Gospel of Thomas

Every now and then I attend a meditation class, and we usually meditate for 20 minutes or so, then have dharma talk, or “meditate together,” as Tom, the guy who leads the meditation, puts it. Tom incorporates a lot of different religious and secular texts into our meditation sessions, and a couple weeks ago he read from the Gospel of Thomas, a book of scripture discovered in 1945 near Nah Hammadi, Egypt. (You can read more on the history of the book here).  There are some really amazing insights from Christ in the book.  (You can find a translation of the text here). Though I'm agnostic as to whether or not Christ was a real person, I like him a lot, even if he is a fictional character. I thought I would read the book since I had never heard of it and I really loved it. It is beautiful. Here are some things that stood out to me, and insights from other poets and philosophers which bring some of my thoughts to light.

On being numb:

In the Gospel of Thomas, verse 28, Jesus said, “I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in the flesh. I found all of them intoxicated; I found none of them thirsty. And my soul became afflicted for the sons men, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight; for empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world. But for the moment they are intoxicated.”

I think William Wordsworth puts it beautifully:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be

A pagan suckled in the creed outworn;

So I might, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

What are we intoxicated by? What distracts us? I think that's a question for each individual to contemplate, but it could be many things. What prevents us from seeing the real beauty in ourselves, in others, and in “Nature that is ours?” Are we numb working our mundane jobs in our mundane cubicles, going home to sit on our couches and watch mundane TV? Or, equally if not more importantly, are we so intoxicated, so distracted, that we miss out on acquiring more knowledge, and then acting on that knowledge, which would benefit our neighbors, our communities, and ourselves?

Cornel West said this:

“The oppressive effect of prevailing market moralities leads to a form of sleepwalking from womb to tomb, with the majority of citizens content to focus on private careers and be distracted with stimulating amusements. They have given up any real hope of shaping the collective destiny of the nation. Sour cynicism, political apathy, and cultural escapism become the pervasive options…The uninspiring nature of our national political culture has only enhanced the seductiveness of the pursuit of pleasure and of diverting entertainments, and too many of us have turned inward to a disconnected, narrowly circumscribed family and social life. White suburbanites and middle-class blacks (and others) are preoccupied with the daily pursuit of the comfort of their material lives. In many cases they literally wall themselves off into comfortable communities, both physical and social, in which they can safely avert their eyes from the ugly realities that afflict so many of our people. Because they are able to buy the cars and take the vacations they want, they are all too willing to either disregard the political and social dysfunctions afflicting the country or accept facile explanations for them.”

Perhaps Brother West's idea comes off as an extreme one. I think there needs to be moderation in all things and so indulging in the things we love is fine, and each individual has the right to do so. That being said, we might do well to detox a bit, to get out from behind our computers, our driving wheels, our TVs, our many distractions and live! Live for ourselves, live for the earth, and live for our neighbors. As David Byrne sang, “we might be better off I think, the way it seems to me, making up our own shows, which might be better than TV.”

On Knowledge:

In the Gospel of Thomas, the beginning of verse 3, Jesus said, “if those who lead you say to you ‘see, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘it is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you.’ Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.”

The verse goes on, and I will quote that later, but I can’t even tell you how much I love these few lines. The wonderful thing about words is they can be interpreted in many ways. The way I interpret these lines are as follows:

Lets say the birds are Islam, and the fish are Christianity. Those born into Islam are taught that heaven is a certain place, can be found in a certain way. It is in the sky. They see their family living Islam, see the birds which preceded them, and they follow. Those born into Christianity are taught about heaven as well, but their heaven is different than the heaven of Islam, it in in the sea, but they see their family members and/or friends who have preceded them, and it works, so they follow. Yet heaven, or the kingdom, is neither in the sky, nor is it in the sea, but it is inside and outside of us. It is here, right now.  It is who we are.  I will go into this later, but I want to focus on the birds and the fish. I think religion is a wonderful, beautiful thing that brings a lot of peace and purpose to the lives of many people, but if our focus is so much on our specific religion, on following all the rules, on proving we are right and they are wrong, we are missing the point.

I absolutely love what Friedrich Nietzsche had to say about it, or in this case, consciousness:

“Before a function is fully developed and mature it constitutes a danger for the organism, and it is good if during the interval is it subject to some tyranny. The consciousness is tyrannized—not least by our pride in it. One thinks that it constitutes the kernel of man; what is abiding, eternal, ultimate, and most original in him. One takes consciousness for a derminate magnitude. One denies its growth and its intermittences. One takes it for the ‘unity of the organism.’

