Kenosis to Gnosis
Hear the silence
Religion and Salvation
Before I start I want to mention that this page isn't about hostility to anyone in any religion. I don't have the attitude that people who belong to controlling systems that promote lots of fear and superstition are dumber than I am. A lot of members of cults are very intelligent people and a lot of them have university degrees and have good jobs. The problem with these people is that they are very hierarchical in nature and they don't have the ability to think for themselves. In addition to that their type of spirituality is based on worldly organizations with a power and money obsessed elite. I don't have an oppositional attitude to these people where I attack them, only to try to get them to join my group or label and to get them to think like I do. It's important to point out that the problem isn't just about religions, it's also about other hierarchical structures like political ideologies, like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Political ideologies have many of the same features as religious cults do, with messanic leaders, devotion by the followers, idolatry with the leaders pictures posted everywhere, fear etc.
There are two types of idolatry, the first type is worshipping statues, this is something that was stamped out in Europe and the Muslim world a long time ago. The second type of idolatry is worshipping a person or an organization and this type of idolatry is as strong as ever. The first type of idolatry doesn't harm anyone, but the second type of idolatry has proven itself to be very dangerous again and again. In this sense the monothestic religions are the biggest idolators of all.
It's very important to point out that the particular beliefs, rituals, traditions and symbolism isn't the important thing. The important thing is that religions have the same basic features or have the same skeleton as each other, people may look different on the outside, but inside the internal organs and the skeletons look the same, especially at the elite levels. The page called the Reptilian brain gets to the state of mind that creates religion and its structures. State of mind is more important than beliefs because the inside world creates the outside world.
Tradition is something that comes out of ritualistic behavior, except it applies to humans rather than animals. Habits can help someone survive from day to day but it can become ingrained in the culture over time to the point that it become irrational and impractical. Robes and veils were needed in the ancient world before modern transportation. Most people in ancient cultures wore clothing like this because it protected from the Sun and heat much better than pants and shirts do. But tradition outweighs reason and logic as the picture on the left shows. Tradition has a lot to do with with the fear and hierarchical aspects of the Reptilian. If people don't wear this or that, if they eat this particular food, if they don't go to this place on a certain day, if they don't do this ritual in this way etc, then they will go to Hell when they die. Rituals and traditions keep people loyal and obedient to the hierarchy they belong to.
Ritualistic behaviour is a very large feature of most religions in the world and religions are full of rituals. Political parties and ideologies have ritualistic behavior as well and the more authoritarian they are the more rituals they tend to have. Dictatorships are very big on rituals like religions are and dictators make themselves out to be messianic figures as well. True spirituality isn't about hierarchy, fear and rituals, it is not about having a hierarchical group and its leader between you and God, it is about you and God and no middle man in between that decides what you can and can't have. Religions are traditionally the biggest social hierarchies throughout history that most people belong to. The problem with religion is that it is a materialistic form of spirituality, which is based on an Earthly group that puts itself between Man and God in a mental way. Religion is a Reptilian form of spirituality because it has all the aspects of the Reptilian brain in it, such as Hierarchy, fear, ritualistic behavior and greed and power.
Ritualistic behavior in animals usually involves cleaning. Some animals like cats do it constantly. A lot of ritualistic behavior in humans also involves cleaning. People with obsessive compulsive disorder are quite obsessed with cleaning. It's not a coincidence that a lot of rituals in religions involve cleansing and purification. Jesus attacked the Pharisees for being obsessed with cleaning their physical bodies and forgetting about the important things. This is further evidence that a lot of religions are based more on the Reptilian brain and not on the higher state of consciousness.
People with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder know that their condition is irrational, but they feel compelled to do it because something in their head tells them that something bad will happen if they don't do it. People who are superstitious also have that same condition, except in a religious sense. Unlike people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, superstitious people really do believe that irrational voice in their heads. Superstition and fear that something bad will happen if someone doesn't do what they are told is very much linked to the Reptilian brain, like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Infact, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is like a religion without God, without the Messiah, without the hierarchy, without the leaders and without the label. It is the template on which religion and other hierarchical structures are based on.
Every religion has its own version of what salvation is. There are too many different versions to mention, but it always involves obedience to the group in one way or another. The video below shows how Hindus believe that salvation is attained by dying in a particular place, which is irrational and it puts a lot of strain and cost on the families of the dying.
