“Let us worship the spirit of the comforter, bless lord Jesus who sent us the spirit of truth. He came and split us from the world’s error. He came with a mirror, we looked. In it was the cosmos. When the holy spirit came she disclosed the way of truth. It taught us two natures, light and darkness, distinct from the beginning. The kingdom of light has five greatnesses: father and his twelve aeons, and the aeons of aeons, the living air, the land of light, and the enormous spirit through whom they breath and which nourishes them with light. But the kingdom of darkness has five storehouses: smoke and fire and wind and water and darkness. Their advocate creeps in them, inciting them to make war on each other. When making war they dared attack the land of light. They supposed they could vanquish it and didn’t know that their plans would crash down on their own heads. There was a horde of angels in the land of light, ready to pour out and break the father’s enemy. They were pleased to have the father’s word to rout those rebels who saw themselves exalted. The angels were like a shepherd who sees a lion padding near to destroy the fold, who cunningly takes a lamb and sets it as a snare to catch the lion. With a single lamb he saves his fold, heals the lamb, and wounds the lion. Such is the way of the father who sent forth his strong son” ~The Coptic Manichaean Songbook
Spirit of the Comforter
It seems odd to me to refer to Jesus as a comforter. He came to rock the boat. He came to get people out of their complacency and acceptance of limited, materialistic views of religion. While he offered comfort by telling us the true God of spirit was a loving and tolerant God, unlike the vengeful and Jealous Jehovah, He also came to get us out of our comfort zone and into working for the true awakening of our souls. He promised comfort, but only by working hard to reach that stage of development first. Sadly, many Christians of today have wondered far from what Jesus was actually teaching and now believe that he was the comforter and didn’t want us to do anything, just let him do it all and we could simply worship Him. That, of course, is not at all what Jesus taught. It isn’t what any of the great founders of religions taught. Comfort comes only after each of us does the hard work himself.
World of Error
In the time of Jesus, the world was in error by believing that sacrificing animals or other things to God (or gods) was the way to win favor. The idea that destroying the creatures that were already God’s would please Him is just stupid, yet many believed it. Jesus taught us that what the real God wanted us to sacrifice was our own materialistic and egotistical wants and desires, and instead develop our spiritual faculties.
Today, the religious environment is different, but just as lost as back then. None of the major religions of today engage in human or animal sacrifice. But some of them have become very materialistic. Many think that helping people with material problems is what religion is all about. Wrong! While feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc., are all good things to do, they are social goods, not spiritual. So that is why this is a world of error and has been for a long time. But we are now at the dawn of a new Golden Age of Light that will change that if we don’t prevent it from happening.
Two Natures
There are two natures. The one nature of light, and the one of darkness. The quote says they were distinct from the beginning, but that is not exactly true. The darkness did not exist at all until it was created by the Demiurge. Before that, all was light. But it is correct to say that the realm of light is completely separate from the realm of darkness.
There are many who say that we can’t develop only our light side, our light being. They say we must develop both the light and dark equally. That is the wish of the dark demons who rule that realm. We have to acknowledge that the darkness is real. We do not have to embrace it. We have to convert it back into light. We have to bring more and more light into the darkness until there is no darkness left. God will be doing most of it, but only if we decide to help.
War of Light against Darkness
The Manichaean song quoted above has it correct. There is a war between the forces of darkness and the forces of light. It is a foolish war, but then the fans of darkness are fools. If we think of ordinary darkness and light, it will be obvious that light defeats darkness simply by being present. Put a light into a dark room and it is no longer dark. It may still have dark corners, but it isn’t completely dark. Now try putting a piece of darkness into a brightly lit room and what happens? First, how do you do that? You can use a lamp, candle, or flashlight to put light into a room, but how do you add darkness? Second, even if you had some device that could add darkness to the room, it would still be lit. Darkness can’t overcome light. Only by removing the light can the room become dark.
But in the war of light vs darkness, we are speaking of a different kind of light. This is a spiritual light. It is a light of truth and wisdom. It is a light of peace and growth. Whereas the darkness on this level represents the world of lies, greed, death, and disease. In short, the light is spirit and the darkness is matter. But much like the regular light and darkness, spiritual light is never totally eliminated. The darkness of matter is never total. There is always a little spirit hidden within it. This makes it possible for those being trapped in the realm of matter to be saved. They are saved by transformation.
Weapons in the War
Artists often depict the war of Light against Darkness as if it were an ordinary human war with both sides fighting with swords, knives, or even guns. Nothing could be further from the truth. The weapons in this war are quite different. The weapons of the forces of darkness are lies, deception, and control. The weapons of light are truth, wisdom, freedom, and transformation. The angels not only work to transform us, humans, they even work on transforming those fallen angels and their offspring. They have succeeded with some, at least to the extent of getting them to switch sides. But we must all transform before the world we live in can transform as well. That will be the final end of darkness.
