If you’re reading this alone, without a spiritual community, without a tradition that holds you, without others who understand your seeking, you might feel like something is wrong.
Everyone else seems to have a church, a sangha, a group. You have books and silence.
Here’s what the Gospel of Thomas says about that:
“Blessed are those who are solitary and superior, for you will find the kingdom; for since you come from it you shall return to it.” (Saying 49)
Blessed are those who are solitary.
Not cursed. Not incomplete. Blessed.
But the word translated “solitary” doesn’t mean what you think.
The Word Is Monachos
The Greek term is monachos. It’s the root of our word “monk.” But in the Gospel of Thomas, it doesn’t mean someone who lives alone in a monastery.
Monachos means “single one” or “unified one.”
Not lonely. Not isolated. Integrated.
The solitary ones are those who have gathered their scattered selves into unity. They’ve overcome internal division. They’ve become one within themselves.
And that changes everything about how we read these sayings.
The Sayings
The Gospel of Thomas returns to this theme repeatedly.
Saying 4b: “Many who are first will be last, and they will become a single one.”
Saying 16: “I have come to cast divisions upon the earth: fire, sword, war. For there will be five in a house: there will be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, and they will stand as solitary ones.”
Saying 22: “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female… then you will enter the kingdom.”
Saying 23: “I shall choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand, and they shall stand as a single one.”
Saying 49: “Blessed are those who are solitary and superior, for you will find the kingdom.”
Saying 75: “Many are standing at the door, but it is the solitary ones who will enter the bridal chamber.”
The pattern is clear. The kingdom belongs to those who become single, unified, whole.
What Division Looks Like
Before we can understand unity, we need to recognize division.
We are all fragmented. Split into pieces. Scattered.
The divided self: Part of you wants to grow; part wants to stay comfortable. Part seeks truth; part fears what truth might cost. You have public selves and private selves, acceptable parts and hidden parts.
The inner/outer split: Your outer life doesn’t match your inner life. You present one thing while experiencing another. The gap between who you appear to be and who you are exhausts you.
The mind/body division: You live in your head, disconnected from your body. Or you’re lost in sensation, unable to access reflection. The two don’t work together.
The masculine/feminine separation: Whatever your gender, you contain both energies. But you’ve probably been trained to suppress one. The active gets cut off from the receptive. The rational from the intuitive. The assertive from the nurturing.
Every one of these divisions creates suffering. Every split is a place where energy leaks, where wholeness fails.
The Path to Unity
Saying 22 describes the process:
“When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one…”
This is the work of becoming monachos.
Make the inner like the outer. Let who you appear to be match who you actually are. Stop the exhausting performance. Let the inside show.
Make the outer like the inner. Let your outer life express your inner truth. If something within you is being denied expression, find ways to let it live.
Make the upper like the lower. Integrate the spiritual and the physical. Don’t escape into lofty abstractions while ignoring your body, your practical life, your earthly existence. But don’t lose yourself in the material while neglecting your depths.
Make male and female into a single one. Welcome both the active and the receptive within you. Let the masculine and feminine energies marry internally. Stop privileging one over the other.
This integration doesn’t happen by rejecting parts of yourself. It happens by gathering them. The solitary one isn’t someone who has cut away the unacceptable. It’s someone who has brought everything home.
Why This Matters for Seekers Without Community
If you’re on a spiritual path without a community, here’s what the monachos teaching offers:
Your aloneness isn’t a problem to solve. It might be a calling to answer.
The tradition doesn’t say “blessed are those who found the right group.” It says “blessed are those who are solitary.” Your situation, which feels like a lack, might actually be creating the conditions for the integration that matters most.
The work is internal anyway.
A community can support your journey. A teacher can guide it. But the actual work of becoming unified happens within you. No one else can integrate your divided self. No one else can marry your masculine and feminine. This is yours to do.
Communities can even become obstacles if they become places to hide from the internal work. If belonging to the group substitutes for the harder work of belonging to yourself.
The kingdom is entered singly.
Saying 75 is explicit: “Many are standing at the door, but it is the solitary ones who will enter the bridal chamber.”
The bridal chamber is the innermost mystery, the place of final union. Whatever crowds are at the door, entry is individual. You can’t ride someone else’s integration into the kingdom.
This might sound harsh. But it’s also liberating. Your path is your own. Your work is your own. Your entry is your own.
The Paradox of Integration
Here’s what’s strange: becoming a single one leads to cosmic reunion.
The solitary ones aren’t permanently alone. They’re prepared for union. The bridal chamber requires the single ones precisely because integration is prerequisite to deeper joining.
Think about it: How can two become one if each is already fragmented? A scattered self entering a relationship just creates a more complicated mess. But a unified self can truly unite with another unified self.
The same applies spiritually. The scattered soul can’t return to the Pleroma, the divine fullness. But the integrated soul, gathered into unity, is ready to rejoin the source.
Saying 49 makes this explicit: “Blessed are those who are solitary and superior, for you will find the kingdom; for since you come from it you shall return to it.”
You come from unity. You return to unity. But the return requires becoming unified again yourself.
A Practice for the Path
If you want to begin this work of integration:
Notice your divisions. Spend a week simply observing where you’re split. Where does your inner life contradict your outer? Where do you suppress parts of yourself? What gets exiled?
Name the parts. Give attention to the different voices within you. The critic. The child. The striver. The one who wants to give up. Don’t judge them. Just notice them.
Create dialogue. Let the parts speak to each other. What does your hidden self want to say to your public self? What would your body tell your mind if it had words?
Practice integration moments. Choose one split and work with it consciously. If you tend toward the mental, spend time in physical presence. If you hide your inner life, share one true thing with someone today.
Embrace your solitude as sacred. Instead of lamenting the lack of community, use the solitude for the work only solitude makes possible. The integration of the self often happens best in silence.
For Those Alone
A word to those who feel isolated in their seeking:
You are not broken because you’re alone. You are not failing because you haven’t found your people. The tradition that calls you blessed is not mocking you.
The solitary ones are blessed because their situation, chosen or not, creates conditions for the most essential work. The integration of the self. The gathering of the scattered. The marriage within.
Many will stand at the door. But the single ones enter.
May you become what you already are.
The Gospel of Thomas is available in translation in The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (Marvin Meyer, ed.) and at various online repositories. For scholarly analysis of the monachos concept, see the work of Elaine Pagels and April DeConick.