You are on the page: Scriptures.ru ➤ Books ➤ The ultimate meditation guide
|
Vasyl Vernyhora
Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas in the context of samadhi meditation practice
![]() |
I became interested in the stories of Jesus' visit to India during the "lost years" – from the age of 14 to 28, and in 2004 translated Fida Hassnain's book "A Search for the Historical Jesus". In 2005 I also came to visit Fida Hassnain at his home in the Indian city of Srinagar.
Fida Hassnain is a professor and archaeologist who served as Director of the Kashmir State Archives (and the Kashmiri State Archaeological Survey) from 1954 to 1983. If you separate the Hollywood cliches from the Indiana Jones movie image, this is Fida Hassnain. Back in 1960, he first came across historical facts about Jesus' stay in India, and has been studying the topic ever since.
Being in India, Jesus in his "lost years" could not help but be interested in the yoga of Patanjali (for example, in Puri) and the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism (for example, in Sarnath) with their common culmination – samadhi meditation. Yoga and Buddhism teach that the ability to perform miracles appears only as a result of achieving superconsciousness through the practice of samadhi/shamatha. Jesus demonstrated miracles, but references to the practice of meditation (as well as all the mentions of reincarnation found by the editors) were removed from his teaching.
I wrote a book 'Commentary on the Gospel of Thomas in the context of samadhi meditation practice' with attempts to demonstrate the presence of descriptions of samadhi meditation (and reincarnation) in the teaching of Jesus by analyzing the Gospel of Thomas and other Christian texts.
Christian theologians comment on the Gospel of Thomas exclusively from the standpoint of Christian theology. Not only do they not admit the idea that Jesus could preach anything from the Indian spiritual teachings (Dharmic religions), but they are not even familiar with these teachings well enough to understand their true essence, which, alas, is already covered with layers of later distortions and even cargo cults no less than the teachings of Jesus himself. Because of this, Christian theologians completely overlook even those meanings from the texts that have come down to us with the words of Jesus that are quite obvious to those who are also well acquainted with the teachings of yoga and Buddhism. Jesus spent his "lost years" (from 14 to 28 years) in the territory of Hindustan, where he became thoroughly familiar with the local teachings, and they could not help but appear in his sermons. A detailed comparative analysis of the teachings of the Dharmic religions and the Gospel of Thomas, even though it contains some inaccuracies that have accumulated in it due to oral retellings and translation from at least ancient Aramaic into Coptic (and then into Greek), allows us to get a more complete picture of the essence of Jesus' teaching.
I am a Ukrainian who lived in India for more than 7 years and received individual sannyasa diksha in 2004 from mahamandaleshwar (one of the chairmen) of Sri Panch Dashnam Juna Akhara in his main Himalayan ashram. I also studied Buddhism by living in Buddhist monasteries in Dharamsala, Bylakuppe and Ladakh.
Introduction to the Commentary
Many meditators wonder why there are currently no teachings of Jesus on samadhi/shamatha meditation in Christian texts. This meditation practice is the essence of the teachings of Patanjali and Buddha and allows one to achieve superconsciousness as a result of its many hours of daily, many-year practice. This seems especially strange given that in the texts that have come down to us with the words of Jesus—both in the canonical and in the apocrypha—the superconsciousness itself is mentioned, albeit allegorically (like the kingdom of heaven in Thomas or the kingdom of God in other apostles), but the description of the practice of samadhi/shamatha is almost completely absent.
A detailed study of the description of the properties of the kingdom of heaven, the primary importance of achieving which Jesus spoke about again and again, allows us to come to the conclusion that it is the very superconsciousness that was designated in words understandable to Jesus' disciples. Buddha also spoke again and again about the primary importance of achieving superconsciousness, which in modern Buddhism in different contexts and for different levels of its achievement can be designated by the terms "consciousness of buddha (enlightened one)", "awakened consciousness", "having reached the levels of jhana/dhyana and especially arupa-ayatana", "nirvana", "sambhogakaya" and even "pure lands" of heavenly worlds.
A side effect of achieving superconsciousness is the emergence of superpowers-siddhis, allowing one to do what people call miracles. Both Jesus and Buddha performed many miracles. Both Christianity and Buddhism have preserved numerous references to these miracles. According to the Tipitaka, in 45 years after achieving superconsciousness ("consciousness of buddha"), Buddha performed 3,500 miracles. But if Buddhism has preserved a detailed description of the path to achieving superconsciousness, the key method of which is many-year daily many-hour practice of correct shamatha, then for some reason such a description is absent in Christianity. Just as the New Testament texts completely lack a description of the period of Jesus' life from 14 to 28 years. According to apocryphal sources, which the official church never recognized as authoritative, during these "lost years" Jesus traveled to India, where he studied yoga and Buddhism, after which he returned to Judea capable of performing all sorts of miracles. But all information about this journey, as well as the quite possible words of Jesus in sermons about the direct method of achieving the kingdom of heaven, were either thrown out or distorted by church hierarchs.
