TGU and Thomas: Sayings 30 through 33

Saying 30

Jesus said: Where there are three Gods they are Gods. Where there are two or one, I am with him.

Now this one stumps me.

As well it might. What can “three Gods” mean?

No idea.

Not even the divine trinity?

Hmm. Classically, father, son, holy spirit, or Hagia Sophia, or paraclete. (Funny word, only without feathers.)

Yes, funny. Well?

All right, let’s look at it. I am aware continually of trying to extract from what I know of Christian doctrine what the originators knew experientially that was then misinterpreted over time.

And you wish you knew the doctrine better. But maybe such knowledge would only embroil you in fruitless abstract and academic discussions and polemics. Better to approach matters from your own experience, seeking similarities, then approach from doctrine, seeking to validate or invalidate by argument.

Okay. Well, let’s take God the Father to be the creator of us in 3D (and of 3D itself, perhaps; that would depend upon whether we are talking about one being or many, and I suspect that in non-3D that is less of a distinction than we might think). In any case, this is the parent of us in 3D, of our 3D selves as souls created in one time-space. Maybe we are all created out of the same stuff, maybe not, although I am confident that if you go far enough back, it must be the same. “All is one” may be (is) a New Age cliché, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

[This is poorly phrased. Transcribing this, I would say that what I meant is that I don’t know whether what we experience as God the father is our own non-3D component in its full extension (so that, in effect, there would be many God the fathers) or whether what we experience as God the father is in fact the ultimate.]

But if God the father refers to the non-3D Creator of the 3D, does God the son refer (as Christians apparently believe) only to Jesus? More likely it would be the divine as expressed within 3D conditions. At least this is how it seems to me at the moment, perhaps under the influence of our temporary joint mind.

And in any case, God the holy spirit cannot be identical in all respects with God the father. That is, it is a different aspect of the same reality. I am tempted – but not quite persuaded – to say that the holy spirit is the same as the vast impersonal forces that express through us.

Better perhaps to say that the holy spirit is the master of, or even in a sense the source of, the vast impersonal forces. In any case it is non-3D influencing the 3D but not influenced by it. It interacts with non-3D and 3D – negative, positive, and reconciling forces, a balanced system.

Does this mean that the second part of Saying 30 means that we in 3D can always experience Jesus even if we cannot experience both, or perhaps one, of the others?

We will leave that for you to ponder, as any answer would mislead. Some questions need to be re-posed – that is, posed differently – lest an answer confirm a misunderstanding.

Enough for now.

 

Saying 31

31 Jesus said: No prophet is accepted in his own village. No physician heals the people who know him well.

You have experienced this yourself in working with people. If they believed or were open to the possibility that you could help them, healing might occur to any greater or lesser extent. But if they disbelieved – that is, believed the negative – you could do nothing, for of course any relationship consists of both ends, not only the middle.

That doesn’t seem to be quite what the saying means, though. Jesus doesn’t say only those who don’t actively disbelieve are open to cure; he says only those who don’t know you well. It is the inverse of the saying that “an expert is somebody more than 50 miles from home.”

But it is implied. Jesus is not providing a practical rule of thumb; he is illustrating a principle, as always. And remember, these recorded sayings were springboards for discussion and clarification, not bits to be memorized and accepted blindly. Nor is “prophet” to be overlooked. The gist is that it is difficult for people to reconceptualize what they are too familiar with – that is, what they think they know too thoroughly for any re-examination.

We’re back to the need for beginner’s mind.

It is hard to reconsider what you have never considered in the first place. And, as we have said, it is hard to see your ignorance when it is blocked by your knowledge.

Now look at this Saying in light of its predecessor in order.

Saying 30, we decided, referred to the three divine aspects of reality. So I suppose this would reinforce the message: Look carefully at what you think you experience and know.

However, in saying that this was not only a practical message, we did not say or intend to say that it was not also practical. You might look at is as Jesus saying, “Here’s what is going to happen, and here’s why.” But the “why” is more important to the message than the “what.” Everyone hearing and discussing this saying would already know the facts of life. They didn’t need to be told that their clearer way of seeing would not be accepted by those who clung to their accustomed context. The point was, use that blindness as an example for themselves, lest they do the same in other contexts, for anyone may blink at the unaccustomed, and reject it.

 

Saying 32

Jesus said: A city built and fortified atop a tall hill cannot be taken, nor can it be hidden.

What do you suppose its context is, given that it follows an admonition not to be blind to the too-familiar?

You’re going to be invulnerable, and you are going to shine beyond the possibility of concealment. And I get that this cannot refer to physical invulnerability: Many of the apostles and disciples, and their successors, were murdered. Only, they did not give up what they had attained, and they shine to this day.

That’s right. Anything may happen to a 3D soul. You know it, everybody knows it. If belief were an invulnerable shield, everyone would believe, at least in hard times.

The cliché is that churches are full in wartime.

Only, we are not talking here of belief but of something that is both belief and experience and is not quite either one alone.

Belief alone means something closer to hope than to anything rooted in experience. Experience alone may not imply the context to properly understand it. Both together imply experience understood in a context that naturally provides hope.

Your messages since 2001, in my case, combined with my own experiences in living the implications, even though my experiences are laced heavily with failure to live the implication.

Correct. Failure and success are relative terms, comparatives without context perhaps until the final summing-up. Thus, “though your sins be as scarlet,” etc.

And 33 a and b follow on these, and encourage them to live their experiences without fear: Tell their truth.

 

Saying 33

33 a Jesus said: What you hear in your ears preach from your housetops.

33 b For nobody lights a lamp and puts it underneath a bushel basket or in a hidden place. Rather, it is placed on a lamp stand so that all who go in and out may see the light.

Good advice, surely? And it could be paraphrased as, “You are going to be obvious to those who know you; call it out without trying to conceal what cannot be concealed; offer the gift that you have to give, fearing nothing.” Remember, in all things, the 3D world is seen as the point of application, but it is not seen as the goal. Jesus never says, be sure your retirement plan is funded. He never says, tend to your knitting and advance your career. He never says, here are things that will bring you economic or social advancement. None of that matters. He came to bring life more abundantly, and that did not refer to two donkeys in every stable, so to speak, nor to adulation from a public following nor to political influence nor to any 3D-oriented activity seen as an end rather than as means.

Yes, that’s very clear.

Not to everyone. Not at all times. It is to be kept in mind.

Enough for now.

 

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