EYE OF THE STORM

BY GARY HORVITZ

The state of gnosis is defined as total awareness, a direct and often sudden expanded experience of hyper-clarity, wholeness, of truth beyond any conceptual understanding. Gnosis is an intense and total immersion in the unity of divine nature. Few could say they’ve ever had such an experience nor anything close to such complete knowing, a burst of non-dual presence, whether lasting one hour, one minute or even one second. 

What if, as a culture, we’re having that experience right now? What if this radical and mystifying unveiling, the cataracts of modernity being stripped from our eyes, the complex system of global culture halted in its tracks, the open wounds of racism, the rise of violent white supremacy, inequality and highly discriminatory structures of social control exposed before us, not to mention the exhaustion of the idea of human supremacy over the natural world, reductive medicine, the agonies of earth, the impending collapse of the legacy energy system and even the spectre of extinction appearing on the horizon, are together dragging us into a mass experience of wholeness? 

What if we’re all standing in the eye of this storm, on the threshold of our collective breakthrough moment, wrestling with the sensations, feelings and barely comprehensible observations, realizing the full nature and impact of interdependence beyond any theories, contrived models or even imagination? What if we’re taking our first steps into a deeply uncertain and fragile future already knowing far more than we realize? 

Gnosis transports us into the heart of emergence and universal relationship. All phenomena, including thoughts, feelings and sensations are all one and all now. We are standing in a continuous wave of creative interdependent unfolding that has no beginning, no end, no centre and no limits. We see retreat into hardening egos and sharper boundaries all around us, yet we also sense this moment demands the opposite. The distinctions between the inner and the outer universe are softening as we become more acutely aware of our radical entanglement. Despite our struggles to make sense, our identities become gauzy and indefinite. Much as we might wish to cling to hope as a lifeline to the future, what confidence can we muster in the face of such a muddled vision?

Spaciousness, however, abounds. Time slows down, awareness of all ‘events’ is acutely and vividly focused. Such experiences are extremely rare. They can be unsettling. But this moment feels unprecedented. Beyond the safe confines of our carefully constructed bubbles of identity, unexplored capacities are emancipated. The familiar is upended. 

Gnosis is commonly a religious or mystical experience. It’s a spontaneous encounter with truth beyond comprehension. In modern culture, it’s rarely acknowledged or well understood or even regarded as a worthy pursuit except in mystical circles. The traditional rituals of inquiry, the visionary pathways have been lost in antiquity. But that’s just the way we like it, isn’t it? Instead of examining our accumulated filters of bias, our bewilderment and fear, plenty of us seek refuge in the rigid values of nationalism and deepening faith. But we are far beyond these now. We are wandering in primal terrain where such accessible anchors can only take us deeper into delusion. We are being challenged to rewrite the source code for human presence on the planet. Nothing less.

We are arrested, with no sign of easy or proximal solutions as we share this sensation of falling together. Loss and instability reign, the personal and collective parameters of normal erode with no replacement reality in sight. Even though corporate and political forces seek to take control in this vacuum, we have not yet stepped into the new. The point of gnosis is to realize we already know. We must become our own sense makers. We cannot wait for someone else to decide for us. 

In the midst of this transition with its confusion, fear and reactivity, we are on a mass unwitting collective and individual journey. There are few authentic leaders here, mostly pretenders. Our antipathy toward any kind of limit is on full display: a pandemic freely driven by its own intrinsic directives, economic disparity, the sophisticated wealth extraction of late-stage capitalism, a persistent and dispiriting assault on truth, the rise of theocratic fascism and environmental destruction are all stripping us to our raw essence. We can see the macro. Now it’s time to attend to the micro. It is our responsibility to seek guidance from within, to unpack the subtle and nuanced flows of feeling with focus and rigor and to respond in real time to the truth of our relationships and to the destructive nature of so many granular decisions of everyday life. 

We have no choice but to be here, totally in it. Instead of resisting, going through familiar motions and attempting to reconstruct the collapse happening around us, suppose we were to let go and stand in the eye of this enveloping storm, watching all resistance dissolve as we sink deeper into the shifting currents of change?

Gnosis is an entirely different take on agency. We are becoming the world as the world is becoming us—which has always been true, but only now becoming more visible. Complete interpenetration with no static outcomes is the new rule. We are enmeshed in an unpredictable eternally transformative process of inter and intra-active engagement. No destination is certain, only an ongoing becoming informed by imagination, creativity and uncommon vision.

Gnosis sees all events from a vastly greater perspective. Linear causation is not recognized as a prime directive except from the narrow view of a very limited array of events. From the perspective of gnosis, making significant decisions on such analysis is foolish and self-destructive. To sit still with all the feeling, confusion and not knowing of this unfolding drama is the current challenge. Now everything matters; the smallest stimuli, the smallest adjustments, how we make sense of our world, all matter more than ever. This will determine who we become.

We’re waking up from a narcissistic, self-destructive dream. Waking into gnosis cuts through the illusions, the complexity, the inertia, the havoc and tenacity of the current socio-political and spiritual climate. We’re in the wilderness now. We’re being given one more chance, perhaps a last chance, to find our way.

Gary Horvitz is retired, a writer and activist in Durham, NC. Dancing and grieving at the ever-whirling edge of creation and destruction is the best he can do these days. You can read more of his writings at spontaneouspresence.net