Gospel of Thomas, coda18
The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us, how will our end come?" Jesus said, "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."
There are a couple of Buddhist terms that I find useful here. One is “beginner’s mind.” The other is “original nature.” “Beginner’s mind” is awakened mind. “Original nature” is the original state of being and similar to, if not the same as “image of God.”. It is that state of mind or being characterized by emptiness but pregnant with potential. The search for an end is futile, particularly a future end, because in this beginning state there is only now, eternally present. In this sense beginning and end are the same. To wake up in this timeless state is to “know the end” and “not taste death.”
There is a need for a right effort here. It is not a striving after an end, but a ceasing of striving. Until one stops striving after the end and enters into the ocean of consciousness that is the consciousness of being one will not know that which is being discussed here. Can you just be?
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