"Blessed is the lion that the human being will devour so that the lion becomes human. And cursed is the human being that the lion devours; and the lion will become human."
- Thomas 7:1
The integration of the self to achieve actualization is well established in this scarce koan-like attribution to Jesus of Nazareth by the apostle Thomas, found in an esoteric and heterodox work known as The Gospel of Thomas, retrieved from the Nag Hammadi library of Egypt. In the context of what is "other", it can be well read to appreciate that one in this life must "devour" and make part of the old life (those things primitive and bestial) to be in this life fuller than they were before; to not integrate it and to instead have it consume oneself, to fall into it, is a "curse" - it is to go backward in progress. If one does neither of these things, they exist, neither blessed nor cursed, but merely present.