John 10:16 · World English Bible
John 10:16 Meaning I Have Other Sheep
I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.
What does John 10:16 mean?
The mind that has awakened cannot picture some of its brothers as belonging and others as strangers, for separation is the one idea it has laid down. Wherever a thought still wanders as though it stood outside the whole, that thought is claimed too, because a single Sonship cannot be complete while any part is left in exile.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
John 10:16 through 2 lenses
The same verse, read by 2 traditions.
Christian Psychology
Esoteric
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
The mind that has awakened cannot picture some of its brothers as belonging and others as strangers, for separation is the one idea it has laid down. Wherever a thought still wanders as though it stood outside the whole, that thought is claimed too, because a single Sonship cannot be complete while any part is left in exile. The fences that mark one flock from another are drawn by the ego, which lives by dividing.
There is only one fold because there was only ever one mind, and every voice that seemed to call from outside it was its own. To hear the shepherd is simply to recognize the self that was calling all along, and to let the walls between the flocks fall as the fictions they always were.
Sheep: the scattered thoughts of the one mind, some near and some seeming far, all belonging to the same whole. Fold: the boundary the ego draws to make some brothers kin and others strangers, the fiction of belonging apart. Shepherd: the single Self that gathers every thought, the awakened teacher who was never truly divided from them.
Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app
ESOTERIC
Esoteric
The scattered faculties of a person are being gathered under a single rule. The sheep are the many thoughts and powers of the mind, and some graze outside the known enclosure, energies not yet claimed by the higher self and living apart in the unclaimed reaches of consciousness. These too must be brought in, drawn by the inner voice they recognize as their own source.
The end is one fold and one shepherd: the whole of a person's divided nature unified, every faculty answering to the single awareness at the center. Wholeness is simply this, when nothing in a person is left running loose on its own and all of it moves under one guide.
The sheep: the many thoughts and faculties of the mind, the powers that scatter and graze until the higher self gathers them. The shepherd: the single higher awareness at the center to which all the gathered faculties answer. The fold: the unified consciousness, the one enclosure in which every faculty is brought under one rule.
Esoteric lensGo deeper in the app
Christian Psychology lens
Live John 10:16 today
- Think of a person you have quietly filed under not my kind, and drop the file. Nothing else has to happen, you just stop maintaining the fence.
- In a group chat or at the family table, resist the pull of us and them. When the easy mockery starts, say one honest, generous thing about the people being talked about.
- When someone online or in a meeting sounds like an opponent, listen for what they are afraid of losing. Answer that, not the position, and the walls get thinner.
Who have I kept outside the fence, and what is the fence actually made of?
The same truth in other traditions
Hinduism · Isha Upanishad
Whoever sees all beings in themselves and themselves in all beings has nothing left to hate or fear. The seeing is what dissolves the line between inside and outside.
Buddhism · metta practice
Goodwill is extended in widening circles, to those you love, to strangers, and finally to the people you find hardest. The practice is complete only when no one has been left out.
Sufism · Ibn Arabi
The heart that has truly opened can hold a temple, a mosque and a church without strain. What used to look like rival camps turns out to be one thing described in different accents.
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