(Radiant Presence as the sole actual reality)
RADIANT PRESENCE The teachings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas are about the nature of human reality and were Jesus’ instructions to his disciples, teaching how to see and understand what it truly is for themselves. Human reality is entirely the miraculous presence of the experiential field. This is a self-evident, infinite, inclusive continuum, which constitutes all of reality. Anything whatsoever that is held to exist is actually an apparition within this.
The apparent patterning that appears cannot be resolved to actually exist in any precise configuration, due to its infinity of information and absolute instantaneous dynamism. So since no particular pattern can be precisely resolved, the Radiance, even though seeming to be apparently patterned, is paradoxically actually unpatterned. There is present an intelligent functionality that spontaneously analyzes the apparent patterning and creates ideas of specific stable coherent patterns within the field, by using imaginary averaging and censorship of experiential detail. These patterns can then be imagined to be coherent entities, objects, conditions, bodies, worlds, etc. In fact, any such patterns are actually nothing other than the infinitely
dynamic, unpatterned Radiance, and no such coherent entities, objects, conditions, bodies, worlds, etc. can be found to actually exist at all. Thus a “consensus reality” can seem to exist, consisting of an objectively existing material world inhabited by oneself in one’s body, in complex interrelation with other objects and beings; but in actuality, only the experiential field exists. All these worlds, bodies, things, situations, etc. are abstracted in imagination from direct experience of the unresolvable field, which alone is actual. These elaborate interpretational frameworks exist in imagination only. All the details of what seems to constitute one’s human situation are pure fantasy; all that actually exists is the fundamentally unresolvable, hence uninterpretable, infinite field of the Radiance. This worldview is not a theory, but a self-evident, undeniable, pragmatic fact, clearly verified by careful examination of one’s experience. Any other worldview depends upon hypothetical assumption and imaginary abstraction, i.e., fantasy. The experiential field can be called Radiant Presence, after the two most prominent aspects of its nature: its miraculous Presence/Being, existing spontaneously and eternally, depending upon nothing; and its Radiance, the fact that it constantly spontaneously radiates an infinite differentiation of apparent experiential characteristics with absolute instantaneous dynamism.
This does not necessarily negate the mental perspective of the defined self and world, which may continue to be experienced as a mental perspective within the actual, known, solely existing field of Radiant Presence; but the yogi will clearly and certainly know that the infinite unresolvable field alone exists, and that their familiar, defined perspective is merely an arbitrary way of imagining it to be.
(Decoding the Gospel’s vocabulary through the lens of Radiant Presence)
TERMINOLOGY OF THE GOSPEL In many of the sayings, the disciples are seeking the Kingdom. This refers to the field of Radiant Presence. Entering the Kingdom means coming to know the actuality of this reality as it truly is. The Father refers to the causal nature of Radiant Presence, the fact that the inherent nature of Radiant Presence itself is the cause of everything and anything that seems to exist. All differentiation/apparent patterning of the field occurs solely due to the inherent nature of the Radiant Presence, so it itself is the cause of anything that is being interpreted as phenomena. The Kingdom of the Father is the field of Radiant Presence and its all-powerful nature.
(This point of the coexistence of a relatively coherent human perspective within the subsuming actuality of the infinite Radiance, and the mystery that these seemingly divergent perspectives can both be present in one’s experience without contradiction, is central to the experience of yogic realization.) In these sayings life or living refers to the absolute dynamism of the Radiance. All action, all change, all of the ceaseless movement of everything in experience is the very nature of the Radiance and is the sole liveliness, or life: there is no life other than this.
Dead refers to static entities imagined to exist stably, persistently, and objectively, such as bodies, things, or the world. These stable, autonomously existing things, beings, bodies, etc. exist only in imagination. In actuality there is nothing whatsoever but the pure dynamism of the infinite unresolvable apparent patterning of the Radiance, the life. Light versus darkness likewise refers to the known certainty of the actuality of the Radiance versus the ignorance of imagined static, relatively inert beings, bodies, and things. Light is the direct textural experience of the Presence of Radiance; darkness by contrast is the lack of acknowledging this light-like quality of experience itself.