If we turn to the history of Christianity, then all the original texts with the words of Jesus, recorded by his disciples and followers, remained in the shadow of the then dominant religions and cults for the first three centuries. Both the early Christians and their texts were persecuted and destroyed. And over the next three centuries, when Christianity gradually became the state religion and spread to new territories, all the texts of Jesus' teachings that were available at that time, preserved with varying degrees of reliability after multiple centuries of rewriting, were subjected to strict selection, censorship and editing by the bishops. As a result of all these events, some texts disappeared forever, such as the hypothetical source Q, which will be discussed later.
There is no point in looking for references to the samadhi/shamatha psychotechnique in Christian texts recognized as canonical by the bishops. The last remnants of such references, if they were originally in the records made by Jesus' disciples, were removed no later than the 6th century. The bishops had other interests, connected, as the history of the papacy showed, with the unrestrained accumulation of wealth and the unlimited strengthening of their secular power, when, for example, the papacy became a supranational entity with its powerful influence not only on ordinary people, but even on kings. In the conditions of such a struggle, the bishops, of course, had no time for spiritual practices, the results of which, moreover, did not compare with the opportunities for enrichment that religious power provided.
Nevertheless, in the context of the struggle between various early Christian sects and the strong persecution of their followers by the dominant religions of the time, individual copies of the texts in which the words of Jesus were recorded were carefully hidden in different places over the next three centuries. In 1945, near the Egyptian city of Nag Hammadi, a local farmer found a sealed clay vessel containing a collection of 45 unique texts written on papyrus sheets folded in half and stitched along the fold of the sheets. This collection was named the "Nag Hammadi library" after the place where it was found. One of the texts in this collection contained a complete version of the Coptic translation of the Gospel, the author of which is named in the text itself as the Apostle Thomas.
This apocryphal gospel, containing mostly sayings of Jesus, was composed in the form of questions and answers by the Apostle Thomas. Subsequently, despite the apostolic status of Thomas the Twin, it was rejected by the compilers of the New Testament, receiving the status of an apocrypha, that is, a text not included by the church organization in the canon of Holy Scripture—the Bible. The leadership of the Church, that is, the bishops ("overseers", treasurers), were guided by their personal episcopal ("authority") preferences when selecting texts for the New Testament. This happened in the context of not only the fierce confrontation of the newly emerging Christian religion with the previously dominant religious cults during the first six centuries of its history (most of the apostles and many early Christian preachers died a martyr's death, including the Apostle Thomas), but also church strife and intrigue within Christianity itself. To get acquainted with the modern echoes of that struggle, you can watch the film "Stigmata" from 1999, or read the biography of Kurt Berna, who was persecuted by the Vatican in every possible way for the book "Jesus did not die on the cross" ("Jesus ist nicht am Kreuz gestorben", Kurt Berna), which he published in 1957 in Stuttgart. Also in this context, you can read the biography of Nikolai Notovich, the author of the book "The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ" (also known as the "Tibetan Gospel"), who suddenly disappeared in 1916.
At the same time, only two gospels ("good news") out of four New Testament ones were written by those who themselves saw and heard Jesus—the apostles Matthew and John, while Mark and Luke, the authors of the other two gospels recognized by the church organization as canonical, themselves never communicated with Jesus. They were "apostles of the seventy", that is, more numerous disciples of the first twelve apostles, who retold them the teachings of Jesus as they understood and remembered them.
In the 19th century, based on the fact that a significant part of the common material of the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which is absent from the gospel of Mark, which they also used to write their gospels, consists of sayings ("logia" in ancient Greek, λόγια) of Jesus, the assumption was put forward about the existence of a certain primary source, which is now commonly called in biblical studies "source Q" (from the German "Quelle"—"source").
Fragments of the Greek text of the Gospel of Thomas have been known since 1897 from excavations in the city of Oxyrhynchus (the Greek name for the ancient Egyptian city of Pemdje in modern Egypt), but the full version (in Coptic) was only found in 1945.
The Gospel of Thomas contains 118 sayings attributed to Jesus. Researchers sometimes call this apocrypha the "fifth Gospel" in addition to the four canonical ones. The Gospel is composed in the form of a conversation between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus' sayings are aphoristic. Hippolytus of Rome and Origen wrote about the Gospel of Thomas as a text of the Gnostic circle in the 230s. Modern scholars believe that this gospel was written down and then edited between 60 and 150. The most radical readings emphasize the independence of this text from the synoptic ("co-observing", since the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke largely overlap and repeat each other) gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke and bring it closer to the source Q that preceded them.
