The whole true purpose of living is to escape this world, isn't it interesting?
which is the essence of Gnosticism; an anti-cosmic Soteriology!Just like what happened to gnosticism in the hands of the Romans, Buddhism was also turned upside-down when it came into the hands of the Chinese, the typical Creationist / theistic notions.
In China they even mistakenly think that the Awakened One taught Kung-fu to them! And in Japan, the samurai arts!
At least by making the World see the Truth, hopefully we can make it a better place for everyone. A compassionate & reasonable society and a more sustainable environment to live in.
Even in this modern age “The Blind Ones” always refuse to behave responsibly because they always ascribe everything to “God” & “Satan”, never realizing that in all actuality they themselves with their wrong views (Ignorance/Agnoia/Avidya) are the real menace to one another. There is nothing sacred about greed, hatred & ignorance, these 3 unwholesome roots are mistakenly thought by them as “Divine Providence”.
I just can’t seem to understand their errant prehistoric dispositions, why would they go to school if they refuse science, logic & reasoning?
If Christ were to come again among us into this world to enlighten them, i’ll bet they’d be the first to nail Him on the cross again just like they did many times before… and replace His gospels, turning it into some other santa claus religions.
(Posted on the Kolbrin Facebook page originally.)
I’ve been lurking on this page since it has been created, and Manuel’s statement that the true purpose of living is to escape the world has prompted me to join the group and respond.
The Gnostics, Buddhists, and a select few sects of Hinduism see the world as a place of darkness, evil, ignorance, and suffering which must be transcended in order to ‘escape’ these horrors.
The Culdian view, which is clearly evident in our publications (I am a Culdian), including the Kolbrin, is that the world is akin to a school. It is a place of instruction, success and failure, joy and sorrow, wisdom and ignorance. The purpose of school is not to escape school, but to fully embrace the experience of growth and learning before we graduate.
One can hate and suffer through school counting the days until its end, or affirm the experience, live in the present, and make this trip more about the journey than the destination. One may get through school with an eye only towards post graduation, but this only compounds any suffering already experienced and makes it all the more likely you will fail and have to repeat certain classes.
Although many other philosophical, theological, and metaphysical ideas are the same, a positive and balanced affirmation of life and physical existence is what separates Culdian philosophy from the negative, unbalanced rejection of physical existence so prevalent in much of Gnosticism, Buddhism, and splinter sects of other faiths.
Thanks for participating Leonard, it's nice to have a Culdian around here sharing some perspectives. As much as I love the Kolbrin (and you guys know that by now for sure) I must admit sometimes I find the philosophy a bit too idealistic. It is indeed great to empower oneself to go through the harshest life experiences. When I first found the Kolbrin it gave me a lot of strength to change my life 180Ă‚Âş and the results were absolutely undeniable. But with time I started having problem believing certain things, or most precisely to be able to embrace them in a convincing manner. Nowadays while I still recall certain passages from time to time and re read them I am much more skeptical of everything and as you correctly stated this way of experiencing life makes everything a bit more tortuous. Some days I wish I could go back to that idealism I had when I first discovered the Kolbrin, but the Gnostic philosophy does possess a lot of appeal. Sometimes the Kolbrin's explanations for certain things seem to be a bit too simplistic. It's even told in the Kolbrin that this is the book of the lesser secrets, it seems like we're left out of a lot of details and thus other metaphysical currents like Gnosticism gain appeal by revealing more indepth details about the mysteries. Also witnessing the state of our world pessimism and stoicism begin making a lot more sense than believing that we're fighting this glorious battle to achieve godhood. Yet anyone who reads the Kolbrin thoroughly can't fail to admire the gems it contains, and if you embrace its tenets I can assure anybody that it grants almost magical faculties. I wouldn't be the person I am today if it wasn't for this book, even when nowadays I couldn't honestly tell someone the things the Kolbrin teaches with a straight face. There's no way I could provide hard evidence for any of it." What is the destined fate of a man who knows the existence of things beyond his understanding? I see but I do not know, therefore I am afraid. Man can swim against the current towards the bank, but he needs a helping hand to pull him ashore when he is exhausted from the struggle.
This is the fate of man. He must strive for that which he cannot attain. He must believe in that which he cannot prove. He must seek that which he cannot find. He must travel a road without knowing his destination. Only thus can the purpose of life be fulfilled."
