Archive for Wednesday 11th December 2002 - The real spirit of Christmas
The real spirit of Christmas is about experiencing your own inner spiritual world. A new gospel discovered in a ruined monastery less than 50 years ago in Egypt establishes Jesus’s teachings as part of the great mystical tradition of ‘knowing our true selves.’ The visionary teacher who emerges from the ‘Gospel of St Thomas’ is anti-materialist: “For him who finds his true Self, the world of objects is of no worth.” And he echoes the word of many ancient mystics: “The Kingdom (of heaven) is in your centre and is about you… if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty and you are the poverty.” There is no mention of heaven, hell and damnation. According to scholar Hugh Ross, this is because it remains untouched by church dogma. Ross believes that this gospel has a message for the 95 per cent of the population who do not go to church: “It can help to release people who have got stuck in the dogma. People can visualise the true nature of Jesus and can accept him as a authentic role model and help them live more fulfilled lives.

“The concept of experiencing an inner spiritual world is well understood by the oriental traditions and is very much a part of what Jesus teaches in this gospel, but it tends to be overlooked by the church.”

Jesus clearly has such an experience in mind when he tells his followers: “I will give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard, and what no hand has touched.”

In his commentary on the new gospel Jesus Untouched By The Church (Sessions +44 (0)1904 659224 £14.95), Ross claims: “Anyone seeking spiritual truth will find something of value here.”

Mark Winter