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ISAVASYA UPANISHAD
Col 1:15 - 17 He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities--all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
This God who loves the creation works out the purposes of this age as well as the purposes of the ages to come to fulfill his ultimate purpose of bringing the creation unto himself.
Behold I make ALL things new.
MANTRA NINE
andham tamah pravisanti ye'vidyamupasate tato bhuya iva te tamo ya u vidyayam ratah || 9 ||
Into a blind darkness they enter who are devoted to ignorance; but into a greater darkness they enter who engage in Gnosis.
All who worship what is not real knowledge (good works), enter into blind darkness : those who delight in real knowledge, enter, as it were, into greater darkness. (trans. Max Muller)
Those who worship avidya (karma born of ignorance) go to pitch darkness, but to a greater darkness than this go those who are devoted to Vidya (knowledge of the Devatas). (Vidyavachaspati V. Panoli)
Salvation does not come with works or knowledge. So those who follow karmic path goes into darkness, those who follow intellectual inquiry goes into greater darkness. You cannot know God through your actions nor through your intellect because even though he is present in the world he is also beyond it.
Sankaracharya could not explain this passage since both the avidyam and the vidyayam both go into darkness. Rituals cannot save man, nor can good deeds, nor knowledge. Knowledge is usually associated with the Gnosticism. Gnosticism (the Congress of Messina) distinguished between "gnosis" in general as "knowledge of the divine mysteries reserved for an elite" and "Gnosticism" proper which is characterized by the notion that a divine spark has fallen into our world, is entrapped in the soul of man, and must be awakened by a divine aspect or counterpart of the self so that it can be raised and reintegrated with the divine sphere. This group was a second century development which entered
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