Gnosis

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Gnosis Greek meaning "to know" or knowledge..( see the English word cognition }

Gnosis is a Greek word, originally used in specifically Platonic philosophical contexts. Plato, for example, uses the terms gnostikoi’ and gnostike episteme in the text called Politikos in Greek and Politicus in Latin (258e-267a) the modern name being the Statesman. The word means the knowledge to influence and control. Gnostike episteme also was used to indicate one's aptitude. The terms do not appear to indicate any esoteric or hidden meaning within the works of Plato but instead expressed a sort of higher intelligence and ability akin to talent. The term is used throughout Greek philosophy as a technical term of experience knowledge (see gnosiology) in contrast to theoretical knowledge which is akin to epistemology. The term is also related to the study of knowledge retainment or memory (also see cognition).

[edit] Gnosis

Among the sectarian gnostics, gnosis was first and foremost a matter of self acquaintance which was the goal of enlightenment. Also stated as direct knowledge of God through awareness of the divine spark within.<ref>Anderson, Robert A., (2006). Church of God? or the Temples of Satan - A Reference Book of Spiritual Understanding & Gnosis, TGS Publishers, ISBN 0-9786249-6-3.</ref> Later, Valentinius ( Valentinus), taught that gnosis was the privileged "knowledge of the heart" {{#if:||{{#if:June 2007||}}}}^{[citation needed]}or "insight" about the spiritual nature of the cosmos, that brought about salvation to the pneumatics - people who believed they could achieve this insight. Gnosis was distinct from the secret teachings they only revealed to initiates once they had reached a certain level of progression. Rather, these teachings were paths to obtain gnosis. Gnostic ideas of salvation were similar to Buddhist conceptions of enlightenment{{#if:||{{#if:February 2007||}}}}^{[citation needed]}, hence gnosis was not expressible by words. (See e.g. ineffability, a quality of realization common to many, if not most, esoteric traditions; see also Jung on the difference between sign and symbol.)

The Neoplatonic philosophers including, Plotinus rejected followers of gnosticism as being un-Hellenistic and anti- Plato due to their vilification of Plato's demiurge, see Neoplatonism and Gnosticism and the First International Conference on Neoplatonism and Gnosticism.

Among heresiologists, gnosis denotes different Jewish, Christian or Pagan belief systems of esoteric nature such as, first and foremost, Gnosticism and other dualist systems from the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., but also Rosicrucianism, Kabbalah, etc.{{#if:||{{#if:June 2007||}}}}^{[citation needed]} Sectarian groups that denoted that the creator of the cosmos as demiurge was not the true God but a fallen and even sometimes evil being. That the creator god of the Jewish old testament and Hellenistic pagan philosophy was evil as was the cosmos that the creator had fashioned (see the Sethian and Ophite gnostic sects).

In early Christianity gnosis also carried over from Hellenic philosophy into Greek Orthodoxy via St Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus of Rome, Hegesippus, and Origen. Gnosis meaning intuitive knowledge, knowledge or memory of an experience of God. In relation to theosis (deification) and theoria (vision of God)<ref>The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, SVS Press, 1997. (ISBN 0-913836-31-1) James Clarke & Co Ltd, 2002. (ISBN 0-227-67919-9)pg 218</ref>.

The term Gnosis is related to the Sanskrit jnana (as in Jnana Yoga) and to the Hebrew daath, which is the hidden sphere in the Kabbalah, or that knowledge which was only given to the initiated.{{#if:||{{#if:February 2007||}}}}^{[citation needed]}

In the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, the Gnostic being refers to the future supramental state of divinised humanity, living a spirit-filled existence.{{#if:||{{#if:February 2007||}}}}^{[citation needed]}

sources from wikipedia site