Can you provide hard evidence for the Gnostic Mysteries? Can Christians provide hard evidence of the miracles of Jesus, or even that he actually lived? If you, Manuel, experience a transcendent experience of God and all the Mysteries, can you provide us hard evidence of the fact? Or would you be ashamed to speak of the fact?
For myself, I esteem the Higher Powers and my most transcendent experiences with too much respect to have them misunderstood or ridiculed by those without even the interest to understand such things. These things are private, and shared only with others who know or whom have the deepest yearning to know. And returning to the school analogy, one does not teach 9th grade lessons to a 4th grade student. The reasons should be obvious.
There is much in the world that cannot (may not is the better term) be proved or found on Google. Living, working Mysteries exist to this day, privately (sometimes TOO much so) reserved for those that are spiritually and emotionally ready and will give the experience the respect it deserves.
Mind this as well, the Mysteries you are reading that were EXPERIENCED in ancient Gnosticism were never made public by them. They were not for the profane, and had you lived then you would have not read, heard, nor experienced them unless you were an initiate. And if you had, your ‘normal’ peers would have told you these Mysteries were the delusions of mad men. It is only now because they are ‘ancients’ that they have any modern respectability at all. Perhaps this is why this group and others’ so greatly love the Kolbrin, but dismiss out of hand Gwineva because it is channeled in modern times even though the quality of spiritual, metaphysical ideas parallels the quality of the Kolbrin. Is the Kolbrin only of value because of its age, and less so if one cannot prove it? Is Gwineva of little value because it is modern or channeled? Do you imagine the only ones with transcendent awareness or experience were ancients, or that their ‘channeling’ (what do you think this word really means?) was more valid?
Idealism? Perhaps…it is only a simple yet deep understanding of where we are in our cycle of growth. Growing pains still suck, and they are not fun but are easy enough to recognize with the right amount of focus and patience. Sometimes the momentary pain in ourselves and the world is compelling enough to forget the bigger picture momentarily as we resort to a stoic pessimism, but only just as long as the pain lasts or until the lesson is learned…and the pain does last until the lesson is learned…individually or collectively.
I must clarify that I don't consider myself a Gnostic, I have studied certain Gnostic texts and found them of much interest; but my point regarding it was merely to contrast it with the more straightforward texts in the Kolbrin and how the fact that the Gnostic texts presume to reveal more indepth aspects of the mysteries and the apparent state of our existence can lead people into adopting/trusting its views instead. There are so many currents of alleged ancient knowledge out there yet without actual personal experience of the mysteries it all becomes a sort of entertainment or pastime as the seeker always stumbles upon the same dead end road.
Wrathful Emanation of the Perfect Ones decapitating Brahma the Creator. :http://sfcitizen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_2280-copy3.jpg
“The central main hands of the deity hold a chopping-knife (karttrka) and human skull-bowl (kapala), colored gold and ornamented by pearl chains, flammiforms and scepters (vajra). The lower main hands hold a magical knife (purba) and the severed multi-faced head of Brahma the Creator. The upper main hands hold a red right hand holding an arrow and an elaborately decorated golden shield with a Chinese-style makara or dragon face at the center. The other hands hold a ritual scepter (vajra), lance, axe, double-drum (damaru), Wheel of Law (dharmachakra), dagger, swirling flames, ritual bell (ghanta), skeleton-staff (khatvanga), banner, a red human right foot, a transfixed corpse, various magical knives and stakes, a noose, a skin, and other Tantric weapons.”
“The Thunder Perfect Mind”, the name of one gnotic text in the NHL is actually a technical (tantric) buddhist term, the adamantine vehicle of the Awakened One.
In one one these “forbidden” gospels (i think it was Philip), there is a story about how Yaldabaoth the OT Creator God being slain by one of these “wrathful deity” / “fiery angel” and cast down to Tartaros
According to (tantric) Buddhism, the sensation of attaining an Awakened Mind is like flashes of Thunder. At this stage, conditional reality will no longer have any meaning. When one has attained mastery over all phenomena, one is freed from the wicked bonds of pain, death & rebirth (in the lower realms) which amounts to suffering.
“Reality is merely an ILLUSION…”
- The gnostic Christ, the Buddha, Albert Einstein.
