Jesus said, I shall choose you, one out of a thousand, and two out of ten thousand, and they shall stand as a single one. (23)
Brown: “They shall stand as a single unity.” Johnson: “They shall stand in unity.”
Evolved people are always much more distinctive in their personalities than others. They are never joiners, team players or herd members, but pursue their individual course at all times. Peer pressure simply means nothing to them because their true peers, like them, are so strongly individual they have no interest in influencing others or being influenced by anyone. The word monachos–monk–means one who is solitary or is living alone, even if he lives in a community of dozens, hundreds, or thousands. (The monastery of Saint Pachomius near Aswan numbered thirty thousand monks.)
Contradictory as it may seem, as Jesus indicates those who are chosen to follow the way of Christhood, if they preserve that aspiration and do not let it be turned in the byways of ego and the world, will always be as one with each other. They will live together in harmony and cooperation, free from the elements that create conflict between ordinary people. Yet they will remain alone in their consciousness, intent on their interior cultivation at all times. Having a single goal they walk the path together in singleness of heart.
Read the next section in The Gospel of Thomas for Yogis: Where is Christ?