In ancient times, all of the knowledge that was taught to humanity was presented in an integral

way, in an integrated form. It is only in modern times, very recent times, that humanity has
developed the tendency or the desire to compartmentalize knowledge, or to separate forms of
knowledge. In our ancient past, art, science, philosophy, and religion were taught as one - no
element was separated or taught as a separate school. Amongst the Egyptians, the Persians, the
Chinese, the Aztecs, all of the ancient civilizations, the great philosophers, the kings, and wise men
and women always taught and spoke and wrote and delivered their teachings in a very integrated
way. In modern times, we have lost that tradition.

One of the forms in which the synthesis of wisdom and knowledge was taught was through a
symbol called "the cross." The cross is ubiquitous to humanity; it appears in every culture. The
cross has four hands or limbs that stretch out from a central point. The central point in the context
of this lecture is the synthesis, is the combination, the unification of all the elements of wisdom
and knowledge. So if we were to examine the breadth and scope of all of human knowledge and
wisdom, we would say it is synthesized in the heart of this cross, but its four major parts would be:

Religion

Philosophy

Science

Art

If you have been listening to the lectures and studying the books of Gnosis, you have undoubtedly
recognized that Gnosis teaches religion, that Gnosis teaches philosophy, and Gnosis teaches
science. But what about art? This concept or aspect of the teaching, the art of Gnosis, somehow
manages to elude some students and instructors.

When we look at these four pillars, these four primary aspects of the ancient wisdom of humanity,
we can see that art is the means to express the other three. Art is the way to communicate, the
way to see, the way to experience, the way to touch, to taste, to ingest, to deliver, to reflect the
religion, the philosophy and the science. So, art is the method. The other three - the religion, the
philosophy and the science - are the wisdom itself while the art is the method. These are the two
primary aspects of Buddhism: Method and Wisdom. It is the union of method and wisdom that
produces the awakening of the Consciousness, the birth of the Buddha inside.

So as students, when we come to study this tradition or something related to it, we study the
religion, the philosophy, and the science through books, through lectures; but, we would study the
art through practice because that art is internal, it is the art of Consciousness, the art of
awakening.

Art is the act of creation. Of course, we all know that art is creative. The nature of creativity is to
give birth to something new, to create, to bring life, to bring something of great beauty into the
world. But that creation - that art - is supported and informed by the religion, the philosophy, and
the science. Without those three other pillars, art remains empty, devoid of form, meaning, or
effectiveness.

As students of Gnosis, students of knowledge, it is necessary for us to have a good, firm, solid
understanding of the religion, the philosophy and the science, and only in that way can we activate
the art, can we actually create, to create something inside of ourselves, create as a Consciousness,
as a soul, as a mind, as a heart.

Each of these pillars contains the others. They cannot be fully separated. We isolate them for
matters of explanation in order to explore and understand the way the teaching works. But in
reality, they are all one. This is one reason why we study the symbol of the cross.

Creation is a sacred act. To create something, to give birth, is always something very sacred and
holy. The force that gives us the capacity to create is our very life. This is the very existence that
we have, and that life is sacred. The energy that gives us the capacity to create is sacred. It is the
direct connection that we have to God. This energy that descends down the Tree of Life as the Ray
of Creation is the force (the life force) which makes creation possible in all the levels of nature, in
all the dimensions, and we have that creative potential, that creative power, within us, in our
psyche, in our mind, in our heart, but most especially in our sexuality.

In our sexuality, we have the power to create life, to bring life onto the world, and this is a very
sacred power. But that same potential to create a new physical body, to give birth to a child, is the
same energy that gives us the capacity to create with the mind and heart. It is the same energy
that fuels our psyche.
Beauty - The Highest Ideal

In the genuine Gnostic tradition-in ancient Egypt, Greece, Mexico, wherever you find the ancient
Gnostic tradition-you always find that the highest ideal is beauty. Beauty in Hebrew is Tiphereth,
and is found on the Tree of Life (Kabbalah); beauty is related with the Human Soul. This sphere on
the Tree of Life (Tiphereth) corresponds directly to our Human Soul, to our human Consciousness,
and is that which gives us real value, gives us the capacity to be alive. It is the essence, the very
nature of our soul. It is with beauty that the soul is developed - by the influence, by the effect, by
the development and cultivation of beauty. So, this is the great art: the Great Work. The greatest
art is the cultivation of the beauty of the Human Soul - of Tiphereth.

