Gnosticism and Truth

Would you say that there is only one Truth? Meaning that everyone that is gnostic and has experienced Truth/gnosis is aware of the same things? or are there different Truths for each person? I would assume that there are some universal truths and some individual truths. What's the general idea?

On another note, why do we study all this stuff that people write? Is it really that important? I can't imagine that Jesus needed to know any history. I would suppose that the only reason he needed to study the current religions was because they were false and therefore not revealed to him so he had to study. The only reason he would have to want to know about them was so that he would be better able to reach people that were entrenched in them. And that people would never accept a teacher that didn't already know everything in a context they could understand.

With that in mind, unless we want to concern ourselves with reaching the religiously entrenched we don't really need to learn all this other stuff. We would be better off to forget all the "stuff" we've learned and not know anything. More like an untrained child...

Hi Lig,
Yes there is only 1 Truth, anything that is not "True" is "False"... The only thing is that we try and 'define' Truth like we try and 'define' Love. This can not be done, it can only be observed and with Gnosis 'Truth' is discerned from the False... I even think it gets to the point that nothing 'false' can ever effect you. Truth like Love is an experience, the 'Truths' we know of today might not even be truths. When we listen to others we have to discern more so than when we listen to ourselves.. But even Jesus taught, 'he who is in you is greater than he who is outside of you' while on this earth. While outside of incarnation, we live with the saints and many of those who have 'greater knowledge' of the mysteries than ourselves.... we would not be here if not so... well these are only my 'truths' are they truths to others? I can not say, it is not my place... but I do know that 'Truth' is broader than what we give it.
Peace and Harmony through Unconditional LOVE!

Gnostic Warrior wrote:

When we listen to others we have to discern more so than when we listen to ourselves

Thank you for your reply Gnostic Warrior. I was beginning to wonder if anyone would tackle this question.

Why do we need to discern when we listen to others? If what they say makes sense adopt it, if not don't right? Is that you mean by discerning?

Anyway, what about the rest of my question?

Lig wrote:Would you say that there is only one Truth? Meaning that everyone that is gnostic and has experienced Truth/gnosis is aware of the same things? or are there different Truths for each person? I would assume that there are some universal truths and some individual truths. What's the general idea?

When you use the term Truth (with a higher case "T" - referring the the SPIRIT of ELOHIM) there can only be ONE. Everyone who has truly attained to the highest level of genuine gnosis will know and experience that same one eternal Truth. The reason why theologians/religious people experience differences is purely intellectual/emotional.

On another note, why do we study all this stuff that people write? Is it really that important? I can't imagine that Jesus needed to know any history. I would suppose that the only reason he needed to study the current religions was because they were false and therefore not revealed to him so he had to study. The only reason he would have to want to know about them was so that he would be better able to reach people that were entrenched in them. And that people would never accept a teacher that didn't already know everything in a context they could understand.

I entirely agree - intellectual study (of scriptures) can be useful for us in order to help others out of their (religious) errors, but it will not help us attain the experience of SPIRIT within.

With that in mind, unless we want to concern ourselves with reaching the religiously entrenched we don't really need to learn all this other stuff. We would be better off to forget all the "stuff" we've learned and not know anything. More like an untrained child...

PRECISELY. My Master has said: it is far easier to reach an unbeliever, than one who is full of beliefs.

PLU ~ Bob

I feel validated now I can stay in my happy little place an ignore all the naysayers

gnostic warrior wrote:Hi Lig,
Yes there is only 1 Truth, anything that is not "True" is "False"... The only thing is that we try and 'define' Truth like we try and 'define' Love. This can not be done, it can only be observed and with Gnosis 'Truth' is discerned from the False... I even think it gets to the point that nothing 'false' can ever effect you. Truth like Love is an experience, the 'Truths' we know of today might not even be truths. When we listen to others we have to discern more so than when we listen to ourselves.. But even Jesus taught, 'he who is in you is greater than he who is outside of you' while on this earth. While outside of incarnation, we live with the saints and many of those who have 'greater knowledge' of the mysteries than ourselves.... we would not be here if not so... well these are only my 'truths' are they truths to others? I can not say, it is not my place... but I do know that 'Truth' is broader than what we give it.
Peace and Harmony through Unconditional LOVE!

Truth is not knowledge, and strictly speaking it is not even an experience, it's the Realization of your Being about which nothing at all can be said that is True. Beingness does not operate in time, and so there are no traces left in the mind that one can point to as the experience of Being, there is only the abiding in that 'state' in the present moment.

Truth does not point to the dualistic realm of true and false information, and so it does not declare any knowledge as true or false. All knowledge is relative and contextual, but none of it is ultimately True. However, it's false knowledge (ignorance) that blocks the realization of Truth. No conceptual knowledge is needed for this realization, and in the absence of all knowledge, Truth remains. You/we ARE that Truth. There is nothing to know about what 'we' are.

Phil

The truth is what it is, you can interprete it and argue it but it will be what it is, long after interpreters and arguerers have vanished and are replaced by other interpreters and arguerers.

