Wednesday, November 20, 2024

This past Saturday’s readings were from the Poimandres of Hermes Trismegistus (The Shepherd of Men) and The Second Prophecy to the Americas, Chapter 34: On the Need of a Religion of Light (pp 226 – 230).

Click here to read the first scriptural reading, and click the audio button below to hear the reading from our Second Advent scripture.

Once again, please feel free to ask me any questions by calling 775-786-7432 or emailing me at messages@cosolargy.org. I am always at your service.

In Light+,

Gene

“Should you who possess everything not know yourself? If you do not know yourself, you will not enjoy what you own. But know yourself and what you have enjoy.

“The perfect human can neither be restrained nor seen. If they see him, they can stop him, so there is no way to grace but to put on the perfect light and become perfect. All who put on that garment will enter the kingdom. This is the perfect light. We must become perfect before leaving this world. Who is rich and has not thrown it off will not share in the kingdom but will go as imperfect into the middle. Only Jesus knows where that will end.

“Now we have the manifest things of creation. We say, ‘The strong are they who are held in high regard, and the obscure are the weak who are despised.’ Contrast the manifest things of truth: they are weak and despised, whereas the hidden things are strong and held in high regard. The mysteries of truth are revealed, though, in type and image. The bridal chamber remains hidden. It is the holy in the holy. The veil at first concealed how god controls creation, but when the veil is torn and things inside are revealed, this house will be left desolate, or rather it will be destroyed. But the whole inferior godhead will not flee from these places into the holies of the holies, for it cannot mix with the pure light and the perfect fullness. Rather, it will be under the wings of the cross and under its arms.”

-The Gospel of Philip

Knowledge of Self

It doesn’t seem possible to many people that they don’t know themselves, but the fact is that most of us only know part of what we truly are. We generally know little about our spiritual Self, and not as much as we think we know about our physical self. For example, most people don’t know the health conditions of all the organs of their body. Nor do they know the fastest speed they can run or the heaviest weight they can lift. We might know the fastest speed we have run in the past, but we would probably run even faster if a bear were chasing us. Likewise, we may know the heaviest weight we have lifted under normal circumstances, but there are plenty of stories of people showing what is considered superhuman strength in an emergency, such as when their child is trapped under a car. As for knowledge of spiritual matters, most of us only have opinions on such things, not known facts gained by awakening and developing our spiritual Self.

Put on the Perfect Light

I think it is misleading to say that we should put on the perfect Light as if it is a garment that we wear on the outside only. In actual fact, when we are exposed to this Light, and learn how to take it in, it permeates every part, every organ, every cell of our physical body and our spiritual body as well. The Perfect Light is the Light that comes from God and reaches us through the intermediary of the Spiritual Sun. We might say that in a way, the Spiritual Sun is like a window between Heaven and Earth.

Philip says “ We must become perfect before leaving this world.” That is not exactly true, and probably not even possible. What is true is that we must start the process of becoming perfect by awakening and developing our spirits as much as possible while we are still in the physical world. Then the process can continue after the death of the physical body until we do reach perfection.

The Strong and the Weak

Philip tells us that the worldly people think that those who are “held in high regard” are considered strong, while those who are not are considered weak. He then tells us that in reality, the truth is often just the opposite. Those who have great power and esteem in the physical realm are generally weak on the spiritual side, while those who are spiritually strong, are not held in high regard in the physical realm. But the spirit is eternal, while the physical is temporary, so one who spends his life gathering esteem and wealth on the physical plane is gathering a treasure of shadows. The one who practices love, humility, and seeks eternal truth is the one who is ultimately strong in an eternal way.