Jesus said, “If a blind man leads a blind man, they will both fall into a pit.”
In this saying, Lord Yeshua is speaking not only of faith, but of gnosis. Faith is the beginning of the enlightenment experience, but gnosis is the fruit. While faith is the intuitive glimpse of the Truth and Light, gnosis is the actual experience of it, the recognition and realization of the Christ-self within oneself. It is from this experience that an apostle of God teaches and guides the disciple.
While the exoteric and orthodox churches of Christianity have founded themselves upon faith, the original church, the sacred circle of disciples gathered round the perfect Master, was founded upon gnosis. The Lord taught a path of gnosis, an actual enlightenment experience, without which the Christian Tradition proceeds in blindness as an empty shell lacking the kernel of Truth and Light.
You are first awakened through faith, but your faith must become an active invocation of direct spiritual experience. Through spiritual practice and spiritual living, receiving the teachings and initiations of secret wisdom, you are called not only to cultivate an ever-stronger faith, but to seek direct spiritual experience of the Spirit of the Messiah. And more, you are called to embody something of that Holy Spirit. We must seek from the Lord the healing of our spiritual blindness and spiritual deafness, so that we might see and hear the Spirit of God. We are to pray and meditate, seeking the fulfillment of our faith in true Gnosis of the Living Christ.
Now, you must understand that the Way itself is the enlightenment experience. The path itself is the noble ideal and goal. There is no goal but the Way, which is the Truth and the Light, the Divine Life. To remember and practice it is to gain direct spiritual experience of Messianic consciousness and to receive a flow of Divine Grace. Receiving teachings and initiations is receiving the seeds of blessings, but all blessings are brought to fruition through practicing and living the Truth and Light. Not only will we believe with understanding, we will also know it in our own experience. We will not speak what we believe or think to be true. Instead, as Saint John has said, “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life.“ We will speak what we know and understand, having directly experienced the Truth and Light. This is what Gnostic Christianity means, a Christianity of spiritual knowledge (Gnosis)—hence, a Christianity based upon the direct experience of Messianic consciousness. It is this experience that is the very essence of ordination into the apostolic succession, without which an apostle of God is not yet an apostle. It is this direct experience of Messianic consciousness that distinguishes the succession of prophets from the succession of apostles—hence, two different levels of the holy covenant.
The faith of which the Master is speaking is a faith in the direct experience of the Spirit of God and Messianic consciousness, faith in the indwelling Christ-Spirit and the Divine potential in your humanity. It is a faith in the possibility of direct spiritual experience and knowledge, which is called true Gnosis. It is this that gives spiritual sight and spiritual hearing and the coming into being of the subtle body as the Body of Light.
Such gnosis is acquired through initiation and the metanoia or change in consciousness that follows. Initiation is an introduction to a higher state of consciousness or recognition of something within oneself. One must then integrate this experience through one’s own spiritual practice and daily living. It is this process that brings initiation to fruition. Thus, one who has initiation and has brought it to fruition is not blind but seeing, and those who see are fit to guide others. Conversely, one devoid of initiation, and the realization that comes from spiritual practice according to the Spirit of Truth, is blind and unfit to guide others.
The Master is speaking of initiates, those who have direct experience of the Truth, as teachers and guides acting with Divine authority. One must first be a disciple before becoming an apostle, and one must be an apostle before engaging fully in teaching and initiating others. One must act with Divine authority.
In this sense, the Master is also speaking to the truth-seeker regarding identifying a teacher who has sight and is not spiritually blind. The seeker must sense or see that the apostle embodies something of a higher consciousness and that the Divine presence and power moves with the apostle. It is the Divine presence that distinguishes one who sees and has Divine authority. It is not authority of any human being or any human theology or dogma that must teach and guide, but the living presence and the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, it is the Holy Spirit that will teach and initiate the aspirant.