I Am Not A Gnostic Poem by Mohammad Younus

I am not a gnostic,
I pretend to be a gnostic.
I stepped away from knowing
for a long time before.

For one to be a gnostic,
one must reflect
his intuitions into words.
For one to reflect,
one must absorb.
And so, I must leave
what I was doing,
under the weight of
my illusions.

I stayed back
and tried to distance myself
as far from my illusions
as possible,
like astral projection.

While experiencing truth
through divine eyes,
I may drift far away
from my false self.
It sometimes works,
and it did for me.

As my new day starts,
I see it as the end of night—
a dark state of being,
giving birth to light,
a place to begin.

I always fight too hard,
strive too hard,
through all the good times,
and I always end up
redeemed.

To emerge different,
to rise from a lower rung
to a higher rung
on the ladder of gnosis.

So, I leave behind
what I once thought to be true
in my illusion,
and begin to seek
what I must know.

New colors, new patterns,
new paintings, new visions,
to match my growth
as a gnostic,
towards my highest self's wisdom.

I have been thinking a lot
about divine wisdom—
what it represents,
and how it touches me.

I once thought
that the power of wisdom
lay in my willpower,
how it could add to me,
how it could grow flowers,
and avoid thorns.

But it was the doubt
caused by my illusion
of duality.
In truth, I do what you envision.
You think what you will.
You are the absolute being,
the provenance of light and darkness.

Darkness is often mistaken—
the realm of the lost,
the absence of light.
Yet darkness births light,
giving it space to be,
a place to start.

You choose to grace me
with your knowledge and wisdom.
How can I claim to be a true gnostic?
No one can tame reality—
only know it in the measure
you allow him to.
So a gnostic goes
where you guide.

One must be one with reality,
to become familiar with
Him who is the font of knowledge
and wisdom,
to absorb them
and identify the true gnostic within.

Once you reach a state of
complete acceptance,
you shed the cloak of duality
and dance in perfect rhythm.

A gnostic in your image
knows the wisdom needed
to understand what must be known,
and the knowledge to accept
what should be accepted—
not through defeat,
but through honorable resignation.

I stayed so long in a state of rejection,
trying so hard to be something else,
to dream somewhere else,
while keeping my true wisdom waiting,
for so long.
And now, I understand.

I apologized,
and most importantly,
the All-Wise accepted my apology.

For now, the thought of illusion
no longer scares me.
The dream to vanish is gone.
I live through you—
you are the dancer,
and I am the dance.
The opposite can never happen.

MyKoul