ABSTRACT
The only goal of the Gnostic is to return to the Pleroma. For the Gnostic, salvation is the liberation of the divine spark from the spatio-temporal, material prison world, and its reinstatement to the realm of light, or into the depth and silence. Whereas the Neoplatonist might seek a return to the One, the Gnostic seeks a return to the Zero, in other words, the Nothingness of the Pleroma. Salvation is often referred to as the resurrection in the Gnostic texts and in his introduction to The Treatise on Resurrection, Thomassen notes that the resurrection and return to the original purity of the Pleroma, dependent on salvific gnosis, includes the realisation that our spiritual essence is something that one already possess. It is not something that one need to develop, and one needs to realise. In this regard, Gnostic salvation is somewhat akin to the Dzogchen tradition in Tibetan Buddhism in which liberation involves awakening to one's true nature.
