The Gospel of Thomas is one of the most ancient records we have of the original sayings of Jesus.
And so we wanted to share a little bit about the esoteric and experiential dimensions of those sayings.
So the first saying I wanted to share is from the second stanza of the text.
It says,
Jesus says,
If you are searching,
You must not stop until you find.
When you find,
However,
You will become troubled.
Your confusion will give way to wonder.
In wonder,
You will reign over all things.
Your pain will be your rest.
So let's begin with the very beginning of this statement.
Actually,
This teaching contains within it a really map of the energy of awakening.
If you are searching,
You must not stop until you find.
If you are searching for truth,
For the truth of reality,
If your heart has already awakened to search,
To the quest,
If you have already made that inner turn from the conventional life of imprisonment and suffering of the bounded state of consciousness,
If we've already peaked outside of the prison window to see that there's some other possibility and what is really the nature of reality?
What is the truth of who I am in depth?
What is the divine spirit?
As soon as we begin to ask that question,
Our search has begun.
And once our search begins,
That means our heart has turned on to wake up to begin this process.
As Pastor is saying,
When you are searching,
You must not stop until you find.
We can't sabotage the inspiration of the heart toward truth.
If we try to,
It will only begin to turn back on ourselves.
In other words,
Once the fire begins,
It's best to let the fire burn all the way through.
And that is a possibility.
And not only that,
That's the promise of the teaching.
When you find,
However,
You will become confused.
That in my experience was true.
And when I had my early experiences of awakening,
And my consciousness,
My perception opened into more states of vastness to perceive reality beyond the limited perspective of a self-contained self.
I was like,
What on earth is going on here?
This is crazy.
This is bonkers.
My mind couldn't contain,
Couldn't process,
Couldn't digest or metabolize what it was that I was seeing,
What it was that I was perceiving.
How is it possible to see not orienting from a separate self?
And so there is a kind of confusion that arises.
What the Master teaches,
Your confusion will then give way to wonder.
So if we stay present with the confusion,
If we allow the confusion,
And not fight it,
Not try and change it,
Fix it,
Judge it,
But just accept,
Wow,
Okay,
There's confusion.
I'm just going to allow the confusion to be here.
That will give way to wonder.
In my own experience,
Such in fact is true,
Is the case.
At first,
There's a great deal of confusion when we begin to awaken.
And then,
Over time,
The support oftentimes of teachers and community and texts that speak to the truth of reality,
We begin to accept and see,
Wow,
This is actually a deeper dimension of perception that's possible.
This is really the way things are,
That we are not a separate,
Isolated,
Encapsulated self,
But we are intimate with one world,
Completely interpenetrated with the totality of creation and even beyond,
With the cosmos.
A magnificent sense of wonder,
Of awe,
Awesomeness and wonder can open up.
And that's where the heart and the body and the mind kind of come into alignment in this experience.
And we're left with just a sense of the radical amazement of the way things actually are.
When we step out of the prison cell,
In wonder you will reign over all things.
Your sovereignty will be your rest.
And in wonder then becomes another kind of portal,
A portal of presence in the ancient Hebrew tradition,
Which this is a text that is an expression of ancient Hebrew lineage stream.
And the principle of kingship,
Of sovereignty,
Is intimately related to the divine presence manifesting itself on earth,
Manifesting itself through the incarnation of human flesh.
And so when we open to the wonder that is the truth of reality,
That wonder then bridges,
Unifies or weds our individual human consciousness,
Our particular incarnation with the vastness of being,
With the cosmic,
You could say,
Kingdom of heaven.
And so through the wonder we reign over all things,
Meaning that as we recognize our unitive state with all things,
Recognize that we are inseparable from all of creation and from all of reality.
Then we begin to embody the spirit totality,
The divine spirit into embodied presence and that brings us into a state of sovereignty.
We become kings and queens of the divine,
We become expressions of the cosmic court of royalty of creation.
And it's through this sovereignty where you will find your rest here,
The master is just pointing to an inner truth through our intimate connection with our embodiment of our intimacy with and our unification with the divine spirit.
That's mysterious force that animates all of reality and all of creation.
We become holders,
Carriers of the kingdom of heaven here on earth.
In Hebrew it's mal chuchimayim,
The kingdom of heaven and as we participate in the,
In the divine,
You could say,
The divine cosmic court of kingship and queenship,
Our presence magnifies.
And as our presence magnifies as we become messengers of the kingdom,
We experience a deep peace,
An inner peace of silence,
A sense of all things have become into alignment.
And all is well within and without.
So there's a unification of the inner and the outer,
And in that we are able to rest in the deepest way.
Thank you for sharing this first session on the Gospel of Thomas.
Sharing more.
Much love.
