Vinga
May 11th, 2002, 12:16 AM
I got the text below in an email. It's quite long but very interesting :)
_____
Contrary to popular Christian dogma, Christ did teach
about Karma,
reincarnation, self-realisation and the Divine
Feminine as Holy Ghost -- God
the Mother. Christ's teachings are more Eastern than
the Churches would have
us believe or would like to admit.
The two centuries after Christ, saw the Christian
Gnostic teachings of
spiritual awareness disseminated alongside the blind
faith doctrines of
Paul's formulation. In the third Century, the Roman
Church's council of
Nicaea acted to stamp out the Gnostics and their
anti-dogmatic approch to
spirituality.
The Gnostic's were declared heretical, their texts
destroyed and the
Gnostics themselves persecuted into extinction.
However, a small amount of
Gnostic teachings survived, hidden in caves or in
watered-down form in other
"heretical" texts (broadly labelled as "Apocrypha").
_____
The Christian Gnostics practiced a spirituality more
similar to Eastern
traditions than to the Western Christianity we know
today. "Gnostic" is
Greek for "knower" and it is "Gnosis" or "Knowledge"
that they were seeking.
Unlike the blind faith demanded by today's Churches,
'Gnosis' meant direct,
mystical experience of the divine, which was to be
found by individual
spiritual evolution to Self-Realisation, and not
within the confines of
intellectual dogma. The experience of Gnosis was
trans-rational and
non-intellectual.
>From the Nag Hammadi Library, the Book of Thomas,
Christ tells us "For
whoever does not know self, does not know anything,
but whoever knows self,
already has acquired knowledge about the depth of the
universe". Compare
this with a tract from the Upanishads, the Indian
metaphysical treatise on
Self Realisation: "It is not by argument that the self
is known...
Distinguish the self from the body and mind. The self,
the atman, the
highest refuge of all, pervades the Universe and
dwells in the hearts of
all. Those who are instructed in the self and who
practice constant
meditation attain that changeless and self effulgent
atman ( spirit/ self).
Do Thou Likewise, for bliss eternal lies before
you..."
In another gnostic text, the Secret Gospel of Thomas,
Christ promises us
spiritual fulfilment "I shall give you what no eye has
seen, what no ear has
heard, what no hand has touched and what has never
arisen in the human
mind." This description is not unlike the Upanishadic
experience "the Self
is devoid of birth and death, it neither grows old nor
decays and the
accidents of life do not affect it. The Self
transcends space and time; what
is great is not too great for it to comprehend and
what is small is not too
small to escape its attention. It is the Self of All".
Just as Christ warned us against sin and encourages
moral perfection in the
pursuit of spiritual fulfilment, so too do the Eastern
texts "No
intellectual acumen can help one realise it, it can be
realised only by
those who surrender to it and who make themselves
worthy by grace, by
desisting from all that is sinful, who engage in the
practice of perfection
by constant meditation"( Upanishads).
The most ancient Eastern spiritual texts, the Vedas,of
India, tell us that
the process of spiritual awakening by which one
attains truth -awareness is
called 'Self-Realisation'. The Self Realised person
lives in direct
experience of reality -- this is called "Jnana" ( a
traditional sanskrit
word meaning 'knowledge' or 'Gnosis'). Such a person
is called a "Jnani"
('knower ' or 'gnostic' ) or "dwijaha" ('twice born';
first from a human
mother to the earthly plane then secondly as a child
of the Goddess, or
Divine Mother, who gives the seeker their second,
spiritual birth, Self
Realisation, into the plane of mystic awareness-
gnosis! ). The traditional
Indian texts extol the 'Divine Mother' as the Cosmic
Matriarch, bestower of
the highest treasure of Self Realisation upon Her
deserving children. Many
Indian mystic traditions say this same goddess is
represented within the
human being as the divine feminine power called
Kundalini.
What of Western tradition? In the Secret Book of John
Christ explains that
human redemption before the Heavenly Father occurs by
the mediation of a
Divine Feminine principle, which he calls the Earthly
Mother. It is the
Earthly Mother who removes the sins of the children
that they can become
worthy of their divine heritage; "when all sins and
all uncleanesses are
gone from your body, your blood shall become as pure
as our Earthly Mother's
blood and as pure as the river's foam sporting in the
sunlight. And your
breath shall become as pure as the breath of odorous
flowers; your flesh as
pure as the flesh of fresh fruits reddening upon the
leaves of trees; the
light of your eye as clear and bright as the
brightness of the sun shining
upon the blue sky. And now shall all the angels of the
Earthly Mother serve
you and your breath, your blood, your flesh shall be
one with the breath,
the blood and the flesh of the Earthly Mother, that
your spirit also become
one with the Spirit of your Heavenly Father. For truly
no-one can reach the
Heavenly Father unless through the Heavenly Mother.
Even as the newborn babe
cannot understand the teaching of his father until his
mother has suckled
him, bathed him, nursed him, put him to sleep and
nurtured him". The Earthly
Mother is a divine mediator through which the seekers,
the Sons of Man, are
raised to the Heavenly Father. Another part of the
same text says "Honour
your Earthly Mother and keep her laws that your days
may be long on this
earth and honour your Heavenly Father, that eternal
life may be yours in the
Heavens. For the Heavenly Father is a hundred times
greater than all the
fathers by seed and by blood, and greater is the
Earthly Mother than all
mothers by the body". The Holy Trinity, then is God
the Father, God the Son
(ie. Christ) and, it seems, God the Mother. The Divine
Mother particularly
is the means and power of spiritual evolution.
The Secret Book of John relates Christ's description
of the Divine Feminine
as the power of God Almighty. "She is the first power.
She preceded
everything, and came forth from the Father's mind as
forethought of all. Her
light resembles the Father's light; as the perfect
power She is the image of
the perfect and invisible Virgin Spirit. She is the
first power, the glory,
Barbello, the perfect glory among the worlds, the
emerging glory, She
glorified and praised the Virgin Spirit for she had
come forth through the
Spirit. She is the first thought, image of the Spirit.
She became the
universal womb, for She precedes everything, the
common parent, the first
humanity, the Holy Spirit". The Holy Spirit is here
described as the Divine
Power of God Himself. This power is maternal in its
character (universal
womb, She, the common parent) and all powerful as the
'first emanation of
God'. More so, She is pure (Virgin) and She glorifies
purity. So ancient
christian tradition seems to tell us that the holy
spirit is actually the
Divine Mother!