This ridiculous overestimation and misunderstanding of consciousness has the very useful consequence that it prevents an all too fast development of consciousness. Believing that they possess consciousness, men have not exerted themselves very much to acquire it; and things haven’t changed much in this respect. To this day the talk of incorporating knowledge and making it instinctive is only beginning to dawn on the human eye and is not yet clearly discernible; it is a task that is seen only by those who have comprehended that so far we have incorporated only our errors and that all our consciousness relates to our errors.”

There are so many things to talk about in those paragraphs, but what I glean is that consciousness is moldable, something that can change over time. What we consider to be our consciousness is actually greatly shaped by our culture, our religion, our family, etc. That which we deem to be good or bad is greatly dictated by how we were raised, and most of us follow, feeling guilt or pride for the bad or good things we have done based on this paradigm, never really questioning what we have been taught, and we assume this to be our consciousness. We do not allow knowledge to partner with consciousness, and in some cases even demonize knowledge. To say there is not some innate light in us does not make sense to me; I think men and women are born with some idea of what is good and bad, just naturally, but largely our conscious is shaped by the environment we are raised in.

So then why question our authorities? Those older and wiser than us? Why question what we have been taught? If the fish and birds have preceded us, why wander away from the sea or the sky? Well, Nietzsche also said this, “Some ages seem to lack altogether some talent or some virtue, as certain individuals do, too. But just wait for their children and their grandchildren, if you have time to wait that long: they bring to light what was hidden in their grandfathers and what their grandfathers themselves did not suspect. Often the son already betrays his father—and the father understands himself better after he has a son.”

Henry David Thoreau, a famous rebel, thought it incredibly stupid to just take a person’s word for things based on age. He said, “I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.” Not saying we should adopt this attitude. Many things can be learned from those who preceded us. But I think we can learn from each other. That because one is old, one is therefore an authority is an imprudent idea, and the same can be said for the young thinking they are wise. Everyone has their own experiences, reflections, reactions, emotions. As kind of an echo to what Nietzsche said, Thoreau believed “it is never too late to give up on our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.” He went on to say, “Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology!—I know of no reading of another’s experience so startling and informing as this would be!”

Lastly, some words from Shel Silverstein:

Columbus said the world is round?

Don’t you believe a word of that!

For I’ve been down to the edge of the world,

Sat on the edge where the wild wind whirled,

Peeked over the ledge where the blue smoke curls,

And I can tell you, boys and girls,

The world is FLAT!

How many things are we told from a young age by those who preceded us, and believe to be absolutely true, believe to be our consciousness, without question? Perhaps we should cultivate our knowledge, develop our consciousness, and create a belief of our own. For the Kingdom is in and around us, not in the sky or the sea. Which leads me to my next section…

On our divinity:

Again, in the Gospel of Thomas, verse 3, Jesus said, “…Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons [and daughters] of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.”

I think these lines are especially beautiful. How many of us are living in poverty because we fail to see the holiness in ourselves? Jesus also said that to be perfect means that we are whole. How can we be whole if we are intoxicated followers who don’t even know ourselves? We are living in poverty, and it is detrimental to all.

Kahlil Gibran wrote these inspiring words:

“And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.

The freest song comes not through bars and wires.

And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.”

I’m going to pause here for a moment, because I love these lines. “He who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.” In  my estimation, this means people need to stop following the rules so much. They need to stop worrying about being “normal” or “perfect,” whatever that means. So many people are constipated in their souls and lack their inner-dance because of this. “The freest song comes not through bars and wires,” or rules, expectations and obligations. The freest song comes by living free of dogmatic chains. Live; fall down, make mistakes, but live, and learn, and set your song-bird free! Alright, he continues:

“Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

Whenever you enter into it take with it your all.

Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,

The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.

For in reverie you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.

And take with you all men:

For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.

And if you would know God, be not therefore a solver of riddles.

Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.

And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.

You shall see Him smiling in flowers, the rising and waving His hands in the trees.”

Finally, to quote a man photographed on the street from Humans of New York:

“Going through life without God is like being an astronaut tumbling out of control in outer space… You can’t cut your umbilical chord. But you don’t have to go to church. God is everywhere. God is that blade of grass trying to come up through the concrete. So many people go to church, and leave church, not even realizing that they are the church.”

Well put, my friend. Our lives are our temple and our religion. We are the church. It is not a building, not a congregation, not a set of rules and commandments, but our lives. We are the kingdom. I just love that. I think seeing that divinity in ourselves, and realizing that all men and women are divine, is a valuable and loving way to see the world. Perhaps if people realized the worth of every soul, the world would be a much better place.