From Small Things
The
Sower and the Seed ...
... the woman and the little leaven ...
Is this how the Word works?
Legion 9, behold, the Sower went out.
Tt is through a very simple image, familiar in the rural context of Jesus’ day, that the Master evokes the indescribable grandeur of the manifestation of the divine.
The seed, symbol of the mysterious potential energy spread in profusion over the earth, seems to obey the laws of blind chance. Its growth will depend on the reception that it is given ........... in earth which is ready to shelter its germination and its raising. Now this luminous primordial energy is immanent in an imperfect world (mixtus orbis…) in which Good and Evil coexist.
Everyone receives the divine seed but it will only germinate in those who have attained spiritual maturity. It is not the broad highroad which will favour growth.......... Nor is it the rocky ground, desert of the hardened ego, incapable of hearing the divine Word or, as we would say today, of transcending its limited being in order to achieve the One … And nor is it the thorny scrubland of ideologies and contradictory religions born of a collective ego greedy for power … It is the humbly worked earth of the inner man who grasps the secret word and takes root in the Truth.
The Sower par excellence is Jesus: and here lies the second meaning of the symbol. Along with other initiates, he received the divine germ and sowed the word of Truth. .......... Jesus sowed on all grounds and frequently encountered the desert where nothing, ever, grows, where the seed rots ........... in other words, men who are strong in their certainties, in their “knowledge” and in their “good conscience”. .......... Those alone who have applied themselves to the annihilation of parasitic growths are worthy of receiving the “seed”.
He who has received can in turn give and here comes the final meaning of the message. The man in whom the Word has germinated becomes activated in his turn. His destiny, potentially identical to that of Jesus (log.108), ordains that he will prolong the manifestation. He is “at the same time the sower and the seed”. Having become the tree of Life, he can ensure the multiplication of the “fruits” and the progressively doubled yield: this is the rising of collective consciousness which is entrusted to sowers who are “aware”.
Furthermore the sower must have truly attained the level of being which enables him to give out Light from the “source”. Only then, will he be placed to assist others, by the word …or by silence, to attain absolute consciousness. ............ And it is all too clear that this is not a matter of “good works” …
All of the Gnostic teachings emphasise this responsibility which grows in step with the “extended consciousness”. The ”believer” in a defined religion can be the effective guide of the faithful who travel along the main road. If he has not attained, like Eckhart, the level of total consciousness, he is stuck in time and space, captive of the psychic domain where, far from the Kingdom, the duality of Good and Evil prevails.
To act as the skilled sower who is able to awaken, on a universal level, that vibration which corresponds to the divine “Word” is, in this day and age, to bring together the elements of a yet uncertain science with authentic traditional teachings. At the end of the day it is to these sowers, men of Light (log.24), consciously carrying out pure deeds in harmony with cosmic laws, that this disquieting world in which we are condemned to live is entrusted.
Logion 96 The Kingdom of the Father is like a woman, who took a little leaven
.......... This logion is about a household task which is at the same time humble and noble: the making of bread. It is part of daily life and can pass unnoticed. Nonetheless, we are talking about a vital job, seemingly simple, but which requires vigilant care: the yeast must be properly mixed into the dough for the dough to rise correctly. If it is properly done a tiny amount of yeast can make large loaves.
The words which Jesus asks us to evoke in ourselves every day in order to perceive, savour and prolong their resonances - in the same way as a woman who with loving attention kneads the dough with yeast inside it, - will to start with evoke only faint echoes of privileged conditions where the mind did not play kill-joy, where the child was king, king of some distant kingdom, hidden like the yeast in the dough. Seek, do not cease from seeking (log. 2). Knead, do not cease from kneading. The dough will rise, it will rise so well that it fills the whole trough. The words of Jesus, constantly awakened in us, evoked, called upon, recalled, stirred up, will occupy little by little the inner space, in the same way as the dough that rises. The mind retreats, stupefied; the Being opens up in wonder. The work is now done, without effort on our part, in the depth of our Being, in broad daylight, while we sleep. The unconscious is as if kneaded. .......... Woman’s work which generates and regenerates; work of the word which generates and regenerates while the kingdom of the Father is being established within us.
