New post from a blog I frequent:
Scholars have said this about the discovery of
The Gospel of Thomas:
There are no miracles; no crowds of followers; no temple
confrontations.
No crucifixion or resurrection tales; no theology of sin,
judgment, hell or redemption.
No misogyny (Salome and Mary are two of the five disciples
named); no discussion of founding a church; no talk of a Second
Coming; and no pious rephrasing of Old Testament commandments.
For reasons that become clear, there is no talk of a
post-crucifixion bodily resurrection, nor any miracle sagas which
one could accept only on faith.
The Gospel of
Thomas is truly a heretical scripture.
The Gospel of Thomas: The
Enlightenment Teachings of Jesus, explores this “heresy”; how
the message of Jesus in Thomas differs from the message in the New
Testament. The claim: the self-references of Jesus, here, are not
to the fleshly person but to the embodied Presence of an
enlightened sage or master. And there are striking verses said to
have been spoken by Jesus —not found in the Bible —that make
sense only within the context of nonduality. Does The Gospel
of Thomas record the nondual enlightenment teachings of Jesus —and
were they left out of the New Testament for that reason? Do
conventional understandings of Thomas miss its real significance?
How does the message of Jesus in The Gospel of Thomas exemplify the
ancient teachings of nonduality?
We hope you enjoy this adaptation of selections from the book,
for this exclusive Nonduality America article:
While there is no historical evidence that Jesus was influenced
by nondual teachings (even from so far away as the East), it is not
inconceivable that he was. In fact, there is a possibility that at
least some of its principles may have been known to him. Let’s look
at how these teachings may have been present in his time and
place.
The writer Holger Kersten provided some
research to buttress his points (which otherwise are tenuous) in
the Penguin book Jesus Lived In India. He attributes “the
worldwide spread of Buddhism, even before the pre-Christian era” to
the Indian ruler Ashoka, who lived circa 273–232
B.C., and who sent Buddhist missionaries along the Silk Route to as
far away as Egypt, Syria, and Greece. The Buddha himself was said
to have instructed, “Go, O monks, and travel afar, for the benefit
and welfare of many, out of compassion for the world…”
Buddha, like Jesus, had kept on the move, traversing “the entire
length of the mid-Ganges basin,” says Kersten.
At various times during the history of Buddhism, “the Indies
basin, the upper Ganges basin and the Deccan” were invaded by
“Hellenic Bactrians of the 2nd Century B.C., and the Scythians and
Parthians in the 1st Century B.C. … The Scythian rulers of the
Kushan dynasty themselves encouraged the spread of Buddhism after
their own conversion.”
Kersten’s tracing of cross-fertilization between cultures of the
East and Near East, centuries before Jesus’ birth, is reflected in
the book of Acts (2:9): Parthians (and “residents of Asia”) were
among those “staying in Jerusalem,” even after the crucifixion,
this New Testament book says.
Similarly, the Quaker Albert Edmunds, a
translator who worked with both Greek and Pali texts, reported on
research that was available when he wrote Buddhist and
Christian Gospels, in 1908.
He noted that a German New Testament scholar had initiated such
comparisons before him, in 1867, because “These parallels [between
Buddhist and Christian scriptures] have aroused the interest of New
Testament scholars…[since they] belong to a world of [spiritual]
thought which the whole East had in common.”
Edmunds says that
Ashoka (or Asoka) sent Buddhist “missionaries” to
five Greek emperors, including Antiochus, Ptolemy and Alexander,
between 262–258 B.C.; thus they would have entered Athens, Antioch,
and Alexandria. Ptolemy had funded a Greek translation of the
Jewish Pentateuch, and reportedly was interested in a similar
project about Hindu scriptures.
Cross-culturally, Edmunds said that Greek forces inhabited the
Punjab, of the Brahmins, around 110 B.C.
In the 2nd Century B.C., there were “Hindu mahouts on the
elephants of the Syrian Army.”
In the 1st Century B.C., the Roman poet Horace
mentions an Indian embassy to the first Roman emperor,
Augustus, in 17 B.C.—only a short time before the
birth of Jesus.
The Greek geographer Strabo noted, according to Edmunds: “at the
time of Christ, the intercourse [East/Near East] was at its
height.”
And later, Clement of Alexandria, toward the
end of the 2nd Century C.E., knew of Hindu “philosophers…who obey
the precepts of Buddha.”
In any event, it is noteworthy that the author of the Gospel
of Matthew did not suppose that his readers would have any
difficulty in accepting the arrival, in Judea, of “wise men” (Magi)
from the East, from far enough away to need to navigate by the
stars (2:1-12) at the time of Jesus’ birth.
