All people are pregnant both bodily and spiritually, and when they reach a certain age, our nature longs to be delivered of its burden.…conception and birth are manifestations of the immortal principle within a mortal being. Plato, Symposium (the speech of Diotima)
In the spiritual tradition, there is much talk of being born from above. Yet every birth presupposes conception and a long period of gestation.
Gnosis is usually understood as a special kind of knowledge – deeper than philosophy and more inwardly experienced than religious doctrine. Yet even this understanding remains external, almost intellectual.
Gnosis is neither a sum of ideas nor the result of reflection. It is the Divine Fullness of Light which, meeting a heart turned toward it, begins to act within a person as both an event and a process. It cannot be brought about by an act of will or by the accumulation of information.
To approach an understanding of its nature, one may turn to a simple analogy – pregnancy. In various traditions, this state is called a blessed one: a time when a woman becomes a bridge between worlds.
Even those who have not carried life within themselves, but have been nearby and observed its development, sensing the quiet inner changes of the expectant mother, are able to perceive this miracle more deeply and subtly – the hidden growth of new life.
When a new life takes place, the outer world remains the same. Yet in the depths of the future mother a process has already begun that cannot be reversed. A seed has entered her, and now a new life ripens within.
Something similar occurs on the path of Gnosis. Initially, a person may seek truth – reading books, discussing ideas, turning to religion or philosophy. Yet all this remains a search from the outside.
In the depths of the human being, there is from the very beginning something that is not of this world. In ancient teachings, this is called by different names: a mustard seed, the Spark of the Spirit, the Spirit-Spark Atom, Atman.
Johannes Tauler writes: “Whoever wishes to find this inner Kingdom – and this is God with all His gifts and His own hidden essence – must seek it where it is, namely in the very depths of one’s being, where God is nearer to the soul and more intimate to it than it is to itself.”
This “something” is scarcely felt at first. For a time, it remains hidden, like a seed in the earth – undeveloped, dormant, awaiting its hour. The seed begins to awaken only when a person becomes ready to receive the life-giving warmth of Light.
At a certain moment, what may be called a spiritual conception takes place – when the inner potential becomes ready to receive the life-giving Light, just as a mature ovum receives the seed. From this moment, the inner and the outer merge, and a new life opens within the person – its quiet unfolding begins.
Until this moment, the person sought truth. Afterwards, truth reveals itself within as it had always lived there, like a seed ripened for growth.
But, as in pregnancy, conception alone is not enough. The life that has arisen in the womb requires time. It develops in silence, in a hidden space beyond the reach of the noise of the outer world. A woman carrying a child gradually begins to take care of herself – not as a rule, but almost instinctively. She avoids what may harm the new life and listens more attentively to her body.
This listening gradually becomes a distinct form of knowing: she begins to sense the changes within and understand them without words.
Something similar occurs on the path of Gnosis. A person begins to look more attentively within. In the gnostic tradition, this was called self-knowledge – not analysis, but a quiet inward turning of consciousness, for it is there, in the depths of the soul, that a new life begins to unfold.
One who seeks truth only in the outer world is, in a sense, like a person searching for a child outside the mother’s womb.
The first stirrings – barely perceptible – give rise to a particular sense: a quiet certainty that there is life within. So it is on the path of Gnosis: at a certain moment, an unexpected clarity arises – without cause. A quiet joy and a peace difficult to express in words, like the first movement of new life in the depths of consciousness. It cannot be proven – but it can be recognised, as one recognises the movement of a child not yet seen.
But the path of gestation is not without danger. Premature birth carries risk to the child’s life. So it is with truth. Spoken too early, it becomes theory or dogma. Unripened truth easily turns into ideology.
There is another danger – more subtle still. At times, a woman may experience what is called a false pregnancy: the body and imagination create the sense of new life, although in reality there is none. Something similar, though it may seem strange, is possible on the spiritual path. A person may speak of higher things, read mystical books, discuss the mysteries of the universe – and yet within, no real development takes place.
Then spiritual life becomes a role, and Gnosis becomes a beautiful language behind which emptiness is concealed.
Therefore, the true seeker gradually learns caution. He becomes less hasty in speaking and more attentive to what is taking place within. In this attention, a silence arises in which new life can grow. This silence is not so much a special state as a way of being with what unfolds, without rushing to conclusions.
And then, one day, the moment of birth arrives. Yet every birth, as a rule, is accompanied by crisis. Birth is always pain and the rupture of a previous state. The child, coming into the world, leaves the womb that was its first world.
Something similar occurs on the path of Gnosis.
When the New Human Being emerges, the former self-image dissolves completely and vanishes, giving rise to what has long been maturing in the depths. This is not a spiritual “improvement,” but a transformation of the very centre of life.
That which has long been formed in silence comes into the light. Gnosis ceases to be a spark or a possibility – it becomes a living reality of consciousness. A person no longer merely reflects on truth. He begins to live from it.
Tauler writes: “Whoever has experienced this in his depths while still alive is already in eternal life, in the Kingdom of God, closer to God than all others.”
The encounter with truth is not the moment when a person finds it. It is the moment when truth finds the one who has ripened to receive it within.
And then what long remained hidden as a spark suddenly reveals itself as Light.