(The hidden words of Jesus and the yoga of seeking)
THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS These are the hidden words which Jesus, who is life, spoke, and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.
(1) And he said, “Whoever discovers the meaning of these words will not taste death.”
(2) Jesus said this: “Let one who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be troubled. After he is troubled he will be amazed, and he will discover that he is king over All.” ____________ Here the yogi is encouraged to persist in Yoga until some realization of the actual condition occurs. When this happens they will be “troubled” by the discovery of how radically different their actual condition is from what they had previously held it to be. The initial disorientation of trying to adjust to the implications of this new condition can be profound, even shocking. As the initial disorientation due to the contrast between the newly revealed condition and the previously held inaccurate conception dies down, and the Yogi relaxes into orienting to their actual condition, they will begin to be “amazed” as they come to appreciate and enjoy the astounding nature of the actuality they will have discovered. One aspect of this nature is that the yogi is in actuality nothing other than the field of Radiant Presence itself, which is the agent of its own functioning. Thus it is ruling (“king”) “over” itself, which is “All”; so the yogi discovers themself to be entirely this actual omnipotence (“king over All”).
(3) Jesus said, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the Kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will have priority above you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know what you are, then you will become realized, and you will know that you are the sons of the living Father. However if you will not know yourselves, it will seem that you exist in poverty and that you are that poverty.”
Then Jesus points out that it actually exists both subjectively and objectively (“is inside you, and it is outside you”), so it thus exists in all portions of the experiential field rather than only in the seemingly “external” objective space. Then he says that when you realize what you are, what the “Kingdom” is, you realize yourself, the human being and persona that you have…
(Present experience as the door to hidden truth)
(5) Jesus said this: “Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden will be revealed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not appear to investigation.” ____________ This saying points out that the actual condition of Radiant Presence can be discovered in the normal present experience of the yogi, that which is “in front of your face.” “What is hidden” is the actual condition of the yogi, the inclusive being of Radiant Presence, which is “hidden” by the materialist misinterpretations of consensus reality. So by…
(6) His disciples questioned him and said to him, “Do you want us to fast? How should we pray? Should we give alms? What diet shall we follow?” Jesus said, “Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are revealed in the presence of heaven. Nothing you think hidden is…
The disciples inquire how they should behave, with the implication that if they behave some certain way it will be advantageous for them in discovering the true condition. Jesus’ advice is to be truthful, and to behave as they truly want to; in other words, to be honestly what they are, and not to try to be what they are not. “All things are revealed in the presence of heaven” means that “all things” are no more than Radiance revealed in the Presence, regardless of what they seem to be in interpretation; so contrivance is fruitless. Any change in superficial behavior would be fundamentally no more than just Radiance, just as it was prior to the change, so nothing can be achieved. (As the goal of realizing the true condition is to realize Radiant Presence just as it is,…
(7) Jesus said, “The lion is blessed which the man eats, and the lion becomes man; and cursed is the man whom the lion eats…
The “lion” symbolizes the crude animal nature of the ignorant persona identified with misinterpretations of their nature and circumstance, caught up in emotional behavior reactive to the imagined conditions of their misinterpretation. The “man” here symbolizes a perspective above the animal perspective, in this case the…
But if the lion eats the man, then the true perspective (“man”) is subsumed into the misunderstanding of ignorance (the “lion”) and becomes lost in interpretation and dominated by needless reactivity and emotion (“the lion becomes man”). Thus the truth of the “man” (the realized perspective of Radiant Presence) becomes…
(The living and the dead: objects transformed by experience)
(11) Jesus said, “This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away, and the dead do not live, and the living will not die. In the days when you ate what is dead, you made it alive. When you come to be in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one,…
All of these perspectives, no more than ghostly “heavens,” are apparent configurations of the patternings of the Radiance, which…
Making the dead alive by “eating” (experiencing) it means that the patterns being experienced explicitly become experience, life itself, and “dead” objects are thereby revealed to not exist as anything static. So the very fact of experiencing the patterns reveals that they are not autonomous, but are known to be experience itself, actual life itself. They are transformed from mere “dead” supposed objects into “alive,” dynamic Radiant experience.
