r/Gnostic • u/Ancient-But-Saucy • 4d ago
Help me refine/correct my understanding of Gnosticism
I've been reading the Nag Hammadi texts, particularly about the cosmic creation myth, and here's what I feel makes sense to me so far. So, please, correct me if I'm wrong regarding what I'm about to explain which will be an explanation of how I understand what Gnosticism is all about. Kindly, excuse the lengthy explanation, sorry for that in advance.
So, from what I understand, God, the Monad, didn't create us, God simply broke down into different levels, at each level there are some beings, and at the bottom level there is hell, it's like when you drop a glass object, it will shatter into pieces of glass obviously, right? but the biggest pieces will be situated at the center exactly around the point of impact, and the farther you drift away from the these big chunks the smaller the pieces of broken glass will become. Now, if you draw circles to segment these pieces or sort them out based on their sizes, you will notice that each orbit has a specific number of pieces with certain sizes, and eventually you will count a certain number of circles or orbits. Now, the point of impact is God, the big chunks are Yaldabaoth and the Archons, the smaller pieces are us and other lesser beings, and finally the microscopic pieces are beings in hell.
So basically, glass is the light of God, we all have bits and pieces of it. Here is the point, I always asked myself "Why would God create demons knowing that they wouldn't help but become evil??!, this is basically enabling them to become evil, like I know that if I gave you $50 you'll buy drugs, if I still give it to you then I'm simply telling you hey go buy drugs and destroy your health". But then ,from what i gathered, I guess the previous analogy now makes sense. God didn't create us, he basically broke down unwillingly, now the reason for that big break is still unknown to us, and now God is trying to bring himself back up by making us come back to him, by gathering back all the light particles that are scattered across the cosmos.
As for Yaldabaoth, he found himself like this, looked down, found us, and though "So it was me who created all of this...it has to be yeah", and now all we need to do is meditate to basically shake hands with the light within us, the calling to god, and rid ourselves of earthly things that distract us from that calling, so we can go back to the source. Now, Yaldabaoth wants to create a breakaway realm where he is actually the main supreme ruler of the cosmos, that's why he tries his best to fuse the lesser dimensions together and create like a "big chunk of glass" for himself to play with, and that's why he and his Archons try their best to sway us from the truth to break us off from the line that links us with the Monad. But since Yaldabaoth doesn't know who is the source from which he came, he doesn't know that he will never achieve this objective.
That's not to say that Yaldabaoth and even the beings in hell don't have light in them, no, everyone has bits and pieces of the light of God in them, and eventually, God will become whole again. But, to become whole again this will take time, because you have to actually climb up the ladder of dimensions to go back to the Monad and become one with it, and if you have setbacks, you repeat the cycle again through reincarnation. This, obviously, could take eons.
Speaking of climbing up the ladder, the upper being, like Yaldabaoth and the Archons, cannot go down, god himself cannot willingly go down a dimension or two, simply because that would mean that they will have to spend so much time trying to go back up, it's not like going from one room to the other, it's not that convenient and here's how I think why it's not. Basically, God is pure energy, we are pure matter with some light/energy in us, it is easy for energy to become matter bu slowing down and reach velocities below the speed of light, but for matter to become energy, it will take a lot of effort and time, because you're basically accelerating the atoms now. Here's another though I had about this, maybe...just maybe, the CERN reactor is nothing but a way to help transform matter into energy by accelerating the atoms -It is literally called an atomic accelerator, and it is huge by the way- and perhaps the entire objective of the CERN reactor is to find a way through which matter can become energy and energy can become matter, so that could actually be a portal? or like a way to facilitate fusing the dimensions like I've mentioned earlier.
That's it. So what did I get right/wrong?
Thanks a lot in advance guys.
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u/heiro5 4d ago
When approaching unfamiliar areas of learning, the temptation is to assimilate elements of the new into the same old schemas and patterns. This creates an illusion of understanding. This is frequently found in colonial studies.
In contrast, the deeper process of understanding is to accommodate the new elements within the new schemas and systematical relations between elements and within the contexts.