"Whoever hath an ear to hear, let him hear ...":
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"Let the disciple then first see the suffering of the man [i.e., himself] through, not his own, but [through] his Master's eyes. He will first only see the mystery, grasp it intellectually; he will not as yet realize it. When he realizes it, there will then be bliss indeed, for he will begin to become the Master Himself. And the Master is the conqueror of Woe--not, however, in the sense of the annihilation of it, but as the one who rejoices in it; for he knows that it is the necessary concomittant of bliss, and that the more pain he suffers in one portion of his nature, the more bliss he experiences in another; the deeper the one[,] the deeper the other, and therewith the intenser becomes his whole nature. His Great Body is learning to respond to greater and greater impulses or "vibrations."
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"The consummation is that he becomes capable of experiencing joy in sorrow and sorrow in joy; and thus reaches to the gnosis [i.e., revealed insight] that these are inseparables, and that the solution of the mystery is the power of ever experiencing both[,] simultaneously."
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G.R.S. Mead (1863-1933), in Echoes from the Gnosis, "The Gnostic Crucifixion," page 281.
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Those who have "ears with which to hear" will note the close parallel here with mythologist Joseph Campbell's oft-quoted maxim, to "participate with joy in the sorrows of the world." The idea is the same as Mead's. But can the world receive this doctrine yet?
