His [Jesus'] disciples [students] said, When will you become revealed to us and when shall we see you? Jesus said, When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then will you see the son of the living one, and you will not be afraid.
*Gospel of Thomas, Saying 37
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In the story of beginnings in the Hebrew Bible (Christian, Old Testament), we read of Adam (humankind) and Eve (life) in the Garden of Eden (delight) being shamelessly naked. They are like children before being taught something is wrong with the body; children are taught this directly and indirectly. Have you ever seen a small child ashamed of their body?
In Genesis 3.7, the writer says their eyes were opened. They saw their nakedness for the first time, for they ate of the Tree of Good and Evil (duality). Before, they did not see themselves as naked or clothed, for the opposites had not entered consciousness. They experienced what has been called Unitive Consciousness. This prior is innocence.
Interesting how the conservative, evangelical church has sometimes treated this fruit-eating as sex. Well, well... how did they get that from the story? Yet, this shows how antithetical religion can be toward the body and sex. There is a deep divide within much of religion regarding sex and the body. This is passed on to the children and onward. Many have inherited this legacy of bodily shame, sex shame.
Also, noting this prejudice against the body and sex, we find in Middle English the linking of "shame" with "nakedness, private parts, the genitals." This is seen in Wycliffite Bible's, for it renders the Latin as "shameful thingis [thing]" for Latin verecundiora [lit. appeal to modesty] and "shamfast membris" for the male genitalia. Likewise, the English "shame" is likely derived from a root meaning "to hide" (www.etymonline.com). No wonder whole cultures are totally confused about anything related to sex, and the most populated religious sect in the world glorifies virginity, posturing it as somehow making a female superior to one who has enjoyed intercourse and being a mother. So, if a female has enjoyed lovemaking with even her husband, she is inferior to the elite of the cult of virginity. Now, back to the story.
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Later, Humankind and Life covered themselves with fig leaves, hiding their bodies from the Creator God (v. 7). Humankind admits his fear when the Creator God came to visit and ascribes it to being nude (v. 10). So, he was hiding, when before there was fearless, guiltless sharing of the man and woman with the Creator God - the latter would take strolls with them. They had hidden their bodies among the plants of the garden.
Here, for the first time, concealment enters the story. Hiding from the Creator God connotes hiding from ourselves. We somehow became a hiding species; the story suggests that was not always the case. Oddly, we became afraid to show ourselves to others. So, we have fashioned myriad means to veil the naturalness we are. We have fashioned no lack of attire to hide our true being.
So, when one lives their true being, others may ostracize, condemn, and regard them as bizarre. People can be threatened by the authenticity of realness. Those who live from their ego even garbed in religion, spirituality, or goodwill, cannot tolerate an authentic being. And one can be as lost to the authentic essence when acting as a clergyperson as when acting as a drug dealer.
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The Genesis story points to some truths hinted at in the Gospel of Thomas -
1) Innocence is our nature; this is not being good or bad but before either. We do not do anything to become innocent. We return to innocence. This does not mean we need to all drop our clothes and go naked. The world is not ready for that. We live in duality. We wisely make that workable in respect for social norms. Yet, nakedness in itself is neither good nor bad. The body is the body. This is part of the joy of sex in a loving relationship: shameless nudity, the exploring of the body, and the union of two bodies. Yet, spiritually, we drop our "clothes," meaning what we hide our true selves behind. We show no respect for the self-show, like children, says Jesus, trampling on their clothes.
2) Living among the opposites, or duality, introduces us to a separation from ourselves, others, and the Sacred. This alienation is foreign to us.
3) Shame is a sign of a disconnection from our innocence and cannot be a logical means to return us to ourselves. How interesting that so much punishment shames, and, oddly, people think that will correct the child, the inmate, the addict, the dissident religious devotee, the spouse, or the social dissenter. Shame leads to shame, and persons who have been shamed shame others. You can disgrace a person into compliance but not into love. I was raised in a home and church community that used shame to create fear and compliance. Such atmospheres are harmful, leaving woundedness that may take years to heal from, or one may not fully recover from it in a lifetime.
4) Shame leads us to hide from Spirit, others, and ourselves. Many persons, possibly most, are unaware of how disconnected they are from their true being and how the failure of one substitute after another, including religious and spiritual ones, only leads them farther from that self. Yet, entire nations are built on the premise of distracting persons. Distraction leads us away from the attraction wherein our real self tries to get our attention and draw us homeward. Innocence calls us home.
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Jesus' saying above connotes a spiritual principle. Spiritually, one can be physically nude and not see him at all, while one can be fully clothed and see him.
And who is this "son of the living one"? In the first context of the saying, Jesus represents the Sacred and your authentic self. To see the true self of another is to see that one is "... of the living one." The "living one" has no religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or political party. The "living one" has no country. The "living one" belongs everywhere, for it is from and to nowhere.
Then, that "other" one, who is "the living one," mirrors your kinship with all manifestations of Sacredness. Thus, a theistic or nontheistic path can lead to the same awareness. People still sleeping argue about Buddha, Jesus, or Krishna ... and are still dreaming. They will be glad for you to sleep with them, and many do sleep with them. Yet, when spiritually awake, you have no urge to go back to sleep. You enjoy seeing the world with open eyes.
Jesus is still a powerful image for many persons to connect with the Sacred. The image of Jesus is a conduit. For Buddhists, the image might be Gautama Buddha, another buddha, or a bodhisattva. For some persons, the image might be of Krishna or a spiritual teacher. Regardless, when one connects with the image, the connection is for joining with one's authentic self. The image is the mirror of yourself - your actual self. In the mirror is one Sacredness reflected back. When you adore the other, you are adoring yourself. Hug yourself, and you hug the world.
The key here is not to remain attached to the religious or spiritual figure so that you do not come to see yourself. This error is widespread in religion. For example, one can get stuck on Jesus or Buddha worship and never come home to the self, so the alienation remains. One keeps living in forgetfulness. And when leaders are unhealthily attached to the image, how can they lead followers beyond such fascination? This is the exact source of political fascism, also. When we do not know who we are, we are more likely to be duped into selling our souls to someone or something that has no interest in honoring us in the first place.
Jesus says, "... you will not be afraid." See, we discover a fearlessness in living with an open heart before others. We no longer feel a need to hide ourselves to satisfy others. A sense of equality with others arises - no one is better or worse. Hence, love grows.
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This self is not a gender, sexual orientation, race, or anything. So, we need not identify this with coming out in some other way, regardless of how important such is. One can come out as a bisexual, for example, and still be lost to their self. This same applies to any human trait. That we are is before these traits. Returning to ourselves in the Unity, we find encouragement to manifest qualities we experience in our particular manifestations. The bisexuality is an adornment of the self, not the other way around.
In living with this innocence that Jesus and many others point to, we inspire other beings to do likewise. If we are all hiding, who will come from hiding? Yet, one out of hiding can inspire many to come out into the open.
I stopped to share in an online meditation session when preparing this writing. During the session, my attention moved to the rhythm of the in-breath and out-breath. What arose to mind was the innocence of the breath. Breath is not good or bad, righteous or unrighteous, saint or sinner, teacher or disciple, and breath does not need to feel shame. Breath is innocent. Breath is shameless, for it is breath. We do not become innocent; we are innocent.
We can relax into that pristine innocence and enjoy ease. Why are you innocent? For, like breath, you are you. And this you is being every being.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024. Permission is given to use photographs and writings with credit given to the copyright owner.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The book is a collection of poems Brian wrote based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
*Gospel of Thomas saying from Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri). The Gospel of Thomas for Awakening. The translation of the saying is that of Thomas O. Lambdin.
