The Fish Column. By Jan Tik 2006. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jantik/ / CC BY 2.0
We are seekers because we heard the voice of God from within us and recognize that we were never separate from the creator. But how does it happen that we come to doubt that connection? Working with The Parable of Drawing in the Net is helpful:
Matthew 13:47-50. Once more: “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (NIV from BLB).
This is just awful isn’t it? The seeker would be right to set it aside as a later version created by the author of Matthew. It fails the ethical test the seeker sets as the parable calls for the division of men: “…but threw the bad away.” And oh my, there is the gnashing of teeth and weeping as the wicked get thrown into hell; this is very much the religious version of external good and evil, as well as the division of believers from the rest. But there is something familiar to it — the net is let down in the lake to gather all kinds of fish. The net is not set to gather just those who are righteous. So what do we make of this? Something has been seriously changed and it is too difficult to determine what that was. Fortunately we have the Gospel of Thomas available to us for comparison.
Thomas 8:1-3. The human one is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of little fish. Among them the wise fisherman discovered a fine large fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea, and easily chose the large fish (Funk 477).
Here is where we can see that Matthew and Thomas draw on a known traditional saying* and one that Jesus could easily have adapted to his purpose. We can see that Matthew has modified it at a later time to match the divisive circumstances he is writing in. But the Thomas saying is very spare and clean. The test of ethics proves it a positive match for the way in which Jesus taught. If the wise fisherman is metaphorically Jesus, searching for students, we see the same process as in the post “Tough Love on the Path” and the saying of Jesus to his followers to hate their families, and themselves. This is the winnowing process again – many follow but the religious (the little fishes) must return to their structures where they are protected until they are ready to hear within themselves (the fisherman returns them to the sea). This is the action of a “wise” fisherman – he knows not to discard his harvest as in the Matthean version; it is better to leave them to grow. Instead he keeps the one who is ready (the large fine fish).
Now this is a good seeker interpretation; however, there’s the matter of a small but critical difference at the beginning of the two versions. Matthew begins “the kingdom of heaven is like…” but Thomas has the more difficult “the human one is like….” What is that all about? And it is an important difference. In multiple translations of Thomas 8, it is rendered as “the human being”, “the man”, “the person”, “the [Sovereignty]” and “the kingdom.” The Coptic word itself is rhome and the lexical uses of it are extensive and diverse. The word used here is meant to represent something more complex than just “man”, and even as above, The Jesus Seminar has opted for the extremely cryptic “the human one.” It’s important because this is the analogy – whatever this is, it is like the wise fisherman.
My reading of this, and it’s part of the lexical potential of the word rhome, is that it means “the person filled with the indwelling god.” This is the seeker. It contains the concept of a “human one” as a unity, or a human being with distinct inner qualities, and it brings sense to the parable itself. But the interpretation of the parable changes because if it is the seeker who is like the wise fisherman, then it is not a parable metaphorically invoking Jesus. Try it this way:
The seeker is like a wise fisherman – as he listens for the voice within (in the sea that is the meditative mind in unison with god) he captures many thoughts in this net of reflection. Small thoughts, which distract and confuse, have to be let go of; they are the chatter of the rational, outward-focused mind, seeking to dissuade the seeker from the intuitive path. But once the distracting thoughts are released, left there is the obvious and easily grasped truth (the large fine fish).
This is the subjective battle that comes of seeking. In Thomas 69:1, it is described even more succinctly:
Yeshua says: Blest are those who have been persecuted in their heart— they are those who have recognized the Father in truth (Brown).
Or, as I would translate it:
Those that struggle within themselves to find the Truth of the Father are blessed.
And I would suggest that “blessed” should be read as the joy that comes from participating in our highest good. For that matter, any beatitude should be read this way.
There are times that those little thoughts, those thousand, myriad, flashing thoughts can overwhelm us on the path inward. We can be driven to despair by little voices that tell us there is no possibility that one person can make a difference in the world. And in the struggle of despair we can miss that big, fine, obvious and easily grasped truth in front of us:
In the unity that is the mind of god, the effort of one is the effort of ALL.
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* Aesop
On The Path of the Adept 