One cannot overlook the Eastern parallels. God
Almighty in Indian mythology
is represented as Sada-Shiva. His state is eternal
perfection (Sat Chit
Ananda). His power is the Adi Shakti (primordial
power) who is His feminine
counterpart or spouse. It is She who does all things.
She created the
universe and the gods who attend over it (for example,
the triune Shiva,
Brahma, Vishnu). The Adi Shakti is the Mother of all
things. She gave birth
to the universe and is the feminine power of every
deity and celestial being
(usually represented as their spouse). The Secret Book
of John parallels
this "She became the universal womb, for She precedes
everything, the common
parent, the first humanity, the Holy Spirit, the
triple male (Shiva, Brahma,
Vishnu?) the triple power (Parvati, Saraswati,
Lakshmi, who are spouses of
the triple males-or the triple Goddess of Western
mythological tradition?)".
Thus the Christian mystics understood that the Holy
Spirit is the Divine
Feminine, the Goddess, the Universal Mother herself.
The Syriac Christians
worshiped the Holy Ghost as the Great Mother. Phillip
suggests that Mary
Herself is the Holy Spirit (for who else but God the
Mother can give birth
to God the Son?). Other Apocryphal Scriptures describe
Mary as the focus of
Temple activities. Her early life was punctuated by
auspicious portents all
implying her own Divinity.
Just as Mary and the Holy Ghost appear to parallel
aspects of the Divine
Mother described in the East, so too does Christ, the
son of God reflect the
Eastern principle of the Divine Child. The Divine
Child in the Eastern
mythological tradition is commonly worshiped as the
dual child-gods Ganesha
and Kartikeya. Ganesha represents the fabric of the
cosmos, the primordial
Aum or Logos from which the creation was constructed.
Christ affirmed the
same primordial nature of himself when he said "I am
the first" and "I am
the alpha". Ganesha is the primordial child who is the
embodiment of purity
and innocence. Similarly Christ venerated children and
the innocence that
they manifested. He even urged the apostles (and us)
to cultivate our own
childlike innocence " let the children come to me for
the kingdom of heaven
belongs to such as these" and "assuredly whoever does
not receive the
kingdom of god as a little child will by no means
enter it"(Mark 10).
Kartikeya is the same principle of innocence in
dynamic action- the slayer
of evil; as Christ did when he ejected the money
lenders from the temple.
So, Christ seems to be telling us that the kingdom of
Heaven, which is a
state of God-like perfection and child-like innocence
is attained by some
inner phenomenon. In the Gnostic Scriptures Christ
spoke directly of this as
an inner transformation, self realisation. He also
told us that the Holy
Ghost or Divine Mother is the power by which this is
accomplished, but by
what mechanism?
Let's take lateral look at the Indian tradition of
Kundalini of which many
local saints have spoken. Shankaracharya (700AD) and
Gyaneshwara (1200AD)
are two well known mystic exponents of Kundalini. They
both describe the
actualisation of self-realisation in their classic
poetry, such as the
Saundarya-Lahari, Sivananda-Lahari and the Gyaneshwari
(itself a commentary
on the Kundalini Yoga described by Krishna in the
Bhagavad Gita ). They
describe a force of pure (virgin) spirituality, which
lies dormant within
the human being.
By constant purification and self perfection the seven
vital energy centres
(chakras) which govern all aspects of mind, body and
soul, are prepared for
the awakening of Kundalini. Once awakened by divine
grace, the Kundalini
passes through these centres, not unlike a string
through beads,
enlightening each as it passes through. Arriving at
the seventh centre
(Sahasrara) the seeker's awareness is united with the
eternal-self-within.
The experience is transrational, non causal, a
tangible and real bliss of
truth-awareness. Indian mystics called the Sahasrara
"Paradise", "Heaven"
or, as Christ has called it "The Kingdom of God
Within". As the Kundalini
passes through each of the vital centres, they are
stimulated to produce a
pure, nourishing energy. The Vedas (Ancient Scriptures
of India) describe
this energy as a sacred river emitted by each of the
seven chakras.
Shankaracharya called this energy "spun". He too
described its nature as
being like divine water showering down upon him as he
meditated in the
ecstacy of devotion. Other Indian scriptures call this
energy
"Paramchaitanya" (energy of supreme consciousness).The
miracle of Whitsunday
wherein the Apostles became empowered with their
spirituality sounds similar
to the experience of these chakras manifesting this
same divine energy.
Shankaracharya said "All Glory unto the current of
Divine Bliss which,
brimming from the river of Thy Holy stories, flows
into the lake of my mind,
through the canals of intellect, subduing the dust of
sin and cooling the
heat of memory". Much of the gnostic texts repeat this
ancient Eastern
understanding.
Consider this tract from the Book of Hymns of the Dead
Sea Scrolls: "I have
reached the inner vision and through Thy Spirit in me
I have heard Thy
wondrous secret, through Thy mystic insight Thou hast
caused a spring of
knowledge to well up within me, a fountain of power,
pouring forth living
waters, a flood of love and of all embracing wisdom,
like the splendour of
eternal light". The "fountain of power", "spring of
knowledge", "Living
water", "flood of love", "eternal light" all directly
describe the
experience of Kundalini awakening! Consider this from
the Nag Hammadi
Library, the Apocryphal Gospel of Phillip "The Tree of
Life is in the centre
of Paradise, as is the oil tree from which the
anointment Chrisma comes. The
Chrism is the source of resurrection". Krishna, the
divine being, c4000BC,
also described the Kundalini as an inverted Tree of
spirituality, whose
roots lay in the brain. The 'Tree of Life' is a well
recognised symbolic
parallel of the Kundalini. So too is the Holy Grail,
the cup from which
Christ drank at the last supper its symbolic
significance being that
Christ's sustenance arose from a cup, that is, an
object whose receptive
qualities reflect the nature of the divine feminine --
yet another parallel
of the Kundalini.
