The Gospel of Thomas (Part 3)

Translated by Thomas O. Lambdin

11

Jesus said, “This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. In the days when you consumed what is dead, you made it what is alive. When you come to dwell in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?”

Again, this I believe is Jesus pointing away from the conditional but heavenly life, which is still limited and bound to pass away. The (spiritually) dead are not alive (aware) of this, and those who realise (transcendence) are on a path of eternity.

The thing that attracts you to material things is really an unseen aspect of mind, that is ultimately independent of these things. We consumed these dead things or concepts and through wisdom, transform them.

Upon first realising this ‘light’ we are faced with a choice that pivots on the concept of ‘I’. ‘What will ‘you’ do?’ is therefore what are your decisions when it comes to a sense of self.

Whilst you act out of this self you remain divided into two, self and other. But, once you recognise that self and other are divisions created through the mind, and that outer is the same as inner – i.e. they arrive through the same process, the objectification of phenomena.

The second ‘what will ‘you’ do?’ is different – here the ‘you’ is now abandoned and empty and ineffectual – ‘what can it do?’ once duality is realised and transcended.

12

The disciples said to Jesus, “We know that you will depart from us. Who is to be our leader?”

Jesus said to them, “Wherever you are, you are to go to James the righteous, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.”

I am unsure about this one – I suspect ‘James the Righteous’ is akin to a bodhisattva and this pertains to deity mantra work – where aspects of the subtle body are ‘cleared’ through the identification with various deities. Here such deities are employed also as guides – reinforcing the need for inner or hermetic practices.

13

Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.”

Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous angel.”

Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.”

Thomas said to him, “Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like.”

Jesus said, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.”

And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?”

Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.”

Jesus here is pointing towards the danger of mistaking concepts for truth. One cannot, in any meaningful way describe phenomena, all qualities are relative and our own perceptions shaped by our own karmic destiny. Only Thomas gets close by defining the limit of verbal expression and hinting towards the silent and inexpressible nature of silence.

Jesus refutes them and tells them not to idolise. You have ‘drunk’ – i.e. become involved in conceptualisation and taken delight in sensory experience (which is the source of craving) – the bubbling spring being the incessant arising of objects within the yet to be disciplined mind.

Thomas ‘gets it’ and is taken aside for further, inner esoteric instruction, the pointing out instructions. With this Thomas becomes aware of Buddha-nature, which, the revealing of which would result in almost certain heresy. However, now Thomas has realised Buddha-nature whose mind can directly affect phenomena he fears not for his own welfare, but the karmic consequences (a fire will come out of the stones), i.e. a burning consequence that will harm those who throw them.

14

Jesus said to them, “If you fast, you will give rise to sin for yourselves; and if you pray, you will be condemned; and if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits. When you go into any land and walk about in the districts, if they receive you, eat what they will set before you, and heal the sick among them. For what goes into your mouth will not defile you, but that which issues from your mouth – it is that which will defile you.”

This is about volition – choice – and how to escape saṃsāra we must abolish volition, which, after all, is what an ‘I’ wants. Any action that arises through volition has an element of self which it considers. Even acting in a charitable manner will not be enough to escape saṃsāra, it merely permits a heavenly rebirth.

One must act in the manner of a bodhisattva, whose actions are only for the benefit of others without ever any regard to self. One does this through getting out into the communities and offering wisdom and compassion to all one meets. One must suspend one’s own customs and rather than stand aloft, integrate on the deepest levels. Given one’s increasing mastery of karma one becomes a natural healer.

Lastly Jesus is directly contradicting then established belief that one’s spiritual purity is based on what one eats – certain foods were thought to harm one spiritually.

Jesus points out that it is not what we eat that causes problems, it is what we say, which through mistruth and personal bias harms us much more than anything we can eat. This would have been massively controversial and probably caused all sorts of drama.

15

Jesus said, “When you see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your father.”

‘Not born of woman’ pertains to our spiritual being, which, needing development is not automatically present. ‘One not born of woman’ therefore pertains to one of the Noble Ones – an enlightened being (and sometime trainee).

Such an individual, who can be any sex, is a guru, and offers you more wisdom than any other source – they are your (spiritual) father.