ON LOVE; PART CCCLXXII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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The Gospel of Thomas

These are the hidden words that the living Jesus spoke. And Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them down.

(18)  The disciples said to Jesus: “Tell us how our end will be.”  Jesus said: “Have you already discovered the beginning that you are now asking about the end? For where the beginning is, there the end will be too. Blessed is he who will stand at the beginning. And he will know the end, and he will not taste death.”

(19) Jesus says: “Blessed is he who was, before he came into being. If you become disciples of mine (and) listen to my words, these stones will serve you.  For you have five trees in Paradise that do not change during summer (and) winter, and their leaves do not fall. Whoever comes to know them will not taste death.”

(20)  The disciples said to Jesus: “Tell us whom the kingdom of heaven is like!”  He said to them: “It is like a mustard seed.  <It> is the smallest of all seeds.  But when it falls on cultivated soil, it produces a large branch (and) becomes shelter for the birds of the sky.”

(21)  Mary said to Jesus: “Whom are your disciples like?” He said: “They are like servants who are entrusted with a field that is not theirs. When the owners of the field arrive, they will say: ‘Let us have our field.’ (But) they are naked in their presence so as to let them have it (and thus) to give them their field.” “That is why I say: ‘When the master of the house learns that the thief is about to come, he will be on guard before he comes (and) will not let him break into his house, his domain, to carry away his possessions.’ (But) you, be on guard against the world! Gird your loins with great strength, so that the robbers will not find a way to get to you.” “For the necessities for which you wait (with longing) will be found. There ought to be a wise person among you! When the fruit was ripe, he came quickly with his sickle in his hand, (and) he harvested it. Whoever has ears to hear should hear.” ¹⁴

In the last post we completed our look at the eighteenth saying, a saying in which Jesus never answers the question posed except by parabolic sayings telling them that they will not die if he can realize the Truth regarding the beginning and the end, that they ARE the same and that in the realization of this idea of BEING that they will not die. This of course does not mean the physical body here any more than eternal Life in the accepted Gospels reflects aught about the physical Life, the Life of the form which we KNOW is born and will die. While some may believe that some semblance of the body survives in heaven or in hell, the reality from our perspective is that this experience IS but the afterlife, a state of being of which little is KNOWN except by esoteric and occult writings which, when combined with the reality of the Truth of heaven and the Kingdom of God, may provide a more accurate understanding of what is in store for everyman as he leaves this Earth. We have discussed this several times and the use of the word afterlife in the ‘search the blog archives’ block will bring the pertinent essays as this is not our topic today. The realization that we speak of here and that the Master alludes to in His saying “Blessed is he who will stand at the beginning. And he will know the end, and he will not taste death” is the realization of one’s True nature and this reality IS NOT within the scope of understanding of the man who is focused in the world except by degree to the who is striving and progressing on the Path to spiritual reality. We should see here that He refers to standing at the beginning while in the prior verse He tells us that the beginning and the end are the same and it is in this timelessness of True existence that we find our own Truth. This is not to say that there is no True sense of time but rather that there is no beginning nor end in the idea of eternal….eternal simply IS. We should remember here the answer that Moses receives from Jehovah who, speaking as God, tells him that He IS “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14). It is in this reality that we find our own reality of Life and of our own nature; that Life IS, that we ARE, and this should be seen in the reality that we ARE the True man, the Soul, as the manifestation of Spirit, and that it IS this Truth that IS reflected in that ancient saying that: “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27).

We should likely understand the idea of blessed in these sayings as we would from the Greek of the accepted New Testament which offers an understanding of happy but this IS NOT happy from the human perspective, but rather from the perspective of the Soul, the Christ Within, as expressed by the man in the world. This IS the True joy which again must not be seen nor understood as that human emotion and this idea puts this word into that same realm as Love. This joy is the result of the blessedness, that True happiness that overwhelms a man in the world as the Light of the Soul pours forth the Love and the Power of the Soul by degree which offers peace and revelation and which can lead the man to strive with yet more intent. Here in saying eighteen this idea of blessed is as we depict here; blessed is the man who can realize his own being, his ISness if you will, it is He that will find also the end and the True realization of eternal Life. And he will realize these things as he stands as the man in the world. This word joy is used in this context by the Master as:

• “But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended” (Matthew 13:20-21). Here we should see that the revelation that the man receives brings joy and this revelation could be of any sort that is motivated by the hearing and can be likened to that sensation that we likely all get when we come to ‘see’ or perceive some Truth that we had not heretofore KNOWN; a sense of peace, of enlightenment or whatever else along these lines. Unfortunately the man in this place, this stony place, is not moved enough by this experience to strive for greater and more and he falls back into the ways of the world.
• The Master offers us this idea in another parable saying: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field” (Matthew 13:44). Here we have that same idea of the joy of revelation and peace and enlightenment which IS the joy that causes the man to strive, to give up ALL for the continued joy of the Kingdom.
• The Master uses this idea with His disciples as well; He speaks of His own joy and that of the apostles saying: “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:11). Here we should see the same idea but more pronounced and here perhaps the idea of bliss would better suffice for that sensation of full realization of one’s own divinity and his ability to express such through form….the accomplishment of the Life goal of ALL.

