Gnostic Gospel, Pt 8 -- The Boundary

Notice: There is now a separate blog dedicated to the New Gnostic Gospel. You can get there by clicking here.

As facets of the shattered aeon spread out into the darkness, the brightness and intelligence at the heart of Logos “hastened upward to that which was his, and to his kin in the Fullness. He abandoned that which had come into being from deficiency and what had issued from him in an illusion, since they did not belong to him.” [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 78]

Those of the deficiency are phantoms of those in the Fullness

Over the course of illuminating the Gnostic Gospel, the Simple Explanation has designed a series of visual metaphors representing facets of Gnostic and Christian belief. For the fullest understanding of this article, you may wish to read the entire Gnostic Gospel Illuminated series from the beginning.  If you would prefer to first read the "Simple Gnostic Gospel, Part One: The Father, The Son, and the Birth of The ALL," click here.

The Fall of Logos gave rise to a Boundary between those who remained with the Father and the imitations that spilled forth from the fractured one. As Logos retreated to its own in the Fullness, the Boundary hardened, containing that which had been produced and separating finitude from infinity, ignorance from truth, and light from darkness.

A Boundary hardened around the Deficiency, enclosing a finite space

“It was not without the Will of the Father that this Word had been brought forth, nor that he should rush forward; rather, the Father had brought him forth for the things that he knew must take place. . .  For this reason, then, it is wrong to condemn the movement [of Logos]. Rather, we should speak about the movement of Logos as the cause that made an ordained economy come to pass.” [The Tripartite Tractate, v. 77]

“For the Father and the realm of the All now withdrew from him in order that the Boundary should be firm that the Father had fixed—for it does not exist to prevent the unreachable from being reached, but because of the Will of the Father—and also in order that the things that happened should be for the sake of an economy that was to come about. . .” [The Tripartite Tractate, v.76, 77]

The Boundary serves the purpose of holding the deficiency away from the perfection of the Father and of the ALL. This insures the purity of the origin so that none of its glory is diminished by the Fall.

The ALL rests upon its Father, The Son

The Deficiency is Contained

The Boundary also serves the purpose of containing a space wherein an “economy” can emerge. Economy here means “an orderly management or arrangement of parts; organization or system” [https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/economy].

The hierarchy of The Fullness represents every possible personality, position, and power, arranged in a cooperative structure that benefits them all.

In other words, the Boundary was established so that a hierarchy patterned after the Fullness would have a space to take root and grow.

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Proceed to Part 9: "Characteristics of the Deficiency"

Those readers who are put off by the name "God" or other religious words like "The Father" and "The Son" are free to continue using more modern memes like "consciousness" and "self-awareness." You may study these same topics in mySimple Explanation blog and book. However, if you are already familiar with Hebrew and Christian memes, then you will understand these Gnostic writings without needing to first dip into the Simple Explanation, and so you may skip the following translation.

The Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything refers to the Father as the Metaverse, that which is above our Universe.

The Simple Explanation calls the Son the Universal Unit of Consciousness, because while identical to the Father, or Metaverse, this all-knowing consciousness is now also a singular Unit. In fractal terms, the Son is the first iteration of the pattern. 

The ALL is every thing that will ever be, in potential. Forms and photons, particles and protons, personalities, positions, and ranks. Every mathematical and physical formula, imprinted upon the Universal Unit of Consciousness. These potentialities are not manifest, nor even self-aware. They began as unrealized fractal iterations of the pattern of the Son. By this point in the Gnostic Gospel, the ALL has realized itself and become expressed fractals of the second iteration. 

The Fullness represents the expressed fractals of the third iteration: the proliferation of singular Units of Consciousness. These fractals are called "aeons," and they have multiplied into the potential of all forms, processes, and personalities. In same way that an individual's DNA carries its species' potential form, so each unit of consciousness carries within itself the complete pattern of creation. 

The Boundary of the Simple Explanation is the fractal shell of the Universal Unit of Consciousness. The Simple Explanation model suggests that the undifferentiated consciousness of the Metaverse is held apart from this created universe by means of a toroidal-shaped membrane "composed" of consciousness. One purpose of the toroidal shell is to contain the space, time, and memes of our universe so the tranquility of the Metaverse remains undisturbed.   

The cooperation amongst the ALL is the prototype for the Simple Explanation's Golden Rule, which the Simple Explanation puts this way: "In order for units of consciousness to join and work together for the greater good, they need to share relevant information, they need to assist one another's efforts, and they need to love one another."   

In the same way that the ALL sat in unitary perfection together while singing the same song of praise, so do we all instantiate the pattern of cooperation needed to "get the job done" when we work together for the greater good, without selfish motive. So, too, the Fullness, though differentiated into units of consciousness with individual stations and ranks, dreams of a Paradise where everyone knows their job and does it in perfect cooperation with others for the benefit of all. 

Logos represents the best possible single individual that could ever exist, for its personality contains the formula for every good thing possible. Yet, even then, Logos was unable to create on his own because he lacked the "will" to carry it out. The will is what the Simple Explanation identifies as the coherent, pre-energetic potential that enters our universe through the portal of here and now. The will would be the Metaversal information streaming into our universe via the singularity at the center of the Universal Unit of Consciousness. While Logos identified himself with the Universal UC, Logos was mistaken, for he deviated from the Universal algorithm when his individual will conflicted with the will of the Fullness. 

The phantoms produced by the Fall are not fractal iterations of the Son. They are broken code. The phantoms cannot replicate on their own; they lack activation by the Source at the center, as they were generated away from the metaversal portal in what the Simple Explanation used to call the doughy blue ring of the donut.

According to the Simple Explanation, information enters our universe from the singularity at the center of the donut. Objects that are formed away from the white star at the middle lack the glory of the Metaverse and therefore lack life.

It is fascinating to me that hierarchies arise so early in the Gnostic cosmology.    Hierarchies are essential to our manifested universe. 

This is the human hierarchy.

The arrangement of the hierarchy shows up throughout creation. Every small thing in our universe reaches out laterally to others to form aggregations of the next level up. Sub-atomic particles form atoms. Atoms form molecules. Molecules form elements. Elements form aggregations of building materials, always according to the simple rule of "the higher the fewer." This is why hierarchies look like pyramids--at each level of aggregation, there are fewer instances of things forming the next level up.

One of my neighbors has begun obsessively stacking rocks into pyramids. Note that merely adding one inert thing atop another does not make a new creation; it is only an aggregate of the lower forms, stacked. For an aggregate to "level up" into a newly created thing, it must be "willed by God." 

The "ONE" dollar bill of the United States displays the hierarchy of the ALL as a reference to the Gnostic Economy discussed above. The American founders were conscious of the necessity of acknowledging the original source.

Another scientific prediction: As of now, science is unable to determine whether or not our universe is infinite or bounded. If this Gnostic Cosmology is true to our actual universe, then we can safely hypothesize that our universe is finite.