gospel of Thomas 8

And he said, "The man is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of small fish. Among them the wise fisherman found a fine large fish. He threw all the small fish back into the sea and chose the large fish without difficulty. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear."

Here is a lovely, simple teaching from Jesus. In commenting on it, I'll start at the end – Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear. This is Jesus' way of saying, this is a parable. If you can understand it, great. Otherwise, well, don't worry, better luck next time. If you have ears to hear, if you can understand what Jesus is pointing at with the parable, then pay attention to it. It's his way of inviting us to look into what he has said. To feel our way into it. Not take it too literally, but rather allow our intuition to have a feel of the words. And see if we can understand the message that is behind the words.

Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear. And it's also a way of acknowledging that we can only really understand spiritual teachings when we are ready to. No master can force us to understand. He can present the message, in whatever way he manages. But that's all he can do. He cannot force the rest of us to drink. He cannot force the rest of us to discover who we really are. It has to come in its own time. When the time is right.

Now to the parable. A fisherman has pulled up his net, and it is full of small fish. But amongst them, there is one fine large fish. So he simply throws back all the small fish, and keeps this large one. It stands out easily. He chooses it without any difficulty whatsoever.

This is a nice little parable. And what Jesus is saying is that you won't have any difficulty in recognising the truth. You won't have any difficulty in recognising when you are enlightened. Beforehand – before enlightenment, before we have tasted the truth – all we know is small fish. The small fry of life. Money and jobs, houses and cars, sex, relationships. All these mundane things of life: there's nothing wrong with them. But they are small fry. 

Yet, whilst we only know the small fish, they take on an importance which has no reality to it. We just haven't seen the large fish yet. We don't know anything about it. We cannot imagine that it exists. And of course, knowing only the small fish, which all look about the same size, how do we choose between them? Our imagination, creative though it is, can only conjure up the ideas of more small fish.

Even our idea of enlightenment sees it as yet another small fish. What else can our imagination conjure up? It knows only the small. It is stuck in the world of small fry. We are stuck in the world of small fry. Until one day, the net comes in, and there is something else in it, something else that stands out a mile away. It is of completely different character than the small fry. It is the large fish. The large fish of truth. The large fish, of our natural being. The large fish of enlightenment.

Before we have seen it, we will ask the teachers, the masters, how will we recognise it, how will we know? But when we see it, there is no doubt. That large fish is easily chosen. It is of a completely different quality to the small fry that we have been obsessed with for so long.

So here, Jesus is just giving us a little confidence, that when the time comes – when we haul in the net and the large fish is there – we will know it. And we will not have to ask for any confirmation from anyone. There will be no difficulty in choosing the large fish.