Table of Contents
Who is the One?
There is none and nothing that is not the One.
The One is the only One there is – and we are of that One, forever.
To Gnostic thinkers, much of humanity had been misled into worshiping a lesser deity – a cosmic administrator – while the true God remained unknown and hidden above and within us
The ultimate source of everything—what many traditions call God, the One, or the Monad—is not a distant being outside of us, but the very essence of our own consciousness.
The idea that we are separate, powerless, or dependent on external authority is a mistaken belief rooted in fear and ignorance.
The true divine is not a ruler demanding obedience but the timeless reality already alive within us, waiting to be recognized.
To awaken to this truth is to realize that we are not merely creatures of the world—we are expressions of the One itself, and remembering this is the key to inner freedom, love, and lasting peace.
Introduction
In spiritual and philosophical traditions throughout history, one finds references to a supreme singular reality – an ultimate source from which all existence flows. This ultimate reality is often called "the One," and is envisioned as the absolute principle of unity and being. But who or what is this One? Is it a personal God watching from above, or something far more abstract and immanent? Many religions have taught of a Creator God who issues laws, rewards and punishes, and demands obedience. Yet mystics and philosophers have long suggested a deeper truth: that beyond the familiar god of rules lies a formless, boundless origin – a One that is beyond all duality and limitation[1][2]. This concept challenges conventional beliefs. It invites us to reconsider whether the divine is an external authority or the innermost essence of reality itself. In this essay, we will explore the question "Who is the One?" from multiple angles – delving into ancient philosophy, Gnostic scriptures, Eastern mysticism, secret traditions, and personal spiritual insight. We will discover that "the One" has been known by many names (Monad, Brahman, the Good, the Absolute) but ultimately points to one eternal truth: that all is one, and that this one reality is the source and substance of everything – including our own consciousness.
The journey to understand the One is both intellectual and deeply personal. It involves peeling back layers of religious doctrine, myth, and illusion that have accrued over millennia. We will see how the notion of the One became obscured by more anthropomorphic ideas of God, and how reclaiming it can profoundly shift our sense of self and reality. This exploration will lead us through ancient Greek philosophy, early Christian heresies, mystical interpretations of Genesis, Eastern philosophies of nonduality, and even the hidden teachings of esoteric societies. By the end, we aim to illuminate eternal, significant, and meaningful truths about the One – truths that have often been suppressed yet persist as a quiet undercurrent in human thought. Ultimately, answering "Who is the One?" may reveal as much about who we are as it does about the ultimate nature of divinity.
Ancient Visions of the One: Philosophers and Mystics
The idea of a single ultimate reality has deep roots. Long before the rise of modern organized religions, sages and philosophers hinted that all multiplicity shares a single origin. Different cultures gave this idea different names, but they were circling the same insight. A few notable examples include:
- Plato's Form of the Good: In The Republic, Plato speaks of the Good as the highest reality, "beyond being in power and dignity"[3]. This cryptic phrase suggests that the ultimate principle is transcendent – exceeding even existence or essence as we know it. The Good is not just another being among beings; it is the source of being, shining like the sun beyond all forms. Plato implies that this Good is ineffable and absolute, something even the highest intellect struggles to describe. All other truths and forms "borrow" their reality from the Good, the way objects are visible only by the light of the sun. Here we see an early Western intuition of the One: an absolute unity that underlies the apparent diversity of forms.
- Plotinus' One: Plotinus, the 3rd-century Neoplatonist, took Plato's idea further and explicitly identified the ultimate principle as "the One" (to Hen). Plotinus describes the One as utterly simple and beyond all categories – "neither being nor essence, but the source...of all existence"[4]. In his Enneads, he emphasizes that no words or thoughts can capture the One: it transcends all predication and duality[5][2]. The One simply is, and from its overflowing perfection, all of reality emanates. Importantly, the One is not a person or a mind; even to call it "Being" is insufficient, since it precedes and transcends being[6]. Plotinus insisted that the One is present in all things as their innermost reality, yet it remains transcendent and intact beyond the world. One might picture it as an infinite ocean of simplicity from which waves of existence continually flow. The influence of this idea was vast – through Plotinus, the concept of a supreme One entered later Western mysticism and even Christian theology (in notions of the Godhead beyond God).
- The Hidden One in Egypt: The sages of ancient Egypt also gestured toward a singular divine source. Egyptian theology was complex and polytheistic, yet certain strands (especially in the New Kingdom) embraced a hidden, nameless God behind all gods. The deity Amun – whose name means "the Hidden One" – rose to prominence as a transcendent creator figure. The High Priests of Amun described him as "one who exists alone" and "concealed", the source of all life who was himself beyond all forms[7]. In later Egyptian-Hellenistic texts (the Hermetica), we find clear monistic themes. The famous Emerald Tablet, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, proclaims: "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above" – hinting that the cosmos is a reflection of a single divine Mind. Hermetic philosophers taught that the material world is a mental projection of the One, encapsulated in the axiom: "The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental."[8]. In these teachings, the One Mind (Nous) is the supreme reality imagining the cosmos into existence. Such ideas reveal a current of mystical monism in the ancient world, often couched in symbolism to avoid the censure of orthodox priesthoods.