It is worth noting that there is another apocryphal gospel of Thomas, existing in two different Greek versions and several Latin ones—"The Gospel of the Infancy of Thomas". It describes the period of Jesus' childhood, and this gospel ends with an episode that is also described in the gospel of Luke—the teaching of the wise men in the temple by the 12-year-old Jesus. Here it may be noted that in the canonical gospel of Mark, 6.3, the siblings of Jesus are mentioned, among whom is also mentioned the name of Thomas the Twin, given to him at birth—Judas (this is not Judas Iscariot): "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joses, Judas and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us?" Since Judas the Twin was Jesus's sibling, he was a witness to Jesus' childhood, and therefore could later record the stories about the child Jesus.
There is also another, third, apocrypha associated with the Apostle Thomas—"The Acts of Thomas" , currently dating to the beginning of the 3rd century. This text is compiled from part of the Syriac documents collected by Epiphanius in 363 and included in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library (Edinburgh, 1869) as an apocrypha. Its main plot is connected with the journey of the Apostle Thomas to India after the crucifixion of Jesus and his preaching there. The text consists of 13 chapters and the so-called "Martyrdom of Thomas", and it is one of the five largest apocrypha associated with the lives of the apostles. In this text, Judas Thomas is called the "twin brother of Christ": "39. … the twin brother of Christ, the apostle of the Most High, possessing knowledge of the secret word of Christ and perceiving his secret sayings." Thomas was so similar to Jesus that he was even confused with Jesus (see "Acts of Thomas", 11).
There is also a fourth apocrypha directly related to Thomas, entitled "The Book of Thomas the Athlete", also known as the "Book of Thomas". This apocrypha was found in the previously mentioned Nag Hammadi library. It contains the following words: "The secret words which the Savior spoke to Judas Thomas, which I, Matthew, wrote down. I walked and listened to them as they conversed with each other." The content of this work appears to be typically Gnostic, in the sense that the book itself is a transmission of Secret Knowledge (Gnosis), but it lacks the complex cosmogony that is common in Gnostic works, although there are references to the Pleroma and the struggle of light with darkness. The content of the "Book of Thomas the Athlete" has much in common with the content of the four canonical Gospels and the "Gospel of Thomas", but in other texts Jesus shows more gentleness and compassion, while in the "Book of Thomas" he delivers speeches that are quite harsh in both content and symbolism.
After Jesus' death in Srinagar, Kashmir, Thomas built him a tomb, Rozabal, which also contains a carved stone bas-relief depicting Jesus' feet with traces of the wounds received during the crucifixion. Thomas then went to the south of Hindustan, where he preached the teachings of Jesus regardless of the varna and caste of the listeners, which provoked the anger of the Brahmins because of the "undermining of the traditional foundations of society" with its strict religious and social segregation, in which they occupied the most privileged position. In a cave on the Little Mount in the territory of modern Chennai (earlier this area was called Melipur, Mylapur and Kalamin), the Apostle Thomas lived for 2 years of his life, preaching the teachings of Jesus. When the aggressive mob came again, Thomas escaped from pursuit through a "window" at the back of the cave and settled 4 km away from his previous place on a mount (also in modern Chennai), which was later named after him, where he lived for 4 years and was killed (pierced with a lance).
Sir George Trevelyan, a friend of the Kashmiri archaeologist professor Fida Hassnain, who wrote the book 'A Search for the Historical Jesus', said: "This apocryphal Gospel of Thomas is an extraordinary document. It consists of 120 (different translations break the text into different numbers of sayings of Jesus) aphorisms of holism (the philosophy of wholeness), and, in a nutshell, it is the doctrine of Unity. We are accustomed to write lightly 'Doubting Thomas', thinking of him as one who could not believe that his Lord had risen, but the truth is that he was the only one who realised who his Lord was. He realised that Christ was Unity" (quoted in "Summons to a High Crusade", Findhom Press, Scotland, 1986, p93).
I, in turn, spoke with Fida Hassnain at his home in Srinagar on June 27, 2005. In 2004, I translated his book from English, and in 2006 my translation was published by Sattva Publishing House.
The canonical New Testament texts do not mention the key practice from the teachings of Patanjali and Buddha—the psychotechnique of samadhi/shamatha, the proper practice of which allows one to achieve the state that Jesus allegorically described as the kingdom of heaven. Nevertheless, in this "Gospel of Thomas" one can find many veiled analogies to the description of this practice, given in the form of parables and aphorisms.
