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Jesus said,"If they ask you from where you came, say,
'We were born of The Light from where
The Light is born of Light,
Where Light came into Being of Itself,
And is revealed in Their Image,
Where They of The Light are revealed in The Light!'
If they ask you who you are, say,
'We are The Children of the Light,
The Beloved of the Living One,
We are of The Living One.'
If they ask you,
'What is the sign of The Living One within you?'
Say to them, 'It is movement and it is repose.'"
~The Gospel of Thomas: Logia 50
There are three major elements about the Light to comprehend: first, what the Light is, second, what the source of the Light is, and third, how you can experience the Light.
The essential goal of All Religions is to have their devotees become Enlightened. Jesus was an Enlightened man. The Greek word for Light means light as seen by the eye, or expressly to shine or make manifest by rays. Jesus was a man who came into this world to give Light. To understand Jesus and his teachings it is necessary to understand Light and its source. The Mystery which Jesus taught his disciples is that the Light He was One with was not a metaphor, but was real Light.
In the Gospel of St. John Jesus stated,
"I am the Light of the World; the one following me by no means will walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of Life."
This is the essence of the Mystery which Jesus taught. Not only did Jesus receive and then become the Light, but he taught those who follow him will also receive and become the Light. To experience the Light means to see it. The experience of Seeing the Light is called the Illumination. To have this experience it is necessary to take the journey within.
Going within oneself is the art of focusing your consciousness in and upon itself. While in a thoughtful state, examine the phenomenon of your mind itself. You will discover that it seems to exist mainly in the forehead region of your head, and just behind the eyes. As you examine this placement of your mind, you will also discover the feeling that your mind sees through your eyes.
If you can think back to a time when you may have had a sudden inspiration or an intuitive flash, think about the source of the inspiration. You will discover that the inspiration or intuitive flash actually came from a much deeper space within you. If you concentrate on the space that the intuitive flash came from, you will discover it came from the space behind your solar plexus. This is the space which is being described as within.
In the Gospel of St. Luke the Pharisees are questioning Jesus about the Kingdom of Heaven and Jesus says in the Greek,
"Comes not the Kingdom of God with observation, nor will they say: Behold, here or there behold, for the Kingdom of God within you is."
The Greek word for within used in this passage is entos, which means inside. Therefore Jesus was saying to get to the Kingdom of Heaven you must go inside of yourself.
The experience of the Light is mentioned in both the Bible and the Gnostic Scriptures. In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul's experience of seeing this Light is described as, "In Now the to go it came to pass him to draw near to Damascus, and suddenly him shone round a light out of heaven." In the Greek text this light is referred to as Light out of Heaven.
The Light which Paul saw came out from inside of him. This Light was so profound that Paul was blinded for three days. We can know that the Light which is being talked about in this account is actually Light and not a metaphor by two facts. The first fact is that in the original text the Greek word which means Light as seen by the eye was used, and second because only real Light can cause a person to go blind.
In the Gnostic Scriptures we will find even more revealing references to light. In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 22 verses one through eleven, there is a parable about a king who invited guests to a wedding. When one of the guests showed up without his wedding garment, he was thrown out. This parable is about the marriage of man's lower nature to the Christos. We find explicit reference to the wedding garment in the Gospel of Thomas, "The forces do not see those who have put on the Perfect Light and cannot seize them. One will put on the Light in a Mystery, through the act of joining." Thus the garment that we all must don is the Garment of Light.
The Greatest Mystery is the source of the Light. The source of Light is the Christos. In the Gospel of John we also find the Christos being called the Word (Logos), which means the personal manifestation, not of a part of the Divine Nature, but the whole Deity, or Image.
The Christos is the only Begotten of God. The Christos is "the uncontaminated Light." It is this uncontaminated Light which is the Anointed. "And the Spirit Anointed it (the Spark) with its own kindness until it became perfect, needing no further kindness since it had been anointed with the kindness of the Invisible Spirit."