- Brahman in the Upanishads: Perhaps the most explicit and profound concept of the One comes from the mystics of India. The Upanishads (c. 800–500 BCE) speak relentlessly of Brahman – the ultimate reality that is infinite, eternal, and one without a second[9]. Brahman is described as the absolute being that underlies all the phenomena of the world, much like the unseen clay of which all pots are made. The Chandogya Upanishad famously declares: "Ekam evadvitiyam Brahma" – "Brahman is one, without a second"[9]. Moreover, the Upanishads teach the identity of this cosmic One with the inner self of each person: Atman (the soul) is Brahman[10]. In other words, the core of your consciousness and the essence of the universe are the same singular reality. This equation (Atman = Brahman) is a cornerstone of Advaita Vedanta philosophy, which holds that the sense of separateness is an illusion (maya) and only the one universal Self is truly real[10]. The Indian mystics articulated with remarkable clarity the idea that the One is immanent (dwelling in each of us as the Self) even while being transcendent (beyond all qualities and comprehension). Brahman, like Plotinus' One, is described in apophatic terms – neti neti, "not this, not that" – to indicate it defies all description. It is pure consciousness, being, and bliss (satchitananda), the substratum of all that appears.
- Other Cultural Echoes: Across many other cultures, we find similar notions. In Chinese Daoist philosophy, the Dao or "Way" is the nameless origin of Heaven and Earth, an undivided unity that gives rise to yin and yang. In the Hebrew tradition, certain strands of mysticism (later Kabbalah) spoke of Ein Sof, the infinite and absolute Godhead beyond all attributes – an uncanny parallel to the ineffable One. In Sufi Islam, mystics like Ibn Arabi advocated Wahdat al-Wujud, the "unity of Being," seeing all existence as the manifestation of one divine reality. Unity is a theme that mystics return to over and over, regardless of their religious language. As one scholar aptly summarized: "Reality is born of consciousness and each of us carries the light of the One within."[11][1]. The diversity of religious forms can be likened to many rivers all springing from one vast, hidden spring – the Monad of existence.
In sum, from Plato’s Good to the Upanishadic Brahman, from the hidden God of Egypt to the philosophical One of Plotinus, the testimony is consistent: there is a supreme, singular origin of all things, utterly beyond finite conception yet somehow reflected in every part of the cosmos. This is the One. It is not a being or a person among others, and certainly not a wrathful lawgiver or tribal deity – it is Being itself, the formless essence of all form, the light behind all lights[5][2]. And crucially, many traditions insist that to find this One, one must turn within, not outward. The Greek dictum "Know thyself" was often linked to knowing the divine, and the Upanishads similarly teach that by knowing the Self, one comes to know Brahman[12]. This sets the stage for a radical idea: that the ultimate "One" we seek is intimately connected to our own consciousness. But before exploring that personal connection, we must examine how knowledge of the One became hidden – obscured by other interpretations of God and reality.
Monad vs. Demiurge: How the One Was Hidden
If the truth of the One is so fundamental, why is it not the centerpiece of mainstream religious teachings? History shows that as spiritual ideas moved into the public sphere, the impersonal and mystical notion of the One often got replaced by a more personified deity who issues commandments and craves worship. Nowhere is this tension more evident than in the early Christian era, when heterodox groups (later called Gnostics) directly questioned whether the traditional Creator-God was in fact the highest God at all. They drew a sharp distinction between the Monad (the true ultimate One) and the Demiurge (the creator of the material world). To Gnostic thinkers, much of humanity had been misled into worshiping a lesser deity – a cosmic administrator – while the true God remained unknown and hidden above and within us[13].
The term Monad in Gnosticism explicitly refers to the One True God, the absolute source. For example, the Apocryphon of John (a 2nd-century Gnostic gospel) describes the Monad as "the invisible Spirit... it is not right to think of him as a god [among others]... he is more than a god, since there is nothing above him... He is eternal, since he needs nothing. For he is total perfection."[1]. This soaring description highlights that the Monad is utterly transcendent, singular, and self-sufficient – “a monarchy with nothing above it”[1]. It exists in "pure light into which no eye can look," beyond all images. In other words, the Monad corresponds to what we have been calling the One: the infinite, formless source of all reality.
