The Foundation of Gnosis
The foundation of our gnosis is experiential and not spiritual. In the vernacular of the pseudo-spirituality of the post modern west, spirituality and its wicked step mother, mysticism, is too closely tied to beliefs in or about the supernatural. Therefore, while spiritual may seem an appropriate term to use it is best that we delete it from our lexicon up front. In this way we can help limit the levels of self-delusion that we will most undoubtedly experience. Suffer no misunderstanding - you will become self-deluded during your efforts to acquire gnosis.
First we must surrender our faith in god, the supernatural, and all previous notions that “everything happens for a purpose.” Faith leads us to hold unreasonable expectations and to deny what the evidence at hand may be showing us. What we work with is human nature. We understand ourselves through this and our relationships to others and the world. This is experience. From this we can learn. Faith, which often leads to prayer, occurs when we have hit an unmovable obstacle and there is nothing left for us to do. We wring our hands in misery and hope that something or someone “out there” will save us. We are often let down.
Faith is untenable. Experience, on the other hand, gives me something to base things on. However, that being said sometimes experience doesn’t account for everything. But, with new experiences comes new knowledge. Regardless of whether the events are good or bad in our estimation we still gain something of value.