Instituted
June 29, 1997
Light In The Bridal Chamber
V.W.
Frater William J. Morris, VIIo
"If anyone
becomes a child of the bridal chamber, he will receive the light.
If anyone does not receive it while he is here, he will not be
able to receive it in the other place. He who will receive that
light will not be seen, nor can he be detained. And none shall
be able to torment a person like this, even while he dwells in
the world. And again when he leaves the world, he has already
received the truth in the images. The world has become the Aeon
(eternal realm), for the Aeon is fullness for him. This is the
way it is: it is revealed to him alone, not hidden in the darkness
and the night, but hidden in a perfect day and a holy light."
This quotation is taken
from the edition of The Gospel According to Philip, edited
by James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library, revised
edition (HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1990). What follows are
my comments on this passage.
To me, this passage sounds
like many others in the mystical tradition speaking to the reality
of inner visions of Light. The Jewish and Christian forms of
gnosis believed that God is a God of Light, and that Children
of the Light are destined to reconnect with this divine or heavenly
Light again. I know of many Gnostic, Sufi, and Christian mystics
who describe reaching a level in contemplative prayer where the
Divine Light becomes
visible to them. They conceive of the soul as being the "bride,"
and God as being the "Bridegroom." When the two become
one in the bridal chamber of mystical union, the Light appears,
then soul and oversoul are truly one in the Mystery of Light.
Orthodox mysticism, to
this day, views contemplation of the divine Light as a way to
experience union with God. They call it "Theosis."
Sufis also say that: "By the Light of Allah I see Allah."
By seeing God's Light, the soul is drawn like a magnet back to
the Place of the light.
This paragraph from Philip also speaks of divine protection as
a result of seeing the Light of heaven. One is protected from
the forces that seek to keep the soul confined to the lower planes.
These would be the archons (rulers), principalities and powers,
the Demiurge (false god), the hierarchy of negative or dark spirits
that, in the gnostic system, try to prevent the soul from ascending
through the heavens. In the East, these would be the forces of
Maya or illusion, Yama (the god of death), and the Kal Niranjan
(Lord of Time). The Kal is the eastern name for the very same
gnostic Demiurge, the universal mind-god who wanted his own realm
to rule over.
To contemplate the divine
Light during this life is preparation for the afterlife, and
like other schools of mysticism, the community that wrote Philip
advocated seeing the light now, in order for one to be
assured that one would go to the place of the Light in the next
life. St. Symeon the New Theologian of the Orthodox tradition
expressed the same idea a found the Gospel of Philip. This is
a point that both Gnostics and the Eastern Orthodox Christians
agreed upon.
The Gnostics who wrote
and studied the books of the Nag Hammadi Library very much saw
heaven as a present tense reality for the mystic-the veil between
"this life" and "the next life" was much
thinner in their view than it is today in conventional Christianity
of the West where that veil seems to be almost completely impenetrable,
made of concrete. Not so for the ancients however, who thought
that it was possible for living human beings to see God, see
visions of Light, converse with angels, and travel in spirit
to the heavenly realms while alive in the human body.
Heaven is also for the
living, in fact one must, in some Gnostic systems, have access
to the heavens now, making journeys of mystical ascent while
alive, in order to assure safe passage in the afterlife. Thus,
the gnostic writings focus upon the journey of the soul ascending
through several different heavenly realms on the way back to
the Supreme Being. This concept of souls travelling through several
heavens on the way back to the One is not confined only to gnostic
literature, it's also found in the New Testament, books of Enoch,
Dead Sea Scrolls, and, in fact, many of the apocryphal books
that didn't make into the fourth century bible canon presented
the view that there are several heavens and that human beings:
Enoch, Isaiah, Baruch, Moses, Paul, Thomas, James, Peter, Mary,
John, other
Children of Light (you and me) can experience this as well. "But
when I came, I opened the way and taught them, the chosen and
the solitary, the passage by which they will pass-those who know
the Father...." (Dialogue of the Savior, Nag Hammadi Library).
As to their methods-how Gnostics did it-that information,
for the most part, is not written down. Books like Pistis Sophia
and the Gospel of Thomas speak of the "Mysteries of the
Kingdom of God," alluding to things "taught to the
disciples in private." "Jesus said, 'I disclose my
mysteries to those who are worthy of my mysteries." (Gospel
of Thomas, saying 62)
The writings of Dionysius
the Areopagite and other mystical Jewish, Christian, Gnostic,
and Sufi texts, suggest a need for spiritual Knowledge to be
transmitted from teacher to student via a process of initiation.
Then, like now in the schools of spirituality, the view was that
this Knowledge is only something that a few people are interested
in, so is meant only for those who are ready for it. Something
like the familiar axiom: "When the student is ready, the
Master will appear."
I suspect these mystics
wanted to keep their contemplative practices quiet as they would
seem way too "sci-fi," to "far-out" to most
people. Some parts of the Gnostic and Mandaean scriptures resemble
the near-death experiences that people report these days: Light,
tunnel of Light, Being of Light, life-review, revelations, visions
of the heavens, souls as sparks of Light or pure energy, angels,
beautiful heavenly music, and upon being returned to the waking
state, a major repentance or changing of one's life takes place,
with the visionary being transformed into a loving and compassionate
soul as a result of these kinds of encounters in the worlds of
Light.