Ethan Solomon

An ongoing internal processes within the human soul, psychologically and spiritually. The world represents the individual.  The conflicts described by Jesus are happening inside your own psyche. The "Nations" and "Kingdoms" represent the fragmented parts of the human ego—conflicting desires, habitual thoughts, animalistic instincts, and the opposing forces of the lower fleshly mind versus the higher spiritual mind. The "Birth Pains" Jesus refers to these conflicts as the "beginning of birth pains." this is the agonizing friction that occurs when a person begins to wake up spiritually. Before the "Christ consciousness" can be born within an individual, the old egoistic structure (the lower kingdoms) must clash, fracture, and fall apart. The "End of the World" is not the destruction of the physical earth, but the destruction of the illusionary self—the death of the ego so that the true spiritual spark can awaken. Everything built on the false foundation of the material world is inherently unstable. The clashing of nations and kingdoms is the inevitable systemic collapse of the physical, illusionary world (Maya or Samsara) because it lacks true spiritual permanence. To a Gnostic, this means spiritual awakening inherently creates a divide. You must separate your divine spiritual spark from the worldly, genetic, and social programming ("the house") that keeps you asleep.