After all, if I say the sun is bright, and you say the sun is warm, and another says it is an ever-exploding ball of gas -is one truth and the other isn't? While there will be some variance DUE to interpretation, the truth is what it is, and perspective is EVERYTHING. How you see it is dependant on what you see...

I think the most simple yet complete definition of (Spiritual/Ultimate) TRUTH is: that which is unchangeable and eternal.

Very simple - if something changes (or it is possible to be changed) over time, it cannot be THE ultimate TRUTH.

There is nothing material (created) that will fit this definition - nor anything psychic, especially our mind!

PLU ~ Bob

Hi Bob
I absotively agree with that. And so nothing that we perceive can be Truth because everything is changing. Nothing we can think can ultimately be Truth because thoughts are of the mind. So, no conceptual knowledge is actually Truth. Experiences form in the mind, and so no experience is Truth. Have I pushed that too far?

Phil

Phroggy wrote:Hi Bob
I absotively agree with that. And so nothing that we perceive can be Truth because everything is changing. Nothing we can think can ultimately be Truth because thoughts are of the mind. So, no conceptual knowledge is actually Truth. Experiences form in the mind, and so no experience is Truth. Have I pushed that too far?

Phil

Yes, agreed - the one thing that never changes (TRUTH) cannot be perceived, concieved, envisioned or explained by or through the lower/worldly/un-enlighted mind/ego/persona.

However it may be experienced during deep meditation by the Divine Mind as pure unending Light Energy - the Eternal Source of ALL.

PLU ~ Bob

Admin wrote:

Phroggy wrote:Hi Bob
I absotively agree with that. And so nothing that we perceive can be Truth because everything is changing. Nothing we can think can ultimately be Truth because thoughts are of the mind. So, no conceptual knowledge is actually Truth. Experiences form in the mind, and so no experience is Truth. Have I pushed that too far?

Phil

Yes, agreed - the one thing that never changes (TRUTH) cannot be perceived, concieved, envisioned or explained by or through the lower/worldly/un-enlighted mind/ego/persona.

However it may be experienced during deep meditation by the Divine Mind as pure unending Light Energy - the Eternal Source of ALL.

PLU ~ Bob

I want to challenge (sorta) this whole notion that Truth can be experienced. Everybody is clear on the difference between conceptual knowledge and experience, and I hear folks asking for that experience, as though we then must be looking at the Truth. When I joined the forum, I noticed this large section devoted to Gnostic experiences, and my first thought was, why is that of any significance at all? We grasp at our experiences because they are powerful and clearly beyond our 'normal' experiences, and I don't deny that they are glimpses of reality in a strange way, but as you say, nothing that comes and goes is Truth, and all experiences come and go. The question that arises in the context of the Oneness of Truth is, what is the experiencer and what is the experienced? The subject and object of experiencer and experienced is dualistic illusion. All experiences are mind states, including the mind state of egoic individuality.

As it relates to Gnosticism, is it believed that the Gnostics who penned their wisdom were relating experiences, or was this more along the lines of a knowingness, a direct perception, a timeless seeing of what is so, a flash of non-conceptual insight? Such things do not involve the temporal framework of experience, nor the duality of experiencer and experienced.

Phil

Phroggy wrote:I want to challenge (sorta) this whole notion that Truth can be experienced. Everybody is clear on the difference between conceptual knowledge and experience, and I hear folks asking for that experience, as though we then must be looking at the Truth. When I joined the forum, I noticed this large section devoted to Gnostic experiences, and my first thought was, why is that of any significance at all? We grasp at our experiences because they are powerful and clearly beyond our 'normal' experiences, and I don't deny that they are glimpses of reality in a strange way, but as you say, nothing that comes and goes is Truth, and all experiences come and go. The question that arises in the context of the Oneness of Truth is, what is the experiencer and what is the experienced? The subject and object of experiencer and experienced is dualistic illusion. All experiences are mind states, including the mind state of egoic individuality.

As it relates to Gnosticism, is it believed that the Gnostics who penned their wisdom were relating experiences, or was this more along the lines of a knowingness, a direct perception, a timeless seeing of what is so, a flash of non-conceptual insight? Such things do not involve the temporal framework of experience, nor the duality of experiencer and experienced.

Phil

I am sorry that I cannot express or explain "Truth" adequately in words. Thousands of philosophers of far greater intellectual ability than I have always failed in this quest. What you ask here is impossible to put into words, and I can only come back to my oft quoted statement from Yehoshua: "to become like little children if one truly wishes to enter (EXPERIENCE) the Kingdom of God/Heaven/Truth." The experience is so simple, but the explanation so impossible.

Perhaps, if mere words could explain the Spirit/Truth adequately, then we would by now be experiencing world peace and unity between all nations and religions.

PLU ~ Bob

Phroggy wrote:
nothing that comes and goes is Truth, and all experiences come and go.

