Four Pillars Of Gnosis

The Four Pillars of Gnosis

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What is Gnosis? The basic principles of the great Universal Wisdom, or Gnosis, are always identical. Buddha, Hermes Trismegistus, Quetzalcoatl, the Great Kabir Jesus of Nazareth, etc., each transmitted a message. Each one of those messages, coming from On High, conceals within it identical principles having a completely impersonal and universal character. The body of the doctrine that we presently transmit holds the same principles that were taught in secret by Siddhartha Shakyamuni Buddha and by the Great Kabir Jesus to their disciples. It is, we repeat, the same body of doctrine. However, it is now given in a revolutionary form, in harmony with the vibratory rhythm of the New Era of Aquarius. Allow us to say that the International Gnostic Movement is not just another school. It is the means by which the Gnosis of yesterday, today and forever is expressed. The Gnostic Movement is the initiator of a New Age of profound psychological changes. It is an army founded by men and women who have assumed the unusual labor of revolutionizing themselves while attaining their intimate self-realization. Since Gnostic studies have progressed extraordinarily in recent times, no cultured person would today like in days gone by make the simplistic error of delivering the Gnostic teaching according to one exclusive spiritual tradition. Although it is certain that in any Gnostic system we must take into account its Hellenistic and Oriental elements, including Persia, Mesopotamia, India, Palestine, Egypt, etc., we must never be ignorant of the unmistakable gnostic principles in the sublime religious cults of Indo-America: the Nahuas, Toltecs, Aztecs, Zapotecs, Mayans, Chibchas, Incas, Quechuas, etc., etc., etc. Also, it is an error to believe that Gnosis is a simple metaphysical current introduced from the bosom of Christianity. On the contrary, Gnosis constitutes an existential attitude, with its own characteristics, rooted in the most ancient, elevated and refined esoteric civilization in the history of mankind, which is regrettably not well known by modern anthropologists. Gnosis is a synthesized doctrine, the first of humanity, and therefore has an origin as old as the Earth. The word “Jina,” whence the Greek word “Gnosis” comes, originated from the Persian and Arabic languages. It is not simply “Jina,” but “Djin,” or “Dijinn,” and this is how we see it used by many authors. The Jana, Jnana, Yana, or Gnosis, is therefore the science of Janus, the science of the Initiatic Knowledge and the variations of its name are many—there is one in each language.

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The fundamental purpose of Gnosis in the twentieth century is to form conscious human beings. The goal is based upon the fact that, currently, the human being is scarcely an “intellectual animal,” full of infinite psychological contradictions. The consequences of such an unfortunate psychological condition are easily foreseen: pain, mechanical and useless suffering, sickness, old age and premature death. The Gnostic Movement and its schools provide special methods and systems so that each of us can liberate themselves from all the afflictions of humanity today. In this sense, Gnosis invites us to understand that there is something in us above the purely physical. We have a body of flesh and bone, that is obvious, and everyone accepts this reality, but very few know that we also have a particular psychology that can be changed. Generally, people believe that they only relate to the external world. However, Universal Gnosticism teaches that we also relate to an inner world, or psychological space, invisible to the physical senses, but visible to that which in the Orient is called the Third Eye, or clairvoyance. This inner world is much vaster and contains many more interesting things than the physical world, towards which we forever turn using the windows of the five senses. Thoughts, as well as emotions, desires, hopes, fears, jealousies, frustrations, etc., are internal psychological events, not visible to the ordinary senses. However, for example, they are more real than the table or sofa in one’s living room. Truly, we live much more in our inner world than in the outer. Nevertheless, we give greater importance to that which is superficial, to that which is truly unimportant. Consequently, we live in a world which we do not know, each person being conditioned by his subjective, personal and egoical interests, by his passions, desires, preoccupations and mechanical suffering, without knowing why or what for. Furthermore, there are more internal than external senses, and various schools have methods for developing them, but that can lead us to disorientation and failure if we do not start by developing the sense of psychological self-observation. Developing the sense of inner observation gradually leads us to self-knowledge, by allowing us to take a psychological inventory of what we are and what we are not. In reaching this stage of self-knowledge, the other internal senses also extraordinarily develop. Therefore, in self-discovering what we are inside and eliminating from within that which makes our lives bitter we will resolve the enigma of our own existence and we

