The Living Man - Gospel of Thomas | Mysticism

Verse - The Living Man

Jesus said, “How miserable is the body that depends on the body, and how miserable is the soul that depends on both.”

Comment

Even those who are still spiritually asleep and who are completely absorbed in the life of the body are amazed at their ability to create a human being who grows from two cells that have become one into an animated cell state and is different from those who called him into existence.

But they know nothing of the far greater creative power of the divine spirit that lives in them. Like these unawakened ones who are still caught up in a dream of the senses, the half-awakened ones - although the veil of ignorance has already partially torn before their eyes - are still largely absorbed in their external humanity and in the wonders and joys of external oneness. The greater tasks of life from the spirit and the higher bliss of the inner life, the oneness of soul and spirit, are still hidden from them.

Those who are still completely devoted to their physicality and see the highest happiness of earthly existence in the physical connection have not yet passed the animal level of mere meaningfulness. They have not yet recognized themselves as soul and spirit.

As a result, they do not yet know anything about the bliss of spiritual unity. The living person - the inner person who lives from the spirit - is still wrapped in sleep for them. Only when he begins to awaken, awakened by suffering or as the result of the persistent inward turning of the outer person, do the greater, higher possibilities of life from the spirit and thus the true purpose of man become visible. On the way inwards to spiritual union - to the oneness of the inner person with the divine self in the neighbor - and further on to the highest unity, to the unio mystica, to the oneness with the divine primal source.

Every living thing that, still unaware of its purpose and task, looks outwards, sees only the physical and clings to the transitory, is unhappy - and at the same time it is blissfully drawn from above, on the way to this peak of perfection. But he only becomes aware of this path when he becomes aware of himself, his actions and what the Perfect One wants to open his eyes to.