There is a powerful movement among spiritual seekers in the world. No, it is not the fundamentalist movement I am speaking of. It is not a movement towards conformity and intolerance or one towards rigidity and uniformity. It is a movement towards Gnosis—a movement towards knowing. Gnosticism is a growing movement in the lives of people in all of the world’s spiritual traditions. It is not a set of beliefs or doctrines, although Gnostics can hold beliefs and a membership within a church organization. Or not. Gnosticism is about a journey on a wisdom path. To be a Christian Gnostic, for me anyway, is to be on a personal path of knowing God with the Christ power as the bridge to knowing God.
At some point on our spiritual journey, many of us become tired of a formal religion and desire a personal religion. It is fine, up to a point, to have a God that lives outside of you and that you visit once or twice a week, or maybe even once a day. But at some point, you grow to want a God that lives with you all of the time, one that is available for worship and consultation 24 hours a day. That is when you become interesting in Gnosis-knowing.
The bible refers to the intimacy between a husband and wife as “knowing”. Is says, that Adam knew his wife Eve and they conceived a son. Knowing suggests that deepest form of intimacy between two people. Below the line of creation everything exists in duality. There is male and female, light and dark, up and down. Above the line of creation there is no duality—everything is one.
The beauty of the story of God coming to earth in the form of man is that God came below the line of creation in order for us to know Source. God desired a deeper level of intimacy with us. On a human level we may experience “Christ in us” a living power that allows us to “know” God better. It is the source of power in our spiritual journey. Without an indwelling Christ, we have no power. Christ became the bridge back to God.
Jesus prayed while he was here on earth that we would be one with the Father as he was one with the Father. It is another reminder that the goal of our spiritual walk is oneness with God—a restoration of God’s original plan for creation.
To be a Gnostic doesn’t mean that you have to abandon your faith tradition. It just means that you go beyond formalism and the traditional structure of religion within a church to a personal, intimate walk with the Spirit. It is only as we are Spirit-filled that we will be able to do the mighty works that Jesus did while here on earth.
Healing the sick, raising the dead, walking on water, feeding 5000 from a sack lunch, and reading people’s minds were some of the gifts from the Spirit that Christ manifested in his life while here on earth. He accomplished these through the indwelling of God’s Spirit. He came as a man and had power to do miraculous things in the same way that we have access to those same powers. He was filled with the Spirit of God and acted as an instrument for Divine power and Love to flow through.
When we are as filled with the Spirit, as emptied of selfishness, and as connected to God as he was, we will manifest the same fruits or gifts of the Spirit as he did. In fact, Christ said that we would do greater things than these. Hard to believe, isn’t it? That’s just how far from the Spirit we have grown. Maybe that’s why so many of us want to return home—not just in the sweet by and by—but here on earth, to a closer, more connected, Spirit-filled walk with God. That is what Gnosis is all about. Anyone interested?