Moreover, Christian theologians comment on the "Gospel of Thomas" exclusively from the standpoint of Christian theology. Not only do they not admit the idea that Jesus could preach anything from the Indian spiritual teachings (Dharmic religions), but they are not even familiar with these teachings well enough to understand their true essence, which, alas, is already covered with layers of later distortions and even cargo cults no less than the teachings of Jesus himself. Because of this, Christian theologians completely overlook even those meanings from the texts that have come down to us with the words of Jesus that are quite obvious to those who are also well acquainted with the teachings of yoga and Buddhism. Jesus spent his "lost years" (from 14 to 28 years) in the territory of Hindustan, where he became thoroughly familiar with the local teachings, and they could not help but appear in his sermons. A detailed comparative analysis of the teachings of the Dharmic religions and the "Gospel of Thomas", even though it contains some inaccuracies that have accumulated in it due to oral retellings, rewritings and translation from at least ancient Aramaic into Coptic (and then into Greek), allows us to get a more complete picture of the essence of Jesus' teaching.
Since samadhi/shamatha meditation and its aspects, along with the concept of reincarnation, are mentioned in the "Gospel of Thomas" only figuratively, but still quite accurately, one might assume that Jesus also spoke about all of this directly. But the editors through whom this text passed, and their interference is obvious, managed to throw out all the direct references that they could notice and understand during the first 100 or more years of editing. This is similar to how the Bible also left only obscure references to reincarnation, while all those that were discovered by the editors were thrown out by decision of the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553. These implicit references are contained in the book of Job 1:21 ("Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither"), in the revelation of John the Theologian (Apocalypse, "Revelation") 3:12 ("Him that overcometh the world I will make a pillar in the temple of God, and he shall not go out again"; that is, he shall not leave the heavenly worlds for the sake of earthly incarnation), Matthew 17:12-13 ("But I say unto you that Elijah is come already, and they knew him not." Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.).
Further, my commentary on the text of the "Gospel of Thomas" will be given in the context of its comparison with the teachings of Patanjali and Buddha. Alternative numbering of sayings is given in brackets.
Below are some excerpts from the commentary
These are the secret words which the Living1 Jesus spoke, and which Didymus2 Judas3 Thomas4 wrote down. And he said:
1. See point 1 of sayings 16 & 64; saying 115.
2. In ancient Greek, the word Δίδυμος (Dídymos), Didymus in Latin, translated as "Didymus", means "twin". This issue will be looked upon in more detail later.
3. In ancient Hebrew, יהודה, Yehuda—"praise the Lord", "he praises the Lord"—a common biblical male name "Judas" of Jewish origin.
4. In ancient Greek, the word Θωμάς (Thōmâs in Latin), translated as "Thomas", means "twin", as does the name "Didymus".
(1). He who finds the interpretation of these words will not taste death1.
This saying of Jesus is an aphorism, like almost the entire rest of the text of the Gospel of Thomas.
1. Here it is said allegorically that he who follows this teaching of Jesus, transmitted by the apostle Thomas, will be able to exit the reincarnation cycle of birth and death. Or, in other words, the death of this physical body, as well as subsequent new bodies in certain worlds, will no longer be accompanied by a complete loss of consciousness (akin to being in a state of deep sleep without dreams) and memory of past reincarnations. In the observable history of mankind, the only possibility of such an exit was offered, for example, in the teachings of Patanjali and Buddha, and it is associated with the development of supramental structures of consciousness, that is, the achievement of superconsciousness, through the psychotechnique of samadhi / shamatha, the practice of which naturally leads to a significant increase in the flow of energy within a human being, which is precisely what ensures the development of these supramental structures.
1 (2). Jesus said: Let him who seeks not cease seeking until he finds1, and when he finds he will be shaken2, and if he is shaken he will be astonished3, and he will reign over all4.
1. The spiritual practice of samadhi/shamatha should not be stopped until its obvious results occur, associated with entering new states of consciousness, which in the Buddha's teaching are called the 4 jhanas. If you take a break or weaken the practice of samadhi/shamatha, even for just 1-2 weeks, there will be an almost complete rollback, since this practice has the nature of energy boosting. When it resumes, the first few months will be spent trying to reach at least the previous level.
2. Upon entering the first jhana, the meditator will experience an incredible feeling of rapture, incomparable to anything else in the "previous" worldly life.
3. Upon entering the subsequent jhanas, and especially the fourth, the meditator will begin to develop new incredibly insightful and incredibly powerful structures of his consciousness, that is, superconsciousness.
4. These new, supercognitive structures of the meditator's superconsciousness will provide him with new, incredible abilities inherent in superconsciousness—superabilities-siddhis, allowing him to perform what laymen call miracles. They include stable clairvoyance, or a universal ability to perceive any new information, and volitional influence on the surrounding inanimate and living world, or a universal ability to influence the surrounding space. Such "reign" is an allegorical name for superconsciousness in this and other aphorisms of the Gospel.
