Adam: You will be called 'the mother of the living,' because you are the one who gave me life.

[Guest guest]

" The supreme Gnostic heresy was to see Yahweh, the tribal deity of

the Old Testament, as a false god – a vicious and foolish creator of

an imperfect world. A Gnostic text called `On the Origins of the

World' writes of this false god hiding the real God both from others

and from himself. The god of religion is not the God of the Gnostic

mystics. A religion fixes God and defines his characteristics, but

the real power of divinity is forever ineffable and can only be known

through direct mystical experience, not creeds and dogmas. For the

Gnostic mystics, all the villains of the Old Testament – Cain, Esau,

the Sodomites – become heroes for resisting the presumptuous Yahweh.

A text called The Testimony of Truth tells the story of Genesis from

the serpent's point of view. The serpent is a messenger from the true

God of divine wisdom; it comes not to tempt Adam and Eve, but to

guide them away from the tyrannical Yahweh and towards a direct

knowledge of the true reality.

 

For the Gnostics, Jesus is not the son of a partisan Jewish god, but

the son of the true God who is the oneness that underlies all. He

comes not to save people from offending against the rules laid down

by an autocratic creator, but directly to reveal the transcendent

truth. The true God of Jesus is beyond all ideas, and so can be

equally pictured as both father and mother. A Gnostic text has God

declaring:

 

I am the Thought that dwells in the Light. She who exists above all,

I move in every creature. I am the Invisible One within the All. I am

perfection. I am knowledge. I cry out in everyone and they know a

seed dwells within them. I am androgynous. I am both Mother and

Father., since I make love with myself. I am the womb that gives

shape to All. I am the Glorious Mother. "

 

The Complete Guide to World Mysticism (Paperback)

by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, page 103-4

Publisher: Piatkus Books; New Ed edition (October 1998)

ISBN-10: 0749917768

ISBN-13: 978-0749917760

 

 

" When these same sources tell the story of the Garden of Eden, they

characterize this God as the jealous master, whose tyranny the

serpent (often, in ancient times, a symbol of divine wisdom) taught

Adam and Eve to resist:

 

.. . . God gave [a command] to Adam, " From every [tree] you may eat,

[but] from the tree which is in the midst of Paradise do not eat,

form on the day you eat from it you will surely die. " But the serpent

was wiser than all the animals that were in Paradise, and he

persuaded Eve, saying, " On the day when you eat from the tree which

is in the midst of Paradise, the eyes of your mind will be opened. "

And Eve obeyed. . . she ate, she also gave to her husband.

 

Observing that the serpent's promise came true - their eyes were

opened - but that God's threat of immediate death did not, the

gnostic author goes on to quote God's words from Genesis 3:22, adding

editorial comment:

 

.. . . " Behold, Adam has become like one of us, knowing evil and good.

Then he said, " Let us cast him out of Paradise, lest he take from the

tree of life, and live forever. " But of what sort is this God? First

[he] envied Adam that he should eat from the tree of knowledge. . . .

Surely, he has shown himself to be a malicious envier.

 

As the American scholar Birger Pearson points out, the author uses an

Aramaic pun to equate the serpent with the Instructor. . . . Other

gnostic accounts add a four-way pun that includes Eve: instead of

tempting Adam, she gives life to him and instructs him:

 

After the day of rest, Sophia [literally, " wisdom " ] sent Zoe

[literally, " life " ], her daughter, who is called Eve, as an

instructor to raise up Adam. . . When Eve saw Adam cast down, she

pitied him, and she said, " Adam, live! Rise up upon the earth! "

Immediately her word became deed. For when Adam rose up, immediately

he opened his eyes. When he saw her, he said, " You will be

called 'the mother of the living,' because you are the one who gave

me life. "

 

The Hypostasis of the Archons describes Eve as the spiritual

principle in humanity who raises Adam from his merely material

condition:

 

And the spirit-endowed Woman came to [Adam] and spoke with him,

saying, " Arise, Adam. " And when he saw her, he said, " It is you who

have given me life; you shall be called " Mother of all the living " -

for it is she who is my mother. It is she who is the Physician, and

the Woman, and She Who Has Given Birth. " . . . Then the Female

Spiritual Principle came in the Snake, the Instructor, and it taught

them, saying, " . . . you shall not die; for it was out of jealousy

that he said this to you. Rather, your eyes shall be open, and you

shall become like gods, recognizing evil and good. " . . . And the

arrogant Ruler cursed the Woman . . . [and] . . . the Snake. " "

 

The Gnostic Gospels, pages 29 - 31

by Elaine Pagels (Author)

Paperback: 224 pages

Publisher: Vintage (September 19, 1989)

ISBN-10: 0679724532

ISBN-13: 978-0679724537

 

 

" Today you all have decided to have the puja of Adi Shakti. There's a

difference between doing the puja of Kundalini Shakti or Adi

Kundalini and Adi Shakti. The difference is like this: on one side

the Kundalini is reflected in you by Adi Kundalini; the second side

is the power of Adi Shakti which is Paramchaitanya. So in totality,

if you see, it has two sides. One is Her power as Paramchaitanya and

also reflection in human beings as Kundalini. The third work that Adi

Shakti had to do was to create this whole universe. To begin with, as

you have seen yesterday also how the cosmos was created and then how

this special planet of Mother Earth was created.

 

Now what I have told you about Adam and Eve, we have found out, said

by also John in his Gnostics book. It's very surprising. They always

told you that Christ must have told you many things, but they are not

in the Bible. So if you understand that this Adi Shakti came as a

serpent — the Adi Kundalini part of Her — and told the Adam and Eve,

especially Eve, that she should ask for the fruit of knowledge to be

eaten. The reason I gave you is exactly written there, that the

Mother power, the feminine power, didn't want Her children to live

like animals without understanding what is the knowledge of the

higher realms, not giving them chance to rise higher through their

freedom and then to higher and higher awareness. It was the concern

of the Mother. "

 

Shri Adi Shakti Puja Talk

Cabella, Italy, June 26, 1994