abstract that we see. Those who see the abstract and still dive in, overcoming their fears but some how thinking that they can control the currents underneath, drown in their pride, in their arrogance. This is what happened to Mr. Crowley. They dive in saying they are not afraid, yet they still are. They are just as afraid of what lies beneath the water as the man who sees his image and just backs away. So in their fear, they try to control what is going on, where the spirit takes them, they fight the current, only to lose an already lost battle.

In Christianity, you are taught to give up all of your life to God, allow Him to take over every aspect of yourself. This is not authentic to Christianity. Gnostics have been teaching this since the very beginning. It is something that has been passed down through the ages, from the most primitive of man. Now that is not to say that the most primitive of man was Christian, they were most certainly not monotheistic. Neither were the first Christians, or the even the first Jews. All of the gods are not aspects of the Spirit. They are aspects of the soul. They are our connection between our material self and the spirit. Our bridge to the Spirit is our soul, our bridge to the Spirit are the gods. This is why the gods have the same characteristics of man, yet hold an even higher authority than we do. They are like us because we can relate to them and thus connect with them. Then they are higher than us so they can guide us, and bring us to their height. We all have the potential to become just as the gods are. The Christian God, at first, was given the same duty, to guide man to the spirit. Then in a twist of ego, He was mistaken for the very thing he was meant to guide us toward. Therefore we began to look toward him, becoming distracted from the true destination of man. Christians will never find their way to the Spirit until they learn to look at their God, not as the Spirit itself, but a guide to the spirit. He still deserves respect, but not worship, he deserves appreciation but not entire and complete obedience. Because, like man, gods are subject to the ego, and when they are worshiped and obeyed completely they too falter and become like the Christian God has become, a fallacy of the Spirit.