This saying is so beautiful and simple and it expresses the core of what Jesus is to us, in a way that would be immediately comfortable to anyone who has studied A Course In Miracles. He is the elder brother who has gone before us, who has remembered what we are spirit, and the wholeness of God's Son, where all is one and we know we are one and whole. The Love of the Father was extended to him, and so he knows what it is to be filled with light, by remembering that wholeness. However if we are "divided" i.e. believe we can exist separate from God, conducting these dream-lives of ours in the world, we will be filled with darkness, because we will not remember the light and the wholeness of heaven while we're playing at being somebody in this world. It is all very straightforward and plain for anyone to see.

So, Jesus holds out a simple choice, either we follow him back to the light, or we follow the ego, and stay in division and separation, and live in darkness. That's how simple it gets, and that's how you know what time it is.

Logion 59 speaks of "not putting off until tomorrow what you can do today" namely accepting the atonement for yourself.

The terminology this Logion uses - looking on "The Living One" is evocative, and more neutral than"Jesus," and yet more concrete than "the Holy Spirit," for the "Living One" surely is a good indication for Jesus who calls himself (in A Course in Miracles), the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Here is what it says:

This statement simply breaks the ego's spell of time and space by saying in effect, do not buy into the ego's strategy, which always is to have you think there's a future that will be better, and somehow that you can get tomorrow what you need. Jesus's point is that the only time to change your mind is in the now. Putting it off till tomorrow does only one thing, it ensures there will be more of the same. Thus, just like there is  "no life outside of Heaven," (ACIM), the only time to choose is now.

Logion 58 is fascinating, because it put forgiveness center stage. The terms doe come up elsewhere in the Jesus literature, but it was not till modern times, in A Course in Miracles, that things really get rolling on the forgiveness front. The reason for this is made clear in Gary Renards's Book The Disappearance of the Universe, rather early on. There Pursah basically explains that within the development of the world, some of the explanation was not all that easy until after Shakespeare, and modern psychology, not to mention quantum mechanics and so on. She in fact makes the statement that it was more rewarding to follow Jesus in this lifetime, after A Course in Miracles, than it was 2000 years ago, for that reason. Ken Wapnick has frequently pointed out the same thing. Hence the explanation of forgiveness in the Course is so important.

In simple terms, what the forgiveness process of A Course in Miracles entails is a three step process, and it is not at all your grandfather's kind of forgiveness. The traditional notion of forgiveness is really the ego's arrogance, playing wolf in sheep's clothing, for it says I'm so much better (holier, saintlier) than you, I can afford to forgive you, so the whole blackjack game of passing the guilt around continues (read Dan Greenberg's How to be a Jewish mother, if you're in doubt as to how it works). So, contrary to the traditional ditty, it's really guilt that makes the world go round, and what the world calls "love" is really nothing but a cover over love and a way of making the other party feel guilty. And again, if in doubt, check out this scene on YouTube, in Divorce Court of TP Lucas and his wife Rashida Lucas, and the 2nd episode here. This story makes no sense, unless you begin to fathom the dynamics of guilt, and how relationships are forged around bonds of guilt and not of love. Being "too loving" can be impossible to take, if you have a strong sense of guilt, so that love can be very threatening, which is also the theme of Dan Greenberg's gem of a book. So, for the person with lousy self-esteem (strong guilt feelings), love can be threatening, etc. Traditional forgiveness in this context is just another form of being "too loving," for it shoves the guilt back at the other person, and it is an attack. Again, this is a game of blackjack, and the last remaining holder of the guilt (black jack) loses.

Forgiveness as Jesus means it is different, and with the in depth explanation of it in A Course in Miracles -- and some people have referred to this as Quantum Forgiveness -- it becomes clear why in Logion 58, Jesus says that those who forgive, have "found life," for "life" is not this soap opera of resentments from the past which are artificially kept alive, and which we call "my life." Jesus's brand of forgiveness involves an understanding that we can never be upset at a fact, but only at an interpretation of, or an emotion about, a fact. Further, what is required, is an understanding, at least a beginning glimpse of the mechanism of guilt, and how we're all constantly accusing each other in some way, shape or form for the ontological guilt which results from the fact of taking ourselves too seriously, as in thinking that we exist. Ever since then we're engaged in this soap opera which we call life, where we pass the guilt around. But at some point you may begin to sense that you're really accusing the other of something that you are secretly blaming yourself for, perhaps in a different way. And it dawns on us sometimes by the time we begin to catch ourselves in certain repeating patterns in our lives. The woman who had seven abusive relationships in a row, finally goes to see a therapist, who helps her start to see that she picked them herself, so that she needs to focus on changing herself, not on fixing them, for that only sets her up to repeat the pattern, and so on... So, while the ego is always self-righteous about its position, forgiveness begins when we become willing to doubt if we were "right:"

