gospel of Thomas 18

The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be."

Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."

The disciples are asking about death. How's it all going to end, this life? What happens when we die? And rather than giving a simple answer, Jesus points out, that the end does not really make much sense unless we are familiar with the beginning.

So he asks, have you discovered then? Have you discovered the beginning? And of course, the disciples won't have. What is the beginning? Is it birth? Is it conception, the moment that the sperm enters the egg and they fuse? Is that our beginning?

Of course, no one has a conscious memory of that. But that is not the beginning that Jesus is talking about. That is the beginning of the physical form of this body. And death is the counterpart, the end of this physical body, as a living organism. The two go together: birth and death. Or rather, conception and death, to be more precise.

But Jesus is not overly concerned with conception or with death. But he is pointing out to the disciples, if you really want to know where you are going to end, that may be in the future, you have no access to it. But you do have access to the beginning, to the source, whence you came. But he's not talking about conception. He's talking about the source of all that is. That which is the beginning. It is our essence. It is that point within us, which is not yet manifest.

'Tis the unmanifest, waiting to come into being. It is a point of energy, full of potential. Anything can come from it. And everything does.

This is the beginning. This is the beginning of this moment, right now. What you are in this moment is being created this moment, from that beginning, from that place within us, which is the creative force; which is existence coming into being through us, as us, moment to moment.

This is what Jesus is pointing at. He's saying, look for the beginning. Look for the source of all that is. And then you won't worry about the end. The end is that source as well. Of course, everything disappears back into that energy when its time has passed. In fact, in this very moment, you are disappearing back into the source, at the same time as you are being recreated from it. There is no you, other than this dance, in and out; energy emerging from that great source of all it is, from the essence, from God.

And the energy is also pouring back into that space as the moment passes. This is the endless dance. It is timeless. It is eternal.

And once you have felt something within you of this essence, once you have acknowledged it within yourself – your own divinity – once you have seen that everything you are, is a part of existence, then what is there to worry about? You certainly won't worry about death anymore. You won't worry about the end.

And the way Jesus puts it is beautiful: Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning. In other words, we can return home to that place within us, which is the source, and feel it to be our centre; feel it to be who we really are. Not this individuality, the personality, our identity as an individual human being. That's not who we really are. That is just the dance of existence manifesting. It is beautiful. It is to be enjoyed, appreciated. But it is non-essential. It is not who we really are.

So Jesus says blessed is he who takes his place in the beginning, that is, he who returns to his true nature, to his essence. Blessed is he. He will know the end. Yes. The self has come to an end. The ego, the idea of oneself, all the illusions one has about oneself – all that is finished, over. That has come to an end.

And he knows that with that ending we are back in the truth of who we really are, back in the essence. We have returned home.

He will know the end, and he will not experience death. The body will still die. The physical body is going to die. But it is a question of who is experiencing it. If we still feel ourself to be the personality, the ego – if we still have that, at the moment of death, then the ego is experiencing death at that time. But one who has gone beyond, whilst still alive, one for whom the ego has dropped away, one who has no idea of himself at all anymore – who is there to experience death? There is no one left to experience death.

And one such as this is blessed. For not only does he not have any fear of death – cannot be touched by it in that way, cannot tremble before death – not only that, but he is really alive, here in the moment. He is the blessed one. And that is your state, your natural state, once you have come home, once you are back in the beginning of all that is.