The religion that many people have depends on what region, language and ethnic group someone comes from. This shows that religion is about territory, language and the flesh that is about seperation. Christians believe that salvation started in Europe and then expands out to the rest of the world. The truth is salvation doesn't emanate from a physical location, it emanates from inside everyone, but that isn't something that a hierarchical organization will teach people, because that would make them less relevant. Salvation isn't based on being lucky enough to be born into a family with the right religion either. There is no logic and reason with the belief that so many people have about salvation. Luck has nothing to do with salvation. It is idiotic to think that someone is more holy just because they were born into the right family, religion, nation etc. It is also idiotic to believe that people who come from religions, cultures, nations etc, that have a long history of wars, torture, tyranny, despostism, pedophila, fear etc, are more in favor of God and are saved than cultures who aren't Christain. Another problem with how religious people view salvation is what happened to good people who died before Jesus died on the cross for Man's sins. This is a problem which Christians have been debating for a long time and it shows that the religious view of salvation is flawed. The mystic view of salvation, that it's about waking up the soul and remembering who you used to be, makes a lot more sense. Judge people by their deeds, not by what they belong to. It's hard to believe that so many people are this clueless about what spirituality and God are about. The religion that so many people have is a psuedo spirituality.
To make a long story short, salvation meant resurrecting the soul and becoming it again. That's it. It's that simple. Salvation didn't mean quitting one religion and joining another and doing everything that religion said for the rest of your life. I'm the only one who's mentioning this. This is something that's been ignored by absolutely everyone.
Salvation and being born again.
These passages are from the Hermetica.
Corpus Hermeticum 1
[20] "Those who lack knowledge, what great wrong have they done," I asked, "that they should be deprived of immortality?"
"You behave like a person who has not given thought to what he has heard. Did I not tell you to think?"
"I am thinking; I remember; and I am grateful as well."
"If you have understood, tell me: why do they deserve death who are in death?"
"Because what first gives rise to each person's body is the hateful darkness, from which comes the watery nature, from which the body was constituted in the sensible cosmos, from which death drinks."
[21] "Truly you have understood. But why is it that 'he who has understood himself advances toward god,' as god's discourse has it?"
"Because," I said, "the father of all things was constituted of light and life, and from him the man came to be."
"You say your speech well. Life and light are god and father, from whom the man came to be. So if you learn that you are from light and life and that you happen to come from them, you shall advance to life once again." This is what Poimandres said.
"But tell me again," I asked, "how shall I advance to life, O my mind? For god says, 'Let the person who is mindful recognize himself'
[26] This is the final good for those who have received knowledge: to be made god. Why do you still delay? Having learned all this, should you not become guide to the worthy so that through you the human race might be saved by god?"
This passage talks about salvation like Christiainity but the Hermetica, like the Gnostic gospels define salvation as attaining knowledge of the soul or who you are. When you gain knowledge you become god.
[27] And I began proclaiming to mankind the beauty of reverence and knowledge: "People, earthborn men, you who have surrendered yourselved to drunkenness and sleep and ignorance of god, make yourselves sober and end your drunken sickness, for you are bewitched in unreasoning sleep."
Corpus Hermeticum VII
[1] Where are you heading in your drunkenness, you people? Have you swallowed the doctrine of ignorance undiluted, vomiting it up already because you cannot hold it? Stop and sober yourselves up! Look up with the eyes of the heart - if not all of you, at least those of you who have the power. The vice of ignorance floods the whole earth and utterly destroys the soul shut up in the body, preventing it from anchoring in the havens of deliverance. [2] Surely you will not sink in this great flood? Those of you who can will take the ebb and gain the haven of deliverance and anchor there. Then, seek a guide to take you by the hand and lead you to the portals of knowledge. There shines the light cleansed of darkness. There no one is drunk. All are sober and gaze with the heart toward one who wishes to be seen, who is neither heard nor spoken of, who is seen not with the eyes but with mind and heart. But first you must rip off the tunic that you wear, the garment of ignorance, the foundation of vice, the bonds of corruption, the dark cage, the living death, the sentient corpse, the portable tomb, the resident thief, the one who hates through what he loves and envies through what he hates.
Corpus Hermeticum XIII
[13] "Father, I see the universe and I see myself in mind."
