Gospel of St. Thomas
Logion 5
Yeshua said:
Recognize what is in front of you,
And what is hidden from you will be revealed.
There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.
(CF. Matt 4:22, 10:26, Luke 8:17, 12:2)
Speaking for the canonical tradition of Matthew (Mattias), Clement of Alexandria said, “Admire the things that are in front of you!” (Stromata, Book II, IX: 45)
Gnosis is not a system, not another ideology through which we are to interpret and understand the world. On the contrary, it means opening our eyes to what we are already looking at, right in front of us, not searching somewhere else. Heaven, the kingdom, God are there where I am. As Meister Eckhart http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KcOq0AogYU said “The eye with which I see God is the eye with which God sees me: one eye. One vision, one knowledge, one love.” Things are not hidden in themselves they are open-the veils hiding tem are in the habits of our own vision, so crude, so overloaded with memories and assumptions about reality, distorting what is before us.
We know the story of Paul, of the day when the scales fell from his eyes and he saw the living Christ in the very people he had been persecuting. And on Mount Thabor, as the Byzantine tradition teaches, it was not Christ who was transformed, but rather the eyes of the disciples, who are finally able to see him truly.
Gnosis is long-term work of recognition, of purity of attention so as really to see what is in front of us. The consequence of this attention is that we become what we see and what we love. This is why it is important to look deeply in order to perceive what is truest in all human beings: seeing the face within, deeper then the surface grins and frowns. “Mankind is a free mirror,” according to the patristic tradition. If we look at chaos, we will reflect chaos. If we look at light, we will reflect light.
Gnostics - Gospel of Philip, also found at Nag Hammadi
If you know the Breathe, you are the breath.
If you know the Christ, you become Christ.
If you see the father, you are the Father.
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