About Truth, Illusion, Delusion and Dissolution

[QUOTING]

1 Hermes: It is impossible, O Tat, for a human being, an imperfect creature, to presume to speak about the Truth, since he is composed of imperfect members and, with regard to his sheath is constituted of an assemblage of foreign bodies. But what is possible and correct to say I will say: namely that Truth only exists in eternal bodies, the elements of which are also True: in fire, which is once and forever fire and nothing else; in earth, which is once and forever earth and nothing else; in air, which is once and forever air and nothing else; in water, which is once and forever water, and nothing else.

2 Our bodies, on the other hand, are composed from all these elements together; they contain Fire, and also Earth, and further more Water and Air; yet they are neither fire, nor earth, nor water, nor air, nor anything whatsoever that is True.

3 If then, from the beginning Truth is foreign to the physical constitution, how shall it hold or express Truth? It will only be able to understand Truth if God wills.

4 The things of this earth, O Tat, are not the Truth, but the imitations of Truth; and not all are even that, but only a few of them. The rest are lies and error, O Tat; illusion which only consists of phantoms. When, however, such an illusion receives an influx from Above, it becomes a replica of the Truth. Without this superior influence it remains a lie, an untruth. It is the same with a portrait that is an image of a body; the painting is not the body it represents. It has eyes, but they see nothing, ears, but they hear nothing. The painting also shows all the other parts, but it is all illusion that deceives the sight of the observers. They think they see the Truth whereas reality is a mere lie.

5 But when one observes something that is not a lie, then one beholds the Truth. So if we see or understand all those things as they actually are, we see and understand True things. If they are different from what they seem, we will neither understand nor know anything that is True.

6 Tat: There is then, Father, Truth even upon earth?

7 Hermes: You are mistaken, my son. There is certainly no Truth on earth, and neither can Truth be brought into being on earth. But it could happen that a few people could form an inkling with regard to the Truth. They are those to whom God has granted the ability to see it.

8 Tat: So there is nothing True on earth?

9 Hermes: I think and I proclaim that everything is illusion and delusion. The things I think and proclaim are True things.

10 Tat: But should one not indicate as Truth those things one thinks and proclaims as being True?

11 Hermes: How would that be possible? One must think and proclaim things as they are: on earth there is nothing True. This is True: that here, Below, there is no Truth. And how would that be possible, my son? Truth is the supreme Magnificence, the absolute Good which is not obscured by matter, nor encompassed by a body. Truth is the naked, luminous, unassailable, exalted, immutable Good.

12 But behold, my son, how the things which are here Below are unable to receive this Good. For they are perishable, subject to suffering, soluble, mutable, forever changing, passing from form to form. How could these things be the Truth, since they in themselves are not True? Everything that changes is illusion, because it does not remain in its Essence, but passes from form to form and thus presents a new appearance all the time.

13 Tat: Is not even man himself true, Father?

14 Hermes: As a man he is not, my son. Truth consists solely in itself and remains what it is. But a human being is composed of manifold elements and does not continue to be identical with himself. On the contrary, he changes and transforms from one age to another, and from one form to another, as long as he inhabits a body. Often, after but a short interval of time, parents no longer recognize their children, nor children their parents.

15 Can a creature which changes to such an extent as to be no longer recognizable be True, Tat? Should we not rather think that, on the contrary, this succession of diverse appearances is an illusion? Therefore, understand that only what is lasting and eternal is true. The human being is transient - therefore, he is not True. He is but appearance, and as such, the supreme illusion.

16 Tat: But Father, are the eternal bodies then not True either, since they also vary?

17 Hermes: Nothing that is brought forth and subject to change is True, but as those bodies were created by the First Father, it could be that their substance is True. Nevertheless, there is in those bodies, too, a certain falsity, because they are variable, because nothing is True save what remains identical with itself.

18 Tat: What may we then call True, Father?

19 Hermes: The Sun alone can be called True. While everything else changes, the Sun does not. That is the reason why only the Sun is entrusted to give form to everything in the world, to reign over and create everything. I venerate him and bow before his Truth; after the Only and First One I recognize in him the Demi-Ourgos, the constructor of the world.

20 Tat: And what, then, is the primordial Truth, Father?

21 Hermes:  The One and  Only, O Tat -- He who is not made of matter, nor exists in a body; who has neither color, nor form, who changes not, nor is changed, but who always Is.

However, what is illusion is perishable. The providence of what is True keeps all that is on earth encompassed in dissolution, and will always do so, for dissolution is the condition of all genesis. Everything that is brought forth dissolves so that creatures can again come to birth. It is necessary that out of dissolution life must come into existence, and what is born must, in turn, necessarily decay, in order that the generation of creatures will never cease. Behold the first active cause of the propagation of creatures who, born out of dissolution, are but illusion; at one time they are born like this, and at another like that. It is impossible for them to be born exactly the same. How could then what is reborn and not identical with itself, be True?

If one wanted to define this simulacrum in an accurate way , one ought to regard a human being as a sham person, a child as a pretence of childhood, a young person a sham one, an adult as a pretence of manhood, a greybeard not truly old. As soon as things change, they deceive, both to what they were and as to what they have become.

Yet, my son,  you must understand well that even the illusory activities here Below depend on that which is Above, that is, on the Truth itself. And indeed, since this is the case, I define Illusion as the expression of Truth.

Seventeenth Book of the Corpus Hermeticum - Hermes to Tat: About the Truth - The Egyptian Arch-Gnosis, Vol. 4 - Jan van Rijckenborgh

[END QUOTING]

In short: that which is Changeable cannot be True. That which is True remains so always. Therefore, anything subject to change or dissolution can never be True.

So what does that say about Man and this World? It says that we are but transient illusions. We come and we go. We are composed and then we break apart, again and again and again.

However, an atom of Truth does lie entombed within our microcosm. It is the Rose of the Heart, the Divine Spirit-Spark atom. It is this Truth which we are tasked with freeing from the bonds of illusion. It is this Truth that will liberate us from the Sleep of Ages, if we manage to find and triumphantly walk the Path of the True Way, the Path of Liberation.

You may have to read the above passage from the Seventeenth Book of the Corpus Hermeticum several times before gleaning its True import, but its meaning will most surely dawn on you eventually, pulling aside yet another veil.

~ g
.