Jesus said, The heavens and the earth will be rolled up in your presence. And the one who lives from the living one will not see death. Does not Jesus say, Whoever finds himself is superior to the world? (111)
Patterson and Maeyer: The heavens and the earth will roll up in your presence, and whoever is living from the living one will not see death. Does not Jesus say, Those who have found themselves, of them the world is not worthy?
The heavens and the earth will be rolled up in your presence. Creation occurs in cycles. Here it is likened to a scroll that is unrolled and rolled up, and all the sentient beings are subject to it. The Bhagavad Gita explains it very well:
“They know the true day and night who know Brahma’s Day a thousand yugas long and Brahma’s Night a thousand yugas long. At the approach of Brahma’s Day, all manifested things come forth from the unmanifest, and then return to that at Brahma’s Night. Helpless, the same host of beings being born again and again merge at the approach of the Night and emerge at the dawn of Day.
“But there exists, higher than the unmanifested, another unmanifested Eternal which does not perish when all beings perish. This unmanifest is declared to be the imperishable, which is called the Supreme Goal, attaining which they return not. This is my supreme abode. This is the Supreme Being, attained by one-pointed devotion alone, within which all beings do dwell, by which all this is pervaded” (Bhagavad Gita 8:17-22).
The one who lives from the living one will not see death. In Mahayana Buddhism they often speak of the need for good roots. In this verse the idea is that he who is rooted consciously in the Supreme Immortal will never experience death, and so will have nothing to fear at the dissolution of the cosmos.
Whoever finds himself is superior to the world. He who comes to know himself in the enlightenment known as Self-realization is superior to the world for he is no longer subject to coming and going, to birth and death. He is not compelled to come forth at the day of creation nor to be withdrawn at its night.
“Whatever meritorious fruit is declared to accrue from study or recitation of the Vedas, sacrifice, tapasya, and almsgiving–beyond all these goes the yogi who knows the two paths [the one that leads to rebirth and the one that leads beyond rebirth]; and he attains to the supreme, primeval Abode” (Bhagavad Gita 8:28).
Read the next article in the Gospel of Thomas for Yogis: Body and Soul