Mary Magdalene, Enlightened Master
The Illuminated Wisdom and Spiritual Insights of Jesus’ Most Advanced Disciple
The often overlooked Gospel of Mary gives modern readers a window into one of the most extraordinary women of all time and her mind-bending insights into the nature of reality. The radiant wisdom she shares not only illuminates some of the most important and intractable questions of life and death but, not unlike the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it also provides an otherworldly guide to how each of us can achieve lasting peace in this life.
Before we explore her consciousness-bending ‘hacks’ for living our best life, it is worth briefly recalling who Mary was. Despite the stories that surround her even to this day in many quarters, Mary Magdalene was not the sinning bit-character who Jesus exorcised demons from (as the Gospel of Luke relates), nor was she a repentant prostitute (as the Catholic church had us believe until 2016). Contrary to these memories, a close reading of her gospel would suggest that Mary was very likely the most advanced of Jesus’ disciples.
Her Gospel itself is a complex and abstract piece of work and the spiritual messages encoded within it do not lend themselves to easy one liners or, actually, to intellectual understanding at all. Because they play with our concrete understandings of reality and force us out of self-identification, her teachings in some ways are better described as ‘brain hacks’ than history or literature or even religious instruction. Making the comprehension of her Gospel’s meaning even more difficult, what has survived into our time are only fragments of the original text (the most complete version we have is still missing six manuscript pages at the beginning and four pages in the middle, which is to say, most of it).
While there has been an insufficient appreciation for Mary’s place in the pantheon of spiritual masters throughout history, there have been a number of books written on the history of Mary Magdalene and the details of her Gospel. But much of what is written doesn’t delve into the mystical and esoteric aspects of her teaching (or at least not very far). The rest of this article therefore is an attempt to elucidate this dimension of the Mary Gospel.
In a nutshell, her message is that we are in truth part of what might be called a non-dual whole. Once we understand the nature of reality as such, we will see that desire and negative emotions and suffering all arise from our ignorance of this truth. She teaches that if we can come to grips with this knowledge of the true nature of ourselves and reality, we will be free from suffering and even death itself. And finally, Jesus is always there to help us with that awakening.
Unity: We “exist within each other”
We’ll begin unpacking these insights with perhaps the central message of the Gospel of Mary: that the Kingdom is here within us, and it is the same within all of us. Since we all share in this same spiritual core, everything in the phenomenal world that we perceive with our senses partakes of a single unity. And not in some abstract or elemental sense. The Gospel is speaks of being ‘one’ in a living, experientially knowable sense.
The way Jesus puts it in the Gospel of Mary is that “All natures, all formed things, all creatures exist in and with each other, and they will dissolve into their own root,” (Mary 2:2). Or, in an alternative translation, “The nature of every form, every creature, everything — they exist within each other, and again they will dissolve into their own origin.”
From that statement, we can infer that this thing we call reality and what we think of as our ‘self’ are tricks of our brains. All of us go through our lives with the dualistic (subject/object) illusion that we are an individual and distinct entity and everything around us is separate. We look down at our bodies and they look separated in space from the chair we are sitting on or the book or phone we are holding or the person we are sitting beside. But, according to Mary, Jesus taught that this is not true. We are like water poured into water, or, to use the suggestive words from Mary’s gospel, every person and every thing in the world of form is “in and with each other.”
The possibility that each of us can awaken to the truth about reality is a central element of the good news Jesus was intent on teaching us. It is good news because understanding this truth opens the possibility that the experiences we all have of lack and separation and suffering can end. Jesus says “the good came among you, to those of every nature, in order to restore every nature to its root” (Mary: 5). Jesus, or his message if you like, is “the good” in that sentence and the “root” (alternatively translated as “origin”) is the source or essence of who we are. So we can read this passage to mean that Jesus’s teachings can restore us to our “root,” or our true spiritual nature.
At our root, our foundation, we aren’t the physical husk of a body and brain we think we are. The problem is that “you love what deceives you,” (Mary 3:8) that is, we are so infatuated with our bodies and the things or forms of the world of matter and phenomena that we think they are true reality. He has come to remind us of the truth and help us stop ‘loving’ the ‘deception’ that our body/brain is who we really are. Instead, he teaches that we are all one (“we exist in and with each other”).
We now know scientifically that this oneness claim about our bodies is true given the continuum that is observed among matter at the level of atoms and molecules. But what Jesus is talking about actually goes further than this science-based notion of inter-being or the constant interconnection and exchange happening at the atomic or sub-atomic level. Jesus is talking about something far more breathtaking and difficult to comprehend than that. According to Jesus in the Gospel of Mary, we are mistaken to think that each one of us is an individuated, separate entity that is born as a body, lives a ‘life’ and then dies. This is simply an illusion that we are deceived by. He dispels this deception with the idea that, at our ‘root,’ we are a spiritual being that is timelessly and intimately connected to every other being in a way that we can experience right now. This is a foundational concept in the Gospel of Mary, stated in the first few lines of the Gospel. And it underlies much of what is to come in the chapters that follow.
