Gnosis as Self Knowledge

 

Introduction

 

Do you know yourself?

 

Not your name, nor appearance, nor actions, and not even your body. Who, really, are you?

 

“I think therefore I am!” said Descartes, but almost in despair, after all other options had been logically eliminated. In a way he has answered the Delphic maxim, inasmuch as he has started to realize that we are ultimately self-conscious beings. We are dependent upon our bodies only as much as the accidents of birth, natural laws, and physical defects allow us. It is only by ‘thinking’ that we can answer the question.

 

Let us think about thinking. There are many levels of thought:

 

1. The verbal thoughts that control speech.

2. The silent verbal thoughts of our internal dialogue.

3. A level of organizing thoughts into a grammar that can become verbal.

4. An image of what is to be organized.

5. The separation of the particular image from the source.

6. The source of the image and memory interaction.

7. The non-conscious sorting, organizing and storage of thoughts (where we go in sleep).

 

There are certainly more levels of mind that we can consciously explore. But, these seven will be adequate for our purposes.

 

If we were to progress through these seven levels, through following a discipline or through self-exercise, would we know our selves? Well, we would certainly know a lot more than if we did not explore our mind-self. The most difficult of all is to break through the non-consciousness level consciously. While this may at first sight seem contradictory it can and has been achieved. There are a multitude of techniques, such as various yoga methods, sacred and secular meditations, and pure personal effort supported by some kind of ‘grace’ or seemingly external assistance.

 

However, let us return to the description of the Self which we wish to Know. Let us say you and I are having a conversation. I think of something to say and speak. You hear my words, which are arbitrarily in a common language. You then interpret my words into a thought in your mind, communication has been established. You take my thoughts into your mind, sort, compare, and (hopefully) understand them by your own thought process. You may then take this new information and comment on it mentally before replying. Then you speak and the process is reversed, I have to take your response into my mind. What we have are two minds thinking to each other - but communicating through our bodies. The mind is the real self and the body the medium.

 

If, as many do, we assume a universal mind, which allows individual mind, we have a triangle of communication. My thought to Mind and from Mind to your thought, and vice-versa in reply. My individual mind is communicating with you through Mind. I cannot, through my body communicate to your body, except through a shared Mind. This follows even to the knowing of the world around us. We can only know it through the mind. Physical experience and perception are known only after being organized and stored within the mind. The mind interprets the physical in mental images which form ideas with which we interact with the world. We will only truly know the world by knowing the mind that fashioned and maintains it.

 

But, how do we communicate with ourselves? Is it through the verbal or non-verbal thought process? I do not know about you but ‘talking to myself’ doesn’t really convince my internal self very often. I can consciously think to myself, “you do not need another piece of cake,’ at the same moment as I eat it. Thoughts are not linear sequences of words or even ideas. Thoughts and real ideas come to the consciousness more or less complete. A lump, as it were, of Idea. Not as a string of consecutive ideas - like a string of words making a sentence - but as a whole. The idea must then be broken down into its component parts and structured grammatically before the verbal process can initiate communications, whether internal or external.

 

Thinking in images, rather than words, seems to be the way the mind works. If we are to know ourselves perhaps it is through these images. Words fail us at the crucial point of understanding and communicating. If the images are non-verbal can there be non-verbal thought or communication? We, of all earthly creation, are unique in using the verbal part of our minds for thought and communication. It seems, in comparison with all other life forms, artificial and contrived rather than natural. By our dependence on this artificial thought process, imposed by training, we limit our thinking to a very particular, (and peculiar), part of our mind. This is called Rational!

 

The unconscious part of our minds has always been forbidden territory to historical man, to be reached only through ceremonial or ecstatic means. The descriptions by those who have explored this territory are ineffable and inexplicable. Words fail to communicate the non-verbal. But, that does not mean the experience of this forbidden territory is not real. It means merely that it cannot be communicated within the artificial limitations of words. Moreover, since words and verbal thought are so artificial it seems the non-verbal must be the ‘more real’ experience of thought.

 

In our progression down, (or up), through the process of thought we reach a point, a non-verbal point, where the investigating “I” loses its self-hood. There we come upon the question; “who is investigating whom?” Is it the same knowing the same, the self knowing and being known? To those who have had the experience of this ‘Knowing’ experience it as real, the most truly real experience of their lives. They Know because they have Experienced.

 

Before I go on to the next part of this introduction I must deal with the sceptics. Sceptics don’t last long. While they are very clever in their logical arguments the reality is somewhat different. Having known many sceptics my observation is that they live unhappily and seldom die comfortably a sceptic. Let them argue with words till the cows come home - they cannot change the reality of the Mystical in the human condition and history. My method will be to illustrate the thesis with historical examples from the earliest literary sources and let the readers decide for themselves. One cannot argue the self evident. One can only examine the testimonies of those who have experienced self knowledge and recognize the consistent reality they have attached to such knowledge.

 

It should not be necessary to remind Hellenists that “Know Thyself” passed for the supreme word of wisdom in the Classical period,...[1]

 

Now, what about God? If the mind of God is all there truly is then we must be parts of God and God’s mind. Our minds are little parts of the One Mind. When we Know ourselves we Know and identify with the One Mind. We experience this Knowledge, we do not think it, consciously, but we Know through the experience of Knowing. It is as if God is keeping track of the parts of God’s own mind. We, as individuals, dissolve in this experience of Knowing. We do not really lose ourselves but, rather, experience the All, including our selves along with all other Selves. It is not an extinction but an expansion of consciousness. It is a conscious experience of the unconscious. Truly knowing thyself is to know and become the mind of God, Knowing All. Gnosis!

 

Before we go much farther in our study of Gnosis as Self Knowledge we will run into the problem of a definition of Mysticism and Mystics. F.C. Happold in his work, Mysticism - A Study and an Anthology, gives a goood working definition.

 

What is mysticism? The word ‘mystic’ has its origin in the Greek mysteries. A mystic was one who had been initiated into these mysteries, through which he had gained as esoteric knowledge of divine things... His object was to break through the world of history and time into that of eternity and timelessness... The word ‘mystery’ (mysterion) comes from the Greek verb muo, to shut or close the lips or eyes... To speak more generally, mysticism has its fount in what is the raw material of all religion and is also the inspiration of much of philosophy, poetry, art, and music,...[2]

 

In the religious mystic there is a direct experience of the Presence of God. Though he might not be able to describe it in words... to the mystic his experience is fully and absolutely valid and is surrounded with complete certainty. He has been ‘there’, he has ‘seen’, he ‘knows’.[3]

 

Not only have mystics been found in all ages, in all parts of the world and in all, religious systems, but also mysticism has manifested itself in similar or identical forms wherever the mystical consciousness has been present. Because of this it has sometimes been called the Perennial Philosophy. Out of their experience and their reflection on it have come the following assertions:...

 

It is the chief end of man’s earthly existence to discover and identify himself with his true self.[4]

 

The chief object of man is the quest of his own self and right knowledge about it.... there is also the idea of the soul’s knowing and finding itself through union with the Godhead...[5]

 

In man there is another self, the true Self, which is not affected by ordinary happenings and which gives him a sense of identity through numerous bodily and mental transformations. It does not change in the slow changes of the organism, in the flux of sensations, in the dissipation of ideas, or in the fading of memories.[6]