1 Samuel 17:40 · World English Bible
He took his staff in his hand, and chose for himself five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag which he had. His sling was in his hand; and he came near to the Philistine.
The number 5 gathered from the brook is the count of the senses drawn up out of the flowing waters of the body and made smooth, worn round by long use until they are fit weapons. The small shepherd faces the giant of gross flesh not with armor but with these 5 refined faculties, one of which, flung true, drops the whole mass of the lower man.
From the Esoteric reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
ESOTERIC
The number 5 gathered from the brook is the count of the senses drawn up out of the flowing waters of the body and made smooth, worn round by long use until they are fit weapons. The small shepherd faces the giant of gross flesh not with armor but with these 5 refined faculties, one of which, flung true, drops the whole mass of the lower man. The staff is the spine held upright, the axis of the standing self, and the sling is focused thought that hurls a single point of awareness with force.
The giant is beaten by the small and inward, the concentrated sense-mind striking the forehead of appetite that towered over it.
5 smooth stones: the 5 senses drawn from the body's stream and worn round, refined into weapons that strike the lower nature Brook: the flowing water of the body from which the senses are gathered up and purified Staff: the upright spine, the standing axis of the self held in the hand Sling: focused thought that hurls a single point of concentrated awareness at the giant of the flesh The Philistine giant: the towering mass of gross appetite and animal body that overshadows the small inner self
Esoteric lens
What is the one small thing you keep skipping because it looks too small to matter?
The hard and rigid belongs to death, the soft and yielding to life. The great tree is broken by the storm while the small supple thing survives, so bulk is never the measure of strength.
The arrow does not reach the target by force of arm. It reaches it because the whole of the person has narrowed into one point of attention and then let go.
The steady one draws the senses back from their objects the way a turtle pulls in its limbs. Gathered that way, attention cuts through what sheer effort could not.
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Esoteric