Thomas, Saying 50

Friday, June 21, 2019

5:15 a.m. All right, I guess I’m ready if you are. Saying 50 a, b, and c.

50 a Jesus said: If they ask you, “Where are you from?” reply to them “We have come from the place where light is produced from itself. It came and revealed itself in their image.”

50 b If they ask you, “Are you it?” reply to them, “We are his Sons. We are chosen ones of the living Father.”

51 c If they ask you, “What is the sign within you of your Father?” reply to them, “It is movement. It is rest.”

Saying 49 reminded the disciples that they emerged from non-3D and would return to it. This one appears to continue the theme.

You should be able to see clearly by the extremely cryptic nature of this saying that it is meant for discussion after a setup. Once more, we remind you that the written record followed the spoken tradition. If you will continue to think of this Sayings gospel as a record of talking points, of an outline of Jesus’ remembered exposition of the nature of life and the world, you will be able to make some sense out of what otherwise will be a collection of apparently disconnected remarks, many of them incomprehensible.

Bear in mind too – perhaps we have never explicitly said this—you don’t need to get it exactly right to receive great benefit from the process of examining this material. The process is more important than the conclusions, in a way, because the process will move you closer to the source, which itself will lead you home, so to speak. And discussion among sincere seekers is especially valuable, regardless whether their conclusions agree. Discussion in the sense of mutual exploration, you understand, not in the sense of debate and verbal combat, which is worse than useless.

Now, let’s look at Saying 50 a.

Doesn’t it say that they are to say they are out of the non-3D, and represent the non-3D in their persons?

But that isn’t all it says. Look more closely.

“It came and revealed itself in their image.” Who’s the “their”? If it had said “your” I could understand it easily enough, but “their”?

Speculate.

The only thing that comes to mind is that the source is neither singular nor plural, as the guys – you? – have said from the beginning. But that seems strained. I don’t suppose “their” could be a copyist’s slip for the word “your.”

In that suggestion you see the way in which many an incomprehensible (to the scribe) passage was silently “corrected,” not for political reasons but out of a sincere but mistaken intent.

Well then, what’s it mean?

Look at 50 b.

Yes, again, singular and plural, as the first was second-person and third.

And, 50 c.

Movement and rest, another pair of opposites conjoined. But are we seeing patterns here that don’t really exist?

How could anyone do that? If you can see a pattern, it exists. It may not mean what you conclude that it means, but it exists.

Say that it does. What do the three parts of the Saying, taken together or separately, add up to?

What was the unwritten but evidently spoken background to “Are you it?” What “it”?

I can only answer by implication. “It” must be the thing meant by the “his.” “We are his sons,” the “living Father’s,” in response to that question, can only mean that what the hypothetical questioner asks as if it were an impersonal force, perhaps, a non-personal being (if that is not a contradiction in terms), they are to describe as paternal, alive, personal, not abstract and impersonal.

Yes, good. Now look at 50 c.

C builds upon b, as b upon a.

Yes it does. Now go back and explicitly connect a and b.

I see. In a, “it” refers to “the place where light is produced from itself,” or, more likely, refers to the light itself, which revealed itself “in their image.” Leaving aside the question of “their” or “our,” it says, we proceed from the non-3D and we are reflections of the creative and created light. But (in b) the light is not an “it” so much as it is in living personal paternal relation to them; they are its children. And then c says the sign of that is movement and rest. But I don’t yet know what movement and rest signifies.

We like that “I don’t yet know.” Good affirmation, as you would say. Much better than affirming that “I can’t get it” or “it doesn’t make sense.”

Yes, I understand that.

Bearing in mind that you cannot rely upon words meaning, or meaning only, what they do in ordinary speech, what of movement and rest?

I suppose they are paired opposites implying each other. More than that, I don’t get.

What is the entire Saying leading up to?

Well, there’s a thought. Let’s see. We came from the light, which lives and is our 3D model, in a way, given that we are in its image, and you can tell this – it is the sign within us of that source – by movement, by rest. The way it is phrased, I take it that it doesn’t mean, quite, movement and rest, nor movement or rest. More like: See it one way it is movement, see it another way, it is rest.

Yes, but the point of this?

Doesn’t every moment of our lives have to be movement or rest? Could it mean merely that any and every moment of our lives reveals our origin in this non-3D light that is the living Father whose image they reproduce?

It could. Do you think it does?

I don’t know.

Nothing wrong with that.

You wish to leave it undefined, is that it?

We wish you and others to think on these things and not consider that you have the final answers to anything, in any manner. The disciples, you know, did not proceed with their lives after Jesus thinking they had all the answers. They had more of the questions than they had had, and that was enough to transform them from ordinary or even extraordinary men and women into something the world had never seen. Should you need more than they did?

