Book Cover

Here is the cover of my book to be published by Anamchara Books. Coming soon...

introduction to book

My book, "The Hidden Words of the Living Jesus: A Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas," is being edited for publication by Anamchara Books. Here is the introduction I have submitted:

In each of the four orthodox Gospels, a story, a narrative, has been woven around Jesus’ sayings. With the Gospel of Thomas, we have the sayings not wrapped in a context. These sayings are thought to be in more pure unadulterated form, passed on in oral tradition, and eventually written down.

To understand the writings or speaking of another, one must enter their consciousness, adopt their mindset, look through their eyes at the world they describe, listen with their ears. Jesus often said, “Let those who have ears, hear!” Listening requires not putting a pre-existing dogmatic frame on what is being spoken, but allowing its imagery and meaning to unfold. Rather than jumping on a sentence with analytic fervor, one allows it to settle like a depth charge and to “explode” to reveal its meaning. This is the method I followed with each saying of Jesus in writing this commentary on the Gospel of Thomas.

I would sit quietly in the pre-dawn hours of the night, and contemplate a particular saying, allowing images and understandings to form. Eventually these imaginal formings would begin to solidify into sentence structure, a translation from heartfelt imagery to English. I wrote each sentence as it formed. I then made small edits until I was satisfied that the sentences were as identical as possible to the images that formed from meditation on the saying. Something within "clicked" when that happened. I would exhale a sigh of completion.

Here is the outcome. If you have ears, you will hear. If you hear something richer and deeper than what I heard, write it down. My goal will have been accomplished: the bringing of these “hidden” sayings into the light of other’s consciousness for the sharing of this richness.

nobody in the well

He said: Master, there are many around the drinking barrel, but there is nobody in the well. Saying 74, The Gospel of Thomas.

The spirit of this age consists both of inertia/stupor (we wish to make no move except to our next entertainment) and frenetic activity on the horizontal plane. Though we know we need to descend into our spiritual depths, we are hesitant, unwilling to do so.

We continue to oscillate between stupor and restless activity, half-hoping that someone else will bring us spiritual water to drink, water that impels us to go beyond the rigid bounds that mummify us in our self-created tomb of desiccation.

We must go into the Well ourselves, stop standing around the drinking barrel and take the leap. No one else can do it for us and Now is the only time there is.

treasure

You too should seek for long-lasting treasures that do not decay, where moths do not come to eat them or grubs to destroy them. Saying 76b, The Gospel of Thomas.

We are continuously inhaling from and exhaling into the Divine. We are being breathed, though we ignore this great treasure, preferring instead to scamper around in our latest escapades and incessant melodrama.

We will have a final exhalation. We are to follow this last breathing out, this final exhale to the place and treasure of the Mystery that breathes us. We are not to identify with the breathing animal we are, as magnificent and wondrous as it is, but breathe in from and out into the eternal Halation (hale: hearty, whole, holy), That which breathes all.

We are this breathing. We are the rhythmic tide of the Divine. Jesus brings us and wishes us good tidings.

the snake dove combo

You should be as clever as snakes and as innocent as doves. Saying 39b, The Gospel of Thomas.

When your psychic skin is too tight, when your soul is suffocating, when that suit of socio-spiritual clothes you put on each day is so unbecomingly small, shed your container and let what cannot be contained burst into new life.

Do not be afraid. You will contain it soon enough.

With the fearlessness of vision of unlimited expansion of soul and spirit, you will find yourself as gentle and as innocent as a dove.

the tall hill

Jesus said: A city built and fortified atop a tall hill cannot be taken, nor can it be hidden. Saying 32, The Gospel of Thomas.

In-spire means to breathe in. Expire means to breathe out. To aspire means to look to become the highest breath possible. Spiritual (spire-itual) aspiration is a doubly reinforced concentration on opening to the Highest Breath and Its Breathing.

As we become more stable (e-stabl-ished) there, build and fortify our city there, we cannot be taken down by anyone or any force. Nor can the Light that shines from that Breathing be hidden.

Our treasures (all that we value) are "laid up in Heaven."

uncontainable

Doesn't Jesus say that the world is not worthy of one who finds himself? Saying 111b, The Gospel of Thomas.

When you know who you are, the human-created society of socio-political games cannot contain you. You move beyond all bounds, outside all camps, able to warm yourself at every campfire but attached to none. You are the Tao taoing, God godding, the Buddha on his buddha cycle.

You are the gleam in a lover's eye, the irruptive laughter of a joyous child, the silent unfolding of an unseen flower. The world is lint within your navel, monkey piss on Buddha's finger, left-over news on the press room floor.

Gate, gate, paragate. Gone! Gone! Gone beyond!

simon peter said

Simon Peter said to them: Mary should leave us because women are not worthy of the life. Jesus responded: Look, I'll lead her in order to make her male so that she can become a living spirit as you males are. For each woman who makes herself male will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Saying 114, The Gospel of Thomas.

[This saying appears to have been tacked on to the Gospel of Thomas. Not only is it inconsistent with the tone of Jesus' earlier sayings (especially Saying 22b), it starts out with "Simon Peter said." This advocacy of male supremacy became a cornerstone of dogma of the institutional church and has helped lead to its weakening and downfall. The appropriate ending of the Gospel of Thomas is Saying 113. Nevertheless, I will provide a commentary.]

Some men have trouble accepting the feminine part of themselves, want to drive it away, saying it is not worthy. They like hard-core, slam-dunk masculinity and regard the open compassionate aspect of themselves as weakness. That adamant maleness irrupts here.

Each of us is an interflow of male and female energies. When we recognize that, allow that, we enter into a state of higher consciousness, of greater awareness. We have transcended gender. We have, as Jesus said in Saying 22b, made "the male and the female the same, so that the male isn't male and the female isn't female."

the harvesting of awareness

After the grain had ripened, he quickly came, carrying his sickle, and he harvested it. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Sayings 21e, 21 f, The Gospel of Thomas.

As our consciousness begins to mature, to open, an answering response comes from our Source. The response is quick, immediate. Our expansion of awareness is not wasted, but is harvested, received with great joy.

Our awareness is matched in kind. As our capacity to understand (our ears) expands, we are given more capaciousness. We can hear more. This process is unending.

Attention is our tool and method here. What we attend to, we become. As our attention turns to our Source, we become more and more like our Source.

the dead and the living

The dead do not live, and the living do not die. Saying 11b, The Gospel of Thomas.

While living only to satisfy the eight holes of the body, we are spiritually dead. Our consciousness is creature consciousness. When we do not live in accord with the flow of the life force that is forever birthing us, we are energetically dead. We have a felt sense of separation that puffs and snorts with disconsolate emotion and false inflation.

Those who recognize their identity with this eternal birthing never die. Lao Tzu put it this way: "Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force: they feel no wear, they feel no tear, they need no mending, no repair." We are the embodying of the life force, of the outbreathing of the spirit which never dies. The deep awareness of this is the second and true birth.

grapes, brambles, figs, and thistles

Jesus said: They do not pick grapes from brambles, nor do they pick figs from thistles, for these do not yield the proper fruit. A good man brings good things out of his storehouse, but a bad man brings bad things from his storehouse (which is in his heart). And he says bad things. For out of the surplus in his heart he brings out bad things. Sayings 45a, 45b, The Gospel of Thomas.