Harmartia: There Is No Such Thing As Sin
One consequence of this idea that “we are more than our bodies” that the Mary Gospel explores is that concepts like conflict or tragedy or illness or sin are illusory. This is a crucial claim, because many people refuse to believe in God because they observe suffering and injustice all around them.
So what does Mary’s Jesus have to say about this? First we need to understand what Jesus means by ‘sin’. Throughout the Gospels in the New Testament and the non-canonical Gospels as well, when Jesus spoke of ‘sin’ he was referring not just to individual wrongdoing but the suffering and oppression and sickness and evil and tragedy that arises when we misunderstand the nature of reality (‘harmartia’ is the word for sin used in the bible and means, literally, ‘missing the mark’). We need to keep this definition of sin in mind when we read in the Gospel of Mary that Peter asks Jesus to teach them about the meaning of sin (Mary 3:3–14). Jesus responds to Peter’s question in this passage with the shocking and counter-intuitive response that “There is no such thing as sin,” (Mary 3:3).
In this passage, Jesus explains that there is no sin in the world on its own (‘No sin exists outside of you’ Mary 3:3). We have the choice to identify with our “root” / true self (i.e. that we are fundamentally and truly spiritual beings who are timeless and one with God and everything else); or we can believe the illusion that we are just a material form, a separate individual. Jesus in Mary uses the colorful metaphor of infidelity to describe the state of illusion that gives rise to sin: we are cheating on our true self by consorting with our material self. He says that when we “mingle as in adultery” (Mary 3:4), we create sin. Matter or form is not heavenly, not true, and therefore not real. When you indulge your addiction or love of this illusion, you are ‘sinning’ and therefore suffering is the inevitable result.
Your true self (what he calls Life and Mind and the Kingdom of Heaven) is true reality. The world of form in all of its manifestations (our body, the air we breathe, suffering, etc.) is devoid of Life and Mind; is not of the Kingdom of Heaven. When we love (or identify with) our bodily self and the ever-changing world of form (aka our mistress) we are missing the truth (aka ‘sinning’) and therefore suffering, passion, and confusion will be our experience. (This, by the way, is a very similar lesson to Buddha’s teachings of non-attachment and the way to end suffering e.g. the Four Noble Truths).
Jesus makes the point that missing the truth ultimately will lead to our death: “This is why we get sick and die.” (Mary 3:7). He is saying that when we are trapped in a complete, “adulterous” absorption into this bodily self and we believe that the world of form and phenomenon is all there is, then we will not only suffer but we will get sick, grow old and die right along with our bodies. That is what bodies do. If that is who we believe ourselves to be, then we will suffer the same fate.
Jesus: “His grace will be with you all”
Unfortunately, as the Gospel suggests, coming to a stable and continuous sense of who we really are (i.e. one with all and free from suffering/sin) is an incredibly difficult and elusive endeavor. But the good news, Mary’s Gospel tells us, is that we have a guide along this journey of self-discovery or remembrance: Jesus himself. Jesus says that even after he is gone from the earth, “the Son of Man” is still within each of us (Mary 4:5). Rather than following some human’s rules (for example the dictates of a church or patriarch), we should turn to our inner self where we will find Jesus’ voice and his truth.
According to the disciple Levi in the Gospel of Mary, Jesus had commanded the disciples not to be “laying down any rules or making laws,” but rather to preach “the good news” (Mary 10:12–13) of who we really are. How do we find the inner truth or uncover the ‘Jesus knowledge’ within each of us? Jesus tells us in the Mary Gospel simply that “Those who search for it will find it,” and when we do ‘find it’ we should trust that knowledge from within us enough that we should “Follow it” (Mary 4:6–7).
Apparently the other disciples were too busy mourning Jesus’ physical body’s death to appreciate this truth so Mary again explains to them this idea that the truth of Jesus is accessible to all of us anytime regardless of who we are. She tells them that “his grace will be with you all and will shelter you” (Mary 5:6). Mary’s Gospel explains that the peace and happiness and fulfillment that the Kingdom of Heaven and Jesus himself represents is in the truest sense what each one of us is. Since it is who we really are, we need only look, and we will find it. It is up to each one of us to access or acquire or remember that which already belongs to us; to claim our own innate freedom; to accept the ‘shelter’ of oneness embodied in this man called Jesus of Nazareth.