When the yogi “comes into the light,” comes to know the Radiant Presence, there is seen to be no separate objective world, no separate engagement of a subject with objects, so “the dead” will no longer be “eaten.” In this koan-like question (“what will you do?”), in this actionless, objectless, transcendental actuality, what then is actually being done?
“The day when you were one” refers to the sole actual Presence, which includes and is “made of,” the “two” (both apparent subjectivity and objectivity); yet it is actually nothing other than the inclusive experiential continuum of Radiant Presence (“one”). But if the subject and the objective environment were each held to be actually separate, “become two,” what then? The only recourse would be Yoga.
(15) Jesus said, “When you should look upon one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. What is there is your Father.”
This then is “the Father,” the true being of the Radiant Presence, origin, and creator of “everything.” So when the yogi recognizes the miraculous instantaneous Presence of experience, Jesus is pointing out that this includes and creates all, and is the supreme being, hence worthy of being worshiped.
(17) Jesus said, “I shall give you what an eye has not seen and what an ear has not heard and what a hand has not touched and what has never occurred to the human mind.”
Radiant Presence cannot be seen, heard, felt, or conceived of as it truly is, even though what IS seen, heard, and felt is nothing other than the Radiance; but its nature is vastly beyond the implications of cursorily interpreted sensory information. Likewise thought is nothing other than the Radiance, but the content of thought is incapable of accurately reflecting the actual nature of Radiant Presence.
(Beginning, end, and the yogi who does not taste death)
(18) The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us in what way our end will be.” Jesus said, “Have you discovered the beginning, that you look for the end? For in the place the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will be standing in the beginning; he will know the end and will not taste death.”
“He who will be standing in the beginning” is the fully realized consciousness of actuality that is, and clearly knows, the true condition, the “beginning.” He therefore also “know(s) the end,” this eternal endless being, which has no cessation; therefore the yogi will not “taste death.”
(Making two one: the non-dual integration of opposites)
(22) Jesus saw infants suckling. He said to his disciples, “These infants being suckled are like those who enter the Kingdom.” They said to him, “Then, if we become children, we will enter the Kingdom?” Jesus said this to them: “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and what is above like what is below, and when you make the male and the woman one and the same, so that the male not become male nor the woman become woman; and when you make eyes instead of an eye, and a hand instead of a hand, and a foot instead of a foot, and an image instead of an image; then will you enter the Kingdom.”
Above and below refer to degrees of coarseness/fineness of experience, “below” being more coarse material qualities and “above” being more subtle qualities of thought and psychic nuances, which likewise come to be known as actually degrees of the same thing.
Male and female refer to active and passive, doer and the conditions acted upon. So making these “one and the same” is knowing that the true being of the Radiance functions spontaneously without partialization into doer and done, cause and effect.
“Eyes instead of an eye, and a hand instead of a hand, and a foot instead of a foot, and an image instead of an image” means that the “objects” eye, hand, and foot are actually no more than ideas of these things superimposed within uninterpretable experience. The first reference to the thing refers to the actual uninterpretable Radiance being experienced, the experiential actuality that is being designated as that thing. The second is the concept of that as a “thing.” So Jesus says that when you orient to the experiential textural actuality that is being called eye, hand, and foot instead of the belief that those “things” actually exist as the static, objective objects that the concepts define them to be (the second “eye,” “hand,” and “foot”), then you will “enter the Kingdom”— realize all of reality to be Radiant Presence.
Once these misunderstandings are seen through, then one “enters the Kingdom,” i.e., knows their true condition to be nothing other than this transcendental Radiant Presence.
(24) His disciples said, “Show us the place where you are, because it is necessary for us to seek after it.” He said to them, “He who has an ear, let him listen. There is light within a man of light, and he becomes light to the whole world. If he does not become light, he is darkness.” ____________