Hello phil, Much greatings to you for being in the forum. I was reading through post and yours and that phase caught my interest into a vision of explanation as you might call it. Here is a little help understanding Truth of the one within us, by explaining it from a conceptual fashion or parable per say.
If you were watching show on the Tv after searching for it, like polar bears in the artic for an example. It made you feel very attached to a higher degree to nature and just what they are all about, enough even to tell others of if they came in, so this may be considered and experiance that changed you , in a lasting way by alittle bit right? So it is a real truth you experianced. Now if you shut the Tv off, and your observation and visuals of this truth has stoped coming to you, does this mean the bears are no more or the artic has gone some place? not at all the only thing that has happened is that you are not tuning into it, by a free will of choice. The truth being the bears in this case haven`t gone anywhere. Its your perception of them which has. Like the bears as it is remembering the experiance you have in a gnostic way with the father will be changing you and remmebered to any level you wish to attain or achieve.
As far specific Truths to be experianced....That is intirely up to you and your relationship with the father within you, and around you from your own works.
Sorta like the phrase You get what you put into it... on an earthly level its maybe one to one, but when linked within the Father your cup can overflowith indeed.

I hope Helped abit in the Journey we all are in for you Phil

see you again i Hope
Brother Thomas............

Well, guys, thanks for your responses. I'm going to be blunt because neither of you cared to address my points but instead dismissed them and placed yourselves in the position of knowing Truth and wanting to help point me in the right direction. Truth is not an experience and your experiences have only shown you your personal story about truth.

One of you grasps a more mainstream Christian view and you believe yourself to be in relationship to a father. I wonder if Oneness is part of your belief system. If so, how does Oneness form a relationship with itself? Truth cannot be spoken but it certainly can be conceptualized and spoken about and pointed to, and yet nobody is doing that.

Again, do you really believe the original Gnostics sat around swaping experiences of Truth? Experiences are not Knowingness. What we're talking about are realizations. Has anyone here had any realizations that brought clarity, or are you all trapped in your experiences and grasping them as though they are Truth? It's not my intention to offend, only to get to the truth, and I'm beginning to wonder what's really going on here.

Phil

"What we have here is a failure to communicate" ROFL

Anyway Phroggy, here's my attempt to figure out what you are asking. I like the idea of realizations. I've always been a very intellectual person and have never been very inclined to having strange gnosis experiences. Especially not what I've found on this site. I have always desperately wanted to. I remember being a kid, like 10ish and laying on my back on my bed and thinking that if I started at this spot in the ceiling long enough without blinking then everything would become perfectly clear. Needless to say that never happened though I have had moments of clarity. The moments don't really last long enough for me to figure out what's going on before they're over and the only psychic links about my life that I can seem to find are backwards. As in when something bad is going to happen I am uncharacteristically happy for a moment or a while when nothing bothers me and everything seems clear and when something especially good is going to happen it is always preambled by a horrible miserablness. It's almost as if when I worry things turn out better and when I'm at peace something has to come along and wake me up out of it and put me back in the world with everyone else. (By the way, this makes my law of attraction like a magnet with it's poles switched LOL)

So anyway, with this history in mind, I think that it's perfectly possible to have realizations that are Truth. In fact I would prefer them because if I were to experience the trueness of Truth I would be so happy that something catastrophic would be bound to happen. Some people may say that this fear could be holding me back but I'm glad I made the connection because there were times in my past that I made the wrong decisions because I was feeling so good that I figured nothing could go wrong. Now I know. Just FYI, it's not all happiness, it's a certain kind, it's like a peace with everything, like I've finally found my place and I no longer have any ambitions or worries and stress disappears. It's when I have the ability to cope with everything in my life that drives me crazy and when I can blanket out the evil in the world that the bad always happens.

As far as having experiences as opposed to realizations, perhaps some people have to have experiences in order for them to have the realizations. Perhaps some people don't. Bob said something like the lower mind can't conceptualize Truth here it is

Yes, agreed - the one thing that never changes (TRUTH) cannot be
perceived, concieved, envisioned or explained by or through the
lower/worldly/un-enlighted mind/ego/persona.

I propose that it's possible for some people to conceptualize beyond their experiences and experience Truth without the experience. I believe that I (like everyone else) was born with this Truth and by living life to everyone's standards it is trained out of people as we are taught to listen to others instead of ourselves. If one has been an outcast since the beginning (and managed to not build up a wall to protect themselves from hurt) I believe that it's easier to be in touch with Truth and to recognize Truth as realizations and to not need the gnosis experiences that many people here talk of.

As for what were doing here, I can't speak for everyone, but I'll compile the best list I can:

People are:
Looking for validation of their experiences
Looking for someone that can accept their experiences and mindset without throwing them out of the forum
Looking for a place to convert others to thier ideas
Checking out others ideas because they have become discouraged with their own

In the words of the only "Christian" talk show host that I like: We're just beggers trying to show other beggers where to find bread.

However, I could be very wrong and just be throwing my ideas out there that are solely shaped on my experiences To have ideas not shaped by experience feels strange as you have no way to back up the things you feel to be true. I know this from experience LOL