Materialism, which the Buddha called a pernicious wrong view, says when we die from here, everything ends, we dissolve, there is no result of actions (karma); life had no meaning, and everything is lost. This is the Annihilationist view, the fear or relief that we will be annihilated at death when we will not.
Escape the rebirth trap of samsaranow before it's too late.
Eternalism is what the Buddha called a pernicious wrong view that takes the other extreme -- that we do not die at death but persist and go on. This is closer to the (conventional) truth, as anyone who has a near-death experience will realize, but it is wrong in assuming that an eternal "soul" or "substance" carries on. An impersonal process carries on, a chain of causation, so that karma bears fruit. And while the person who passes from here and rearises (reappears) hereafter are not identical, so there is no "identity" to cling to even now at this moment. What is there? There are the ever-changing Five Aggregates clung to as self, dependently arisen, and hurtling toward destruction, dissolution, disappearance at every moment. There is nothing to cling to, but the aggregates nevertheless grasp and cling.
As with Gnosticism, this needs to be realized while we are yet alive, or the process will continue, and we will simply be reborn again and again and again.
Gnostics, what goes on, what remains?
(Gnostic Talk) I've stopped calling it "death" because the Gnostics had a completely different word for it. What is the Pistis Sophia? (It is comforting to think that Jesus Christ/Saint Issa understood this, but sad that modern sectarian Christians do not.
If "God" (GOD, Brahmanbeyond the God Great Maha Brahma) is the Monad, what is the pleroma? Pleroma (Koine Greek πλήρωμα, literally the "fullness") generally refers to the totality of divine powers. It is used in Gnosticism, as well as in Christian theological contexts. The term also appears in the Epistle to the Colossians [1], which is traditionally attributed to Saint Paul (aka Jewish Saul of Tarsus) the Apostle [2], the real founder of modern Christianity (yes, not Christ, after which it is named).
I'm a Jew and I know better than Jesus (Paul)
The word is used 17 times in the New Testament [3]. In Valentinianism it represents as virtualities of the Son [4]. ETYMOLOGY: The word literally means "fullness," from the verb plēróō (πληρόω, "to fill"), from plḗrēs (πλήρης, "full") [5]. More
Noble silence ("enlightening quietude") is a term attributed to the historical Buddha. Practitioners are advised to calm heart/mind by letting go of internal and external chatter.
The Buddha also responded to certain useless or harmful philosophical questions about the ultimate nature of reality. One such instance is when he was asked by a wayward monk named Ven. Malunkyaputta the 14 unanswerable questions.
In similar situations the Buddha often responded to antinomy-based descriptions of reality by saying that both antithetical options presented to him were inappropriate. To answer one way might be true but misleading or comforting but untrue, so that simple silence was a better option until the questioner was ready to receive a direct answer.
A specific reference to noble silence in the Buddha's Teaching (Dhamma or Dharma) involved one occasion when the Buddha told his monastic disciples to discontinue a discussion, saying that in such a congregation the discussion of the sacred Dharma is proper or practicing noble silence [1].
This does not indicate misology or disdain for philosophy on the Buddha's part. Rather, it indicates that he viewed such questions, though popular, as not leading to true and liberating wisdom [2].
The Pali canon
While silence is generally thought to be something visible on the outside of a person — an external state, such as whether or not one is talking — in the Pali canon, a "noble" (enlightened, awakened, or enlightening) state is internal — one synonymous with the stillness of absorption (jhāna).
"What is noble silence?' The thought might occur, 'In one instance a monastic, stilling applied and sustained attention (vitakkaand vicara) [knowing without verbalizing or pondering], enters and abides in the second absorption, characterized by rapture and pleasure born of stillness, unification of mind, free of applied and sustained attention — internally certain. This is called noble silence.'"
An analogy is given to explain and distinguish vitakka from vicara as a function of what the mind does with its attention (adverting/turning attention towards, bare awareness, MINDFULNESS, vigilance, calm persistence). It's misleading to use the English word [discursive] "thinking," but it is mental activity:
Say a big bird on a branch wishes to fly. It will first leap or thrust itself into the air and flap its wings with great deal of effort then eventually just soar and glide almost with no effort at all. So in tranquility meditation (samatha), one first struggles or wrestles to bring attention back and back again to the object but eventually is fixed on it with no apparent effort.