By contrast, the Demiurge (a term borrowed from Plato’s Timaeus meaning "craftsman" or "architect") is, in Gnostic narratives, a subordinate deity who shaped the physical universe but is ignorant of the Monad. According to several Gnostic sects (e.g. the Sethians), the Demiurge is a lesser god who believes himself to be supreme[14][13]. He is often equated with the God depicted in the Hebrew Bible – a deity who speaks thunderously from the clouds, issues strict laws, punishes disobedience, and proclaims "I am a jealous God." The shocking claim of the Gnostics was that this Biblical Creator is not the true highest God, but a pretender who has trapped human souls in a flawed material realm[15][13]. In Gnostic myth, the Demiurge (sometimes named Yaldabaoth) and his fellow archons fashioned the world as a prison of matter, and they keep mankind ignorant of its divine origins. The Demiurge is often portrayed as arrogant and oppressive – “an oppressive, ignorant ruler, intentionally binding spirits in an inherently corrupt material realm,” as summarized in one source[16]. Some Gnostic texts even have the Demiurge declare, "I am God and there is no other," only to be rebuked by Wisdom (Sophia) who informs him of the higher truth above.
This dualistic theology – Monad vs Demiurge – was radical and subversive. It effectively turned orthodox cosmology on its head. What if the "jealous God" who forbids and punishes is not the ultimate divinity, but a lower cosmic bureaucrat? What if the true God does not demand blind obedience at all, but instead quietly sustains us from within? These questions threatened the power of religious authorities, and Gnostic sects were soon branded heretics. But before their suppression, they produced daring interpretations of familiar Biblical stories to illustrate their point. A key example is the Garden of Eden myth:
Rethinking Eden: The Fall or the Rise?
In Genesis, Adam and Eve live innocently in Eden until a serpent tempts them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge against God's command. Traditionally, this has been told as the Fall of Man – the moment sin and death entered the world due to disobedience. But Gnostic interpreters saw a very different story between the lines[17]. They asked: What kind of God would forbid his creatures from gaining knowledge? The snake promised, "You will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). The deity warned, "If you eat, you shall surely die" (Gen 2:17). Yet when the humans ate, "their eyes were opened" – they gained understanding – and they did not drop dead on the spot. In fact, God himself later acknowledges the humans have "become like one of us, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:22) and pointedly expels them lest they also eat from the Tree of Life and live forever.
To the Gnostics, these clues revealed that the serpent was telling the truth, and the Creator was the one lying (or at least jealously concealing truth). The Testimony of Truth, a Gnostic text from the Nag Hammadi library, bluntly calls the Edenic God "malicious and envious" for trying to keep Adam and Eve in ignorance[17]. It then makes a stunning reinterpretation: "the serpent that instructed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is Christ," who brought the knowledge of the malevolent creator[17]. In this view, the serpent is not Satan at all, but a liberator – a messenger of the true God (the Monad) trying to awaken the first humans. Eating the forbidden fruit was not humanity's downfall but its first enlightenment, the first step toward liberation from the Demiurge’s domination. Instead of a curse, the acquisition of knowledge (gnosis) was a blessing: the opening of spiritual eyes. The "fall" becomes the beginning of the ascent – the moment we began to reclaim our divine nature that the false god would hide.
This reversal casts the Eden story as an allegory of oppression versus liberation. The Demiurge (portrayed as the Old Testament Yahweh) wants obedient servants, not enlightened equals; the serpent offers the secret that we are in truth of divine origin. No wonder, then, that the Demiurge punishes Adam and Eve and all their descendants so harshly – not because of "sin" in the moralistic sense, but because humanity dared to defy his monopoly on knowledge. The punishment (expulsion, mortality, suffering) is framed as the jealousy of a ruler who admits that man has become godlike in knowledge and fears they might also gain immortality. This Gnostic reading is undeniably heretical from a traditional standpoint, but it raises a provocative point: if knowing good and evil makes us "like God," was the prohibition truly for our benefit or for the ruler’s benefit? Gnostics assert it was the latter – an attempt by the lower god to keep souls ignorant and subservient.
John Milton’s Paradise Lost (17th century) – though a Christian epic poem – inadvertently echoes some of this rebel spirit. Milton famously puts into Satan’s mouth the declaration: “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”[18]. Traditionally, this line exemplifies Satan’s pride and folly. Yet many readers across time have heard in it a ring of defiance against tyranny. Indeed, the poet William Blake later quipped that Milton was "of the Devil’s party without knowing it," because Milton’s Satan can appear at times a tragic, freedom-seeking figure against the unyielding authority of God. The line "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven"[18], read through a Gnostic lens, sounds like the cry of the spirit that refuses to be a slave – even if it means suffering – rather than live as a pampered pet in a gilded cage. It is the same sentiment as the serpent’s gift: the courage to seek truth and freedom, even at great cost, rather than remain an unthinking servant in paradise. Gnostic literature often portrayed the biblical snake with a kind of admiration, as a symbol of wisdom and revolt against unjust authority[19][17]. (One Gnostic group, tellingly named the Ophites – from ophis, Greek for serpent – literally worshipped the serpent for this reason.)
