thread: 2005-08-09 : The New Open House 2: Religion
On 2005-08-09, Yasha wrote:
I've been attending a christian gnostic church, which outwardly has standard trappings of worship and inwardly is focussed on achieving a specific religious experience: gnosis. I've been warming to it slowly, focussing more on the services and less on working towards transcendence, which hasn't made sense or even seemed desirable.
Gnosis is the direct experience and realization that our true self, the part of us that feels itself to be "I", is not who we think it is. It's not the body and mind that we have been identifying with, which was born and will sooner or later die. Instead, the "I" that is witnessing our thoughts, feelings, actions and the world is really one single universal awareness looking out at the universe through everyone. And this awareness itself is not separate from what it is observing. All One! All One! like it says on bottles of Dr. Bronner's soap. This unity awareness is God, emptiness, existence, the now, whatever.
I believe that this experience is real. It fits my model of consciousness—that it interfaces with the physical world but belongs to another realm, like mathematics does. This gnosis/enlightment/illumination experience is common to a lot of different mystical traditions throughout history. And, I have had personal experiences that have put me in distant view of this unity experience.
So, this is really consciousness hacking, finding a backdoor into infinity and then integrating it back into one's life. It's supposedly a good thing: achieving gnosis, one no longer worries. When you're an immortal, timeless awareness, what is there to worry about? And when you know there is the one self looking out through everyone's eyes, you become compassionate and loving.
I like the idea of experiencing this intense love and peace and freeing myself from misery, but there are aspects of this concept that still creep me out. I haven't any personal experience of the infinite richness of the One—it's been more abstract than that—and I haven't felt much of the joy and love. So, actually being one, infinite awareness seems a little claustrophobic and lonely.
This makes AA go "Wow, sounds Buddhist"
Seriously, that sounds a lot like the goal of Buddhist meditation practice and nirvana. Any idea what the historical roots of your gnostic church are?
This makes YC go "Sounds like Sufism & Vedanta, too"
Gnosticism is founded on Greek philosophy & mystery religions. I've heard the definition: "A gnostic is someone who's a Catholic on the outside, a Buddhist on the inside, who talks a lot about dead Greeks."
This makes CRN go "Yesu Christo..."
I wish I'd never left Seattle. This sounds like, well, a place I wish I could go.
Next time I make it to Seattle, James, save a spot for me.
This makes JB go "Buddhism != Gnosticism"
As an ex-Gnostic cum Buddhist, I hasten to note that Buddhism rejects the idea of an eternal essence of any kind. Though I love YC's cute definition.
This makes YC go "What is Buddha-Nature?"
Does my cat have it?
