Proverbs 5:15 · World English Bible
Proverbs 5:15 Meaning Drink Water Out of Your Own Cistern
Drink water out of your own cistern, running water out of your own well.
What does Proverbs 5:15 mean?
Every hunger the mind feels is a call to turn inward, where a spring waits that never runs dry. The ego insists that what satisfies must be found outside, in another person or a possession, and so the mind wanders, thirsty, past the source it already carries.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Proverbs 5:15 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
Every hunger the mind feels is a call to turn inward, where a spring waits that never runs dry. The ego insists that what satisfies must be found outside, in another person or a possession, and so the mind wanders, thirsty, past the source it already carries. Peace is not fetched from a distance. It is drawn from within, the quiet presence of love that has always been held there.
To drink from one's own well is to stop seeking wholeness where it was never lost. A mind that learns this is content.
Cistern: the still inner reservoir of peace the mind holds within itself, the treasure of love it need not go outside to find Well: the living source of spirit deep in the mind, from which understanding rises fresh whenever the mind turns inward to draw
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Live Proverbs 5:15 today
- The next time you reach for your phone out of a vague restlessness, set it down and sit with the restlessness for two minutes. You are not fixing it. You are finding out it can be held without being fed.
- Spend time with someone without needing them to make you feel better about yourself. Let them just be a person rather than a source of reassurance, and feel how much lighter that is for both of you.
- When a day goes wrong and you want someone to tell you it is fine, try giving yourself that first. One quiet moment of "I am okay right now" before you go looking for it in a text thread.
What am I trying to get from outside that might already be in here?
The same truth in other traditions
Hinduism · Upanishads
The teaching says what you are looking for is already the thing looking. The seeker and the treasure were never in two places.
Zen
A student asked where to find the way and was told it is under your feet. The searching is what keeps you from standing still long enough to feel it.
Sufism · Rumi
He wrote that what you are seeking is also seeking you, and warned against knocking on doors when the house is already yours. The thirst is a sign of water, not its absence.
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