The way of gan eden blending gnosticism, taoism & qabalah.

The Way of Gan Eden - a Gnostic Qabalistic Taoism [GQT]

What does this mean?

The use of the adjective Gnostic is the recognition that knowledge and wisdom is a redemptive source.  Gnosticism is the belief that there is a hidden knowledge and wisdom waiting to be discovered.  This knowledge of the ‘true' state of being and the ‘true' origin of creation will lead to redemption of one's inner spirit.  Gnosticism believes that we all have within us a spark, a small aspect of the True Divine dwells within us and it calls this spark our ‘spirit'.  Original Gnosticism believed in a duality of opposites: The realm of the flesh, the physical universe and the realm of the spirit, the realm of the Divine.  Original Gnosticism believed in a mind and body, immaterial and material divide.  This same idea which found root in Aristotle's system of logic continued through into the thoughts and writings of Rene Descartes.  Original Gnosticism gave this mind vs. body split, matter vs. spirit divide theological and apocalyptic implications and manifestations.  All things physical - matter itself, was seen in the teachings of original Gnosticism as a corrupting force which entrapped the divine spirit.   The physical realm is the source of evil from which one must ultimate flee and escape from.  We were flung out of the Heavenly realm of the immaterial spirit and plunged into the Hell of the encasement of the physical, material realm, encumbered by a material form which weighs us down so we like Icarus, will fall and sink back into the Abyss when we attempt to return to the heights of our true home.

Original Gnosticism was beholden to the oppositional duality which became manifest in fullness in the formal logic system of Aristotle.  This seeming primal idea that a duality must be of opposites which then means they must oppose each other  - this is the seed idea out of which original Gnosticism built its edifice.  We need not rely upon that flawed foundation.  Simply because we can state and notice an abstract conception of a duality in our thoughts and in Nature as we perceive it, it need not automatically and inevitably be that this duality is and most be locked in eternal conflict whose outcome is that must be only the One as supreme - vanquisher of its imagined foe. No recognizing duality we need not succumb to conflict.  The many and they can coexist.  This was not seen as an option to those who crafted the original Gnosticism. 

The use of the adjective Qabalistic is the recognition of the formative power of myths and symbols, especially those of the Jewish mystical tradition.  I will draw upon the myth of the tale of creation, the Garden of Eden story as presented in the first book of the Hebrew Sacred Scriptures and additional the myth of creation which explains why there is a need for a mission of humanity called Tikkun Olam - the Healing of the All as taught by Rabbi Isaac Luria.  Qabalistic is also the recognition of the power of these myths and symbols to use them actively to transform oneself, the universe and the Divine.  The myth of Luria's crafting is the tale of the Divine's failure to realize its goals, its inability to accomplish the task of creation in all its glory that it had envisioned.  This failure created a disruption in the very fabric of the Cosmos.  The Infinite Divine manifested itself within this Cosmos and was so entrapped in the flawed creation of its own making.  To remedy this the Divine sought to make a being imbued with awareness, consciousness, knowledge and wisdom - a being of creation who partakes of creation and thus from within can heal the heart of all if this being willing takes up the task of healing.  This is the mythic vision of Luria - the purpose of humanity is to be the instruments of Divine need and will to take up the task of Tikkun Olam and heal itself, heal the Cosmos and thus heal the Divine.

The use of the adjective Taoism is the recognition of the unity and harmony of the twin principles - the Yin and the Yang.  In physics this recognition came from the insights of the scientist/physicist Niels Bohr who explained the theory of Complementarity.  Taoism is the teaching that at the center of all is a principle, a force which is the natural state of being it is the Tao, the Way of all things in their harmonious state.  The principle text of Taoism is Lao Tzu's The Tao Te Ching.  Thru the teachings of Taoism it is revealed that the oppositional split of Mind and Body, Matter and Spirit is an illusion: that the two are aspects of the one- The Tao.  The duality is a twin unity and needs to be blended into a harmonious whole.

GQT is a building a new theological and philosophic construct which blends the teachings of the old East and West into a modern unified model.  Through the blending of the three into one GQT seeks to find the ‘true' knowledge and wisdom that runs through the Sacred Scriptures of the world and the works of philosophers, mystics and scientists to find this saving gnosis, this saving wisdom and knowledge.  It taps into the existentialistic concept of we are ultimately responsible for ourselves.

Many are the texts but not of a whole can I believe them.  There is a thread that runs through them that gives them life, meaning and value to me and to us all.  But the gift of the Infinite Divine is immense and no mere finite mind can expect to contain even the smallest portion of its vast wisdom and truth.  Much of what is contained in every human finite text is a product of the human mind that guided, selected and framed the Divine Infinite within in the confines of those very specific words.  All of those source texts are the true products of the finite human that crafted the cage which captures the light of the Infinite within it.  Thus, not all of what is found therein is of the Infinite and is worthy of the Infinite.  We who come upon these texts are explorers, miners, seekers of the rare gems amongst so much strewn rubble and rubbish.  Reading any text one need not take it all or leave it.  It is not a matter of all or nothing as the teachings of Aristotle would hold.  It is as always a continuum of possible usefulness and uselessness.  The world is built and founded upon not the Aristotelian logic of all or nothing but the Null-A logic of varied and multiple possibilities.  The human who was the mystic, the philosopher, the prophet, the scientist, the artist, each and everyone contributed to the task and added what she had to what she found in the moment of transcendence when she glimpsed and/or became one with the Divine.  So, contained in all source texts are the words of the finite and the ideas of the Infinite Divine - knowing the difference, finding the difference is always and forever the challenge and the goal.  You are not required to, nor need you partake of it all, it lies before you, sip and sup as you will.

