Gnosis
(Greek γνώσις) Knowledge.
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The word Gnosis refers to the knowledge we acquire through our own experience, as opposed to knowledge that we are told or believe in. Gnosis - by whatever name in history or culture - is conscious, experiential knowledge, not merely intellectual or conceptual knowledge, belief, or theory. This term is synonymous with the Hebrew "Daath" and the Sanskrit "jna."
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The tradition that embodies the core wisdom or knowledge of humanity.
The Greek word Gnosis (γνῶσις) implies a type of knowledge that is derived from experience, and encompasses the whole of a person. That is, it is genuine knowledge of the truth. Reality, truth, does not fit neatly into a concept, dogma, or theory, thus genuine Gnosis must also be something that one must experience. Personal experience is not transmissible in conceptual terms; a concept is merely an idea, and experience is far more than an idea. In other words, real Gnosis is an experience that defies conceptualization, belief, or any attempt to convey it. To understand it, one must experience it. This is why real spirituality is based on one's own effort to experience the truth, and the method to reach that experience is primarily practical.
Nonetheless, in order to understand what we experience, we must study the experiences of others. For this, we prefer to rely on those who have proven the qualities we wish to embody ourselves: profound love for all beings, brilliant intelligence, and radiant joy. As such, we rely on the greatest human beings and their legacies, in every field of understanding: philosophy, science, art, and religion. [Who Are the Real Gnostics?].
Gnosis is Universal
Any study of world philosophies, religions, and spiritual traditions demonstrates the same principles, themes, and symbols. While some have argued that this is mere happenstance or unconscious impulse, the truth is far more powerful: there is ubiquitous symbolism and intent in world traditions because there is one ubiquitous source of all knowledge, but whose true form and meaning is only hazily perceived by the sleeping consciousness of mankind. Due to this, messengers arrive from time to time to clarify the One True Source: messengers such as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, Quetzalcoatl, Krishna, Moses, Fu Ji, and many more: all of them taught Gnosis, but according to the needs of the time and place.
Whenever the Law declines and the purpose of life is forgotten, I manifest myself on earth. I am born in every age to protect the good, to destroy evil, and to re-establish the Law. —Hinduism. Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita 4.7-8
Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. —Christianity. Jesus in the Bible, Matthew 5.17-18
Lo! We inspired you [O Muhammad] as We inspired Noah and the prophets after him, as We inspired Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, and Jesus and Job and Jonah and Aaron and Solomon, and as we imparted unto David the Psalms; and messengers We have mentioned to you before and messengers We have not mentioned to you... messengers of good cheer and of warning, in order that mankind might have no argument against God after the messengers. God was ever Mighty, Wise. —Islam. Qur'an 4.163-65
Naught is said unto you [Muhammad] save what was said unto the messengers before you. —Islam. Qur'an 41.43
I have seen an ancient Path, an ancient road traversed by the rightly enlightened ones of former times. —Buddhism. Samyutta Nikaya ii.106
The Master said, "I have transmitted what was taught to me without making up anything of my own. I have been faithful to and loved the Ancients." —Confucianism. Analects 7.1
"All religions have the same principles. Under the sun, every religion is born, grows, develops, multiplies into many sects, and dies. This is how it has always been and will always be. Religious principles never die. The religious forms can die, but the religious principles, in other words, the eternal values, can never die. They continue; they are re-dressed with new forms." - Samael Aun Weor
The eternal values embodied in the world's religions express the essential requirements for the consciousness to enter into that light and fully realize the purpose of living. In other words, the heart message of every religion seeks to awaken the consciousness and eliminate suffering, so that the eternal light may be known through our own direct experience.
"Truth is one; sages call it by various names—Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti." —Rig Veda
The Greek word Gnosis refers to the knowledge acquired through the experience of the awakened consciousness, as opposed to knowledge that we are told or might believe. Genuine Gnosis is the knowledge universal to all humanity that frees the consciousness from suffering. Gnosis - by whatever name in history or culture - is conscious, experiential knowledge, not merely intellectual or conceptual knowledge, belief or theory. The Gnostic student seeks to acquire their own direct experience of the light (the Truth) by means of awakening the consciousness and eliminating obscurations to perception. The method to accomplish this task has been called:
- Gnosis (Greek) knowledge
- Jnana (Sanskrit): knowledge
- Daath (Hebrew): knowledge
- Dharma (Sanskrit): righteousness, law, truth, teaching
- Torah (Hebrew): teaching, instruction, law
...and many other names. By comparing all of these ancient teachings, we can see that all religious forms have in their heart a science of Gnosis: a method to arrive at personal knowledge of the Truth.
