Creation Spirit

Copyright 2005 by James H. Young. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use–other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews without the written permission of the author.

The author’s intent is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest of emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author assumes no responsibility for your actions.

For written approval, contact:
dimitrios@creationspirit.net

INTRODUCTION

Several years ago I was inspired to read a penetrating translation of the Gospel of St. Thomas prepared by Marvin Meyer and Harold Bloom. In my search for Jesus’ original contributions to our world of learning, this piece seemed to just drop into my lap. After reading it with great interest, not once, but several times, I found myself carrying it with me on a rather lengthy flight to the East Coast.

Quite to my surprise, and delight, after parking my car and processing myself into a comfortable seat aboard the plane, I opened “The Gospel,” only to find myself writing on the margins of the translation as fast as my hand could take me on that unusual journey. I had previously witnessed such transmissions of information in some of the other pieces of writing that have come through these same hands, but never at this speed, nor in this exact means. The writing came as fast as I could read the Gospel’s translations, with marginal notes coming quick and furious. At one point I took out a yellow writing pad from my attach é case in order to capture the meaning that was forthcoming, without losing it in the narrowness of space afforded in the text itself. On and on it came, entirely filling the time and space of my flight, almost exactly to the minute. I remember thinking to myself how convenient the timing of its completion fit my schedule! To say that I was astounded by this turn of events is a great understatement of how I felt about such profundity coming through me. To say I was overjoyed is likewise a great understatement.

Despite my immense interest and excitement, I was not able to read the incoming “translation” of Bloom and Meyer’s dynamic translation until I came to rest my somewhat weary soul later that evening. As I scanned its contents I came to two very simple, but nonetheless profound understandings. The first understanding was that what had transpired was indeed a major gift, to me, even if to no one else. The second understanding was that I needed some good rest before I attempted to discern its meaning for me. So that I gave myself, even thought I had great difficulty initially getting past my innate curiosity about what had earlier transpired.

As it turned out, my early morning meeting the next day was postponed until later in the afternoon, which gave me ample time to investigate this marvelous gift–or at least I had hoped that it would be that. As I let the meaning of the various passages unravel in the context of the original translation, I came to realize that what had happened is that my more recent commitment to seeing life as metaphor which purpose is to convey its deeper, spiritual meaning had grasped even this sacred Scripture as that. Quite magically, this context had provided the opening for yet another translation to come forth on that basis. I won’t pretend that I have any right, let alone the expertise for that matter, to interpret or further translate what came through my hands that day. Rather, I only offer it as food for thought, or better yet, food for one’s spiritual nourishment.

As I have prepared this draft, you will find brief references to Christian Science teachings attributed to Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. At the time this translation event transpired, I was studying Christian Science as but one form, an highly sophisticated one at that, of metaphysical inquiry. I continue to study metaphysics as a reliable, highly informative and enlightening, means of discerning spiritual meaning which can benefit earthly life.

For that matter, I greatly encourage metaphysics as a marvelous means of unlocking many of the “secrets” of any religious doctrine or belief. Quite simply, metaphysics is a way of reframing material beliefs into their spiritual foundations, thus turning their meaning into something quite different perhaps than previously understood. With this as a basis, I now offer you what follows as a means for viewing such difference for yourself.
Jim Young

On The Gospel of Thomas Revealed as Spirit

You will recall the widely regarded Gospel of Thomas, discovered in 1945 among the gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. From these supposed sayings of Jesus to his brother, Thomas, we obtain a glimpse of Jesus heretofore unrealized, one that reveals a life already open and available to each of us. Not a life or promise held somewhere in the heavens awaiting our arrival–for even then enlightenment is contingent upon living in a prescribed fashion while on earth. Interpreted by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale, and rendered by Marvin Meyer, Professor of Religion at Chapman University, THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS portrays the 114 verses attributed directly to Jesus in the form of the Gospel according to Thomas.

