"Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All…. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty,” said Jesus in the early Gnostic Christian text, the Gospel of Thomas (V. 2, 3, Thomas Lambdin translation).
“I came to make the things below like the things above, and the things outside like those inside. I came to unite them…” said Jesus in the early Gnostic Christian text, the Gospel of Philip (translated by Wesley Isenberg).
The mystical tradition of the church includes an important branch of Christianity that was nearly cut off. Many early churches practiced different forms of what is now known as Gnosticism, which refers to gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge. The emerging Catholic Church criticized and suppressed the Gnostics and their many texts, which included the Gospels of Thomas and Philip. For a long time, most of what was known about them came from the church leaders who accused them of heresy. But in 1945, in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, an ancient library was discovered that included many fragments of Gnostic Christian literature. It was not until the 1980’s that these texts were made widely available to scholars and interested lay people.
The Gnostics generally believed that the goal of the Christian life was to enter into higher realms of obscured spiritual knowledge. For them, a literal reading of the Hebrew scriptures and Christian gospels represented a low level of gnosis. Higher knowledge was revealed in mystical, allegorical interpretation of the texts, through rituals that inducted initiates into deeper mysteries. The Catholic Church condemned this approach for being inherently divisive by suggesting that there were multiple levels of salvation. The Catholics taught that baptism put all Christians on one level, once and for all, in relationship to God.
For all the real problems with Gnostic Christianity, much that was precious was lost in its suppression. In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, which was probably a source text for the canonical gospels in the New Testament, Jesus is quoted as saying: "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you." (Gospel of Thomas, 70) This reflects an insight that comes from mindfulness practice. By letting the depths of our experience come to consciousness, by facing and releasing our fear of what is inside, by letting out and letting it go, we experience psychological and spiritual wholeness. In many of its forms, Gnosticism encouraged direct mystical spiritual experience for the common believer, something that the Catholic Church reserved, practically speaking, only for priests, monks, and nuns. Perhaps it is no accident that the release of the Nag Hammadi texts was followed by a period of resurgent interest by lay Christians in mystical practices that draw them closer to direct encounter with God, including ones that incorporate mindfulness.
My friend and colleague, Bishop Rosa Miller, leads a free-spirited community that revives and redefines the Gnostic Christian tradition. There is much in this tradition for progressive Christians to emulate and employ. Of the Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she writes: “We recognize and acknowledge the value of these ancient mythologies. By mythology, we mean something that while not necessarily factual, is nevertheless true. They point not to one time and event in history but to the ever-recurrent realities of the soul. As we discover more about evolution and the universe, new meanings arise. The old mysteries, as they unravel, eternally disclose new ones to be unveiled. Therefore we can hold no beliefs—only hypotheses; open to be discarded or changed at all times…. The rituals that we celebrate in our Sanctuary, with their flow of poetry, music and rich metaphor often lead us beyond ordinary reality. When consciously celebrating their mystery, a paean of joy often bursts from our souls that connects us to the root and totality of our beings—as well as with that which has been, is, and is yet to come.”
JIM BURKLO
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM Weblog: MUSINGS Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See a video interview about my new novel, SOULJOURN
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM Weblog: MUSINGS Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See a video interview about my new novel, SOULJOURN
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California