J said: If a blind person leads a blind person, both of them will fall into a hole.
This quote of course is well familiar as it is quoted in Mt 15:14 and Lk 6:39 in the canonical tradition. However, the way it is construed in the canonical tradition as part of a story always creates a bias towards a certain way of reading it, which is absent in the Thomas material, where you're just looking at the stark statement. It may then be worthwhile to look at these statements within the context of the Thomas tradition itself, before they were woven into anything else. I would like to periodically consider the Thomas sayings here, not primarily as I do in the book, in the context of DU and ACIM, but first by relying primarily on the Thomas tradition proper, and more specifically Pursah's rendering of it, since I'm totally operating on the assumption that she effectively separated the chaff from the wheat.
The immediate and obvious associations are then that a blind person is someone who does not see, and who should therefore not be leading anyone else. And the obvious association with the second clause is that falling into a hole prevents you from getting where you were going. Thus the image is simply one of getting lost on our way by picking the wrong guide, in this case our blind eyes.
Within the context of the Thomas gospel itself, it is pretty evident that Jesus himself, in the way he speaks to us, at least exemplifies someone who does see. Starting in Logion 3 and in many other instances, Jesus points out things to us, his readers, his audience, which make it evident that he sees and we don't, but we could learn from him. So when we are looking to pick a guide on our journey who is not blind, definitely he should be our first pick. In Logion 3 he points out that Rather, God's Divine Rule is within you and you are everywhere. Evidently this means he is pointing out something to us that we currently do not see, and this is why we're listening to him in the first place. So in a way Logion 34 is a strong hint that we might try Jesus for our guide, because of his evident qualifications as "seeing" in this sense and not being "blind." Other similar implications can be found e.g. in Logion 5, Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. Again, this also implies that Jesus knows what is in front of his face, and nothing is hidden to him, which he can tell is not the case with us, and we need help, and so he is telling us how to go about learning to see. In the present saying Jesus is gently advocating his services as a guide, over our various ego-friends who are stumbling around in the dark like we are, and under whose guidance we would fall into a hole. In terms of the Course this means choosing the Holy Relationship over the special relationship.
And we all know which hole he is talking about, for the hole is hollow, it is the ego's world of scarcity and lack, which we keep falling into until we realize as Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford did at that historical moment which preceded the dictation of A Course In Miracles, when they wondered together that "There must be another way." Falling into a hole, in that sense is an image similar to wandering around in the desert (dry, barren), and never making it to the promised land, and it symbolizes the condition of the ego, which always again offers us to gain the world but lose our soul.
The immediate and obvious associations are then that a blind person is someone who does not see, and who should therefore not be leading anyone else. And the obvious association with the second clause is that falling into a hole prevents you from getting where you were going. Thus the image is simply one of getting lost on our way by picking the wrong guide, in this case our blind eyes.
Within the context of the Thomas gospel itself, it is pretty evident that Jesus himself, in the way he speaks to us, at least exemplifies someone who does see. Starting in Logion 3 and in many other instances, Jesus points out things to us, his readers, his audience, which make it evident that he sees and we don't, but we could learn from him. So when we are looking to pick a guide on our journey who is not blind, definitely he should be our first pick. In Logion 3 he points out that Rather, God's Divine Rule is within you and you are everywhere. Evidently this means he is pointing out something to us that we currently do not see, and this is why we're listening to him in the first place. So in a way Logion 34 is a strong hint that we might try Jesus for our guide, because of his evident qualifications as "seeing" in this sense and not being "blind." Other similar implications can be found e.g. in Logion 5, Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. Again, this also implies that Jesus knows what is in front of his face, and nothing is hidden to him, which he can tell is not the case with us, and we need help, and so he is telling us how to go about learning to see. In the present saying Jesus is gently advocating his services as a guide, over our various ego-friends who are stumbling around in the dark like we are, and under whose guidance we would fall into a hole. In terms of the Course this means choosing the Holy Relationship over the special relationship.
And we all know which hole he is talking about, for the hole is hollow, it is the ego's world of scarcity and lack, which we keep falling into until we realize as Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford did at that historical moment which preceded the dictation of A Course In Miracles, when they wondered together that "There must be another way." Falling into a hole, in that sense is an image similar to wandering around in the desert (dry, barren), and never making it to the promised land, and it symbolizes the condition of the ego, which always again offers us to gain the world but lose our soul.
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