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Acts 22:8 · World English Bible

Acts 22:8 Meaning I Answered

I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ He said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.’

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What does Acts 22:8 mean?

Whatever you do to another, you do to the one life that lives as both of you. This is not a moral rule but a description of reality.

From the Ego v. Being reading below.

Acts 22:8 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

EGO & BEING

Ego v. Being

Whatever you do to another, you do to the one life that lives as both of you. This is not a moral rule but a description of reality. A single consciousness looks out through every pair of eyes, and when you strike at another, it is this same awareness in disguise that receives the blow.

The question who art thou always returns one answer: I am. Not the small self with your name and history, but the formless presence aware in you and in everyone you meet. Once you truly see this, cruelty becomes impossible, because you recognize others as yourself.

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Ego v. Being lens

Live Acts 22:8 today

  1. Before you fire off the sharp reply in a group chat, read the message once more as if a friend you love had sent it, then decide what to say.
  2. The next time you are short with someone in a service job, a cashier, someone on the phone, slow down and treat them like a person having their own day, because they are.
  3. When you are angry at someone online or in a meeting, say one true thing about the problem without saying anything about who they are as a person.

Who have you been treating as a character in your story rather than a person in their own?

The same truth in other traditions

Hinduism · Upanishads

That which is aware in you is the same awareness in everyone. See it in another and you are seeing yourself from a different window.

Judaism · Hillel

What you would hate done to you, do not do to another. The whole thing is in that one line, the rest is working it out.

Buddhism

Every person you meet wants to be happy and does not want to suffer, exactly like you. Hold that steadily and cruelty gets hard to manage.

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