It is likely that St Phillip's 'Chrisma' is the same
'spun' described by
Shankaracharya, the 'Paramchaitanya' or in Christian
terminology 'God's
grace'. In the Gospel of Peace, Christ explains that
the experience of
spirituality is foremost. He says the Scriptures are
merely conveying an
intellectual knowledge, but we are to have the 'living
knowledge', that is
the experience of our own spirituality. He says "Seek
not the law in your
Scriptures for the law is life, whereas the Scripture
is dead. I tell you
truly Moses received not his laws from God as writing
but through the living
word. The law is living word for living God to living
prophets for living
men. In everything that is life to the law is the law
written, for I tell
you truly all living things are nearer to God than the
Scripture which is
without life. I tell you truly that the Scripture is
the work of man, but
life and all its hosts are the work of our God.
Wherefore do you not listen
to the words of God which are written in his works?
And wherefore do you
study the dead Scriptures which are from the hands of
men?". That is, seek
the divine experience which is beyond definition, do
not settle for mundane
human interpretations of the mystic's suprahuman
experience. Thus Christ's
law is a living, cosmic and experiential one, and is
actuated by the
awakening of the spiritual experience within the
seeker, not by intellectual
study or by following those who themselves have not
truly had the
experience. This directly parallels the eastern
teachings; that self-
realisation, the pure spiritual awakening, is attained
by the righteous and
itself gives greater righteousness. More so, self
realisation is a process
of genuine, inner spiritual transformation which must
be experienced to be
understood, since it lies beyond the domain of
scriptural description or
theological definition. Since it is gained by the
grace of the Divine
Mother( Holy Spirit) alone, it is most certainly not
possible to organise or
institutionalise this experience in human terms.
This contrasts with the way in which the Churches have
pigeonholed and
categorised Christianity in terms of 'blind faith',
'obedience to the
church' and empty ritual. In the Gnostic Scriptures,
untouched by the
organised churches, Christ urges us to perceive and
experience the cosmic
order for ourselves and not to rely on so-called
scriptural authorities --
such as the churches -- to prescribe it to us.
C.G. Jung recognised the link between the Divine
Feminine and the Eastern
principle of Kundalini. He understood that the
Kundalini was the
representation of the Goddess within each of us. Is
the Holy Ghost the
Kundalini? Was the Kundalini a central principle in
early mystic
Christianity? Such an assumption would help us
reinterpret many parts of the
mainstream bible, for example; In the Gospel of John,
Christ explains to the
Pharisee Nicodemus, " Verily I say unto thee, except a
man be born of water
and the spirit; he cannot enter the kingdom of God",
this second birth far
from being a licence for so many born again Christian
fundamentalists is
something much more mystical and subtle in nature. To
be "born of the water
and the spirit" describes the awakening of Kundalini.
She is often described
as a divine mother whose ascent within the spine of
the seeker gives them
rebirth into mystic/gnostic awareness, the 'divine
water' is its nourishing
energy. The Kundalini enters the Sahasrara and there
unites the seeker's
awareness with the self or spirit. This is described
as a blissful, infinite
experience of the kingdom of God within. Thus,
Christ's 'born again'
Christianity might actually refer to those Christians
who have entered the
realm of direct experience of divinity, in the state
of self realisation.
Other Canon (mainstream) Scriptures can be more deeply
understood in this
light. In the Gospel of Matthew, Christ says "Be Ye
Perfect, even as Your
Father which is in Heaven is perfect". (Ch.5, v. 48).
This is a clear
exhortation by Christ to strive and achieve spiritual
perfection, just as
the Buddha and other Eastern sages taught their
disciples. Christ tells us
about our innately divine nature "Ye are Gods" (Psalm
82, v.6; John 10,
v.34). Furthermore "Behold the Kingdom of God is
within you" (Luke 17,
v.21), that is the experience of Heaven is an internal
phenomenon. This
implies that the inner state of the seeker is the
source of their spiritual
fulfilment. We could well say that Christ's idea of
Heavenly Salvation was
an internal state of Godlike perfection.
When the seeker's awareness is completely united with
the Eternal
Spirit/Self/Atman the true self (not ego, mind,
intellect, personality, body
or memory) is experienced or realised. Since the
spirit is no less than a
reflection of God itself then in the state of complete
Self Realisation the
seeker experiences perfection" as our Father in Heaven
is perfect". The
Eastern term for this state of Self Realisation is God
Realisation and it
represents the final stage of our spiritual evolution.
There are deeper references to the chakras and
kundalini in the Scriptures.
For example, Revelations may also symbolically
describe the chakras in St.
John's spiritual vision;" I saw seven standing lamps
of gold" (the chakras
emitting the divine light?), John sees Christ as one
of the seven lamps (you
will see the significance of this later), Christ is
holding the "seven
stars" (demonstrating his command of the chakra
system?) and speaks of the
"seven churches" (the divine institution within each
chakra?).In Genesis
Jacob envisions a divine ladder directly connecting
his earthly being with
God in Heaven- this precisely describes the experience
and purpose of the
kundalini!
Consider this idea: The term 'Jesus of Nazareth', does
not (say German
theologians) relate to Christ's times in Nazareth.
Proper understanding of
the original language shows that such a term is not
linguistically possible
(despite the fact that Paul uses it). The original
term is more likely,
"Jesus the Nazareen." Nazareen is an Aramaic word
meaning "one who has bound
himself to the service of God" or "one who is
anointed." Compare this to the
meaning of Yoga, "Union with God" and 'Yogi' - one who
has union with god or
to descriptions of the awakening of the Kundalini,
"the mystical
anointment". The Nazaria were a group of Gnostics
contemporary to Christ.
They taught a mystic spirituality similar to the
Eastern ideas already
described. It has been suggested by some authorities
that this Gnostic word
is ultimately derived from the Hindustani 'Nazar.'
This is a yogic term for
the point between the eyebrows and above the nose (the
'third eye') where
sages of old performed meditation. 'Nazaren' means to
envision or behold.
Then a more accurate meaning of "Jesus the Nazareen"
would be "Jesus who has
Yoga or Self Realisation" or "Jesus who meditates".
Considering Christ's
status as the" Son of God" perhaps a more appropriate
meaning would be
"Jesus who is the object of meditation". Was Christ
himself the object of
meditation as are many deities in Eastern cultures?
Christ himself might
well be the Nazaren.