“Howsoever men approach Me, even so do I welcome them, for the path men take from every side is Mine.” —Krishna (Christ), from the Bhagavad-gita
Many in these times associate the word Gnosis with a collection of texts found in the deserts of the Middle East, such as the Nag Hammdhi texts or Dead Sea Scrolls. Famous examples include The Book of Thomas, The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene, The Hypostasis of the Archons, and Thunder, Perfect Mind. Some believe that Gnosis is exclusively the belief system of long-lost groups of spiritual seekers like the Essenes or Nazarenes. Yet the truth is that those writings and groups were but one fraction of a much older, more widespread movement, but one that cannot be tracked by physical evidence alone: it can only be truly known through awakened, conscious experience - not only here in the physical world, but also in the Internal Worlds, by means of techniques such as meditation, dream yoga, and more.
"We are not against any religion, school, sect, order or lodge because we know that all religious forms are manifestations of the great Cosmic Universal Infinite Religion latent in every atom of the Cosmos. We teach the synthesis of all religions, schools, orders, lodges and beliefs. Our doctrine is the Doctrine of the Synthesis." —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony
The venerable science of Gnosis is the universal to all humankind and is the essential "knowing" that arises from the experience of objective reality, universally experienced by all those who fully awaken and develop their consciousness. The science or path to arrive at knowing that reality for oneself, in ones own experience, is also called Gnosis, because it leads to the acquisition of one’s own Gnosis of fundamental truth.
"Gnosis is a very natural function of the consciousness, a perennis et universalis philosophy.
"Unquestionably, Gnosis is the enlightened knowledge of the divine mysteries, which are reserved for a certain elite.
"The word Gnosticism encloses within its grammatical structure the idea of systems or methods dedicated to the study of Gnosis.
- Gnosticism implies a coherent, clear, and precise series of fundamental elements that can be verified through direct mystical experience:
- Damnation, from a scientific and philosophic point of view
- The Adam and Eve of the Hebraic Genesis
- The Original Sin and the fall from Paradise
- The mystery of Nahua Lucifer
- The death of the myself
- The creative powers
- The essence of the Salvator Salvandus
- The sexual mysteries
- The intimate Christ
- The igneous serpent of our magical powers
- The descent into hell
- The return to Eden
- The gift of Mephistopheles
"Only the Gnostic doctrines that entail the above mentioned ontological, theological, and anthropological bases are part of genuine Gnosticism." —Samael Aun Weor, The Secret Doctrone of Anahuac
Gnosis is, in its essence, the method to escape suffering, because to experience fundamental reality, one must abandon the deluded mind, within which we all suffer intensely. Our delusions cause suffering, and prevent us from seeing the truth.
The method to experience the fundamental reality is exact and has existed for millennia. True Gnosis - conscious knowledge of this experience - is free of separatism, dogma, politics, fanaticism, and sectarianism. Gnosis comes from the divine, and cannot be bottled into the limited concepts of the intellect or mere belief.
The hallmarks of true Gnosis are seen in the world's greatest human beings: profound compassion, penetrating wisdom, and sparkling intelligence.
...there is every reason to believe that all so-called secret schools of the ancient world were branches from one philosophic tree which, with its root in heaven and its branches on the earth, is--like the spirit of man--an invisible but ever-present cause of the objectified vehicles that give it expression. The Mysteries were the channels through which this one philosophic light was disseminated, and their initiates, resplendent with intellectual and spiritual understanding, were the perfect fruitage of the divine tree, bearing witness before the material world of the recondite source of all Light and Truth. - Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928)
Gnosis has been expressed by all the world’s great saints and enlightened souls, each with their own words and voice.
All religions are precious pearls strung on the golden thread of divinity. - Samael Aun Weor
True Gnosis is universal to all mankind and can be found in all genuine religions and mystical traditions. Thus, within all of them is The Doctrine of the Synthesis: the universal teaching from which all religions have been born. This root knowledge is the essential science that every human being needs in order to know the mysteries of life and death directly, personally, through their own experience.
All religious forms are manifestations of the great Cosmic Universal Infinite Religion latent in every atom of the cosmos.
There is Gnosis in the Buddhist doctrine, in the Tantric Buddhism from Tibet, in the Zen Buddhism from Japan, in the Ch’an Buddhism of China, in Sufism, in the Whirling Dervishes, in the Egyptian, Persian, Chaldean, Pythagorean, Greek, Aztec, Mayan, Inca, etc., wisdom.
We teach the synthesis of all religions, schools, orders, lodges and beliefs. Our doctrine is the Doctrine of the Synthesis. - Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony
