Gospel of Thomas coda 3

Gospel of Thomas, Coda 3
“Jesus said, ‘If your leaders say to you ‘Look!  The Kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds will be there before you are.  If they say ‘the Kingdom is in the sea, ‘then the fish will be there before you are. Rather, the Kingdom is within you and it is outside of you.  When you understand yourselves you will be understood.  And that you will realize that you are Children of the Living Father-Mother God.  If you do not know yourselves then you exist in poverty and you are that poverty.”

Jesus, in this saying identifies the location of the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven.  It is within you and it is outside of you.  Jesus is challenging the view held by religious leaders, one group saying one place, another saying at this other place.  Actually, Jesus isn’t speaking about a place at all.  Even today people seek to locate heaven and hell in physical place.  People point upward to the sky or refer to the “guy upstairs” or they are going up to heaven and likewise down to hell.   Consciously anyways, many people don’t think of heaven as being a physical place, but think of it symbolically or spiritually.  Up is good.  Down is bad.  And Jesus isn’t suggesting that heaven is a physical place inside the person or invisible place outside the person.  Rather, Jesus is describing a state of consciousness and being or a condition of consciousness, or being or realm of consciousness or being.  It is the reality of God that is in and around the people; the consciousness or being of God that is inside and around people.  It is a consciousness that Jesus experienced himself as one with and which Jesus initiates his disciple to live in.  It is an experience of Self and of World that Jesus ushers his disciples into.

It is not possible to experience this kingdom reality around you until you experience it within you, but once you experience it within, it changes the way you approach, perceive, and experience the world around you.

For Thomas the way of salvation is the way of Self enquiry and Self knowledge.   The question “Who am I” is the key question in this inquiry.  Who am I that am hungry?  Who am I that am tired?  Who am I that am awake?  Who am I that thinks that I know?  Who am I that knows?  Who am I that is aware of being aware?  I know that I am not the body that is hungry, tired or awake, I am not the thoughts my mind is thinking, and that I am not the mind that has the thoughts.  I am that which is aware, and that which is aware of being aware.  Salvation is the result of knowing my Self in its state of knowledge of Self, which is a state of God/Self unity.   In this experience I realize that I am God’s child, as Jesus is God’s child, and that I am one with the Father-Mother God.  This is a process of attainment but of realization of what has always been but has been forgotten or lost, and which now is remembered or found.  This self-discovery is key to finding the wealth hidden in people and the world.  What is this wealth?  It is the Kingdom Reality of God, or God, God’s Self.    To live in their experience is to be whole and complete.

The spiritual journey is often arduous.  We find our way and then lose our way.  We pursue this practice and that practice, and this teacher and that teacher, and this teaching and that teaching.  But what we are seeking is right there within us, before us and around us!  God is right there within us, before us and around us.

There is a story that God gave the angels the task of hiding a treasure from human beings.  This treasure was the Knowledge of Truth that brought true Joy.  One thought to hide I on the highest mountain.  God said, “No.  They’ll figure out how to get to the highest peak and find it.”  Another thought to hide it in the deepest ocean.  God said, “No.  They’ll divine a craft that would take them to the deepest part of the ocean and find it.  One thought of a jungle, another on a planet in the outer reaches of outer place.  “No, no, no,” God said.  “They’ll develop technologies to reach all of those places. “

They had exhausted all of the possibilities when the littlest angel spoke up, “I know where they will never find it.  Hide it within themselves.  They’ll never look there.  All of the angels looked around at each other and nodded “yes.”  And God said, “That’s where we’ll put it.”

This is the key, to look within to where it already exists.

There’s also a riddle, “what is the gift that you have received, but you haven’t opened?”   The reality of God is already with you, within you, and around you, and you and you and you and you . . . and when you realize this in your life, you will discover that you are living it and living in it all the time.  Knowledge in this sense is power, spiritual power.  It is freedom.  It is love.  It is joy.
Of course, this knowledge is being realized over time.  I am, you are already perfect and I am and you are becoming perfect at the very same time.    And knowing who you are you as self or spirit are integrating or mixing yourself into the world, bringing it to life as you do it, discovering what you have found in yourself in others.  This is how the realm of God or Heaven is being realized on earth.