Exploration of the Gospel of Thomas

[Molearner]

Number 18.......is life a circle ?

Originally Posted by Molearner

I am looking at 17......”what has never occurred to the human mind”. Is not the mind informed by the senses....including dreams ? What is offered here is beyond reason, experience, rational, logic. It contradicts that there “is nothing new under the sun” unless we properly understand this as being beyond the sun. Hahaha.....I want to interpret something right to be elgible for the promise of number 1.......:)

Molearner:

You lead me to feel excited about Scripture class. I will get back to you! There is almost not enough time in the day now.



jl

Originally Posted by ketzer

The son of man is man’s offspring. What comes from man. Man evolves through the experience of life (lives) to move ever closer to realizing the promise of that divine spark within him. Until eventually we make the two, man and God, become as one.

What is together can never be separated, in my opinion. It's the experiential discovery of this however that is the ultimate reward, in my opinion. Jyotir has spoken of this point in some of his forum posts.

Originally Posted by ketzer

There is no longer any separation and hence any shame to motivate the movement of the one toward the other, and man can stand before God, disrobed and naked and not fear judgment nor be ashamed. Not because of his ignorance of his nature as an imperfect man, as Adam was ignorant until he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and only then became ashamed, but because he has become known to himself as his divine nature. Then we will see that it is we who are the sons of man. We will see the son of the living one, and recognize it in and as ourselves. No longer will we live as the poverty that is the egoic self. We will have become known to ourselves and will not be afraid to show who we are, and can trample that robe, that impoverished egoic self, beneath our feet. We will have found and entered the kingdom of heaven within ourselves.

I don't believe one has to wait; there are many spiritual practices and disciplines that support a seeker's path therein.

On the point of "disrobed and naked", I do believe that when we are both willing and able, and through Grace, naked, words such as shame and embarrassment, good and evil, judgement or none, no longer apply. It is the putting down of a load.

These are just my perspectives; I respect yours.

JL

Originally Posted by Molearner

I am looking at 17......”what has never occurred to the human mind”. Is not the mind informed by the senses....including dreams ? What is offered here is beyond reason, experience, rational, logic. It contradicts that there “is nothing new under the sun” unless we properly understand this as being beyond the sun. Hahaha.....I want to interpret something right to be elgible for the promise of number 1.......:)

(17) Jesus said, "I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind."

My reaction when I first read this verse was pure excitement and delight.

Now I must try to parse it. That is harder for me.

Please let me revert. I am excited.

JL

Originally Posted by Molearner

Number 18.......is life a circle ?

(18) The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be." Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."

It is everpresent, it is timeless, and Always Here. It is the Source and thus the beginning is the end. It is deathless by nature as physicality does not reside here, and yet in its desire to experience, it has created that which is seen, touched, heard, thought of, but it is beyond all that.

Who will take his place in the beginning

Being willing to be with God is to be with Him Always. Thusly, He is already secure in his Knowledge that the beginning is the end, and for S/He there is no Death.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Molearner

I am looking at 17......”what has never occurred to the human mind”. Is not the mind informed by the senses....including dreams ? What is offered here is beyond reason, experience, rational, logic. It contradicts that there “is nothing new under the sun” unless we properly understand this as being beyond the sun. Hahaha.....I want to interpret something right to be elgible for the promise of number 1.......:)

I'm thinking of ' Our true self ' which may be experienced but not by the five senses of Humans. Beyond the senses is knowing through personal experiences rather than just believing...

Or something like that

[sky]

Originally Posted by Molearner

Number 18.......is life a circle ?

Reminds me of,

No birth, no death, only Transformation .... TNH.

Different states of being in the Circle of life.

Originally Posted by janielee

What is together can never be separated, in my opinion. It's the experiential discovery of this however that is the ultimate reward, in my opinion. Jyotir has spoken of this point in some of his forum posts.

I don't believe one has to wait; there are many spiritual practices and disciplines that support a seeker's path therein.

On the point of "disrobed and naked", I do believe that when we are both willing and able, and through Grace, naked, words such as shame and embarrassment, good and evil, judgement or none, no longer apply. It is the putting down of a load.

These are just my perspectives; I respect yours.

JL

Your perspectives are not so far from my own. As I see it, at the moment, is that though in one sense it is true that there is no separation, there is the perception of separation within the individual (I suppose some perception is necessarily implied in the term individual to begin with). Ultimately, all that is experienced is that which is perceived and so for the individual who perceives the separation, it is real to them. There is always of course connection as well, as man is never truly completely separated from God at the core of his being, not even in perception. Life, IMO, is at least a part of the journey of "experiential discovery" of the realization that the two are also one.

I think perhaps that life is the path of the seeker, whether they seek or not, whether they practice a discipline or not. I am no longer quite so convinced that if one disciplines themselves and follows a spiritual practice one is any better or worse off then one who simply lives life as it comes to them. The monk may look at them and see aimless wandering lost souls, yet the monk cannot know what the soul within is taking from their experience of life. Perhaps it is they who are sucking out all the spiritual nourishment from the marrow of life that the monk is abstaining from.

Seeking can carry with it the danger of restricting one's peripheral vision and perhaps alter one's eyesight to filter out that which one is not seeking as distractions from one's goal. One may go to the church to find God, but leave disappointed and disillusioned. One may go to the forest to seek but not find God there either. One may go deep into a trance and search for God to no avail. One can go all about seeking yet never find God. In the meantime they can miss all the wonder and beauty there was to experience along the way. It is there in everything and every situation, but one must be open to experiencing it, else it will just pass by unnoticed.

Of course God was in all of those places the seeker visited, they only needed to look inside themselves to see God. Perhaps if the seekers had known this, that God was within them, that they are the sons of the father, that they are the sons of man, they would have been able to visit all of those places and see God in all of them, see themselves in all of them, and recognize the wonder, beauty, and perfection in it all. Yet if what they expected God to be, did not look or feel like what they saw and experienced, then perhaps they will have wandered right past, as they rejected it and continued seeking what they were looking to find.

The kingdom of heaven is both inside of you and outside of you. But perhaps one must find it within oneself before one can recognize it outside of oneself, or perhaps the other way around, or perhaps one must see it in both at the same time, IDK. But maybe until one learns to see it in both, they dwell within poverty, and they are that poverty.

“The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things
Thus, constantly with
out desire, one observes its essence
Constantly with desire, one observes its manifestations
These two emerge together but differ in name
The unity is said to be the mystery
Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonder”
- One of countless imperfect translations of the first verse of the Tao Te Ching.

Originally Posted by janielee

(17) Jesus said, "I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind."

Originally Posted by Molearner

I am looking at 17......”what has never occurred to the human mind”. Is not the mind informed by the senses....including dreams ? What is offered here is beyond reason, experience, rational, logic. It contradicts that there “is nothing new under the sun” unless we properly understand this as being beyond the sun. Hahaha.....I want to interpret something right to be elgible for the promise of number 1.......:)

It cannot see Itself. It sees, hears, touches through the senses...but It is beyond.

It "has" the mind...it is "bigger" than the mind...

That's all I got

JL

(70) “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

I think that this is very true...anyone else experience it?

jl