Thomas, Sayings 83, 84, and 85

Monday, July 15, 2019

2:05 a.m. Saying 83 from the Gospel of Thomas.

  1. 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 the light.

I can’t make much of this as first blush. Your move.

Take it one sentence at a time, beginning with the meaning of the previous saying.

I think we left it as, you may be near the heart of things, or far from the state of being that Jesus lived in, depending. So, connecting that to this: “The images are revealed to people. The light within them” – what does “them” refer to? The images? The people? It makes a difference which.

I think I’m too ambitious, trying this so early, only I wasn’t sleeping well. But we can try again in a while, I guess.

4:50 a.m. Okay, trying again.

Just free-associate it, then look at what you produce and critique it. that’s one approach when you’re stalled.

Okay. Meaning, I take it, this way I don’t have to worry so much about getting it wrong, just produce something and see.

After all, by definition, ILC [Intuitive Linked Communication] is only partly you even at its least precise, its least connected. So freewheel it, and see.

Okay. Let’s put it this way: People see “the Father’s image” – which presumably they think of as God’s image – and this image, or versions of it, come to them. They are revealed to them, not “people seek and find them,” though I suppose that happens too. The majority of what they perceive overawes them, to the point that they don’t realize that what they are seeing is also they themselves. “The light within them is hidden in the image of the Father’s light.”

Yet “his image” – the Father’s – is “hidden in his light” but will be revealed.

You’re getting there. Now condense it.

As we learn more of who we are – I’m referring to non-3D aspects of ourself, our higher-self aspects – we may not recognize ourselves at first because of the grandeur of what we see.  Our part in it is hidden, not by design but, so to speak, because it is too good to be believed perhaps. At the same time, though we are part of it, it is so much greater than us. We may learn that we are a part of all that is, yet only a part. In other words, we are not merely worms, but we aren’t gods either, but something of either, or both, depending upon our point of view.

Fair enough. And, continuing?

Saying 84.

  1. Jesus said: You are pleased when you see your own likeness. When you see your images that came into being before you did, immortal and invisible images, how much can you bear?

My writing on the page from some past reading says, “`Past’ lives etc.”

And does that still ring true?

It is a horseback approximation, I suppose. Today I’d say, at first we are pleased because we realize that we are greater than we had thought, and this without psychic inflation of any sort, merely a matter of fact. But when we look more closely, or maybe I should say when more is revealed to us, when we are able to see more, we see that the “self” we primarily identify with is only a part of a larger self that is still far from any concept of divinity but is far greater than any particular soul. And to the extent that we acknowledge or recognize or are forced to recognize that these other souls of which we are a part have other values, other traits, many of which we may not share or even approve of, we are forced to stretch our self-tolerance (put it that way) well beyond our comfort zones.

Looking at that interpretation of Sayings 83 and 84, are you content?

It’s as good as I can do at the moment, anyway.

Then file this experience of doubt and blankness and their antidote as one more data-point in the process. When one is overwhelmed by a feeling of a responsibility greater than one can live up to, remember to treat it as only your own opinion, not “the word from on high,” not God or TGU or a line of angels swearing that you are right.

Yes, I do get it. It has been a recurrent struggle, though less of one than in the past.

So look at Saying 85 and see what we can make of it.

Curious phrasing, and I see why you put it that way. “We” because it isn’t merely any conscious 3D view, but neither it is your (or my non-3D) view unmoderated, given that it is modulated by passing through my 3D mind.

It is always that way, and anyone seeking advice or wisdom from their larger self or from their guardian angels, or from their undefined guys upstairs or their very specifically defined individuals they contact would be (will be) well advised to remember it. Certainty may be comforting (or the responsibility for producing it may be oppressive) but it is illusory. Communication always involves slippage. That is both a problem (involving the possibility of miscommunication) and an opportunity (allowing truth to slip in regardless of one’s perhaps firmly held wrong ideas or emotional obstacles.

So, Saying 85:

  1. 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.