Every move we make proclaims the quality of who we are. Every thought, every nuance of the psyche, of the soul, reverberates and transforms our essence, the quality of our sphere of energy, and thereby the entire cosmos.

Bramble and thistle growlings of the heartmind produce a crown of thorns which we press upon our head and the heads of those around us. We suffer and are insufferable.

The production of succulent fruit requires our opening as a conduit, conductors of the creative juice of life. When the conduit and the juice become as one, new universes of creativity and daring are born. How can new fruit be born except by throwing the entire tree, the entire cosmos into the endeavor?

vintage wine and the robe with no seams

Fresh wine is not put into old wineskins because they might burst. Vintage wine is not put into new wineskins because it might be spoiled. A patch of old cloth is not sewn onto a new garment because it would tear. Sayings 47d, 47e, The Gospel of Thomas.

 A vintage wine is one whose parts, whose chemical constituents are moving in harmony. The wine and the wineskin age together. Accustomed to their interplay, they delight in each other. At one time, both were fresh and thus well matched.

The wine of spirit is the wine of understanding and awareness. Deep understanding cannot be put into a new container, into a consciousness not capable of containing it. Nor can a supra-ordinate consciousness abide with shallow linear and literal understandings. The deep truths of spirit are received only by those who deepen with them.

Cloth from the robe with no seams cannot be used to stitch up a seamed garment. The one must be abandoned for the other.

moving mountains

Jesus said: If two can make peace between themselves in a single house, they can say to a mountain, "Move!" and it will move. Saying 48, The Gospel of Thomas.

When of a split mind, we can do nothing. When caught in our dualistic / duelistic nature (me-you, us-them, good-bad, etc.), we are much less powerful than when "the light of our eye is single."

Single does not mean that we choose one pole of our dualistic ladder and use it as our spiritual pogo stick, but that we transcend the ladder and, as in Jacob's dream, identify with the angels that ascend and descend freely upon it.

It is then that we will see that all mountains are already moving.

blessed poorness

Jesus said: Blessed are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven. Saying 54, The Gospel of Thomas. 

In the material realm, poor means one does not have much in the way of worldly sustenance. In the realm of spirit, poor means one is not attached to anything. One acts without attachment to the action or to the fruit of the action. One loves without attachment. (If there is attachment, this is not love, but a selfish clinging.)

One is poor, stripped of all clothing of psychological and spiritual identity.One gains entry into the Kingdom of Heaven by gaining nothing and losing everything. Now one has gained everything and lost nothing.

The Kingdom of Heaven is a state of consciousness which is eternal.

the pearl

Jesus said: The Kingdom of the Father is like a merchant with goods to sell who found a pearl. The merchant was thoughtful. He sold the merchandise and bought himself the pearl. Saying 76a, The Gospel of Thomas.

The pearl was more valuable to the man than his merchandise. Merchandise comes and goes, the pearl is to keep. The pearl comes with a price however.

Jesus says the man "found" a pearl and one might think that would mean he stumbled upon it and thus it automatically was his. No. He had to rid himself of what was less valuable to obtain what was most valuable. He did not do this spontaneously. He thought about it. Then, after coming to a decision, "he sold the merchandise and bought himself the pearl."

What is the pearl? What is this that is of more value than anything else? Our own soul.

We can see that it is not our own. It is bought with a price. One price has already been paid by That which brings our soul into existence. Now it is our turn to pay a price. The soul we are is price worthy, is price-ious, precious.

The steps are simple. (1) We see the preciousness of our soul, of the soul we are. (2) We give up all we possess, all we cling to, to have it.

Would you "gain the whole world and lose your own soul?"

clothes get in the way

Jesus said: Do not worry from morning to evening or evening to morning what you are going to wear. Saying 36, The Gospel of Thomas.

We put on our conceptual, spiritual, philosophical, and metaphysical garb that we choose to wear. We clothe our naked souls. If not careful, we begin to think that our packaging is the gift, that the container is the content. (We row our boat to the other shore, pick up the boat and carry it. Now the boat is rowing us.)

Do not worry all day long and all night long whether you are wearing the correct doctrinal garb. Every story we tell ourselves is just that, a story, and is, at best, a passageway into our continuous rebirthing.

Trample your clothes under your feet, says Jesus in another of his sayings. No need to make a social club of them, form clusters of folk wearing the same uniform. We stand naked before our Source. When we know that we are the Source sourcing, clothes get in the way.

moving with the radiance

Jesus said: The harvest is great, but there are only a few workers. Ask the master to send more workers for the harvest. Saying 73, The Gospel of Thomas.

A harvest is potential food, nurturance. As such, it is worthless unless it is gathered. Workers are needed. The harvest is the potential for the expansion of human consciousness. We need more workers to gather in this potential, to make it part of ourselves, to dissolve our bounds and go beyond.

This is the task of each of us. To ask the master to send more workers is to energize ourselves. What are we doing to contribute to the evolution of human consciousness? It is not the case that we just hang out until we die and then evolve. Our opportunity is now. Jesus knew this.

Ancient wisdom has it that God, our Source, our Origin is a self-sacrificing slow motion explosion radiating outward in all directions and that we are the frontier of that radiance. We either move with the radiance or we move against it. A worker for the harvest moves with it.

the angel of our being

The situation you are expecting will come. Let a person who understands be with you. Saying 21d, The Gospel of Thomas.

We set ourselves up with our expectations. It is like riding a bicycle on the edge of a cliff and we are looking over the side expecting to go there. If we keep doing that, we will.

Earlier in this particular cluster of sayings, Jesus spoke of expecting thieves. The three thieves we can expect, according to both Buddhist and Islamic lore are greed (wanting what we do not have), hostility (not wanting what we do have), and stupor (ignore-ance). The situation we can expect is that we will be greedy, hostile, and ignore-ant.

We need to let a person who understands be with us. That person is the person we continue to cultivate, to open to, to become. That person is the Angel of our Being. Beware, angels are not cute little cuddly things. When the Angel of our Being is with us, the sword of the spirit (the lifeforce) cuts through all expectation, all sham.

tieing our hands of awareness

Jesus said: It is not possible for anyone to enter a strong man's house and take it over forcefully unless he first ties his hands. Then he can steal from that house. Saying 35, The Gospel of Thomas.

The hands of discernment, of thought, of intuition must be open, empty (clean), and receptive for spiritual understanding to occur. Above all, these hands of attention and receptivity must be readily available.

If one's house of consciousness is to be robbed, its treasures and wealth stolen, one's hands of awareness must be tied. One's consciousness then exists only on a superficial level, attentive to the surface of life, unable to dive into its depths of meaning.

