Mysticism & Gospel of Thomas – No. 56 – World Knowledge

Verse - World Knowledge

Jesus said, “Whoever has known the world has discovered a corpse, and whoever has discovered a corpse of that person, the world is no longer worthy of him.”

Comment

Anyone who has seen through the world in its transience knows that it resembles a dead shell to which only the unawakened cling, who do not yet know anything about the spirit of life that gives this shell content and life. The awakened person, on the other hand, sees through the deception of the senses and knows that the things of the outside world are empty shells without duration because they have no being of their own.

That the world cannot give anything to the person who has seen through it, because he possesses that which is more than the world, that which exceeds all external goods in value and duration; his divine self, which existed before the worlds came into being, and the all-self of the deity, from which universes emerged and to which they return in the end. He knows that everything that the unawakened and half-awakened longingly seek is already within him, and that the awakened person's advice is right:

He who seeks the Grail - and has not found it - should no longer seek it in a foreign land. For behold, he carries it, unrecognized, mysteriously in his own hand.