chicagognosis

[chicagognosis]

The mind is a mirror, and the world that appears is an inseparable reflection of itself.

"We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all."

~ Kalu Rinpoche

[chicagognosis]

“Do you take pride in your hurt?” Samuel asked. “Does it make you seem large and tragic?” 'I don’t know.' “Well, think about it. Maybe you’re playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”

—John Steinbeck, East of Eden

[chicagognosis]

Learn the facts, fictions, and realities of astral projection and dream yoga from your own experience. A free online course with accompanying podcast, transcriptions, and videos, sequential and didactic practices for experiencing, remembering, and awakening within dreams, common obstacles and their remedies, questions and answers, and more. Final transcriptions have been uploaded. We hope that these classes aid you in developing your complete and divine potential!

[chicagognosis]

Spiritual Nights and Gnostic Soteriology in Fidelio (Act II)

Every disciple of the straight and narrow way that leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14) must inevitably experience the afflictive consequences of their former actions. The question becomes if they do so with resignation, acceptance, and perseverance, so that by consciously and patiently paying what one owes before the divine law, spiritual debts are reconciled and wisdom is cultivated. However, the process is a prolonged and grueling one, designated by some authors as “dark nights of the soul.” In such moments of despair, loneliness, and abandonment, the practitioner lacks inner illumination to guide them forward in the psychological work, or as Christ exclaimed on the cross: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). While spiritual nights are painful and experienced by everyone in the Gnostic path, they are a necessary step towards self-realization, for ordeals and tests are fundamental for proving one’s candidacy in the mysteries. As Beethoven demonstrated in his life and his only opera, the initiate can overcome the punishment of the law through tenacity, negotiation, forgiveness, and supreme faith in divinity. See how in the conclusion of Beethoven’s only opera, whereby Florestan seeks his liberation from the prison of karma with the help of his courageous wife Leonora, the divine soul that descends like an angel from heaven to redeem the fallen Sophia.

[chicagognosis]

Theophany and Spiritual Descent in Fidelio (Act I)

Disguised as Fidelio, a male prison guard, Leonora seeks access to her incarcerated husband’s secret cell in the effort of freeing him. Like other metaphors in religion, the gnostic mythos describes the descent of divine light into the prison of the mind, seeking to liberate and elevate Pistis Sophia (the revolutionary consciousness) back to her rightful spiritual hierarchy. In the same manner, Leonora (the “light of Leo,” Helios, the Sun, Christ), disguises herself within the world of forms to perform a very sacred mission: the redemption and liberation of her forsaken husband Florestan, wrongly imprisoned due to political rivalry. Don Pizarro, the corrupt politician who governs the prison and Florestan’s persecution, symbolizes the gnostic archons, karma, and metaphysical laws that punish and oppress Pistis Sophia’s efforts towards self-realization. Discover how our own inner divinity (Leonora, the divine embodiment of the Christic light) makes super-efforts to orchestrate the greatest work in the cosmos: the liberation of the psyche from suffering and the complete development of our human potential.

[chicagognosis]

“Love purifies everything as long as you don’t go and get people into trouble, though of course, if you don’t mind about that, it simply means you don’t really love them.”

—The Initiate, Cyril Scott

[chicagognosis]

“You see, the trouble is, that although virtue is said to be its own reward, few people know how to acquire either the virtue or the reward; their idea is, simply to kill out their feelings – a process so unalluring that few wish to practice it – whereas they ought to transmute their feelings instead. Kill out a feeling, and there is nothing but tedium left; transmute it, and you transmute it into joy. Even the killing-out process is seldom a success, for the war is usually made on the gratification of the desire instead of the desire itself. A man has only overcome the drink habit when he no longer desires to drink, not when he merely refrains from drinking. Now, a lower desire can only be overcome by replacing it with a higher one, the higher desire being in reality productive of greater happiness than the lower.”

—The Initiate, Cyril Scott

[chicagognosis]

Mastery is not the end of spiritual development, for while an individual can acquire, cultivate, and express their soul in this physical world, such a laudable achievement does not signify perfection in mastery. While many masters exist in Nirvana, heaven, or bliss, few are willing to renounce their happiness, return to this physical world, and guide humanity out of suffering. However, this is the essential requirement for incarnating Christ, the divine forces of boundless, enlightened compassion represented in many religions. Discover superior stages of initiation symbolized by Christ’s mystical life in the Gospels, or how a developed human being enters a true inner revolution against their own psychological defects, thereby performing a tremendous humanitarian mission.

[chicagognosis]

Karma, Archons, Aeons, the Demiurge, and Salvation in Beethoven’s Fidelio

Beethoven’s only opera encodes tremendous metaphysical truths gleaned from his own inner spiritual development on the initiatic path. What is more remarkable is that he conveyed gnostic principles on the demiurge, archons, aeons, and redemption without physical access to classical gnostic texts. This is because as a master of meditation, he was privy to knowledge inaccessible to the mind, personality, or senses, and through his psychological work, was able to witness, live, and portray first hand the very root source of such knowledge informing the conception and documentation of the Gnostic Gospels and Nag Hammadi corpus. He composed Fidelio not only to musically uplift humanity’s level of being, but also to teach the realities of divine law (karma), atonement, and the esoteric spiritual work for candidates of the mysteries. Such wisdom is elucidated by Samael Aun Weor’s rich commentary on The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled, which serves as the basis for future viewings of Beethoven’s masterpiece. Discover the deep insights of this truly gnostic opera, and how a prophet of music demonstrated true love for divinity and the overpowering realities of Pistis Sophia’s salvation (the penitent soul who longs for and aspires to the light).

[chicagognosis]

Green fjord (1901) by Nicholas Roerich

[chicagognosis]

“For every step that we take in the development of our occult powers, we must take a thousand steps on the path of sanctity.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries

While New Age doctrines fixate upon awakening psychic powers, what many so-called “spiritual” advocates fail to recognize is the greater need for moral character. The acquisition of mystical abilities is not commensurate with virtue, but subordinate to it, for power without responsibility produces demons: beings who have the capacity for deeply impacting the world, but in seriously detrimental ways. See how to safely and responsibly cultivate internal powers for the furtherance of real ethics and the complete development of a true human being.

[chicagognosis]

Inspiration, Aspiration, Expiration, Respiration: The Power of Breath and Sacred Sexuality

Every New Year brings about its impending challenges, conflicts, ordeals, and sufferings. Likewise, there is hope for rejuvenation and a revitalization of purpose despite the debts and psychological baggage of the past. For meditators, every effort to empower our spirituality promises the blossoming of divine potential and the hope for a spiritual renaissance in our daily lives. One such essential practice for this is pranayama: the conscious harnessing of vital breath to conserve, redirect, and amplify creative energy. Discover the principles and praxis for energizing our most virtuous qualities and overcoming the impurities of the psyche. By controlling breath, one can harness the most powerful force of the universe, which resides precisely in our sexual glands. Initially a raw, brute, and dynamic potential that can produce physical life, the creative energy can also engender the possibilities of inspiration, insight, intuition, and mystical revelation when fully mastered within ourselves.

https://chicagognosis.org/lectures/inspiration-aspiration-expiration-respiration

[chicagognosis]

"The very path you are given is the hindrance.

We love our theology. We love our ideas.

Buddhism is a path of undoing.

Removing the dirt is enlightenment.

We do not gain anything.

We lose everything”

~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

[chicagognosis]

We are going on a trip to an unknown place, and in order to get to that destination we need to know the way. The gnostic methods that have been passed down to us by teachers across time will be our guide to reach that place, but it is important to understand that every step of that journey we have to take with our own feet. The gnostic work requires effort on the individual’s part. As much as a teacher or a scripture can give us instructions, we have to be making that effort on our own in order to reach the goal.

For that reason it is important to always reflect on our purpose for being here. Why are we studying gnosis? What are we hoping to achieve? Each of us has a personal goal. By not losing sight of that goal, we should be able to reach the end without giving up. As difficulties come up, we should always be holding onto our purpose, and what we are seeking will help us to accomplish that goal.

But in addition to all of our personal reasons for being on this path, there is also a cosmic purpose to the gnostic work. All of us have the opportunity to become fully developed human beings, if we know the methods, if we apply the science. The human being has an important role in the cosmos: to be a caretaker of all living beings, to be a servant of divinity, a vehicle through which divinity can express within creation, but that is not something that we currently have. That is our goal. That is what we are working toward. In order to achieve that goal, there are a few things that we have to understand.

Today we are going to learn about what gnosis is. What does it mean when we say gnosis? That type of knowledge is distinct from the knowledge that we learn in school. Most of our education nowadays is just to educate the intellect and the mind, and to stuff us full of information. So, we are going to understand today a very clear idea of what gnosis is and how that knowledge is different.

Also, what is the goal of the gnostic work? Why do we apply this method to ourselves? Why do we undergo the struggles of working with a spiritual method? What is the goal? What is the purpose of that?

Secondly, we are going to learn about consciousness and the role that consciousness plays in helping us to reach our spiritual goal.

Finally, we will apply a spiritual principle to ourselves in a practical way to understand how we can have the right foundation for beginning the gnostic work. ​

Audio lecture with accompanying video, PowerPoint, and transcription!

[chicagognosis]

Every candidate for spiritual initiation must enter a probationary period known as the Minor Mysteries, so that divinity can prove his or her sincerity, willingness, and caliber. This is in preparation for greater spiritual advancements (the Major Mysteries) within the path of the perfect matrimony. Discover the challenges, qualifications, and means of successful candidates in the probationary path.

After demonstrating maturity, ethics, and integrity in the probationary path, candidates of initiation are granted the opportunity to advance in greater degrees of spiritual development. Through a perfect matrimony, a couple can strive, overcome, and develop themselves in the beginning stages of mastery. See how through its moral, psychological, and esoteric requirements, accompanied by mystical revelations, experiences, and celebrations within the higher worlds.

Two lectures on spiritual initiation available through audio, PowerPoint, video, and transcription!

[chicagognosis]

Many people often turn to spiritual practice when dissatisfied and disillusioned by materialism. However, they may not know where to start when confronted with the abundance of information out there, or, after practicing for some time, do not get the results they hoped for. In this lecture, we will discuss the fundamental factors required for spiritual development, addressing different practices that can affect the seven levels of our being, thereby awakening our consciousness.

New guest lecturer!

[chicagognosis]

Four lectures on the symbolism of Puccini’s masterpiece, La Bohème (from The Secret Teachings of Opera course)!

https://chicagognosis.org/the-secret-teachings-of-opera.html

https://chicagognosis.org/lectures/alchemy-kabbalah-tarot-and-psychology-in-la-boheme

https://chicagognosis.org/lectures/lust-and-fornication-in-la-boheme-act-i

https://chicagognosis.org/lectures/love-and-adultery-in-la-boheme-act-ii

https://chicagognosis.org/lectures/kamaduro-and-karmasaya-in-la-boheme-acts-iii-and-iv