Instead of force or struggle, great interest (zeal, delight, piti) holds the mind/attention to the object, with stillness and calm. Any movement of mind or body is likely to disturb it. This might also be compared to paddling and sailing. When one can skillfully sail, one is not a victim to the direction of the wind because one can engage in tacking (steering into the wind), that is, choosing one's direction so as to not have to go in the direction the wind is blowing, countered by jibing.
Of the eight absorptions (the jhanas or profound meditative states), that in which the inner dialogue goes silent is the second absorption. More
I am thy Emperor in the Sky, the Demiurge, thy Jealous and vengeful Lord of all Worlds!
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Behold! The Way, the Truth, and the Light!
(MorgueOfficial) I discovered the REAL God | Why the Monad[the One, as taught in the varied traditions we collectively call Gnosticism] was too dangerous to teach.
So that even the Goddess of Wisdom (Sophia) as exemplified by Apostle Mary Magdalene (the closest and brightest apostle, the real intended successor of Jesus, not dogmatic Peter/Petra, an emissary of Sophia, Barbelo, the true GOD or godhead) had to denigrated and erased.
It's why Jesus the Anointed One (the Christed) had to be repurposed by imperial powers, misquoted, and made to work for the state (Emperor Constantine's Roman Empire and subsequent Christendom), and inverted until what the church says he said is nearly the opposite of what he was teaching.
Pistis Sophia (Koine Greek Πίστις Σοφία) is a Gnostic text discovered in 1773, possibly written between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The existing manuscript, which some scholars place in the late 4th century, relates one Gnostic group's teachings of the transfigured Jesus to the assembled disciples, including his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Martha. (In this context, "transfigured" refers to Jesus after his death and resurrection, not the event during his life where he spoke to appearances of Moses and Elijah on a mountain). In this text, the risen Jesus had spent 11 years speaking with his disciples, teaching them only the lower mysteries. After 11 years, he receives his true garment and is able to reveal the higher mysteries [entheogens] revered by this group. The prized mysteries relate to complex cosmologies and knowledge necessary for the soul to reach the highest divine realms. More
Why become a follower following in the footsteps of the guru to know what the guru knows when you can just pay lip service to the guru, praise, worship, sing about, and never actually follow anything he taught, pat yourself on the back for being a good "follower" (a pious Christian hypocrite), and call it a day?
Heaven awaits for all kiss-ups who never bothered to read, investigate, study, or experience what the Teacher taught. They just let child molesting intermediaries interpret it for them so they could be sure to get a good seat to the afterlife. God would be so proud!
So all true believers get into heaven?
It's interesting that many modern Christians, contradicting their own official sacred texts (council-approved books of The Book), believe in and speak of a God that sounds an awful lot like the Monad Jesus was really talking about.
The ancient Vedas, Brahmin priests (Brahmanism), and modern Hindus also speak of such a GOD (Brahman, not Brahma) that is not a being in the sky, not an old, bearded man on a cloud throne but rather "the absolute or ultimate reality behind all of the illusion" (the maya or simulation or the ever-revolving samsara). That GOD is called Brahman even in a polytheistic, henotheistic, sometimes pantheistic tradition with so much variety and complexity (because it's an amalgam of all the beliefs and practices found in India by the occupying British who could not understand it until they lumped the diversity into one big pile and called it a "thing," a "religion," of which ancient Indians had no concept, because like most people of the world, spirituality and daily life were not treated as separate).
BRAHMAN: In the Old Vedic and subsequent Hindu religions, Brahman (Sanskrit ब्रह्मन्) has a "variety of meanings," but in the Upanishads and later Indian philosophies it connotes "That" from which all existence proceeds, and to which everything returns [1, a], [the Source,] the origin and cause of all that exists [2, 3, 4]. In contemporary Hindu metaphysics, Brahman is the highest universal principle, the Ultimate Reality of the universe behind all the hide-and-seek "divine play" (lila), complexity, and confusion of maya (illusion). [The nondual of Advaita Vedanta.] More
That's what I've been trying to say: we're all divine
This Monad (ONE) is Brahman (GOD), and it probably the TAO, the Great Spirit of Native American lore, and it is likely the "Father" Jesus (Gnostic Jesus, Y'shua, Yeshua, Joshua, Isa, Saint Issa) was really talking about in an anionic (timeless/eternal now) Kingdom, not a heavenly rebirth but a timeless ("eternal") reality right now, for those [mystery cult] initiates ready and able to undergo purification and ego-death (loss of self to gain the kingdom of heaven) and be raised up in a rapture (bliss, unburdening, realization, union) of understanding (comprehension) and gnosis (actual experience) before passing away from this world.
