by Gnostic Muse | Jan 19, 2019 | Introductory Information
Awakening the Consciousness
Awakening the consciousness is freeing the essence from attachment. When the consciousness is free it is not subject to conditioning of the mind and ego. It is not bound by the dimension of time and space. The awakened consciousness is joy, serenity, insight.
Awakening can be achieved through dedicated practices of meditation and concentration, transmutation, self-remembering, prayer, and other practices and efforts. Profound events such as the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, or having a near-death experience can sometimes shock the consciousness to awaken to the present moment.
What is important to understand, especially in the gnostic work, is the difference between awakening and walking the initiatic path. In order to progress in a balanced way we need both.
Dead Water and the Great Life
Samael Aun Weor taught about two types of awakened consciousness which he called Dead Water and the Great Life.
Dead Water is temporary awakening, temporary enlightenment, but without eliminating the cause of the sleep of consciousness.
The Great Life is permanent enlightenment, which comes from working intensely in the death of the ego, the birth of the solar faciulties, and sacrificing ourselves for humanity. In other words, walking the initiatic path.
The Initiatic Path
The initiatic path opens up when we make serious efforts to dissolve the ego and to conserve and transmute the sexual energy. This path is intimate and will look different for everyone, but the fundamental requirements are the same.
Loving and cultivating the sexual creative energy opens the doors to initiation.
Eliminating the ego frees the consciousness from attachment and brings about gradual, but permanent awakening.
Sacrificing ourselves for others with love is the momentum that propels us along the path. Without love and sacrifice the work stagnates.
Awakening Without the Path
There are many people who practice and teach beautifully about the awakening of the consciousness. But awakening is only temporary without the path.
It is very possible to awaken the consciousness for selfish reasons such as wanting to escape obligations and difficulties in our lives, feeling superior to other “unconscious” people, and desiring special spiritual powers.
Even if the motivations for awakening are sincere, if the ego is still intact the consciousness will always go back into its conditioning. There will always be that small selfish desire behind our efforts.
Without the conservation and transmutation of sexual energy we lack the necessary force to create real internal change within ourselves. The result of this can be the delusion of mistaking ourselves for awake or enlightened but still trapped in ego conditioning. The danger is in leading ourselves and others astray, and causing harm through being partially awake but still ignorant. Awakening without the path is like driving a car in an unknown country without a map or compass.
Walking the Path Without Awakening
As strange as it sounds, we can work with transmutation practices, prayer, meditation, death of the ego, and sacrificing ourselves for humanity, all with the consciousness asleep. Samael Aun Weor reminds us of the need to practice self-remembering (awakening) while self-observing (working on ourselves).
Walking the path without awakening means we are not receiving inner experiences about our initiatic process. We are not feeling deeply connected to our Being, we are not conscious in the superior dimensions, and not achieving deep states of meditation. Sleep means feeling ourselves as the personality rather than our own true reality which is the essence.
This is a difficult and sad state because we lose hope and feel only the burdens of the path without the simple joy of Being. We may become rigidly dogmatic about what we think the path is, projecting our pain onto others in judgement and condemnation. We wander in the desert without ever finding an oasis until we burn out and leave the path.
The Solution
For those on the path and working in the three factors: practice awakening. Breathe, relax, take time to find serenity and to feel the consciousness flowing through you and flowing through your life. Find your unique way of walking the path in accordance to your own Being and particular ray. There will be times when it feels lonely and deserted but keep drawing from the fountain of life within.
For those dedicated to awakening: study and work with the three factors. Learn to die to the ego so that your process is integrated. Practice humility so that you can stay grounded even as your consciousness shifts and awakens. Incarnate the solar values so that you may find the Great Life.
by Gnostic Muse | Apr 20, 2018 | Gnostic Psychology, Gnostic Schools, Introductory Information
The Fourth Way is a spiritual path first taught by Gurdjieff and continued in the gnostic teachings of Samael Aun Weor. In the fourth way the obligations of life are the path to internal transformation. The fourth way is a path of the “householder”, where the aspirant does not take vows of celibacy or poverty, but engages in spiritual discipline and practices while performing the duties of working a job, having a family, and living among normal people. The fourth way is also called the path of the balanced human, or the harmonious development of the human.
Three Paths
Historically there were three main paths to enlightenment or internal spiritual transformation: the way of the monk, the yogi, and the fakir. All of these ways are characterized by a retreat from life and typically renouncing marriage, family, wealth, and worldly attachments. Each focuses on the development of either of the three brains: the emotions, the intellect, or the physical willpower. Each can gain certain powers, disciplines, spiritual experiences, and spiritual values, but but also have drawbacks because of a lack of balance.
The Way of the Monk
This is the way of devotion and love and develops the emotional center. Through prayer, single-pointed devotion to God, and self-sacrifice, the monk is able to experience superior emotional states and a level of communion with the divine. This way neglects the intellect and physical development so the monk may not be able to teach this path to another who does not innately feel devotional love, and there may not be a physical discipline for the health of the body. This is a path that is difficult to teach or transmit unless the disciple also feels that particular devotion strongly.
The Way of the Yogi
The path of the Yogi develops spiritual powers, called siddhis, such as telepathy and clairvoyance. Yet without humility, love, devotion, and discipline this path can become unbalanced and never incarnate the true divine values. The yogi may be well-versed in spiritual scriptures and rituals, and have some psychic powers. This way neglects the sense of spiritual surrender and emphasizes psychic powers which may or may not be used for good. It can also rely too much on intellectual knowledge and not on raising the level of being.