1. Thus the first step of forgiveness is to wonder in the words of the Course: "Would I accuse myself of this?" This way, we stop projecting and start wondering about our own part in the situation.
2. Looking at the situation with Jesus or the Holy Spirit (or whoever works for you in that role), which means to overlook it, see it for what it is without judgment, for the "judgment" of Jesus and the Holy Spirit is total love - nothing happened, just a silly mistake, which you can let go now.
3. To let the situation go in the hands of the Holy Spirit, and wait until you know what is the most loving thing to do, which will often be nothing, until you are sure of what you should do.

Here is how the Course says it:

The introduction to the Course  speaks of the "obstacles to love's presence" which we need to clear up with forgiveness. Every unforgiveness is such an obstacle, a maladaptive self defense, which would be unnecessary, if only we remembered who we are as spirit, as the Son of God. Forgiveness is the process of letting down our defenses, stopping to defend our silly ego identity, and along with that the memory of our immortal reality is restored to us, so we return home to the awareness that what we really are is pure spirit, and the Son of God, and the Kingdom of God is then indeed our "natural inheritance," as the introduction to the Course calls it. Logion 58 speaks of having found "life," which is the same thing. In the words of the Course, "there is no life outside of Heaven." So when Jesus speaks of life, he is not talking about this shabby existence on this planet, but about the real life of the spirit, in Heaven.

The phrase in the title is from Ken Wapnick, and it is one of my favorites from his repertoire.

You could go one step further and say that the ego creates the problem and offers solutions which ensure the continuity of the problem. Namely, at an abstract level, to follow the basic metaphysics of A Course In Miracles, all the ego is, is the thought of separation, the thought that I could be separate from my source in God. The Course calls that the "tiny, mad idea." Our only problem is that we think it is real, because we have identified ourselves with the thought, and dreamed up a life full of problems, all of which attest to the fact that I'm real, my problems are real, and there really is a world out there, with a past, present, and future, and in which I'm rooted in fear, because I think I've sinned in the past (after all I think I exist, so I offed God), so I feel guilty in the present (about my sin), and I'm afraid of the future - really because I'm now afraid of God.

Reading this little book by Jeff Foster, has been great, simply because he's coming in from a very different direction, and yet, the way he phrases himself is very recognizable for anyone who seriously studies the Course. Everyone's path is different, and that's fine, but it does help sometimes to see how things can reinforce one another. Unsurprisingly perhaps, Jeff Foster got a lot of inspiration from Krishnamurti, Sri Ramana Maharshi, en Sri Nisirgadatta Maharaj. Certainly the first two were very important pre-cursors to the Course. For one thing Helen and Bill were very fond of the work of Sri Ramana Maharshi, and Helen also was fond of the work of Sri Ramakrishna. This little book is so clear, it could really help a lot of people cut through the clutter of the endless shelves of pretend spiritual literature of today. It's all much simpler than anybody thinks, and in the end it all boils down to the insight that the solutions we come up with merely make real the problem we think we see, so it becomes a chicken and egg situation, and the only way out is to realize that the whole thing is a joke. A Course in Miracles may be a way out for some people, at least it seems to be, but nothing works for everybody. Many people are finding a lot of help with Eckhart Tolle at the moment. It all does not matter, whatever works for you is fine.

In terms of the Thomas Gospel there are numerous statements which chime in with the notion that we'll be happier if we stop trying to solve the nonexistent problems, which merely perpetuate the problem. We cannot choose the solution because that reaffirms the problem. And so the path in one form or another is one of undoing, since we are already there. Logion 1, right away implies the possibility of a pretty disruptive perception shift, so does Logion 2, and this theme really plays throughout all the sayings. Clearly Jesus looks at things a bit different than we are wont to do, and he's trying to get us to see it his way. Logion 3 introduces the very clear notion that the Kingdom is within, and not a far away travel destination. Then it introduces the clarification that it revolves around knowing yourself, and that when we truly know who we are (spirit!) we will know that we are one. In recent posts I have been discussing several other Logia where the notion of the immediacy of the Kingdom, such as Logion 51, comes up.

