47. About you: Chapter - The free will (21)

Due to the free will granted to us by the One, we can choose between returning (being, space, constant, absolute), which is the tree of wisdom, and illusion (life, time, changing, relative) and the tree of objective, particular material knowledge. The key and measure of the fulfilment of our choice depend on the soul’s alertness, preparedness, consciousness, and spirituality, or the absence of these qualities. Free will, the possibility of choice, is what connects the above and the below, space and time, life and being, the relative and the absolute. From these are necessary and real the space, being, the absolute, and the rest, including life, are merely projections, copies, concepts, or, in Biblical language, the world of shadows. It is therefore erroneous to see the necessary in activities, but it is equally wrong to deny the necessary, because the real and the projection together form our universal created world. 

Free will, the freedom of choice, can also be interpreted at the level of sacred dualities, such as faith and knowledge, trinities, such as thought, word, and deed, or the body, soul, and spirit level, as well as the knowledge-consciousness and self-consciousness level, or even at the level of quartets, such as creation, stretching, salvation, and returning. In the duality of faith and knowledge, for example, faith represents the desire to know the One, which is connected to the knowledge of the self, to becoming aware of ourselves, to knowledge. Faith (self-awareness) is associated with the general awareness and experience of our universal self. First, we must become aware of ourselves so that we can become like the One and return to the One. Without self-awareness, we cannot have faith. To believe in our universal self, we need the right knowledge. Consequently, our faith can be conscious when we believe in our universal self (our spirit), and unconscious (ignorant) when we believe in our superficial, individual self (in matter). The latter pertains to the domain of psychology. Being does not need to know itself, because being is absolute freedom, to which we, humans, as relative freedom, must return. Unconscious faith lies in particular religions, where the individual self dominates, while conscious faith lies in the universality above religion, where the universal self dominates. 

The exclusion of knowledge through intellect—knowledge, consciousness, and self-awareness—does not allowed various religions to understand the complexity of faith. In addition by excluding knowledge through intellect, they also failed to recognize that this knowledge is the primal form of faith. The mystery of faith is also the mystery of intellect, and this, in turn, is the mystery of love. For what I know, I love, and what I love, I wish to know, which is none other than the love of intellect. If we connect knowledge through intellect, we find the interrelation of knowledge, consciousness, and self-consciousness, which connects with intellect and faith. Knowledge, consciousness, and awareness are in humans, just as the dual components of the world and its changes are. Self-awareness also implies caring for ourselves, for other created beings, and for sacredness. It seems that today we have forgotten the true philosophers, such as Clement of Alexandria, who was born around the 150s, and who believed that the traditional Christian knows the world through gnosis (intellect). Those who denied reasonable knowledge also denied sacredness, the knowledge and intellect needed to understand the universal self. Only those who have awakened and are moving back toward the One can attain conscious reason. Those who turn inward and think in synthesis, such as the musician who composes rhythm and harmony, the mathematician who seeks the quality of numbers, the geometer who probes time in space, are the guardians of the tradition of the One. According to Clement of Alexandria, intellect leads to faith, faith leads to reasonable knowledge, and this leads to unconditional love. To know, one must have knowledge, and knowledge comes from consciousness, or self-awareness, which is faith. Thus, faith is intellect, and the lack of faith is meaninglessness. Rational thinking is mistaken; it understands this differently. 

The one who has found their universal self has found love, the source of all good, the little god within. According to Jean-Yves Leloup, "this form of love is unknown to those who have not liberated themselves from the power and illusion of the 'I'." The One cannot be loved with the heart, nor the spirit or with the body. The spirit can only be loved with the spirit, that is, with the universal self. Love and alertness can only be loved with love and similar alertness, because in love, the goal and the means unite. Since they unite, it can be stated that love has no goal, no means, no cause, and no effect, because love is the One. The image and likeness of the One is the man, but only when it finds its spirituality, its universal self, and makes sacrifices for others in its love. In love, order is restored, unity is achieved, the state of "we" and "I" as One is realized. Our Initiation Master also taught us how to be little gods, or how to deify ourselves (theosis), how to discover the universal self within us, and how to unite cause and effect, goal and means, the relative and the absolute, space and time within ourselves. This unity, order, is what the fragmented Gospel teaching speaks about.