Now we should understand here that there is not a large stretch between being blessed and having that sense of joy and perhaps, as we allude to above, we can see the joy as the result of this blessing which can then be seen as the burst of revelation, or of peace, or of enlightenment, into the conscious awareness that can bring the greater fullness of joy. Can we see this idea at work in the eighteenth saying above, that the man who can see this beginning is blessed by that perception which leads to the greater joy of KNOWING and of greater realization. This brings us then to this same use of the word in the nineteenth saying that we began looking at in the last essay and in which we see great obscurity on the surface. But we begin here were we left off in the last saying, with the greater joy of the realization of eternal Life which comes from that blessing of revelation of one’s True nature, the nature of the eternal Soul. Here then the opening line is that the man who so realizes the Truth of eternity, who KNOWS that he IS before he came into being in this Earth is blessed and again this blessing IS that sensation of revelation, or of peace, or of enlightenment; the reality of KNOWING.

The next part of this saying tells us “If you become disciples of mine (and) listen to my words, these stones will serve you” and here, as we discussed in the last essay, we choose to use the interlinear understanding of these words which say “If you should be to me disciples and listen to my words“. We choose this because we understand that these men are already disciples as this IS a dialogue with them and, we can read this as “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” which is the way that the Master spoke to disciples in John’s Gospel, “to those which believed on Him” (John 8:31) which we understand as those that keep His words and are thereby disciples. Layton gives us this verse as “If you exist as my disciples and listen to my sayings” from which we can get the same idea; our understanding here should not be the question of becoming disciples. This next part can be seen in the same Light as the moving of the mountain or the casting of the sycamine tree into the sea. Here the Master’s words are not definite but conditional upon the disciple remaining in His word, keeping His words to that point where one can develop “faith as a grain of mustard seed” (Luke 17:6) which we understand as that degree of KNOWING in which the disciple IS complete; this IS as we see in the picture painted for us in the Life of the Apostle Peter. This IS complete control of the world and the Truth of our “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth” (Genesis 1:26); this is where a man can say with the Master that “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33) and this is where the stones can be one’s servants. This of course should be seen in the same light as we see the moving of the mountain and the casting of the tree into the sea; as examples of the Power and the Love that the True disciple can wield over the Earth and the things of the Earth and, in the blessedness and the joy of this ultimate pinnacle of discipleship, one would surely not do any of these things.

The next part of this saying is worded here in these translations as a continuation of the last thought brought together by the word for. This word is parenthetical in the interlinear suggesting that the word is inserted by the translators but since we ARE NOT versed in Coptic grammar we cannot say with any certainty that this is an added thought. However, the Layton translation does eliminate the word for and adds the word indeed which IS a translators insertion; here we would get the idea that these sayings are not linked as a continuing thought but as a separate one. We will take this as our understanding and we should note here as well that, like the Christian Bible, there were no chapters and verses in the original texts and that the number system is added afterwards and based upon the view of those who did the numbering. Nonetheless, this is an obscure reference and, since it is from the Master we should assume that it is of a spiritual nature and that it has naught to do with the physical world nor the idea of a tree as we see them in the Earth.

Pondering this idea of five trees, as something that a man will have and, if a spiritual thing, that it is in regard to his very state of spiritual being, brought to mind a chart from on of the books by our Tibetan brother where he reveals much about the constitution of man albeit in terms that none but the spiritually advanced can Truly understand. This is the nature of so much of the Truth as it is reported for us in sacred or esoteric books; that one will not fully understand the ideas presented until they are revealed to him by his own Soul. Much of the Master’s teaching as well as the words of His apostles fall into this understanding and it is here that we would put the ideas presented in this saying from Thomas’ Gospel as well and those from the Tibetan which we present in abbreviated form so as to make sense of this saying by Jesus.