Sources of knowledge and wisdom

1) Lao Tzu's The Tao Te Ching

2) Ralph Waldo Emerson's collection of essays ‘The Over-Soul', ‘Self Reliance',

3) Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila

4) Arthur Koestler's The Ghost in the Machine, The Act of Creation, and Janus.

5) Alfred Korzybski's Science and Sanity

6) Sanford L. Drob's Kabbalistic Metaphors and Symbols of the Kabbalah

7) Ken Wilber's No Boundary

8) George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought and Metaphors We Live By

9) Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land

Why Gnostic Qabalistic Taoism?

GQT is offered as a synthesis a way to make each of the three reach beyond their original borders and confines.  Taoism is a realization and a statement of that realization.  But it offers only a modest goal and direction - to live according to the Tao, to find the balance and the harmony in one's life so as to reflect the harmony and balance in the flow of the Tao.  But Taoism offers no reason, no explanation of why we humans are here.  What is our purpose?  Why are we here?

The myths of the Qabalah offer such an answer.  The myths of the Qabalah attempt to explain why we are here and what role we play in the life of the Cosmos.  The original Kabbalah was built upon the dualistic oppositional framework.  It thus is confined and constrained by that oppositional dualism.  By joining and blending the insights of the harmony of duality that is perceive through Taoism with the Kabbalah we get a new form of myths - hence the use of the spelling Qabalah.  It is not the Jewish Mystical tradition being used herein but it is that tradition and its insights that are being transformed beyond the prescribed boundaries of Judaism - hence we are voyaging into new territory using the maps of the mystics of Judaism.  The essence of Qabalah is the essence of taking ‘Tradition' any cultures tradition and reshaping it and expanding it beyond the context of its original creators.  By calling it Qabalah I am acknowledging its past but pointing towards something new in the future.  The Kabbalah is a source of symbols and myths.  The Qabalah is taking what was once the creation of one tradition and one cultural and transforming it into a new and universally accessible set of maps.  By blending Taoism with the Kabbalah to form a Taoistic Qabalahism I am transcending the limits of oppositional duality and expounding the fullness of harmonious and harmonized duality to see the flow of Yin and Yang in the wholeness and oneness of the all pervasive Infinite Tao.

By taking this QT and blending it with Gnosticism I am creating and acknowledging an active theology of salvation.  I am not merely creating a philosophic thesis but a map to guide ones soul and spirit; a map to be used.  Gnosticism is sacred and salvational knowledge.  Gnosticism is transformative knowledge.  Gnosticism is the realization that hidden all around is the answer.  That within us lays a seed, a spark, which calls out with deep desire to be cultivated, to be ignited so that this knowledge can lead us and guide us.

By uniting and unifying the three, Gnosticism, Qabalahism and Taoism, we get something more than that which existed when they were apart.  The notion of the divided and opposition of matter and mind, of matter and spirit, is no longer recognized but acknowledged as an error.  Rather than transcending or escaping from the realm of matter, rather than seeing the physical as a prison in which one has been cast down into, rather than seeing the realm of matter as a hellish one, this new and unified map of GQT realizes that the mind is embodied, that spirit is embodied; that the two are one and a unity.  Redemption of oneself and of the Cosmos and even the Infinite is a realization of a healed unity.  The material realm once it is headed is revitalized into a treasure of and a resource.  It is not a prison but rather the palace.  The healed realm of matter is the tools of the temple of spirit.  The sensuous is not sinful and a means of entrapment but rather the rewards of enlightenment.  The pleasures of the flesh are permitted as the joys of Divine blessing and recognition of being the Divine incarnated into the fullness of the Cosmos.  We are not meant to leave the entrapment of the physical but rather to fulfill the physical and complete its destiny in unity of awakened spirit and mindfulness of self awareness.

The Way of Gan Eden is thus a redemptive myth of destiny which seeks to find and release the knowledge of the Harmony of the Tao within creation and the created.  The elements of the Gan Eden myth: The Garden, Eve, Adam, Lilith, the Serpent, nudity, clothing, shame, sin, action and inaction, choice, responsibility, labor, food, life, death, The Tree and the fruit of the Tree are all infused with these new elements of Taoism, Gnosticism and Qabalah.  The Way of Gan Eden transforms the old tale and casts it anew to infuse it with these new insights.  This new myth is not one of Sin, not one of ultimate damnation, nor a tale of the triumph of evil.  The characters of the new myth each play a role of the grand scheme of purposeful awakening to knowledge and wisdom of the true mission of creation.  Through the three unified lenses of GQT this myth is seen not as a tale of rebellion and turning away from the source of truth, wisdom and goodness but rather the opening scenes of a grand story, which presents the first steps taken by humanity towards a life filled with truth, wisdom and goodness.  Eve becomes an existential hero in this re-working of the myth - she takes the first step to becoming a responsible adult/human.  She tired and she failed - but she started us all on the way.

The Way of Gan Eden is the path of enactment.  It is to recreate through thought and deed what did occur and what could have occurred.  It is to return to finish what was started there at the mythic beginning of time.  The Way of Gan Eden desires not to return to Gan Eden as it was thought to be, but to transform where one now dwells into a Gan Eden which one has built anew.  The original Gan Eden was created for us now we must return the favor and create in honor of the first a new Gan Eden of our mature making.  We desire not to dwell in the old Gan Eden of infantile and childlike immaturity and nature but to dwell in a new Gan Eden as mature adults and participants in creation.