The Nazar physically corresponds to the location of
the Agnya chakra, the
sixth vital chakra through which the Kundalini must
pass before She enters
the Sahasrara. The Agnya manifests physically as the
'optic chiasm' whose
shape itself is cruciform! Is the cosmic Christ
represented within each of
us in the Nazar, Agnya chakra, just as the cosmic
Mother or Holy Ghost is
represented within us as the Kundalini?
The position of the Agnya chakra is such that it is
the final centre to be
crossed before the Kundalini finishes its journey to
the Sahasrara ( the
'Kingdom of God Within'). Entry of the Kundalini into
the Sahasara gives the
blissful experience of divine awareness. This
literally explains Christ's
words, "None can enter Heaven except through me".
Ponder also on Christ's instruction 'to be as little
children' or "look at
the birds of the air for they neither sow nor reap nor
gather into barns;
yet your heavenly father feeds them....which of you by
worrying can add one
cubit to his stature?"(Matthew 6). The innocence of
mind which he describes
is that same Zen awareness obtained in the state of
meditation, when the
Agnya chakra is pierced by the Kundalini giving rise
to a heightened
awareness of the present moment, all thoughts of past
and future
neutralised. Consider also that Christ himself told
us, "When your two eyes
become one, your body will be filled with light." This
implies that when we
go beyond the physical sight ( the two eyes) to the
subtle experience or
perception which occurs by opening of the third eye
and thus entry of the
awareness into the Sahasrara our body is filled with
light, purity, grace
etc.
There is further symbolism eg. the twelve apostles
represent six pairs which
are symbolic of the lower six chakras from Mooladhara
to Agnya. These six
chakras are limited to dual awareness, ie. past and
present, cause and
effect. However, the final chakra, Sahasrara,
represented here by Christ,
who was the leader of the twelve apostles is non-dual,
being derived from an
awareness higher than the causal plane.
Here are some possible conclusions which are equally
reasonable, though
entirely contrary to modern dogma about Christ and
Christianity. Christ's
spirituality differed radically from our modern
understanding. His teaching
was dynamic and zen-like focusing on the experience of
inner purification
and transformation, the elevation of the seeker's
awareness into the state
(not concept or dogma) of self-realisation. He sought
to overthrow the
immoral culture of the Romans and to deliver to the
dogmatic, letter-bound
Jews the mystic fulfilment promised to them in the
Mosaic covenant.
Central to his teaching was the understanding that the
feminine aspect of
God, God the Mother, was the means by which
self-realisation and spiritual
evolution to god-awareness occurred. Christ venerated
the Divine Mother as
the Holy Spirit. It is this power, described in the
East as residing in the
human being as the Kundalini, that is the last vestige
of the
Goddess-tradition in the Christian West.
Mary was in her own right a divine being. She was
venerated as such by
Christ and some of the suppressed scriptures describe
her as the Holy Spirit
incarnate.
Why did the Churches suppress these true christian
traditions? Partly
because they are patriarchal institutions based on the
questionable dogma of
Paul who perceived women (and therefore the feminine
principle) as inferior
entities. Partly also because spirituality which
focused on the Divine
Feminine would also focus on the redemptive power of
God the Mother and on
Her role as the grantor and matriarch of mystical
experience. This kind of
understanding, like all mystics and mysticism, defies
organisation, dogmatic
hierarchies and institutions preferring the role of
individual experience,
revelation and progressive growth toward divine
awareness.
The Holy Ghost, then, threatened to neutralise the
fear-oriented dogma which
the Churches have used, in the name of Christ and
Spiritual Truth, to
maintain their secular power and wealth.
Christ's promise of a comforter, the "second coming",
implies another divine
incarnation to bring about the redemption of humanity.
As we have seen it is
the Divine Mother who has the power to redeem her
children, the Sons of Man
(as the gnostics put it), in the eyes of God the
Father. Who better to
comfort the children who suffer, as does the West and
much of the world from
a culture whose ethic of materialism and immediate
gratification is
characterised by terms such as "the lost generation",
"eco-disaster",
"terrorism", "future shock" and "psycho-social
alienation", than the Divine
Mother?
C.G. jung, in his critique of the Western psyche
keynoted the absence of the
Feminine Principle as a major cause of much of the
West's psycho-cultural
imbalance. The return of the Divine Feminine would
indeed facilitate the
spiritual redemption of Western Culture.
With this perspective we may be able to understand a
key image from
Revelations;
"A great Portent in Heaven, a Woman robed with the
Sun, beneath her Feet the
Moon, and on her Head a Crown of twelve Stars. She was
pregnant, and in the
anguish of Her Labour She cried out to be Delivered.
Then a second Portent
appeared in Heaven: a great red Dragon with seven
Heads and ten Horns; on
his Heads were seven Diadems, and with his Tail he
swung down a third of the
Stars in the Sky and flung them to Earth. The Dragon
stood in front of the
Woman who was about to give birth, so that when Her
Child was born He might
devour It. She gave birth to a male child, who is
destined to rule all the
Nations with an Iron Rod....."
The Divine Woman, a central figure of Revelations, is
the Comforter Herself.
The crown of stars indicates that Her authority and
heritage is of the
Divine Father, the moon, upon which She resides is
another symbol of the
feminine.
As the Divine Mother She is giving birth, ie.
self-realisation, and succeeds
in producing a man-child. A man indicating spiritual
maturity and dynamic
action and yet a child symbolising purity of heart and
that quality of
innocence which Christ taught was essential to enter
into the state of
Heavenly Experience. The child, having the mystic
awareness of
self-realisation, rules over the nations indicating
command of the earthly
plane as well as over the inner country, the chakra
system. The child of the
Divine mother is a Gnostic adept!
He rules with an iron rod, the kundalini, which
mercilessly slays the forces
of evil, the obstacles which obstruct her flow through
the chakra system.
The dragon who stands over the Woman as She labours
waiting to devour the
child could well be the Churches. Their 2000 year
vigil against the Divine
Feminine lest she produce a race of Gnostics is
evident in their
manipulation and suppression of the scriptures.
Revelations tells us that
the Divine Children are destined to overcome the beast
and establish a New
Age of divine awareness.
Consider Christs warning "he who has blasphemed
against the holy ghost shall
be damned forever". What then of the Churches who have
virtually edited the
divine feminine out of the Western Cultural tradition
in order to maintain
their grip on the masses?
