Let us pray! - NOT

Jesus said to his disciples, "By fasting you will bring sin upon yourselves, by praying, you invite condemnation, and by giving to charity, you will harm your spirits. When you go into any area and walk around the land, when people welcome you in, eat whatever they serve you and heal the sick that are among them. After all, whatever goes into your mouth will not bring impurity to you; actually, it's what comes out of your mouth that will bring impurity." Gospel of Thomas 14

What immediately jumps out to me is that Jesus in this passage is answering the questions asked by the disciples in saying 6. At first one may ask why these things are bad. I also ask who is doing the condemning. I think the key is in the rest of the saying. When they go around others...I don't think Jesus is condemning fasting, praying, or giving to charity. I think it is wrong when done in front of others. Jesus is condemning the hypocrites who love to be seen doing spiritual things. I think of those who push and bully for prayer and schools and football games. I think of those who fight so hard to be religiously correct which in reality is a way of egoistic pride. It serves no spiritual purpose. It does not impress God nor man. Rather, Jesus says when we go with others...don't be all spiritual and say I am sorry I only eat kosher, or reject what they offer for other reasons. If they open their hearts and homes to feed you, it is sin to reject the kindness and hospitality of others. By opening their hearts they are welcoming God and true healing can take place. It is those who love to talk about about being spiritual and their good deeds who reveal their impurity. As the Tao Te Ching says, "Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know." Our mouths are our greatest indicator of our own spiritual maturity. A warning to me for sure! I have a long way to go.

Hey, I know you!

Jesus asked his disciples, "Tell me what I am like by comparing me to something." Simon Peter said, "You are like a equitable and just angel." Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said to him, "Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to speak what you are like." Jesus said, "I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk from the fresh and bubbling spring that I have kept, you have become intoxicated." And he took him, and withdrew from the others, and spoke three things to him. When Thomas came back to the disciples they asked him, "What did Jesus tell you?" Thomas said to them, "If I tell you even one of the things he said to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and incinerate you." Gospel of Thomas 13

This is one of the most fascinating passages in the Gospel of Thomas in my opinion. The scene is similar to the ones found in the gospels, but it contains a couple of differences. First, Jesus asks the disciples to tell him what they think he is like. In the other Gospels, Jesus asks what others think, then what they think. In the others it is Peter who professes him as the Messiah. Here we do not find a statement of faith. Here we find a mystical awareness. Thomas finds himself totally at a loss for words for what he sees in Jesus. Jesus does not respond as he does in the New Testament Gospels with the pronouncements of churches and keys etc....which reveal evidence of it being added to with church theology. Here in Thomas we get something different. Thomas sees something in Jesus...he intuits it and it has overwhelmed him. Jesus does something unspeakable to Thomas. He says that he is not longer his teacher because he has drunk from the same spring as Jesus...in essence he proclaims Thomas his equal...his twin-which is what Thomas means.
Next he takes Thomas away and talks to him. How I would love to have been a fly on the wall hearing what Jesus told him. Three things. But when questioned about it later, he points out that the disciples would consider it blasphemy and worthy of death. Now I know in the NT gospels they accused Jesus of blasphemy because he declared his equality with God. Could it have been something like this? Could Jesus have said, "Thou art that" or "Thou art God." ? Maybe...but whatever it is puts all of creation into service for Thomas.
I personally look at this as a type of initiation for Thomas and this defines Thomas as a teacher in Jesus' lineage.

The point of this is not that Jesus is so special that we all should bow down, but that what Jesus experienced, we can all experience. Jesus did not walk the earth as lord and master to be worshipped, but rather as a teacher who awakened and sought to help others do the same. His goal was many awakened...many twins.

Follow the Leader

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 come into being." Gospel of Thomas 12

This is one of those sayings that in my opinion say a lot for the Gospel of Thomas being an authentic early text. It reveals something that know about the early church that was later supplanted by Peter's role. We know that James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem and it was he who was reputed to have led the first council in Jerusalem rather than Peter who was claimed by Christians later as head and leader of the church i.e. the first Pope.
So how do we read this? Is this simply a statement of leadership of the fledgling movement? Well yes and no. Keep in mind that the churches of the first century were house churches...meaning they were meetings in peoples homes with many different people serving in different types of ways. The Thomasine communities were one type of community. Others were evolving differently. I believe that in recommending James, Jesus is recognizing James as another who has achieved the very thing Jesus has been talking about...what I call gnosis. It also points out that the Thomasine community was not a free for all kind of New Agey type thing where everyone does or believes what they pleased, but that there was a type of leadership by those who have achieved gnosis...perhaps like a soul friend, or a sheik in Sufism or a dharma teacher in Buddhism. They are there to help the seeker achieve awareness of the things we have been talking about.

Abracadabra-One into Two!