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will develop all of our latent possibilities. That is why it has been said, “O Man, know thyself, and thou shalt know the universe and the gods.” Gnosis Gnosis is the illuminated knowledge of the divine mysteries. Gnosis is the most natural function of the consciousness; it is a “Philosophia Perennis et Universalis”. To know who he is, whence he comes, and whither he goes, has always been the fundamental aspiration of the human being. To this primordial necessity Gnosis gives an answer. The Greek word “Gnosis” means “Knowledge.” The real goal of Gnostic studies is to obtain integral knowledge of oneself and the universe, as well as to realize our material and spiritual destiny. However, it is clear that we cannot attain this knowledge by using ordinary intellectual means, or from simple belief, or by theorizing. Unquestionably, gnostic knowledge always escapes the normal analysis of subjective rationalism. The intellect, as an instrument of cognition, is insufficient and awfully poor. Make a distinction between the intellect and the consciousness. The intellect is educated intellectually; the consciousness is educated with the dialectic of the consciousness. We must never confuse the intellect (or the memory) with the consciousness, because these are as different as the lights on a car and the road on which we are driving. Gnostic knowledge is related to the infinite reality within each of us, to that which we have not yet incarnated, to the Inner Master, to the Being. Authentic wisdom belongs to the Being. The self-knowledge of the Being is a suprarational movement that is dependent on Him and has nothing to do with intellectualism. Only the consciousness can know that which is the real, that which is the truth. Only the consciousness can penetrate into the real essence of the Being. Unfortunately, our consciousness is asleep. It is submerged, engulfed, embottled in thousands of “psychic aggregates,” “inhuman elements” or “I-defects.”

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Self-knowledge, self-gnosis (living knowledge experienced by the consciousness), implies the previous annihilation of said ‘I’s as being an urgent and unpostponable work. The ‘I,’ the “ego,” the “self” (hate, covetousness, ambition, lust, envy, laziness, gluttony, fear, jealousy, dogmas, presumptions, preconceptions, etc.) limits our cognitive capacity, does not allow us to know who we are, where we come from and where we are going. Gnosis is fundamentally an attitude about facing life. Because of the ego, our attitude about facing life is erroneous. Gnosis aspires to restore, inside each of us, the ability to learn how to live in a conscious and intelligent manner. Of course, this is not possible if we do not work on ourselves, if something does not die within us. In all authentic transformation, death and birth coexist. Each one of us carries within oneself an erroneous creation. It is indispensable to destroy this false creation so that, in truth, a new creation arises. “If the seed does not die, the plant is not born.” When the death of the ego is absolute, that which must be born is also absolute. We need to create the Human Being within each of us, here and now. The Real Human Being is not the result of a mechanical evolution, nor is he the result of some belief or theory. The Real Human Being is born within us once we have annihilated, by conscious work and right effort, all the psychological elements that turn us into “intellectual animals.” The sincere Gnostic wishes for a radical, total and definitive change. He intimately feels the secret impulses of the Being, which explains his agony, his rejection and embarrassment when facing up to the various inhuman elements that constitute the egos. The egoical consciousness (the consciousness embottled in the ego), is distressingly acknowledged by virtue of its own conditioning. This means that the various forms of knowledge: Art, Science, Philosophy and Religion are weakened and deformed by the psychic machine of the “intellectual animal” quite erroneously called a “human being.” Gnosis is: Art, Science, Philosophy, and Religion. In order to capture the profound significance of these four pillars upon which Gnosis rests we must let the consciousness function. By dissolving the ‘I’s, the “ego,” the “self,” the consciousness is freed, awakened and illuminated and this leads to self-knowledge, self-gnosis.

