May ‘24 1-to-1 Wiseletter (Dimitrije Mitrinović)
In May's 1-to-1 Wiseletter, I'll be looking at a quote from an obscure early 20th century Serbian poet and philosopher, Dimitrije Mitrinović
Quote: Gnosis is to be surprised at everything
Gnosis is the Greek word for knowledge, thought to be an esoteric awareness of spiritual reality. You could say it's one of the many Western equivalents of Eastern enlightenment.
Attaining Gnosis was the goal of the Gnostics, an early first-millennial Christian cult who believed that since the soul was incorruptible and ultimately one with an eternal, unchanging Spirit, it must lay imprisoned in its essential opposite: matter. Unlike spirit, matter was ever-changing and thus inherently corrupt. While matter was subject to time, spirit was identical with the fundamental essence of eternity.
The identity of spirit with eternity clues us in to what Mitrinović means. Gnosis is not some secret knowing exclusively available to a spiritual elect (in spite of what many of those suffering from spiritual pride may say).
(Photo credit: Anne Nygård)
Gnosis is simply to be in the presence of immediate experience, which is not in time, but outside of time in eternity itself (eternity is the negation of time). Eternity is the place in which Consciousness finds itself totally free because it's finally liberated from the burden of your dead past and the paralysis inflicted by your unknowable future.
Here, it realizes the bliss of having abandoned its omnipotence and omniscience for a free life of genuine surprise.
It does not know how it creates existence.
This is the pure meaning of the creation of the world in the book of Genesis, in which God finds out only after he creates the light and the earth that they are -- (surprise!) -- good. Instead of reading Genesis (and all other creation myths/ontologies) historically, read it in the present tense. The world is being generated right now, not at some time in the distant past.
Once this is remembered, you'll be overcome by the sheer strangeness of being you. You can finally let life become what it must be: a surprise.
This is a free life.
QUESTION
Do you feel that you create your life or is life created for you?
Cheers,
John
