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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.
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 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”).
AI Summary
The YOGA of RADIANT PRESENCE Revealed in THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS by Peter Brown presents key insights from the Yoga tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
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Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
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