How Jesus Survived Christendom

That may be another way of how to look at the rediscovery of the Thomas Gospel, and even more so about the connection between the Thomas Gospel and A Course in Miracles, which is represented in Gary Renard's work. It's a little bit like How Stella got her groove back. In this case however, it's something that took two thousand years. In the years after Jesus's ministry, the stories about him, including the "canonical" gospels, as well as other gospels and related literature, not to mention Paul's letters, began to dominate the scene. These writings date from about thirty years after his death and later and are really an interpretation of him. Then by the 4th century book burnings became quite popular to get rid of literature that was "not approved" by the dominant strains of the young religion, even though some of those books, like the Thomas Gospel, did actually contain original material, but were problematic for the later theologians from Peter and Paul on down, for they were teaching the exact opposite of Jesus in many cases. Burning books was one way for the would-be orthodoxy to assert itself. And that was the time when some priest in Nag Hammadi evidently decided to bury some items from the library of his monastery, to avoid their destruction, the Thomas Gospel among them. In short, with the original sayings Gospels gone from the scene, what was left were stories and interpretations of others generally from the period of 60-120 CE, or somewhere between one and four generations after his life, which were simply declared "canonical" even though they were not the oldest or most original, but because they were judged to agree with the dominant doctrine of the day. This is how collectively "our version" of Jesus came to replace who he was and is, except that it does not work that way.

If we look at these developments from the standpoint of collective consciousness, then we see that the ego is one thought of separation, whose nature is that it appears as "many," quite like the herd of swine, whose name was "legion" in Mark 5:1-21. And so collectively, the ego or the world, must get rid of Jesus somehow, since he's teaching, like his Course would do two thousand years later, that there is no world, and this is not acceptable to the world, and the ego, who is its lord and master. Here is how he puts it in the Course:

But it is pride that argues you have come into a world quite separate from yourself, impervious to what you think, and quite apart from what you chance to think it is. There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again. (ACIM:W-132.6)

The same thought is expressed in a myriad of ways in the Thomas Gospel, (e.g. Logion 1 - if you understand these sayings you will not know death, Logion 2 - once you find the answer you will be "disturbed," "marvel" and reign over all [because you will then understand that the manifest universe is but the product of thought], Logion 13 - the world would have to "stone" you if it heard what Jesus really thought... etc., etc.,) and it is also expressed in the notion that was generally preserved in the canonical literature, that the apostles should take up their cross and follow him. He was not speaking of going on a trip to Disney world with him. He was speaking of "following" him in the figurative sense of "understanding him" to his "Kingdom" that is NOT of this world. So this was always a teaching of what goes on in the mind. He was speaking to giving our minds over to his leadership in lieu of the ego, which is the central choice we need to make, and indeed the only meaningful decision we could ever make in this world. But the world is made as an attack on God (ACIM:W-pII.3.2:1), because it is only the expression, or the manifestation of the ego thought that we should be separate from God.

The resurrection is really the guarantee that Jesus and his teaching would survive not only the crucifixion, but also the hi-jacking of his teachings by Christendom in its myriad of forms. Jesus is awakened at the outset of his ministry not because of a resurrection that happened later, after the crucifixion. In the Gospels we find this reflected in the symbolic passage of the baptism by John in Mark, and the breaking of the sky, and hearing you are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Once that awareness even begins to dawn on us, the rest will follow. As he teaches in the Course, the crucifixion was merely an extreme example of the "last useless journey," for as and when we finally fully realize that spirit is what we are, then our reliance on form in this world where everything is perishable, is gone, and our experiences will merely confirm this growing realization. In the crucifixion story the point merely is the demonstration that the destruction of his physical body was irrelevant, because Jesus is not his body, but he is spirit. And what Christianity calls the resurrection in that sense is his appearance in the body, after what the world considers "death," because - being spirit - he is now able to manifest in a body at will, which also explains the docetic literature, such as the Acts of John, where we find the apostles comparing notes on how Jesus appears so different to them at different times, yet somehow they know it is him.

By the same token then it really does not matter how the literature about him was distorted, he lives on in the hearts and minds of those who sincerely dedicate themselves to follow him, and the example that he lived for us -- that it is possible to make the choice for peace in this world, regardless of anything that seems to "happen" to us. In the Course he reassures us that his crucifixion was just an extreme example (ACIM:T-6.I.2:1), and then he reassures us further down in the text that we are asked to follow his example "in the face of much less extreme temptations to misperceive." Which alludes to all the thousands of ways in which we can feel attacked, because we identify with so many different forms in the world, and think that our life depends on them, be it your car, your career, your significant other, etc., we all have been through crises in those areas and many others, and felt "crucified." So much so, that we go through extensive mourning over the form that was lost, before it even dawns on us that we are still alive. Here is how Jesus puts it in the Course:

You are not asked to be crucified, which was part of my own teaching contribution. You are merely asked to follow my example in the face of much less extreme temptations to misperceive, and not to accept them as false justifications for anger. There can be no justification for the unjustifiable. Do not believe there is, and do not teach that there is. Remember always that what you believe you will teach. Believe with me, and we will become equal as teachers. (ACIM:T-6:I.6:6-11)

So in spite of the massive distortions by churches and various other teachers and teachings, the teachings of Jesus survived because they can be verified through experience, by actually following him. And outside the church tradition there are untold examples of those who knew him through inner experience, as well as through various myths and legends, some of which were recorded by Selma Lagerlöf, in her book Christ Legends. There are countless other examples in art and literature which we may come to recognize as and when we find ourselves joining with the artist in recognition of the content of their expressions as we are having the same experiences ourselves. At that point it does not matter if we get our information from the canonical gospels, from the Thomas gospel, or from any other sources, such as some of these legends, or a piece of art, but suddenly our soul feels connected, maybe with an artist, who may be long since dead, but in that moment of recognition and joining with the artist, nothing less happens than a joining with Jesus as well, for "where two or three are together in my name, there I am in their midst." That has nothing to do with physical togetherness, but togetherness in spirit. For the same reason, we can also forgive someone long after they are deceased, and experience that togetherness, which can be more intense than anything we ever knew while they were in the body. This level of experience is hard to express, because it always loses in translation to whatever medium the artist used, but again, when we are having a comparable experience ourselves, we will suddenly recognize what the artist was talking about. Eckhart Tolle has talked at times in his presentations and his books, about this inner experience of understanding some of Jesus's sayings, even from the Bible, on an entirely different level, driven by our own inner experience, and through joining with him in the mind, when the meaning of his words suddenly is "revealed to us" and becomes crystal clear, only because we did follow him by doing another step in the direction of his Kingdom, our Kingdom, not of this earth.