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.