Yeshua bar Yosef healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, and performed other miracles. He also taught that people should develop their own relationship with God, independent of religious leaders. His name’s pronunciation changed over time until it evolved into the pronunciation we use today, Jesus. People are revisiting Yeshua’s teachings with the realization that he was not a god who insisted that people worship him. Instead, he revealed messages that will make a difference for humanity if we hear and learn from them.
In this series of videos, Dr. R. Craig Hogan present his teachings, as written in the Gospel of Thomas, which have been borne out by what we are learning today from communication with people in the afterlife about the nature of this life and the next.
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The Gospel of Thomas, found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt and likely written in the late first or early second century, is considered the most significant ancient text from the site. It presents a collection of 114 sayings spoken by Yeshua. It contains no miracles, no Christmas story, and most notably, not a word about his being a god who was crucified and resurrected.
Instead, Yeshua reveals the profound truth that within each of us is the divine “light” that is our true nature when all the Earth-realm facades are stripped away. As long as we do not realize this divine nature, we remain trapped in the material world that seduces us into ignorant beliefs about life and the afterlife. In this series of videos, I explain the meanings of the sayings with a 21st century understanding of the nature of reality, the life after this life, and our spiritual nature.
Explanations of sayings 21 through 30 from the Gospel of Thomas are in this video. Links to the videos with the other 104 teachings are in the descriptions below. This is saying 21.
Saying 21
The passage begins with words from Mary, most likely Mary of Magdela, who is depicted as Yeshua’s close disciple in the Gnostic writings. In the Gnostic Gospel of Phillip, Yeshua is reported to have kissed Mary on the mouth often and loved her more than the disciples. Yeshua is saying the disciples are like children who have settled in a field which is not theirs. The field is a reference to the material world. The disciples are in the material world, but not of the material world. The people who are materialists, believing there is nothing to this world except what our five senses reveal to us, have ownership, in today’s predominant view, of this material world. They tell these followers of Yeshua that the disciples’ claim that there is more to life than just the material world are invalid. They rebuke the disciples for staking claims on truth in the material realm. In response, the followers of Yeshua are to abandon everything about the physical world. They strip off their clothing, symbolizing leaving everything they have in the material world, including the materialist notion they were reared to believe that there is nothing to existence than this material world. They are to relinquish this world to the materialists. Their world is the realm of Our Universal Intelligence, far greater and more relevant to humanity than the material world.
Yeshua then expands on that notion with a second parable. If someone knows a thief is going to break into their house and steal everything, they guard against the thief. They will arm themselves with great strength. This passage is saying these materialists will try to steal away the disciples’ confidence in Yeshua’s teachings and the certainty there is life after this life. We see that in the patronizing responses to our attempts to explain the realities of this life and the next to materialists today. But we guard against these challenges by being armed with the truth and not being discouraged by the onslaughts from the materialists.
The saying ends with a conclusion to the two parables. Undeterred by the materialists who berate us when we assert the truth about this life and the next, we harvest the ripened truth. We store away the harvest of this knowledge as unshakable conclusions, thwarting their efforts to steal away or diminish what we know to be true.
Saying 22
The metaphor of becoming like little children appears in the canonical gospels. Matthew reports, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” and in Mark, Yeshua is reported to have said “Truly I tell you, anyone who does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” The Kingdom of Heaven, Yeshua tells his disciples, comes naturally into our state of being as adults when we become open and accepting, like little children who have not become jaded by the physical realm. The infant at first sees itself as one with the mother. Gradually, through six to nine months of age, infants differentiate their experiences from the mother. Children grow further into their feeling of separation from others as they are taught by the world that we are separate and private. Finally, adults have firmly positioned themselves as radically separated in mind and emotions from all others. It is a separation that theoretical physicist David Bohm identified as a primary source of global disorder.
Yeshua is saying we must return to the openness and love the infant and little child naturally have for their mother. He follows the assertion by saying to enter the kingdom, the disciples must make the two one, the inside like the outside, and the above like the below, and must make male and female one. He is saying we enter the kingdom of Heaven by discarding all the notions of separateness we learned from the physical realm. We learned from childhood that two people are separate, the inside is different from the outside, and above is separate from below. These extreme examples focus on the notion of separateness. Yeshua says we must grow to reject such separateness. When we see ourselves as one with all others, we experience the change of heart and mind, the metanoia, that comes from the Gnosis or knowledge of who we are in eternity. The understanding that we are more than brothers and sisters—we are one being—will result in our living together in love, peace, and joy. To enter the kingdom of love, peace, and joy with all others, we must abandon the discordant notions of separateness we were taught by the physical realm and embrace the sense of oneness the infant has. We can gauge our progress in integrating love and compassion for others into our nature by seeing how much empathy and care we have for everyone, regardless of who they are. As we see the growth of deep-felt sensitivity to people for whom we formerly mistrusted, felt animosity toward, or were prejudiced against, we understand how much these loving and understanding qualities are becoming part of our nature. Taking stock of how we feel about all classes of people and individuals and comparing that to how we felt about them in the past gives us a sense of our progress in entering the kingdom of Heaven as Yeshua described it.
