The Widening

We are experiencing the dizzy disorientation of the widening out of our sacred tradition at its base. The new texts of early Christianity, which are now in our possession, force us to expand our understanding of what the original wisdom of Yeshua consisted. The canonical Gospels with which we are already familiar were the necessary limitation of that teaching based upon the authors’ limited ability to hear or understand the original depth. So now we struggle to expand and include texts like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the Gospel of Philip—all containing fresh and powerful streams of understanding that were said to have originated in the insights and vision of Yeshua.

One small example of this is the following text from the Gospel of Thomas:

Yeshua says, “Give attention to the Living Presence while you are alive so that when you die and have the desire to do so, you may have the power to attend.”
--Logion 59

In this saying Yeshua introduces the practice of attention as a means of establishing the power of Presence in ones current life as necessary for making the transition to the next. This concept and teaching is entirely missing from the Gospels with which we are familiar, but it appears to be an early and important teaching of Yeshua. To miss it or fail to understand it, is to misunderstand the practical nature of Yeshua’s instructions. He instructs us to learn here, in this world, the practice of attending to Presence (or the “Power of Now” as the popular writer, Eckhart Tolle, has expressed it). Our views of early Christian wisdom are widening out in new and important ways.