The Way of the Fakir
Fakir is a term for ascetics often seen in India and the Middle East who develop their will to overcome the needs of the physical body. This is the way of generating strength of will. The fakir fasts from food, abstains from sex, goes naked, lays on a bed of nails, raises their arm above their head for years. This develops willpower over the body and a certain amount of willpower in general. This way neglects any kind of intellectual framework for understanding why they are doing this, and also any devotional practice. The fakir usually proceeds in these acts from imitating other fakirs and is not able to transmit any understanding to others of what they have gained.
They may obtain a degree of willpower but cannot teach this path to others and there is often complete neglect of the development of the emotions, of devotion, humility and other psychological development.
The Balance
The fourth way balances the development of the intellect, psychic powers, superior emotions, and physical discipline. This way requires a person who is not just a householder, but a good householder, someone who can meet the requirements of a healthy normal life. This generally means being part of a community, a family, and able to work at their vocation.
Being a good householder requires a certain amount of humility, consistency, basic values of upright conduct, while responding to the constant set of challenges that life brings. When these challenges are transformed through application of the three factors and the awakening of consciousness then we are able to develop spiritually in a way that is natural and in accordance to our own inner needs.
The Fourth Way uses life as a school to awaken the consciousness, to develop, harmonize, and balance ourselves. The foundation of the spiritual path is a psychological maturity and responsibility to ourselves and others. This path teaches the techniques of meditation and transmutation to develop the basic physical willpower; devotion and prayer to access higher emotional states and have an intimate relationship with the Divine; and the development of the intellect with a coherent doctrine, spiritual discipline, and practices to awaken the latent faculties of the soul.
by Gnostic Muse | Nov 24, 2015 | Introductory Information
“I advise you, whoever you are, who wish to explore the mysteries of nature,
if you do not find within yourself that which you seek, neither shall you find it outside.
If you ignore the excellencies of your own house, how do you intend to find excellence elsewhere?
Within you is hidden the treasure of treasures.
Oh, man, know yourself and you shall know the Universe and the Gods!”
-Inscribed at the entrance of the ancient Greek temple of the oracle of Delphi
Gnosis is direct knowing, direct internal experience. Gnosis is the eternal truth that elevates the human experience and brings meaning and purpose to life.
Gnosis is found within all religions, mystical teachings, philosophical systems, within the science of the Earth and stars, within medicine and healing, within art, music, and all expressions of beauty and transcendence.
The gnostic teachings and organizations exist to transmit the methods and clarify the doctrines that help each person awaken to their true purpose. To see beyond the apparent form of things and into their true nature.
Two Greek Words for Knowledge
Episto is what we learn at school or university. It is information found online, in books, the knowledge based in memorization and concepts, learned and applied exclusively externally.
Gnosis is experiential, internal knowledge, internal truth, arrived at with the consciousness.
Gnosis is beyond the thoughts and feelings, it is something natural and spontaneously arising, a hunch, an intuition, a dream, a meditation experience. But more than that: gnosis is something truly objective, of the consciousness, for the consciousness.
Gnosis is also related to the words: chan, zen, jain, jhana, yana, gnana, all indicating a certain type of knowledge, or meditation in the sense of a meditative state of mind or awakened consciousness. To really know oneself in this way takes a certain kind of effort, of learning and cultivating awareness in every moment.
Gnosis is the Perennial Philosophy
Gnosis may be associated most closely with Gnostic Christianity and the gospels not included in the New Testament, including the gospels of Mary, Thomas, Phillip, and Judas, collected in the Nag Hammadi library, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other sources. Yet gnosis is a universal teaching, a universal truth, found in all religions.
The word religion is from the term religare, “to reunite”. Religion in its truest sense is to give us a way to reunite with the divine, to reconnect with all beings, to not see ourselves as separate from everyone and everything.
Religion in this way allows us to regain our lost unity within ourselves, beyond all our internal contradictions, to reunite within ourselves and to be organized internally.
All Religions Contain the Same Essential Wisdom
Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism and Kabbalah, Islam and Sufism, the religions of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Aztecs, Mayans, Nordics, Celts, etc. contain same universal wisdom but modified within that particular time, place, and culture.
All religions at their heart express the same eternal values: faith, reverence, forgiveness, compassion, remembering that which is sacred, development of the human self, of the human culture, appreciation of what is best and most beautiful in everything.
The medieval European alchemists called gnosis the perennial philosophy, the invisible thread that links the essence of all religious, mystical and philosophical pursuits.
Philosophy means to ask the big questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What is our purpose? The answers to these questions have been sought as long as humans have existed, and the answers are glimpsed in all aspects of expression of the human experience.
Gnosis is an intimate and internal process, the relationship between one’s own consciousness and the truth. Gnosis then can be defined as truth. It is also ethics, because truth always points in the direction of goodness, compassion for others, sincerity. Gnosis is beauty, harmony, wisdom. We all have this gnosis inside of ourselves, accessible through our awareness, our consciousness.
The gnostic teachings are structured to bring the seeker in touch with their own inner realities, to have their own gnosis, and to understand it in the context of many mystical and religious traditions.
The Balanced Path
The spiritual path typically falls into one of three broad categories: development of willpower, of mystical devotion, or of intellectual spiritual powers. These three paths always require the seeker to abandon normal life to pursue the spiritual. They must leave family, jobs and home to live and work in an isolated way.
The fourth way is the balanced path and incorporates all these components to be able to function in normal life. The fourth way uses life as a school to awaken the consciousness, to develop, harmonize, and balance ourselves.
The foundation of the spiritual path is a psychological maturity and responsibility to ourselves and others. This path teaches the techniques of meditation and transmutation to develop the basic physical willpower; devotion and prayer to access higher emotional states and have an intimate relationship with the divine; and the development of the intellect with a coherent doctrine, spiritual discipline, and practices to awaken the latent faculties of the soul.