"This, my child, is rebirth: no longer picturing things in three bodily dimensions. . . . through this discourse on being born again that I have noted down for you alone to avoid casting it all before the mob but [to give it] to those who god himself wishes."
The concept of salvation in the Hermetica is the same as in the Gnostic gospels.
The Tripartite Tractate.
(117:118) "Now the promise possessed the instruction and the return to what they are from the first, from which they possess the drop, so as to return to him, which is that which is called "the redemption." And it is the release from the captivity and the acceptance of freedom. In its places, the captivity of those who were slaves of ignorance holds sway. The freedom is the knowledge of the truth which existed before the ignorance was ruling, forever without beginning and without end, being something good, and a salvation of things, and a release from the servile nature in which they have suffered."
The Apocryphon of John.
(25: 30) And I said, "Lord, those, however, who have not known to whom they belong, where will their souls be?" And he said to me, "In those the despicable spirit has gained strength when they went astray. And he burdens the would and draws it tor the works of evil, and he casts it down into forgetfulness. And after it comes out of the body, it is handed over to the authorities, who came into being through the archon, and they bind it with chains and cast it into the prison and consort with it until it is liberated from the forgetfulness and acquires knowledge. And if thus it becomes perfect, it is saved."
This passage in the Apocryphon of John reveals that the idea of salvation to the ancients is simply waking up the soul and becoming it again and the ancients idea of the Fall of Man is descending into ignorance. This is an attitude that has not existed for a very long time.
The Treatise on the Resurrection.
"Nothing, then, redeems us from this world. But the All which we are, we are saved. We have received salvation from end to end. Let us think in this way! Let us comprehend in this way!"
The exegesis on the soul.
(134:5) Now it is fitting that the soul regenerates herself and become again as she formerly was. The soul then moves of her own accord. And she received the divine nature from the father for her rejuvenation, so that she might be restored to the place where originally she had been. This is the resurrection that is from the dead. This is the ransom from captivity. This is the upward journey of ascent to heaven. This is the way of ascent to the father. Therefore the prophet said (Ps 103:1-5):
"Praise the lord, O my soul, and, all that is within me, (praise) his holy name. My soul, praise God, who forgave all your sins, who healed all your sicknesses, who ransomed your life from death, who crowned you with mercy, who satisfies your longing with good things. Your youth will be renewed like an eagle's."
Then when she becomes young again, she will ascend, praising the father and her brother, by whom she was rescued. Thus it is by being born again that the soul will be saved. And this is due not to rote phrases or to professional skills or to book learning. Rather it is the grace of the [...], it is the gift of the [...]. For such is this heavenly thing. Therefore the savior cries out (Jn 6:44), "No one can come to me unless my Father draws him and brings him to me; and I myself will raise him up on the last day."
The Sophia of Jesus Christ.
(97:20) "Whoever has ears to hear about the infinities, let him hear"; and "I have addressed those who are awake."
The statement of "Whoever has ears to hear", appears in the Bible as well, but this passage is saying that these ears aren't physical or intellectual, they are spiritual and people need to have spiritual senses in order to see a broarder reality and understand the bigger mysteries that this passages calls the infinites. The second part of this passage, "I have addressed those who are awake.", is saying that these teachings are for those who are spiritually awake. Someone who's not in touch with their soul has a lot of trouble understanding these passages.
(100:15) The perfect Savior said: "I want you to know that he who appeared before the universe in infinity, Self-grown Self-constructed Father, being full of shining light and ineffable, in the beginning when he decided to have his likeness become a great power, immediately the principle (or beginning) of that Light appeared as Immortal Androgynous Man, that through that Immortal Man they might attain their salvation and awake from forgetfulness through the interpreter who was sent, who is with you until the end of the poverty of the robbers.
This passage is saying that salvation is waking up the soul.
The concept of our great power.
(36:5) For everyone in whom my form will appear will be saved, from (the age of) seven days up to one hundred and twenty years.
The second treatise of the great Seth.
(67:20) Those who knew me in salvation and undivideness, and those who existed for the glory of the father and the truth, having been separated, blended into the one through the living word.
The testimony of truth.
This, therefore, is the true testimony: When man comes to know himself and God who is over the truth, he will be saved, and he will crown himself with the crown unfading.
Trimorphic Protennoia.