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Undoubtedly, true revelation has its irrefutable and indisputable foundations in selfgnosis. Gnostic revelation is always immediate, direct, intuitive, and it radically excludes intellectual operations of a subjective type and has nothing to do with the experience and collection of fundamentally sensorial data. Gnosis: Facing the Problem of Knowledge Phenomenon: what we can perceive with our physical and psychic senses, or by way of apparatuses of measurement. Noumenon: what neither the senses nor apparatuses can perceive. We call “appearance” that which we can perceive about the phenomenon, and “essence” the part of the phenomenon that we cannot perceive. Obtaining the essence of the phenomenon must be the end result of knowledge. Various theories exist claiming to explain the problem of knowledge. But, the important thing is for each human being as a cognitive subject to arrive at the truth, that is to say, arrive at knowing that which is the phenomenon in itself, not only in appearance but also in essence. Gnosis shows, on this subject, that as long as the consciousness remains embottled within the ‘I’s, within the “self,” in “my own concepts,” “my theories,” etc., it is impossible to know directly the forthright reality of natural phenomena as they are in themselves. To be open to the new has always been the difficult thing to do. Unfortunately, in all natural phenomena mankind does not want to see, does not hope to discover anything but his own prejudices, preconceptions, opinions and theories. Nobody knows how to be receptive; nobody can see the new with a free and spontaneous mind. If phenomena spoke to the learned it would be great advice, but the erudite of today do not know how to see phenomena. In phenomena they only want to see their own concepts and the confirmation of their own preconceptions. When we see exclusively our own concepts in the phenomena of Nature, we do not see the truth of the phenomena, but rather, we see concepts.

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In no manner do natural phenomena exactly coincide with the concepts formed by the mind. Life unfolds instant by instant, and when we capture it in order to study it, we kill it. To put it another way, when we try to formulate concepts by observing some natural phenomenon, we cease to perceive the reality of the phenomenon, and we see but the reflection of our timeworn theories and concepts, which has nothing to do with the observed fact. Distinguish, therefore, between “concept” and “reality.” Concept is one thing; another very different thing is the reality of life free in its movement. On the other hand, it is also good to know that all of the laws of Nature are within us, and if we do not discover them within, we will not discover them anywhere else. Unquestionably, man finds himself within the universe, and the universe within man. The Reality is what we experience within ourselves. Only the consciousness can experience reality. The language of the consciousness is symbolic, intimate and profoundly meaningful and only awakened human beings understand it. Gnostic Science The three-dimensional world is not everything, and is certainly nothing more than a leaf on the tree of life. Oriental theosophy and various pseudo-esoteric and pseudo-occultist schools tell us about the suprasensible planes. Undeniably, the term “planes” seems a little confusing to us, it gives the idea of surfaces above surfaces, in the form of a staircase. That is precisely why we, in our list of gnostic terminology, have resolved to not use this term, and prefer to speak of “regions” or “worlds” to situate the different realms of the universe and the cosmos. As such, the knowledge is clearer and more intelligible. It is unquestionable that above the three-dimensional world of Euclid there are superior dimensions of nature; it is undeniable that beneath the region called space there exist the infradimensions of nature, which are well situated in the interior of the planetary organism on which we live.

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The one who awakens his consciousness has access to pure and universal objective science; it is for this reason that we should not be fascinated by ultra-modern subjective science: biology, physics, chemistry, etc., which is really purely superficial. That which universal Gnosticism calls pure science, is only possible for human beings with an awakened consciousness, and has nothing to do with theories from the various schools and universities on Earth. Therefore, when we talk about gnostic science, or the objective science of the Being, we think of that which is expressed for example in the Aztec calendar or Solar Stone, we think of cosmic ships of the four-dimensional kind used by humanities from other planets, we think of the pure science of the medieval alchemists, etc. The wise Gnostics know the systems of investigation of the Orient and the Occident. The Gnostics investigate the superior and infradimensions of space with the systems and methods of the Hindu yogis. They study the physical world with the Western methods of investigation. Both systems are complementary and harmonize each other to give us a highly mystical, technical and scientific culture and civilization. Gnosis as Philosophy Truly, as philosophy, gnosis is a function of the consciousness, and is present all over the world. Those who think that its origin is only in Persia, Iraq, Palestine, or in medieval Europe are mistaken. Gnostic philosophy is found in any Hindu work, in any archeological relic, etc. With the help of Gnostic Anthropology we can prove that which we claim. Of course, without preliminary information about Gnostic Anthropology, a rigorous study of the various anthropological pieces of the serpentine cultures (Aztec, Toltec, Mayan, Egyptian, Incan, etc.) would be something more than impossible. Mexican codices, the Egyptian papyri, the Assyrian tablets, the Dead Sea Scrolls, strange Pergamene parchments, as well as certain very old Temples, sacred monoliths, ancient hieroglyphs, pyramids, age-old sepulchers, etc. offer in their symbolic profoundness a gnostic meaning that definitively escapes literal interpretation. Such mysterious things have never been explained in a merely intellectual way. The speculative rationalism of modern anthropologists and historians, instead of enriching the gnostic language, lamentably stagnates it, whereas gnostic stories, writings or allegories in any artistic form are always oriented towards the Being. It is in this very interesting semi-philosophical and semi-mythological language of gnosis that a series of extraordinary constants and symbols with a transcendental

