Let us recall once again the difference between the “man of faith” and the “man of gnosis”: it is the difference between the believer, who in all things has in view moral and mystical efficacy to the point of sometimes needlessly violating the laws of thought, and the gnostic who is so made that these certitudes determine his behavior and contribute powerfully to his alchemical transformation. Now, whatever be our vocational predispositions, we must needs realize a certain equilibrium between the two attitudes, for there is no perfect piety without knowledge, and there is no perfect knowledge without piety.
No doubt, there are men who save themselves limpingly, and there is certainly no reason to reproach them for it or to prevent them from doing so; but this does not mean that they alone are saved and that everyone else has to limp in order to be saved. This remark is valid independently of the fact that, in some respects, we all falter, if only on account of the uncertainties of our earthly condition.
Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism
Frithjof Schuon
We gathered in space, together, alone, hoping to hear a glimpse of what we had come to feel. Approaching. Near. Very near.
I could feel It’s breath in, as, my own. A cool river flowing into compressed, tight corners, easing the heat and hate.
You were floating more than I was, flying with ease, your limbs of competency glowing with radiant health and virility, even though you had lived a longer stretch in time than I. Wings. Mine seemed stunted, twisted, gnarled, but had at least been bandaged and attended to. There was fresh blood seeping through the bandages..
I couldn’t see into you very far, you spoke through textures and surfaces, at a distance. Mars. Nothing made much sense. Trusty metaphysical maps and diagrams were too heavy to pack, took up too much space. Concepts were jettisoned like unwanted fuel, as I realised they wouldn’t power our vessels.
We waited. We waited. We waited.
we waited.
Years.
The loneliness was unbearable, though we were close.
You rescued me so many times I lost count.
I died a few times, from the loneliness. It had eaten me, like a cancer, rotting my hope, my faith, destroying all understanding with hurricanes of tremendous force. The scientists, pretenders of knowledge at the gates, had named them; babel, bedlam, be-wilder-ment. A reign of ruins. Before I found you.
Three lives I was given in the beginning. Each return costing me a price that I was unwilling to disclose, yet wincingly described, the details etched themselves into my flesh, limbs amputated. Though the whisperings soothed, I wore daggers in my heart from then on, no longer strung around my waist, tied to my belt, for ease of access. Now the weight was internalised. The shadows found a way in. They weren’t the right ones.
Though It was close. In all that time.
It was close.
Always, close.
Then something shifted in the space around us, imperceptible at first, then humming loudly. Electric. Electrical. Magnetic.
Yet it remained intangible, unspoken, uncommon, unshared.
Our eyes began to shine brightly, wet with light. Then I knew that you knew..
[In one of His Tablets Bahá’u’lláh wrote: ‘The first person who devoted himself to philosophy was Idris. Thus was he named. Some called him also Hermes. In every tongue he hath a special name. He it is who hath set forth in every branch of philosophy thorough and convincing statements. After him Balinus derived his knowledge and sciences from the Hermetic Tablets and most of the philosophers who followed him made their philosophical and scientific discoveries from his words and statements…’ In the Qur’án, Sura 19, verses 57 and 58, is written: ‘And commemorate Idris in the Book; for he was a man of truth, a Prophet; And we uplifted him to a place on high.’]
Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Baha’u’llah, p. 147
(text not mine, as is from source)