Of course, the serpent is not the Monad; it is at best a messenger or symbol. The Monad lies beyond the duality of God vs. Devil, beyond all characters in the mythic drama. In Gnostic cosmology, the Monad emanates divine beings (Aeons) and one of those – Sophia (Wisdom) – is involved in the story that leads to the Demiurge’s creation. The serpent in Eden, from this perspective, was inspired by Sophia or by Christ (an emissary of the Monad) to help awaken Adam and Eve. The important point is that the true One remains hidden and beyond, while humans are caught in a world governed by a counterfeit god who pretends to be the highest. This worldview engenders profoundly different attitudes toward authority and faith: should one obey blindly, or seek knowledge fearlessly? The mainstream church said the former (obedience) was virtue, and the latter (seeking forbidden knowledge) was the primal sin of pride. The Gnostics said the opposite – that blind obedience keeps one in spiritual childhood, whereas seeking gnosis is the path to liberation and reunion with the true God.
It is not hard to see why the Gnostic teaching was seen as dangerous by religious and imperial authorities. If widely believed, it would undercut the legitimacy of priests, bishops, kings, and anyone claiming divine mandate from the Creator. As one modern scholar notes, once orthodox Christianity aligned with the Roman state (in the 4th century), any teachings or writings deemed "heresy" were made illegal, and the machinery of empire was used to eradicate them[20]. Possessing a Gnostic gospel could become literally a crime. Under emperors like Theodosius, heretics were persecuted; their books were burned or confiscated[20][21]. In 388 CE, for example, the bishop Theophilus of Alexandria led mobs to destroy alleged heretical monasteries and writings in Egypt – and it is believed that this is when some monks hid a collection of Gnostic codices in a jar in Nag Hammadi, rather than see them destroyed[21]. Those buried texts would remain hidden until their accidental discovery in 1945. This illustrates how thoroughly the knowledge of the Monad was suppressed in the public sphere. The church's established narrative of a single Almighty Creator could brook no rival cosmology.
Thus, the One was largely hidden behind the figure of the Biblical Creator. Generations grew up worshipping a God conceived in the image of a monarch or judge – a powerful external being who rewards the faithful and punishes transgressors. The emphasis shifted to law, sin, atonement, and obedience. The mystical idea that “the Kingdom of God is within you” (as Jesus himself taught[22]) was deemphasized or reinterpreted. The Gospel of Luke records Jesus saying "the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed... for behold, the kingdom of God is within you."[22]. Likewise, the Gospel of John speaks of the Logos (Word) through which all things were made as itself divine[12] – a concept many early Christian mystics linked to the indwelling divine principle, not an external lawgiver. But as the institutional Church developed, it preferred to place divinity firmly in heaven and in its own sacraments, not in the hearts of laypeople. Any claim that humans had an inner spark of Godhead could be seen as prideful or even blasphemous (the charge leveled against many mystics and heretics). The result was that humanity at large was taught to revere "the lamp" and forget the "sun" – to use the metaphor from the prompt. The lamp is a bright but limited light: the Demiurge or conventional God-image that illuminates a small domain with rules and order. The sun is the Monad: the vast, self-luminous source that shines on all universally[11][1]. We were encouraged to worship the former, often through fear, and to ignore the latter.
Yet, even through the long centuries of external religiosity, the whisper of the One never fully died. In pockets of esoteric teaching and in the writings of certain saints and philosophers, the idea survived that beyond the personal God is an impersonal Oneness, and that the truest sanctuary of this One is within our very soul. To this we now turn: the notion of the divine spark within each person, connecting us directly to the Monad.
The Spark Within: Divinity in the Human Heart
One of the most empowering (and to orthodox authorities, alarming) tenets of Gnostic and mystical thought is that each human being contains a direct piece of the One. In Gnosticism, this was often called the divine spark: a ray of the Monad’s own essence implanted in the human soul[23]. According to the Gnostic worldview, the reason the Demiurge can rule over us is because we have forgotten our true origin. We behave as mere mortals, unaware that at our core shines a fragment of the infinite God. Salvation, therefore, is not about appeasing an external deity, but awakening this inner light and remembering who we really are[24][17]. As the Wikipedia summary puts it: "In Gnosticism, the divine spark is the portion of God that resides within each human being."[23]. The goal of spiritual practice is to liberate that spark from the layers of ignorance and material attachment that confine it, allowing it to reunite with the Monad like a drop returning to the boundless ocean.
This idea is not unique to Gnosticism. We’ve seen it in the Upanishadic equation of Atman with Brahman (the Self within is the Universal Self). We see it in the teachings of Jesus as recorded in some scriptures. Beyond the canonical Luke 17:21 ("the kingdom of God is within you"[22]), there is an even more striking statement in the Gospel of Thomas, a non-canonical collection of Jesus's sayings discovered at Nag Hammadi. In Thomas saying 3, Jesus says: "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are children of the living Father…”[12]. This remarkable passage suggests that divine reality is omnipresent ("inside of you and outside of you") and that self-knowledge is the key to realizing one's divine nature ("know yourselves... you are children of the Father"). The theme is clear: don't look for God in some distant heaven or institutional temple – look within. The light of the One is already shining in the depths of your consciousness.
