Ai’s take on it
“This line is from the Gospel of Thomas, saying 70. It’s usually read as a teaching that what is inwardly true, gifted, or alive in you must be expressed; otherwise it turns inward into stagnation, fear, or self-destruction.
A common spiritual interpretation is that hidden truth, insight, or faith has to be brought into action, not merely possessed privately. In that sense, the quote is less about punishment and more about the cost of suppressing one’s deepest truth.”
Letting it sink in…
The default mode of the thinking mind is to rush, to make-sense, to conceptualize, to “have” something to hold onto.
How about using “If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you” as an invitation for a mini retreat, to open up, to oneder:
“Speak Lord, your servant is listening”.
Lord, not as another,
but the fullness of life,
the ground of being,
a peace beyond understanding.
Prior to mind, prior to the blah blah, the shallow noise and restlessness of the person.
“If you do not bring forth what is within you,
what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
This little sentence is knocking at the door of “me”;
how do I open the door?
There is peace, gratitude, a warm belly.
“Truth is simple, the seeker is complex.”