These verses in the Gospel of Thomas speak about life here and now, seen from the perspective of the God that informs Truth from within each of us. They do not do so if we read them as we normally do Scripture, literally. But they do if we read them from the seat of our spirituality, as the metaphors or symbolic language they represent. Indeed, this “withinness” was Jesus’ primary message. Unfortunately, those who followed Jesus have formed a religion about the man Jesus rather than from his teachings. So we are generally left with finding God in the words and images that come to us from outside ourselves rather than from our intimate relationship with God that speaks so clearly the Truth of life and living from within. The Gospel of Thomas, at least in part, is about this very thing: the tapping of our inner authority, God who speaks within, and being obedient to the Truths for us that are revealed for us, and not some external authority, some idol we have come to worship instead.

To continue the method of approach used in other offerings that have come through me, that used with several of the parables contained in the Bible, what follows is a comparison, in some cases seemingly a direct contrast, of some of the passages contained in Meyers’, THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS (Pages 23-65). Because this is a spiritual document, demonstrating the alleged language of Jesus directly, I believe we must think of it in its spiritual meaning instead of thinking of it only literally. If we stay in the literal observance of these profound expressions, we will be locked into the materialistic ways of thinking and behaving, much as we are when we follow Biblical offerings literally. We need this spiritual tongue in order to speak, and thus come to live, Truth. As in the former case, try using spiritual translation on a few of these offerings for yourself and see what new insights, what enlightenment, what different ideas about Life come to the fore for you.

THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS

These are the hidden sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Judas Thomas recorded. In each instance, the spiritual translation that came through me (ST) is preceded by the Meyer’s translation of the conversation between Jesus and Judas Thomas as recorded for posterity.

1. And he said, “Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.”

ST: When we come to the true meaning of what Jesus says to us, we will come alive with en(light)enment. We will awaken to the real meaning of Life, and cannot ever again fear death, for it will be rendered nonexistent. We are of spiritual thought, not matter, and spiritual thought lives forever, while matter dissipates into the nothingness it is. If we live in this distinction, we come to know only of life everlasting, that which is referred to in the New Testament.

2. Jesus said, “Let one who seeks not stop seeking until one finds. When one finds, one will be troubled. When one is troubled, one will come to marvel and will rule over all.”

ST: We cannot find enlightenment unless we dig deep within, to the depths of meaning for ourselves. When we find this (new) meaning of Life it will be vastly different than formerly understood, and it will shake our spiritual foundations. This unsettling enlightenment, however, will lead to a marvelous new understanding of Life and Love. And eventually, as with everything to which we commit ourselves, this new understanding will come to rule over all our thoughts and resulting behavior.

3. Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in heaven,’ then the birds of heaven will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you.”

ST: If any, including your own thoughts, say that the kingdom of understanding is anywhere else than within, it is saying that all of life came before we did, when, instead, all of Life already was, is and will forever be. Life has always been, and will forever be, everywhere, inside and out, as All. There is no place where Life is not, and it always has been, always be, thus. Life is All, everywhere present.

4 (cont’d) When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and you are poverty.

ST: Generally, we know ourselves only in the ways we have been taught to think about ourselves. Until we have discarded these erroneous images of ourselves, and come instead to know ourselves in the image and likeness of God, as God’s spiritual offspring, created in and of the same Essence as is God, Spirit, we are impoverished. And are affected and effected by that inner image of poverty of spirit, that feeling of lack that influences our way of living in so many ways. When we finally come to this new realization, we will over time come to be that and to be known as that, Love, both within and without, rather than continuing to demonstrate what someone else has influenced us to believe we are, or wants us to be. We are what we demonstrate our knowing to be.

4. (cont’d.) Jesus said, “The person of old in days will not hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place in life, and that person will live. For many of the first will be last and will become a single one.”

ST: Those of us with old thoughts of God can learn much from the seemingly innocent, spiritual understanding of a child not yet under the influence of other teachings and rituals, such as being baptized. Many of those who come under such influences are uninitiated to Truth. But when they have awakened to Truth, as in the uncontaminated expression of love found in an innocent child, undisturbed from its innocence by various forms of domestication, then they, too, will come in understanding to be as One, in and of God. Indeed, such become integrated with this new Truth, which keeps them alive in the understanding that being so transforms Life beyond the divisive features of so-called human life. Instead, in its final form of Truth, Life becomes “Heaven as in earth.” In all our oneness, then, life is that.