When we look at creation as a whole, we see that the highest form of cognizant life in our
particular level is the humanoid - each one of us. We are the potential from which the highest
beauty can emerge, and we know from our traditions and throughout our histories that certain
human beings have risen, have manifested that great beauty, and have inspired millions because
they fully realized the potential of their own Consciousness. We can look to many examples of
great human beings who, without concern for anything other than the highest ideal, developed
that ideal in themselves.

Beauty in itself is the influence or force that is essential for the unfolding of the
human Consciousness. This is something that Plotinus described in detail in his philosophy-the
importance of beauty for the development of the Soul-and it was recognized by all ancient
philosophers that communities or civilizations within which beauty was highly respected and
cultivated, in turn developed highly developed individuals. Cultures that have held beauty as their
ideal and worked for beauty in all works of architecture, music, painting, philosophy, religion, and
other sciences - those are the same civilizations that produced the greatest people in history.

On the contrary, those civilizations that celebrated discord, chaos, lust, pride, anger, or avarice
produced the worst of humanity. This is cause for us to reflect deeply upon our own civilization,
this modern humanity. What do we celebrate and strive for? What is the ideal of our culture?

We can see that the influence of beauty-whether divine beauty or tenebrous beauty-is deeply
profound. This is why in the Gnostic tradition we always emphasize and recommend that the
students should listen to beautiful music, should surround themselves with beautiful art, should
cultivate the fine arts, develop an understanding of the principles of beauty in art.
All physical forms reflect their origin. Our physical body reflects its own origin. Our physical body
contains the marks, the influences of our parents - this is inescapable. Our physical form contains
the marks and influences of the environment that we came from. So, in that simple way you can
see that the forces that surround us, the forces that give rise to creation, make a lasting impact.

Going forward, we should reflect on this, and realize that the things that we do, the things that we
say, the things that we cultivate in our lives, produce something; in each action we perform, we
create. We create through our thoughts, through our feelings, and through our actions. But are we
creating according to our high ideal of beauty, or are we creating in accordance with the longings
of the ego - the longings of our greed or pride?

We, ourselves, are a form of art, but who is creating that art? Who is the artist? Who, in us, are we
giving the energy, the power, to create our mind, to create our soul? This is the fundamental
question.

The process of creation is unfolding from moment to moment. Our birth in the physical world was
just the beginning of a single chapter in our development. The process of creation is ongoing. The
energies in us that give the capacity to create are flowing in us constantly, from moment to
moment, and we, by our will, utilize that energy. So, who in us is making us what we will be?

As a human being, we have the ability to become the ultimate art, highest art. The purpose of life
is to become a perfect human being, to become a perfect form of art, a perfect reflection of our
creator.

When you look at any great work of art, what you see there is a reflection of the Consciousness of
the one who made it. When you observe a Greek sculpture, or you listen to one of the great
symphonies, or you see one of the ancient beautiful paintings of the past times, or for example the
Pyramids of Egypt, what you see in those dazzling, beautiful creations is the Consciousness of the
one who created it.

In this way, we can see very clearly the difference between our modern culture and the ones from
ancient past -in those ancient civilizations, beauty as the ideal, virtue as the ideal, become
embodied in their many forms of art. We see that virtuous beauty is celebrated in ancient art, and
we see how much longevity there is in those forms of creation, whether it is architecture, or
sculpture, writing, poems, plays.
Throughout the history of art, the human being is always the central topic, not only because the
human being is the greatest mystery, but because the heart of that mystery is that we have the
potential to become real, complete human beings; all the ancient artists knew that the human
being contains the potential to become the highest ideal of creation - to become a Buddha, a
Paramarthasatya, a Dharmakaya, to become that perfected mind - the embodiment of love, the
embodiment of all highest ideals. This is why art has always in past times reflected that perfection.
The source or foundation of that perfection is Tiphereth, the human soul.

In the Bible is an interesting story about the process of creating the perfect human being. It is a
story in the book of Kings, and the details that are written in this story in the Bible are sometimes
scanty, somewhat un-clarified. But that story of King David and his son King Solomon and the
building of the Temple of Solomon was taken and elaborated upon by the Freemasons who have
as their core mythology the story of Hiram Abiff.