Mary’s Gospel also explains where not to look for the truth. Almost anticipating what was to come, the text makes it clear that a church or some other leader does not have authority over Jesus’ message nor over each person’s access to the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus says “’Acquire my peace within yourselves! Be on your guard so that no one deceives you by saying, ‘Look over here’ or ‘Look over there.’” (Mary 4:2–4) And the disciple Levi continues in this vein at the end of the Gospel of Mary, saying, “we should … put on perfect humanity … as he commanded us, and preach the good news, not making any rule or law other than what the savior indicated.” (Mary 10)
Mary’s Vision: “Break the chain of forgetfulness”
In the longest and most esoteric section of the Gospel, Mary reveals to the other disciples what Jesus shared with her in a vision she had after his passing. In Mary’s vision, the soul has a conversation with the powers of the material realm. The dialog is told in a highly symbolic and abstract language, and we pick it up in the middle thanks to the partial manuscript, so it is difficult to follow. Nevertheless, we can with a little work uncover the meaning hidden in this section.
In her vision, we read that when the human mind is under the sway of the powers belonging to the lower self and the world of form or matter, it can’t perceive this other realm of Life or Heaven that Jesus and Mary are discussing. The typical human mind is incapable of perceiving or proving the truth of its own non-duality. It is unable to perceive its oneness with everyone else, everything else and the ‘all’. Humans don’t suddenly or naturally awaken to the light and perfection of their true selves. Indeed, people will either simply not understand what it is these enlightened masters are saying, or will insist that the invisible realm of heaven and the truth of ‘oneness’ must be a lie. At best, the untrained mind will say that ‘heaven’ is some place people go when they die or that comes when Jesus returns to Earth for real.
But, and here is the key part, we can break free from “the chain of forgetfulness which exists in time” (Mary 9:28) through stillness and silence. Jesus, in the vision, tells Mary that “’What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been destroyed, and my desire has been brought to an end, and ignorance has died.” (Mary 9:27). The body binds the soul to the physical world but this has now been ‘slain.’ After the physical form is gone, ignorance and desire are destroyed, from then on, the soul realizes that it will “receive the rest of the time of the season of the age in silence.” (Interestingly, almost this same sequence unfolds in the Tibetan tantric tradition in the moments after the death of the body — Tibetan Book of the Dead, Chapter 11).
In this section we also read the strange words where we are told that we each have the power to become a “human-killer” and a “space-conqueror” (Mary 9:26). “Human-killer” doesn’t mean we actually kill people and “space-conqueror” doesn’t mean we are a crusading empire builder. Rather, it is only by ‘killing’ the idea that we are a self delimited by the contours of our physical body, only by destroying the idea that who we are is defined by simple human consciousness, that we can awaken to the truth of who we really are. And it is only by ‘conquering’ the idea that our existence is determined and limited by physical space and form and time that we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven that is “all around” and “within” us (Gospel of Thomas 3, Luke 17:21).
Heaven: Entering “the Kingdom”
What happens after we “kill” this deception we call selfhood and “conquer” the illusion of space and time? In the surviving pages of Mary, we aren’t told explicitly what heaven is really like — it looks like those passages are missing. But we can infer this from the discussion in her vision that has survived. We can look at the features described in the passages that we do have of the lower or material world (that we perceive with our senses) and extrapolate from this what the upper world or heaven is like. Regarding the lower world, she says of the dimension of existence we call reality that “The first form is darkness, the second, desire, the third, ignorance,” then anger and finally death (Mary 9:18–20).
So, in contrast to these features of the dualistic world of phenomena, we could infer that this ‘upper’ world or the Kingdom of Heaven is characterized above all by light (as opposed to darkness), but also by peace and fulfillment (as compared to “desire”), wisdom and clarity (vs. “ignorance”), love and compassion (vs. “wrath”), and everlasting life (vs. “death”). Jesus’, and Mary’s, message is that this is our true nature and it exists with us right now. Light, peace, wisdom, love, and life — this is who we really are if we can only awaken to this truth.
The other disciples found Mary’s vision very difficult to comprehend. The disciple Peter’s response is to take the view that Jesus wouldn’t reveal to a woman what he had not revealed to them, the men. With a cost that we still suffer from through to this day, Peter completely misses the point about Jesus’ message, saying in response to Mary’s magnificent enlightened vision, “Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us?” (Mary 9:4).
Based on the wisdom carried down to us in her Gospel and the fragments of the other Gospels that mention Mary Magdalene, it looks like Jesus did in fact prefer her. And for good reason. The story of Mary that emerges from these various sources helps us to remember that Jesus was a human and of course so was Mary. This is important because in both of these individuals we can see that self-mastery or illumination is something humans can achieve. It also allows us to understand that even in the face of the most brutal suffering humans can experience, suffering so great that it leads to a long and slow and painful death (Jesus’ Passion and Crucifixion), it is possible to remain still and centered on the truth of our existence. What a gift that insight is to all of us! This truth, tragically lost thanks to the misunderstanding of the disciples (other than Mary) and its propagation through the teachings of the church, deserves to be brought to light again and again.
As we have seen, the Gospel of Mary contains some of the most obscure but magical and hopeful insights of any of the Gospels. Is the world ready for the gifts secreted away in the text? Time will tell.
ZR.
