in the “Authoritative Teaching” text

of 

The Nag Hammadi Library

I keep these verses that conclude a text found in the Nag Hammadi Library titled Authoritative Teaching on a sticky note attached to my piano next to my desk so that I can see it often.  

“But the rational soul who (also) wearied herself in seeking— she learned about God. She labored with inquiring, enduring distress in the body, wearing out her feet after the evangelists, learning about the Inscrutable One.  

She found her rising.  

She came to rest in him who is at rest. 

She reclined in the bride-chamber. She ate of the banquet for which she had hungered. She partook of the immortal food. 

She found what she had sought after.  She received rest from her labors, while the light that shines forth upon her does not sink. To it belongs the glory and the power and the revelation for ever and ever. Amen.” [1]

Who is this rational soul and what has she been through?  I feel a certain kinship with her.  I’m still wearing out my feet, learning, not knowing.  The “Inscrutable One” is showing up for me in the feminine lately and ‘She’ is another character in the divine feminine history.  

Her story is about the invisible and material worlds.  In the invisible world, her bridegroom feeds her and anoints her eyes with insight so that she knows her true self.  She descends into the visible world where ‘matter strikes blows at her eyes, wishing to make her blind’.  She pursues the truth and applies it to her eyes as medicine so that she can see through the matter, those hostile forces that fight with her…. “and she may make them blind with her light, and enclose them in her presence, and make them fall down in sleeplessness, and she may act boldly with her strength and with her scepter [signifying royal authority].”  In victory, she runs up to her treasure house, where her mind is.  

The visible, material world is like a fisherman who knows the exact type of bait that’s best to hook her. When she bites, it’s the food of death. This hook injects a pain which causes her heartache and while she’s in pain, he poisons her with doubt which helps her to soothe her pain with beautiful clothing, money and pride as well as confidence in her physicality. Finally, she resigns herself to ignorance and ease. 

Having tasted this poison, she learns and becomes wise to the emptiness of his deceit.  She becomes insightful to the transitory nature of the visible world. She gathers her strength, digs deep and eats life nourishing wisdom.  She strips off her clothes and exposes the beauty of her invisible body, the beauty of her mind.  She learns about her true self, her depth and… “she receives ten thousand times the grace and glory”.

The ‘fisherman’ wanted to strike down her invisible soul, but he ‘didn’t realize she knew another way which is hidden’.

I’m studying Buddhism, Daoism, and Hinduism right now in my Religions of the World class.  The path to enlightenment is based in just this.  Seeking the light, the invisible, the true self.  The story of this woman, whomever she should be, was pelted by the world, was hooked, hurt, and poisoned.  Her story is our story.  She is the divine feminine in all of us.  She rose above by looking within.  She found her invisible body, her beautiful mind, and received liberation and insight.  

I’ll remember her the next time I’m pelted with a rock of uncertainty, or enticed with information that seems true, but my gut says…nawwwwww, just wait.  Just pray.  Just go within for your strength.  

I’ll be thinking of her resting there with me. 
  

[1] Macrae, G. W. (1996). Authoritative Teaching (VI, 3). In D. M. Parrott & J. M. Robinson (Eds.), The Nag Hammadi library in English (4th rev. ed., p. 310). Leiden; New York: E. J. Brill.