Monday, July 8, 2019
2:15 a.m. We move continually nearer to “Don’t have a clue” as we get into the higher-numbered sayings. Number 81 of 114:
- Jesus said: Whoever has become rich should rule. Whoever has poser should renounce it.
This is making some distinction between ruling and having power. At least, that’s what it looks like a first blush.
For that matter, what does the initial phrase refer to? Rich in what? Rule whom, or what? Examine that first, then proceed to the question of power.
I notice that it says whoever has become rich, not merely is rich. I took it to refer to some process of self-development. This follows the saying that referred to finding “the body,” which you were going to discuss further.
Only, you were going to think about it and ponder it. Have you done so?
No, not really.
We can resume after you do so.
3:40 a.m. It took till now to realize that my recurrent dream of being employed in a large organization but being unused and not necessarily competent was perhaps about my life relative to God, or say to my own development, rather than an endless rehashing of my computer programming days.
The verb tense is important here. One who has become rich, like one who has come to know the world (Thomas 80), is the proper way. We become rich by seeing the world as one — 3D, non-3D, and our part in it specifically and consciously. As Rita said, it’s all one thing, whole and indivisible. It’s our shift in perspective that allows us to move from seeing the world as separation/individualism to seeing a community working together.
Jesus juxtaposes one who HAS power with the one who becomes rich. His disciples would know that those who had power were those who had wealth. Jesus said in the narrative gospels that it was very difficult for a person with riches to get into the kingdom of heaven, a statement which just floored his disciples. If the rich couldn’t get into heaven, who could? Jesus taught that the concern and worry over preserving those riches got in the way of seeing what was important. Riches hindered living abundantly.