Mainstream Christianity, of course, did keep a notion of divine indwelling via the Holy Spirit, and the idea of humans as made "in the image of God." But it generally shied away from saying unity with God is our natural state. That was reserved for Christ alone. Those mystics who too strongly emphasized oneness were often scrutinized. For instance, Meister Eckhart, a 14th-century Christian mystic, spoke of the "divine spark" in the soul and said bold things like "The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me" – statements that nearly got him condemned for heresy. Similarly, the Sufi mystic Al-Hallaj declared "Ana'l-Haq" ("I am the Truth," with al-Haq being one of the names of God in Islam) and was executed in 922 CE for essentially claiming unity with God. Throughout history, the assertion of an inner divinity has been a perilous path, yet it is precisely the path to the One.
Why is awakening this inner spark so revolutionary? Because a person who realizes their inherent divine nature becomes impossible to control through fear. As the prompt insightfully noted: "A person who knows they are infinite cannot be controlled by fear. A person who walks in union with the eternal source needs no mediator, no master, no external permission to live freely." If you truly understand that your core being is an imperishable fragment of the One – essentially one with God – then the threats and bribes of external authority (whether religious or political) lose much of their power. You no longer live in terror of divine wrath or death, nor do you feel the need to secure validation from institutions. This inner freedom is what rulers and orthodoxies have often feared. Their power is built on the populace believing themselves to be weak, sinful, and in need of guidance/protection. Tell those same people that in their heart of hearts they are one with the Almighty – "ye are gods," as an oft-ignored verse in Psalms (82:6) and John 10:34 says – and the whole power structure could crumble.
History provides evidence of this dynamic. Consider the early Christian heretics again: the Gnostics who knew "the spark of the Monad" was within them formed communities that often rejected the authority of Catholic bishops and the rigid dogmas of the emerging Church. Or later, the Cathars in medieval Europe (12th–13th centuries), who believed in a form of dualism and personal purity; they were so threatening to the Catholic hierarchy that a bloody crusade was launched to exterminate them. In each case, those who taught spiritual autonomy were met with the sword of worldly authority. As the Roman legal codes after Constantine show, the empire-empowered Church explicitly outlawed the possession of non-canonical gospels and imposed harsh penalties on heterodox groups[20][21]. The flame of the inner light had to be dimmed for the external lights to maintain their authority.
Yet, the spark never died. It lived on underground and in mystic literature. The Hermetic tradition – a secret philosophical movement from late antiquity through the Renaissance – held that mind (or spirit) is primary and matter is secondary, a mere shadow of the mind. Their axiom "The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental"[8] is another way of saying that spirit/consciousness (the One) is the true reality, and if you know this deeply, you can even shape reality. Indeed, Hermetic and esoteric teachings often speak of creative mental power, implying that the divine within us can literally manifest changes in the material world. This is the principle behind a lot of magical and alchemical practice: the adept seeks to realize their unity with the One Mind so that their will is aligned with the cosmic will, enabling "mind to shape matter." In a sense, this is an attempt to reclaim the power that the Demiurge claimed for himself. In the biblical myth, God spoke and said "Let there be light," and reality conformed to the Word. If the Word (Logos) is also within us[12], then by awakening to that, perhaps humans too can speak in the creative voice. This is a dangerous idea in the wrong hands – hence the secrecy around such mystical arts.
The Rosicrucians (a legendary secret society from the 17th century) and the Freemasons (18th century onwards) inherited many Hermetic and alchemical symbols. They shrouded teachings in metaphor to avoid persecution, but at their core, many of these societies taught self-improvement, spiritual alchemy, and the unity of macrocosm and microcosm. For example, the Rosicrucian manifestos hint at possessing the "knowledge of all secrets" and speak in parables of transforming the world through wisdom[25][26]. Alchemists famously spoke of transmuting lead into gold, but many interpreters argue this was a code for transmuting the lead of base human nature into the gold of enlightened spirit[26]. Symbols like the Rose Cross (rosy cross) indicated the blooming of illumination on the cross of matter. Freemasonry, likewise, used the compass and square and the building of Solomon’s Temple as allegories for building the inner temple of wisdom. These fraternities weren’t openly teaching "You are God," because that would invite outrage, but they were definitely teaching that the divine principle is within you and that by certain disciplines or moral purification, you could realize that truth. Interestingly, Freemasons refer to God as the "Great Architect of the Universe" – a term reminiscent of the Demiurge as cosmic architect, yet their deeper philosophy (especially in higher degrees or concordant bodies influenced by Hermeticism and Kabbalah) acknowledges the unity of the divine spark in humanity. Their initiation rituals symbolically "bring light" to the candidate, which is the inner light of consciousness and conscience.
