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.