Some gnostic texts to ponder

GNOSTIC TEXTS OF THE HEAVENLY FATHER

"The One is the Invisible Spirit. We should not think of it as a god or like a god. For it is greater than a god, because it has nothing over it and no lord above it. It does not exist within anything inferior to it, since everything exists within it, for it established itself. It is eternal, since it does not need anything. For it is absolutely complete. It has never lacked anything in order to be completed by it. Rather, it is always complete in light."

"The One is the immeasurable light, pure, holy, immaculate. It is unutterable, and is perfect in incorruptibility. Not that it is just perfection, or blessedness, or divinity: it is much greater.

"The One is not corporeal and it is not incorporeal.
The One is not large and it is not small.
It is impossible to say,
How much is it?
What kind is it?
For no one can understand it."

"Three powers came forth from the Great Invisible Spirit: the Father, the Mother, and the Child."

"I am with you always. I am the father, I am the mother, I am the child. I am the incorruptible and the undefiled one. Now I have come to teach you what is, what was, and what is to come, that you may understand what is invisible and what is visible; and to teach you about the unshakable race of perfect humankind." (Jesus Christ in texts)

OTHER TEXTS

"Your souls come from above, from an indestructible light. Therefore the archons cannot approach them, because the spirit of truth dwells in them. And you who have their gnosis of this way live without death among dying people."
- Hypostasis of the Archons

"Christ (Divine Autogenes) is a spark of infinite divine light. From that light emerge four lights bearing specific names: a set of beings who appear with surprising frequency in Gnostic accounts of the origin of the world. They seem to have the role of angels and to be individual beings rather than specific characteristics of the divine mind as the other revealed beings were."
- Stevan Davies

TEXT OF THE RULERS OF MEN

"Now Sophia, who is the wisdom of insight and who constitutes an eternal realm, conceived of a thought from herself, with the conception of the invisible spirit and foreknowledge. She wanted to bring forth something like herself, without the consent of the spirit, who had not given approval, without her partner and without his consideration."

"Something came out of her that was imperfect and different in appearance from her, for she had produced it without her partner. It did not resemble its mother, and was misshapen."
- The Secret Book of John

"This gloomy ruler has three names: the first name is Yaldabaoth (or 'child of chaos'), the second is Sakla (or 'fool'), the third is Samael (or 'blind god')."
- The Secret Book of John

OF GNOSTISISM

"Perhaps you are one of those remarkable people who experience an overpowering realization of the divinity of existence. You suddenly know that everything is divine and that within you lies an ocean of God. Will you know this all of the time and every day? No. You will crest and fall and submerge again into the mundane. The realization of divinity as the be-all and end-all, as the substance of your very self--that within which you live and move and have your being--does not dominate every day, although you wish it would. The ordinary world of aches and pains and approaching death, of trouble, temptation, sin, stress, and loss seems to rule almost all the time. And yet, sometimes you can seize what you seek and see glory everywhere and know yourself to be divine."
- Stevan Davies

"In spite of all the evil, error, and ignorance in this world, people may still come to salvation through insight and awaken to creative thought. It is this human -and divine- capacity for thought that allows human beings to realize the wholeness of enlightened life and to embrace the knowledge and wisdom of God."
- Marvin Meyer

"This relationship is what changes us, they thought. It transforms us, they argued, and transfigures us. The God-Self relationship -Gnosis- was an experience of transcendence, moving us from a state of separation, from the sinful mortal condition, to an eternal spiritual body and life united with God."
- April D. DeConick