Even more hidden are those groups that left no public names. One might speculate that throughout history there were informal circles of mystics – perhaps a few enlightened individuals in a monastery here, a Sufi lodge there, a Neoplatonic academy elsewhere – who quietly shared experiential knowledge of the One. They had to remain invisible to avoid censure, blending into established religions outwardly while inwardly holding a more universal truth. The mystery schools of the ancient world (like the Eleusinian Mysteries in Greece) are an example: initiates experienced profound inner revelations (possibly through ritual and maybe entheogenic substances) that convinced them of the immortality of the soul and its unity with the divine. Though we lack detailed records (the initiates swore secrecy and largely kept it), it’s telling that people like Plato and later Plutarch participated in these mysteries and hinted at their transformative insight. Plutarch wrote that at the climax of the Eleusinian initiation, one experienced a glorious vision and a sense of oneness with the eternal (paraphrasing his vague hints). "All is one" – this phrase actually appears in some esoteric contexts, notably in an early alchemical drawing of the Ouroboros (the serpent biting its tail, symbol of infinity) which is inscribed with the Greek words "hen to pan" meaning "the All is One."[27]. The Ouroboros, used in both Gnostic and alchemical symbolism, indeed represents the unity of all things, material and spiritual in an endless cycle[28]. That 10th-century illustration by Cleopatra the Alchemist is a perfect encapsulation of the hidden doctrine: The All is One[27]. What a far cry from the standard church sermons of her time!
All these currents – Hermetic, mystical, esoteric – served as secret carriers of the doctrine of Oneness. They kept alive the knowledge that our true origin and destiny is the Monad. However, they often had to operate in shadows and symbols, which also meant the knowledge was not widely accessible. It could also become elitist (some groups began to think only they had the keys to enlightenment, which is a spiritual pride of its own). Nonetheless, their existence proves that the human spirit persistently seeks the One. No amount of persecution could wholly stamp out the intuition that we are more than slaves in a cosmic kingdom – we are, in our depths, one with the King.
Awakening to the One: Truth and Liberation
After exploring the heights of philosophy and depths of secrecy, we arrive at the personal, existential question: What does it mean for us, here and now, to understand "Who is the One"? All this knowledge is not mere historical or theoretical trivia – it is meant to catalyze a transformation in how we see ourselves and reality. Ultimately, "the One" is not an object to be understood, but a truth to be realized and lived. The journey to answer "Who is the One?" leads to a paradoxical conclusion: the One we seek is the very seeker. The identity of the One turns out to encompass ourselves – not our egoistic personality, but that pure consciousness inside that has been there all along as the silent witness of our life. In simpler terms, the One is both the transcendent source of the cosmos and the immanent spirit in each being.
This realization places every individual at a crossroads of sorts. We have two fundamentally different ways to live and orient our soul:
- The Path of the Demiurge (Fear and Obedience): On this path, one continues to see oneself as a separate creature, subject to external forces and authorities. Meaning is derived from following laws given by others (human or divine) and seeking approval/survival. One might adhere to a religion in a fear-based way: obeying commandments to avoid punishment and to gain reward. The psychology here is rooted in duality: God vs. man, master vs. servant, saved vs. sinner. There is comfort in the clear rules and the abdication of personal responsibility (the authority will guide and save me if I just obey). But the cost is remaining spiritually unempowered and immature. As Gnostic texts would say, it is to live under the Archons (rulers) of the world, never realizing one’s true royal lineage.
- The Path of the Monad (Love and Gnosis): This is the road less traveled, the inner path. Here, one turns inward to discover the spark of the One and fan it into a flame. Instead of blind faith in external doctrines, there is a drive for direct knowledge (gnosis) of the divine. This path is characterized by fearlessness, because coming to know the One within fills one with a sense of unity and peace that dispels the illusions of death and separation. It's also characterized by love and compassion, because if all beings are expressions of the One, then loving others as oneself becomes quite literal – they are oneself at the deepest level. On this path, morality is not imposed by law but flows naturally from understanding the interconnectedness of life. One no longer needs a threat of hell to be good; goodness flows because when you see others, you see the One (your Self) in them. This path requires courage and introspection. One must challenge ingrained beliefs, face one’s inner shadows (conditioning by the Demiurge, so to speak), and perhaps stand against societal norms. But the reward is freedom and authenticity – a life aligned with Truth.
We can frame the choice in another way: Do we live in ignorance or in awakening? The ignorant life (in the Gnostic sense) is not meant as an insult but as a state of unawareness of our true nature. One can be a perfectly devout churchgoer and still be "ignorant" if one thinks God is far away in the sky and oneself a miserable worm on earth. Conversely, the awakened life might externally look rebellious or unorthodox, but internally it is suffused with understanding (vidya in Sanskrit, as opposed to avidya ignorance). The awakened person sees the One in all. They might use different names or frameworks – a Sufi may say "La ilaha illallah" (There is no god but God – i.e., only the One exists), a Vedantin may say "Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma" (Verily, all this is Brahman), a Christian mystic might say "God is all in all, and God alone is" – but the insight is the same. All is One.