_____
_____
Contrary to popular Christian dogma, Christ did teach
about Karma,
reincarnation, self-realisation and the Divine
Feminine as Holy Ghost -- God
the Mother. Christ's teachings are more Eastern than
the Churches would have
us believe or would like to admit.
The two centuries after Christ, saw the Christian
Gnostic teachings of
spiritual awareness disseminated alongside the blind
faith doctrines of
Paul's formulation. In the third Century, the Roman
Church's council of
Nicaea acted to stamp out the Gnostics and their
anti-dogmatic approch to
spirituality.
The Gnostic's were declared heretical, their texts
destroyed and the
Gnostics themselves persecuted into extinction.
However, a small amount of
Gnostic teachings survived, hidden in caves or in
watered-down form in other
"heretical" texts (broadly labelled as "Apocrypha").
_____
The Christian Gnostics practiced a spirituality more
similar to Eastern
traditions than to the Western Christianity we know
today. "Gnostic" is
Greek for "knower" and it is "Gnosis" or "Knowledge"
that they were seeking.
Unlike the blind faith demanded by today's Churches,
'Gnosis' meant direct,
mystical experience of the divine, which was to be
found by individual
spiritual evolution to Self-Realisation, and not
within the confines of
intellectual dogma. The experience of Gnosis was
trans-rational and
non-intellectual.
>From the Nag Hammadi Library, the Book of Thomas,
Christ tells us "For
whoever does not know self, does not know anything,
but whoever knows self,
already has acquired knowledge about the depth of the
universe". Compare
this with a tract from the Upanishads, the Indian
metaphysical treatise on
Self Realisation: "It is not by argument that the self
is known...
Distinguish the self from the body and mind. The self,
the atman, the
highest refuge of all, pervades the Universe and
dwells in the hearts of
all. Those who are instructed in the self and who
practice constant
meditation attain that changeless and self effulgent
atman ( spirit/ self).
Do Thou Likewise, for bliss eternal lies before
you..."
In another gnostic text, the Secret Gospel of Thomas,
Christ promises us
spiritual fulfilment "I shall give you what no eye has
seen, what no ear has
heard, what no hand has touched and what has never
arisen in the human
mind." This description is not unlike the Upanishadic
experience "the Self
is devoid of birth and death, it neither grows old nor
decays and the
accidents of life do not affect it. The Self
transcends space and time; what
is great is not too great for it to comprehend and
what is small is not too
small to escape its attention. It is the Self of All".
Just as Christ warned us against sin and encourages
moral perfection in the
pursuit of spiritual fulfilment, so too do the Eastern
texts "No
intellectual acumen can help one realise it, it can be
realised only by
those who surrender to it and who make themselves
worthy by grace, by
desisting from all that is sinful, who engage in the
practice of perfection
by constant meditation"( Upanishads).
The most ancient Eastern spiritual texts, the Vedas,of
India, tell us that
the process of spiritual awakening by which one
attains truth -awareness is
called 'Self-Realisation'. The Self Realised person
lives in direct
experience of reality -- this is called "Jnana" ( a
traditional sanskrit
word meaning 'knowledge' or 'Gnosis'). Such a person
is called a "Jnani"
('knower ' or 'gnostic' ) or "dwijaha" ('twice born';
first from a human
mother to the earthly plane then secondly as a child
of the Goddess, or
Divine Mother, who gives the seeker their second,
spiritual birth, Self
Realisation, into the plane of mystic awareness-
gnosis! ). The traditional
Indian texts extol the 'Divine Mother' as the Cosmic
Matriarch, bestower of
the highest treasure of Self Realisation upon Her
deserving children. Many
Indian mystic traditions say this same goddess is
represented within the
human being as the divine feminine power called
Kundalini.
What of Western tradition? In the Secret Book of John
Christ explains that
human redemption before the Heavenly Father occurs by
the mediation of a
Divine Feminine principle, which he calls the Earthly
Mother. It is the
Earthly Mother who removes the sins of the children
that they can become
worthy of their divine heritage; "when all sins and
all uncleanesses are
gone from your body, your blood shall become as pure
as our Earthly Mother's
blood and as pure as the river's foam sporting in the
sunlight. And your
breath shall become as pure as the breath of odorous
flowers; your flesh as
pure as the flesh of fresh fruits reddening upon the
leaves of trees; the
light of your eye as clear and bright as the
brightness of the sun shining
upon the blue sky. And now shall all the angels of the
Earthly Mother serve
you and your breath, your blood, your flesh shall be
one with the breath,
the blood and the flesh of the Earthly Mother, that
your spirit also become
one with the Spirit of your Heavenly Father. For truly
no-one can reach the
Heavenly Father unless through the Heavenly Mother.
Even as the newborn babe
cannot understand the teaching of his father until his
mother has suckled
him, bathed him, nursed him, put him to sleep and
nurtured him". The Earthly
Mother is a divine mediator through which the seekers,
the Sons of Man, are
raised to the Heavenly Father. Another part of the
same text says "Honour
your Earthly Mother and keep her laws that your days
may be long on this
earth and honour your Heavenly Father, that eternal
life may be yours in the
Heavens. For the Heavenly Father is a hundred times
greater than all the
fathers by seed and by blood, and greater is the
Earthly Mother than all
mothers by the body". The Holy Trinity, then is God
the Father, God the Son
(ie. Christ) and, it seems, God the Mother. The Divine
Mother particularly
is the means and power of spiritual evolution.
The Secret Book of John relates Christ's description
of the Divine Feminine
as the power of God Almighty. "She is the first power.
She preceded
everything, and came forth from the Father's mind as
forethought of all. Her
light resembles the Father's light; as the perfect
power She is the image of
the perfect and invisible Virgin Spirit. She is the
first power, the glory,
Barbello, the perfect glory among the worlds, the
emerging glory, She
glorified and praised the Virgin Spirit for she had
come forth through the
Spirit. She is the first thought, image of the Spirit.
She became the
universal womb, for She precedes everything, the
common parent, the first
humanity, the Holy Spirit". The Holy Spirit is here
described as the Divine
Power of God Himself. This power is maternal in its
character (universal
womb, She, the common parent) and all powerful as the
'first emanation of
God'. More so, She is pure (Virgin) and She glorifies
purity. So ancient
christian tradition seems to tell us that the holy
spirit is actually the
Divine Mother!
