The Ten Forces

"...the absolute, insurmountable unity of The Twelve can be assailed by the Ten Forces; only the Ten Forces can bring a solution, for when they begin to assert themselves, The Twelve automatically recede".

The Ten Forces, or Virtues, are:

Gnosis
Joy
Courage (Forebearance)
Self-Control
Righteousness (Justice)
Magnaminity
Truth
The Only Good
Life
Light

[QUOTING]

If you understand the Process of Rebirth, if you can really see how the Light-raiment of the Sophia develops -- and only a complete acceptance will make this possible --  if you truly recognize the Gnosis, the Sophia, then ignorance, the first vice, will be driven out. Hermes says that if you truly come to recognition, to insight, from within, you will be purified. If you do not simply accept the truth of the Gnosis on authority, but experience it from within, ignorance will recede from you.

Through purification and growing self-knowledge, ignorance is cast out and straight away, a great tremor of Joy will pass through you, reverberating throughout your being. This Joy casts out all sorrow: the second vice. It cannot be compared with any joy in the nature-of-death, any happiness arising from the interplay of opposites. It is a scintillating force from the life-sphere of the Soul-state; it confers upon you an inner state that will never fade.

Imagine that this ignorance has been taken away from you in a fundamental way, and in your nature-born state of experience it is as if the veils have been removed. Ignorance has vanished. And straight away, a glorious radiation descends into you from the Light-raiment of the Sophia - if you possess it - bringing with it an inner Joy that fills you utterly and passes all understanding. And behold, intemperance is driven out in the same way, for the flood of inner Joy poured out over you continues flowing into you in a steady rhythm, feeding and sustaining you. And as a result, any tendency towards disequilibrium -- which is what Hermes  means by 'intemperance' -- disappears.

If you are living in such a torrent of abundance, you will no longer want to keep on renewing your attachment to the nature-of-death. This renunciation of everything dualistic, this forebearance will drive out the vice of desire. By 'desire', Hermes means 'chasing after earthly goals' == the constant pursuit of  things on a horizontal level, things which are purely of the earth, earthly. So, when you stand in the steadily flowing current of energy coming from the Light-vesture surrounding you, the vice of desire will be driven out.

If you regard life and action in the nature-of-death with an objective eye, because you possess and experience the Inner Man, then, as Hermes says, this will provide a foundation for Justice. Then all unrighteousness will be banished without any trouble at all.

The person with an enlightened Soul lets his light shine over good and evil alike, over everyone and everything. Hermes calls this virtue Magnaminity, which drives out the vice of greed. Hermes does not mean greed for money or goods, or anything like that, but greed, miserliness with respect to your expressions of sympathy and the giving out of your love-radiations.

The Soul belong to everyone and is in everyone. The Soul makes no distinctions. Like the sun, it shines on good and bad alike. All that approval and disapproval, all those sympathies and antipathies people have, amount to nothing more than foolish, miserable unfairness and bias, and in Hermes' terms this vice can be called the worst, the most shameful desire. If you free yourself from this vice by radiating your Soul-power to everyone, regardless of who they are, then you will stand in the power of Truth. Then Truth will reveal itself, the Truth that dispels all lies, all deceit. Lies and deceit, in this sense, are the attachments and sympathies the nature-born human being harbors out of habit, or because of the expectations of society.

The world thirsts and sighs for truth! Only if Truth, in its absolute sense, enters the candidate, can The Only Good become perfect and complete in him. When Truth finds admittance, the Good, the Life and the Light appear. All jealousy, and any other vices, must then depart. And finally the moment comes when, out of the dark, dualistic nature-born body, no further vice emerges. All vices are banished, overcome by the storm of the soma psychikon. As soon as the Ten Virtues have entered, the Twelve Vices are vanquished. Only in this way can the Process of Rebirth from the Sophia be brought to completion. Many of you possess such splendid and glorious Soul-quality, and with it you should root all those vices out of your personality, with great determination, like a storm. Then you will make your body, your personality, a suitable tool in the service of God and mankind. Then there will no longer be anything to prevent you from rising right out of the nadir of materiality, and resurrection will become a fact. We hope and pray that you will soon complete this labor of purification.

"The Development of Gnostic Consciousness" - The Egyptian Arch-Gnosis, Vol. IV - J. Van Rijckenborgh

[END QUOTING]

Remember, however, that the "I" cannot cultivate these Virtues. They are bestowed upon the candidate once the Divine-Spark has been awakened and, in self-surrender, the candidate endeavors to 'walk in the light' from that point on. This reversal can be done, it must be done, in order for the Goal to be reached.

We must let go of the vices that 'make us human' and embrace the virtues that will enable us to become god-men and god-women.

~ g
.