Secrets of God

by Slawek Wojtowicz

  Those who utilized The Gospel of Thomas and other Gnostic writings advocated a very different kind of faith than the one we inherited through orthodox Christianity—faith informed by firsthand experience of the Divine, instead of blind belief in dogmas handed down by those in the Church hierarchy “who knew better.” Mystical teachings conveyed in Gnostic writings were reserved for those dissatisfied with the Imperial church dogmas, for those who were looking for answers that orthodox church could not provide. By design, these teachings were opaque for those who were not ready for them. This doesn’t mean that the Gnostic teachings were elitist. They were meant for everyone, but only a few were interested. In the Saying 28 of The Gospel of Thomas, Jesus notes with sadness: “I found all of them drunk; I found none of them thirsty. And my soul became afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight; for empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world. For the moment they are drunk. But when they shake off their wine, then they will change their mind.”

  Due to a highly symbolic language used in this gospel, a significant amount of work and insight is required to decipher deeper meanings in Jesus’ sayings. Another problem that modern historians face when they are trying to interpret and compare Gnostic writings is that surviving manuscripts are often fragmentary, and that they come from a wide variety of Gnostic schools. Each of these schools had a unique theology and mythology designed to give an approximation of the Indescribable. Each of these theologies worked well on its own, but was not necessarily compatible with others. That’s where the confusion comes in. We inherited a random collection of fragmentary documents originating in different mystical schools, and it is very difficult to draw parallels between many of them. Another important point: Gnostic writings were not meant to have a single, fixed interpretation. Mystics believed that a document with clearly spelled-out meaning becomes a dead document. The living word of God always remains open to interpretation, and thus changes with the times and speaks to people afresh, always remaining relevant. So is the case with The Gospel of Thomas: It has unique meanings and messages for each reader. My interpretation of these sayings, however deeply meaningful for me personally, is only one of many possible readings. I am inviting you to discover a personal message in these words.

  I took the first saying—“Whoever finds the meaning of these words will not taste death”—as a challenge, and decided to set aside time to decipher the meaning of this gospel for my own benefit. The task was made harder by errors, deletions, and additions that had crept into the text during the copying process and as a result of erroneous translations. For example, the meaning of Saying 30 was significantly altered in the Coptic translation found in Nag Hammadi when compared with surviving fragments of the Greek original (P.Oxy. 654, 1, 655). The Greek text reads: “Where there are three, they are without God. Where there is only one, I am with that one.” The Coptic text translated into English reads: “Where there are three gods, they are gods; where there are two or one, I am with him.” I would argue that the original meaning was lost in translation in this particular case.

  I used a variety of translations to help me with the analysis of the text and consulted numerous scholarly works on the subject published by other authors. I was also guided by my own insights and intuition, as well as advice and comments from many people in the Bible study group lead by Barbara Crafton and Richard Quaintance at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Metuchen, New Jersey. My warm thanks to all who provided their thoughtful comments and suggestions and corrected my mistakes: Aharon Grossbard, Kathy Parkerton, and Boris Bencic. I hope that you will find this book useful on your own spiritual path.

  Mystical Worldview

  Before we delve into analysis of The Gospel of Thomas, it would be helpful to examine some of the key concepts that form the backbone of a mystical worldview. Gnostic ideas have a lot in common with the mystical views associated with other world religions. While specific terminology and methods used to reach awakening vary considerably between different mystical schools, there is universal agreement among them concerning the purpose of our existence, the nature of Reality, and God. This agreement is the result of the common experience that is available to anyone who is determined enough to pursue it, whether they are Christian Gnostics, Jewish Hasidim, Muslim Sufis, Tibetan Buddhists, or practitioners of the oldest religion on Earth—shamanism. Let’s review some of the basic tenants of mystical worldview and terminology that will be used in this book.

  God

  Mystics agree that there is only one true God and that God is Love and Life, but otherwise He is essentially unknowable. Our words and descriptions merely point towards the ineffable realm of the Divine. Mystics don’t necessarily believe in a personal God as described by Abrahamic religions. Instead, they often describe a field of potentiality, life, or energy that can be experienced as pure Love. Robert Thurman in his book Infinite Life says that “what Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Hindus call ‘God,’ or sometimes ‘Godhead,’ is a force of reality much like the infinite ocean-body of living joy.” Gnostics called that ocean “Pleroma” (fullness), a substitute term attempting to describe the indescribable, ineffable God. We are simultaneously tiny wrinkles on the surface of that ocean, and the ocean itself.

