PODCAST: The Fall and Rise of the Gnostics -- on Spiritual Awakening Radio with James Bean
Before the Sufis, in antiquity there were some who were vegetarians, followed a practice of being "initiated into the Mysteries of the Kingdom of the Heavens" by a living teacher, and during their meditation practice repeated several sacred names that correspond to various inner regions. Their goal was to spiritually ascend through several heavenly realms in order to return to the timeless Supreme Being in the highest realm. Some called this Being "The Nameless One". There are references to inner Light and Sound. There are also references to a Kal Niranjan type being, a false god or negative power called "the Demiurge'. Several Sant Mat authors have written books about the Gnostics and the parallels between Gnosticism and the Path of the Masters.
One of the Gnostic scriptures called "Pistis Sophia" contains many beautiful hymns and prayers. Though reincarnation is mentioned as a reality, the goal of salvation was to liberate souls from material captivity, reincarnation, the wheel of fate, and go back to God again. Souls were given the ability to mystically travel via the Holy Stream of Light. In Pistis Sophia (the Book of Faith-Wisdom) Christ says, "Seek, all of you, after the Light, so that the power of your soul that is in you may live. Do not cease seeking day or night until you find the mysteries of the Kingdom of Light, which will purify you, make you into pure Light and lead you into the Kingdom of the Light."
Discover why these writings got purged from the Western world during the Fourth Century. Tune in as we celebrate the sages of Judaism, Neoplatonism and Pythagoreanism that helped to give birth to all of these amazing spiritual movements of antiquity such as the Essenes, Sethians, Mandaeans, Ebionites (mentioned in the Book of Acts, the Hebrew Christians lead by James the Just -- "Christianity before Paul"), Valentinians, Manichaeans, Cathars, and other groups that once represented "cousin" schools of spirituality that have much in common with living paths of today such as Kabbalah, Sufism, and Sant Mat.
Instead of a wafer-thin New Testament at the end of a very long old covenant, how about a huge treasure-trove of New Testament type literature, including poetry, psalms and odes? Some of the twelve surviving codices of the Nag Hammadi or Gnostic Gospels were organized with a curious New Testament-like format of: 1) gospels, followed by, 2) letters or spiritual discourses, and then, 3) books of revelation (heavenly apocalypses). These revelations consist of the visionary or out-of-body encounters by various Saints soul-traveling through several heavenly realms of consciousness. This almost two thousand year old "time capsule", now known as the Nag Hammadi Library, has set in motion a spiritual revolution.
One of the most read and discussed books of the Nag Hammadi discovery is the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of the wisdom sayings of Jesus that somehow is related to Sayings Gospel Q (a collection of sayings that get quoted in several early gospels).
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All for the Love of Wisdom and Radio,
James
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