5. “Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing that will not be revealed.”

ST: If we look at ourselves as Spirit, and reframe how we see life–spiritually instead of literally and materialistically–then Life will become obvious to us, much as looking at life symbolically opens our eyes to se Life as It really Is: as God in all. It is then that Life’s secrets open up to us. What formerly was hidden from us is not revealed for us, mainly because we have learned to see Life from the perspective of Spirit rather than from a material one. What is in front of our face, then–always–is nothing else but God, in whatever form it is created; as you and me and as the plants and animals, each unique in its demonstration as God’s image created. This, then, becomes the obvious Truth from which we live and breathe. Once we look at life spiritually, that which we formerly hid from ourselves as a form of reality, all of spiritual life reveals itself to us. It merely is a function of reframing life, of learning to looking at life from an entirely different perspective.

6. His followers asked him and said to him, “Do you want us to fast? How should we pray? Should we give to charity? What diet should we observe?” Jesus said, “Do not lie, and do not do what you hate, because all things are disclosed before heaven. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and there is nothing that is covered that will remain undisclosed.”

ST: What Jesus is saying here is that the questions asked of him are of things superfluous, just as man-mad doctrines and beliefs from which they come. We should not lie to ourselves and make these laws how we live. Rather, we must now, from our newly found spiritual perspective, from discernment obtained by going within, do the things we love out of our understanding that all is created as the loving essence of God. We should treat all of Life in the same respect we hold for God, no matter in what form it appears. In all of Life this Truth shall be known and demonstrated. In this way, we give up doing what we normally might well hate to do–but continue because that’s all we think we know to do–and instead do the loving with all we are called to do and be.

8. And he said, “Humankind is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of little fish. Among them the wise fisherman discovered a large fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea and with no difficulty chose the large fish. Whoever has ears to hear should hear.”

ST: In essence, Jesus implore us not to bother with Life’s trivialities. Rather, we are to extend our lives to knowing the bigger picture of loving all no matter what, observing this as our obvious Truth, living it day by day. By demonstrating loving as our way of life, we set a living example, and others are frequently emboldened to love likewise instead of merely coping with life’s trivialities, which eventually only leads to feeling hallow and without purpose. Once we get the hang of living lovingly, we easily discern the difference between this and our old way of merely coping, and choose only the big fish, the loving way, from now on. We truly hear, with discernment to differentiate between the two, when we use our spiritual ears with which to hear, rather than using our material senses to interpret Life, as its appearances can only be.

9. Jesus said, “Look, the sower went out, took a handful (of seeds), and scattered (them). Some fell on the road, and the birds came and pecked them up. Others fell on the rock, and they did not take root in the soil and did not produce heads of grain. Others fell in the thorns, and they choked the seeds and worms devoured them. And others fell on good soil, and brought forth a good crop.”

ST: Through our intuition, God’s Word falls to us like seeds, seeds of Truth for us. The Word, the resonance of how something we “hear” from within strikes us, falls on hearts of all kinds: hardened, superficial, vacuous, fertile. When written on, or planted in, the fertile heart, one that loves God with all one is by going within for spiritual food for thought, the seeds of Truth flourish beyond what others might yield by good measure. Our outlook on life, portrayed as our mindset, when activated beyond the domesticated imagery of material man to one of Spirit, is opened to reveal our real Truth. This Truth is that which reaps a good harvest of great proportions: infinite, eternal and perfect in nature.

10. Jesus said, “I have thrown fire upon the world, and look, I am watching it until it blazes.”

ST: I have set your bland, worldly ideas of God and self on fire, destroying them and filling your hearts instead with the fire of enthusiasm, and tempered them with the fire of Love. God, through the Christ Spirit, makes sure the fire of Love takes hold in each of our lives, without fail, no matter how long it takes for the spark that ignited the enthusiasm for lovingkindness to burn brightly as our natural state of being, thereby lighting up the world. When one really thinks about it, God is indeed very patient and persistent with and about us when it comes to knowing the loving way.