The basic recurring theme in Hindu mythology is the creation of the world by the self-sacrifice of God—"sacrifice" in the original sense of "making sacred"—whereby God [or GOD] becomes the world which, in the end, becomes again God.
This creative activity of the Divine is calledlila, the play [or drama] of God, and the world is seen as the stage [platform] of the divine play. Like most of Hindu mythology, the myth of lila has a strong magical flavour.
Brahman is the great magician who transforms [it]self into the world and then performs this feat with [its] "magic creative power," which is the original meaning of maya in the Rig Veda.
The word maya—one of the most important terms in Indian philosophy—has changed its meaning over the centuries. From the might, or power, of the divine actor and magician, it came to signify the psychological state of anybody under the spell of the magic play [the actors or audience lost in the play].
As long as we confuse the myriad forms of the divine lila with reality, without perceiving the unity of Brahman underlying all these forms, we are under the spell of maya....
The Tao of Physics (Fritjof Capra)
In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid and ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play. The world of maya changes continuously, because the divine lila is a rhythmic, dynamic play.
The dynamic force of the play is karma [act, action, deed, doing, intention], an important concept of Indian thought. Karma means "action." It is the active principle of the play [the acting], the total universe in action, where everything is dynamically connected with everything else.
In the words of the [Bhagavad] Gita, Karma is the force of creation, wherefrom all things have their life.
El means "god" or "deity" or as a proper name, El refers to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities.
El ("God") is a Northwest Semitic word. A rarer form, 'ila, represents the predicate form in the Old Akkadian and Amorite languages [8]. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil- [9]. Originally a Canaanite deity known as 'El, 'Al, or 'Il was the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion [10].
It has always been understood that there were many gods, which is clear from teh Bible even as henotheists and monotheists try to obscure that fact.
Scholars like Frank Moore Cross and Ignace Gelb speculate El may have also been the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia (circa 2900–circa 2350 BCE) [11, 12].
Among the Hittites, El was known as Elkunirša (Hittite 𒂖𒆪𒉌𒅕𒊭 Elkunīrša). Although El was given different appearances and meanings in different languages over time, the word continues to exist as El-, -il, or -el in compound proper noun phrases like Isra'el (Hebrew Yīsrāʾēl, Israēl, which means "El [God] persists or rules," Micha'el, Beth'el, and El'izabeth, most of which are theophoric given names. More: El (deity)
The Elohim: Hebrew word meaning "gods." The word is plural. It can also mean "godhood," which is to say what beings who become gods are called. As an abstract noun it refers to the concept of "divinity." In the Jewish (Hebrew) Bible, it often takes singular verbal or pronominal agreement to refer to a single deity, particularly but not always the God of henotheistic and polytheistic Judaism, that later tried to claim itself only monotheistic. In other verses it takes plural agreement and refers to gods in the plural. Who were these other gods? God's wife Asherahwas one. She (the Goddess) was well known. The other, El, is less known because it is hidden through the biblical texts, which were chosen for political and Roman imperial purposes.
The Gospel of Philip: "Ignorance [Buddhism's avijja] is the mother of all evil [bad karma born of greed, hatred, and fear], not malice, not weakness, ignorance." That is why Buddhism and Gnosticism are classified as "wisdom traditions."
If the Christ is the "Anointed One," what is that oil with which he, Jesus (and various apostles), was anointed? He is not an earthly king the way Emperor Constantine's Roman Empire might have us believe, but he was initiated into the "mysteries" of an entheogenic cult (spiritual community) that made him realize his (and our) divinity.
