Oneness in the Gospel of Thomas
Part Four: Waking Up to Oneness
I consider the Gospel of Thomas to be the most significant teaching of Jesus that we have today. It's a Gospel that should have been in the Bible, but we were not ready for it seventeen centuries ago. Are we ready for it now?
For many who have suffered religious abuse or dealt with the literalism of fundamentalist Christianity, the Bible can become a difficult source for wisdom and spiritual nurturing. In the same way, the twisting and misuse of Jesus and his teachings can leave some in a place of struggling to connect with Jesus after deconstructing. Because many are unfamiliar with it, the Gospel of Thomas may be a way for you to hear and encounter Jesus anew.
The Gospel of Thomas is one of the 52 texts discovered at Nag Hamadi in 1945 and represents some of the earliest Christian teachings. Many of the Nag Hamadi codices were initially classified as Gnostic, a category that placed them outside of mainstream Christian thinking. However, recently scholars, including Elaine Pagels, who wrote a famous book over thirty years ago on The Gnostic Gospels, now doubt if there was ever even a Gnostic category. Thomas is not Gnostic in any way.
It is highly likely that The Gospel of Thomas was written before the four New Testament gospels. Stevan L. Davies, Ph.D. is an influential author of 18 scholarly books and Professor of Religious Studies. He argues that the apparent independence of the ordering of sayings in Thomas from that of their parallels in the first three Gospels shows that Thomas was not evidently reliant upon the canonical gospels and probably predated them.
Years ago, when I was at Broadway Church in Kansas City, I printed copies of the Gospel of Thomas and gave them to the congregation. I suggested they put this in their Bible right before Matthew because it was written earlier than the four Gospels already in their New Testament.
The Gospel of Thomas is very different in tone and structure from the four canonical Gospels. Unlike the Gospels in our Bibles, it is not a narrative account of the life of Jesus; instead, it consists of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus.
Scholars regard the Gospel of Thomas as one of the most important texts in understanding early Christianity outside the New Testament. A central theme of the Gospel of Thomas is that salvation comes through a mystical understanding and experience of the words of Jesus rather than through doctrines to believe in or sacraments to do. Sounds like a Gospel made for ICN!
There are several scholarly translations. I am using the accepted standard by Thomas Lambdin unless otherwise noted. Here is a link to the entire Gospel of Thomas by Lambdin. You can print out a copy to put in your Bible!
Thomas is uniquely a Gospel of Oneness
In Thomas, Jesus suggests that everything consists of a single and indivisible reality of which we are all parts. This idea of the inherent ONEness of all things is found throughout human history. The earliest reference to the concept is found in the 'Upanishads' written by seers who had retired to the forest to live contemplative lives. These writings want us to be in a state of being where we feel – to the core of our being – that place of connection between the small and the large. The Upanishads want us to understand and be in the place of connection between the breath and the cosmos — the main goal of the Upanishads.
We live with the mistaken perception that things exist separately from each other. This is a more modern perception of how we humans perceive the world. Though as we saw in part 3, even science today is showing us that understanding isn’t the fundamental nature of things.
As the famous poet William Blake famously said, "To find a whole universe in a single grain of sand." And Meister Eckhart affirmed, "Who sees not God everywhere sees God nowhere."
This is the message of the Upanishads — and the Gospel of Thomas!
Who wrote parts of the Gospel of John and all of the Gospel of Thomas?
While most scholars believe the historical Jesus inspired the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas, I do not. My view is that the most profound parts of John and most of Thomas were shown to the writers by the Living Jesus as mystical revelations after he had left the earth physically, as represented metaphorically in his "ascension." It was transmitted to one or more writers in channeled revelations such as the book of Revelation. Since biblical scholars today do not usually participate in mystical Christianity, they do not even remotely consider this view. I cannot find even one scholar who holds this. So beware, to be theologically honest, I seem to stand alone in this understanding.
The writer(s) of Thomas evidently did not understand much of what they wrote. It has no coherent order, and nothing connects with anything else. But it was also misunderstood in 367 AD, when the powerful bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, issued a decree condemning the use of "unorthodox" Christian documents, i.e., those not in the then-official list. According to the most accepted account, in reaction to this, daring monks from the monastery of St Pachomius in Upper Egypt smuggled out a group of outlawed codices, eventually burying them in a ceramic storage jar in the fertile soil on the bank of the Nile River. These were the 52 texts found by Egyptian farmers in 1945. And, finally, today, some of us are ready for them. Thank you, thank you, heroic “heretical” monks!
SEVEN ONENESS SAYINGS FROM THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS
In Thomas, Jesus offers a realm of heaven that is the Oneness that we can discover within us before death. No matter how difficult our lives may be, we can bring the peace of the realm of God into our hearts in the present moment.
