Listen to enough Talk Gnosis and you’ll notice a few things pop up again and again: Gnostic ascent, Montreal weather, and me quoting a Zen proverb that goes like this:

“Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

Often on the show we want to give you the most exciting 45 minutes of Gnostic content so you can hear us discuss a lot about mystical experiences, insane creator gods, miracles, communication with higher intelligences, and rising up through creation to see the Divine for yourself. Honestly, this is probably more fun to talk about, and to listen to, than a podcast about washing dishes, making small talk in an elevator, and being late for work. And more enjoyable than these very acts themselves.

In our first instalment of our Gurdjieff series our guest Richard Hodges says,

“We only live an imaginary life…to really live a moment of life is already an immense thing and to live a whole day, a whole week, this is something extraordinary.”

The ancient Gnostics used metaphors saying that people are drunk or asleep (or even more extreme that most people are dead), most of us are not awake to own lives. Gurdjieff updates the metaphors and teaches that we spend our day-to-day in a hypnotized state or that we do most thinks mechanically, like pre-programmed robots.

Hold that thought while I switch gears into another rant for a sec, as humans we’re set up to crave peak experiences, and we live in a culture where all sorts of many tiny mini peak experiences are built into our lives. Be it the hit of dopamine we get from sugary and fatty foods, the thrill of intoxication from beers with friends, the thrill of something blowing up on the big screen, and joy of lust from the sexy actor starring in that ad.

And if you’re interested in the esoteric and follow some path be it Gnosticism or the Fourth Way there’s a good chance you’re a convert. And many of us come to these from religions or philosophies, be it atheist or a mainline religion or agnostic or what-have-you, that wasn’t doing it for us. We weren’t experiencing the Divine in the way we craved so we found something else—many of us come looking for those peak religious experiences.

But all of life is suffused with sacredness, and we’re unaware of it due to being in that state of waking sleep Gurdjieff teaches about. The language of “be here now” and “just be present” has been co-opted by yoga pants manufacturers and yogurt commercials but that doesn’t make it any less true. Go on the quest to find the grail, seek the numinous, and push yourself up through the spheres, but remember it can be a holy act to take out the garbage.

We’re going to be exploring the sacredness of the here-and-now for the rest of the month, while also delving into some of the ways and methods we can use to go from 24/7 dreaming to fully conscious. Please join us for the rest and as always share your insights and questions in the comments!