You may wonder why we celebrate Good Friday and Easter. Shouldn't these days be days of morning? After all Jesus just died a gruesome death on the cross. I think that after reading this blog you will see that there is a secret meaning to dying and then rising up. Understanding this secret, you will know why we celebrate Good Friday and Easter.
The key can be found in the Nag Hammadi library. Although the Gospels in the Nag Hammadi library didn’t make it into the standard New Testament, they give a clear sense of the inner life of Jesus and his disciples; and most important they point to how anyone who desires this secret can find that which was never born and will never die.
I thought I would start this blog in celebration of Easter with Jesus introducing himself as he really is. He is not pointing to something that you can comprehend with your mind. You know the truth of these words in a more direct way. You understand these words because this is a description of what you are. Notice that Jesus is describing himself in the third person. Now from the Nag Hammadi Library:
Matthew said to him, “Lord no one can find the truth except through you. Therefore teach us the truth.” The Savior said, “The one who is ... is ineffable. No sovereignty knew him, no authority, no subjection, nor did any creature, from the foundation of the world, except himself.
For he is immortal. He is eternal having no birth; for everyone who has birth will perish. He is unbegotten, having no beginning; for everyone who has a beginning has an end. No one rules over him, since he has no name; for whoever has a name is a creation of another. He is unnamable. He has no human form; for whoever has a human form is the creation of another. He has his own semblance-- not like the semblance that we have received or seen, but a strange semblance that surpasses all things and is better than the totalities.
It looks to every side and sees itself from itself. He is without end; he is incomprehensible. He is ever imperishable, and has no likeness. He is unchanging good. He is faultless. He is everlasting. He is blessed. He is unknowable, while he nonetheless knows himself. He is immeasurable. He is untraceable. He is perfect, having no defect. He is imperishably blessed. He is the “Father of the Universe.
From: Eugnostos the Blessed
Translated by Douglas M. Parrott
The Nag Hammadi Library In English
Copyright © 1977 by E. J. Brill Leiden The Netherlands
The Nag Hammadi Library was discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945. The texts were rescued just before they were about to get burned up for firewood. They were obviously edited out of the New Testament but contain the highest wisdom.
Death and Birth into your own Nature
Now, in celebration of Easter it is time to talk about dying and being reborn. Not in the physical sense because if Easter was about what happened to a man who lived 2,000 years ago it wouldn’t have much relevance for us today.
If on the other hand dying and being reborn is a description of the potential for each and every human being then it is relevant for us even today. So what is the nature of the death that Jesus was talking about? This death was dying to limitation. That’s when he discovered the truth that was before the universe, behind the universe, and the remainder when the universe perishes. As Jesus said: “He is without end; he is incomprehensible. He is ever imperishable, and has no likeness. He is unchanging good.”
Dying to limitation
By the end of this article you will see how it is possible to die to limitation. And when you die to limitation, you are automatically born to eternal life. Now you will understand why Easter is a celebration. That’s because even now you are unlimited. It is only an assumption that you are limited by the things that you see. Death is destroying this assumption and returning to what you really are so beautifully described by Jesus above.
The reason we seem to be limited is that we overlook our essential nature and take our identity to be limited to the objects that we see. That’s because all of our senses are directed outward towards the world; there is no sense that can look back and see our real nature.
You are the light that shines on limitation
So we have to know our self in a different way. This is by direct experiential knowledge. You know yourself because you are your self. In fact it is because you are Consciousness that you even know about limitation.
If I told you to go outside with a flashlight and look for the sun you would think that I was crazy. That’s because the sun is light. You do not need a separate light to see the sun. In the same way you are Consciousness; you do not need a separate consciousness or mind to know yourself. You can know yourself directly.
But you see your body and you see your mind, you see your roles in the world, and you take these objects to be yourself. And by their nature bodies are limited by birth and death, health and sickness. Your mind is also limited by its condition and its ability to know. But fortunately these objects are just that, objects in your Awareness. They are not you and they do not define you.
Are you just a thought?
The most subtle object that you see is the thought “I”. Just because you think a thought with “I” in the subject, doesn’t mean that the “I” is you. Here “I” is just another object that you see. This “I” is sometimes called the ego. The ego is also the little connection that attaches to limitation and makes it seem as if it is really you. When your ego dies there is no place left for limitation to rest. As for you, you can rest in your true home. Is this the inner meaning of the crucifixion?
Returning to your home
When by your deepest and most direct experience, you die to the limitations that you thought were you, you wake to your real identity which is the space like Consciousness that was never born and will never pass away. Here you get to abide as the source of wisdom and joy.
Now you see why we celebrate Good Friday with joy and not with the sadness of a funeral dirge. It is a celebration of dying to our assumed limitations where the ego falls away. And then Easter celebrates rising up to our innate freedom where we can rest in peace eternally.
Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we provide as resources that can help sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.
Another resource that we have is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive , a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/wisdom.html.
Asking Question
Here questions about this article or other things going on in your life are always welcome; you can write us at michael@ananya.com. I love questions and try to answer them all in this blog. That’s because when you start to question limitation, you are on the verge of destroying it.
Please Tell Your Friends
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.
Best Wishes,
Michael Gluckman
www.light-up-your-life.com