Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:06 — 31.7MB)
For regular Gnostics Insights, subscribe here. Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS
This week’s episode presents the first half of Chapter 14 from my new book, A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel. The book is completed and I am awaiting receipt of my proof copy before making it available to you. I decided to publish the first edition of the book myself, in black and white, which saves about ten dollars off the publishing price. A second, deluxe edition will be made available in a few months. This first edition is a soft rollout for reviewers and listeners that will only be made available here at Gnostic Insights. The more expensive, color edition will be released on all regular book selling platforms.
This week’s episode reviews the parallel wisdom of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Tripartite Tractate surrounding the mystery of death. In Tibetan Buddhism, one’s experience immediately after death affects your karma and the memes you will carry forward into the next life. If your life has been noble and righteous you will experience a positive bardo populated by helpful deities. If your life has been carnal and egoic, you will find yourself bouncing around from one hellacious bardo to the next on your way toward your next incarnation.
We Gnostics do not need to pass through layers of Hell in order to find redemption. Remember that the figure called the Christ has brought redemption to all of us. Jesus the Christ is our personal diety in our Western Gnostic tradition. So you don’t have to feel as though this is some sort of pagan ritual where you have to find a God of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and pray to them. That’s not necessary, just like we don’t need to memorize names of Aeons or ritualistic incantations and practices in order to become enlightened or to know God after death. None of that is necessary.
All you need to know, if you wake up some day and find yourself in a bardo of the afterlife, is remember the Father and remember the Fullnesses, remember the Son and the Christ, and that memory will pull you in the upward and onward direction. So what I would recommend is that continually, as you are living this life day-to-day and hour by hour, think upon and remember the Fullness and the Father, or think upon and remember the redemption of the Christ and how it frees you from the delusions and attachments of this world.
Part two of Overcoming Death will follow next week. We are nearing the end of this review series. Remember, you can always find the entire series at gnosticinsights.com under the tab called “A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel.”
Onward and upward!
photo credit Karen Giese, April 2023