It is interesting, in this natal tale, that the first
of those to recognize the true nature of Jesus were from
the East.
How unlikely is it that Jesus might have been influenced by
teachings that preceded him by centuries? Consider this
comparison:
Said to be a contemporary of Jesus, Apollonius of
Tyana, an “itinerant sage,” is known to have been an
exponent of the teachings of Pythagoras, who was born circa 521
B.C. (about 40 years before Buddha).
After receiving an education in the Greek city of Tarsus,
Apollonius then traveled to Babylon, an account says, to 
study with the Magi.
Then he went to India to learn first-hand the teachings of the
Brahmans. Returning to the coast of northern
Syria, Anatolia and Greece, he lead a circle of disciples as a holy
man. He also traveled to Rome, Sicily, Spain and visited the “naked
sages” of Upper Egypt. Then he lived for the rest of his life in
Asia Minor, and died in 96 C.E. ¹
However, whether Jesus was influenced by the nondual winds of
the East, one needs to consider that there have been the
spontaneous awakenings of self-realized sages chronicled in
widespread places and times throughout written history —from
Buddha, as an example in ancient times, to Ramana
Maharshi, as a paragon in modern times.
What later became known as gnosis would have been known
in Buddha’s times as jnana (ya-na); both mean “knowledge,” in the
sense of “wisdom,” and are evidently related words from the same
root.
The meaning of jnana, summarized in an encyclopedia, is
the “eradication of the ignorance that sees the illusory
multiplicity of the world as real, by attainment of knowledge of
the Self [Absolute],” which is regarded as “a single fundamental
reality,” by the presence of which “there is no real distinction
between the soul [or self] and God.”
As has been
said by Ramana Maharshi:
“It is due to
illusion—caused by the ego, the ‘I am the body’ idea—that
the kingdom of God is conceived to be elsewhere.”
And the late
Jiddu Krishnamurti, a “spiritual philosopher” who
reported a spontaneous enlightenment experience, once made this
statement—apparently independently, although it could fit easily
into The Gospel of Thomas:
“Under every stone and leaf, that
which is eternal exists. But we do not know how to look for it. Our
minds and hearts are filled with other things than the
understanding of ‘what is’.”
And this is from The Gospel of
Thomas:
Where ‘me’ is the eternal All…
¹ Like Jesus, he practiced exorcism and
reportedly revived the dead; and, like Jesus, an account of his
life didn’t appear until well after his death. His followers and
those of Jesus knew each other, and debated their leader’s
merits.
§
Over the years, I have casually collected material from a myriad
of sources that elucidated what can be known of what is called the
“historical Jesus”. My interest in the facts of Jesus’ life (and
the authenticity of his pronouncements) long predated my
introduction to the non-Christian scriptures of the East, such as
Buddhism, Taoism, and Advaita. After all, I was raised (and
baptized at 13) as a Baptist.
When I first came across a translation of The Gospel of
Thomas, I wanted to determine how that testament of Jesus’
“unknown” sayings contributed to the overall picture of who Jesus
was, and what he had taught.
A friend, a (now deceased) professor who retired to Australia,
asked me to write for him–from that unorganized file I had
collected —what to me appeared to be the answer to the question of
how The Gospel of Thomas informed our
understanding of the historical Jesus and his message.
Originally I wrote only the section “Commentary on Verses” which
gives my annotation on each aphorism in Thomas.
The next question followed though: If these are authentic
sayings of Jesus, why were they not in public circulation until
1945? And another significant question needed to be answered: Why
would anyone conclude that they are authentic scriptures?
These questions led to writing “The Fifth Gospel”
material.
The value of my compilation, I feel, is that it may be of
service in drawing attention to the importance of not relegating
the “gnostic” Jesus to a dismissive category. There’s something of
invaluable significance that’s been overlooked, so far, in the
academic and scholarly biblical discussion. That’s why this
manuscript was composed.
During Robert’s travels he has labored as an
auto assembly line worker in Detroit, as a carnival worker, a
journalist in New York City, on a farm of a Zen community in
California, as a landscaper, a financial consultant, a janitor.
After living in the Mendocino area for about twenty years he bought
a camper van and moved to a property in a redwood forest where he
studied the inner life intensely.
Something fell into place there after a number of years, and out
of that period of solitude, Robert began writing and sharing his
observations on the reality that surrounds and includes us. Shortly
afterwards, Robert moved to Ojai, California where he continues to
live and write.
A longer memoir that recounts Robert’s nondual journey is
available here: “Awakening to Living in the Present Moment”.
You might also like to visit Robert’s website here: Living Nonduality or email Robert:
[email protected]