Again, Jeff Foster writes about similar notions without any particular reference to the Course, but it may be interesting to some students as a conceptual parallel, and in a very condensed form, yet very simple, straightforward, and accessible. In short, this little book comes highly recommended.

Logion 54, is another gem, and a "prequel" to the NT, because it is quoted in the canonical gospel literature (Mt 5:3, Lk 6:20). And it has caused its fair share of misunderstandings by being taken literally, all of which revolves around guilt. Within the Jesus material this expression "poor" is obviously closely related to the idea of "rich" as in why a "rich man" is unlikely to enter the Kingdom. What Jesus evidently is talking about is riches and poverty in worldly terms, but he never addresses the physical, the specific, the concrete - he warns us all along that it all comes to us ("those outside") in parables - so he is talking about "valuing the valueless," as the expression goes in the Course. I.e. we spend most of our time being rich in the things of the world, which are worthless, not just possessions, but especially special relationships. They are valuable to us because they reconfirm the false self. Thus the ego reckons them to be of value. The subtle difference here is that you can be wealthy and not very attached to money, or wealthy and be a miserable scrooge. So none of this is about the amount of things anyone possesses, but about how much stock he sets in the things of the world. Simply therefore, the more we value the things of the world, the more we block ourselves from the Kingdom - it just all gets in the way.

Another way of looking at this misunderstanding, is that it's part of the ego's basic lack of comprehension, because within the framework of the dualistic consciousness of this world of time and space, it is bound to take the appearance at face value, because not to do so necessitates questioning the ego itself, which is a no no (to the ego). This is why Jesus says, that to "those outside" it all comes in parables, for unless we are "inside" with Jesus, we are destined to take this world literally. When we join with Jesus (in the mind) and "follow him" (in the mind), we will see that everything in the dualistic world is just a symbol, and it's up to the chooser if we want to be in hell and choose to look at it with the ego, or if we want to play with the nice kids in Heaven, and look at it with the eyes of the Holy Spirit, or Jesus.

"Poor" therefore in the context of this saying is similar in meaning to the "alone" we've found elsewhere. It is like the cleaning out the Augias stables in Greek mythology, just ridding ourselves of all the extra baggage which is holding us back. This is what the forgiveness process of the Course is all about as well. It's those attachments to "old stuff" which are the "obstacles to love's presence," which the Course talks about, and as long as we cling to them, we shut ourselves out of the Kingdom. The story of the ego, is simply a pile of resentments from an imaginary past (for it does not exist except in my memory), which in catch-22 manner, which would do Yossarian proud, are used to replace our vision in the present with the perception based on the past, thus justifying decisions in the presence which reinforce the ego and the separation, and thus validate the past. When we no longer choose for the past and the ego, the Kingdom is simply ours, for it always was, we simply suffered a bout of amnesia while we followed the pied piper that is the ego.

In short, Jesus meant "poor" as not invested in the values of the world, which would make us rich in the eyes of the world, but poor in spirit, for they are the idols which are the ego's magical spell, which keeps the spirit outside. Conversely "poor" in worldly attachments, would make us "rich" in spirit, for ours is the Kingdom.

If the ego is a maladaptive solution to a non-existing problem (one of my favorite expressions from Ken Wapnick - see him here on Self-sabotage), then the game of expectations is a beautiful variant of how the ego's slight of hand works. It really works like a bad management consultant who first charges you money to steal your information, and then turns around and sells you their solution to a problem you never had. Logion 51 is all about that. It is yet another way that Jesus points out in the poignant praphrasings of the Thomas Gospel how the Kingdom is not elsewhere, but it is right here, except we don't see it.There are numerous ways that this theme comes up in the Thomas Gospel, and it has interesting parallels in the Course. Logion 3 is another powerful expression of the same idea. The whole point is that the Kingdom is within, and it is only our choice for the ego that shuts us out, conversely it is our choice for the Holy Spirit or Jesus, by which we become chosen, simply because we'll remember that we always were. We set up the problem we are trying to solve, and the harder we try to solve it, the more we'll have it. Here is one way this is addressed in the Course:

