Jeremiah 9:26 · World English Bible
Egypt, Judah, Edom, the children of Ammon, Moab, and all who have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness, for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.
Nations are named, some marked outwardly by their rituals and some not, yet the same thing is said of all of them: uncircumcised in the heart. What is cut away on the outside means nothing while the heart itself stays closed and hard.
From the Ego v. Being reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
EGO & BEING
Nations are named, some marked outwardly by their rituals and some not, yet the same thing is said of all of them: uncircumcised in the heart. What is cut away on the outside means nothing while the heart itself stays closed and hard.
This points to the difference between outer form and inner awakening. You can carry every external sign of belief and still live entirely from the defended, separate self that keeps the heart shut. The real opening happens inwardly, as the ego's hard shell falls away and presence begins to flow through you. Until that happens, all people stand in the same place whatever their labels: still asleep. The change that matters is not on the surface of your life but in the awakening of awareness within you.
Ego v. Being lens
Where in your life is the form intact while something inside stays shut?
A sutra chanted a thousand times by a closed heart is only sound in a room. The robe, the incense and the bell can all be perfect while the person wearing them has not yet woken up.
When the living thing fades, ritual and manners arrive to take its place. The more elaborate the form, the thinner what it was meant to carry.
The Baal Shem Tov taught that the simple prayer of an unlettered person, said with the whole heart, rises higher than the learned one said without it. What counts is the intention behind the words, not the correctness of the performance.
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Ego v. Being