Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.”
Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous angel.”
Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.”
Thomas said to him, “Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like.”
Jesus said, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.”
And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?”
Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.”
How you view an apostle of God determines the nature of the blessing you receive. If you view the apostle as an ordinary person like yourself, then you will receive the blessing of an ordinary person. If you believe the apostle is a sage, you will receive the blessing of a sage. If you perceive the apostle as a maggid, then you will receive the blessing of a maggid. Yet, if you realize the Spirit of the Messiah manifesting to you as the apostle and have faith in the Divine presence and power within and around the apostle, you will receive teachings and initiations from the soul of the Messiah itself. It is the one who is receiving who determines the nature of the blessing received. One can only receive what he or she has a capacity to receive. To receive more of the Divine power than you have a willingness and capacity for is to be injured spiritually!
Which levels of teachings and initiations are received depends entirely upon your relationship with the teacher and your view of them. The more psychically and spiritually intimate your relationship, and the more you are able to perceive and embrace your teacher as he or she truly is, the greater the transmission of teachings and initiations. Never is it the teacher who limits what can be shared and imparted. Rather, it is the capacity of the student or disciple that places a limit upon the love of a master—that is, a limit upon the Light-transmission.
Now, truly, one must be a student and companion before one can be a disciple. A true and faithful disciple is a rare and precious thing. Some masters never find one, others find only one or perhaps two, while only on rare occasions does a master live who finds several or many. Many may think they are disciples, but few are truly disciples, for a disciple is a most intimate lover of the Beloved and, by the nature of their love, incapable of thinking of oneself as separate from the master, let alone the Beloved. Such love and devotion are rare in this world.
To have a master is to serve the Master and accomplish the Master’s divine labor. No longer does one live for oneself but for the sake of heaven. One lives for the Lord. It is a mystical death and transformation of oneself into the image of the Lord, an intimate embrace from which one will return—never to be the same. There is knowledge, understanding, and wisdom in this embrace, as well as Divine power. Those who enter the bridal chamber never depart once entering, for they are no more. The Beloved has come to manifest as them. “I,” “me,” and “mine” do not exist in the bridal chamber. There is only the Beloved. When you behold only the Beloved, then you and the Beloved will be one.
What transpires in a secret discourse or in an initiation cannot be spoken of outside of the sacred moment. It is secret. First, it is secret so that the experience is not spoiled or contaminated. The disciple keeps it pure by not speaking of it. To speak of it to others is to open the experience to other outside forces and also to dissipate the spiritual power imparted. Rather, it must be kept to oneself until it is integrated and brought to fruition, or one could potentially lose the power of the master’s blessing altogether. Second, just as the experience and energy needs to be protected as one would an infant, one must also protect those who would seek to receive before they are ready to receive, for spiritual knowledge and power given to an immature soul can cause great harm. Spiritual or mystical knowledge and power can be misused. Also, it can be overwhelming. Only one who is an adept or master, an apostle, can discern in Spirit what teachings and initiations an individual can receive and, further, guide and protect that individual in the Way. Thus the inmost wisdom and initiations are always kept in secrecy, spoken only to those who know the mystery already.
Here, there is another indication of the very real and substantial spiritual power the Master imparts. Fire coming from within stones might sound fanciful to those not having entered into mystical experience or having no knowledge of the magical arts, but for one who has had some experience, for the initiate, these words seem quite normal and convey a secret meaning revealing the nature of the teaching that Thomas received from the Master.
This verse, however, does not intend revelation of the secret teaching and initiation given. Rather, it is a teaching on discipleship and how one may pass from the outer to the inner and secret levels of the teachings, as well as the importance Yeshua placed upon initiation. All of the Master’s teachings were based upon initiations or shared experiences through which faith bore the fruit of Gnosis. It is this awareness, more than anything else, that the verse is intended to convey.