Mysticism & Gospel of Thomas – No. 63 – New Humanity

Verse - New Humanity

Jesus said, "Once upon a time there was a rich man who received a lot of money from a big deal. He said, 'I will use my wealth to sow, reap, plant and fill my storehouses with fruit so that I will not lack anything.' These were the last thoughts in his heart, for that night he died. Anyone here who has good ears should listen carefully."

Comment

For thousands of years, people have tried to change the world through external reforms and social innovations, without success. Christ teaches the path of inner reform: self-renewal, the completion of which completes external life. The words of the Gospel of Thomas, like those of the Sermon on the Mount, are instructions for such renewal from within.

They castigate the greedy pursuits and behavior of the unawakened, who spend their entire earthly training period gaining weight externally, accumulating transient things, only to leave at the end with empty hands and hearts. They have misunderstood and missed the meaning of their earthly incarnation and neglected the most important thing: their inner growth.

The Rich Man

The rich man who struggled in vain is the unawakened person of our time, who has not yet been touched, grasped and transformed by the new spirit of the cosmic age. He does not recognize, like the awakened person, the double face of this turning point: the old time of uncreative haste and the pursuit of success, the new time of relaxed creativity. The will of the one is directed towards the senses, towards the material, that of the other towards the soul and spirit. The one is static, bound to the world of illusion, the other dynamic, sprung from the truth, directed towards the world of God.

The old world view is that of the sensual person: it is based on what he thinks he knows. The new world view is that of the spiritual person: it is rooted in what the inner person sees and understands. The characteristics of the old are: being special, drawing boundaries, narrowness and inhibition, the desire to hold on and keep, persistence in imperfection. The hallmarks of the new are: the expansion to oneness with the whole, the free development of the creative inner forces, the will to give, the living progression from perfection to greater perfection.

The thinking of the old man is dominated by the drive of alien selfishness, the desire to have, to take, to steal. That of the new man is based on the will of life-like selfishness, the sense of community, the desire to be and the desire to give oneself.