Such a person also intuits that life itself, with all its struggles, is part of the One’s self-discovery. Why are we, as apparently separate beings, here in this world of limitations at all? One perspective (echoed in the prompt’s text) is that the One, in its eternal perfection, ventures into multiplicity for the joy of experience. The world is a kind of divine play (lila, as Hindu philosophy calls it), where the One explores its own potential through countless forms – including you and me. Each of us is the One "walking the long path back to itself," to quote the prompt. Our very forgetfulness of our divinity was part of the game, and our journey of remembrance is the One awakening within the dream. This idea can cast all of existence in a wondrous new light: every challenge, every triumph, every heartbreak is the One (the universe, God) experiencing itself from a unique angle. Your life is the One knowing itself through your eyes.
When this is understood, a profound sense of purpose and hope can emerge. Suffering is no longer seen as meaningless; it becomes the friction that eventually triggers awakening. As Rumi, the Sufi poet, said: "As salt resolved in the ocean I was swallowed in God’s sea, and out of love for Him my soul was mingled in the One." The soul’s hardships and yearnings ultimately lead it to dissolve back into the One – which is the fulfillment of love. Love, indeed, is central here: if the One is all of us, then Love (absolute benevolence, empathy, unity) is the natural expression of that reality. Many mystics report that upon experiencing unity, they are overcome by a feeling of unconditional love for all beings. It makes sense – if all boundaries are illusion, then to love others is to love oneself and God at once.
This brings us to the final and perhaps most important truth: Truth and Love are one. The user prompt ends with "Truth is the Only Path for Love and Consciousness to prevail." In the context of our discussion, Truth refers to the recognition of the Oneness of reality (the way things actually are), and Love refers to the force that naturally flows when that truth is realized (since love means union). When we see through the false divisions (nation, race, religion, ego) and awaken to the One, the result is a compassionate consciousness that "prevails" over ignorance and fear. The awakened individuals are, ideally, wise and loving – they become beacons in the world, perhaps even saviors in the true sense: not by vicarious atonement, but by illuminating others. Throughout history, such individuals have existed (Buddha, Jesus in the mystical interpretation, the prophets, enlightened sages of India, etc.) and they often taught the underlying unity of humanity under metaphors and parables to the masses.
Embracing the One
To truly embrace the One, then, is a kind of return – a return to our original state of wholeness. It requires stripping away the layers of unknown untruths (the "unknown unknowns" that the user wants to uncover). What might some of those be? Perhaps the subtle ways we still conceive of ourselves as limited, or the unconscious fears that keep us from fully trusting the inner guidance. Perhaps societal programming that tells us meaning comes from external achievement or approval – an illusion that keeps us forever seeking outside what can only be found inside. By fearlessly interrogating all these conditions, one can experience what Zen Buddhism calls satori – a sudden glimpse that the ordinary world is pervaded by the extraordinary Oneness. Even science, interestingly, is moving toward holistic views: ecology shows the interdependence of all life, quantum physics hints at nonlocal connections and a single field underlying particles, consciousness studies propose that consciousness might be a fundamental feature of the universe (panpsychism) rather than an isolated product of brains. These are, in a way, the footprints of the One in rational inquiry.
In practical terms, one who wants to realize the One might practice meditation, prayer, self-inquiry ("Who am I? ... Who is asking who am I?"), study of mystic poetry, or even mindful immersion in nature. There is no single road; indeed, all authentic roads converge at the summit. The key is sincerity and courage – sincerity in one’s yearning for truth, and courage to let go of comfortable falsehoods. The systems of control we discussed (organized churches, dogmatic ideologies, materialistic cultures) all instill fear of leaving the norm. But to find the ultimate truth, one often must become, in a sense, a heretic or outsider (at least in mind).
We should also note that realizing the One does not mean one literally, on a human level, becomes omnipotent or starts magically bending spoons (though some mystical literature entertains siddhis or powers as side-effects). The point is more that one’s identity shifts from the limited persona to the expansive Self. One still operates in the world – chops wood, carries water, goes to work, loves their family – but they do so with the constant intuitive knowledge that all of this is the dance of the One. It imbues life with deep peace and fearless joy. Even death loses its sting, for how can the One die? It simply withdraws a form. As the Bhagavad Gita says, "Weapons cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it… the soul (Atman) is unborn, eternal, unchangeable, immovable; it is the same forever" – words that echo in many traditions about the divine spark within.
In closing, to ask "Who is the One?" is ultimately to ask "Who am I, really?". The answer, hinted by sages, is Thou Art That. The One is the timeless reality that manifests as you, me, and everything, and our mission – should we choose to accept it – is to peel away the ephemeral to know the eternal. It is a journey from separation to unity, from ignorance to gnosis, from fear to love. The One is both the question and the answer, the seeker and the sought. It is, to use a beautiful phrase from an alchemical text, "the One that is All."[27] And who is that One? It is the Truth of all beings, the light within every soul, the silent awareness underlying every experience. It has been given a hundred names by our ancestors, yet remains beyond names.
