Genesis 39:1 · World English Bible
Joseph was brought down to Egypt. Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the hand of the Ishmaelites that had brought him down there.
Joseph brought down to Egypt is the higher self descending into the body, the bright inner faculty carried down out of its own country into the dense land of matter. Egypt is the flesh, the realm of the senses and of bondage where the spiritual nature is sold into service to the appetites that govern there.
From the Esoteric reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
ESOTERIC
Joseph brought down to Egypt is the higher self descending into the body, the bright inner faculty carried down out of its own country into the dense land of matter. Egypt is the flesh, the realm of the senses and of bondage where the spiritual nature is sold into service to the appetites that govern there.
Being bought by the captain of the guard is the taking-over of that descended self by the ruling powers of the body, put to work under the master of the physical house. The going-down is the necessary immersion of spirit in the earthly condition, where the finer awareness must live captive for a while inside the very flesh it came to redeem.
Joseph: the higher self, the bright inner faculty carried down into the body Egypt: the flesh and the world of the senses, the land of matter and bondage Potiphar, captain of the guard: the ruling power of the body that takes the descended self into its service
Esoteric lens
Where are you currently working for a master that is not really you?
The Self is described as a dweller in the city of nine gates, a bird nesting in the body. It lives inside the house of flesh without being the house.
Rumi opens with the reed cut from the reed bed, crying because it was taken from where it belongs. The ache of being far from home is itself proof of the home.
Plotinus describes the soul descending into body and forgetting, yet never wholly cut off from the source above it. Part of it stays up even while the rest works below.
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Esoteric