The Master Jesus, more than just embodying a figure to worship or to follow, represents something very deep within our consciousness. This is why in our Gnostic studies we explain the physical personages of the past, from diverse religious traditions, came to represent principles. They lived in their flesh and bone a state of being that we need to cultivate. Therefore, Christ as the human individual represents in us the principle of the inner Christ, our inner divinity, that light which can shine within the depths of our very heart, to illumine the mistakes of our past and the state of our suffering.
Our focus today is to learn how to develop that principle in us, to understand what it means psychologically, and to know how to apply methods to develop greater insight in our daily life, especially in terms of how we approach problems, how we cultivate virtue, and also how we conquer vice.
We will learn how to awaken, develop, sustain, and expand the intelligence of the heart, the wisdom of the heart, the ability to understand, very deeply, how to negotiate and navigate the great crises that are afflicting our contemporary humanity.
We will also learn that the heart must learn to balance the mind if what we really seek is genuine peace.
Spiritual principles to guide, awaken, and develop the heart's intelligence.
Mastery is not the end of spiritual development, for while an individual can acquire, cultivate, and express their soul in this physical world, such a laudable achievement does not signify perfection in mastery. While many masters exist in Nirvana, heaven, or bliss, few are willing to renounce their happiness, return to this physical world, and guide humanity out of suffering. However, this is the essential requirement for incarnating Christ, the divine forces of boundless, enlightened compassion represented in many religions. Discover superior stages of initiation symbolized by Christ’s mystical life in the Gospels, or how a developed human being enters a true inner revolution against their own psychological defects, thereby performing a tremendous humanitarian mission.
How Christ rises within the initiate as serpents of light.
The Nativity is a cosmic event of tremendous import, not merely in terms of literal history, but psychological and spiritual development. It reveals a universal phenomenon: how a properly prepared individual can give birth to and realize their own divine being upon the initiatic path, thereby providing profound benefit to humanity. Discover the hidden symbolism behind Christmas: Santa and his reindeer, kissing under the mistletoe, the Christmas tree, the Three Magi, the Immaculate Conception, gift-giving, and more.
How can we grow wider, deeper roots of awareness into our Source? In part, we can do it by giving more time and attention each day to our relationship with the Divine. We do this through prayer, devotional reading, worshiping alone or with others, meditating, taking silent walks in nature, and by intentionally turning our hearts and minds to God again and again during the activities of our day.
Marcelle Martin, “Deep, Tall, and Wide”, Friends Journal
The emergence of spring parallels our internal life. There is a symbology to this myth of how life returns in the spring and dies in winter and fall. These represent for us something very concrete. While we see how the solar light gives sustenance to all beings without distinction through the processes of nature, we also find that in our own particular development there are periods of growth, resurrection, and even death. This also applies, the process of genesis or birth, life and death, and then rebirth, even to religious traditions and forms, in terms of their progression throughout history.
We can say that religions are born, they live, and they die, but more importantly for us in our study of Gnostic Esoteric Christianity, we look to understand the transfiguration of religion: how different religious forms, after their death, have been resuscitated, have been transformed, have become new. This is because divine principles always emerge in relation to a given time, place, culture, language, and identity. The different religious forms that have been given to humanity across time have always been done in accordance with the needs of a given society, in accordance with the level of being of the messengers.
The teaching is the same, the essence of rebirth, spiritually, is universal. You find this teaching within all mythologies, without exception. All religions teach a type of death and rebirth. But unfortunately, these forms themselves, through exposure to humanity, to its greed and avarice, its destruction, have corrupted the essential teaching, the practical dimension of how to be born again, to give birth to something truly divine within us. […]
Therefore, why should we venerate the resurrection of Christ from the dead? Is it not true that nature resurrects every spring and that the sun gives us life (s-u-n), but also the Son, (s-o-n) if we go deeper? This is because even the pagan traditions worshipped Christ. They recognized that the force of life, the sun, is a direct representation and manifestation of a divine truth, and that the Christians reappropriated that symbolism to fit a new context, history, language, culture, and way of being.
The forms are not at fault because the principles are within them, because the sun gives life to all traditions. That solar light, which we find in our sun, gives sustenance and equilibrium to everything in every level of our existence. It performs a sacrifice for all beings without distinction, which we find paralleled in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, who was an incarnation of that light, that spiritual effluvia and Being.
Spiritual resurrection through inner purification explained.
The Gnostic Academy of Chicago wishes you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Let us spend this time meditating on the nature of our innermost divinity and giving thanks for His many blessings in our lives. May we always remember, with gratitude, the tremendous sacrifices of our greatest luminaries, who provided us with the gnostic wisdom for the awakening of our full conscious potential. Let us also recall the true meaning of this holiday: the incarnation and manifestation of divinity within our inner being for the benefit of humanity. May your Intimate Christ guide you towards the Nativity of the sacred heart!
The nativity or birth of Christ as explained in Gnosticism.
