Ah, not a Gnostic of the classical persuasion then?
yes and no
I look to all sources.
from a public domain intepretation of Gosp of Thomas:
His disciples questioned him and said to him,
“Do you want us to fast?
How shall we pray?
Shall we give alms?
What diet shall we observe?”
Jesus said to them,
“If you fast, you will give rise to sin for yourselves;
and if you pray, you will be condemned;
and if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits.
When you go into any land
and walk about in the districts,
if they receive you,
eat what they will set before you,
and heal the sick among them.
For what goes into your mouth will not defile you,
but that which issues from your mouth
-it is that which will defile you.”
Jesus said,
“Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of heaven.
For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered.”
There is no standard “cookbook recipe” or
“regimen” to acquire Knowledge. This differs
from a school where devotees must all follow
the same prescribed path to Enlightenment.
Joseph Campbell points out that this idea of
everyone finding their own way, appears in
the search for the Holy Grail, as told by
Wolfram von Eschenbach, where everyone
must “enter the forest” at a different point,
which they, themselves, must choose.
This obviously differs from following a specified “path”. As J.C. would say: “Follow your bliss”.
from Reflections on the Art of Living
A Joseph Campbell Companion
Selected and Edited by Diane K. Osbon,
“When the world seems to be falling apart,
the rule is to hang onto your own bliss.
It’s that life that survives.”
to be a Gnostic one must not be a Gnostic. I think it is a fundamental mistake of many modern "Gnostics" that they take the demi urge or Yal literally. Samael the blind god (yall, demi urge, satan) to mind is like anger. Anger only exists if you allow yourself to be angry.
If one examines the Gnostic texts taking the idea of Yal literally as many seem to want to do is a mistake.
Jesus saw some little ones nursing. He said to his disciples, “These little ones who are nursing resemble is those who enter the kingdom.” They said to him, “So shall we enter the kingdom by being little ones?” Jesus said to them, “When you (plur.) make the two one and make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside and the above like the below, and that you might make the male and the female be one and the same, so that the male might not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye and a hand in place of a hand and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image - then you will enter [the kingdom].” –Gospel of Thomas 22
Thomas 22 shows us balance. Worship neither the manifest or the unmanifest. Worship both the manifest or the unmanifest.
“Thou must love God as not-God, not-Spirit, not-person, not-image,
but as He is, a sheer, pure, absolute One, sundered from all two-ness,
and in whom we must eternally sink from nothingness to nothingness.”
- Meister Eckhart
A certain king of this world had a beautiful fig garden. In this garden he had growing some beautiful and ripe figs. In his kingdom were living two men which he had neglected. They were a blind man and a lame man.
One night, the lame man conspired with the blind man to steal into the garden and help themselves to some of these figs. Leading the blind man to him with a rope, the lame man climbed upon his back, and acted as the eyes for the blind man. In this way, the two men managed to get into the garden, and eat the figs growing therein.
When the king discovered that his figs were missing, he went to the blind man and asked him how such a thing could happen. The blind man responded by saying; “How could I have done this, I who cannot see?” Then the king went to the lame man and asked of him the same question. The lame man responded by saying; “How could I have done this, I who cannot walk?”
The king then put the lame man on the blind mans back, and demonstrated how the two had worked together to accomplish there goal, and they were unable to deny it. It is in this way that the body is connected to the soul, and the two will be judged by what both have done, and endure no separate judgment.
–Apocryphon of Ezekiel (The lame and blind men in the garden)
Ultimatly Gnosticism despite the insistance of outsiders is not dualistic (mostly lol) . So classcial Gnostic? yes and no...
Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal.
Names given to the worldly are very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect. Thus one who hears the word "God" does not perceive what is correct, but perceives what is incorrect. So also with "the Father" and "the Son" and "the Holy Spirit" and "life" and "light" and "resurrection" and "the Church (Ekklesia)" and all the rest - people do not perceive what is correct but they perceive what is incorrect, unless they have come to know what is correct. The names which are heard are in the world [...] deceive. If they were in the Aeon (eternal realm), they would at no time be used as names in the world. Nor were they set among worldly things. They have an end in the Aeon.
--Goespel of Philip
