Mid-century illustration of a calm sea at dawn

Mark 15:38 · World English Bible

Mark 15:38 Meaning The Veil of the Temple Was Torn

The veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom.

What does Mark 15:38 mean?

In the moment the belief in separation is carried through to its end, the barrier that seemed to divide the mind from its source is torn away. The veil had stood for the conviction that the holy was hidden, kept behind a curtain, reachable only through fear and ritual.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Mark 15:38 through 2 lenses

The same verse, read by 2 traditions.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

In the moment the belief in separation is carried through to its end, the barrier that seemed to divide the mind from its source is torn away. The veil had stood for the conviction that the holy was hidden, kept behind a curtain, reachable only through fear and ritual. Its tearing is the discovery that no such division was ever real, that what the mind believed it was shut out from was open all along.

That it is rent from the top downward shows the correction does not come from the self's own effort but is given from above, from the truth reaching down into the dream. Separation is undone not by the mind climbing to reach God but by the recognition, granted rather than earned, that there was never anything between them.

Veil of the temple: the seeming barrier between the mind and its source, the belief that the holy is hidden and reachable only through fear, torn away to reveal there was never any division at all

Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app

SUFISM

Sufism

A heavy curtain that had long screened off the holiest room splits, the tear running top to bottom, so no human hand could claim to have begun it. Some part of the heart had loved that barrier, feeling safer with God kept at a formal distance behind cloth. Letting the separation fall, stepping into a nearness that needs no go-between, is the cure.

What seemed like two rooms, the common and the sacred, was always one house. The hidden and the near prove to be a single reality, and the light pours the whole way down.

Christian Psychology lens

Live Mark 15:38 today

  1. When you feel too far gone for anything good to reach you, test it instead of believing it. Sit still for two minutes and see whether anything is actually holding you out.
  2. Tell one person today something about yourself you usually keep behind the curtain. The thing you thought disqualified you from closeness is usually the thing that makes it.
  3. On the commute, the walk, the grocery line, drop the idea that the good part of life starts later, after you have fixed yourself. Look around at exactly where you are and let it count.

What have I been waiting to deserve before I would let myself have it?

The same truth in other traditions

Sufism · Rumi

The veil was never over the sun, it was over your eyes. What you were kept out of was never closed.

Hinduism · Upanishads

The truth you are looking for is nearer than the search for it. You are not outside what you are trying to reach.

Zen

The gate has no gate. You spend years learning to pass through something that was never blocking the way.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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