Although we appear to be isolated individuals, in reality there is one awareness dreaming itself to be everyone and everything. This is our shared essential nature. The simple secret to enjoying this dream we call 'life' is to wake up to oneness. Because, knowing you are one with all, you will find yourself in love with all. You will fall in love with living.
This is the message of the original Christians, who symbolised this awakened state with the enigmatic figure of 'the laughing Jesus'.
Have you ever seen a picture of Jesus laughing? Probably not, because we have inherited a distorted form of Christianity created by the Roman Church in the fourth century, which focuses exclusively on Jesus the 'man of sorrows'. The image that has dominated our culture is that of a man being tortured to death on a cross. But the original Christians didn't see Jesus as an historical man who 'suffered for our sins'. They viewed Jesus as the mythical hero of a symbolic teaching story, which represents the spiritual journey leading to the experience of awakening they called 'gnosis', or 'knowing'.
The original Christians were inspired men and women who saw how good life could be if we would just wake up and live in love. They imagined a new world that would no longer be divided into slaves or citizens, men or women, Gentiles or Jews. But inadvertently, this band of non-conformists gave birth to a totalitarian regime that would rule Europe with an iron fist for over a thousand years. The result was not Heaven on Earth, but the Holy Roman Empire. The dream became a nightmare.
The message of awakening
The Roman Church did all it could to suppress the teachings of gnosis and the image of the laughing Jesus. It succeeded so well that it now seems strange even to suggest that Christianity was originally about awakening. But in the middle of the twentieth century some of the texts of the original Christians were found in a cave near Nag Hammadi in Egypt. In these texts the message of awakening is proclaimed loud and clear.
Those who have realised gnosis have set themselves free by waking up from the dream in which they lived and have become themselves again. THE GOSPEL OF TRUTH
How can you bear to be asleep, when it's your responsibility to be awake? APOCRYPHON OF JAMES
You are asleep and dreaming. Wake up. THE CONCEPT OF OUR GREAT POWER
Listen to my teachings, which are good and practical, and end the sleep which weighs so heavily upon you. THE TEACHINGS OF SILVANUS
People are caught up in many vain illusions and empty fictions, which torment them like sleepers prey to nightmares. When they wake up they see that all those dreams were nothing. This is the way it is with those who have cast ignorance aside, as if waking from sleep. They no longer see the world as real, but like a dream at night. They value gnosis as if it were the dawn. Whilst they exist in a state of ignorance it is as if everyone is asleep. Experiencing gnosis is like waking up. THE GOSPEL OF TRUTH
Gnosis
Such teachings of awakening are not exclusively Christian. Throughout history men and women of all faiths have woken up to oneness and love. We use the broad term 'Gnostic' meaning 'knower' to refer to all such individuals because, although they express their insights in the various languages of their diverse cultures, they all talk about the experience of awakening or gnosis.
These charismatic individuals often inspired the formation of small communities dedicated to waking up. But, ironically, the more successful such groups become the more they turn into their opposite. What begins as a loose alliance of free-thinking non-conformists degenerates over time into an organised, authoritarian religion, and people end up completely misunderstanding the original message. We refer to this degenerate form of Gnosticism as 'Literalism'.
Gnosticism is sometimes called 'the perennial philosophy' because it has been found in all cultures and all times. It is not that Gnostics all say exactly the same thing. They don't. It is rather that their teachings are like fingers pointing from different perspectives to the same experience of gnosis. Unfortunately, most people focus on the finger and miss the point. This is Literalism. Literalist religions are clubs for people who want to worship the finger of their founder as the One True Finger, but who have no understanding of the experience of awakening towards which it points.
Enough of this madness
Our book, The Laughing Jesus, is an indictment of Literalist religion and a passionate affirmation of Gnostic spirituality. We believe that the time has come to say 'enough of this madness', and consign Literalist religion to the garbage can of history. But we must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Religion isn't all bad. It has answered the profound human yearning to understand the mysteries of life and death. It has inspired people of all cultures to create sublime works of art, glorious cathedrals and temples, transcendental music and songs. It has this power because at its heart is Gnostic spirituality. In The Laughing Jesus, we want to rescue the teachings of gnosis from under the accumulated debris of religious dogma, so that we can jettison outdated religious Literalism but retain and revivify the perennial wisdom of awakening.
Imagine what would happen if we actually began to wake up and live by the Gnostic teachings of oneness and love. If we started to truly love our neighbours, even our enemies, because we recognise that they are actually expressions of our own deeper self. If we saw through to the reality that there are no Jews, Christians, or Muslims. There is no 'us versus them'. There is only us. This is the Gnostic vision that inspires us, and we hope it will inspire you. We want you to get the joke, and understand for yourself why the Gnostic Jesus laughs.
From The Laughing Jesus, text © 2005 by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. Published in the UK in 2006 by O Books.
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