LESSON 1: WHAT IS GNOSIS?

Theories
The great poet Goethe conveys to us through his wonderful use of symbols
and clues that theories are dead, empty, that they lack life, color and
substance.
A person can learn many theories and cram their mind or intellect full of
theoretical knowledge, but this only serves to convert the person into a
know-it-all who knows nothing about what is real because he has only been
formed by concepts, beliefs, opinions, and information that others have
given to him; into someone who knows nothing about the truth.
Goethe said​ ​that​: ​"only the tree of golden fruits that is life​ ​is true"
The Tree of Golden Fruits is a direct allegory for the Tree of Life of the
Christian Genesis, or the Tree of the Garden of the Hesperides of Greek
mythology, which the Hebrew Kabbalists also called the Sephirotic Tree.
This tree of life is the tree of real life, which can only be conquered when the
person sets out to construct his inner world, conquering the 10 golden fruits,
which are the 10 internal bodies of our Being. As we said in the previous
class, the human being not only has a physical body, but 7 bodies as taught
by theosophy. In addition to these 7 bodies, there are 3 higher expressions,
which make up the 10 spheres or sephira of our tree.
Only in our internal life, in practical life, in verification, and in direct and
profound experience can we find something different and get closer and
closer to what is real.

The Doctrine of the Eye and the Doctrine of the Heart

In the previous lesson we saw how the Greeks spoke of two kinds of
knowledge; the first of them being the intellectual knowledge with which we
strengthen our mind. But since we haven’t received any orientation about
how to make good use of the mind and aren’t clear about its mechanisms
and functions, we fall into all kinds of mental and intellectual imbalances. Our
mind thinks and reasons about everything, we think all day without being
able to control it, we can’t stop thinking, we don’t know how to concentrate,
we change our minds easily, it constantly draws conclusions, judges,
compares and leads us to all kinds of interpretations and conclusions which
are often wrong, and therefore leads us to wrong action. The mind wants to
solve everything by itself.
This is also known as the Doctrine of the Eye; this doctrine is the one that
doesn’t take into account the voice of the Inner Master, the voice of our
consciousness.
The Internal Master does not think or reason, but his voice is the voice of
Intuition; precise and profound. When we intuit something, it is precise and
clear. This is then questioned by the mind, because the mind doesn’t
understand it, since it doesn’t follow the mind’s rational and logical pattern.
The inner voice has a different and higher logic, which is not comprehended
by the mind.
The voice of intuition is the voice of our consciousness, the same Gnostic
knowledge as the Greeks called it; the capacity to know the real and
profound nature of things without the mediation of intellectual processes.
But for that our consciousness must be awakened, because as we said, it
sleeps deeply. That's why we only deal with things with the mind, with the
intellect, and we aren’t aware of the intimate capacity we have to listen to
our consciousness. The voice of our consciousness is the Doctrine of the
Heart, the doctrine of the voice of our heart, the voice of the Interior Master.
As Socrates called it, the voice of his Daimon, is what we must learn how to
listen to, since it leads us on the correct path.

​Wisdom
One of the definitions we can give for​ ​GNOSIS​ ​is as follows:
"Gnosis is the knowledge of a transcendental and transformative wisdom
that teaches humanity to see, hear, and feel all the things that until now have
been designated as great mysteries and enigmas."
Let's analyze this definition: this gnostic knowledge is a transcendental and
transformative wisdom: transcendental, because it transcends time or eras.
This wisdom is not of a moment or an epoch, but is always current, always
valid, since it has to do with the pristine nature of the human being that does
not change with time; they are immutable principles.
Transformative, because this knowledge, when awakened within the human
being, naturally produces in him the need to change old habits, bad habits,
vices, and stale ways of living because he comprehends and discovers what
his life is, his psychology and his wrong ways of living. His customs and
behavior begin to be governed by a new rational and scientific order, and he
begins to re-educate himself through knowing and comprehending the way
that the immutable laws of nature work and how they govern his existence
and the universe that surrounds him. Examples of such laws are the laws of
Reincarnation and Return, the law of Karma and Destiny, the law of
Recurrence, the laws of Evolution and Involution, the law of the Pendulum,
among others, practically unknown by our humanity.
But this transformation is not only psychological but also physical and
internal, as it leads man to the development of a higher nature that is in a
latent and dormant state within him; to the positive development of his
chakras and faculties, his internal bodies, hidden senses, brains and higher
centers of Being, his multiple intelligences, etc., producing a regeneration on
the level of body, soul and spirit that will convert him into a true man and
king of his nature.
This wisdom teaches humanity techniques and practices using a didactic
which gradually produces the awakening of the consciousness, which leads
us, in a gradual and ordered way, through a series of direct experiences,
where we will be able to see, hear and feel in a direct way, what humanity
knows as great mysteries and enigmas.