Who is the thief who ties our hands but us? We stand bound within our own house, victims of any passing fancy, doubt, or worry that comes along. A mind given to distraction is a thief, robbing us of contemplative awareness, of residing in the templum, the clear open space of understanding. We are robbed of knowing our place in the cosmos, of an ever deepening appreciation of our Source, of love for and as Life's blooming. We tie our hands and sit captive in our household.

professional religionists

Jesus said: The Pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys to knowledge and have hidden them. They did not go in, and they did not permit those desiring to go in to enter. Saying 39a, The Gospel of Thomas.

Those who rely upon literal or surface interpretation of sacred writings and those who are professional religionists hide the keys to knowledge or deeper understanding from themselves and from others. They do not "go in," do not allow the writings and the wisdom they veil to merge with their souls, but stand outside and look, untouched. Insisting that their scholastic and doctrinal endeavors are The Truth, they keep those who yield to their authority from deep experiential knowing. Jesus sees their game. Of course, the same thing happened with Jesus' sayings.

the bursting of the bubble

Jesus said: Once there was a rich man who had lots of money, and he said, "I will invest my money so that I can sow, reap, plant, and fill up my silos with crops so that I won't lack anything." So he thought, but that night he died. He who has ears, let him hear. Saying 63, The Gospel of Thomas.

We can invest in material matter and in spiritual currency in order to feel secure. It is the "in order to" that does us in. No wrongness exists in either monetary or spiritual success.

Buddhist lore speaks of the spiritual quester who floats off into an isolated pocket of self satisfaction and remains there believing s/he is snug and secure, that this state is nirvana. Once the self-blown bubble bursts, s/he has to come back to the point of bubble entry and start all over.

Jesus is pointing to the same phenomenon. For both types of security-seeking investor, death comes. Unexpectedly. This is a blessing, for the way they were pursuing was false. Death is an ally, removes all falsity. As Carlos Castaneda reminds us, death sits on our left shoulder and is to be consulted in our plans and moves. Death is part of who we are and does not lie.

a treasure

Jesus said: The Kingdom is like a man with a treasure of which he is unaware hidden in his field. He died and left the field to his son. His son knew nothing about it and, having received the field, sold it. The new owner came and, while plowing, found the treasure. He began to lend money at interest to anybody he wished. Saying 109, The Gospel of Thomas.

The Kingdom (which is spread out on the earth and no one sees) is like the "man with a treasure of which he is unaware hidden in his field."

The Kingdom is NOT like the son in the parable nor is it like the new owner, both of whom made money from it (the son selling his life away ignore-ant of the treasure he contained, the new owner very much aware of the spiritual domain, controlling who had access to it, and requiring the paying of interest).

The Kingdom is like the man who died and never knew it was there. We have a treasure hidden in the field of energy we are. The kingdom is within us. We are the temple of God. If not careful, we may die and not know of, not act upon, not live by this deep core treasure.

split and lift

Split wood, I am there. Lift up a rock, you will find me there. Saying 77b, The Gospel of Thomas.

Jesus, as we all are, is an embodying of the life force, of the sacrificial outbreathing that births all that is. Not all of us are aware that we are personifications of the life force, but Jesus was. Thus, he could make this statement.

The cosmos is a vibrational flow of energy assuming many forms. The forms you see depend primarily on your perception: what you have been taught to see and what you allow yourself to see. The universe you are "in" is you looking back at you.

The great I Am is everywhere.

investment

Jesus said: Once there was a rich man who had lots of money, and he said, "I will invest my money so that I can sow, reap, plant, and fill up my silos with crops so that I won't lack anything." So he thought, but that night he died. He who has ears, let him hear. Saying 63, The Gospel of Thomas.

Not only is this a reminder that "life is what happens when we are making other plans" and that materialistic pursuits are like clothing a corpse with riches and that no security exists but in the ephemeral, it is also a warning to those of us who amass spiritual wealth so as to ensure our place in the heavens, our resting place of comfort in the hereafter. It doesn't work that way. Our trust is put in the development of our own holosphere, a cosmic tomb. Give it all away all the time and you will receive. And we can't do it for that reason either.

the vintage and the fresh

No one drinks vintage wine and immediately wants to drink fresh wine. Saying 47c, The Gospel of Thomas.

Fresh wine is the raw experiencing that makes up physically-based consciousness. Vintage wine is the rarefied and entrancing atmosphere of the invisible.

We tend to call the first, the realm of brute consciousness, real and to call the realm of vintage wine, the realm of spirit, imaginary.

What we call imaginary is the fruition of what we call real: the vintage is a refinement of the fresh. Paradoxically, the vintage also births the fresh. Since they birth each other, the distinctions we make between the two are arbitrary, show our inability and unwillingness to allow the dissolution of their boundary.

When we cast our lot with the realm of the invisible, of spirit, we may not wish to return to the realm of the visible. We wish to keep sipping that heavenly wine. But at this time, we are embodying. We are fresh wine. We ask to let this cup pass from us, but we must drink it.

disclosure of the holy

Jesus said: Do not give holy things to dogs, for they might carry them off to the dung heap. Do not give pearls to pigs, for they might... Saying 93, The Gospel of Thomas.

One cannot share the depths of one's being with those who cannot hear and understand. Nor should one attempt to do so. The sacred becomes cheapened. Disclose yourself to those with an affinity of soul. Your treasure, your "holy things," will be amplified and strengthened.

Do not blaspheme and let the dog and pig part of you invade and loot your inner sanctuary. You will find yourself on the dung heap and torn apart.

the situation

The situation you are expecting will come. Let a person who understands be with you. Saying 21d, The Gospel of Thomas.

No matter how optimistic we are, we expect that everything we have will be taken from us. This expectation is reality. All that we cling to will be removed, revealing all that we are, our essence. At this time of no escape and no hiding place, let a person who has already been through this be with you. Such company is available on the invisible spiritual plane, the site where this nakedness occurs. Expect it.

letting go

Jesus said: Whoever has found the world and become rich should renounce the world. Saying 110, The Gospel of Thomas.

We spend the first part of our lives trying to find the world. We want to know our place in it. We want to belong. We want to contribute. We amass stuff.

We spend the second part of our lives letting go. We let go of stuff. We let go of social roles. We let go of others' definitions of us and of our concretized definitions of ourselves. We understand the value of not clinging. Our richness is now in our simplicity, in our nothingness.

tenant farmers

A good man had a vineyard that he arranged for tenant farmers to take care of for him in return for a portion of the produce. He sent a servant to collect the grapes. Tenants seized the servant and beat him nearly to death. That servant reported back to his master, but his master responded, "Perhaps they did not recognize him." And so he sent another servant; the tenants beat him too. Then the owner sent his own son, saying, "Perhaps they will show some respect for my son." Sine the tenants were aware that he would inherit the vineyard, they seized him and then killed him. He who has ears, let him hear. Saying 65, The Gospel of Thomas.

We live on the plane of the horizontal and ignore the vertical. We are dirt and water walking round, forgetting that we did not make ourselves, wishing to claim it all. The vertical descends from above and ascends from below to claim its portion. We kill that part of our soul. We keep killing it every time it makes its appearance. This is spiritual suicide. We are tenant farmers and the rent will come due. Though we kill the urges of the spirit within us, the owner of the vineyard will have the last say.

the transformation of the base

Jesus said: The Kingdom of the Father is like a woman who took a little leaven and concealed it in dough. She made large loaves of bread. He who has ears let him hear. Saying 96, The Gospel of Thomas.