After these examples with so much colorful, violent metaphors, it should be no wonder that so many of these types of esoteric groups devolve into practices of blood rites, human sacrifice, self flagellation, and other physically unhealthy austerities. That, combined with a peculiar brand of life hating nihilism may certainly be considered a major, but subtle, underlying cause for the intensification of darkness and suffering in the world.
“Most PERCEPTIONS of Reality are merely an Illusion.” – Leonard the Culdian
"There are few, even among truly enlightened men, who are able to conceive My true nature, and these know that I am even above unchangeability in manifestation. I can think of Myself as some other and forthwith that other comes into being. There are those among men who declare all life, all My creation to be an illusion of the senses, a dream without sustenance. They are in error, for all that is real and all that exists was ever latent, awaiting the awakening kiss. Because men cannot know reality as it actually is but only as they can conceive it to be with their deceptive sense, does not make it any less real. If all men were blind, the stars would still exist".
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Regarding the nature of reality, it seems to me like a persistent dream, the building blocks of matter are made of nothing yet they create a whole tangible universe."I am the Hidden God, hidden to serve an end. Veiled in mystery, I am further obscured by the mists of mortal delusion. Unable to see me, men declare I do not exist, yet I declare to you that man, with his mortal limitations, sees only a minute part of the whole. Man is the slave of illusion and deception. Though man is born to delusion, for it is a needful state, he is further inflicted by deceptions wrought by men. Though man cannot perceive the greatness above him, because of its greatness, neither can he see the smallness beneath him, because of its smallness. From the greatest came the smallest and from the smallest came creation, and within the smallest is greatness and power. For the smallest is far less than the mote, yet it is the upholder of the universe and it shines like the sun beyond the darkness. It lies out towards the edge of the reach of man’s thought. "
Regarding the point about symbology, I think the idea of veiling esoteric secrets with symbogy tends to backfire precisely because the profane who stumble upon that veiled knowledge tend to take it literally and the distortions usually end up being detrimental in one way or the other
Similar to a dream? Yes. Made of nothing? No.
What are your dreams made of? Brain cells, or something far less tangible? Where do our ideas and thoughts come from?
One can say perception of a certain frequency of reality is filtered through our senses, but what about perceptions and thoughts received beyond our physical senses?
These are very good questions to continually meditate and contemplate on to approach a greater knowledge of God and Self.
Well, what are your THOUGHTS?
Well made of nothing can be a bit deceiving, what I meant is that you don't find solid matter anymore, but more of a spectrum of possibility according to the observation point. Now I am not a scientist to explain this in precise terms but it's pretty much what quantum mechanics has found.Anyway I’d say that our thoughts come from the electric energy that is going through our neurons. So I guess if thought and thus consciousness is energy that opens up a bunch of far out possibilities that hopefully one day we’ll be able to put in paper not just from a philosophical perspective but also from a scientific one.
"The spirit of the Twice Born can be liberated at will. How often have you seen your brother in a state of ecstasy which he cannot describe? It is a state beginning in quiet bliss, flowing outward in bright radiance from an inner light which can even illuminate the material darkness about him. He hears the music of the sacred spheres and sees the throbbing pulsations of life heaving about him, like waves upon the great seas. He becomes aware of an inflowing of unspoken knowledge from a surrounding power. It does not come from any one point, but appears to flow out of all things and to penetrate all things. Material objects lose their density and become visible within, they become as though compounded of ten thousand whirling spheres of brightness. Colours are no longer dull and restricted, they become infinite in depth and number. The spirit becomes lost in adoration and wonder at the beauty revealed in everything. The soul is aware of something glorious within all this and knows it for the spirit outflowing from its source. "
Texts like these seem to imply that reality beyond the perception of the bodily senses is actually more akin to energy fields of diverse frequencies interacting with each other. After all I guess that is what this universe actually is, energy vibrating at different rates. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to see all the matter around us without the limitations of the human body. I mean clearly there’s stuff out there, but it’s also certain that the way we perceive it is subjective to our own tools of perception that we’ve been provided with.
“Man may think his eyes reveal things as they are, but no mortal eye has ever beheld a thing as it actually is. It appears to man through the coloured distorting glass of his own mortality.”
Close…The electricity in our brains transmits thoughts to other neurons, but this is not where it originates. You’ll have to work on this one awhile. It is not found in the Kolbrin, and material science is nowhere near what certain Masters have discovered. Eventually they will, just as the tongue lags behind the mind, and the body lags behind the tongue, so do the physical sciences lag behind the internal or spiritual sciences.