(Primeval Archives and Primeval Mythology) Gnostic Jesus is one of the most mysterious and controversial figures in early Christian history. [The other prominent figure was "Saint Paul" (Saul of Tarsus), who actually invented the Pauline "Christianity" people follow today.
Hidden within the discovered library of Nag Hammadi, a trove of ancient manuscripts uncovered in Egypt in 1945, are teachings that reveal a radically different message from the Jesus most people today think they know.
These forgotten writings -- including the lost Gospel of Thomas, the Secret Book of John, and the Gospel of Judas -- suggest that Jesus did not come to create a religion, but to awaken humanity through gnosis, the direct knowledge of the divine within.
According to Gnostic teachings, the material world is a prison created by a flawed and genocidal deity (the Demiurge Yaldabaoth/Yahweh) and lower cosmic rulers called Archons, while the True Divine Source, the real GOD (the Monad), exists beyond the physical universe.
Why were these liberating texts declared "heresy" and ordered to be destroyed by politically and financially motivated early church leaders?
What did Gnostic Jesus actually teach about reality, the soul, and spiritual awakening? This video explores the hidden philosophy of Gnosticism, the secrets of the Nag Hammadi library, and forbidden ideas that were saved by being buried for over 1,600 years.
Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek γνωστικός, Gnōstikós, "having knowledge," Koine Greek ɣnostiˈkos) is a collection of religious and philosophical systems that fully developed by the mid-second century among sects of early Christianity and other faiths [1, 2].
It is not a homogeneous tradition or "religion," but an umbrella term used by modern scholars to describe diverse groups and belief systems with shared characteristics [3].
These diverse Gnostic groups emphasized personal experiential spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the authority, the traditions, and the proto-orthodox teachings of organized religious institutions [4].
Sethianism: Sethians (Greek Σηθιανοί) were one of the main currents of Gnosticism during the 2nd-3rd century AD, along with Valentinianism and Basilidianism. It originated as a fusion of two distinct Hellenistic (Greek) Judaic philosophies influenced by Christianity and Middle Platonism [1]. More
The Gnostic worldview distinguishes between a hidden, uncorrupted Supreme Being (the Monad, "the One") and a flawed Demiurge ("Craftsman," Creator) responsible for creating this material reality.
Gnostics hold that this material existence is evil and believed the principal element of salvation was direct knowledge of the supreme divinity, attained via mystical, esoteric insight.
Many Gnostic texts instead of dealing in concepts of "sin," "guilt," "repentance," and "imperial control," but with dispelling illusions and gaining enlightenment, direct knowing-and-seeing [5]. More
Abraxas, Adam kasia, Adam pagria, Aeons, Anima mundi, The Apocryphon of John, Archons, Barbelo, Demiurge, Divine spark, Five Seals, Gnosis, The Lost Gospel of Judas, Kenoma Luminary, Manda, Mary Magdalene, Monad, Ogdoad, UthraWorld of Light, World of Darkness, Yaldabaoth
(The Esoteric Jesus) [Now denigrated but Gnostic superheroine] Mary Magdalene taught how to see ARCHONS with the physical eyes to chosen ones [successful practitioners]
Why [Christian] Gnosticism beats mainstream Christianity: As a former Christian pastor who later transitioned to atheism, my spiritual journey has been, to put it mildly, a wild ride. I’ve experienced the highs of religious fervor, the soul-crushing lows of doubt, and the liberating freedom of disbelief. But even as an atheist, I’ve always felt a nagging sense of something missing. Like a phantom limb, the yearning for meaning and purpose persisted, even though I no longer believed in a traditional God. That’s when I decided to take a fresh look at Gnosticism, a long-lost cousin of early Christianity that had been [hidden away] in the theological attic [by the mainstream Church terrified of losing its power over its followers]. As I delved into the Gnostic texts, I felt like I’d finally found some of the missing pieces of the puzzle. (Derrick Day)
Gnosticism seems to be the Western version of the Vedic/Hindu concept of God (the One or the Supreme) at "divine play" (lila), coming under the illusion (maya) of separation. But all is one. Who is this Demiurge, this false God that created this simulation/illusory reality (duality) around us and the cycle of endless rebirth (samsara)?
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