46 Quotes About Gnosis

All we have learned so far amounts to only a handful of earth. What we have yet to learn is as large as the whole world. There is so much to know about the mysteries and the wealth of Allah. There is so much more to be known, and we will learn it only as our wisdom develops. We must proceed slowly, always learning more and more. (p. 8)

When you become the light of wisdom, darkness can never conceal you. (p. 40)

As I stumbled into confusion about what was real and what was not, the strangest thing happened: The world disintegrated. Reality collapsed, or my perception of it. It ripped apart like a dry skin under pressure, giving way to something I can only describe as ineffable dimensions, depths upon depths.

Cats have gnosis to a degree that is granted to few bishops.

Does truth lie in the everyday events, the daily incidents, in the pettiness and vulgarity most people’s lives are compounded of, or does the truth have its abode in the dream it is given us to dream to flee our sad human condition?

The trick is to cultivate “double vision” … A sense of metaphor, of translation - of two worlds interpenetrating - must be maintained. But this is also the essential movement of the imagination. We see through the literal world to the shape-shifting Otherworld behind.

As understanding deepens, the further removed it becomes from knowledge.

The fall of man is the result of the blinding of the ‘eye of the heart’ (chashm-i dil or ‘ayn al-qalb), which alone sees with the vision of gnosis.

The wisdom of the Gnostics is called Gnosis. Gnosis cannot be understood through doctrine or dogma. The Gnostics believe that you can have a direct experience with the Infinite Spirit.