And “tools of perception” is an interesting term…could it be said then that our bodies and senses are the tool kit allowing us what we can know or understand? What about the passage you just quoted from the Twice Born, what senses were they provided with that you weren’t?
Look to the heart... we may seek GOD outwardly, but HIS answers are within.
Well I could just say that it all originates from the spirit energy emanating from the God source and which pervades the whole of creation. This is the esoteric explanation coming as far back as Hermes. The Twice Born in the Kolbrin argue they could awaken an extra sense which is not of the mortal body with which they could observe reality as it is. This is all very interesting, and one of the things I love about the Kolbrin without a doubt, but it is clear that most people don't naturally reach that state and it would be interesting if science could find evidence for all these metaphysical claims. If for anything to give some validity to them and steer mass human attention towards the subject. I myself love to consider all interesting possibilities, but can't believe in things just because someone claims them to be true, otherwise I'd be in trouble seeing how lying is a prevalent trait in humankind.
Why are you waiting for science to tell you what’s real?
Most of what is called “science” today is really only another system of religious like faith, as the rules and supposed facts are constantly scrapped and rewritten as new “discoveries” are made.
While Rex’s last post may on the surface seem unreal, simple, or childish…it is in fact the CORE of how you will really KNOW anything.
Well I am not so quick to discredit science. Although it's true that there's tons of politics getting embedded in the discourse and a lot of grasping at straws I do think that science has a part to play in helping humankind getting back in track. Nowadays in the age of the internet and with technology easily available to the average person, the minds of countless individuals worldwide are working constantly to decipher the many questions that beset us. I am hoping that at some point science finds out a common nexus with metaphysics and philosophy and turns into a positive force for mankind. Or else what should we expect? That we continue having just a tiny fraction of people becoming enlightened while the 99% continue to kill and cannibalize each other for the rest of time in a cyclical fashion as it has pretty much always been? Religion has failed to influence people for good and what is becoming our current paradigm will quickly turn the masses into degenerate ravagers, we need something urgently that can serve to create some sort of desirable framework for the masses to rely upon and create a more beneficial existence for themselves.
I wasn’t speaking of the political distortion of science, that is another problem…
I am speaking of how new science often displaces old science. Einstein put Newton’s Laws on their head, yet Newton’s Laws still apply. Quantum physics turns Newton and Einstein on their heads, yet within their own frameworks they are still correct. Or how about classical Euclidian Geometry clashing with more recent non-Euclidian Geometry…who is correct?
And again, why are you waiting for people like these to confirm for YOU what is real?
As we ended with in our first discussion, the Earth is like a school, it was not designed for a society of perfected souls. There are many grades, levels, and sub-levels here, with only a tiny few graduating at any one time…and one day, you’ll be among them.
And yes, society as a whole is in a whole heap of trouble at present…and the seeds for a collective shift are being nurtured and prepared.
Well that's a stance many times I consider, just concluding that all the troubles that humanity has to endure are necessary and that everything is in its correct place. But isn't it a positive human desire to progress and make things better? Yet if you think about it how many times have our ancestors created such dramatic situations while trying to do just that? It's all very intricate and as soon as you try to affect some factor while thinking you're going to fix one problem you might be unleashing the cause of a thousand more in the future. Maybe you're right and it's our fate to exist in this dimension while being faced with struggles. But then again I think we could ease them a bit, there's way too much degeneracy and viciousness in this world.The bottom line here I think is this, do you actually expect to fix our problems by having people stumble upon some good philosophy , accepting it on faith and changing due to it? Because I’d say that’s unrealistic. If you think that we’re fine the way we are and that some sort of divine intervention will fix things at some point then I would remind you:
“Though unenlightened men expect it, it is not meet for Me to interfere unduly in the affairs of Earth”.
Yet when divine intervention does occur it does seem to be very destructive. Maybe that’s what we need, a good ole cataclysm.
Nirvana / The Pleroma is NOT non-existence. It is life eternal, the deathless state, eternal bliss. Those (including us at present) who have not attained it are actually the dead ones who live like zombies / slaves.The english translation of Nirvana as “annihilation” was actually INCORRECT because they have not studied Buddhism correctly from the original traditions. Take a course in the Abidhamma classes in the Theravadin or the Vajrayana traditions to get some better understanding about Nirvana.