Saying 23
Yeshua is saying that while many will hear his message, only a very few will realize, or know absolutely, that they are already a part of the One: There is only One of Us. We are in that period of history now. People are just now waking up to the realities of this life and the next. But is like 2 out of 10,000, or 20 out of a hundred thousand. In the future, those numbers will increase geometrically as society comes to understand and accept what Yeshua is teaching, just as nearly all people did not understand the Earth is not the center of the universe in 1543 when Copernicus asserted it is. Instead, he said, the Earth is part of a system with the sun at its center. People didn’t believe him. Galileo echoed the sentiment in 1632. People didn’t believe him. At those times, these truths were accepted by very few, probably fewer than 1 out of several hundred thousand or a million. It wasn’t until 1822 that the pope removed the prohibition on asserting that the Earth moved in accordance with astronomical laws. In the same way, Yeshua is saying I am giving this message to you. You will be one, two, or more out of thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands who will understand and accept these truths. And when you accept this knowledge, you stand as a single one.
Saying 24
The concept of a person bearing a spark of light that determines the person’s nature is common in gnostic teaching. The light is the gnosis or knowledge that we are eternal beings having a physical experience. The disciples are the men of light. Their understanding of our eternal nature lights up the whole world when the disciples help others know the light within them through gnosis or knowledge about themselves and the world. If people do not realize our eternal nature, they are in darkness. They do not have the gnosis or knowledge that would be the light within them. They have only darkness.
Saying 25
Yeshua is saying to love the souls of others on Earth as we would for the soul of our image in the mirror before us. The brother or sister whom we meet in this world is the mirror image of ourselves. This radical view that we are all one is underappreciated. We naturally care about our health and well-being. When we adopt the attitude that all others are one with us, we share the same concern for other people’s health and well-being and are equally fervent in satisfying their needs. When someone we meet is hungry and thirsty, we take on the hunger and thirst as our own. We find food and drink to give to that person as we would find food and drink to satisfy our own hunger and thirst. What a remarkable, loving world we would live in if all people felt others’ needs as strongly as they do their own and satisfied others’ needs as naturally as they satisfy their own.
Saying 26
We see others’ failings more readily than our own. Yeshua is saying that when we see even a small failing, as small as a particle of dust, in another’s actions and criticize the person for it, we must realize there are whole planks of failings in our own lives. Yeshua’s message is that life is messy. We all do things that offend others without realizing it. But we see starkly every offense that affects us. Yeshua is saying we must not focus on another’s failings when we have myriad failings in our own lives. Instead, we must allow others’ failings to pass without being offended, just as we ignore or are not aware of our own failings. Failings are natural parts of life in the physical realm. Taking offense is a learned behavior. We learned that if someone says we look fat, they are demeaning us. The offense is not embodied in the statement. We might think we look fat to ourselves and not feel offended, and we would accept the statement without offense when it comes from someone who loves us and cares about our well-being. The sentiment of being offended arises from learning that others will demean us through comments about our physical appearance. We learned to take offense. Yeshua is saying we must not be offended by these triggering statements. When we do not take offense, we maintain a loving relationship without believing that others dislike us or are separate from us. When everyone stops taking offense, the sentiment of being offended will be eradicated.
Saying 27
Yeshua is saying that we must withdraw from the world to find the inner peace that is our true nature as children of Our Universal Intelligence. Wordsworth wrote, “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.” We give our hearts away when we are preoccupied with the affairs of the physical realm. We must be in the world, but not of it. When we withdraw from all that is burdening us in this life, we find our true nature as eternal beings having a physical experience without care or worry. The Sabbath was a day of rest during which the Jews would withdraw from the daily routines of life on Earth. When we grow to have little in the physical realm that perturbs our spirit, we enjoy the contentment and happiness that is the kingdom of Heaven within us.
Saying 28
Yeshua is saying that he found people intoxicated, meaning their perceptions are distorted by their preoccupation with affairs of the world. They are satiated, so they cannot listen to and accept what he has to teach them about this life. He feels a burden for humanity that is suffering needlessly because people are blind in their hearts from ignorance about who we are in eternity. People do not realize the truth that we are one with Our Universal Intelligence and one another. They are intoxicated by this ignorance. Most will go through their entire lives without sobering up to learn how to live in love, peace, and joy within themselves and with others. When we shake off this intoxication with the falsehoods about this life and the next, we enter the kingdom of Heaven within through the gnosis or knowledge that we are eternal beings having a physical experience.
Saying 29
The flesh Yeshua refers to is experiences in the Earth realm. There is nothing but our mind and the experiences we have with our mind. The world we experience is brought to us by Our Universal Intelligence. There is no world outside of our mind and experiences. The experiences of this world come into being when we experience them. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics tells us that the world doesn’t collapse into existence until someone observes it. Idealists extend that understanding by saying that there is nothing but Our Universal Intelligence and the experiences we have in our minds, which we perceive as matter and energy. There is no matter and energy outside of us embodied in flesh that is an accident in time, living on a rock spinning mindlessly through space. This great wealth of knowledge about our eternal nature makes its home within a world that is impoverished in its understanding of who we are in eternity. When we who are using bodies realize we are not the bodies, but are eternal beings in a world of mind experiences given to us by our Universal Intelligence, we leave the poverty of materialist views of the world and enjoy the wealth of realizing we are eternal beings having a physical experience.
Saying 30
Yeshua is saying that there are many notions of gods. The estimate is that today there are around 4,200 world religions, each with its own set of gods. They are all gods in the narrow views of the religions. But whether there is one, two, or three gods, Yeshua’s teachings apply to all of them equally. What the religions call god makes no difference to the truth that we all, along with Yeshua, are parts of Our Universal Intelligence, the ground of all being.