Gnosis is a true scientific school of initiation of life, which helps us to

understand that life is not about being born, growing up, reproducing and
dying, but is a school that tries to educate us through a masterful pedagogy.
We must learn to read our lives, our situations, our events and all the internal
states that arise in the face of those events, to discover and initiate ourselves
in its mysteries and to be able to discover the deep enigma of our intimate
existence.

The Four Pillars

This wisdom is based on four fundamental pillars that we need to know
about in order to understand the foundations of this knowledge.
The first one is Science. Science seeks the truth through experimentation
and comprehension of the phenomena and laws that govern us. That is why
anyone who wants to develop wisdom in themselves must experience and
prove for themselves the things, the truth and the reality of their life and this
world; beliefs, theories and dogmas are useless and are an obstacle to
reaching the pinnacle of knowledge. That is why this knowledge is eminently
practical, because it requires that each one of us verify directly everything
that is taught here. We must not believe; we must experiment and verify.
The second pillar is Art. This foundation teaches us that without the art of
learning to live, without that ability, without skill, without inspiration, we
cannot acquire the wisdom of life and the universe and its most noble and
elevated expressions. The universe is a work of art, creation is a work of art;
our life is a blank canvas onto which we must paint a work of art, where the
expression of beauty is found through the appreciation of life.
The third pillar is Philosophy. The word Philosophy is composed of two
terms, the first of which is Philo, meaning "Love" and the second, Sophy
meaning "Wisdom", which therefore means "love of wisdom". Each of us, in
order to acquire wisdom, or Gnosis, we must become seekers and lovers of
wisdom, developing the capacity for reflection in our life, to comprehend it,
to learn from it, to learn from others, from nature, etc., developing our
capacity to reflect on the vicissitudes of life, to comprehend events and our
internal states and to extract the truths hidden in those events, learning to
deal with pain, suffering and loneliness, as well as developing the capacity to
elevate our mood.
The fourth pillar is Religion. The word Religion derives from the Latin,
Religare, and this is also a word that is composed of two terms: Re means
"return", and Ligare means "unite", in other words, to "re-unite", the same
way that the word Yoga means "union". Both in the East and in the West, all
religions and spiritual philosophies have always sought to provide the keys
and guidelines for man to reintegrate himself with his divine principle. If a
person aspires to know himself in the deepest sense of what that means, he
cannot avoid the study and discovery of his intimate and spiritual nature, of
what he is in essence, since we are not a body or matter, but a consciousness
that inhabits a body. The body dies, but the consciousness does not. There
are many testimonies of this, which cannot be explained from a purely
physical, materialistic or scientific perspective. Gnosis does not require a
person to believe or follow religious dogmas, but rather, requires that each
person become fully aware of his spiritual nature; to know the deep mystery
that religions call God or the Soul, which is the receptacle of God.
The great French traditionalist René Guénon, scholar of great spiritual
traditions and student of comparative religions, tells us that: "in all religions,
there is the idea of a metaphysical liberation of man through Gnosis, that is,
through ​integral knowledge". This helps us to understand that gnostic
knowledge has been present in all the authentic spiritual traditions, showing
the way to reach the highest level of spirituality through the development of
the knowledge of oneself and the mysteries of the Universe.

The Origin of Gnosis

Gnosis is a Universal and Perennial Philosophy, a philosophy that has always
existed and will always exist. It is common to human nature and common
throughout the universe, since the principles of truth are universal and do
not differ from one moment in time to another, from one culture to another,
from one race to another, or from one world to another.
Archaeologists and anthropologists who have tried to discover the origin of
Gnosis have shown that it is present in the Mysteries of Mitra and Eleusis,
and that it is also found in Tibetan and Egyptian texts, in the Pythagorean
schools, in the Mysteries of Dionysus, of ISIS, of Cybele, of Hecate, in
Orphism, in Vedantic Wisdom, among the Nordic cultures, in the
pre-Columbian cultures, in the Nahua, Maya, Toltec, Aztec, and Inca cultures,
etc. One of the best known expressions was Gnosticism within primitive
Christianity, which gave rise to different Christian currents of great relevance
in the times of the beginning of this religion, such as the Valentinians, the
Justinians, the school of Mark and of Basilides, and later, the Cathars,
Templars and Rosicrucians, etc.
In other words, those who have tried to discover​ ​the​ ​origin of
this​ ​wisdom​ ​have come to realize that its principles, its philosophy, and the
platform for this knowledge,​ ​have been present in all the great traditions,
religions and schools of mysteries in all times.
Gnosis has always come to humanity to renew spirituality when all religions
have degenerated and have lost the values that allow it to orientate man to
incarnate the pure science of the spirit; a science far removed from the
dogmas, beliefs, absurd fanaticisms, the commerce of spirituality and the
degeneration and decadence in which the great religious institutions fall
when they forget their principles.
Gnosis appears in times of crisis, of social and spiritual disturbance, as an
important ideological current for the human being to reach a physical,
psychic, social and spiritual transformation; a current that allows him to
know himself and to know his own defects and errors that lead him
prematurely to old age and death.

