gospel of Thomas 1

And he said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."

This is a strong claim to make, is it not? That whoever understands the meaning of some words will not experience death? What does it mean? Does it mean we will not die? That we will live forever?

It's very appealing, if that's the case, at least to those of us who live in the West. We try to avoid death at all costs. 

We want to live forever.

Ironically, in India, people don't want to live forever. After they die, they believe they are reincarnated and have to go through the whole rigmarole of life again. Over and over. So in India, the big hope is to be liberated in such a way that we can really be finished – we die and we're not reborn.

But whether we want to live forever, or whether we want to escape from life, this saying of Jesus seems quite strong. A bold claim: if you really understand these sayings, you will not experience death.

And it is true, that if we become enlightened – which is to have the deepest possible understanding – if we become enlightened then death changes its feel altogether.

But the key to understanding this is to see the phrase "not experience death". It's not quite the same as saying we will not die. Every human being has died, including Jesus and the other prophets, all the masters who have ever lived, everyone who has become enlightened, and all those that didn't become enlightened. Every human being has died, apart from those of us who happen to be still alive, for whom it is yet around the corner. But we will die too, in our time.

No. The physical death is assured. We may not know when it's going to happen, but we can be sure that it will happen.

So what Jesus means when he says, we will not experience death if we've interpreted his sayings correctly, if we've understood the message that is behind them, the truth which is beyond the words, if we have looked deeply enough into his sayings, if we have tasted the truth that is behind them, then, we will not experience death.

But the emphasis should be on this word experience. Because ordinarily, before enlightenment, our life is a series of experiences, being stored up as memories, with a narrative, a story being woven around them. But a series of experiences. And whilst we are living in that way, we feel ourself to be the experiencer: somebody experiencing these events. And then of course, death, although it is always in the future, is another experience waiting to happen.

When death actually comes, it is the end of the experiencer. So how can that experiencer experience it? It is not possible. Death is the end of experience for the individual.

Of course, we don't want to accept that. We don't want to see it. And so we create all sorts of stories about life after death. Pleasant little fantasies to allow us to avoid the simple truth, that we are going to finish. End. Cease to be.

And for those who become enlightened before death, this simple fact has been faced, accepted. And in the acceptance, we die psychologically. This feeling of an individual self who is experiencing life can cease, whilst we are still alive.

Things still happen. Events still occur. There are sensations. But there is no person experiencing those events. The consciousness of the event is the event itself. This great trinity of the experiencer, that being experienced, and the experiencing, collapses. We could say there is experiencing still happening. But even that is open to misunderstanding, misinterpretation. For there is no experiencer.

All of this may sound very philosophical. But it is a lived reality for the enlightened ones. There is no separate being at a distance from the experience. There is merely a flow of events, of happenings. Happenstance after happenstance.

And the story, that weaves them together in most normal people's minds, no longer needs to come into being. The fantasies are no longer there. There is no hunger for them. So the enlightened ones live in a simple way, in a simple mind. And there is no one to experience anything. Least of all, death.