What is Gnosis | Second Part

What is Gnosis?

From this common knowledge appear the clearly visible similarities in the theological, philosophical, artistic and symbolic fields that are present in the Aztec, Mayan, Inca, Egyptian, Greek, Persian, etc. civilizations, as if all of them had acquired their cultural contents from one and the same original source.

To be more precise we can say that Gnosis is a universal and timeless knowledge, inherent in the human being and in the original cultural contents of the great civilizations that preceded us in the course of history, and whose achievements and accomplishments we can still observe with astonishment.

Consequently, we can say that Gnosis is:
Temple with four pillars

-A Science with a Heart
-A Hermetic Philosophy
-A Singular Art and
-A Transcendental Mysticism

The ability of Gnosis to get to the bottom of all things, to the noumenon (the thing-in-itself) behind the phenomenon (forms, appearances), is evident.

Therefore, it is a mistake to believe that Gnosis is a simple metaphysical set of doctrines introduced in the bosom of Christianity, as many still believe today. Quite the opposite, Gnosis constitutes an existential attitude with characteristics of its own, which is rooted in the most refined, oldest and highest esoteric aspiration of all peoples, whose history, regrettably, is not well known to modern anthropologists. It is interesting to observe that this existential attitude tends to appear spontaneously, beyond any direct transmission, and specially in critical moments for humanity.

Gnosis is a 'synthesis-doctrine', humanity's early one, its origin being therefore as old as the world.

As the contemporary French writer Henry Puech wrote in his book, 'Gnosis', and we quote: 'Gnosis thus appears, from the beginning, as an attitude, but not simply a psychological or purely intellectual one, but a total, existential attitude, capable of embracing the life, the behaviour, the destiny, the very being of the entire person.'

To put it in another way: Gnosis is that eternal and cosmic principle that is hidden in the very depths of the human consciousness, adopting different forms in every time and place in order to transmit an impersonal and timeless truth - this truth having nevertheless a perfect correspondence with our life on Earth.

These forms of Gnosis are multiple and diverse. Let us point out some of them, quoting this time from Samael Aun Weor, contemporary codifier of Gnosis: 'The Fourth Way is Gnosis, the Gnosis of Hermes Trismegistus, the Gnosis of the Essenes, of the Peratae or Peraticennes; the Gnosis of the Greeks, of Iamblichus, Pythagoras, etc.; the Gnosis of the great medieval alchemists, such as Raymond Lulle, Nicholas Flamel, Bernard Le Trevisan, etc.; the Gnosis of Jesus of Nazareth, of Paul of Tarsus...; the Gnosis of the Mysteries of Mithra, of Troy, of Rome, of Carthage, of Egypt, of the Mayans, of the Druids, of the Aztecs...'

Therefore, the Gnostic knowledge, the Gnostic throb, is not alien to the individual. It arises from the innermost of the very individual, when they encounter or know themselves (know their own Being).

We can say that Gnosis is inherent in life as humidity is inherent in water.

Again, in the words of Samael Aun Weor:

'Gnosis is a very natural functioning of the awakened consciousness, a perennial and universal philosophy.'