It's an idea that is echoed by the modern-day Christian leader Richard Rohr: "Oneness is right here, right now, in the present tense. Oneness with God sets us free. The possibility of freedom, of a whole new world, is already here."
1. Making the two one
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom." (Saying 22)
Sound crazy? Metaphysical gobbledygook? William James, the "Father of American psychology," leading thinker of the late 19th century, and one of the most influential philosophers of the United States, wrote:
"Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch, they are all there in all their completeness. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded."
Try slowing down your busy mind and read Saying 22 with your spiritual eyes.
2. Jesus identified himself as the All, one with Everyone and Everything
Jesus said, "It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." (77)
In the unitive mysticism of Jesus, he implies here that he sees no separation between him and the creature that has burrowed into the wood and the insect living under the stone. That's radical Oneness!
"All" is a term for the whole of cosmic reality and another way of framing Oneness. From the rest of this Gospel, we know that Jesus is not the only one who is the "all" but others may come into that awakening of their true nature.
The self-references of Jesus throughout Thomas are not exclusive to Jesus as a particular person but to the embodied Presence of an enlightened sage or master, in this case, Jesus. And also us, to the degree we are awakened to our own Oneness, which the New Testament refers to as "receiving holy spirit." (John 7:39; 20:22; Acts 1:8, 2:7, 39, 33, 38; 8:15.17)
Like Jesus, we know deep inside that we are the universe, the ALL in human form. Our glory is to let that knowing emerge into our awareness.
3. Oneness is everywhere
His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?" Jesus said, "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'here it is' or 'there it is.' Rather, the realm of God is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it." (Saying 113 my translation).
In The Enlightenment Teachings of Jesus: The Gospel of Thomas, Robert Wolfe says this about these passages: "A thread running through these is that Jesus was not casting his eye skyward, dreaming of his Second Coming and those lauded disciples sitting at either hand of his throne. He had taken as his task the transmission of the experiential knowledge of one's innate divinity, the potential self-realization of one's indivisibility with the omnipresent Being that universally permeates all."
4. We can become like Jesus
Jesus said, "The one who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become that one, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to them." (108)
Drinking from the mouth of Jesus means absorbing not only his teaching but his very self. As we merge into Oneness with him, we will awaken to a world that has previously been hidden to us.
5. The power of one
Jesus said, "When you make the two one, you will become the sons of man, and when you say, 'Mountain, move away,' it will move away." (106)
The "sons of man" or "son of man" was a traditional eschatological title applied to Jesus in some early Christian circles. This means that when we move into a unitive state, we become like Jesus. The metaphorical mountain is anything that responds to our Oneness, transmitting the love and light that does, indeed, move mountains.
6. The big One is better than all the "small" ones
And he said, "The man is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of small fish. Among them, the wise fisherman found a fine large fish. He threw all the small fish back into the sea and chose the large fish without difficulty. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear."(8)
Why did the fisherman go for the one large fish? Did his wife send out an order for one? Did he find no use for small fish? This saying appears meaningless unless we "hear" with the ears of Oneness. The fisherman chooses the big One rather than the small, separate many. Choose to hear unity rather than division, oneness rather than separation.
Mystics may be drawn inward, but the oneness of the divine also embraces the outer world. Mystics are also involved in the demands of everyday life. One of Christianity's most loved mystics, St. Teresa of Avila, worked tirelessly founding nunneries and looking after her nuns. At the same time, mystical prayer took her into ever-deepening states of inner absorption, Oneness, and ecstasy. Mysticism does not mean to retire from life, but to live the unitive life.
7. Becoming integrated like Jesus
"Who are you?" Jesus said to her, "It is I who come from that which is integrated. Therefore I say that such a person, once integrated, will become full of light; but such a person, once divided, will become full of darkness. (Saying 61 Layton trans.)
Jesus lived, taught, and acted from his undivided union with God and, therefore, from his undivided union with all things. That is why we see his life, teaching, and presence today as central to the Christian path. Most powerfully, Jesus makes it clear that we, too, can become "integrated" and "full of light" like he was.
Again, if you have trouble connecting with Jesus, then be open to another saintly spiritual master. Enlightened tradition and today's integral understanding shows that we all need a personal connection to a spiritual master in some form.
I find Jesus a transforming presence in my life because:
Jesus is Oneness personified.
Jesus' moral and ethical teachings rested on mystical unity. He said that the way we treat the oppressed is the way we treat him because he was one with them.
Jesus is the archetypal human being, ushering in the beginning of the integral stage, which humankind has not been ready for until now.
Jesus was ahead of his time.
Jesus is a manifestation of the Universal Christ — the Oneness of God, the Unity of humanity, and the Coherence of material creation — all held in the Unanimity of Everything.
Jesus was clear that we were inherently all of that, too!
We only needed to awaken to it deep within.