"But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and you are poverty.”

“Resurrection can be judged as one of the sharpest Valentinian differences from dogmatic Christianity, a difference that appears in Sufism and other esoteric traditions, and in many varieties of what I have called the American Religion, the denominations and sects indigenous to the United States. As in earlier Gnostic religion, resurrection for Valentinus is distinctly not something that takes place after death. Henry Corbin, in support of his Sufi Gnostics, quotes from Balzac's novella Louis Lambert, itself a Hermetic tale:

Resurrection is accomplished by the wind of heaven that sweeps the worlds. The Angel carried by the wind does not say: Arise ye dead! He says: Let the living arise!

This is the kernel of the Valentinian resurrection: to know releases the spark, and one rises up from the body of this death. Ignorance falls away, one ceases to forget, one is again part of the Fullness. The Valentinian Gospel According to Philip, a sort of anthology, has nine crucial passages on resurrection, of which the bluntest insists," Those who say the lord first died and then arose are mistaken, for he first arose and then died.”Another adds," While we exist in this world we must acquire resurrection.”Baptism, for the Valentinians as for many Americans, itself was the resurrection, again according to The Gospel of Philip:

People who say they will first die and then arise are mistaken. If they do not first receive resurrection while they are alive, once they have died they will receive nothing. Just so it is said of baptism: "Great is baptism!"For if one receives it, one will live...

The crucial text for understanding Valentinus is the subtlest and fullest we have by him, the beautiful sermon named The Gospel of Truth, and I turn to it now seeking what is most central to Valentinus's sense of resurrection.

Layton shrewdly remarks upon the"Gnostic rhetoric"of The Gospel of Truth, and notes its spiritual similarity, in atmosphere and in the concept of salvation-resurrection to the proto-Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, which I suspect deeply influenced Valentinus. Both works, the sermon and the collection of Jesus'"hidden"sayings, are allied by a wonderful freedom from dogma and from myth, both Christian and Gnostic. In each, there is a directness and a passion that breaks down the barriers of reservations put up by historicizing scholars. We are addressed directly, whether by Valentinus or Jesus, and challenged to see what it is that is all around us, what it is that we already know, even if we do not know that we know....

What makes us free, according to Christian dogma, is knowing the truth, which is Christ's Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, and this truth is to be known by faith, the faith that at a moment, both in and out of time, these events once took place. When however we say that what makes us free is Gnosis, or"knowing," then we are Gnostics, and instead of believing that something was and is so (something that would be still different for Jews, and again for Muslims), we rely upon an inward knowledge rather than upon an outward belief. Gnosis is the opposite of ignorance, and not of disbelief. As an ancient Greek word widely used by Jews and Christians, Gnosis did not mean knowing that something was so, but rather just knowing someone or something, including knowing God.”Knowing God"has a special twist that makes it the Gnosis: it is a reciprocal process in which God also knows what is best and oldest in you, a spark in you that always has been God's. This means that knowing God is primarily a process of being reminded of what you already know, which is that God never has been wholly external to you, however alienated or estranged he is from society or even the cosmos in which you dwell....

Here is Valentinus upon our present state in his one complete surviving work, the beautiful meditation The Gospel of Truth:

Thus they did not know God, since it was he whom they did not see. Inasmuch as he was the object of fear and disturbance and instability and indecisiveness and division, there was much futility at work among them on his account, and much empty ignorance—as when one falls sound asleep and finds oneself in the midst of nightmares: running toward somewhere—powerless to get away while being pursued—in hand-to- hand combat—being beaten—falling from a height—being blown upward by the air, but without any wings; sometimes, too, it seems that one is being murdered, though nobody is giving chase—or killing one's neighbors, with whose blood one is smeared; until, having gone through all these dreams, one awakens.

This nightmare of death-in-life, composed eighteen centuries ago, need but little modification. The Gnostic Jesus of The Gospel of Thomas, a wayfaring Jesus, closer to Walt Whitman than to the Jesus of the Churches, speaks to us as if each of us is a passerby, and with an ultimate eloquence tells us precisely into what we have been thrown:

But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and you are poverty. Fortunate is one who came into being, before coming into being.”