What is this Kingdom of the Father to which Jesus often refers? Here it is an action, a purposeful action that takes something small, yet containing great possibility, and placing it within an element that will not only accept it but will allow itself to  be transformed into a substance of great nutritional value. Is this not an alchemical process, a procedure transforming lead (inert matter) into gold (radiant vibrancy)?

The Kingdom of the Father is the ongoing transformation of what seems base and useless into that which "feeds the multitudes," whose reverberations expand, providing life beyond itself in positive and radiant fashion.

The yeast or leaven is available. So is the bread. What is needed is action: the combination of the two. If one has spiritual ears, one can hear this. And by taking action, allow the action to take place within oneself.

embodying

Jesus said: Woe to the flesh dependent on the soul; woe to the soul dependent on the flesh. Saying 112, The Gospel of Thomas.

Some no longer believe in soul, which is sadly humorous because the soul (essence of who we are) is that which is disbelieving.

The soul and body are independent of each other. The body is like a nest from which the soul must take flight. The body is a base of operation for soul. As an extension of soul, the body will not get everything it wants.

The body is a manifestation of soul. Woe to the soul that allows its manifestation to rule. We embody willingly to make a difference in this universe. The energy of the soul radiates through the body and makes itself known, makes a felt difference.

Want to see someone's soul? Look in their eyes. The eyes are the windows to the soul.

the kingdom

They asked him: When is the Kingdom coming? He replied: It is not coming in an easily observable manner. People will not be saying, "Look, it's over here" or "Look, it's over there." Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is already spread out on the earth, and people aren't aware of it. Saying 113, The Gospel of Thomas.

What we are looking for (the Kingdom of the Father, Home) is already here. It is our awareness that falls short. We become so engrossed in our meatness and its desires and irritabilities, so pumped up in our social roles, that we become blind, insensitive. We think we are going somewhere and we have already arrived.

Those who point to a future arrival of the Kingdom are magicians of misdirection. Now is the future and contains all time, all space. "The Kingdom of the Father is already spread out on the earth, and people aren't aware of it."

We are concentric spheres of awareness. We sit in the seat at the center of our soul. We open to the cosmos, the playground and the Kingdom of our source. We are always already in and of the Kingdom.

my mother

My mother has...but true she gave me life. Saying 101b, The Gospel of Thomas.

The incompleteness of this saying leads us to focus on its last six words. "But" is a word used to negate or deflate all that came before and place attention on the primary thought of the sentence.

Whatever my mother has done or not done, has become or is becoming, whatever properties or qualities she has, she has been "true in giving me life."

Jesus is honoring his mother here. Without her willingness to bear him in her womb, he would have no life. So may we all cherish our mother despite our disputations.

consciousness discipline

Jesus said: Anyone who doesn't hate his father and his mother as I do cannot be a disciple of mine. And anyone who doesn't love his father and mother as I do cannot be a disciple of mine. Saying 101a, The Gospel of Thomas.

We are on a perpetual journey, moving out of that which births us. We must "hate" (turn away from) our past. "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." If we are forever looking back, we are continuing to cast ourselves in the same old mold. Yet, at the same time, we must "love" (turn toward) our Source and Origin. Turning away from and gazing out into the Void of Becoming while turning toward our Source and receiving encouragement and sustenance, such is the paradox of the spiritual path. This makes us a true disciple (one following a consciousness discipline) of Jesus.

james the just

His disciples said to Jesus: We know you will leave us. Who will be our leader then? Jesus responded: Wherever you are, turn to Jacob (James) the Just, for whose sake the sky and the earth came into being. Saying 12, The Gospel of Thomas.

Humans need a physical leader, one embodied in the flesh, one who shares their worldly situation. When Jesus was physically gone, what were his followers, his students, to do? Who could ever take the place of Jesus?

Jesus had a ready answer. He did not speak of the forthcoming Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, as their inner guide. He did not foretell the leadership of Paul, a latecomer to the movement. He named his brother James, whose spirit was evidently in tune with Jesus' spirit ("for whose sake the sky and the earth came into being").

Evidently, James led very well. His ongoing capability as a leader was acknowledged and certified in his becoming the first bishop of Jerusalem.

no clinging

Jesus said: If you have some money, don't lend it out at interest but give it to someone who will not return it to you. Saying 95, The Gospel of Thomas.

Security does not exist in this world. The piling up of money and the strenuous efforts to use money to make money remind one of the hungry ghosts with long narrow skinny throats connecting a gaping cavernous mouth with a bloated perpetually dissatisfied belly. No matter how much is shoveled in the mouth, the belly cannot be appeased.

Paradoxically, security does not come from grasping and clinging. Security comes from giving everything away. Continuously. No clinging! We are not talking about just the electronic blips in our accounts nor the tough pieces of paper with no nutritional value. We are talking about an attitude of our heart.

We are talking about our gifts, the talents we have been given (no charge) and which we give to others in turn. Like free-flowing rivers of pure energy, we give our gifts expecting nothing in return. Otherwise, we become inturned ponds of stagnation. Freely we receive and freely give.

the second birth

Jesus said: Two will lie down on one bed; one will die and the other will live. Saying 61a, The Gospel of Thomas.

We know we are creatures of duality, of twoness. Our very bodies demonstrate this. We have "on the one hand" and "on the other hand." We look to "put our best foot forward." Our bodies are opposing halves with a center line running down our middle.

We are also split in our thinking, which is composed of the continuous resolution of the ricochet between opposing forces: good - bad, right - wrong, us - them, etc. We feel blessed relief when such cognitive dissonance is resolved.

A prime split in ourselves seems to be between our physical body (soma) and our energetic soul (psyche). At some point, the two will lie down on one bed. Only one will get up. The physical body will give way to the spiritual body. One does not have to wait for physical death for this to occur.

finding and opening

Jesus said: Whoever seeks will find. Whoever knocks, it will be opened. Saying 94, The Gospel of Thomas.

This is the kept promise of the cosmos. Awareness continues to open as attention keeps knocking on the door. What door? The thin permeable membrane that separates our consciousness from the larger consciousness, our awareness from great awareness.

How do we knock? By opening to the highest, widest, deepest awareness we can muster. We push the bounds of our consciousness. We do this through contemplation (con-templum-ation), by going to the templum, the clear and open space inside where knowledge and understanding, grace and love, are received.

We knock, not through agitated fervor, but through a silent and open expectancy. Our quiet openness allows room for what we seek to reveal itself. We are informed and infused with love and light: informed as knowledge and wisdom forms itself within us, infused as a gentle and energetic radiance permeates our being.

the old man and the baby

Jesus said: The old man will not hesitate to ask a seven-day-old baby about the place of life, and he will live. Saying 4a, The Gospel of Thomas.