  Mystics teach that God is everywhere, including inside of us. He is in Nature, in every plant and animal, in every grain of sand, in every ocean, cloud, and raindrop. Nothing exists outside of God—indeed, there is no “outside of God.” We are all children of God, just like Jesus, even though we may not be aware of that fact. Each of us has the potential to become a Christ. In a certain sense, God is “asleep” in most of us and needs to be awakened. That’s where personal effort is required—to bring the Love from within into the outside world. In the process of becoming more loving we get closer and closer to God, until we get so near to Him that Realization becomes possible. Thus, it is not only possible but necessary to experience God firsthand. Seeking that experience is the most important goal in our life—a prerequisite for salvation. Once you experience God directly you will know that He is inside of you and that He loves all people equally and unconditionally—Muslims and Christians, Buddhists and atheists, saints and sinners alike.

  As mentioned previously, since The Gospel of Thomas is part of the Christian tradition, I will use the pronoun “He” when discussing God, even though God contains both masculine and feminine within. God delights in making the impossible possible—He loves paradoxes and unites all opposites. He is everything and nothing at the same time. He is infinitely big and infinitesimally small, male and female, perfect and imperfect. Zen koans attempt to point towards the Divine reality by posing paradoxical questions: What is the sound of one hand clapping? Does the tree falling in the forest make a sound if there is no one around to hear it? We can ask similar questions: If God is Love, why is there evil in the world? There is only one God, but when we all reach Realization, will each of us become a god? Perhaps that is the purpose of life on our level of existence—we all have to awaken, each of us becoming a god, so that God doesn’t have to be all alone anymore.

  Nature of Reality

  Interestingly, both mystical religions and modern quantum physics agree concerning the true nature of reality: Both time and space are constructs of human consciousness—they are illusions that don’t have objective reality. The manifest universe is the great creative dream of God, unfolding in the fabric of space and time. Quantum physics proposes that the apparent “materiality” of the world is no more and no less “real” than a dream-image, and that consciousness is a vital element in understanding the true nature of reality. The world as we know it exists only as a mental construct shaped by the senses. In truth, we live in a “quantum soup” of fluctuating energy patterns and our minds create what we consider a reality. The 2004 movie What the Bleep Do We Know? presents these quantum physics ideas in a very approachable manner.

  Mystics call this perceived everyday �
�reality” by different names: Maya, a dream, an illusion, or even a full-immersion movie or game. Is it possible that we live in a dream world, or to use a more modern terminology, in a very sophisticated virtual reality simulation? In a certain sense, yes. Since nothing but God is truly real, it is up to each of us to decide what is “real.” In other words, we create our own reality. Some spiritual teachers may tell you that each of us is a “walking holographic projector,” and each of us creates the whole universe. For those who watched the Star Trek series, it is like being on a holodeck that instantaneously creates anything that you think of (both consciously and subconsciously)—and all that appears around you seems to be completely “real.”

  Modern physics tells us that the objects that we perceive as “solid” are not as substantial as they appear—in fact, they consist of 99.999…% empty space. Even atoms are not solid objects. When we dissect them down to quark level and below, we find that nothing is left but energy, vibrations in empty space. Einstein’s famous formula, E=mc2, tells us the same story—what we perceive as a solid mass maybe a form of energy. These facts are so different from our everyday experience that we still have trouble accepting them as an objective reality. We still think like people in the 19th century—along the lines of Newtonian physics—even though quantum physics has been around for a century. It is difficult to wrap our minds around these new concepts, yet we have done it before—each time paradigms shifted. It wasn’t easy to accept that Earth orbits the Sun, in contradiction to the testimony of our own eyes. It was equally painful to give up the notion that we are the pinnacle of the evolution and the center of the universe.

  Buddhist teachings state that what we consider reality is an illusion. Careful reading of Christian and Jewish writings implies the same. For example, there are two stories of creation recorded in the biblical story of Genesis. The first one reveals a world that is perfect, filled with God’s love and peace. People are vegetarian and animals do not kill and eat each other. That is the real world (Genesis 1: 29-30). The second story of creation and everything that follows is just a dream. It shows a distorted picture of God: He is not the perfect, loving God of the first story of creation, but instead a petty, jealous, and insecure god that doesn’t have much in common with the real God. We see Adam falling into deep sleep (Genesis 2: 21), and strange things start to happen: god removes Adam’s rib to create a woman; plants a tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden as a temptation for the first people; and then expels them from the Paradise when they give in to temptation, thus condemning them to a life of hard work, suffering, and death. That doesn’t sound very loving, does it? If you read the story carefully you will discover that Adam, who is a symbol for all humanity, actually never wakes up from his deep sleep—he is still dreaming to this day.

  If mystics are right, we are all asleep, lost in our dreams so thoroughly that we have forgotten who we really are and what our true purpose in this world is. The apocryphal Acts of Thomas contain a beautiful hymn, sometimes called the Song of the Pearl, that describes this situation in the format of a mythological tale. A son of a powerful king is sent to Egypt on a quest to retrieve a rare and beautiful pearl from the clutches of a powerful sea serpent. However, when he arrives, he tastes local food, and it puts him into a deep sleep-like state so that he forgets not only about his quest, but even about his own identity. Stranded, he lives in Egypt as a servant. Fortunately, the father does not forget about his beloved son and sends him a magical letter. When the letter reaches him, our hero awakens and regains the memory of who he really is and what his purpose in Egypt is. Subsequently, our adventurer wins the pearl and returns triumphantly home to his father’s joy. This is an allegorical description of our own journey here on Earth: Each of us has to discover our common identity, hidden within us like a precious pearl. Once that happens we are free to start the return trip home.

