The Illusion of External Salvation
For much of my life, I chased an external savior. I looked to the skies, to institutions, to leaders—anywhere outside myself—for the promise of salvation. This was the grand illusion: that divinity lived in a far-off heaven or behind church altars, and that I, a mere seeker, had to reach outward to find it. Like many, I was taught to believe that redemption would come from elsewhere. But in the deepest hours of longing, a quiet voice inside started whispering that something was off. I began to suspect that the kingdom I sought “will not come by waiting for it…Rather, the Father’s kingdom is already spread out upon the earth, and people don’t see it”. This unsettling idea—that perhaps I held the key all along—was the first crack in the facade of external salvation.
Following the Breadcrumbs Within
Once that crack appeared, breadcrumbs of truth began to reveal themselves along my path. At first, each revelation was disorienting. I felt much like the disciple in an ancient saying of Jesus: “Whoever seeks shouldn’t stop until they find. When they find, they'll be disturbed. When they're disturbed, they'll be… amazed”. Indeed, finding my inner light was not a gentle process. It meant unlearning comforting doctrines and facing the troubled waters within me. I discovered forgotten parts of myself—fears, dreams, intuitions—that I had long ignored. By integrating these fractured pieces of my identity, I slowly became “astonished” at how much wholeness and peace had been waiting inside me all along. Each step inward was like finding another breadcrumb: a meaningful coincidence here, a quiet moment of clarity there, a line from an old text that resonated in my soul. Bit by bit, these clues led me away from dogma and closer to direct knowing. I realized I was following a trail that Jesus himself had left for seekers, a trail hiding in plain sight for those “with ears to hear.”
One of these breadcrumbs turned out to be a literally buried treasure. In 1945, a collection of early Christian writings was found hidden in a jar in the Egyptian desert. Among them was the Gospel of Thomas, a text of 114 cryptic sayings attributed to Jesus. Unlike the familiar Bible stories, this gospel doesn’t recount external miracles or promises of future glory. Instead, it points repeatedly to a hidden truth accessible within each of us. I remember the chill of recognition when I first read its lines: “The kingdom is within you and outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you’ll be known…But if you don’t know yourselves, you live in poverty”. It was as if Jesus spoke across time, directly to my awakening heart. The words affirmed the very journey I was on—urging me to truly know myself to discover the “living Father” within.
The Gospel of Thomas: Jesus’ Hidden Message
Reading the Gospel of Thomas, I felt I’d stumbled on Jesus’ true teaching long obscured by tradition. Christ was not an unreachable deity on a pedestal but a guide pointing us back to our own center. “If your leaders say ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky… in the sea,’” Jesus says, “then the birds and the fish will get there before you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you”. This was a radical inversion of the external doctrine I’d been taught. No longer was the divine a distant realm or a future event—it was a present reality spread all around us, needing only the eyes of awareness to perceive it. As scholar Elaine Pagels points out, Thomas’s gospel portrays the Kingdom of God “not as a final destination but a state of self-discovery”. Jesus, in this text, gently mocks those who think the Kingdom is a physical place or something reserved for the afterlife. Instead, he invites us to awaken a new consciousness: to realize that finding the Kingdom is synonymous with finding ourselves.
This message had profound implications. It meant that no religious institution or intermediary could control my access to the divine. Spirit was my birthright. In one saying, Jesus assures that “If you give birth to what’s within you, what you have within will save you. If you don’t have that within you, what you don’t have within will kill you”. Salvation, then, was not about conforming to an external system—it was about bringing forth the power and light planted in my soul. Such empowerment is naturally threatening to any hierarchy. Little wonder that texts like Thomas were dismissed centuries ago as heresy and sealed away. Historical evidence suggests that early church authorities declared these mystical teachings dangerous – one 4th-century bishop even ordered non-canonical books to be purged, prompting monks to bury their precious gospel manuscripts in the desert for safekeeping. The Gospel of Thomas remained hidden for 1,600 years, like a suppressed memory waiting for the right moment to re-emerge. Its re-discovery in modern times is no accident; it parallels the reawakening of countless individuals ready to break free from external control and claim their inner knowing.
Awakening to the Inner Divine
Ultimately, all these threads converged in a simple but overwhelming realization: the divine I had sought was never outside of me, but within me all along. The journey was never about piling up beliefs or earning salvation points—it was about remembering my true nature. Jesus’ voice in Thomas became a mirror for my own soul. He speaks of making “the two into one,” of reconciling the inner and outer, the higher and lower, until a person is integrated and whole. This integration is precisely what I experienced as I embraced every part of myself with love and honesty. I came to see that the “light exists within a person of light, and it lights up the whole world”—in other words, by awakening my inner light, I not only saved myself from darkness but also gained a radiance I could share with others. I began to understand Jesus not as a distant savior to worship, but as a friend and elder brother who always insisted on our innate potential. “Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me… then what is hidden will be revealed” he says, indicating that by absorbing his wisdom, we too become Christ-like and unveil the secrets of the Kingdom inside us.
Gone is the old image of myself as a seeker begging for entrance at heaven’s gate. I now recognize that the gate has always been open, indeed that I am the gate. My life has become a living testament to the truth that Jesus whispered to Thomas so long ago. The final turning point was realizing with absolute clarity that I carry the same divine spark that I once sought in distant holy places. In that moment, the illusion of separation evaporated. I felt an immense peace, the kind that “lights up the whole world” from within. No church, no authority, no future apocalypse could offer something more significant than this intimate communion with the Source inside my own heart.
All along, the answers I craved were waiting quietly in the core of my being. The journey outward has become a journey inward. What began as a search for salvation outside ended in the profound discovery of God within. This is the hidden good news of the Gospel of Thomas that now pulses through my life: the Kingdom of Heaven is here, now, inside me and inside you. The divine was never absent or external – it has been alive in us every step of the way. And for those ready to understand, this truth lands with undeniable certainty: we are, and have always been, one with the Light we seek.