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esoteric essence are presented which, in silence, speak volumes. The divine and human know well that silence is the eloquence of wisdom. Gnostic Art: the Royal Art of Nature It is Gnostic Art that we encounter in all the archaic pieces, in all the ancient works of art: in the pyramids and all the ancient obelisks from the Egypt of the pharaohs, in ancient Mexico with the Mayans, in the archeological relics of the Aztecs, Zapotecs, Toltecs, etc; in the hieroglyphs and bas-reliefs of ancient Egypt; in China, in the old manuscripts of the Middle Ages, with the Phoenicians, Assyrians, etc; in the paintings and sculptures of Michelangelo, in the Gioconda of Leonardo da Vinci, in the music of Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt, Richard Wagner; in the works of universal literature: the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer, the Divine Comedy of Dante, and many others that contain the same principles of universal wisdom. They are only expressed in different ways. All the ancient works of art are hidden behind the veils of philosophical symbolism. [Ed. The works of Rudolf Steiner are an excellent place to learn of gnosis or spiritual science as an art form.] There are two expressions of art: firstly, the subjective, which leads nowhere; secondly, the Royal Art of Nature, transcendental art, based upon the Law of Seven. Evidently, such an art contains in itself precious cosmic truths. Transcendental Mysticism It is necessary to establish a clear distinction between religious forms and religious principles. It is necessary to know that religious principles are living cosmic formulae, and religious forms are the different systems or ways to teach these principles. About the question of religion, we study religiosity in its most profound form. Gnosis studies the science of religions. Gnosis goes to the religious foundation; it seeks the Religare: to join the soul with the real Inner Being, to the divine that live s deep within us. This implies some great super-efforts, because we must eliminate the ego of experimental psychology. The sages of old said that it is only in this way that the Religare is possible. The religiosity that we possess is completely scientific, highly philosophical and profoundly artistic. We search for the deity, the divine within us. We know that if we do not discover that which we call God within us, we will not find it anywhere else.

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Our concern is to know ourselves; our concern is self-gnosis. When we arrive at selfgnosis we will then know ourselves, we will know our real Inner Being and this process of self-knowing, of knowing our Intimate Being, is precisely self-gnosis. Thus, science, art, philosophy and religion are the four fundamental pillars of the Gnostic Movement. Conclusion Science, art, philosophy and religion are forms of knowledge. To these four pillars we the students of gnosis look in order to assist in the intimate self-realization of the Being. Science and philosophy, as well as religion and art, begin to serve real knowledge only when they steer us towards the essential, only when they allow us to verify, with full consciousness, the internal values of all that is, of all that was, and of all that will be. However, it is necessary to remember that the separation of the four pillars of knowledge shows the partiality and lacking of each one on its own; a scission that has happened only in our modern times. Certainly in these times the sciences, the arts, philosophy and religion are separated and this is lamentable. In ancient times for example art was profoundly religious, extraordinarily scientific and philosophical. Today, these four aspects of the human psyche are detached from one another and this dislocation has caused as a consequence a certain degree of degeneration. Universal Gnosticism makes a precise distinction between subjective and objective art. Objective art gathers together the characteristics of science, philosophy and religion; subjective art is detached from the philosophical, mystical and scientific aspects. In a similar manner, an authentic religion in itself unites philosophy and science, as much as a science distinguished as such includes philosophy, religion and art. A religion that opposes science, and a science that opposes religion, are equally false. It is evident that an anti-religious science falls into dogmatic materialism, and an antiscientific religion develops purely in the external, exoteric aspects, having as a foundation the intellectual speculations of theologians. The experience of gnosis allows the sincere devotee to know himself and to integrally self-realize.

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What is to be understood by self-realization is the harmonious development of all the infinite possibilities of man. This is not a question of intellectual data given capriciously or of the mere insubstantial wordiness of ambiguous chatter. Everything we are saying here should be translated into real, living and authentic experience. -The Gnostic Institute of Anthropology