gospel of Thomas 19

Jesus said, "Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being. If you become my disciples and listen to my words, these stories will minister to you. For there are five trees for you in Paradise which remain undisturbed summer and winter and whose leaves do not fall. Whoever becomes acquainted with them will not experience death."

Here, Jesus is talking as a mystic, in the language of a mystic. And of course, to the rational mind it sounds like nonsense. His words cannot be comprehended that way. That is the way of the mystics: to talk in paradox. For what they are hinting at is beyond the rational mind. It is not of words at all.

And yet here, Jesus is using words to try and point us at that paradoxical space of life. Jesus said, blessed is he who came into being before he came into being. What does it mean? How can someone come into being before they come into being? It makes no sense. And yet, for a mystic, it makes perfect sense.

Before you were born, life existed. There was a flow. Existence was already dancing. And the energy which you now consider to be you – a little separate individual being – that energy was already part of existence. That energy has always been part of existence. It came into being at the dawn of time. And that energy – which for the moment, for the blink of an eye which we call a lifetime, for the moment feels itself to be a separate being – that energy is timeless, eternal, a part of existence. And this feeling of a separate being, which we take so seriously and get so worked up about, it is just a feeling – really, an illusion, a story.

For that which we are, came into being long, long ago. And that is why, Jesus says, blessed is he who came into being before he came into being. Actually, we all came into being before we came into being. Before we were conceived and born. So we are all blessed.

But we are even more blessed when we realise all this. And then, birth does not carry the same significance. That is why Jesus says, if you become my disciples and listen to my words, these stories will minister to you. These stories of Jesus will help us to realise a different perspective: a perspective which goes beyond the personal, beyond this little story of me, which started when I was conceived and will end when I die. If we are stuck in this story, believing it, feeling ourself to be that, then we suffer. We suffer in innumerable ways. And that is why the sayings of Jesus will minister to us. They will relieve that suffering, bring us to a point where that suffering ceases. They will heal us, if we can listen.

Jesus says there are five trees for you in paradise which remain undisturbed summer and winter and whose leaves do not fall. Living in this manifest world, all is changing. In the summer, the leaves hang on the trees, and in autumn they fall, and winter comes. The passing of the seasons is the feeling of our life, our life being lived out. Everything changing, moving.

And yet, in paradise there are trees which remain undisturbed, summer and winter, Jesus says. Yes, there's a part of us which is the absolute, unchanging, eternal. And feeling that part of us, we find that we are living in paradise, paradise here on Earth.

The two are not incompatible: the changing world of the manifest, and the unchanging. And once we have tasted the unchanging, once we know of it for ourselves, from our own experience, then the seasons take on a new beauty. Everything in the manifest world becomes perfect as it is in the moment. And we need not cling to any of it, not even our own life.

And this is why Jesus says whoever becomes acquainted with those trees in paradise will not experience death. It does not mean that you will live forever in this physical body. No. In that sense, we all die, sooner or later. What Jesus means, is that that part of you which is of the absolute, and has been there since the beginning of time – a part of existence, a part of the energy of all that is – that part does not come and go. It is not born and does not die. And after your physical death, that energy will continue as part of existence.

You will not be there as an individual, with your own personal story, your own personal sensations, thoughts, emotions. No, all that will finish. But it won't be a problem for you. It won't be a problem for existence. The energy in you which is of importance, which is of significance, is the energy of life itself. And that will return to the great ocean of existence when you die physically. And if you become acquainted with the absolute, with those trees in paradise, if you become acquainted with them whilst you yet live, then you will not experience death. Because you will already have let go of everything that is individual to you. And it is that which dies with the body. So let go of it all now. There is nothing there but illusion.