Explained as planes for the visual effect of levels of spiritual being, the True man exists in and of five spiritual planes of existence; each plane can be understood as being of yet more rarefied substance, rarefied spiritual substance. Three of these planes are of the Soul, the fourth is the plane of Spirit and the fifth is the synthesis of them all and this is much like that saying from a previous essay that gives us in yet broader terms the nature of the True man. This saying tells us that:

“Matter is the Vehicle for the manifestation of Soul on this plane of existence, and Soul is the Vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation of Spirit and these three are a Trinity, synthesised by Life, which pervades them all.” **

Here in this saying the three planes of the Soul or, the three Aspects of the Soul as a better term, are combined into the one word Soul as we generally do as well. The Three Aspects of the Soul are a sort of smaller Trinity than the Trinity of Spirit, Soul and the Activity of these and we should note this idea of Trinity runs through most ALL of Life as we see it. In the physical body there is a like Trinity of the form itself, or the energy forces that ARE that form, plus the emotional and the mental Aspects of the personality. From the perspective of the Soul we begin with the Mind, not the human mind as in the mental aspect but a higher mind that touches the mind of God, then there IS the Intuition which gives the man the ability to KNOW and then the Will which is the Power of doing and of Being. From the perspective of the Soul these three can be seen as synthesized by Love. These take up three of the five planes or Aspects; beyond this is the reality of the ONE, the Spirit that IS man, and then, beyond this IS the Essence that IS Life itself. Here we have the five planes of spiritual existence as they pertain to man and in our saying above from the Secret Doctrine we should see this idea of matter not as the form itself but as the activity in that form of the spiritual man; in this way we have a parallel to the way we have been depicting this Life in the world in our essays.

Can we see here the idea from the Master according to the translations that we have of Thomas’ Gospel? These are, from our perspective, the five trees of man and, from the perspective of the spiritual nature of these, they can easily be seen as immovable and unchangeable depending on the rendering of the Coptic words. The rest of this verse IS to emphasize that these ARE NOT subject to the ways of the world; not winter, nor summer, nor fall only, but to none of the effects of the world whatsoever….These trees ARE in the Kingdom and we can relate this ALL personally to the words of the Master regarding discipleship in our saying above through the the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders; the Wise are of course those who continue as His disciples and keep His words: the parable goes thus:

“Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great” (L

The Master closes this saying with the thought that whosoever can come to realize these things, that the Spirit of man and the Soul of man are immovable and unchangeable by any thing that is of the Earth, will come to realize his Truth and that Truth IS his eternal Life.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

Aspect of God	Potency	Aspect of Man	In Relation to the Great Invocation	In relation to the Christ
GOD, The Father	Will or Power	Spirit or Life	Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN	Life
Son, The Christ	Love and Wisdom	Soul or Christ Within	Heart of God	Truth
Holy Spirit	Light or Activity	Life Within	Mind of God	Way

Note on the Quote of the Day

This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.

Today’s quote of the day is a repeat of the Mantram of Unification which is an affirmation of the Oneness of the human family from the perspective of the disciple and the aspirant and any who hold these ideals as important. In this we find the essence of the two ideas that we have discussed from Values to Live By and that these are firmly grounded in the desire to Love not hate; to serve and not exact due service and to heal and not to hurt. It is Love shown as Truth and justice that is at the heart of this mantram.

Mantram of Unification

The sons of men are one and I am one with them.
I seek to love, not hate;
I seek to serve and not exact due service;
I seek to heal, not hurt.

Let pain bring due reward of light and love.
Let the Soul control the outer form, and life and all events,
And bring to light the love that underlies the happenings of the time.

Let vision come and insight.
Let the future stand revealed.
Let inner union demonstrate and outer cleavages be gone.
Let love prevail.
Let all men love.

The Mantram of Unification is a meditation and a prayer that at first affirms the unity of all men and the Brotherhood of Man based on the Fatherhood of God. The first stanza sets forth several truly Christian ideals in Unity, Love, Service and Healing. The second stanza is a invocation to the Lord and to our own Souls asking that from the pain (if there can truly be any) incurred in focusing on the Spirit and not the world will come Light and Love into our lives and that we begin to function as Souls through our conscious personalities. We ask that the spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes and also that the Love that we bring forth, individually and as a world group, can be seen by all and ultimately in all. Finally, in the last stanza we ask for those things that are needed for Love to abound. Vision and insight so that we can direct our attention properly; revelation of the future in the sense that all can see the Power of Love in the world; inner union so that we do not fall back into the world’s ways, that we faint not; and that a sense of separation, the antithesis of brotherhood, ends as we know it today. Let Love Prevail, Let All Men Love.spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ¹⁴ The Gospel of Thomas; Translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson; http://gnosis.org/
• ** The Secret Doctrine; H.P. Blavatsky; 1888; Theosophical University Press (Public Domain)