The Inner Light (The Gospel of Thomas)

This episode explores the 24th saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. His disciples said, "Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it." He said to them, "Anyone here with two ears had better listen! There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world. If it does not shine, it is dark."

This saying is about the spiritual search for the Eternal Christ. Jesus disciples say to him, "Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it.” In answering their inquiry Jesus directs them to what the Quakers call the Inner Light. 

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Transcript

This episode explores the 24th saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. His disciples said, "Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it." He said to them, "Anyone here with two ears had better listen! There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world. If it does not shine, it is dark."

This saying is about the spiritual search for the Eternal Christ. Jesus disciples say to him, "Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it.” In answering their inquiry Jesus directs them to what the Quakers call the Inner Light. 

This is one of those sayings in Thomas that has parallels in the canonical gospels. The most interesting parallel is found in the Gospel of John and also features the apostle Thomas! That is no accident. The Gospel of John was written after the Gospel of Thomas and in part in response to the Gospel of Thomas. 

Biblical scholars know there was interaction between the gospel writers. It has long been known that Matthew and Luke use the Gospel of Mark and well as another source – now lost – which was a collection of the sayings of Jesus. It is referred to as Q. The Gospel of Thomas is like Q insofar as it is a collection of sayings rather than a narrative account of Jesus’ life and ministry. 

When the gospels were being written there was tension between the apostles. It is well-known that James and Peter and Paul did not get along. They apparently did not get along with Thomas either. Thomas was the most nondual of the apostles, and the more traditional apostles – even John – did not agree with him. 

Let me read you the passage in John which is a parallel to Thomas’ saying 24. Jesus says, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

In the Gospel of John Jesus is pictured as going someplace – presumably heaven - to prepare a place for them, and then returning to earth retrieve his followers and take them to his Father’s house. Very dualistic. Thomas responds, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”  Thomas is pictured as one who does not know. That is very different from the Gospel of Thomas where Thomas is pictured as the one who does know. 

In the Gospel of Thomas, Thomas is a seeker; he is not the doubting Thomas of John’s gospel. He says to Jesus, "Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it." See the difference between the two gospels? In John’s gospel Thomas asks where he is going. “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”  In Thomas’ gospel, he asks not where he is going but where he is now. "Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it." 

In Thomas’s gospel the place where Jesus is – the Kingdom of the Father – is not a mansion in the sky that has many rooms. The Father’s house is where Jesus is here and now. That is the difference between duality and nonduality. Dualistic thinking has the apostles waiting around for Jesus to return to earth and take them to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Christians are still waiting two thousand years later for Jesus and his heavenly Kingdom. In nonduality we seek the Kingdom of God which is here and now. Where Jesus is is where the Kingdom is. And Jesus – the Eternal Christ – is here now.

Then Jesus says, “Anyone here with two ears had better listen!” Or more traditionally phrased, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” In other words, “Open your ears! Open your eyes to what is right in front of you.”

There is another parallel to Thomas 24 in the first chapter of John, where two disciples ask where Jesus is. After hearing John the Baptist refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God, two of John the Baptist’s disciples start to follow Jesus. It says, “When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?” “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”  

That is the nondual approach. “Come and see.” Not wait and hope for something in the future. Not trust and obey for there is no other way. Come and see here and now. Come and see for yourself. No faith in second hand testimony. Only direct seeing.

In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus then tells them where to look and see. The disciples ask, "Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it." And Jesus responds, “There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world. If it does not shine, it is dark." In response to the question “Show us where you are” Jesus directs the disciples to look within for the Inner Light. Jesus said elsewhere, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” 

The prologue of John talks about Jesus as this Light. It says, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  Jesus says of himself later in the Gospel of John, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “You are the light of the world. Let your light shine!” He says “If the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”  

Jesus is here now in us as the Inner Light. No reason to go up into heaven or to wait till you die. No need to wait centuries until Jesus returns. No need for a rapture or a Second Coming. Christ is within us, shining forth from us. Jesus said in the third saying of the Gospel of Thomas:

“If those who lead you say to you: See, the kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of the heaven will go before you; if they say to you: It is in the sea, then the fish will go before you. But the kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will know that you are the sons of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty, and you are poverty.”

Jesus is the Inner Light within us and all around us. The glory of God that shines through the natural world shines also in our hearts and through us. This is a truth that is proclaimed historically in Christianity by the Quakers, most famously by George Fox but also others. 

Christ is the Light of the World. The Light of Christ shines in us. It is us. We are the light of the world. Jesus calls us persons of light.  Jesus says, “There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world.” Or as another translation puts it: “There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world." God is the Light by which everything is seen and that light is within us. 

That is why it is so difficult for people to see this Reality. People are looking for it in the outside themselves – in religions or teachers. This Reality is too close to us to see it in the regular way. You can’t see it; you see everything by it. Truth or God or Christ is not separate from us. There is no separation; that is what nondual means. God is omnipresent as Inner Light. When we see the Light, then we see everything by this Light. That seeing is spiritual awakening.