Conversation
I'm starting to think that the gnostics were right, that the creator of the universe was fuckin evil. It's trapped us in a prison of flesh and suffering.
2
1
6
Buddhists have a similar idea in which the neverending wheel of suffering, Samsara, is lorded over by a demon king named Mara. But Samsara wasn't created, it's just an endless cycle of suffering and dying.
2
5
That's kind of like what the gnostics say. It's an endless cycle. One has to extricate themselves from it thru detachment, same as the Buddhists teach. Gnostics also say there is metempsychosis, where souls have to come back and deal with past karma.
1
3
Many Gnostic ideas came from Platonic thought, like the demiurge and transmigration. Greek and India shared between ~ 500-300 bce. So, Buddhism and Gnosticism are sorta cousins.
My issue with many of the Gnostic Gospels is the theism and reliance on Christ as Messiah.
2
2
I read somewhere while back that the Gnostics may have come into contact with Buddhist teachings and been informed by them.
2
3
This Tweet is from an account that no longer exists. Learn more
Schopenhauer examined and even studied to an extent Buddhism’s-illness of existence before he came up with a cure which was his unfinished manuscript “The Art of Being Happy” which is 50 rules of life
1
3
In Schopenhauer's World as Will and Idea he goes into the Vedantic system to a great extent and even puts forth a theory of life after death, that the innermost kernal of being is immortal