gospel of Thomas 97

Jesus said, "The kingdom of the father is like a certain woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking on the road, still some distance from home, the handle of the jar broke and the meal emptied out behind her on the road. She did not realise it; she had noticed no accident. When she reached her house, she set the jar down and found it empty."

I am smiling, having read this parable from the Gospel of Thomas, for two diametrically opposed interpretations have popped into my mind.

The first is that the meal, that has been lost, represents the divine within us. We have lost touch with the divine. And for many of us, we do not even realise we have lost something. And that's a tragic situation to be in. If we realise we have lost something, and have some memory of what it was, we can start looking for it again. But if we do not even realise we have lost something – that the source of our nourishment is missing – then we will become malnourished, without having any idea why. We will not even begin to look. Or if we do look, we will be looking in the wrong place for the wrong thing. So this was one interpretation.

But there's another interpretation, which I prefer, and which I think Jesus may have been intending, because he says the kingdom of the father is like the woman. The woman is carrying this meal. And then it slowly empties itself out on the road, without her even noticing. And when she gets home and looks in the jar, it is empty. And this is what is bound to happen to our idea of ourself, if we follow the spiritual path.

To begin with, we have an ego: a personality that we believe in, we identify with; we think it has substance. And through spiritual seeking and practice, that sense of self begins to dissolve. But typically, we do not even realise it is dissolving. We are just living in the moment, day by day. We probably don't think much is happening. There may not be any obvious signs of change at all.

But deep inside, a process is occurring. And it's not really one of gaining anything. We are, on this journey, losing something. But that something which we are losing is detrimental, so it is good that we are losing it. Our sense of a separate self is a misconception, and it reduces our ability to enjoy life, and to be at peace. It separates us from other people, and the rest of life. And then we set about trying to bridge that gulf that we ourselves have created. It's an impossible task, using the methods that most people try to use: using relationship, or status in society, or money, anything, people will try to use, to fill that void, to try and bridge the gulf of separation.

But on the spiritual journey we take a different approach. We sit quietly, or practice some other spiritual method. And slowly, slowly, behind the scenes, our sense of separation – our feeling of being a small, separate human being, cut off from the rest of life – that identity with the personality begins to be eroded. It starts to disappear.

So one day, perhaps, by chance, we look inside, inside the jar that is our being. And all we find is emptiness. But through that emptiness, we touch the whole of existence; not just touch: we are the whole of existence.