One cannot overlook the Eastern parallels. God
Almighty in Indian mythology
is represented as Sada-Shiva. His state is eternal
perfection (Sat Chit
Ananda). His power is the Adi Shakti (primordial
power) who is His feminine
counterpart or spouse. It is She who does all things.
She created the
universe and the gods who attend over it (for example,
the triune Shiva,
Brahma, Vishnu). The Adi Shakti is the Mother of all
things. She gave birth
to the universe and is the feminine power of every
deity and celestial being
(usually represented as their spouse). The Secret Book
of John parallels
this "She became the universal womb, for She precedes
everything, the common
parent, the first humanity, the Holy Spirit, the
triple male (Shiva, Brahma,
Vishnu?) the triple power (Parvati, Saraswati,
Lakshmi, who are spouses of
the triple males-or the triple Goddess of Western
mythological tradition?)".
Thus the Christian mystics understood that the Holy
Spirit is the Divine
Feminine, the Goddess, the Universal Mother herself.
The Syriac Christians
worshiped the Holy Ghost as the Great Mother. Phillip
suggests that Mary
Herself is the Holy Spirit (for who else but God the
Mother can give birth
to God the Son?). Other Apocryphal Scriptures describe
Mary as the focus of
Temple activities. Her early life was punctuated by
auspicious portents all
implying her own Divinity.
Just as Mary and the Holy Ghost appear to parallel
aspects of the Divine
Mother described in the East, so too does Christ, the
son of God reflect the
Eastern principle of the Divine Child. The Divine
Child in the Eastern
mythological tradition is commonly worshiped as the
dual child-gods Ganesha
and Kartikeya. Ganesha represents the fabric of the
cosmos, the primordial
Aum or Logos from which the creation was constructed.
Christ affirmed the
same primordial nature of himself when he said "I am
the first" and "I am
the alpha". Ganesha is the primordial child who is the
embodiment of purity
and innocence. Similarly Christ venerated children and
the innocence that
they manifested. He even urged the apostles (and us)
to cultivate our own
childlike innocence " let the children come to me for
the kingdom of heaven
belongs to such as these" and "assuredly whoever does
not receive the
kingdom of god as a little child will by no means
enter it"(Mark 10).
Kartikeya is the same principle of innocence in
dynamic action- the slayer
of evil; as Christ did when he ejected the money
lenders from the temple.
So, Christ seems to be telling us that the kingdom of
Heaven, which is a
state of God-like perfection and child-like innocence
is attained by some
inner phenomenon. In the Gnostic Scriptures Christ
spoke directly of this as
an inner transformation, self realisation. He also
told us that the Holy
Ghost or Divine Mother is the power by which this is
accomplished, but by
what mechanism?
Let's take lateral look at the Indian tradition of
Kundalini of which many
local saints have spoken. Shankaracharya (700AD) and
Gyaneshwara (1200AD)
are two well known mystic exponents of Kundalini. They
both describe the
actualisation of self-realisation in their classic
poetry, such as the
Saundarya-Lahari, Sivananda-Lahari and the Gyaneshwari
(itself a commentary
on the Kundalini Yoga described by Krishna in the
Bhagavad Gita ). They
describe a force of pure (virgin) spirituality, which
lies dormant within
the human being.
By constant purification and self perfection the seven
vital energy centres
(chakras) which govern all aspects of mind, body and
soul, are prepared for
the awakening of Kundalini. Once awakened by divine
grace, the Kundalini
passes through these centres, not unlike a string
through beads,
enlightening each as it passes through. Arriving at
the seventh centre
(Sahasrara) the seeker's awareness is united with the
eternal-self-within.
The experience is transrational, non causal, a
tangible and real bliss of
truth-awareness. Indian mystics called the Sahasrara
"Paradise", "Heaven"
or, as Christ has called it "The Kingdom of God
Within". As the Kundalini
passes through each of the vital centres, they are
stimulated to produce a
pure, nourishing energy. The Vedas (Ancient Scriptures
of India) describe
this energy as a sacred river emitted by each of the
seven chakras.
Shankaracharya called this energy "spun". He too
described its nature as
being like divine water showering down upon him as he
meditated in the
ecstacy of devotion. Other Indian scriptures call this
energy
"Paramchaitanya" (energy of supreme consciousness).The
miracle of Whitsunday
wherein the Apostles became empowered with their
spirituality sounds similar
to the experience of these chakras manifesting this
same divine energy.
Shankaracharya said "All Glory unto the current of
Divine Bliss which,
brimming from the river of Thy Holy stories, flows
into the lake of my mind,
through the canals of intellect, subduing the dust of
sin and cooling the
heat of memory". Much of the gnostic texts repeat this
ancient Eastern
understanding.
Consider this tract from the Book of Hymns of the Dead
Sea Scrolls: "I have
reached the inner vision and through Thy Spirit in me
I have heard Thy
wondrous secret, through Thy mystic insight Thou hast
caused a spring of
knowledge to well up within me, a fountain of power,
pouring forth living
waters, a flood of love and of all embracing wisdom,
like the splendour of
eternal light". The "fountain of power", "spring of
knowledge", "Living
water", "flood of love", "eternal light" all directly
describe the
experience of Kundalini awakening! Consider this from
the Nag Hammadi
Library, the Apocryphal Gospel of Phillip "The Tree of
Life is in the centre
of Paradise, as is the oil tree from which the
anointment Chrisma comes. The
Chrism is the source of resurrection". Krishna, the
divine being, c4000BC,
also described the Kundalini as an inverted Tree of
spirituality, whose
roots lay in the brain. The 'Tree of Life' is a well
recognised symbolic
parallel of the Kundalini. So too is the Holy Grail,
the cup from which
Christ drank at the last supper its symbolic
significance being that
Christ's sustenance arose from a cup, that is, an
object whose receptive
qualities reflect the nature of the divine feminine --
yet another parallel
of the Kundalini.
