Proverbs 29:13 · World English Bible
Proverbs 29:13 Meaning The Poor Man and the Oppressor Have
The poor man and the oppressor have this in common: Yahweh gives sight to the eyes of both.
What does Proverbs 29:13 mean?
The ego is forever sorting people into ranks, the wronged and the wrongdoer, the low and the crooked, certain these are different in kind. Yet the two it holds apart share one origin and one need, and the light that gives sight gives it to both without preference, undoing the distinction the mind was so sure of.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Proverbs 29:13 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
The ego is forever sorting people into ranks, the wronged and the wrongdoer, the low and the crooked, certain these are different in kind. Yet the two it holds apart share one origin and one need, and the light that gives sight gives it to both without preference, undoing the distinction the mind was so sure of. What separation calls opposites, love simply meets as the same.
To have one's eyes lightened is to be given true perception, and it is offered equally, because innocence was never a thing some possessed and others lacked. A mind that sees by that light stops ranking the people before it and recognizes in each the same Self it had divided into better and worse.
The poor: the one the mind judges as lowly and wronged, ranked below and set apart by a perception that loves to divide The deceitful man: the one the mind judges as crooked and guilty, held as the opposite of the poor until the same light reveals them one
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Christian Psychology lens
Live Proverbs 29:13 today
- Think of two people you hold at opposite ends, the one you pity and the one you blame, and find one thing they both want. It is usually the same thing you want.
- Treat the next two people you deal with today, whoever they are, with exactly the same tone of voice. The barista and the boss get the same you.
- When you catch yourself sizing someone up in a grocery line or on a screen, stop the sentence halfway and let them be a person with a whole life you know nothing about.
Where am I still ranking people I have never actually met?
The same truth in other traditions
Tao Te Ching 2
High and low only exist by leaning on each other. Take away the comparison and you are left with what is simply there.
Buddhism
The sun rises on the honest and the dishonest alike, with no preference. It is the mind that insists on sorting them.
Sufism · Rumi
Beyond ideas of good and bad there is a field where the ranking stops. Love meets people there, where no one is above anyone.
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