2 (3). Jesus said: If those who lead you say to you, “Look, the kingdom is in the sky!” then the birds of the air will get ahead of you1. If they tell you, “It is in the sea,” then the fish will get ahead of you2. But the kingdom is within you and outside you3.
1. Unlike people, birds can fly, and they can rise high into the sky. But there is no Lord in the sky who sits on a cloud.
2. Unlike people, fish can stay in the water for an unlimited time, and many fish swim faster than humans. But in the depths of the sea there is no Lord who sits on its bottom.
3. The Kingdom of Heaven (מלכות השמים in Hebrew; ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν, vasileía tón ouranón in Greek), that is, superconsciousness/holiness, is orthogonal (located in additional dimensions of space, "perpendicular" to the known dimensions) to the entire universe observed by man. It is beyond both physical space and ordinary consciousness, that is, simultaneously "both inside you and outside." Understanding this is as difficult as it is difficult for a point to understand a line (one-dimensional space), for a line to understand a flatness (two-dimensional space), for a flatness to understand volume (three-dimensional space), and so on. See also 81.
To attain the kingdom of heaven/superconsciousness, there is no need to climb the highest "sacred" mountain or dive to the bottom of the ocean, nor is there any need to do it faster than everyone else.
All that is needed for such an attainment is already "within" a person, and this is his consciousness, which is at the current level of its development. Here we are talking about the mind-manas of an ordinary unenlightened human being, which, being one of the structures of consciousness, is simultaneously "both inside and outside" of a person. By practicing proper restraint and control of the mind, that is, the practice of samadhi / shamatha, the meditator is eventually able to attain the kingdom of heaven/superconsciousness, which is simultaneously "both inside and outside".
3 (3). When you know yourself, then you will be known1, and you will know that you are the children of the Living Father2. If you do not know yourself, then you are in poverty and you are poverty3.
1. When, thanks to many years of practice of samadhi / shamatha, the development of supramental supercognitive structures of consciousness, that is, superconsciousness, occurs, then with the help of these new supercognitive structures of superconsciousness it will be possible to know the true essence of your "I" and the true meaning of your existence. Before achieving enlightenment/superconsciousness, the mind-manas is able to comprehend the world only in the form of assumptions and guesses, indirectly—by operating with labels and semantic "shadows" of phenomena and meanings. For this reason, it is not able to find true answers to philosophical questions. And even if he occasionally finds certain answers that are semantically similar to the correct ones, it will be more like a stopped mechanical clock that also shows the correct time twice a day, although without the correct clock running it is impossible to find out when exactly this takes place. Such clairvoyant knowledge of the immediate essence of everything, carried out by means of the supercognitive structures of superconsciousness, is called vipassana/vipashyana in the teaching of Buddha, and in its capabilities it is fundamentally different from the conclusions of the mind-manas.
2. A saint who has achieved superconsciousness then realizes that the essence of his higher Self, called Atman in Hinduism, is no different from the essence of God, called Brahman in Hinduism. Atman is a view of Brahman "from below", from a space of a lower dimension, while Brahman itself sees itself "from the side", from the space of its dimension, as Brahman.
3. Saints in Hinduism are mahatmas (if we do not take into account the honorary titles of religious functionaries and social leaders, which their worshipers bestow upon them). The title "mahatma" is translated as "great soul" (maha-atma). This saying compares the great souls of saints on the one hand, and, on the other, ordinary people, faint-hearted due to the limited level of development of their consciousness by the egoistic mind-manas, that is, "poor" and "destitute" in spirit due to the underdevelopment of superconsciousness due to the lack of proper practice of samadhi / shamatha.
It should be noted here that in the Sermon on the Mount the phrase about the poor should be understood as "blessed are the poor (who have no worldly wealth) in spirit" (see commentary to saying 59). Here, spirit means the opportunity to develop consciousness in conditions of less negative karma, which actively accumulates under the condition of unethical enrichment (for example, theft, including corruption). Also, the poor do not need to "pine away over gold", when all the time is spent on preserving wealth and trying to increase it, and because of this, there is neither time nor desire for regular meditation practice in a situation where worldly success has already been achieved. Of course, worldly poverty is another extreme, which also creates additional obstacles on the path of meditation practice, but providing yourself with food in the warm climate of Judea or India is not such a disturbing and time-consuming occupation as maintaining villas and other numerous luxury items.