The first part seems evident, the second part not evident, in fact not understandable.

Well, explain what you seem to understand.

Adam – taking “Adam” as our ultimate ancestor, as in the mythos from Genesis – brought to his 3D life all the resources of the larger non-3D world from which he was created. “Enormous power and wealth.” Presumably he entered without the luggage of past lives elsewhere, though come to think of it that is nowhere stated.

And, what you don’t [understand]?

What does “worthy of you” mean? What does it mean that if he had been “worthy of you” he would not have died? It implies that the disciples have something (beyond living at that moment) that Adam had not had, taking Adam as a real person and not a mythological symbol

Pursue that hint. What did the disciples of Jesus – those he was directly talking to, and those that would come in time – what did they have that Adam did not?

You’re going to have to help us here beyond pointing the way, I think.

Then sink into the phrase “worthy of you.” Recalibrate around that, and see. So, slow way down.

[I did.]

I begin to wonder if this is a mistranslation.

Your suggested alternative?

Something like, “worth imitating,” or “worth emulating.”

A little more. Try again.

Oh. I get the sense of it. Adam – symbol or perhaps real human ancestor; it hardly matters which – came in with such potential, but the disciples would find Adam insufficient as an example and even as a resource. They were in some way beyond him.

Yes, and you can hardly expect that to mean that “progress” or “evolution” had enabled them to surpass him, so what does it mean that if he had been worthy of them (had been a worthy example to emulate) “he would not have died”?

It must mean that they had something – or that Adam had overlooked or lost or never had something – that would have let him live. Does this mean that Adam did not become immortal, did not crystallize?

If you think of “Adam” as a symbol it may be easier, less shocking, for you to consider. The 3D soul that was Adam certainly continued after that 3D life ended, so what can this mean?

Cayce, I think it was, claimed that Jesus was the reincarnated Adam, out to fulfill his mission and atone for his error in not following his divine promptings. And that’s one thing that has always bothered me about this kind of exploration: People say so many things, often mutually contradictory, sometimes self-contradictory, and always with certainty.

Yes, but your irritation aside, and without worrying about whose word you might contradict, what might it mean, that Adam “would not have died”? In what sense did he die; in what sense might he not have died, for you may presume that Jesus was not suggesting that Adam might have lived one 3D life without an end.

Maybe the Adam lacked a permanent on-3D existence because he did not crystallize but diffused among us all.

That’s closer. Keep going.

We all have two aspects – our personal lives and our lives as they interact with everyone around us. If we look at our personal lives as if the world were divided into “me” and “not-me,” that 3D and non-3D soul might attain eternal (or relatively eternal, who knows?) life through the process of becoming    fixed; having one “I” acquire dominion over all the other “I”s that Gurdjieff describes as contending within.

But it we look at our souls as communities that do not and can not and never could exist in isolation (for there is no such possibility, any more than for us to live breathing only our own air), then there is no fixed soul to achieve in any meaningful way that does not involve us all. And perhaps that was Adam’s role and fate and even, perhaps, Adam’s choice.

Bearing in mind that some of this is speculation (good, worthwhile speculation, but speculations nonetheless), this is a good understanding, and a place to pause.

Okay. Till next time, then. Our thanks as always.

 

3 thoughts on “Thomas, Sayings 83, 84, and 85

  1. For the record, Frank, you re- copied 83 rather than putting in the real 85.

    This session was particularly clarifying to me this morning. Thanks, as always.

    1. Thanks for the heads-up. For the record:

      85. 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.

  2. I’m having trouble with the “worthy of you” phrase as well. I prefer Frank’s sense of it, that it means closer to “worth imitating or emulating.”

    I suspect this is the best English rendering of the Coptic text the translators could do. This form of Coptic was a dead language, having not been spoken for about 2000 years. When these scrolls were found, those who undertook translating them had to learn to read the language. They used what Greek fragments of the Gospel of Thomas that they had and did they best they could. This may be an idiom that doesn’t translate clearly.

Leave a Reply