We’ll go farther. Certainty is the enemy of growth and of learning. Beware of too much certainty, particularly too much certainty too easily come to. Often enough, it is mostly a weariness that says, “Enough redefinition all the time. I want to have a place to stand.”

Speaking of rest.

Alternation of movement and rest is natural. This by the way does not mean that is what the Saying means in putting the two conditions into 50 c.

Enough for the moment?

Yes. Bear in mind as always that these sessions ideally combine information about a topic with information about the process.

Yes, I do see that. I have often thought about pulling together just the material on the process, so that it doesn’t get lost.

You could if you wished.

Well, I think about it from time to time. Thanks for all this.

 

4 thoughts on “Thomas, Saying 50

  1. “Alternation of movement and rest is natural.” I’d suggest that “movement and rest” are a sine qua na of 3D life … perhaps even a fundamental characteristic that differs from non-3D. My guidance has implied exploring that is one reason non-3D ‘works’ with us … or one could say it’s a major reason us (fundamentally) non-3Der’s choose to experience 3D life.

    So for me this saying illustrates our life progression:
    – we come from the non-physical, and are “made in It’s image” (as above …),
    – we are connected to It (aware or not),
    – the ‘evidence’ of that Source and connection is the daily physical life we live.
    Jim

  2. There is a process in meditation that can be described as contemplation then circulation. You concentrate on your highest ideal then let the resultant light feeling circulated throughout your being. This is what rest and movement mean to me.
    BTW, thank you for undertaking this gospel. It is so cryptic.

  3. Here’s what I’m thinking, though it hasn’t been worked through yet.
    –vast impersonal forces (“it”) being described as “paternal, alive, personal, not abstract and impersonal.”
    –“It” came and revealed itself in our image, presented itself as us, human.
    –In other words, it is the vast impersonal forces (the light) made personal in order to have a living connection between 3D and non3D.
    –the sign within us is the same movement of the vast impersonal forces, the ebb and flow, according to emotional states/responses/reactions.

    This gets away from any traditional interpretations and redefines God, so I may just be too far out there, but it’s where I ended up. And I enjoyed working with it.

  4. Late to the game but this one intrigued. Jesus appears to be teaching at 3 levels minimum here- his followers in the present moment, how his followers should proceed as teachers in the future, as well as speaking directly to those who will hear his followers in the future.

    50 a Jesus said: If they ask you, “Where are you from?” reply to them “We have come from the place where light is produced from itself. It came and revealed itself in their image.”

    50 b If they ask you, “Are you it?” reply to them, “We are his Sons. We are chosen ones of the living Father.”

    51 c If they ask you, “What is the sign within you of your Father?” reply to them, “It is movement. It is rest.”

    50 a: a sensible geographic question posed to strangers claiming to bear good news. A sensible answer would be Nazareth or Samara. Instead one hears they have come from the source of the source. Cards are definitely on the table even if one has no idea what the cards mean.
    Assuming verb tense and pronouns are accurate translations in the next sentence (translation matters!), the question is why? What are the words doing? It came – impersonal and arguably accurate when referring to the source of the source from the vantage of some dusty backwater Roman colony in present day Syria, for example. How could anyone within 100 miles be personally acquainted with such a thing?

    Their image – whose? Theirs, so Jesus said. Theirs, they who stand before you. Their image, which is to say, your image, if you have ears to hear you Syriac dirt farmer, you spoiled Roman Consul’s daughter, you petty Jewish scribe, you contemptible Greek slave. Everyone’s image.

    Needless to say, such words are not spoken. The concept that animates such words is more or less inconceivable. Nothing like this could be. But the cards are now definitely definitely definitely on the table. Ten new followers might have just been born and/or a good old fashioned stoning may be in the offing.
    50 b: we are his sons – Now that the pedagogical shock of the first line has worn off and maybe worn in, it is retranslated into more familiar language. Relatable language, the language of kinship; the concept is still a real stretch but at least we hearers aren’t being confronted with incomprehensible blasphemy. This is comprehensible blasphemy at least.
    50 c: it is movement it is rest – No doubt this a good one. Does Jesus wish to expound upon basic Newtonian physics? To my lowly human ears it rings Hellenic, properly Gnostic as it were, like any number of the mystery teachings filtering in from the East, as if Jesus had spent not a little time in Alexandria. Critical digressions aside, it’s beautifully terse. And thinking of Newton, what else is there in this particular world? Movement and rest. What else could the sign be other than that which is of this world and pertains to this world? Could it be anything other than what is here, what must be here, now? If “it” had a choice it would always choose to be as it is here now with and of all things here now as they must be. Wouldn’t it?

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