We continue to shed the skin of an enclosed consciousness before it becomes a thick rind. We do so by continuing to allow, to urge our established settled static self to open to the newness of existing. We see things through the eyes of the newly arrived still arriving. Our frozen rigidness falls away. Soft, supple, and with eyes of wonder, we are alive.

the disturbance of the seeker

Jesus said: The seeker shall not stop until he finds. When he does find, he will be disturbed. After having been disturbed, he will be astonished. Then he will reign over everything. Saying 2, The Gospel of Thomas.

A seeker is one not satisfied with her consciousness state. Nor with the accepted explanations of Reality. A seeker courses beyond the surface chit-chat of the humanimal society, beyond the dogma and doctrine of nationalism, of corporatism,  and other forms of religion.

A seeker finds that the outer infinity and the inner infinity are the same infinity. A seeker finds that the Imaginal is real. The seeker is disturbed, then astonished in finding who is seeking.

All cognitive frames fall away and the seeker is silent, is the silence out of which all arises.

resurrection

And he said, "Whoever finds the interpretations of these sayings will not taste death." Saying 1, The Gospel of Thomas.

Why is that so? To understand these sayings, one's consciousness must shift. The place from which they can be understood is the place of Spirit, of the eternal Lifeforce, that which breathes us, out of which we are.

To understand these sayings we must shift awareness to a non-death place. We drop all social roles, all social fictions, all of our favored illusions and preoccupations. We stand naked and empty and open.

Though our body is still here, we have already died, already "passed over." We continue surrendering, letting go. We are in the world, but not of the world. These sayings are spoken from Deep Reality.

To understand them, we move into those depths. Our consciousness becomes the same Consciousness from which they are spoken. We are resurrected before we die.

"On the banks of the Jordan, Yeshua manifested the Presence of a realm that existed before all things." -- The Gospel of Philip

embodying the light

If they ask you, "Are you it?" reply to them, "We are his Sons. We are chosen ones of the living Father." Saying 50b, The Gospel of Thomas.

 "It" refers, as is pointed out in the previous saying (50a), to the "light (that) is produced from itself." Jesus says here that if you are asked, "Are you that light?" to reply that we are its chosen offspring. We come from the light that is produced from itself.

This is our Origin. This is not something that happened way long ago and we are an extenuated result. This light, our Father, our Source, is happening now and we are its embodying.

We are the light of the world. We dis-remember and plunge ourselves into our melodramas. And yet, even these melodramas are the eternal light shining into and out of darkness. At this moment now, we are the chosen ones; we are embodyings of the living light that is produced from itself.

energy vampires

Therefore I say: If a householder knows a thief is coming, he will keep watch and not let him break into his house (of his kingdom) and steal his goods. You must keep watch against the world, preparing yourselves with power so that thieves will not find any way to come upon you. Sayings 21 b, c. The Gospel of Thomas.

Energy vampires exist. They exist in both human and in non-visible form. Spiritual energy can and will be sucked from you, your goods stolen. Keep watch and know when this is about to happen or is happening.

An energy vampire will often come in benign form in order to get close. What seems a natural progression will end in your depletion, your being sucked dry, left with a wounded feeling of discomfort and shock.

You must rouse your awareness of the situation and "prepare yourself with power," settling into your spiritual core and not allowing it to happen again.

This takes firm resolution.

his father and his mother

Jesus said: One who knows his father and his mother will be called the son of a whore. Saying 105, The Gospel of Thomas.

Jesus knew from whence he came. The consciousness he embodies is born of the penetrating and the receptive. He is very much aware of his Origin and speaks of it with familiarity (family-arity).

His father and his mother are within him. He is at times more one than the other in his reactions and responses to those around him. He can be like a keen sword or a warm and comforting heart.

Those religious leaders caught in ordinary consciousness thought him a heretic, a teacher and follower of false doctrine, one who had gone whoring away from "the true religion." Ordinary consciousness cannot comprehend spiritual consciousness. The world cannot understand that in which it is embedded.

the wanderer

Jesus said: The Kingdom is like a shepherd with one hundred sheep. One of those sheep, the largest, wandered off. He left the ninety-nine others behind and went looking for the other one until he found it. Having exhausted himself, he said to the sheep, "I love you more than the other ninety-nine." Saying 107, The Gospel of Thomas.

Awareness does not want to lose any of its awarenessing. Especially a large awarenessing that has wandered off, lost contact. All the other awarenesses will be left behind, snug in their fold, never venturing out. The Awareness that encompasses all will seek the venturer, the one who wandered off, will seek to the point of exhaustion. In doing so, Awareness Itself is changed. He says: I love you more than the ones who stay within the fold.

the sign within you

If they ask you "What is the sign within you of your Father?" reply to them, "It is movement. It is rest." Saying 50c, The Gospel of Thomas. 

We move as the spirit moves. We rest as the spirit rests. We are of our Father whose spirit is a wind that moves and rests. We follow that spirit, that Tao flow. It is the sign within us of our Father, of our Source.

This sign within us is a binary code, movement (1) and rest (0). Through the 1 of movement and the 0 of rest, all systems are built. All other numbers come into play, to infinity and beyond. All creation emerges through this movement and this rest.

Movement and rest are the Breath of the Father. The two movements of inhalation and exhalation are conjoined by a pause, a rest. All reality, all truth is created through, subsists upon this movement and this rest.

the living one

Jesus said: Look at the living one while you live, for if you die and then try to see him you will not be able to do so. Saying 59, The Gospel of Thomas.

This human existence is a place of transition, an opportunity for transformation. To be born a human is a precious occurrence. The odds are small. Mister Buddha said it was about the same odds as a sea turtle in a boundless ocean surfacing once every gazillion years and its head popping into the hole of a single floating log on the entirety of the sea's surface. We have to look at the living one while we are in the flesh. This moment now is our opportunity. Who is the living one? Look and you will see.

moving past asceticism

Jesus said to them: If you fast you will bring sin to yourselves, and if you pray you will be condemned, and if you give to charity you will damage your spirits. Saying 14a, The Gospel of Thomas.

Jesus's sayings are often in direct contradiction to orthodox christianity. This is because he is speaking in the realm of spirit and not the flesh. He speaks in other places of resurrecting before you die, of being born not just of water (amniotic fluid) but of spirit: the second birth. The rules of the amnion do not apply to one born in the aeon. Jesus often broke the amnion world's rules.

When one is already born into the kingdom, is a kingdom resident, is spirit in the realm of Spirit, is an energy being amidst Energy, to fast, pray, and give to charity are steps backward. Those three, in the sense used here, are the flesh-denying steps one takes in order to, in order to achieve the realm of spirit. As the Buddha said, once you reach the other shore, you don't carry your boat around on your head.

alone

Jesus said: I will choose one of you out of a thousand and two of you out of ten thousand. You will stand up and you will be alone. Saying 23, The Gospel of Thomas.

A teacher can only teach those whose attention is focused on learning. Those whose attention is caught in ordinary consciousness, firmly embedded in societal reality, in the mass hypnosis of their culture, cannot hear or see anything other than the hologram they project around themselves. The sun they are blots out the stars, makes nonexistent the vastness of the spiritual cosmos. At this time and in this way, they have self-selected themselves out of being chosen. Awakeness chooses the awake, the attentive, the searching.

