TGU and Thomas, Sayings 71 through 75

Saying 71

Jesus said: I will destroy this house, and no one will be able to build it again.

The conventional assumption is that Jesus forecasts his own death, but that seems somehow strained and irrelevant, in the way that any explanation is that begins from the wrong idea or is pursued with the wrong ideas.

When you look at it, if the saying were as simple as the conventional interpretation would have it be, it would be hardly worth saying. Why would it be an integral part of a collection of sayings designed to bring people somewhere? Really, it as much as says (according to these interpreters) “I’m going to kill myself, and you won’t be able to bring me back to life.” What would that even mean?

The only grain of sense in it would be that Jesus was saying, “It’s going to look like I was killed by external circumstances, but actually I’m doing it.” I agree, it’s a misinterpretation.

You started to say, “It’s silly,” or even “It’s ridiculous,” but decided that was too dismissive. Yet, this is not wrong. It is silly, it is ridiculous. It looks at Jesus as if he were at the same time omniscient and merely human.

So what’s it really about?

Isn’t the question, what temple is Jesus talking about? If not his body, his 3D life, then what? And how does this saying follow from the one preceding?

I don’t really know.

Look too at the saying placed immediately afterward.

 

Saying 72

A man said to him: Talk to my brothers so that they will divide my father’s property with me. Jesus replied: Man, who made me a divider? He turned to his disciples and asked them: Really, am I a divider?

No, you’re going to have to help us here. Given the spark, I’m sure we can get it. But, you are the dynamo. [That is, the generator of sparks.]

What do the three sayings say?

Bring forth what you have, or else. Jesus will destroy “this house” and it will be irreparable. But he is not a divider.

So there’s your spark.

Maybe. The key is wholeness; without knowing and living what we are, we can’t become what it is we could be. Jesus is going to destroy something and nobody will be able to reconstruct it. but he is not a divider. By implication, he is a unifier.

So then, what is it he will unify? And how will he do that by destroying something?

I suppose he will unify something –. No, let’s look at it this way. He will destroy “this temple.” If it does not mean his life (and I don’t think it does), and it doesn’t mean Jewish religion or society or apartness (and I don’t think it means that either), it must be something both very personal to us and also universal, or the disciples would not have put it in there as a talking-point. If he weren’t calling it a temple, I’d be tempted to say he is talking about our perception of things as good and evil – that is, our fixation in duality. But I don’t see why he would call that mindset a temple.

What is a temple?

A place consecrated to God, or the gods. A place considered sacred, specifically devoted to at least one-way communication with the divine from the 3D consciousness.

Well?

Well what? That doesn’t tell me anything.

What kind of temple is Jesus going to destroy, and why?

Oops. I look back and see it doesn’t say “this temple”; it says “this house.” And you let me go on. [In fact, I see, typing this, they said it first.]

Yes, because it is a constructive misunderstanding. A “mistake,” which is to say, a Freudian slip.

Well, “this house,” then.

Think! Feel your way to it.

I don’t know. We are so accustomed to the conventional interpretation – the better-known verse has Jesus saying “and in three days I’ll rebuild it,” which has all the earmarks of later interpolation after the fact – that it is hard to see it fresh.

Which is why you read “this house” and heard “this temple.”

True. [Or, it would be true, if they had not said temple before I did.] But what’s your take on what it means?

[Pause]

And all I hear is, as they say, the sound of crickets. I’m not inclined to leave it there, though our hour is up.

Pursue the “stray thought” you just had.

Well, Jesus said he would destroy the house – and it made me think of him destroying the unity he had made of the constituent parts that had gone into the making of him.

No one will be able to follow that yet.

Jesus like any of us was a compound being, the product of innumerable sexual pairings going back to the beginnings of the human race. So he was connected in that way to humanity as are the rest of us. But if he truly forged a true unify out of all those contents, and that is why he had such presence – in that sense he could be considered a completed human.

Yes, and suppose he deliberately undid that unity? Why would he do that?

And for that matter, how would he do it? But yes, why? Tell us.

And he is not a divider, remember.

The sense I get – but not the connecting links – is that by destroying the unity he had forged he could somehow create a greater unity.

You’re on the right track now. He had to go [from 3D] before the Holy Spirit could come, remember? And “behold I will be with you always, even to the end.”

It seems to have something to do with a unique ability of Jesus to connect with all humanity personally.

Correct.

It’s like he somehow became everywhere in the human psyche.

True enough as one way to see it. You will see that although this is very historical – that is, tied to one specific life rather than a generalized mythological descent from the gods – it is not a matter of identifying with the historical Jesus as an object of a cult. It wasn’t about him although he is the one involved. He was the finger pointing to the moon and, in fact, offering a ride there. Worshipping him is a mistake the early disciples were not tempted to make. They revered him as one might revere a hero; they did not turn their back on his teachings by letting themselves fall into idol worship.

 

Saying 73

Jesus said: The harvest is great, but there are only a few workers. Ask the master to send more workers for the harvest. 

Saying 74

He said: Master, there are many around the drinking barrel, but there is nobody in the well.

