Hi Folks,

I like what you both have in hand here. ;-)

I'm working with this as a statement about spiritual awareness. Until we realize what we already have by virtue of our nature, the Spirit and its blessings continue to be excluded from our awareness and life becomes less and less meaningful. However, if you know what you really are, then you know what riches are available to you at all times.

The ancient Gnostics (and Kabbalists too) insisted that each of us is built up around a spark of the Divine. So long as we remain ignorant of that point of union we are beggars and the easy prey of spiritual thieves (like televangelists!), because we make the mistake of believing that what we need is something external that must be earned, bought or bestowed upon us. Remember saying 35: "It is not possible for anyone to enter the house of a strong man and take it by force unless he binds his hands; then he will (be able to) ransack his house."

The GoT differs from the synoptic gospels on this saying (41) by adding the words "in hand", and I think this is insignificant. In Kabbalah, the hand is an important spiritual symbol, in fact in both Hebrew and Coptic (the language of the oldest known version of the GoT), one of the letters is named Kaf, which literally means "hand". This word can also be used for a cup, bowl, or incense dish. Furthermore, there is a ancient Semitic idiom "to fill the hand" which actually means "to consecrate"! That idiom is used throughout the Old Testament.