But Jesus speaks here (in contrast to saying 59) specifically about those who lack the spirit, that is, literally the poor in spirit. In addition, even Christian theologians have already come to the conclusion that the Sermon on the Mount in its current form is the result of numerous "polishings" by bishops of quite obvious sayings of Jesus, uttered in simple language with an understandable meaning. And the bishops transformed them into elegant intricate literature. Perhaps, to disguise the original meaning given above. Because when reading the original version of the phrase "blessed are those who do not have [worldly] wealth in spirit (spiritual prospects)" the flock could have questions for the bishops who lived in palaces in the Middle Ages, and who, it turns out, with their wealth could not be blessed. That is, the bishops in this case turned out to be even further from God than the poor, although the bishops claimed the role of intermediaries between God and the people. And with a veiled "polished" formulation, there remained the possibility of discussing some "poor in spirit", looking for some "secret" meanings in the word "poor", which is still the case in our time. For example, that those who have given away all their "spirit"—"kindness" through a kind attitude towards others and helping others, are now blissful from the positive karma they have received.
Also, a saint with his understanding of the true essence of what is happening has no attachment to material things. He is content with little in this world, that is, only what is really necessary, without accumulating excess reserves, the retention of which is associated with unnecessary efforts and worries. This is due to the fact that the sphere of his interests is beyond this material world. At the same time, unenlightened people are always not satisfied with what they already have, and because of this insatiable thirst for wealth, they can never be satisfied, which, in fact, makes them a kind of poor people, if you evaluate their situation by the ratio of what they already have and the much greater desire.
...
24 (21). Mary1 said to Jesus, What are your disciples like2? He said, They are like little children3, who are camped in a field4 that does not belong to them5. When the owners of the field6 come, they will say, Leave us our field7. They undress8 before them9 to leave it to them10 and give them their field11.
1. In the Gospel of Philip, also found in the Nag Hammadi library, Mary Magdalene is called the companion and wife of Jesus. Most likely, it is she who asks this direct and interesting question.
2. Mary asks Jesus about the level of development of consciousness of his disciples.
3. Jesus' disciples are still at the very beginning of the development of consciousness, which Jesus likened to the position of "little children" on the scale of human life.
4. The field is an allegory for the physical body, the material world and those for whom material things are of primary (and usually last) value, i.e. animals and people with animal consciousness. See also saying 90.
5-7. The physical body is a temporary shelter for consciousness, through which it manifests itself in the physical world. The soul is not the eternal owner of the physical body, but a temporary "user", and sooner or later it will be abandoned.
If we consider these words at the level of social relations, then in the presence of the alternative proposed by Jesus to the mercantile goals dominating in society—the spiritual teaching about the salvation of the soul/achievement of superconsciousness—his disciples should strive not to possess material values, but to practice the teaching he proposed. Jesus also said the following about the relationship between secular power and spiritual practitioners: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Gospel of Matthew, 22:21). See also saying 104.
8. The allegory of the "nakedness" of the spiritual seeker has a long spiritual tradition in various teachings and religions. The physical body in such allegories symbolizes the material world, while consciousness symbolizes spiritual practice. "Nakedness" symbolizes the exit from the cycle of birth and death in this world due to the development of superconsciousness, when consciousness, that is, superconsciousness, no longer needs to reincarnate in the physical bodies of this world, transferring the manifestations of its conscious activity to the heavenly worlds. Gerd Lüdemann writes: "These verses are unique among the Jesus traditions and are difficult to understand. If we begin with the obvious recognition that the children symbolize the Gnostics, then this clearly means that they are on foreign soil, namely in the evil world, and that they ask the owners for their field. For this exchange of fields they are naked, which probably refers to baptism." (Jesus After 2000 Years, p. 601)
Undressing and even permanent nudity appear in many different forms in different religions, both in the form of symbolic rites and even in the form of cargo cults, which will be discussed later. For example, the Old Testament mentions an incident in which David, the king of Israel, turned to an older pagan tradition and danced naked before the shrine of the Lord in the temple. This could not have been a sudden spontaneous act, but a practice rooted in ancient tradition. In India, up until the 1970s, pilgrims visiting the famous natural ice lingam at Amarnath in Kashmir were allowed to enter the cave only completely naked. In Kerala, all men entering the temple, including foreigners, must still bare their torsos.
Formerly, in the ceremony of sannyasa diksha, or initiation into the sannyasa (monastic renunciation) way of life, the initiate was required to take at least seven steps completely naked to the place where the guru sits. When I got sannyasa diksha from Somnath Giriji, mahamandaleshwar of Sri Panch Dashnam Juna akhara in 2004 in the Himalayas at his head ashram, this rule was no longer in place. Many sects of Hinduism still require the sadhu to be naked if he is performing puja to his guru or the main guru (mahamandaleshwar) of his sect of Hinduism, or during meditation if he has gone beyond the relative (dual) stage of worship.
In some religions, this could be an expression of coming to God stripped of everything (as in case of death), or to look like a simple innocent child, or to be a symbol of the natural primordial state.
