I have recently come to realize that I am spiritually and philosophically most aligned with the teachings of Gnosticism and Buddhism. One might say, if anyone had a clue what it means, that I am a Gnostic Buddhist. I also learned recently that the 1999 movie “The Matrix” is considered by many to be a “Dahrma movie” (a fundamental truth movie), teaching the concepts of both Gnosticism and Buddhism with not so subtle hidden imagery. Therefore I would like to take a moment to discuss Gnostic Buddhism through the lens of this popular sci-fi film to help clarify what I also have come to believe.
The Matrix begins with the main character Neo having fallen asleep at his desk when a strange message appears on his computer telling him to “Wake up.” A casual viewer might think this refers to Neo waking up from sleeping on the job but it actually carries a bigger meaning in the film which is essentially, wake up from the dream illusion you have been living your entire life and become spiritually enlightened. This therefore is the premise of the entire movie: how to become enlightened from a Gnostic Buddhist perspective.
If you recall from the movie, there is an an evil artificial intelligence that has created an elaborate illusion to enslave all of humanity. That’s the Gnostic part of the story. In the Gnostic understanding, the creator God of the Bible (whom the Hebrews called YHWH and Gnostics call the Demiurge) is essentially an evil (or at least seriously deluded) entity that believes himself to be the only true God even though in reality there are other “gods” more powerful than he is that he’s unaware of. This deluded “god” then created our physical universe and created lesser beings (angels and humans) and entrapped them in a physical prison for the express purpose of worshiping him and serving him as the “one true god” in order to serve his own ego.
Later however, other entities (or gods) more power than the Demiurge sent a representative of theirs into the “evil” physical world in order to teach others how to escape their physical prison. That representative is the one the Bible might call “Jesus” and is typified in the movie the Matrix by Neo (an anagram of the “One”). Neo is seen as a savior figure who solves the mystery of the Matrix and now has freed himself from his prison and now can teach others how to break free from their prison as well.
According to the Matrix, we humans are ACTUALLY living inside of sealed pods or cocoons, kept alive by feeding tubes and caused to remain perpetually in a dream state that is “The Matrix”. This then is the Buddhist part of the story. In this dream state we humans are lead to believe that we are actual living, talking, walking, human beings going about our daily lives making friends, collecting a paycheck, and pursuing happiness in whatever form the Matrix delivers all while being completely unaware to the fact that their entire existence is just an illusion. It is, as Morpheus explains in the movie, “a prison for your mind”. Breaking free of the prison is not something one can simply be told about, you must “see it for yourself” by waking up from the dream and seeing where you REALLY are (which is not here).
While I would enjoy breaking down the entire movie as I see it, the point of this all is to explain through a simple metaphor how I personally tend to view reality. Like the Matrix, I tend to believe a little mixture of both Gnostic and Buddhist (even Hindu and Kabbalistic) philosophy is necessary to explain my personal views. Were I to make a movie depicting my worldview, it would be a hodgepodge mixture as well. No single religious system seems to accurately portray how I personally have come to understand reality and thus a blending of multiple traditions is necessary.
To summarize a very complex belief system, I would say that I believe that ALL is God. That is, that everything that exists is itself a form of God. This “god” as we might call is is pure energy or universal consciousness and is continually dividing itself and “forgetting” itself for the purpose of trying to find itself again in a colossal game of hide and seek at a level we mortals cannot fully comprehend. One division of this universal energy became an entity by which the Bible refers to as YHWH and that entity was responsible for dividing itself as well and creating lesser beings and a physical/material universe which we believe we reside in now. But the illusion is that we are ALL the same energy and our physical universe is only a small fraction of what we are. We are the same energy as a rock and the same energy as YHWH, but we have forgotten this because ‘god’ wanted to forget itself in order to seek and find itself again. And thus for the Christian it is true that “for us there is only one God,” who made the physical universe. Those who believe themselves as lesser beings are correct in part that there is only one entity responsible for the creation of our physical/material universe. So long as one identified as a lesser being, one will likely always feel compelled to WORSHIP the greater being that created it. However, when one realizes that you ALSO are the being that created you, then the illusion begins to be shattered and like in the Matrix, you begin to see the illusion for what it is and become more enlightened. Now if only I could fly!