The Great Holy Invisible Spirit

What does it mean to rise above this world?

What is it like to have an experience that has no worldly comparison, that cannot be adequately conveyed through words?

To what source of wondrous potential does our participation in healing and other good things point?

Working from Experience
... and Beyond

If we begin experientially with all the healing, compassion, wisdom, or other good things we have ever experienced ourselves, and ever will experience, and add to it all such experience of all beings in any time or place, and imagine something that represents the sum of all of this, the shaping of all of this to bring forth such good fruit, the origin of all of this, the essence flowing through all such experience, we are already getting beyond the capacity of specific detailed language.

This is far too much to be conveyed adequately in simple finite words by our minds in our limited experience and mental capacity. The scope alone is quite beyond us. The wildest imagery of beautiful light, fullness, and wonder, is but an aesthetic hint of such a grand concept. What is such potential, what is the nature of its source, what is the essence of its reality, what is the direction of its fulfillment, what is the fruit of its completion, what is the whole of such a grand reality in its fullness?

Attempting to Express
Warning of Limitations of Expression

When Gnostics spoke of the primordial source of all that is good and truly spiritual, they often emphasized the limitations of our terms of speech, the sense that such a source is beyond our terminology or comprehension.

In poetic language, in visions, sometimes this is expressed through paradox. Often it is discussed through a negation of concepts that are deemed insufficient. This approach is called via negativa: that which the Divine Source is NOT is expressed, in the hopes of orienting the mind towards this great source beyond our limited conceptions.

Such a reality is beyond whatever we would think of when we use the term 'god' -- many notions of gods are clearly inadequate, judging from the depictions in many religions, stories, tales, and theologies. We can say it is not measurable because there is nothing that has ever been capable of measuring it in any terms we could refer to and compare. We would not want our use of language to imply paltry petty ordinary concepts, and so our negations indicate caution so that it might not be confused with or limited to such mistaken conceptions or worldly comparisons.

Overflowing Qualities
Giving Without Loss

Another way of conveying something of the essence of such a spiritual source, is to describe qualities that flow from it out of its essence, its ability to give without suffering any loss.

We may describe our experience of good things in this world, in our participation in qualities of character and in good things, as related to this source, which by its nature overflows with such goodness, mercy, etc. Yet our ordinary concept of such qualities is relative to conceptions of worldly existence in bodies in this world with many parts and limitations, the experience of loss when something is given, the sense that such qualities are secondary in conflict.

And so by saying this invisible spirit is good as one that overflows with goodness, is called merciful because it overflows with mercy, emphasis may be placed upon the essential greatness and uniqueness of such a source. It does not merely have an attribute, as if such an attribute were acquired from outside of itself or a mere part of its being that could be contradicted by some other part. Its essence is of such goodness in that it gives goodness without loss or compromise, as a result of being what it is.

Pure and Uncompromised
Without Inner Contriety

It may be called a Monad or One, a Unit, because it is unitary in that it does not struggle within itself over contrary impulses or attributes, it can be said to rule itself without inner contradiction. It is beyond whatever entities that struggle over how to express themselves. Nothing contains it or existed prior to it to name it or to give it containment or give it parts or limits or inner contradictions.

Gnosis

It is knowledge or Gnosis, as giving Gnosis.

Our personal conception of experience of such qualities, when expanded to all such potential in every time and place where it will become actual experience, is quite beyond us.

As we are dealing with a concept of such a principle, such great potential, perhaps skeptics will pardon our mystification and aesthetic poetic exuberance of expressions concerning it.

For those who have experienced some of the sublimity of the concept, perhaps some will consider that there actually is an underlying reality that is worth referring to as a Great, Invisible, Holy Spirit. It is out of this spirit which flows all wisdom, healing, goodness, mercy, and innumerable great and wonderful things that we get but a glimpse of when living beings express or experience some such quality in a limited worldly experience.

It is by orienting towards such a grand concept, and the reality and potential underlying it -- whatever it is (being fully aware that the subject is quite beyond our conception or full understanding) -- that we invite further participation in the qualities associated with such a concept, and orient towards growth in fullness of being.

May you be blessed with a glimpse of such a reality.