The ones chosen do not have it easy. In some sense, it is easier to rest in the muffled world of societal complacency. Those chosen stand up out of that world, walk the eternal path of wide and deep consciousness. Alone, yet aware of the great interflow of which they are a manifestation, the shoreless ocean of which they are a wave. Alone, empty of all the world has to offer, dwelling in internal solitude, sometimes bereft of even the felt presence of God. Alone. Yet standing.

sky

Jesus said: This sky will cease to be, and the sky above it will cease to be. Saying 11a. The Gospel of Thomas 

"The sky is the limit." We see no further than the sky in our ordinary consciousness, even though there is a sky beyond that. This first sky, this limitation of ordinary consciousness can cease to be even now. This is part of what is meant by "dying before you die." Have we considered that ordinary consciousness is death? And that dying to ordinary consciousness is life? When we see beyond this first sky, we are no longer entrapped by it.

The sky above it, which will also cease to be, is the limitation of our spiritual insight. All bounds are removed and our spiritual insight is unlimited, ever increasing. We know no bounds, are boundless. We are a circle with no circumference, a sphere with no surface.

Can you handle it or will you cling to your tight little virginal consciousness?

handiwork

Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Saying 62b, The Gospel of Thomas.

The left hand is known as the sinister hand. Sinister has the dual meaning of both "left" and "suggesting or threatening evil." This understanding of the left hand is, of course, a spiritual or essential (essence-ial) understanding and has nothing to do with whether or not one is left-handed.

We do not share our spiritual understandings with our realm of darkness. This is fruitless. We do not try to convert our darkness to light by focusing on the darkness. We sit, stand, walk, and breathe in the light and doing so allows more light.

Attention directs energy. When we attend to the left hand, we energize the left hand. Each of us is an individual world. If we wish our world to be light, we live in the light, become the light. This is the light "that shines in darkness and the darkness comprehends it not." And the darkness never will. So give it up. Up! Where light is.

We are light beings and we are to nurture our light.

In this way, the world is transformed.

good soil

Jesus said: Look, there was a man who came out to sow seed. He filled his hand with seed and threw it about. Some fell onto the road, and birds ate it. Some fell onto rocks and could not root and produced no grain. Some fell into patches of thorny weeds that kept it from growing, and grubs ate it. Some seed fell upon good soil and grew and produced good grain. It was 60 units per measure and 120 units per measure.Saying 9, The Gospel of Thomas.

We hear and see according to our capacity. The seed is the wisdom of the universe, of the cosmos, of God; the knowing and understanding that surpasses all worldly education. We do not receive this wisdom if we are a well trodden road of surface routine. It is dismissed as soon as it lands.

Nor can these seeds of understanding who and what we are, of opening to the energies that birth this world, find any place to root if our heart-minds are rock and our thoughts are prickly and thorny. Self-reflective thought is hard ground. A mirror has no place for seed or for anything but what it reflects. When focusing on me, me, me, my soil is hard and slick. Nothing worthy can get in.

In the material world, humus is good soil. In the spiritual realm, "humus" translates into humble, into humility. To receive increased understanding, we must become the dirt we are. Surrender is a word we all detest, yet surrender is exactly what is needed.

multiple personality disorder

When you were one, you became two. When you become two, what will you do? Saying 11d, The Gospel of Thomas.

We suffer from multiple personality disorder -- every one of us. We were born as one, as a oneness. We had been floating in amniotic fluid with every wish fulfilled instantly. Then we entered the world of differentiation, of discrimination. We became two.

Though it may seem as if the entire galloping horde of our many selves descend upon us at once, we really deal with only two at a time: this and that, here and there, me and you, us and them. We have even divided the world into the spiritual and the physical. No separation exists, but we have made it so.

What will we do now that we have become two? When two, we are quite insane. This splitness is evident in the civilization we have built, one that is unsustainable.

The answer to Jesus' question is simple. We can "let the light of our eye be single," opening to the awareness that we are inseparable from the Interflow, from the vast interconnecting and everchanging Sphere of Being (a sphere with no bounds). In that case, we are always already home, safe, sound, secure, everchanging, and adventuring. Or we can continue birthing our insanity.

What will we do?

intake and outflow

For what goes into your mouth will not defile you, but what comes out of your mouth can defile you. Saying 14c, The Gospel of Thomas.

With the right spirit, you can take in anything that appears and it will not defile you, will not poison your inner being, your spirit. Jesus took in all the rottenness of humankind and devilish forces. Buddha took in all that Mara had to throw at him. It didn't hurt either one of them a bit. They stayed right where they were, unmoved: Jesus on the cross tree, Buddha beneath the bodhi tree.

It is what comes out of the mouth of our being that can defile us, not what goes in. And it does not even have to be spoken aloud. The smallest thought can dislodge us. "A hair's breadth and we are a mile off course."

Take it all in and let it all go. This is a breathing in and a breathing out. No clinging. No impediments. In-hale. Hale means heal-thy. Ex-hale. Breathe in healthiness. Breathe out healthiness.

If you are strong enough, breathe in the hell around you, slurping it up like a cosmic vacuum cleaner. In-hell (like Jesus and Buddha). But for goodness sake, do not ex-hell. Breathe out clear positive loving spirit to all around.

the bridal suite

They said to Jesus: Come, let's pray today; let's fast. Jesus responded: What sin have I committed? How have I been overcome? Rather, when the groom leaves the bridal suite, then they should fast and pray. Saying 104, The Gospel of Thomas.

The bridal suite is the heart, the heartmind, the core of our being.

The groom is the radiant presence of our Source.

When the radiant presence of our Source leaves our heart, we should by all means fast and pray, direct full attention to our longing for the groom,for the return of this loving grace in our heart.

Jesus did not need to fast and pray. The radiance was shining steadily at his core.

log arhythm

Jesus said: You see the splinter in your brother's eye, but you do not see the log that is in your own eye. Remove the log from your own eye, and then you can clearly see to remove the splinter from your brother's eye. Saying 26, The Gospel of Thomas.

The splinter in my own eye of consciousness is like a log to me, affecting my entire vision. But I think it is just a splinter. No big deal. Or I may not even know I have a splinter at all. I have been living with this consciousness handicap for so long that I think it is normal.

I can certainly see where others have gone wrong though. I can see what hinders their vision. If not careful, I will sashay all around concerned about their splinter while doing nothing about my log.

When I remove this log of judgment from my eye, not only can I see a clear way for the removal of a splinter from another's eye, but the other will trust me to do so and may perhaps do the same for me.

standing outside

His disciples told him: Your brothers and your mother are standing outside. He responded: These here who do the will of my Father are my brothers and my mother. These are the ones who will enter the Kingdom of my Father. Saying 99, The Gospel of Thomas.

"Your brothers and your mother are standing outside." Already we see a distinction, a barrier. Jesus' earthly kin would not come in to where he was. After all the fanfare of his birth, his mother may have thought he would be a great Rabbi within the Temple, but here he was, on a different course, wandering the streets and visiting in the homes of the riff-raff, the scum, the societal outcasts.