So, we are the ones who chose the separation, which is why we don't "see the Kingdom," for the attack we see, is a mere reflection of our own self-attack in choosing the separation, which never happened in the first place. Just like with banging your head against the wall - it feels so good when you stop - as soon as we stop choosing the separation, our eyes will open to the reality of what the Course calls "the real world." Finally the Course also says this:

"It is a journey without distance, to a goal that has never changed," the Kingdom is all around you, except you don't see it. Instead, what we do is re-enacting the separation constantly, and reinforcing the ego's presumed "sin" because we want to keep the ego alive, because we are thinking in our deluded state that we are our ego. Again, here is how the Course describes the psychological dynamic of how we keep the ego alive, and ourselves in hell:

So the undoing of the question is in stopping with banging your head against the wall, or in this case stopping with empowering your ego, by voting HS instead, and the subtlety which the Course teaches is that the Holy Spirit does not appear on the ballot in this world, and we choose Him by not voting EGO. That's as simple as it gets. Simple, if not always easy. Jesus does believe in truth in advertising, but at times he does take poetic license with us, but always with the ultimate goal of getting us to smile at our own silliness. The Course again:

Logion 49 is certainly one that makes you stop and think. It picks up some familiar themes. To be "alone and chosen" is a curious expression, at least at first.

Evidently Jesus was much misunderstood by being taken too literally at a lot of levels, and this word "alone" ties in to some of them. The clue lies in such things as Logion 113, which plays upon a familiar theme of looking without seeing, by pointing out that the Kingdom is not some place else or in the distance, but rather it is all around us but we're not seeing it. As A Course in Miracles makes very clear in different ways, one of our problems is that we value the valueless, that we invest in the wrong stuff, the things of the world. And one of our key techniques of shutting out God and his Kingdom is through special relationships, so we should not be "alone." Which then was mistaken as an instruction that we should renounce the world, and later this was combined in monastic life with celibacy - an invention of the 11th century, by the way. It's just one of the many ways in which the ego demontrates how it is a maladaptive solution to a non-existent problem (as Ken Wapnick likes to call it), or to put it differently, how we validate the problem and make it real by means of our solution. But Jesus quite apparently was among people and was married (to Mary Magdalen), but what he explained in the famous statement which is Logion 99 in the Thomas collection, in which he ignores the "special relationships" of the world, and emphasizes that those who do the will of the Father are his brothers, and sisters, and his mother. In short he is not invested in specialness, but in our spiritual brotherhood, in joining in the sonship, and his mission was to invite us to do the same.

Thus by being "alone" in that sense, of "not invested in specialness," i.e. all that values the ego, which constantly needs to be validated by specialness, we are available to hear what A Course in Miracles calls the Voice for God, the voice of the Holy Spirit. This is also why the Course is very clear that the way out is not to go sit in a cave in the Himalayas, but rather to accept all our relationships as a classroom for going home, if we give them to the Holy Spirit, instead of letting the ego run the show. Thus, being "alone" in this sense of not being "busy" with the world, we are free for our mind to tune in to radio station WHS, instead of WEGO (that's a Gloria Wapnick special), which we've done most of our lives, and which had made us miserable. And again "the chosen ones, are merely the ones who choose right sooner." (ACIM:T-3.IV.7:14), and we are thus chosen by choosing to listen to that Voice.

Logion 40 is one of the "prequels" (to use the expression of Pursah, in Gary Renard's books) of a saying that we find in the New Testament literature. In this case, a variation on the statement comes back in Matthew 15:13, where it is bundled with some other sayings material, and made into a story in the style that is familiar from the synoptic gospels. They always tell a story around the saying.

The basic image is clear enough, the vine planted "outside the father" is not strong, it cannot be, and it "will be pulled up by its roots and die."

God is our source, and the ego's basic premise of an independent existence, outside of God, is not a viable proposition, it cannot be, or as the Course puts it:

This is one of the clearest statements in the Thomas Gospel on the notion that the ego's thought system simply does not work, and just so as the history of the Course makes it clear, which is also validated by people who have the experience in their own lives, we do not start looking for "another way," until we are quite at our wits' end with our way, and the ways of the world, and we become truly motivated and open for the alternative.