It is likely that St Phillip's 'Chrisma' is the same
'spun' described by
Shankaracharya, the 'Paramchaitanya' or in Christian
terminology 'God's
grace'. In the Gospel of Peace, Christ explains that
the experience of
spirituality is foremost. He says the Scriptures are
merely conveying an
intellectual knowledge, but we are to have the 'living
knowledge', that is
the experience of our own spirituality. He says "Seek
not the law in your
Scriptures for the law is life, whereas the Scripture
is dead. I tell you
truly Moses received not his laws from God as writing
but through the living
word. The law is living word for living God to living
prophets for living
men. In everything that is life to the law is the law
written, for I tell
you truly all living things are nearer to God than the
Scripture which is
without life. I tell you truly that the Scripture is
the work of man, but
life and all its hosts are the work of our God.
Wherefore do you not listen
to the words of God which are written in his works?
And wherefore do you
study the dead Scriptures which are from the hands of
men?". That is, seek
the divine experience which is beyond definition, do
not settle for mundane
human interpretations of the mystic's suprahuman
experience. Thus Christ's
law is a living, cosmic and experiential one, and is
actuated by the
awakening of the spiritual experience within the
seeker, not by intellectual
study or by following those who themselves have not
truly had the
experience. This directly parallels the eastern
teachings; that self-
realisation, the pure spiritual awakening, is attained
by the righteous and
itself gives greater righteousness. More so, self
realisation is a process
of genuine, inner spiritual transformation which must
be experienced to be
understood, since it lies beyond the domain of
scriptural description or
theological definition. Since it is gained by the
grace of the Divine
Mother( Holy Spirit) alone, it is most certainly not
possible to organise or
institutionalise this experience in human terms.
This contrasts with the way in which the Churches have
pigeonholed and
categorised Christianity in terms of 'blind faith',
'obedience to the
church' and empty ritual. In the Gnostic Scriptures,
untouched by the
organised churches, Christ urges us to perceive and
experience the cosmic
order for ourselves and not to rely on so-called
scriptural authorities --
such as the churches -- to prescribe it to us.
C.G. Jung recognised the link between the Divine
Feminine and the Eastern
principle of Kundalini. He understood that the
Kundalini was the
representation of the Goddess within each of us. Is
the Holy Ghost the
Kundalini? Was the Kundalini a central principle in
early mystic
Christianity? Such an assumption would help us
reinterpret many parts of the
mainstream bible, for example; In the Gospel of John,
Christ explains to the
Pharisee Nicodemus, " Verily I say unto thee, except a
man be born of water
and the spirit; he cannot enter the kingdom of God",
this second birth far
from being a licence for so many born again Christian
fundamentalists is
something much more mystical and subtle in nature. To
be "born of the water
and the spirit" describes the awakening of Kundalini.
She is often described
as a divine mother whose ascent within the spine of
the seeker gives them
rebirth into mystic/gnostic awareness, the 'divine
water' is its nourishing
energy. The Kundalini enters the Sahasrara and there
unites the seeker's
awareness with the self or spirit. This is described
as a blissful, infinite
experience of the kingdom of God within. Thus,
Christ's 'born again'
Christianity might actually refer to those Christians
who have entered the
realm of direct experience of divinity, in the state
of self realisation.
Other Canon (mainstream) Scriptures can be more deeply
understood in this
light. In the Gospel of Matthew, Christ says "Be Ye
Perfect, even as Your
Father which is in Heaven is perfect". (Ch.5, v. 48).
This is a clear
exhortation by Christ to strive and achieve spiritual
perfection, just as
the Buddha and other Eastern sages taught their
disciples. Christ tells us
about our innately divine nature "Ye are Gods" (Psalm
82, v.6; John 10,
v.34). Furthermore "Behold the Kingdom of God is
within you" (Luke 17,
v.21), that is the experience of Heaven is an internal
phenomenon. This
implies that the inner state of the seeker is the
source of their spiritual
fulfilment. We could well say that Christ's idea of
Heavenly Salvation was
an internal state of Godlike perfection.
When the seeker's awareness is completely united with
the Eternal
Spirit/Self/Atman the true self (not ego, mind,
intellect, personality, body
or memory) is experienced or realised. Since the
spirit is no less than a
reflection of God itself then in the state of complete
Self Realisation the
seeker experiences perfection" as our Father in Heaven
is perfect". The
Eastern term for this state of Self Realisation is God
Realisation and it
represents the final stage of our spiritual evolution.
There are deeper references to the chakras and
kundalini in the Scriptures.
For example, Revelations may also symbolically
describe the chakras in St.
John's spiritual vision;" I saw seven standing lamps
of gold" (the chakras
emitting the divine light?), John sees Christ as one
of the seven lamps (you
will see the significance of this later), Christ is
holding the "seven
stars" (demonstrating his command of the chakra
system?) and speaks of the
"seven churches" (the divine institution within each
chakra?).In Genesis
Jacob envisions a divine ladder directly connecting
his earthly being with
God in Heaven- this precisely describes the experience
and purpose of the
kundalini!
Consider this idea: The term 'Jesus of Nazareth', does
not (say German
theologians) relate to Christ's times in Nazareth.
Proper understanding of
the original language shows that such a term is not
linguistically possible
(despite the fact that Paul uses it). The original
term is more likely,
"Jesus the Nazareen." Nazareen is an Aramaic word
meaning "one who has bound
himself to the service of God" or "one who is
anointed." Compare this to the
meaning of Yoga, "Union with God" and 'Yogi' - one who
has union with god or
to descriptions of the awakening of the Kundalini,
"the mystical
anointment". The Nazaria were a group of Gnostics
contemporary to Christ.
They taught a mystic spirituality similar to the
Eastern ideas already
described. It has been suggested by some authorities
that this Gnostic word
is ultimately derived from the Hindustani 'Nazar.'
This is a yogic term for
the point between the eyebrows and above the nose (the
'third eye') where
sages of old performed meditation. 'Nazaren' means to
envision or behold.
Then a more accurate meaning of "Jesus the Nazareen"
would be "Jesus who has
Yoga or Self Realisation" or "Jesus who meditates".
Considering Christ's
status as the" Son of God" perhaps a more appropriate
meaning would be
"Jesus who is the object of meditation". Was Christ
himself the object of
meditation as are many deities in Eastern cultures?
Christ himself might
well be the Nazaren.