Physical nudity can also be used as a spiritual "shock tactic" to make people wake up or look at life from a new perspective. For example, St. Francis of Assisi made his disciples walk through the entire city completely naked as one of the stages of their spiritual practice.
It can be separately noted that in the hot climate of India, the spiritual concept of "nudity" manifested itself, among other things, in the form of a cargo cult of the tradition of Naga monks (Naga babas), who after the initiation ceremony walk completely naked all their lives (actually, to practice samadhi, you don't have to be naked), including in cities. In India, I saw such Naga monks and communicated with them both in South India and in the Himalayas. But, in cold Kedarnath they wrapped themselves in blankets, unlike, for example, in hot Mysore.
9. If we consider these words from a worldly point of view, then those who practice the spiritual teaching of Jesus do not have the desire to accumulate wealth in this material world ("in the face" of this world).
10. If we consider these words from a spiritual point of view, then this is an allegory for the fact that individuals who have achieved superconsciousness leave their physical body-"field" after their death, no longer returning to this world, that is, reincarnating further in heavenly worlds, where the dimension of space is greater and there are other, less gross, "bodies". From the point of view of the inhabitants of this world-"field", the saints who leave it “leave” it to those who continue to reincarnate in it.
11. People with still insufficiently developed cognitive abilities, who will continue to reincarnate in this "their field" (in this world), have yet to go the path that Jesus spoke about. This world-"field" is given to them as a kind of testing ground to demonstrate their qualities and, sooner or later, come to an understanding of the teachings of Jesus, Patanjali and Buddha, which will give them a chance to develop further.
25 (21). Therefore I say it1: If the owner of the house2 knows that a thief3 is coming, he will stay awake4 until he comes5, and he will not allow him to break into6 his house of his kingdom7 to carry off his things8. You, then, be watchful over against the world, gird up your loins9 with great strength10, so that the brigands11 do not find any way of reaching you; for they will find any place you fail to watch12.
1. This saying of Jesus is clearly an allegory, through which he describes the key point of the practice that allows one to go beyond this world, thus developing the idea of the previous saying. Moreover, the translators of this gospel, Beate Blatz and Bentley Layton, combine this, the previous and the following sayings into one whole (since the next two do not contain the words "said Jesus" in Coptic {Jesus—IC}, which are usually used at the beginning of each saying), thus indicating a direct connection between them.
This allegory describes the practice of taming the distractions of the mind in the practice of samadhi/shamatha meditation. Distractions of the mind, and primarily thoughts that intrude into the mind, are one of two obstacles in the practice of samadhi/shamatha. The second obstacle is the sinking of the mind, and it usually appears much later than the distractions of the mind, which occur again and again after the beginning of each meditation session. An allegory describing the sinking of the mind is given in saying 101.
It is with the practice of curbing the distractions of the mind that beginners ("little children") begin the spiritual path of gaining superconsciousness/the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus' words "therefore I say it" indicate something very important that he wants to communicate to his disciples. In this saying, Jesus teaches the key point of his teaching—the actual method of reaching the kingdom of heaven/superconsciousness.
2. The master of the house is a typical (see point 8 of the commentary to saying 17) allegory for Jesus for the meditator's consciousness, his mind, willpower, or soul, depending on the context. Most often, it denotes the meditator's mind as a whole.
3. The thief here is an allegory for the distractions of the mind.
4. Wakefulness is the collectedness of the mind. In yoga and Buddhism, collectedness of the mind is one of the interpretations of the term "samadhi". Wakefulness can also mean two watchful efforts during the practice of shamatha—smriti (smṛti in Sanskrit, sati in Pali; "remembering" about the need to prevent the emergence of thoughts and the sinking of the mind) and samprajnata (saṃprajñāta in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, in modern Sanskrit the term used is saṃprajanya, and in Pali the term is sampajañña; "vigilant awareness" for timely noticing random thoughts that appear from time to time and the sinking of the mind with the aim of stopping them as quickly as possible during a session of samadhi / shamatha practice).
5. Until another thought enters the mind with the weakening of the efforts of smriti/remembering.
6. The meditator will suppress the emergence of thoughts that distract from the process of practicing samadhi/shamatha. In Buddhism, such an effort to stop arising thoughts is called samprajnata ("vigilant awareness").
7. The words "the house of his kingdom" allegorically point to the mind-manas, and not to a house made of wood or stone.
In Jesus, the word "kingdom" indicates a category of consciousness. For example, "the kingdom of heaven" always means superconsciousness, and not some countries with palaces reaching to the sky. Thus, these words "the house of his kingdom" denote the current level of development of consciousness of a person who has not yet reached superconsciousness, that is, who is at the cognitive level of the mind-manas. This phrase "his house of his kingdom" against the background of Jesus' repeated use of the phrase "kingdom of heaven" allows us to conclude that Jesus uses the word "house" to denote the only level of development of consciousness accessible to an ordinary person, that is, to denote the mind-manas. And it is this "house" that a person's thoughts visit.
