Before you cringe and think that this post will be about putting God above your romantic life, and being a spiritual being before you are a husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend or any -friend in between, don’t worry. That’s all fancy-talk. We’re going to be realistic.
Valentine’s Day, February 14th, has always been a holiday for lovers – a concept predating Christianity. It used to be the Roman festival of Lupercalia, a spring festival in honor of sex and romance. Literally, Spring Awakening. Valentine’s Day as modern Christians know it was named after a saint only under the watch of the Catholic Church, who decided to relabel a pre-existing holiday in honor of someone named Valentine. So, it became St. Valentine’s feast day in honor of courtly love.
So, as Gnostics, we might as well dedicate this day to one of our own: the wisdom of the holy Valentinus.
Valentinian Gnostics viewed marriage as an archetype of salvation. They were constantly looking beyond the physical dimension of love, because they acknowledged the impermanence of the physical world. Some scholars suggest they were celibate and promoted sexual renunciation. Others say they delighted in physical marriage because it represented the syzygy of Divine love. In reality, it seems that Valentinians followed no consistent practice that we can clearly outline.
When the Demiurge...wanted to imitate also the boundless, eternal, infinite, and timeless nature of the original eight Aeons of the fullness, but could not express their immutable eternity, being as he was a fruit of the defect, he embodied their eternity in times, epochs, and great numbers of years, under the delusion that by the quantity of times he could represent their infinity. Thus truth escaped him...Therefore his work shall pass away when the times are fulfilled. Writings of Holy Valentinus
Many people in the 21st century agree that extended sexual abstinence in pursuit of spiritual wholeness is an archaic idea. However, the dreaded and dangerous Christian “purity culture” still exists. While celibacy may provide some insight beyond the base desire to bump uglies, it simply isn’t for everyone. There are plenty of other ways to come to the conclusion that sexual satisfaction is not a substitute for a loving will and spiritual integrity. Once this is realized, then abstinence serves only a social purpose – no longer a spiritual one.
What we need, what lasts, is something which fills and heals the fragmentation and chaos of our human condition. To Gnostics, this is the union of our consciousness with the Divine. We can marry among our own in this world while also pursuing a celestial union. But which comes first? Which assists, or lifts up, the other?
Once we fall in love with Love, we are better equipped to love in our mortal lives. When we recognize our innermost Self, we are constantly attended and aware of our spiritual helpers who never fail. We become more open to encountering divine partners, twin flames. Loving becomes both a conscious and unconscious act, and a state of being, enabling us to approach our human relationships without resentment and with fully caring hearts.
In love, we grow and grow. In love, as in Love, there is no corruption and nothing unnatural. There is nothing gross in love. If we recognize each other as spiritual beings, then we see beyond appearances. We should not be concerned with how people have sex, how often, or who with. We should be concerned with each other’s affair with greater Love. We should be concerned with our own.
If the Light dwells within all beings, and all beings learn to love the Light, then what a happy existence we shall have in this world.