John 8:19 · World English Bible
John 8:19 Meaning They Said Therefore to Him
They said therefore to him, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
What does John 8:19 mean?
The fearful mind asks where love is, as if it were somewhere far off to be located and pointed to, and the question itself reveals that it has lost sight of what it is. To know the awakened Self and to know its source are one knowing, for the two were never divided.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
John 8:19 through 3 lenses
The same verse, read by 3 traditions.
Christian Psychology
Manifestation
Esoteric
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
The fearful mind asks where love is, as if it were somewhere far off to be located and pointed to, and the question itself reveals that it has lost sight of what it is. To know the awakened Self and to know its source are one knowing, for the two were never divided. A mind that does not recognize its own innocence cannot recognize the love that gave it, since it is looking for outside what has always been within.
The answer, then, is not a direction but a turning inward. When a mind at last knows itself as love created it, the source it thought was distant is found to have been present all along, for to know the self truly is already to know its Father.
The Father: the source of love, sought as though it were far away yet known the instant the mind knows its own true self
Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app
MANIFESTATION
Manifestation
They ask where the Father is because they are looking outward for a person, when the Father is the awareness of being that each of them already carries. Here the I am, the plain sense of being that you feel before any description of yourself, is God. To know the son is to know your own consciousness, and to know that is to have found the Father, for the two are one movement of the same self.
So the answer is not evasive; it names the mistake exactly. A man cannot find the source of his life by searching among faces and places, because it is the very awareness doing the searching. Miss what you are, and you miss its origin too. The Father is not somewhere to be located. He is the one who says I am in you, and finding that is finding him.
Manifestation lensGo deeper in the app
ESOTERIC
Esoteric
Those who ask where the Father is prove they know neither the Christ within nor its source, because they hunt for an outer place when there is none to find. The searching itself is the failure: the divine is not lodged somewhere to be pointed at, and looking outward guarantees they meet neither.
The me and the Father are one indwelling presence, the I AM seated in everyone, so knowing the Christ within is the very knowing of its source; the 2 are found together or not at all.
Father: the indwelling source, the I AM seated within every person Me: the Christ within, the universal self, one with the Father it springs from
Esoteric lensGo deeper in the app
Christian Psychology lens
Live John 8:19 today
- When you next feel that low hum of searching, another app, another tab, another thing to buy, stop and sit quietly for two minutes without going anywhere. See what is already here.
- Instead of telling someone about your search for something more, really be with them for ten minutes, no phone on the table. It tends to show up right there.
- On a stressful day, when you feel there must be some missing piece that would make this bearable, try the thought that nothing is missing, and work the next ten minutes from there.
What am I looking for out there that may already be here?
The same truth in other traditions
Hinduism · Upanishads
What you have been searching the world for is already the one doing the searching. You are that, and always were.
Zen
A man rode his ox through the village asking everyone where his ox had gone. The whole trouble was that he never looked down.
Sufism · Rumi
I searched the temples and the mountains and did not find him. I looked in my own heart, and there he was.
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