Harold Bloom, Omens of the Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams,
and Resurrection, pages 188-243
Paperback: 255 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Books (October 1, 1997)
ISBN-10: 1573226297
ISBN-13: 978-1573226295


Dear All,

Jesus makes it clear that"If you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and you are poverty.”The Comforter's core teachings of Self-realization have guided us to follow the path that Jesus expounded more than two millennia ago. Both want us to realize our Selves:

“But do you have your self-esteem? If you have then where should be your attention? It should be on your Self. Where is your Self now? It is God Almighty; it's part of that Great Primordial Being. Your attention should be on that.

After realization your attention should be in your heart, on your spirit which is the part of God Almighty. If your attention is on your spirit you will be amazed how your attention will act.” (Shri Mataji, 23 June 1980)

But where do we find details of this priceless knowledge that is clearly anathema to Judaism, Christianity and Islam?

Main Entry: anath-e-ma
1 a: one that is cursed by ecclesiastical authority b: someone or something intensely disliked or loathed —usually used as a predicate nominative;
2 a: a ban or curse solemnly pronounced by ecclesiastical authority and accompanied by excommunication b: the denunciation of something as accursed c: a vigorous denunciation;

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

To answer that i quote Dr. David Frawley:

"The Hindu religion is an ocean of spiritual teachings about all aspects of life and consciousness. It's the world's oldest religion, going back to the very dawn of history. It sees its origin in the cosmic mind itself. Yet Hinduism is also perhaps the world's youngest religion because it emphasizes the authority of living teachers and allows for correction and evolution over time.

Hinduism is the most diverse religious tradition in the world. It could be said that there are probably more religions inside of Hinduism than outside of it. It has numerous saints, sages, and yogis, both male and female, from ancient to modern times, and today still has what is probably the largest number of monks and renunciates (including a number of Westerners). The recent Hindu religious gathering, the Kumbha Mela of January 2001, had tens of millions of people in attendance. It was the largest gathering of any type and the largest religious gathering in the history of the world.

Hinduism is the world's largest non-biblical tradition, with nearly a billion followers worldwide. It could be called the world's largest non-organized religion as it emphasizes individual spiritual experience, the realization of the higher Self over any religious institution, book, dogma, or savior. It's also the world's largest native or pagan tradition, reflecting the ancient spiritual traditions that once existed all over the world. Like native traditions everywhere, it honors God or the sacred throughout all nature. It has many insights in harmony with the ecological age, as it affords reverence to the Earth as a conscious and loving presence and asks us to respect our environment.

Hinduism contains the world's oldest and largest tradition of Goddess worship- worshipping the Divine not only as father but also as mother. It recognizes all the diverse forms of the Goddess and her powers of wisdom, beauty, strength, love, and compassion.

Perhaps most notably, Hinduism is the world's largest pluralistic tradition, recognizing One Truth- an eternal reality of Being- Consciousness Bliss in all beings- but also many paths to realize it. Hinduism recognizes theism (the belief in One Creator) but only as one portion of the human religious experience that includes polytheism, pantheism, monism, and even atheism. As the most inclusive of the world's great religions, Hinduism has room for all these views and yet guides us through these to Self-realization that transcends them all.”

-Dr. David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri)
Author, Yoga and Ayurveda, Hinduism, the Eternal Tradition,
Director, American Institute of Vedic Studies

Without question, Hinduism has room for all types of views and yet guides us through them to Self-realization that transcends (and unites) all religions. That is why only through Hinduism does the Resurrection quote below—again anathema to Judaism, Christianity and Islam—make so much sense:

"Resurrection is accomplished by the wind of heaven that sweeps the worlds. The Angel carried by the wind does not say: Arise ye dead! He says: Let the living arise!"

Jai Shri Mataji,

jagbir

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But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty