The Never Ending Search

Anyone who might be observing the gnostic way for the first time, could easily be tempted to ask the question, "what are you Gnostic's really looking for?" To say that you are searching for God sounds good, but what does it really mean? I think that this is a fair question. Assuming that the gnostic succeeds, just what will he or she really discover? What if God doesn't exist at all? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the God that most of us think about probably doesn't exist. That God is anthropomorphic. That twenty-five cent word means that we attribute to God the features of our own personality that appeal to us; sort of a Superman without the cape. If you take the time to really look at the universe(s), you will discover that it is much more intricate than anything that we can conjure up in our minds. It is hardly anthropomorphic. That said, what can we expect to find? I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate on what I think we will find. I see four principles that are likely to exist. (1) God is an idea. Plato suggested that an idea had a life of its own. I believe that this is true. You might be saying now, how can an idea exist independently? If you take the time to study quantum physics you will probably discover that the essential building blocks of the universe consist of energy moving in specific manner and little else. This energy has proven capable of providing us with atoms, molecules, elements, and the intricate matter that makes up our world and ourselves. Could there be an idea involved in this process? If so, where and how can we identify this idea, and particularly where and how can we locate its source? I leave it to you to provide the answer to this question. (2) Time does not exist. If you could attain the speed of light, you will discover that you have reached a point where time is no longer applicable. How do I explain this? I can't. Einstein did it better and I refer you to him. (3) The rules are the same no matter where you might find yourself. How do I know this? If the law of gravity were different in some other place, you would not find billions of galaxies floating around in our universe. Each of these galaxies presumably have billions of stars, and many of the stars have planets. If I am wrong so be it, but I don't think that I am, however. (4) Our feeble little brain has allowed us to look into both the larger world and the smaller one. This morning I saw a picture of the swine flu virus in the Los Angeles Times. I know that the picture had to be taken with an electron microscope. I have seen pictures from the Hubble Telescope that have captured galaxies millions of light years distant. We know much more about the universe than did our ancestors. Presumably, as more time goes by we will learn much more. What is the limit here? Nobody knows. These four principles allow me to be optimistic about the search for God. They also force me to be humble about it. It will not happen any time soon. I say this because the more we know the more questions arise. Knowledge is power, but knowledge also confounds power. The atom bomb teaches us this lesson. It is miraculous that we have found a way to harness the power of the atom. It is equally dangerous if we use that power to destroy ourselves. On one side lies enormous benefit. On the other side enormous destruction. The metaphor of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden applies here. We have eaten the fruit of that tree and we possess great knowledge accordingly. In doing so we have departed from the simple and easily understood world that God provided us in our primitive years, and have embarked on a perilous journey. As a gnostic, I am optimistic. I believe that when the journey is complete, and we are face to face with God, we will discover ourselves in paradise. What price we have to pay to get there is another matter. Pray that it will be a tolerable one.