John 8:15 · World English Bible
John 8:15 Meaning You Judge According to the Flesh
You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one.
What does John 8:15 mean?
To judge after the flesh is to look with the body's eyes and believe what they report, taking the surface of a brother for the whole of him and reading guilt into every appearance. This is the ego's only way of seeing, for judgment is how it holds the belief in separation in place.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
John 8:15 through 2 lenses
The same verse, read by 2 traditions.
Christian Psychology
Esoteric
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
To judge after the flesh is to look with the body's eyes and believe what they report, taking the surface of a brother for the whole of him and reading guilt into every appearance. This is the ego's only way of seeing, for judgment is how it holds the belief in separation in place. It looks outward, finds fault, and calls that seeing.
The awakened mind does the opposite by doing nothing of the kind. It judges no one, because it knows the wrong it might condemn was only a figure in a dream, and a dream cannot make anyone guilty. Where fear sees an offender to be sentenced, love sees a brother already innocent, and chooses not to condemn because there is nothing there to condemn.
The flesh: the body taken as the measure of truth, the surface the fearful mind reads guilt into, mistaking appearance for what a brother really is
Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app
ESOTERIC
Esoteric
To judge after the flesh is to weigh a person by the body born of parents, by surface and appearance, and this is the whole error of the crowd pressing in. What one calls another is only what the outer eye sees, and the outer eye reads flesh, never the spirit moving underneath.
The higher self within refuses that measure entirely and condemns no mind, because the awakened light does not sit above another to rank it. When the inner voice stops judging, it stops dividing itself, and the whole field of awareness settles into one seeing, resting in its own nature and finding itself in all.
Flesh: the physical body inherited from father and mother, the outer surface that appearance and opinion cling to Man: the mind, the reasoning self that stands accused or set free
Esoteric lensGo deeper in the app
Christian Psychology lens
Live John 8:15 today
- Scrolling today, you will decide who somebody is from one photo or one sentence. Catch that happening once and let the conclusion go unfinished.
- When someone is short with you, try the simplest explanation, that their day has been hard, instead of the one that makes them a worse person than you.
- In traffic, the person who cut you off is a whole life you know nothing about. Let them go and let your shoulders come down with them.
How much of what I think I see in people is actually just the surface?
The same truth in other traditions
Zen
The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. What you can see of a person is the finger, never the whole thing.
Stoicism · Epictetus
People are not upset by things but by their opinions about them. The verdict you feel so sure of was added by you, not delivered by the world.
Taoism · Zhuangzi
Seen from one side the thing is this; from the other it is that. Both reports come from where the watcher happens to stand.
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