There is a fun little book I've been reading lately which demonstrates this issue very humorously, which is listed above. It is a hilarious and psychologically very astute look at why we strive for unhappiness, even though we pretend otherwise, because denial is the best cover over the ego's defense mechanisms. Of course there area many books, movies and statements which document in various ways how the ego system does not work, take your pick, some are ponderous, but many are quite funny, starting with Groucho Marx's notion that he would not belong to any club that would have him as a member (which is quoted in this little book as well). It's good to stop taking it so seriously, and focus on the real work which is the practice of forgiveness.

In the Thomas Gospel, inter alia Logion 56 offers an interesting corollary to the present statement. The notion that the world is merely a corpse, and that once you get that, you've transcended it, lines up perfectly with the tenor of Logion 40. Basically it helps to fully understand that the ego system is insane, there's no point to making it work, since the outcome is death anyway. The only thing that trips us up is that we just automatically slip into identifying with our roles in the world again, and this is why Jesus advocates a change of mine, and that we join with him in seeking only his Kingdom which is not of this world. The ego is always afraid that we will die if we let go of our attachment to this world, which is not true, and it's logic is completely unsound, for death is the certain outcome of the ego's proposition, yet it tries to scare us with the fear of death. The greatest risk of letting go of our attachments to the things of the world is of course peace, and happiness, which therefore the ego wants to avoid at all costs. Watzlawick's book ends as follows:

Or, as A Course in Miracles would have it:

Hopelessly simple indeed.

That is the Biblical version most of us will be familiar with. Here is the same passage in full in the KJV:

As per usual, the sayings are more "dressed up" and put in a context of a story in the canonical gospels. Logion 36 is the oldest known version of the statement. It is very basic:

This is one of those statements which has immediate appeal, and which kind of stays with you. It obviously does not mean to just live it up and not worry about tomorrow. What it does mean is that on the spiritual path we need not worry about the outside appearances, giving us for inspiration the image of the lilies of the field in their natural beauty. Worrying, which we are inclined to do constantly, is the ego's favorite tool to counter the "Development of Trust" as the Course calls it, which is perhaps the central process in our learning to change our life in the direction of total reliance on our Internal Teacher. Here is a key section:

When we learn to live from spirit we are aligning ourselves with the cause, for the world is just the stage, the projection screen where the play plays itself out, but the mind is the cause. Choosing the separation, we made ourselves into the center of a universe, and everything else became a sort of a remote threat over which we no longer have any control. When we reawaken to spirit, we are aligning ourselves with cause in the mind. So no longer would we waste our time rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, we would naturally also have the total trust, for we know that the things of the phenomenal world are only the out-picturing of a state of mind, and we can learn to change our state of mind. Hence, there is nothing left to worry about. Only in our separated state is there anything out there that could threaten us.

There are several other Logia which strike related themes. Logion 89 comes to mind - it deals with our focus on the outside (form) before the content. Also, Logion 97 pictures in a humorous way, how we will end up empty handed whenever we focus on the outside (form), and focus on preserving it, while losing the content, the meaning, the essence, the spirit. This is forever a fundamental signal of the ego, and the development of trust is about trusting the spirit first and knowing that the right forms will emerge.

Logion 32 naturally is about the same notions as the story we find in the canonical gospels where Jesus tells Simon to become the rock on which he can build his church. While the world has mostly blithely assumed he was talking about real estate, or at least a physical institution, this is obviously not the case, for that is never what he is talking about. Jesus was making a pun on the ambivalence of Simon, in listening to him, Jesus, and the need for Simon to once and for all choose spirit as the foundation of his "church," because only in spirit can we truly join with our brothers, in the realization of the oneness of the sonship. Bringing bodies together is a poor substitute for the true communion of the spirit. The "city built on a high hill" in that sense is the equivalent to the community (church) built on the rock of spirit. The only thing that cannot "fall" is spirit - in this world everything decays and dies. Here is the famed passage:

Another element that is implied in this saying is the notion that the choice between spirit or the ego is blatantly obvious, "nor can it be hidden." The community of spirit will be easy to recognize as such, it cannot be mistaken for anything else. Again and again, when we get back to these original sayings in Thomas it becomes easier to "hear" that Jesus was just playing with words and symbols, and is always speaking in parables, as indeed he frequently tells us, even in the texts which made it into the New Testament. So he never was telling us to go into urban planning and develop fortified cities on hills. Just like he was never speaking of "bread" either. Here is the passage  from Matthew, where you can almost hear Jesus pull his hair out that people keep taking him literally, when he is clearly speaking to them in parables.