Every chapter of the Gospel of John proclaims nondual reality. Today I am going to deal with one of the greatest chapters in the gospel, but one that does not get the attention it deserves. Chapter 4 has the story of Jesus meeting with a Samaritan woman at the well. It is a powerfully symbolic story.
This story is filled with dualities. It is like a living illustration of the Yin Yang symbol. Here is a man and a woman, a Jew and a Samaritan, two different races and two different religions. They come together at an ancient and deep well which had been dug by Jacob, the forefather of Israel. The well is more than physical water, but what Jesus calls “living water,” which symbolizes the single Source from which all religions draw their inspiration. Their conversation is about how Truth is both deeper than and transcends religious, cultural and racial barriers.
In the story the well is the symbol of nonduality. Jesus says that those who drink from the waters of religious duality will thirst again. They will have to come back again and again through religious rituals and spiritual practices to be refreshed. Jesus offers another way. He says, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
Jesus is talking about a spirituality that comes from within versus external religion. When one has living water welling up from within oneself, one does not need the drinking vessels, which symbolize the externals of religion. True spirituality is within us. Jesus says elsewhere, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” It is not found in outside religious beliefs and practices. Those can be expressions of the inner reality, seeking to express the inexpressible. But dualities can never adequately express nonduality. The Living Water of Nondual awareness is seen by looking within.
Every chapter of the Gospel of John proclaims nondual reality. Today I am going to deal with one of the greatest chapters in the gospel, but one that does not get the attention it deserves. Chapter 4 has the story of Jesus meeting with a Samaritan woman at the well. It is a powerfully symbolic story.
Jesus was traveling from Jerusalem, where he had observed the Passover, back to his home in Galilee in the northern part of the country. To do so he traveled through a middle region called Samaria. That fact itself is significant. This region was occupied by Samaritans who were of a different religion and race than Jews. They considered each other heretics. Most Jews went out of way to avoid going through Samaria, but Jesus felt no qualms about the route.
He arrives at a town called Sychar at noontime. While his disciples are off getting some lunch, Jesus sits by the town well. A Samaritan woman comes to draw water from the well, and he has a conversation with her. First it is simply about asking for a drink of water from the well, but the conversation soon turns to spiritual matters.
This story is filled with dualities. It is like a living illustration of the Yin Yang symbol. Here is a man and a woman, a Jew and a Samaritan, two different races and two different religions. They come together at an ancient and deep well which had been dug by Jacob, the forefather of Israel. The well symbolizes more than physical water, but what Jesus calls “living water.”
These two people draw spiritual nourishment from the same Source, symbolling the single Source from which all religions draw their inspiration. It is marvelous symbolism. Their conversation is about how Truth is both deeper than and transcends religious, cultural and racial barriers.
Jesus asks the woman for a drink of water. “Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
Here is a Jew asking a Samaritan for water. More than that! Here is the Christ – the founder of the Christian faith - asking a woman of another faith and race and culture. For Christians reading this it means that we need not be hesitant to look for spiritual nourishment outside of our own religious tradition.
I have been nourished throughout my life by other religious traditions. In my late teens and early twenties I was reading the Tao Te Ching and the Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gita. I was learning from Chinese Philosophy, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. I cannot imagine what my life would have been like without this influence. To read only within one’s own religious tradition is like eating only one type of food. Maybe that is alright for some people but I love all types of food - Chinese food and Italian food and French food and Mexican food. Okay not Mexican food, but you get my point.
In the story both this Jew and this Samaritan were drinking from the same well. All spiritual traditions draw from the same eternal Source, which has been called the Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley. The religions are drawing water using different types of vessels, but it is the same living water. They express it differently, but in the differences we can see the commonality. Jesus calls this commonality Living Water.
The Samaritan woman was so attached to outward forms of her religion that she missed the inner Truth. We see this attitude in her words. First she accused Jesus of claiming to be greater than her ancestor Jacob, from which the Samaritans traced their lineage. She goes on to point out the differences between their two faiths saying, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
Jesus responds, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. … The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus is referring to spirituality that transcends religion. Jesus does unapologetically prefer his own spiritual tradition. He says to her, “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.” Jesus was man of this time and culture. He was a Jew who never abandoned his religion. I am a Christian and do not abandon my religion. Hindus think their tradition is the best and most inclusive. Buddhists think theirs is the clearest. These days Nondualists think their approach is the purest and best. We all are products of our religious experience. That is alright as long as we see that all traditions are united in a deeper nondualistic Reality.
We live in a world of duality and that means differences, including different religions. But Jesus says that “the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth... God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman observes that Jesus is a prophet. I agree. Jesus was able to see a time in the future when the duality of dueling religions would be transcended. I think we are in that time now.
In the story the well is the symbol of nonduality. Jesus says that those who drink from the waters of religious duality will thirst again. They will have to come back again and again through religious rituals and spiritual practices to be refreshed. Jesus offers another way. He says, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
Jesus is talking about a spirituality that comes from within versus external religion. That is why in the story the woman left her waterpot at the well when she returned to the town. She did not need it any longer. When you have reached the other shore you no longer need the boat. When one has living water welling up from within oneself, one does not need the drinking vessels, which symbolize the externals of religion.
True spirituality is within us. Jesus says elsewhere, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” It is not found in outside religious beliefs and practices. Those can be expressions of the inner reality, seeking to express the inexpressible. But dualities can never adequately express nonduality. It needs to be known directly. That is what Jesus is pointing to. Jesus is instructing the woman to look within. That is why Jesus starts asking the woman about her identity. It becomes clear in their conversation that Jesus knows who this woman really is better than she knows herself.
The Living Water of Nondual awareness is seen by looking within. This woman was willing to go beyond the self-deceit and the layers of psychological injuries and social ostracism that she had endured, which I have not even gotten into in this talk. This woman was an outcast in her own community. That is why she was visiting the well in the heat of the day, when all respectable women sheltering in the shade. She was scarred and hurting. She was an outsider. She was suffering. She was thirsty, and that is why she asked Jesus for living water. That is the type of person who is open to the Living Water of the Eternal Christ.
There is one more important point in this story. The end of the story loops back to the identity of Jesus, where Jesus began the conversation when he said to the woman, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” Now we are told who Jesus is. The woman suspects that Jesus may be the Messiah and says so.
Jesus’ response is normally translated something like “I who speak to you am He.” But here is a place where it is helpful to look at the Greek text. The first two words of Jesus’ response is “I AM.” This is one of the “I AM” statements that run throughout the Gospel of John. Jesus literally says, “I AM is speaking to you.” The new Living Translation translates it as “The ‘I am’ is here.” Jesus identifies himself to her not just as a Jewish Messiah, but as the Eternal One, who is the Living Water. As Jesus says a few chapters later: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
There is a lot more to this story. I have barely dipped my toes into the water, you might say, but I hope you see the main points. Jesus was a spiritual teacher who was able to take an encounter at a town well and turn it into a session of spiritual direction to point this woman to her True Nature and his true Nature. This is the Nondual Reality that transcends religious, gender and cultural identities. This is the water of life at the heart of all spiritual traditions.