Christos means the Anointed.
The Christos is also associated with the Word. Both the Gospel According to St. John and the Secret Book According to John declare that all things were made by the Word. In the Gospel it states,
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. This one was in the beginning with God. All things through Him became, and without Him became not one thing which has become."
In the Secret Book it is described, "And Word (or verbal expression) followed after will. For by the Word, the Anointed (Christ) divine self-originate made the entirety (or all things)." When the Light is comprehended the natural consequence is seeking the Light. To seek the Light requires the ability to concentrate.
To be able to focus your attention in and upon itself requires a great deal of concentration. During outward concentration the mind has objects to focus upon, while inward concentration has only concepts and ideas to concentrate on. To go within it is necessary to develop mind control.
Mind control means to have the ability to concentrate on one idea, such as Light, for at least one half to three quarters of an hour. During this period of time, there can be no thoughts entering your mind but thoughts about the subject you are concentrating upon. The deeper within yourself you endeavor to travel, the more complete must your ability to control your thoughts be. To achieve the ability to control your thoughts it is necessary to use concentration exercises.
There are many exercises which can be used to develop mind control.
One of the better concentration exercises is the Orange Exercise.
To do this exercise you will need an orange, a table and chair.
Place the orange about one and one half feet from you on the table.
Then sit quietly in the chair and just take it easy for a few minutes,
letting your thoughts slowly come to a halt. Then looking at the orange,
examine slowly and completely the surface of the orange.
Then letting your eyes slowly drift to the center of the orange, look within it as if you are imagining what is inside, but not really, for you are actually looking within it.
Let your eyes remain constant as you look within it and examine the various segments, shapes, colors, and sizes of the pieces and the seeds within the orange.
Then after you have done this for a few minutes, examine a seed and take it down to its shell and examine its many layers.
Then looking at the seed, see how it would look placed in the ground, then sprouting, bearing roots, and finally growing to a small bush, then a tree, and then bearing blossoms which turn into fruit. You again have the orange.
If at any time during the exercise you have thoughts slip into your mind which are not part of the exercise, or your attention drifts momentarily, stop. Immediately go back to the beginning, letting your thoughts drift out and slowly stop, and then begin the exercise again. Do not do this exercise more than 3 times a sitting and no more than 3 times a day. The completed exercise should take between 10-15 minutes. When you can successfully complete this exercise you will have enough concentration to begin your search for the Inner Light.
Once a person has developed the ability to concentrate, the Art of Meditation can be learned. Concentration exercises develop the ability to control the flow of ideas into the mind. During these exercises the eyes are focused upon the object of the exercise. Meditation is done with the eyes closed. While concentration exercises are developmental, meditation is experiential. To receive the Light is to become the Light.
In the New Testament Gospels, Jesus is referred to as Jesus Christ, meaning that Jesus became one with the Anointed, the Christos. This act happened during the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, when it was written,
Matthew 3:13-17.
"13 Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. 14 But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? 15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. 16 And Jesus, when he was Baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the Heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: 17 And lo a voice from Heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
The Mystical Union of the Christos and Jesus is one of the Great Spiritual Mysteries. To get a rudimentary understanding of this union it is necessary to use an analogy. If you picture the Christos as an ocean and Jesus as a drop of water which has been dropped into the center of this ocean (Christos), then you have a way to understand this union. While the drop of water (Jesus) did not cease to be, it did become indistinguishable from the ocean (Christos).
The Mystical Union is described as,
" In the realm of Truth, it is not as human beings in the World, who see the Sun without being the Sun, and see the sky and the Earth and so forth without being them. Rather, if you have seen any things there, you have become those things: if you have seen the Spirit, you have become the Spirit: if you have seen the Anointed (Christ), you have become the Anointed (Christ)."
Jesus became the Christ through Mystical Union. The Good News (Gospel) which Jesus taught is the Union with the Christos.