Thomas, Saying 56

Friday, June 28, 2019

4 a.m. Getting tired of Thomas, to tell the truth. Not sure we’re learning anything much. But might as well proceed.

Saying 56.

Jesus said: Whoever has known the world has found a corpse; whoever has found that corpse, the world is not worthy of him.

Again, I see written in my copy [in 2002, apparently], “Obvious.”

And again, perhaps what seems obvious can always be better understood by a closer look.

After you, then.

Nothing in nature – in reality, call it – is in a state of death. Nothing is dead although things pass through a process called death. Given that the world is made of consciousness, given that there can be no absolute divisions in what is one reality, there can be nothing that is (as opposed to appears) inanimate. Thus, life is transformation of appearances – and, by “life” we mean all of existence, animate or inanimate, 3D or non-3D, present, past, future – everything and anything that can come to mind, because it is all one thing. Can a dream be sorted into living and dead elements? Can a thought? Can a perception?

It’s all one world – that is, all one undivided reality – and nothing in it can be devoid of life, including rotted corpses, synthetic fibers, radioactive materials, as we have said more than once.

Given that reality, how can it be that whosever finds the world finds a corpse?

It must mean, the world, the 3D world, as it appears.

Is that truly a thought profound enough in the context?

Apparently not. Then, what?

What did the previous Saying offer?

Saying 55 said, once you reached a certain level of awareness, you are all alone, relative to your former life.

That is a very rough paraphrase, but it will have to do.

Jesus said somewhere, “Let the dead bury their dead.”

That’s more to the point.

Okay, everything is alive in reality, but relatively there is alive and dead mentally.

Not quite mentally, but in terms of living in the moment, yes. And you know or should know that this does not mean living carelessly or thoughtlessly, without plan or ambition. It means living in a state of awakeness, rather than going through the motions. And that means, not, cleverly nor scheming, nor in a state of opportunistic expectation. It means, seeing clearly rather than through a veil of expectations, screens, filters, automatic reactions. None of these distinctions seem to have anything to do with religion or with what is called spiritual life – but they have everything to do with having life more abundantly.

See, then, the meaning of this Saying, or rather, the meaning at the level we will examine. If you awaken, you see that the world is not what you thought it to be, but is in effect a shell, a husk, and you will see that what is called external life is nothing in itself in absolute.

I think that is what I had come to in reading it alone, whenever it was that I made that note.

But you were reading each Saying as an isolated statement rather than as part of a sustained exposition, and you were reading it – if you will pardon us pointing this out – as if you already understood it before examining it. In some ways, not so bad a way to proceed, but all the better for being counterchecked by interaction with another viewpoint, as you are doing now.

The thing to realize and then to remember in all this is that Jesus had a specific intent, that he expressed many times and that was understood by his disciples, and that intent was to bring those who could awaken to a state of awakeness. Beyond that, it was to provide assistance and guidelines for those who would follow in time. Beyond that, it was to provide rules of conduct (which were mostly rules of attitude, notice, rather than rules of specific actions to be taken or avoided) that would improve the chances of those who were not able to awaken. These were not mutually contradictory but were mutually reinforcing intents, and while [that is to say, as long as] they were understood, they were acted upon, and began the transformation of the world.

“See these Christians, how they love one another.”

That’s a long way from Christians persecuting each other for heresies, or conducting crusades against other faiths (we do not here refer to political wars conducted in the name of religion, but of wars truly rooted in religion), or creating hierarchical structures in imitation of Roman civil institutions. It is equally a long way from Christians splitting off from others and regarding themselves as the only true Christians, etc.

Our point here, again, is that Jesus came to transform the world, as did and does every person whose impact is strong enough to have a religions created after him and his impact. But he did not come to transform the world for the external world’s sake. That would be like creating a soap bubble for its own sake rather than to clean something. He was here that you might have life more abundantly, because that is all that is real. Such life will produce external effects, by the nature of things, but the external effects are not the point but are the side-effects.

Your life is real; “external” reality is but a reflection of life. Do you care who won the elections in ancient Rome, or who ruled every (or any) French political subdivision in the Middle Ages, or what the structure and consequences were of English or Scottish or American political life? Then why care about what is, if you don’t care about what was?

What is real is who you are; what is appearance is that anybody can be external to you. We keep saying it, but words are slippery, and context is everything. Understand this correctly and everything comes clear. Fail to understand it, and what you do understand may merely mislead for lack of proper context.

Thus, Jesus taught – and his disciples understood, and taught others in their turn – that the world, the 3D world, as it was popularly perceived and understood, was only an illusion. Not that the physical table and chair weren’t there, not that suffering and joy weren’t experienced, not that people did not lead the lives they thought they lived, but that none of it meant what it seemed to mean while it was experienced through blunted awareness. And this only touches on the everyday life, it does not even touch upon the real aim and opportunity of life.

This is enough for now. No harm in pausing.

Okay, thanks. Till next time.