Saying 75

Jesus said: There are many standing by the door, but only the single will enter the bridal suite.

Saying 73, 74, 75, paragraphed together, oddly. I see no reason for it. But let’s consider them.

The first is familiar to any who read the narrative gospels.

Yes. I take it there is more to be found than the accepted idea that the world is full of people needing converting and the disciples are outnumbered as those who are to do the converting.

Yes, very good. It is always about the internal work, not merely the external work. Always it is easier to work on others – though that work must be relatively fruitless – than on oneself, which has the possibility of real results but must always appear frustratingly inadequate and ineffective.

So in this context, asking for more workers means asking for greater assistance in working on ourselves?

That is certainly at least one meaning. It is not about conducting a campaign to bring the world to one way of seeing things.

Saying 74 says, “He said,” without explaining who “he” is. It appears to be someone other than Jesus – for who does Jesus ever call master? – but it doesn’t quite make sense as a question to Jesus, either.

Yes, and 75 doesn’t make obvious sense either. By this you can see that you have entered closer into esoteric material that never was shared beyond the original community and its followers. That is, the meaning was lost once it was no longer conveyed orally by those who knew to those who came to know. No form of coercion is able to take such meanings, because those at a level that would employ coercion are never able to comprehend what would require  a higher level of being to comprehend it.

All right, lost sayings – but does that mean you can’t tell what they say? Or does it mean that you can’t tell it to us?

We are always willing to provide the waters of truth. Can we make anyone drink? Or, rather, can we make anyone able to drink, if they are not able in themselves? This is always a problem, for anybody. No one can teach what those who would be taught are unable to learn.

So does that mean that I am unable to understand 74, or that you don’t have the key to it? “Nobody in the well” sounds like a bad translation, to me. It doesn’t make sense. In general, until you look at it clearly, the sentence seems to say there are a lot more people ready to consume than there are people able and willing to provide. But “in the well” stumps me.

Perhaps better to acknowledge your bafflement and proceed. No need to [either] know everything or admit to knowing nothing: There are always blank spots in one’s learning.

All right. And 75 isn’t much more understandable. The only sense I can make of it is that when we make ourselves into a unity – if we are able to do that – we are able to move to new possibilities that are not open to those who cannot.

That’s good enough. and in context of 74?

I suppose it’s still a contrast between the many and the few, as in 73 as well.

So even if we are unable to pursue the secret beyond a certain point, we can get that far, can we not? Three cryptic sayings that amount to “Many are called but few are chosen,” or, “It is as hard to enter as for a camel to maneuver through the place known as the Eye of the Needle.” In short, this is not only not automatic, it isn’t easy and in fact for most it is not even possible. But it is necessary to say this in so disguised a fashion as not to discourage those who may be able to accomplish the task, for one cannot succeed without making the effort.

Now, there is a distinction to be made. The achievement of an advanced state of being (call it) is not the same as attaining what he is calling the Kingdom of Heaven. They are two entirely different things, as should be obvious if you look at it. Could Jesus be preaching “the Kingdom of God is within you” to one and all if in fact it were available only to a few?

I see the point.

Well, if you do, you see what many have missed. Saying 76 a is the commonly accepted goal familiar from the narrative gospels. It is not at all the same as the preceding three.

 

One thought on “TGU and Thomas, Sayings 71 through 75

  1. Getting sparks this AM as I was reading. Going to throw them out. Some may not be complete. Might not be my sparks to complete.

    71: a house is an abode, a place of rest. It is also where we mentally rest, our place to stand. If Jesus destroys that such that it can’t be rebuilt, then I am homeless and must find a new abode. What would destroy that? Jesus’ radical message, for one. Once I start to understand the inner meanings to his teachings, I will abandon my old house, my old way of thinking, and seek a new one. But the old one will never fit again. I cannot rebuild it. I will not go back.
    Either “house” or “temple” fit with this thought. A temple is a dedicated place for communion with the divine. If Jesus destroys that structure with his radical message, then I am at the same place I’d be if it were a house – searching for a new place to stand, to abide, or to commune with the divine.

    72: another word for divider is judge, which is what the man is asking Jesus to do. He wants his share of the inheritance, and a local judge would hear his plea. Jesus may be saying, I’m a teacher, a rabbi, but my work is not on a mundane level.

    73 & 74: water needed to be brought from the well to the drinking barrel. It feels like a restatement of 73, asking for more people for the harvest. If we are asking the master of the harvest for assistance in working on ourselves (to help us understand the material and incorporate it in our lives), then we are also asking for help in filling the water barrel (to fill us with living water).

    75: the bridal suite is where the union of the masculine and the feminine is achieved. The divine feminine is Sophia or wisdom. The masculine may be our earthly nature. But one who is not single will not be able to enter into that union. I take that to mean one who has not seen beyond the duality, one who has not understood that we are more than 3D individuals, one who has not reached the stage for understanding this. The higher wisdom of Sophia would be nonsense to one unprepared. This interpretation seems to make sense, especially with TGU’s remarks about not being able to make someone drink if they are not able in themselves.

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