Parables

[spiritletter]

I'm finding myself more and more attracted to the teaching parables spoken by Christ in the gospels. They remind me of Zen stories or Sufi tales. There is one Sufi Story that I think speaks to how religion is used and misused that is an interesting lens through which view many of the issues I have encountered in the forums here.

I'll relate it below:

A master called three of his students together and taught them how to make fire using flint stones. Then he sent them out into the world to teach others. Many years went by, and the Master decided that he would go out and follow the trail of his students to see how they made out. He visited three groups of people who had been visited, respectively, by the three students he'd sent out.

The first group could not make fire but was worshiping the flint stones and fantasizing the big fire to come.

The second group had mastered making fire but was using it to destructive ends against their enemies.

Only in the third group were people using his teaching correctly.

This is one of the easier Sufi stories, because the allegory is instantly recognizable.

Now, to approach the parables of Christ in the manner of Sufis using teaching parables -- which is what I believed Christ to be doing -- how do we interpret the much more difficult parables of the virgins, the mustard seed, the Good Samaritan, etc.

I'd like to open up a thread that concerns the teaching to be had in Christ's parables. Anybody game?

[Heterodoxus]

-- how do we interpret the much more difficult parables of the virgins, the mustard seed, the Good Samaritan, etc.

I'd like to open up a thread that concerns the teaching to be had in Christ's parables. Anybody game?

Pick one. I'll check back later today or tomorrow.

[spiritletter]

-- how do we interpret the much more difficult parables of the virgins, the mustard seed, the Good Samaritan, etc.

I'd like to open up a thread that concerns the teaching to be had in Christ's parables. Anybody game?

Pick one. I'll check back later today or tomorrow.

Luke 10, 29-37.

This one is straight forward, really. You neighbor is the one who helps you in spite of which people he comes from. That's the apparent (exoteric) meaning. My question is -- is their perhaps a hidden (esoteric) meaning to the story?

[Heterodoxus]

Luke 10, 29-37.

This one is straight forward, really. You neighbor is the one who helps you in spite of which people he comes from. That's the apparent (exoteric) meaning. My question is -- is their perhaps a hidden (esoteric) meaning to the story?

This parable actually begins in LK 10:25, and vss. 25-29 set the scene which is, IMO, important to understanding the allegory.

There's a couple things I'd like to refresh myself on so, in the interim, do you see a hidden/esoteric meaning in the parable of The Good Samaritan?

[Heterodoxus]

Luke 10, 29-37.
..... You neighbor is the one who helps you in spite of which people he comes from. That's the apparent (exoteric) meaning. My question is -- is their perhaps a hidden (esoteric) meaning to the story?

Other than an Aesopic moral to do good to others even if you think they don't deserve your help, I read no kabbalistic or orphic meaning in this parabolic allegory.

However:

What does "love of neighbor" mean? Who is one's neighbor? In Jesus' answer to this, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, he makes clear that it [was] not the [person] who passed the assaulted man on the road. They were not neighbors. But the foreigner who showed mercy proved to be a neighbor. In esoteric language it has to do with those near you in being, -- in understanding. Not everyone is a neighbor, .... ~ Dwight Ott, Esoteric Christianity

We might not all be neighbors, but are we not each others fellow man? Accordingly, I prefer the Aesopic moral rather than the esoteric meaning ascribed to this parable.