Subjective knowledge
Gnosis teaches us that there are countless defects and errors within each of
us that fritter away our energy, our life, our time, and our relationships.
There we find all our bad habits, fears, vices, emotions and negative instincts,
prejudices, complexes, traumas and imbalances that embitter our life and fill
it with pain and suffering. These elements are the result of ignorance within
us; of unconsciousness, of incomprehension. They are the result of our
wrong ways of living which over time have created habits, shaped our
character and our behavior to form our destiny that has been completely
affected and conditioned by these undesirable elements that we carry inside.
Although this may seem strange to us, these elements have their own life
within each one of us. They have their own thoughts, their own desires, and
even a strength of will that is often superior to ours as individuals. How many
times have we wanted to change a habit, but it was stronger than our own
will to change? A person who has a vice like smoking may know that smoking
hurts him, know all the evils that it entails, and may even know that smoking
will cause him to die. Nevertheless, within him there is a superior force that
leads him to continue with that habit over all the logic and will of the person.
That element has a force of its own which is superior to that of the individual.
That force that leads us to error is called Ego or the Self.
For this reason, it is necessary to know deeply all these elements that
embitter our lives and lead us to pain and suffering and to premature death.

How much do we know each other?

Gnosis teaches us that the human being believes that he knows himself. But
the truth is that we know very little of ourselves and in a very superficial way.
We have totally false ideas of ourselves, where we believe that we are a
certain way when in fact we are another. Normally, the people in our
day-to-day environment or those closest to us know us much better than we
know ourselves, who make us see certain things that we generally don’t
recognize and even dispute because we don’t see ourselves that way, even
though others can see us how we really are. This happens for the simple
reason that because we develop our capacity for observation more than our
capacity for self-observation, our attention is usually directed outward and
not inward. That’s why we can easily see the faults of others, but not our
own.
For this reason and because of not having developed certain senses of
internal perception, the human being does not perceive that within himself
coexists a psychological multiplicity, where each of these psychological
aspects have a life of their own, want different things, have different desires,
and they even fight and compete with each other to dominate the will of the
person.
All movements, acts, words, ideas, emotions, feelings and desires of a person
are provoked by multiple and varied interior influences which are strange
and unknown to us. Through external shocks or influences, we need to
discover and know these internal influences in order to realize that we do not
have authentic freedom and that we are like puppets or machines, driven by
these influences, victims of circumstances and events.

The search for the Truth

The Buddha was once asked: “what is the Truth?”. He kept silent and turned
around and left. Jesus was asked the same question and remained in deep
silence. However, in his message he tells us: "seek the truth, and it will set
you free". Although the great masters have not uttered what the truth is,
they have always urged us to search for it.
In the temple of Delphi we find the phrase: “Man know thyself and you will
know the universe and its Gods”. The Hebrew kabbalists said that man is a
microcosm of the universe, and therefore, he who knows himself, knows the
mysteries of the outer macrocosm. The Taoists taught through their stories,
that the truth can only be known by looking inward. The Aztecs and Toltecs
taught that we must be devoured by the serpent which in turn must be
devoured by the eagle, where the serpent has always been a symbol of
knowledge and wisdom, the eagle a symbol of the highest spirit. The Inca
was the son of the Sun, or in other words, an enlightened one. Buddha is the
Enlightened One, that is, the one who has incarnated the knowledge.
Their teachings have always coincided in the fact that the truth is not outside,
but within each one of us. That is why it is urgent to find it through the
development of self-discovery and self-knowledge, or self-gnosis; to discover
the deep knowledge of things through the development of gnosis within each
one of us.
We invite you to start this wonderful adventure of awakening the gnosis that
we all carry inside, the true inner wisdom. In the silence of the unknown, you
will remember what you have always known.
"The hidden truth cannot be transmitted in a discourse; each one of us must
evoke it within oneself".
No-one has ever defined what Wisdom or Truth is, because it is something
that every person must experience.

Advancement of the next lesson

In the next lesson, we will study the three aspects that manifest within
human psychology: the Personality, the Essence and the Ego. We will look at
what is inside us and what characteristics each of them have, how they are
formed and where they come from, and we will lay the foundations that will
help us to get to know these elements within us.
We will talk in more detail about the psychological multiplicity that exists
within each one of us, how we have formed our personality and what it is
sustained on, the secret source of our acts and behaviors, and we will learn
the first practice of self-knowledge to begin to discover ourselves and be able
to see ourselves as we are.
But before you go, we invite you to stay for a little relaxation practice that
we’ll show you, so you can practice it in your daily life.