(41) I am their Father and I shall tell you a mystery, ineffable and indivulgeable by [any] mouth: Every bond I loosed from you, and the chains of the Demons of the underworld, I broke, these things wihch are bound on my members, restraining them. And the high walls of darkness I overthrew, and the secure gates of those pitiless ones I broke, and I smashed their bars. And the evil Force and the one who beats you, and the one who hinders you, and the Tyrant, and the Adversary, and the one who is King, and the present Enemy, indeed all these I explained to those who are mine, who are the Sons of the light, in order that they might nullify them all and be saved from all those bonds and enter into the place where they were at first.
There's a whole bunch of other passages like these in the Gnostic gospels, they are too numerous to list here, but you can see them on the Secrets of Gnosticism page.
The Catholic Church calls itself the mother church, because they are the ones who created Christianity in its modern form. All other Christian churches are unauthorized franchises of the original. The non Catholic Christian churches have the same hierarchical structures, they are into mind control, they love promoting fear, they are authoritarian and they have the same view of what salvation is. Imagine a group that copies the structures, symbols, rituals etc, of a dictatorship. That group maybe separate from the dictatorship, but they are the same in so many ways. It's like that with religions that have copied the Catholic church, it's meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Look at how the non Catholic in the United States supported the new Crusades against the Muslim world and look at how they aren't concerned about all the violations of civil rights committed by the government.
A lot of people are very turned off by Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist church because of their homophobia. The only thing is that most other religions are homophobic as well. Why is the Westboro Baptist Church attacked by people so much, but not other religions? Fred Phelps has concluded that since God is going to send the majority of the world's population to Hell, God must be full of hatred. Most other Christians and other religious people also believe that God will send the majority of the world's population to Hell, but they say that God is full of love. That is what I call spiritual double think. There's no double think in the Westboro Baptist Church, they call hatred hatred and that is one of the reasons why people hate them. The Westboro Baptist Church have exposed a large inconsistency and hypocrisy in the institutional religions.
This picture illustrates my point of how political ideologies are religious cults. This is a Nazi altar with a picture of Adolf Hitler on it. It's a good example of how hierarchical structures, whether they are religious, ideological, nationalistic etc, have the same basic features.
This video sums up the attitude of a lot of Christians. Christian leaders are always reminding you that you are a bad person everyday of your life. Guilt tripping is a powerful control technique that hierarchies use and Christianity exploits it to the full. Guilt tripping is second only to fear as a way to keep people loyal and obediant to the hierarchy. In fact guilt tripping is very much a part of fear, because the people being guilt tripped fear the wrath of God and not going to Heaven. The effect of guilt tripping all the time is that it makes people do anything the hierarchy wants in order that they don't get punished for their sins. As this website and other websites and groups that focus on a higher level of consciousness say, the problem that most people have is that they operate from their base or animalistic instincts, they have a polarized mind and their souls, or they, are asleep and their flesh, or their mask, strawman, ego etc, is in charge of their lives. God doesn't hate the penis or the vagina, the original idea of morality was not to operate from the base instincts, but to operate at a higher level of consciousness. Fear and guilt are very much part of the base instincts and that is one of the reasons religions have caused so many wars, misery and suffereing. The page called the Reptilian brain explains the subject of base instincts in more detail. Nothing physical is defined as life by the ancients, only the soul, consciousness or you is life.
There are so many religious people in all religions who are fighing an unwinnalbe war on human nature. They waste so much time, money and happiness fighting against something that is built into the human mind. This is a war that can never be won. But religious people themselves have broken their own rules so many times especially with idolatry, when they put their religion beside God and with all the wars and murders they have committed. If rules are never being followed, then why have them? It would be a lot more productive to learn to live with it and be responsible with it than by trying to eliminate it. The idea should be to achieve a higher state of consciousness and not operate by the base nature , not by having rules that no one follows and then having everyone feel guilty and live in an unproductive state of fear because of it.
If something is making you feel like crap then it's a crap system. Any system, belief, person etc, is giving you lots of fear, anger, guilt, tension etc, then that person or system is not good or spiritual. There's a good quote that says, "Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information, and religions destroy spirituality." Michael Ellner. Religions have been destroying spirituality for a long time and that's because they are about hierarchy and obediance and not spirituality. The reason why there's so much materialism and Atheism is because religion and all its abuses has turned people off. Religion is a materialistic form of spirituality and this is causing many people to choose materialism and Atheism instead.