  The above story is reminiscent of the parable of the prodigal son told by Jesus. Here the son travels away from home, squandering all of the wealth received from his father until he is left destitute and hungry in a far-off country, forced to work a humiliating job to survive. Yet when he decides to return home, his father is overjoyed to see him and orders a feast in his honor, “for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and now is found” (Luke 15:24).

  If we are indeed asleep and lost far away from home as those stories suggest, it would make sense to find a way to awaken and return home to our Father, so that we can be perfectly happy and joyful again. To shake the dream off and to awaken we need to start seeing the present moment exactly as it is, instead of perceiving it through the filter of our prejudices, projections, and expectations. Those who are already awake tell us that we live in a perfect world; yet most of us have trouble seeing that. The world we live in is designed to help us to awaken. Nothing here happens randomly or by accident, since every interaction with others is meaningful, an opportunity to make a step towards awakening—or away. Yet we fail to see the world as a helpful and loving place. It is almost like each of us is wearing tinted or dirty glasses that prevent us from seeing reality accurately. These “glasses” prevent us from perceiving many different aspects of reality clearly. For example, we may not see colors as vividly as others; our sense of smell, taste, touch, or hearing may be dulled, or our minds may not work properly. We may see ourselves as victims, as unfairly treated, as sick, unhappy, or depressed people. All of these misperceptions have to be shed. As we gradually discard these distorted ideas about ourselves, our minds and bodies start to heal and we get closer and closer to realizing our true nature.

  A modern Gnostic gospel entitled A Course in Miracles is very candid in describing the unreality of this world. It states: “What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal? Could you have faith in what you see, if you accepted this? And would you see it? Hallucinations disappear when they are recognized for what they are. This is the healing and the remedy. Believe them not and they are gone. And all you need to do is recognize that you did this. Once you accept this simple fact and take unto yourself the power you gave them, you are released from them (ACIM T-20.VIII.7-8).

  Since we are the source of the dream, we are never separate from it—we take it with us everywhere. That’s why this world appears to be so real and so familiar to us so that we cannot even tell that it is just an illusion. So what is real? The distinction between what we think is real and what is not is in fact very blurred. Our dreams can be totally indistinguishable from waking reality. When we are immersed in a dream, our critical mind is turned off and we can’t tell that we are dreaming. In our dreams we fly in the air, fight with aliens, travel in time, or survive encounters with dragons, but we don’t question how these things are possible. That is, not until we wake up. The same principle applies to our “consensus reality.” We think it is all real until we experience a glimpse of awakening and realize that it is just a strange dream, just like the ones we experience every night.

  From one point of view we are just dream characters ourselves: God is the dreamer who is dreaming all of us. Are YOU real? Look honestly into your own mind: What percent of the time are you fully present in the moment, both mentally and physically? Our minds tend to wander into the past or future—neither of which is real. We disconnect easily from our bodies, too, since we are not fully present in them most of the time. Let’s do a quick test: Please close your eyes and, without moving your foot or toes, try to feel clearly from inside the second toe on your left foot. Try to differentiate that toe from other toes without actually moving it. Did you succeed? Then scan your body from within, starting with the big toe on each foot and moving slowly through the whole body all the way up to the top of your head. Were you able to feel all of your body parts distinctly and clearly?

  Most of us have some trouble w
ith this exercise, since we are rarely fully present in our bodies. So here is my question: If you are not fully present in your mind and your body, here and now in this moment, how can you claim to be real?

  To become real, one has to learn to be present here and now—and in truth, none of us are until we fully awaken. Apostle Paul, in his second letter to the Romans (Romans 13: 11–14), stresses the importance of living in the present. He reminds us that the only time when we can awaken is right now: “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.” Everything that happens must happen in the present moment—since from our limited point of view neither the past nor the future is real or accessible to us.

  Quantum physicists discovered over a hundred years ago that what we consider “reality” is not exactly “real,” since we live in a “quantum soup,” consisting of fluctuating energy fields, and our minds shape that “soup” into an illusion of reality. This concept has been taught by many spiritual traditions for thousands of years, and it finally infiltrated popular culture. Poets such as Rumi and William Blake and musicians such as The Beatles, Leonard Cohen, and Depeche Mode tackle this subject as effectively as scientists of Albert Einstein’s caliber. One could argue that science-fiction novels and movies with a spiritual background (such as The Matrix, Open Your Eyes, Groundhog Day, Total Recall, EXistenZ, The Last Mimzy, Cloud Atlas, and many others) helped more than any other cultural medium to spread the ideas taught by mystics for millennia.