Jesus said, ‘Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being. If you become my disciples and listen to my words, these stones will minister to you. For there are five trees for you in Paradise which remain undisturbed summer and winter and whose leaves do not fall. Whoever becomes acquainted with them will not experience death.’ (19)
Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being. This can also be translated: “Blessed is he who was before he came into being.” In the Gospel of Saint John Jesus prays: “O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5). Jesus is saying that those who remember that glory and are again established in it are blessed for they are living in the vision and being of God. And like him they can say: “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). Once a contemporary mystic was asked how to meditate. He replied: “Go back to before the world existed.” If we do that we will know God and our own Self.
If you become my disciples and listen to my words, these stones will minister to you. All creation will assist us in our search for divine perfection. It is not the material world that is our enemy, but the false intellectual and spiritual world of human ignorance. When we realize that God is manifesting as all the creation, how could we think otherwise? Since the material world is in harmony with God and man, Jesus said: “God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” (Matthew 3:9). “And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:40). Consciousness is inherent in all material things. The world will not hold us back, but “man” certainly will.
For there are five trees for you in Paradise which remain undisturbed summer and winter and whose leaves do not fall. Whoever becomes acquainted with them will not experience death. I have always admired people who knew their limitations and acknowledged them. So I must follow my own ideals by admitting that I cannot say what this means. Some translators speculate that Jesus is speaking of the five senses, but their acquaintance hardly bestows immortality.
Read the next section in The Gospel of Thomas for Yogis: A Mustard Seed