They stood outside. When told they were standing out there, Jesus did not rush out to greet them. Instead, he strengthened the understanding of the distinction. "These here who do the will of my Father are my brothers and my mother."

Earthly bonds of kinship give way to spiritual linking of souls. All who live in accord with the Father, the Source, The-One-Who-Breathes-Us are spiritual kin. These are the ones who will enter the kingdom and, indeed, are already in the kingdom which is present even now.

richness

Jesus said: Whoever has become rich should rule. Whoever has power should renounce it. Saying 81, The Gospel of Thomas.

This does NOT mean whoever has a lot of money should rule. Having a lot of money is not rich. Richness is of the heart, the soul. Nothing that stays here when you die is of any richness. Your richness is the warm and brilliant radiance of connection with your angel, your higher being already on the other shore. With this merge you now rule. Nor is it a rule of laws and force and power (power is a trap that drains the soul), but a radiance of spirit which can never be overcome.

the telling of the mysteries

Jesus said: I tell my mysteries to people worthy of my mysteries. Saying 62a, The Gospel of Thomas.

What are the mysteries? Who is worthy to be told them? Even if they are told, as Jesus frequently did and continues to do so, only "those who have ears" can hear. When we are full of ourselves, we cannot hear -- full of emotion, full of intellectual chitter-chatter. One has to be silent to listen, to open in contemplation. Con-templum-ation: to sit quietly in the templum, the clear and open space for divining, for opening to the divine. Clear, open, capacious, expectant, attentive: one is worthy.

Worthiness comes too from tiring of abiding by social constructions of reality. One would rather listen to what the blood is singing, the heart is radiating, the Tao is Taoing. One is ready to listen to the great pulsations of the planet, the galaxies, the universe, the cosmos than the daily news. Whatever one attends to, one becomes. One makes oneself worthy, prepares an open space for the telling of the mysteries. They will be told.

god energy

Jesus said: Where there are three Gods they are Gods. Where there are two or one, I am with him. Saying 30, The Gospel of Thomas.

Numbers are important. They show relationship. "Two is company and three is a crowd." Jesus, quoting a psalm (Psalm 82), said, "You are gods." When we are two gods conversing or one god standing, all the energy that Jesus represents is with us. When we triplicate, that energy shoots off into the heavens somewhere, complex and theological.

the place for rest

They saw a Samaritan going into Judea carrying a lamb. He asked his disciples: What do you think he will do with that lamb? They replied: He'll kill it and eat it. He said to them: As long as it remains alive he will not eat it, only if he kills it and it becomes a corpse. They said: Otherwise he won't be able to do so. He said to them: You too must seek a place for rest, or you may become a corpse and be eaten. Saying 60, The Gospel of Thomas.

If you do not know your place for rest, how can I tell you? Reflection will not do it. Caught in reflections, you are a corpse. Reflections are not the mirror. When you know your mirror is a mirror, you will know your place for rest. Your place for rest is not a place. Your place for rest is no place.

The mirror knows it is a mirror but does not make itself into a mirror. This is the place for rest. This is the kingdom of heaven spread out over the earth that people are not aware of. It is pure awareness. Awareness of awareness is already dead. One has become a corpse and is eaten.

circumcision in the spirit

His disciples asked him: Is circumcision useful or not? He replied: If it were useful, then they would be born already circumcised. On the other hand, true circumcision in the spirit is entirely beneficial. Saying 53, The Gospel of Thomas.

Jesus was never one to waste a metaphor. Circum means all the way around (circle). Cision means cut. An incision is a cutting into. An excision is a cutting out. Circumcision is cutting all the way around. He says that physical circumcision is not useful. It is true circumcision in the spirit that is more than useful, is "entirely beneficial," is "profitable in every respect" (Pagels).

We are to be in the world but not of the world. We are to be "passersby." This is cutting all the way around. As long as we have one piece of spiritual foreskin attached to the world of desire, the realm of samsara, we are in danger of infection. In fact, the attachment is the infection. We are to make the cut all the way around. No attachment.

Letting go of our attachments is painful but essential. If we wish to launch into the consciousness that Jesus knew and represented, we must cast off all lines that hold our spiritual vehicle to the earth. This is entirely beneficial. As Seung Sahn said, you don't want to be centering in your body when you die.

basket cases

For nobody lights a lamp and puts it underneath a bushel basket or in a hidden place. Rather, it is placed on a lamp stand so that all who go in and out may see the light. Saying 33b, The Gospel of Thomas.

We are bushel baskets. Light beings, we weave ourselves clothing and insist we are that clothing. We hide our light. We cluster our thoughts around this chosen shroud. We dare not be naked light shining unadorned.  In trying to make our selves some body, as Jesus says, we become "nobody."

Our consciousness is light, the light of awareness. Awareness courses through the heart brain and the head brain. The light of awareness is seen as the nimbus (whole being aura) and the halo (head aura). The bushel basket of petulance, of self absorption, of singing the song of me, me, me is left behind, vanquished, toodle-ooed. We shine.

the finding of life

Jesus said: Blessed is one who has labored and found life. Saying 58, The Gospel of Thomas.

Born out of the amniotic sac of the first birth, we take on the clothing or life of the human societal world, a world of customs and laws and imagery. Now we need a birthing labor of our own. We have not yet found life. It is all around us and I do not speak of just the "natural" world.

We must emerge from the human amniotic sac in which we are enfolded, this cultural conditioning and limitation of vision, this ignore-ance. This emerging is called labor because like an unborn chick we have to peck at our shell. When we persevere, we find life outside the egg of consciousness we solidified around ourselves so long ago.

The world rocks on but it is no longer rocking us. We are, as Jesus says, blessed.

one master

Jesus said: Nor can a servant serve two masters, as he will respect one and despise the other. Saying 47b, The Gospel of Thomas.

Many spiritual paths exist, leading to the same Opening. Each path has a master of that path, one who has proven the validity of the path through his/her very being, through action, word, and presence. One can be aware of all paths and learn from them, but to follow more than one master of a path diffuses the one-pointedness that is essential for merging with the master. One sets one's whole heart on one master, becomes attuned to and identical with that master's wisdom and compassion.

ditching our lives

Jesus said: If a blind person leads another blind person, both of them will fall into a ditch. Saying 34, The Gospel of Thomas.

Thought and imagery are fine. They naturally arise. They also naturally disappear. When we do not let them disappear, we are blind, stuck in obscuration. We cannot see the vast openness that we are and in which we dwell. We lead ourselves into a ditch. It may be a most comfortable ditch, an old familiar ditch, but it is a ditch nonetheless.

Trapped in images of the past, old thoughts suck our energy. Caught in movies of the immediate and distant future, we ditch ourselves and are not here. Sitting in the present moment(um) entranced, we sit snug within our ditch.  The part of me that leads and the part of me that follows are sunk, caught in a time-space warp of our own making.

PHAT! We break clear. Awake. Aware.

the born and the Unborn

Jesus said: When you see someone not born from a woman, prostrate yourselves and worship him; he is your Father. Saying 15, The Gospel of Thomas.

