Self-Awareness Arises

Welcome to the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. We're synchronizing these episodes with the podcast called Gnostic Insights. For now, we're doing the same podcast on both platforms, mainly because I know that a lot of you here at the Gnostic Reformation are new to this talk. And even though we've been discussing concepts and articles that play upon these notions, you were never really given the basics of the philosophy out of which I'm speaking, and so that's why we're catching up to the basic concepts. And it all comes out of the Tripartite Tractate book that is contained in the Nag Hammadi scriptures which were dug up out of the desert of Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. At this point in discussing the early Christian Gnosticism, we're studying consciousness. This is a branch of consciousness studies, as they call it nowadays. And the reason we're studying consciousness is because we are conscious. The basic difference between this sort of consciousness studies versus the conventional modern way of studying consciousness is that the brain scientists and the consciousness studies philosophers don't believe in an original source—in a pre-existent consciousness. Religious people do—that's what they call God. What I'm saying, and what I've been saying even before I learned this through reading the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi, back when I wrote my original theory of everything called A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything, is that consciousness is the ground state of reality. Consciousness preexists everything. The modern people do not want to admit that. They mistakenly think that consciousness is a by-product of our brains. In fact, when I studied psychology in college, humans were the only ones ascribed consciousness. That's why it's so easy for scientists to treat lab animals as objects rather than conscious entities. You can't be cruel to a Beagle dog or a mouse. But you can, because consciousness is the pre-existent state of all life. Life begins with consciousness. So, before there was any creation at all, before there were any mice or Beagle dogs or humans, there was consciousness. And so we're tracing the origins of consciousness from the ground state. The background radiation is consciousness. That's called the Father, and in our last episode we talked about the Father. The Son is the first breakout of that consciousness. It's the first fractal monad that arose out of the ground state of consciousness. In religious circles that is called the Son. Then the Son immediately differentiated into countless and infinite variables, because consciousness is infinite—into an infinite variety of variables of that consciousness, and that is what we identify as the Totalities of the ALL. But, even though they are independent variables of the Son, they do not have self-awareness. They have consciousness, but the consciousness is One—they are all One. So they think as one. They give praise to the Father as one entity. The ALL is a single One. These are not necessarily religious terms. This is consciousness unfolding from the beginning. I'm trying to get us to how we came to be, so that is the relevance of this sort of study. How did consciousness originate from the single source and then keep differentiating until it came into your brain as you're sitting here listening to this podcast? So, welcome back to this review of the ground state of consciousness and how it differentiated into the ALL. This week we're talking about what is called the Fullness or the Pleroma of the Fullness. And this is where we're going to give rise to individualized awareness, just like you have awareness and I have awareness. We are individuals. We are each what is called a monad. That means we have our individual point of view. So, let's plug back into this review of an episode from a couple of years ago. In 2019, I wrote a book called The Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, and what I am attempting to do in this podcast is talk you through the book so that you will have your own personal and very full understanding of what gnosis is and hopefully be able to actually realize gnosis while you're hearing these podcasts. By the way, what is gnosis? We keep talking about gnosis and gnostic. Gnosis means knowing and in the gnostic frame of reference gnosis refers to remembering the truth of our existence and our creation and the creation of the entire cosmos. It is thought that we hold all of this knowledge within ourselves, and we have complete access to the Creator of the universe at anytime that we turn our focus on the Creator. And it is this direct conduit to the Creator that gives us what is called gnosis. That's a Greek word. Another related word to gnosis, and this is a big word, is called anamnesis. You know the word amnesia means forgetting. Anamnesis means not forgetting. So the process of coming to gnosis is a process called anamnesis. Just to let you know, if you want to throw around any big words. Today, we're going to talk about the qualities of the ALL and how the ALL became what is called the Pleroma and the Aeons of the Pleroma. Many people claim that it's impossible to know or describe the full glory of the transcendent immortal Father of consciousness due to our own limitations. I mean, how could limited beings such as ourselves possibly imagine the greatness of the originator of the universe, much less our place in the grand design? Wouldn't lesser beings reflect a diminished view of God? Wouldn't these lesser beings be limited to offering a tarnished glory that falls far short of the object of their praise? The Tripartite Tractate, which is the book of the Nag Hammadi that I'm working off of, puts it this way—“If the members of the ALL had risen to give glory according to the individual powers of each, they would have brought forth a glory that was only a semblance of the Father, who himself is the ALL.” Thus, creation would have been doomed from the outset to never comprehend the full glory of either the Father or itself. According to the Gnostic Gospel, the Father realized this impossibility and so built a helpful work-around meant to aid comprehension: selfless union and cooperation with others in a shared task. Quoting from the Tripartite Tractate again, “For that reason, they were drawn into mutual intermingling union and oneness through the singing of praise. From their assembled Fullness, they were one and at the same time many, accurately reflecting the One who himself is the entirety of the ALL. Out of perfect union with itself and with the Son, and by means of a single shared effort, the ALL gave glory to the eternal One who had brought it forth. The glory given out of this perfect communion left the ALL perfect and full as it was perfect and full to begin with, and the object of their glory was also perfect and full.” This phase of the ALL is referred to as the Second Glory, with the Son being called the First Glory. This series describes the creative origin of consciousness known as the Father in Gnosticism, and the particular singularity of consciousness that reflects the entirety of the Father, but in a place rather than diffuse, and that is called the Son. Then when the Son differentiated into all of its variables, into all of its individual parts, like rays bursting out of a central star, that is called the ALL. This perfect state of union with the Son and communion with each other didn't last. Because of their combined effort, the ALL became self-aware and it became they. So, at first the ALL was a singular entity that was a complete duplication and reflection of the Son, who itself was a complete duplication and reflection of the Father of consciousness itself. So, at first the ALL was One singular organism, since it was freshly evolved out of the Son. But then it became self-aware and the various variables within the Son, the various parts of that singular entity, each of those parts became self-aware. And that is what is causing this evolution of co… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cydropp.substack.com/subscribe