Jesus said, "The heavens will pass away, and the one above it will pass away also. Those who are dead are not alive, and the ones who are alive shall not die. When you used to eat what was dead, you made it come alive. When you dwell within the light, what will you do? When you were one, you became two. But when you are two, what will happen then? What will you do?" Gospel of Thomas 11

This passage is fun to mediate on. This contains the Gnostic message in a nutshell. It tells how we come to buy into the world's system with its values. The heavens in Gnostic mythology are the dwelling place of the Demiurge...the corrupter-who takes good things but corrupts them. Things like money systems that hurt the poor, the giant corporations who build their empires at the expense of the environment, and the ways we need to feel superior by putting others down, the way religions exclude...these are all evidence of some corruption...which mythologically we call the Demiurge. So the heavens passing away is not a statement of Armageddon or any such thing. Gnostics do not believe in that. Rather it is a statement of release from the systems of power over through gnosis. It is freedom from dualism. Jesus then gives an example. When the readers ate meat, they ate dead flesh. Their bodies turned it into something living after they ate it. So when we are absorbed in the light of insight, we will become that light and gnosis. When we are absorbed in Divinity we become that divinity. Again in Gnostic mythology we all dwelt within God. We were one...but through dualism we thought we were separate from God and became two. Divisions happened. This not that etc. But now that we are two what will happen? We will return to Oneness. We will see the kingdom within and without...the illusion of separation between me and you, us and God is not real....and it takes gnosis to perceive this. The only enemy is our own prejudices.

Gnosticism's Challenge

Gnosticism is not a purely mystical system. It has something to say to this world. It stands against the systems of the world that lie to us about who we are. It seeks to reveal the ways that dehumanize humanity through corporate greed, the ego, and religious systems that oppress.

We are Gnostics. We are people who believe that the Divine One resides within all of us. We serve God by serving others in love, compassion, and caring. God does not need our prayers, though we may offer them. God does not need our praise, though we may offer it. God is inside and outside of us. We have forgotten who we are as sons and daughters of God. God has sent messengers in many forms and ways to call us to remember who we are and where we came from. There are powers at work within and without that would have us forget and submit again to the yoke of slavery...the slavery of being asleep to injustice, uncharitable beliefs, and systems that oppress. We reject those systems and shout out....remember! Remember who you are! Remember where you come from! Know yourself and be free!

Come on baby, light my fire!

Jesus said, "I have lit this world on fire, and I am going to watch over it until it blazes." Gospel of Thomas 10

There was a seeker who wanted enlightenment, and so he traveled miles and mile to seek a teacher. He traveled up the highest mountain through rough terrain to seek this teacher's wisdom. He sat at the master's feet and spoke to him, "Master, I have come a long way through much troubles to be here. I am here to seek God." The Master was silent. This repeated itself several times. Finally, the teacher stood and walked over to the riverbank. He waved the student over. "Look at your reflection in the waters." The teacher said. The seeker looked at himself in the waters as he as told. Suddenly the master grabs the seeker's head and holds it under the water. He keeps holding it there, and the seeker begins to struggle. Finally, when the seeker is about to pass out, the Master pulls the man up. "When you seek God as much as you sought air just then, then you will be awakened." The Master spoke.
Now when I first heard that story, I was not sure if I liked it. After all, the Master did something abusive. And of course, could anyone long for God that much. But over the years I have come to see that we are all on our own paths. For some this includes suffering...whether through cancer, loss of a child, rejection by family etc. A deeper spiritual life came through these experience. In the manure of life, something deeper grew from it. They opened up. For others, the spiritual life came more naturally. Maybe through walking through the Redwoods for the first time, or through the abiding love of a spouse...something opened up for that person. The Bhagavad-gita points to several ways to practice spirituality. For some they love to sing, worship etc. Others love to perform ways of spiritual service. Others are contemplatives. And the list goes on. I believe there are 10,000 ways that a person can come to God. My friend Fay, (hi Fay!) finds herself spiritually set on fire through her love and experience of Nature. She also is very compassionate and giving. For me, I am a bit more contemplative and bookish. Jesus is saying in this logion, that for his students, which are any who want to come along with him, he wants to set them on fire spiritually...he wants to help them change their lives..indeed their whole perspective on a deep radical level. In a sense, he is operating as a type of guru or spiritual teacher for those who choose to sit under his teaching. But his goal as he will point out later is not to be worshipped or honored, but to help each person be Jesus, be Christ. He wants everyone to be Didymus Thomas-which means "twin". We all have spiritual teachers....for some of us it is life, for others it is nature...for some it is many teachers. The question is are we set on fire?

A Dream

I dreamed last night that I was studying and teaching a Christian Vedanta. It was Christian in that it used the Christian and Gnostic scriptures and Jesus as a spiritual teacher. It taught Vedanta in that God was the deepest self of all things and that we needed that spiritual insight to truly perceive it. What was interesting was that in this dream I was teaching about all the various Christian scriptures and how they point to oneness...many of them ones that I had never considered in waking life.