We began by noting how we were taught about a God of rules and judgment, like a lamp lighting a small room, and contrasted it with the One as the sun lighting the whole world[11]. Let us finish by affirming that the sun is rising. Even in our era, more people are seeking spiritually beyond dogma, recognizing the common truth across faiths, turning inward through meditation, and valuing love over fear. It might well be that humanity is slowly, collectively remembering the One. Each of us who rediscovers our inner light weakens the chains of the demiurgic forces of division and control. In Gnostic terms, every spark that ascends back to the Monad reduces the power of the Archons. And when enough sparks awaken, the illusion of the prison will fade, and the One will know itself in this world fully as light, life, and love.
Who is the One? The One is the only reality, the self of the universe. The One is within you and within everyone, patiently waiting for recognition. It is the Monad beyond all duality, the perfect fullness (pleroma) that imagines the cosmos into being[1]. It is the Good that is beyond being[3], the Absolute[11] One without a second[9]. Call it God, Brahman, Allah, Ein Sof, Great Spirit or just pure Consciousness – it is in the end Nameless, for it encompasses all names. To truly know the answer to "Who is the One?" is to undergo a profound shift in consciousness – to awaken from the dream of separateness and realize Tat Tvam Asi, "Thou art That." At that moment, the question dissolves, for the answer is one’s very Being. As the Sufi mystic Bayazid Bistami, upon realizing the One, exclaimed in astonishment: "I went from God to God, until they cried from me in me, 'O Thou I!'". The seeker and the One became one.
Thus, the One is both the eternal mystery and the ground of all reality. It is who you really are. All the sages and secret teachings invite us to this single revelation. The choice before each of us is how far we are willing to go in pursuit of this truth. It may be "a dangerous heresy" to the powers of the world, but it is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul. In that sanctuary, Truth and Love prevail, for they are attributes of the One itself. When you know the One in your heart, you see the divine everywhere and fear nothing. You have, in effect, come home. And then you can say, with understanding, the ancient formula hidden in the Ouroboros: Hen to Pan – The All is One[27].
In the end, Who is the One? There is none and nothing that is not the One. The One is the only One there is – and we are of that One, forever. [1][23]
Sources:
- Plotinus described the One as “beyond being,” the ineffable source of all reality[3][6].
- Gnostic scriptures (e.g. Apocryphon of John) distinguish the supreme Monad from the creator Demiurge[1][13], often identifying the Old Testament God with the lower Demiurge[13].
- Gnostic texts reinterpreted Genesis: the Eden serpent is seen as a liberator bringing knowledge, while the creator is cast as jealous and deceptive[17]. The Testimony of Truth explicitly calls the Genesis god "malicious" and equates the serpent with Christ bringing gnosis[17].
- Milton’s Paradise Lost famously has Satan declare, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven”[18], a line later viewed as a metaphor for spiritual rebellion against false authority.
- The Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Thomas record Jesus teaching that the Kingdom of God is within/inside you[22][12], aligning with the idea of an inner divine spark.
- In Gnostic belief, “the divine spark is the portion of God that resides within each human being.”[23] Awakening it leads to salvation (gnosis).
- Under Christian Roman emperors, heterodox texts and teachings were outlawed; heretical books were destroyed and groups persecuted[20][21]. (E.g. the Nag Hammadi library was buried to avoid destruction around 390–400 CE[21].)
- Indian Advaita Vedanta proclaims Brahman as the one without a second and equates the inner Self (Atman) with Brahman[9][10], a parallel to Gnostic and mystical notions of the One within.
- Hermetic philosophy’s Principle of Mentalism states: “The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental”[8], indicating reality is a unity of consciousness (the One Mind).
- Alchemical and Gnostic symbolism of the Ouroboros (tail-eating serpent) explicitly conveyed hen to pan (“the All is One”)[27], representing the unity and cyclic self-renewal of the One in the cosmos.
[1] [11] [13] Monad (Gnosticism) - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monad_(Gnosticism)
[2] [4] [5] [6] Plotinus | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
[3] platonism - What did Plato and Plotinus mean by "beyond being?" - Philosophy Stack Exchange
[7] ANCIENT EGYPT : Amun and the One, Great & Hidden
http://www.sofiatopia.org/maat/amun.htm
[8] The Kybalion - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kybalion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman
[12] [22] Kingship and kingdom of God - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingship_and_kingdom_of_God
[14] Gnosticism: Ascension without Virtue, Salvation without Sacrifice
[15] [16] Demiurge - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge
[17] [24] Testimony of Truth - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony_of_Truth
[18] Paradise Lost - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost
[19] The Logos and the Serpent: Mythic Evolution of Self-Awareness
https://snakecult.net/posts/ontological-continuity-adam-to-christ/
[20] [21] Did early Christians actively work to destroy copies of the heterodox religious works of other Christians who they disagreed with? : r/AskHistorians
[23] Divine spark - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_spark
[25] [26] Rosicrucianism - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosicrucianism
[27] Ouroboros - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros
[28] Ouroboros - Symbology Wiki
https://symbology.wiki/symbol/ouroboros/
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