The Nazar physically corresponds to the location of
the Agnya chakra, the
sixth vital chakra through which the Kundalini must
pass before She enters
the Sahasrara. The Agnya manifests physically as the
'optic chiasm' whose
shape itself is cruciform! Is the cosmic Christ
represented within each of
us in the Nazar, Agnya chakra, just as the cosmic
Mother or Holy Ghost is
represented within us as the Kundalini?
The position of the Agnya chakra is such that it is
the final centre to be
crossed before the Kundalini finishes its journey to
the Sahasrara ( the
'Kingdom of God Within'). Entry of the Kundalini into
the Sahasara gives the
blissful experience of divine awareness. This
literally explains Christ's
words, "None can enter Heaven except through me".
Ponder also on Christ's instruction 'to be as little
children' or "look at
the birds of the air for they neither sow nor reap nor
gather into barns;
yet your heavenly father feeds them....which of you by
worrying can add one
cubit to his stature?"(Matthew 6). The innocence of
mind which he describes
is that same Zen awareness obtained in the state of
meditation, when the
Agnya chakra is pierced by the Kundalini giving rise
to a heightened
awareness of the present moment, all thoughts of past
and future
neutralised. Consider also that Christ himself told
us, "When your two eyes
become one, your body will be filled with light." This
implies that when we
go beyond the physical sight ( the two eyes) to the
subtle experience or
perception which occurs by opening of the third eye
and thus entry of the
awareness into the Sahasrara our body is filled with
light, purity, grace
etc.
There is further symbolism eg. the twelve apostles
represent six pairs which
are symbolic of the lower six chakras from Mooladhara
to Agnya. These six
chakras are limited to dual awareness, ie. past and
present, cause and
effect. However, the final chakra, Sahasrara,
represented here by Christ,
who was the leader of the twelve apostles is non-dual,
being derived from an
awareness higher than the causal plane.
Here are some possible conclusions which are equally
reasonable, though
entirely contrary to modern dogma about Christ and
Christianity. Christ's
spirituality differed radically from our modern
understanding. His teaching
was dynamic and zen-like focusing on the experience of
inner purification
and transformation, the elevation of the seeker's
awareness into the state
(not concept or dogma) of self-realisation. He sought
to overthrow the
immoral culture of the Romans and to deliver to the
dogmatic, letter-bound
Jews the mystic fulfilment promised to them in the
Mosaic covenant.
Central to his teaching was the understanding that the
feminine aspect of
God, God the Mother, was the means by which
self-realisation and spiritual
evolution to god-awareness occurred. Christ venerated
the Divine Mother as
the Holy Spirit. It is this power, described in the
East as residing in the
human being as the Kundalini, that is the last vestige
of the
Goddess-tradition in the Christian West.
Mary was in her own right a divine being. She was
venerated as such by
Christ and some of the suppressed scriptures describe
her as the Holy Spirit
incarnate.
Why did the Churches suppress these true christian
traditions? Partly
because they are patriarchal institutions based on the
questionable dogma of
Paul who perceived women (and therefore the feminine
principle) as inferior
entities. Partly also because spirituality which
focused on the Divine
Feminine would also focus on the redemptive power of
God the Mother and on
Her role as the grantor and matriarch of mystical
experience. This kind of
understanding, like all mystics and mysticism, defies
organisation, dogmatic
hierarchies and institutions preferring the role of
individual experience,
revelation and progressive growth toward divine
awareness.
The Holy Ghost, then, threatened to neutralise the
fear-oriented dogma which
the Churches have used, in the name of Christ and
Spiritual Truth, to
maintain their secular power and wealth.
Christ's promise of a comforter, the "second coming",
implies another divine
incarnation to bring about the redemption of humanity.
As we have seen it is
the Divine Mother who has the power to redeem her
children, the Sons of Man
(as the gnostics put it), in the eyes of God the
Father. Who better to
comfort the children who suffer, as does the West and
much of the world from
a culture whose ethic of materialism and immediate
gratification is
characterised by terms such as "the lost generation",
"eco-disaster",
"terrorism", "future shock" and "psycho-social
alienation", than the Divine
Mother?
C.G. jung, in his critique of the Western psyche
keynoted the absence of the
Feminine Principle as a major cause of much of the
West's psycho-cultural
imbalance. The return of the Divine Feminine would
indeed facilitate the
spiritual redemption of Western Culture.
With this perspective we may be able to understand a
key image from
Revelations;
"A great Portent in Heaven, a Woman robed with the
Sun, beneath her Feet the
Moon, and on her Head a Crown of twelve Stars. She was
pregnant, and in the
anguish of Her Labour She cried out to be Delivered.
Then a second Portent
appeared in Heaven: a great red Dragon with seven
Heads and ten Horns; on
his Heads were seven Diadems, and with his Tail he
swung down a third of the
Stars in the Sky and flung them to Earth. The Dragon
stood in front of the
Woman who was about to give birth, so that when Her
Child was born He might
devour It. She gave birth to a male child, who is
destined to rule all the
Nations with an Iron Rod....."
The Divine Woman, a central figure of Revelations, is
the Comforter Herself.
The crown of stars indicates that Her authority and
heritage is of the
Divine Father, the moon, upon which She resides is
another symbol of the
feminine.
As the Divine Mother She is giving birth, ie.
self-realisation, and succeeds
in producing a man-child. A man indicating spiritual
maturity and dynamic
action and yet a child symbolising purity of heart and
that quality of
innocence which Christ taught was essential to enter
into the state of
Heavenly Experience. The child, having the mystic
awareness of
self-realisation, rules over the nations indicating
command of the earthly
plane as well as over the inner country, the chakra
system. The child of the
Divine mother is a Gnostic adept!
He rules with an iron rod, the kundalini, which
mercilessly slays the forces
of evil, the obstacles which obstruct her flow through
the chakra system.
The dragon who stands over the Woman as She labours
waiting to devour the
child could well be the Churches. Their 2000 year
vigil against the Divine
Feminine lest she produce a race of Gnostics is
evident in their
manipulation and suppression of the scriptures.
Revelations tells us that
the Divine Children are destined to overcome the beast
and establish a New
Age of divine awareness.
Consider Christs warning "he who has blasphemed
against the holy ghost shall
be damned forever". What then of the Churches who have
virtually edited the
divine feminine out of the Western Cultural tradition
in order to maintain
their grip on the masses?
_____