Let me remind you of the passage I quoted yesterday from the Gospel of Thomas<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u201cJesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples: These infants taking milk are like those who enter the Kingdom. His disciples asked him: If we are infants will we enter the Kingdom? Jesus responded: When you make the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the upper like the lower and the lower like the upper, and thus make the male and female the same, so that the male isn\u2019t male and the female isn\u2019t female. When you make an eye to replace an eye, and a hand to replace a hand, and a foot to replace a foot, and an image to replace an image, then you will enter the Kingdom.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my attempt to unravel this intriguing passage.\u00a0 If you recall, Jesus\u2019 disciples seem<\/span> to get the child (rebirth) metaphor (\u201c\u2026these infants taking milk are like those who enter the Kingdom\u201d), but he confounds them once again with a list of dualities that will disappear when you successfully enter this<\/span> Kingdom.\u00a0 I believe there are four crucial concepts in this passage.<\/p>\n First, many spiritual adventurers talk about \u201cchild consciousness,\u201d about being born into a fresh perspective as if seeing the world for the first time.\u00a0 This child, however, is not a total newbie, a na\u00efve<\/span> child; rather, this advanced spiritual state is that of a wise<\/span> child.\u00a0 To be in this state is to transcend all of our usual categories and opposites\u2014transcendence and immanence, soul and body, masculine and feminine, and so on.\u00a0 This is radical relearning of basic metaphysical categories, and it is doubly difficult because the conceptual shift must be grounded in an experiential one.\u00a0 To enter this Kingdom we must experience a world prior to our common dualistic categories, the very categories that undergird our every experience.\u00a0 Radical indeed.\u00a0 (Tomorrow I will have more to say about this Zen-like undermining of the basic metaphysical filters that unconsciously ground our experiences.)<\/p>\n Second, surely this and other sayings in Thomas<\/em> emphasize the divine feminine.\u00a0 The divine will suckle us<\/span> in our birth and give us the strength and security we need to view creation with the kind of abandon and trust that will allow us to be fed directly by God.\u00a0 The Kingdom of God is both feminine and masculine\u2014we need the strengths and abilities of both genders to be, able to experience the world in this new way.<\/p>\n Third, this new consciousness is about unity, oneness.\u00a0 Find me a mystic who does not talk about becoming one with the divine, one with creation, one with humanity.\u00a0 Further, those mystics often possess extraordinary powers.\u00a0 In saying 19 Jesus says, \u201cIf you become my disciples and listen to me, these stones will serve you,\u201d and in sayings 24 and 106 he says, \u201cWhen you make the two into one, you will be called sons of men.\u00a0 When you say \u2018Move, mountain!\u2019 it will move.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 For Thomas<\/em>, though, these are not supernatural powers, but are natural abilities available to those who enter into higher consciousness.<\/p>\n Finally, in saying 22 Jesus tells us that one who enters the Kingdom of advanced consciousness will be able to \u201cmake an eye to replace an eye,\u201d etc.\u00a0 It is difficult not to interpret these body replicating metaphors to be referring to resurrection<\/span>.\u00a0 Many contemporary students of advanced mystics contend that one of the abilities people with child consciousness can acquire is to appear elsewhere, perhaps even after the body dies.<\/p>\n Thomas<\/em> does better than the Biblical tradition and churches do at giving clues about what the Kingdom is like (even if expressed in metaphors and riddles).\u00a0 Tomorrow I will explore further clues to Jesus\u2019 vision in Thomas<\/em>, and I will explore one further passage that suggests how<\/span> we are to born again.<\/p>\n Today we have Part 4 of Bob\u2019s reflections on the Gospel of Thomas: Let me remind you of the passage I quoted yesterday from the Gospel of Thomas: \u201cJesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples: These infants taking milk are like those who enter the Kingdom. His disciples asked him: If we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[387],"class_list":["post-7714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-gospel-of-thomas"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/628\/2012\/03\/IMG_0915-1024x682.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0915\\"")