Neon Genesis Evangelion

After all, you are alive, so you will always have the chance to be happy. As long as the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth exist, everything will be all right.-Yui Ikari, Neon Genesis Evangelion

Image Credit: Lexica Art

Gnosticism is remarkable for its ability to appropriate and assimilate, and to reap where it has not sown. As Meister Puck said, “Gnosis is true Alchemy. It can take any religion, any philosophy, any folklore and turn it into a divine metaphor. There could be a gnostic movement with Don Quixote as its sacred text.”
—Wayne Kraus, Levity

If Don Quixote can be turned into a Gospel then what about a mecha-anime in which hormone-crazed fourteen-year-olds have to jump into human-robot-Gunadams to fight alien invaders known as Angels?

One may look at the title and see the hints of meaning that the creator of the show, Anno Hideaki, vehemently denies. “Neon Genesis” can be translated into New Generations. “Evangelion” is rooted in “Evangelic” which means to be part of the Gospels. The main message that is portrayed to the protagonist of the show is simple. “It’s your mind which takes reality and separates it into what’s bad and hateful. It is only the mind which separates reality from the truth. Your view of reality changes your perception of its nature. It is all, literally a matter of perspective.”

When Zen Master D.T. Suzuki came to the United States he struggled to enter the cultural consciousness. He was like a Japanese painter who had to figure out where to place the ugly Christian Cross in his Ukiyo-e-styled landscape. If it wasn’t for the words of Swedenborg and Meister Eckhart he may have never figured out how to write for a Western audience.

There are many paths to the truth but one truth. The paths are as infinite and varied as the people who walk them. No matter what path you take, the truth ultimately pervades all paths. You may be the first to discover a new way.

The only thing that matters at the end of the day is the attainment of this truth. Whatever medium you use as a template to understand this idea is up to you. Apparently, even a mecha-anime will work as this “Neon Genesis Evangelion” or “New-Generation Testament” proves.

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.  When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised.  Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for, or against, anything.  To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.  When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
—Hsin Hsin Ming, Seng Ts’an