Saying 24: His disciples said: “Teach us about the place where you are, for it is necessary for us to seek it.” He said to them: “He who has ears, let him hear! There is light within a man of light, and he lights the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness.”
Once again, the disciples of Jesus play the role of clueless followers who are still struggling to grasp the concepts of non-duality and Oneness with God and everything. Here, they ask Jesus a question which, itself, seems foolish: “Teach us about the place where you are…” As if they cannot plainly see where Jesus is – he is obviously with them, and that, in itself is the answer to their own question. Jesus has already said, in Saying 3, that “The Kingdom of God is inside of you and outside of you.” So, the place where [Jesus] is – the Kingdom – is where they already are, and it is also inside of them.
Rather than repeat what he has already told them several times before, Jesus uses their momentary lapse of reason to try explaining the Kingdom to them in terms they – hopefully – can understand a little better. He says, “There is light within a man of light.” This touches on their assumption that Jesus is above them, or that Jesus is somehow “apart” from themselves. Their question presupposes that Jesus is “a man of light” and because they assume they are not beings of light, as Jesus is, they want to know how they can get there, or be there, or achieve something that they believe they currently lack.
Jesus starts there by affirming that “within a man of light…there is light”, but then he says something that points back to his teaching in the Gospel of Matthew where he tells his disciples that they “are the light of the world” [Matt. 5:14] and what he says here in Saying 11: “When you come to be light, what will you do?”
In other words: Yes, I am “a man of light” and “there is light” within me, but you also are the light of the world, and if you shine that light, your light shines within you, and to everyone in this world. But he adds this warning: “If [you do] not shine, [you are] darkness.”
The teaching is elegant and provocative. If you want to know about the place where Jesus is, simply remember that Jesus is where the Kingdom is, and the Kingdom is where Christ is. If you shine with the light of that realization – Christ in you, the hope of Glory – then that light is the Kingdom and you are where Christ is and Christ is where you are.
This perpetual abiding in Christ as Christ abides in us is the key to everything. Our dualistic minds are continually forgetting that we are already One with God through Christ, and that the Kingdom of God is not “out there” or “over there” or “coming soon” or in any way limited by time or space. It is limited only by our own awareness and mindfulness.
“He who has ears, let him hear!”
But don’t stop at hearing. If you have eyes to see, don’t stop at seeing. Once you have seen, once you have heard, you will be blessed if you walk in the truth of that reality.
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Keith Giles is the author of the hot new bestseller, SOLA MYSTERIUM: Celebrating the Beautiful Uncertainty of Everything, available now on Amazon. Keith is also the host of Second Cup with Keith, a new solo podcast available now on the Ethos Radio App, for Apple and Androidand on Spotify. Keith is also co-host of the long-running HERETIC HAPPY HOUR PODCAST.
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