A bridge towards gnosis
by Athos A. Altomonte
© 2007 copyright by Esonet.it - Esonet.com

Q : ... Can you recommend any readings to me… ?

A : When I don't know well my interlocutor I never hazard a particular advice, especially about readings. Indeed they are food for mind and conscience. They are like allopathic medicine; on one hand they (perhaps) cure but on the other hand they are a means of pollution. Therefore there must be caution in what we ‘feed on', which could be, and often is, highly deviating.

Nevertheless there is a general line that concerns everybody at any level; it is what we could call a common path. In ancient times it was enclosed in the formula Know Thyself.

It is possible that you are not able to recognize the actual stage of conscience where and with which you work. In this case it could be of great help if you understood in which dimension you act, viz. who you think you are , in order to ‘add yourself' to the other inner dimensions; which in synthesis are three.

The lower one is sub-consciousness, where you keep all the repressed sub-personalities imprisoned, because they are either refused or unused; they are the passive energetic investment that you must learn to recover. Freemasons don't know its execution but they remember it as VITRIOL.

The middle one is the plane of conscience (called waking conscience) where you find yourself, your personality; therefore it is the seat of the physical self that represents the point of highest delusion.

The superior dimension, exoterically called high, is super-consciousness, which ancient peoples called inner sky , seat of the word of God, which Plato called monad.

The philosopher Aurobindo found the approach to knowledge by contact, that ancients called gnosis, into the construction of a conscience bridge (which Easterners call Antahkarana and Westerners Ars pontificia) between personal self and superior Ego. This knowledge doesn't have anything to do with erudition, which is a result of the art of memory. It depends on the intellectual qualities of the receiver (us) how much and what to perceive through an advanced form of intuition, which the ancients called hieroinspiration.

The apprentice develops a 180 degrees basis of culture, symbolized by the flight of the eagle, in order to provide himself with better intellectual qualities. This means to see from the top and to be able to recognize conceptual territories or spaces without ever ‘landing', viz. without concretizing on details.

Concretization occurs in accomplishing an altruistic service, writing, playing, painting, teaching orally. In other words, we concretize only in the act of giving, never of taking.

If you think that these thought can inspire you, then try and read the books by Roberto Assagioli about Psycho-synthesis, which you will find in any language you prefer. Leave Act of Will as your last one, since it starts the operative stage on yourself.