8. The things taken away are an allegory for the loss of collectedness and attention of the meditator. Thoughts that invade the mind not only take and pull onto themselves a small part of the energy of consciousness each time, but also distort the initially smooth “surface”/structure of the chitta (mirror of the mind), thereby preventing it from collecting (like a lens) and acquiring additional energy for subsequent transcendence of consciousness.
9. The phrase “gird your loins” in a figurative sense can mean the need to curb lust in order to avoid wasting the energy acquired during the practice of meditation.
Given the literal meaning of the word "loins"—"waist", "hips"—this phrase can also refer to the belt that was sometimes used by yogis of ancient India (yoga was then perceived exclusively as chitta-vritti-nirodha, that is, curbing disturbances on the mirror of the mind; hatha gymnastics began to appear only one and a half thousand years after Jesus' journey to India) to gird and hold the knees for a comfortable long stay in a comfortable sitting pose for meditation, as shown in the example of the stone statue of Narasimha in Hampi—the former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire.
10. To achieve superconsciousness, it is necessary to practice samadhi/shamatha meditation for many years every day (without a break even for a week) for many hours in a row. This requires great willpower, strong motivation, and good karmic conditions that reduce external obstacles and distractions to a minimum (for example, the absence of hostilities and a significant number of crimes in the current area).
11. Robbers are all sorts of distractions of the mind, including through the senses.
12. Thoughts and other distractions of the mind can penetrate through any loopholes in it when control over their restraint is weakened. Such loopholes can be, for example, memories, including catchy or triggering ones, associated with certain effects on the sense organs (certain sounds, smells, etc.).
Patanjali called such control to prevent distractions the essence of yoga—"chitta-vritti-nirodha" (in Sanskrit), or curbing (nirodha) disturbances (vritti) on the mirror of the mind (chitta).
26 (21). Let there be a man among you who knows1! When the fruit was ripe2, he came in haste3, his sickle4 in his hand, and he cut it off5. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!6
This saying is combined with the previous two, and it sums up their essence. In the first, Jesus speaks of the goal of spiritual practice, in the previous one—of the method, and in this one he invites his disciples to take advantage of this teaching by putting it into practice.
1. One who really knows the method of attaining superconsciousness and can teach this method to others.
2. The ripe fruit is an allegory of a ready-made teaching on the method of attaining superconsciousness, received by one who has himself realized it in practice. Jesus learned it in India, put it into practice and brought it to his disciples, including his brothers.
3. A disciple, thirsty for spiritual instructions, who immediately became interested in the true teaching on the salvation of the soul, that is, the attainment of superconsciousness.
4. The sickle is an allegory for a sharp mind, already developed to a sufficient degree by efforts earlier in this life or in previous ones. Such a sharp mind allows one to quickly recognize the true teaching among many false ones.
5. He accepted (took) this teaching in order to implement it in practice.
6. This sentence indicates both the allegorical (and not literal) nature of this saying, and the need to recognize the true teaching among the false ones and to understand it correctly in order to properly apply it in practice. For example, without cargo-cultic and other false distortions.
...
The Gospel of Thomas mentions the following Eastern teachings and their aspects (the numbers are the numbers of the sayings):
Samadhi/shamatha: 1, 17, 25, 53, 56, 64, 65, 74, 102, and also indirectly in many others.
Ekagrata (one-pointedness of mind): 27, (35?), 53, 65, 110.
The watchful efforts of smriti and samprajnata: 25, 101, 102, 107.
Distractions of the mind: 25, 40, 73, 102, 107, and also 53, 58, 65.
Sinking of the mind: 101.
Reincarnation: 33, 43, 88, and also 11 and 34.
Upanishads: 65.
The full text of my commentary on the Gospel of Thomas is available here:
In English: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FD3HV231
In German: Kommentar zum Thomasevangelium im Kontext der Samadhi-Meditationspraxis https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0D11YGTFC
In Italian: Commento al Vangelo di Tommaso nel contesto della pratica della meditazione samadhi https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0FLD7SG4G
In Portuguese: Comentário sobre o Evangelho de Tomé no contexto da prática da meditação samadhi https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B0FMS296F1
In Spanish: Comentario sobre el Evangelio de Tomás en el contexto de la práctica de la meditación samadhi https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0FK3ZNRLX
In Russian: Комментарий к евангелию от Фомы в контексте практики медитации самадхи/шаматхи https://www.patreon.com/posts/132193248
⏎ Р’В Р’В Р’В ⛪ | Р’В | Meditation guide | Р’В |
| ||