by
Neil Tessler
The creation story according to the gnostics is a living drama whose purpose is to define the existential position of humanity. It is intriguing to discover how closely this ancient tale is paralleled by the creation stories of Kabir and Soami Ji. These related creation stories are of great antiquity, having survived through long ages and various cultures and still resting near the center of the living Sant Mat tradition. One of the reasons it has not been well known will soon become apparent, as to enter this discourse is to be shown into a fascinating but rarefied theology. These are esoteric tales offering much stimulating thought to those who will take the time to wrap their mind around symbol and allegory.
It must also be said that what I am here terming a "myth" has found little place in the modern presentation of Sant Mat. In the desire to adapt to a more rational era, this aspect of Sant Mat theology has been for the most part tucked away.1 However, with the new interest in mythology and spiritual allegory that has arisen with the popularization of Joseph Campbell, Robert Bly, Marion Woodman, and other Jungian influenced writers, perhaps it is an appropriate time for a reintroduction. It is worth noting that in modern and ancient Sant Mat traditions this story is regarded as a figuratively accurate rendering of the process and structure of creation. Some of the chief characters such as Sat Purush (The Only-Begotten) and Kal (Dharam Rai, Ialdabaoth, the Demiurge, the Negative Power) are a very real presence in the discourses of the Masters.
A few words about Gnosticism are in order. Gnosticism is a general term for a number of spiritual schools appearing in relationship or proximity to Christianity in the earliest period of Christian evolution. The religious events of the last centuries Before the Common Era have been a subject of endless fascination for many western seekers and scholars. In the dying centuries of the great Egyptian theocracy, a profusion of spiritual schools arose along an arc extending from the banks of the Nile, across the Eastern Mediterranean basin, to Greece and Rome. It seems probable that the breakdown of the very ancient Egyptian temple system led to a diffusion of esoteric knowledge and practices, which then interacted with other streams of thought in the region leading to various blended ('syncretic' is the technical term) movements. In some respects this would parallel the last four hundred years of religious history in Europe and North America, where one enormous religious structure spawned hundreds.2 Perhaps though to call these movements syncretic is to do them a disservice. The term assumes that these are loose theological structures that evolve like an organism, adopting elements of various theologies. Although this may be true in some cases, it also may be true that the ancient initiatic knowledge of certain ancient temple orders was merely adapted within the context of changing historical and social circumstances, the spirit of the age, while retaining core practices and beliefs down through the centuries.
The common root of the various gnostic schoools was a salvational path based on techniques for the achievement of direct spiritual experience, termed Gnosis. As the Christian church grew and attempted to standardize its beliefs and doctrines, the gnostics were increasingly viewed as heretical. Early church fathers such as Irenaeus and Hippolytus, wrote many volumes criticizing gnostic thought, quoting extensively from gnostic writings in order to refute their doctrines. After the church gained political power, suppressed the gnostics, and systematically destroyed their writings, these detailed polemics were, for the most part, the only source of information on the nature of gnostic beliefs. It was only in the last century that several original, preserved documents came to light. In the early forties an entire library of gnostic literature was found buried near Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt.
The esoteric spirituality of the gnostics existed within the setting of a great cosmic drama wherein humanity is held captive by a creator God who functions through the rule of law, and seduces man into his false worship. Yahweh is often implicated as one of his many names. The True God on the other hand is a transcendent and Unknowable Absolute whose realm is the real place of spiritual liberation. Beyond these few common elements the theological response is diverse. Since the differences ranged from the ascetic to the libertine, it is no more accurate to say Gnosticism is Sant Mat then to say all branches of Radhasoami are Sant Mat. Nevertheless, in both general theology, cosmology, and spiritual technique there are many analogies to be found with later and contemporary Sant teachings. Gnostic concepts and methods such as the Five Names3 or passwords, the Word or Sound that enlivens and sustains all creation, the Alien Man, the Master, who, though alien to this world, carries the message of the True God to the souls trapped in creation, are also central to Sant Mat teaching. 4
According to the teaching of Sant Mat in all ages, it is not given to the hypostasized elements of the Absolute to have the experience of the Wholeness from which their distinction takes its value.5 In other words, the gods, right from the denizens of Sach Khand to the ministrants of the lower creation, cannot know God, for they are cosmic archetypes, discreet expressions of consciousness. The parts take their life from the whole, but they are not the whole and cannot be the whole. They are blessed or cursed to be a part, and can only be fully conscious to that extent. It is an irredeemable paradox that despite the non-dual nature of creation the parts are ever only that. Complete consciousness and conscious participation in the unfoldment of Divine Will is their highest blessing. Yet it has been said that if even the angels wish to realize God, they must take on human form.
Again and again in his discourses, Kirpal Singh alighted on the comment that only human beings, of all creation, can realize God within their life form. According to these teachings, the mystery of humanity is the reconciliation between the parts and the whole and in this is hidden the mystery of nature and the purpose of creation.
The several creation myths developed by the Masters serve to describe the relationship between the Absolute in its non-attributive formless essence, known in modern Sant Mat as Anaami or Radhasoami, and its manifested attributes. As Kirpal Singh has written, "In one there is always the delusion of many, and the totality does signify the existence therein of so many parts. The ideas of a part and of the whole go cheek by jowl, and both the part as well as the whole are characterized by the similarity of the essential nature in them.
The essence of a thing has its own attributive nature and the two cannot be separated from each other. Just as the essence is both one and many, so is the case with its attributive nature."6
These attributes first appear in their purest and most realized form as the primordial "creation", known in the East as Sach Khand or in Gnosticism as the Pleroma or Fullness, (terms which will both be used synonymously throughout this paper). Creation is, however, a misnomer, for Sach Khand is not created as such, but rather it is the expansion into distinct being of the eternally perfect and fully elaborated attributes of the Absolute.
These cosmic attributes are known as the Sons of Sat Purush in the East and the Aeons in Gnosticism. Sat Purush or the Only-Begotten is the Aeon that is the Being, the mind, as it were, of the Absolute; pure consciousness and consciousness on all planes, thus also the bridge to creation proper. As Hans Jonas has written,
"The Only-Begotten Mind alone, having issued from him directly, can know the Fore-Father: to all the other Aeons he remains invisible and incomprehensible. 'It was a great marvel that they were in the Father without knowing Him.' (Gospel of Truth 22.27) 7
The number of these eternal emanations of the divine varies according to reference. The gnostic version described by Hans Jonas gives four Aeons with their consorts to make eight, "the original Ogdoad", who then further elaborate to make another seven pairs for a total of thirty. The Kabiran version gives sixteen with Sat Purush being the first emanation.
The myths now run in two distinct directions, at least in the gnostic forms. The Kabiran version and one gnostic version tells us that there was an Aeon that cherished a desire for its own creation as an inherent part of its nature. We could say that the potential for separation from God is in itself an Aeon. This leads ultimately to a creation existing in negative polarity with eternal Sach Khand, spinning the attributive universes that exist in Time. This separative Aeon, known as Mind or Time (Kal), is Sat Purusha's first expansion in the gnostic version and fifth in the Kabiran version. Kabir's Anurag Sagar states that "He is created from the most glorious part of the body of Sat Purush". Thus Sat Purush is cosmically linked to the "lower" creation, which eventually develops through Kal's activity. In this we are warned away from value judgements, and reminded that this entire process is under Divine Will (Hukam).
Sophia's Passion: Sant Mat and the Gnostic Myth of Creation, by Neil Tessler
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