The Gospel of Thomas

I continue to be interested in the truth of Christianity.  I am not interested in DOGma, I am not interested in superstition.  I am not interested in divisiveness and superiority.  These are not what I believe Christianity, or rather the teachings of Yeshua are about.  I an interested in the spiritual truths that these teachings offer.

One of the issues we face in understanding these truths is the way in which this knowledge has been censored and selected for us.  Did you know there are more books of the Bible than you find in the cannonized King James version?  The process of selection was done by Constantine in the 4th century.  These "edits" as they are referred to, excluded many of the more mystical texts: the gnostic texts.

One of the gnostic texts is the Book of Thomas. It was uncovered in the Nas Hammadi library in the 1940s, and has been verified as a legitimate text by scholars. Rather than an account of the life of Jesus, this book is a collection of quotes -114 sayings.  About half of the sayings can be found in the traditional Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.  The other half are previously unknown teachings.  

I was recently listening to a youtuber talk about Saying #7.  

Blessed is the lion that becomes man when consumed by man
and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes and the man becomes a lion.

He explained it as such:  

The lion is the ego, or false self
The man is the authentic self

This is a beautiful saying for someone like me who is working a program of Codependents Anonymous.  It validates the goals of CoDA.  That is to discover the true self.  Know Thyself!