Gospel of Thomas coda 4

Gospel of Thomas, coda 4

“Jesus said, ‘The old man will not hesitate to ask seven-day old baby about the place of life, and he will live.  For there are many who will be first who will become last.  They will become a single one.’”

Davies explains that the symbolism as a seven-day old baby suggests a time before circumcision.  By Jewish law, the child is circumcised on the eighth day of his life.   Later in coda 53 Thomas refers to circumcision as being unnecessary for spiritual development.  According to Davies, the infant of seven days may refer to the image of God who rested on the seventh day until the second round of creation during which time Adam was created.  The old man, says Davies, likely represents the ordinary human who has not sought and found the realm of God.  The infant, says Davies, is representative of wisdom.  The infant signifies the seeker who finds his way back to the beginning of the world and time before the creation.
The old man is first, the infant last, and as the old man seeks answers from the infant, he and the infant become one.  But who is the old man.  The old man is the man who has developed physically, psychologically, and spiritually from infancy, through childhood and through adulthood.

Such development is necessary.  It’s interesting how Jesus in the canonical gospels says that one must become like an infant or a child to enter or obtain the realm of heaven or God.  In these cases, Jesus is talking to adults about adults.  On one level Jesus may be speaking about having the magical-seeming mind of the child, open, flexible, creative, and imaginative.

 But in the context of Thomas, Jesus appears to be pointing the adult seeker to a state of consciousness that pre-exists his own body and mind, and that through self-inquiry exists beyond body and mind.  Indeed, when the body is disciplined and mental processes quieted, what remains?  Who am I after I have determined that I am not my body and I am not my mind, who is aware of my physical and mental processes?  I think that this is what Buddhists refer to as Original nature and Beginner’s Mind before karma and without dependent origination.  I think that this is a Unititive Consciousness.  It is that which occurred before Creation, before the emergence of the archetypes of Adam Kadmon and Shekinah, and Christ.  I digress.  I refer you to discussions of Christian Kabala for this.

All this is to say that the seeker must search for know his or her true self, the Christ or God within, and learn to live in continuity with this true self, expressing this true self in the world, and recognizing this true self in others, embracing the true self in everyone and everything with love, and being creative in life with attributes and gifts one has obtained throughout one’s life journey(ies).  The result of the old man asking the infant about the place of life is regeneration or transformation.  This is a transformation that occurs in the body and  the  mind ,and is expressed in the body and mind,  and results in the old man becoming a new man, a new human with new spiritual facility.  It is also a transformation that occurs in society as corporate human-kind goes through transformations as well; society or the world goes through transformation when a critical mass of individuals find their true selves; the realm of God being realized on earth when a critical mass of human beings realize their true nature or are established in it.

The God in me bows to the God in you,

+Will+