The surface part of ourselves, the part that makes contact with the world and in some sense IS the world, is the aspect of ourselves "born from a woman." This is the character, the personality we are, the persona that builds, that accretes, since physical birth. This is the froth on the wave of the ocean.

We can look inside and see "someone not born of a woman," the energetic and energizing flow of the Wellspring Itself. This is our Source, our Father. The woman-born flat-lines (prostrates itself) at such sight. The woman-born (born of water, the amniotic fluid) gives way to the spirit-born, the life force born.

One is born again. Both births are essential, of the Essence. One is the Unborn borning.

a teaching moment

A man said to him: Talk to my brothers so that they will divide my father's property with me. Jesus replied: Man, who made me a divider? He turned to his disciples and asked them: Really, am I a divider? Saying 72, The Gospel of Thomas

This saying has been interpreted as Jesus being somewhat sarcastic, not so much from his reply to the man wanting Jesus's persuasive power to work in his behalf, but from his remark to his disciples, as if this is an inside joke and Jesus and his disciples can laugh together, leaving the questioner shut out and embarrassed. I do not see this as consistent with Jesus's way of being.

My intuition is that one or more of the disciples had been approached by the man seeking resolution of this domestic dispute, did not know what to say to him, and told him to ask Jesus for help. Jesus's reply (Man, who made me a divider?) shows that Jesus was immediately aware of the inadequacy of understanding of his disciples, his students.

This dialogue is not between Jesus and the man who felt wronged, but between Jesus and his disciples. First he wonders aloud who made him a divider, which may have set off some nervousness amongst those who did. Jesus taught unification, not division ("If one is unified one will be filled with light, but if one is divided one will be filled with darkness.").

Then Jesus focuses full attention on his disciples (those who accepted his discipline)with a strong and true teaching question, the best kind of question, one they have to answer themselves. "Really, am I a divider?"

The very question itself shows that Jesus was not trying to make fun of the man by dividing him from the disciples as an ignorant man not in the know with the "in" crowd. The question was designed to get the disciples to think and to understand.

the chicken or the egg

Jesus said: If the flesh came into being because of spirit, that is a marvel, but if spirit came into being because of the body, that is a marvel of marvels. Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty. Saying 29, The Gospel of Thomas.

Which came first, the mind or the body? Which produces the other? We continue to make that a controversy today. The biomechanics say there is no mind without the body. When the body goes, the mind goes. The more sane biomechanics say they don't know, that this "no body = no mind" position is a point of view within the bounds and limitations of the biomechanical thought system.

Jesus directly addressed this issue. He regards each of these two understandings (and a third one, which he initiates) as marvelous, as causing one to gasp in wonder. If the body came into being because of mind, that is astonishing (a marvel). If the mind came into being because of body, that is even more astonishing (a marvel of marvels). So far, Jesus has not taken a position (unless one substitutes "incredulous" for "astonishing").

With the word "Yet" comes a third viewpoint or understanding. Jesus says that one can marvel from the adoption of the first two positions, but what he marvels at is outside these two divisive statements which war against each other. He is more interested in HOW it happens -- "how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty."

What is "this great wealth?" It is certainly not the ratio-nal syllogistic mind based upon duality, wonderful as it is. "This great wealth" is the Life Force itself, that great stream of being which produces all. It expresses Itself in this poverty, this "clay," this earth matter that walks around, that flies, that creeps, that crawls.

What is more astonishing than the chicken-egg, mind-body controversy and viewpoints is that we and all that exist are embodyings of the Life Force Itself. When we truly grasp that, we are transformed. Our consciousness shifts into a more marvelous realm.

hidden and revealed

Jesus said: The images are revealed to people. The light within them is hidden in the image of the Father's light. He will be revealed. His image is hidden in his light. Saying 83, The Gospel of Thomas.

Four words stand out here. Revealed. Hidden. Revealed. Hidden. Think of a light blinking on and off. This is the nature of the images, the powerful symbols that show us the essence of life, of being.

Revelation comes. We think we've got it. Like Peter at the Transfiguration, we want to build an altar there, a church, a society, a form. We want to stop. No. Something is hidden within the revelation. Something more. Something deeper. We press on with no clinging.

Ah! Revealed! We understand more. We see the image of the Father's light, our Source's light within the first revelation. He is in there somewhere. Hidden.

We catch a glimpse! Revealed! Our soul is thrilled. The glimpse gives way abruptly to the darkness of greater light. We begin to understand. We stop looking out there. He is in here looking out. He is the light within. We have him cornered now.

Blink! He is inside. He is outside. He is neither inside nor outside. He is both inside and outside. Inside and outside are one and the same.

Only light remains.

worthy

Jesus said: Adam came into being from enormous power and wealth, but he was never worthy of you, for had he been worthy of you he would not have died. Saying 85, The Gospel of Thomas.

Jesus is telling us of our worth. Worthy to whom?

Worthy to ourselves in realizing who we are, not just suckling babes crawling on a planet seeking what we may devour, not just unique creations arising from the Ground of Existence and then, after a few short years, dissolving, but manifestations of our Father, our Source, who through our mutual love are immortal.

Worthy to God, our Father and our Mother, the Wellspring of which we are the offspring. We are loved and when we love in return a circuit is completed that is never broken.

nowhere for the tiger to land its claws

Jesus said: Blessed is one who knows where (or when) bandits are going to attack, so that he can prepare, assemble his forces, and arm himself before the bandits enter. Saying 103, The Gospel of Thomas

Spiritual intelligence is essential for spiritual transformation and is a radiant and deep awareness that creates a coherent interflow amongst our other realms of intelligence (kinesthetic, musical, logico-mathematical, linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, visual-spatial). "Blessed is one who knows," who has spiritual intelligence.

The Buddha has identified the bandits as three forces we use against ourselves: greed (wanting what we do not have), hostility (not wanting what we do have), and stupor (a self-induced state of ignore-ance). Jesus says we are blessed when we know where and when these bandits are going to attack. They will attack (we will attack ourselves with them) when and where we are most vulnerable: when we are fatigued, when we are down-hearted, when we are out of step with our spiritual path.

These are the times when we must counter our spiritual inertia and prepare for battle. The bandits are already at our door. It doesn't take much spiritual energy to defeat them. They can be blown away with a single breath.

As the Old Dude says in the Tao Te Ching, when we are in tune with our spiritual awareness, when we are spiritually intelligent: "There is nowhere for the rhinoceros to pitch its horn; there is nowhere for the tiger to land its claws; there is nowhere for the weapon to lodge its blade. Why is this so? Because there are no fatal spots on us."

one of those

Jesus said: Be one of those who pass by. Saying 42, The Gospel of Thomas.

Do not become entangled. Block no orifices with residue. Move on. Go straight ahead. No tumbling around in the dryer of your mind. No lint collection. Step in and meet and greet whatever comes and send it on its way. Stop trying to fix the world. Simply be you. Keep moving. No velcro mind. All images are chimera. Keep breathing. Ex-hell. Be one of those who pass by.