In chapter five of John’s Gospel, we find a story that teaches us an important truth about nonduality. It is the story of Jesus healing a man at the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. It is much more than just a miracle tale. Like all the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of John, this is intended as symbolic. It is proclaiming the ultimate healing that comes about by realizing one’s true Self and waking up to the Truth of Eternal Life.
On the surface this is a physical healing story, but it is really a parable about being made whole in a spiritual sense. I use the phrase “being made whole” in a literal sense. We are not little isolated parts of the whole, tiny psychological entities encased in human bodies of flesh. We are the whole. To wake up to the Kingdom of God is to realize that we are already whole. It is just a matter of recognizing this.
It is also a matter of intention. Jesus asks the man in this story, “Do you want to be made whole?” The intention of the man is the key. The Buddha called it “right intent.” Most people do not really want to be made whole. They have gotten used to the way things are. Most people have no true desire for liberation, freedom, salvation or enlightenment. We prefer bondage and spend our lives escaping from freedom, as Erich Fromm phrased it.
People convince themselves that there is something basically wrong with them. They see a fundamental dis-ease in their souls. Different spiritual traditions use different words and concepts to explain what is thought to be wrong. Hindus call it ignorance or bondage. Buddhists call it suffering. Christians call it sin and original sin – we are born this way, they say. Calvinists call total depravity. Christians see the whole world as fallen and we with it. We have fallen from our primordial paradise into a condition of lostness, sin and death and condemnation. It is a dark view of the human condition.
But Jesus does not accept this diagnosis or prognosis. Jesus sees the man’s innate wholeness and calls him to act upon it. Jesus tells him, “Rise, take up your bed, and walk.” And the man does exactly that. It does not say that Jesus healed him. Jesus simply tells him to get up. All it took was someone to point out to him that he was already whole and tell him to trust it!
Already Whole
In chapter five of John’s Gospel, we find a story that teaches us an important truth about nonduality. It is the story of Jesus healing a man at the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. It is much more than just a miracle tale. Like all the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of John, this is intended as symbolic. It is proclaiming the ultimate healing that comes about by realizing one’s true Self and waking up to the Truth of Eternal Life.
Jesus was Jerusalem again for one of the Jewish feasts. We are not told which one. He comes into Jerusalem through the Sheep Gate to the Pool of Bethesda, where people were gathered to be healed. It was believed that the waters of this pool had miraculous powers at certain times during the holy days. People believed that an angel of the Lord came down and stirred the waters of the pool, and whoever got into the water first after that would be healed.
There was a man there who had been sick 38 years. We are not told what his condition was, which means he represents all people. Jesus saw the man lying there and said to him, “Do you want to be made whole?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am coming, another steps down before me.” At that point Jesus simply says to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” Immediately the man was whole, picked up his bed, and walked.
On the surface this is a physical healing story, but it is really a parable about being made whole in a spiritual sense. I use the phrase “being made whole” in a literal sense. We are not little isolated parts of the whole, tiny psychological entities encased in human bodies of flesh. We are the whole. To wake up to the Kingdom of God is to realize that we are already whole. It is just a matter of recognizing this.
Jesus asks the man in this story, “Do you want to be made whole?” The intention of the man is the key. The Buddha called it “right intent.” Most people do not really want to be made whole. They have gotten used to the way things are. Most people have no true desire for liberation, freedom, salvation or enlightenment. We prefer bondage and spend our lives escaping from freedom, as Erich Fromm phrased it.
People convince themselves that there is something basically wrong with them. They see a fundamental dis-ease in their souls. Different spiritual traditions use different words and concepts to explain what is thought to be wrong. Hindus call it ignorance or bondage. Buddhists call it suffering. Christians call it sin and original sin – we are born this way, they say. Calvinists call total depravity. Christians see the whole world as fallen and we with it. We have fallen from our primordial paradise into a condition of lostness, sin and death and condemnation. It is a dark view of the human condition.
The man in the story has convinced himself that his case is hopeless. He has been sick all his life and has convinced himself that his situation is completely hopeless. When Jesus asked him the question, “Do you want to be made whole?” he does not reply the way that we would expect. He does not say, “Yes, please, I do, with all my heart and soul!” Instead he gives an excuse why it is impossible and he will never be whole.
But Jesus does not accept his diagnosis or prognosis. Jesus sees the man’s innate wholeness and call him to act upon it. Jesus tells him, “Rise, take up your bed, and walk.” And the man does exactly that. It does not say that Jesus healed him. Jesus simply tells him to get up. All it took was someone to point out to him that he was already whole and tell him to trust it!
I am not saying that all physical ailments are in our heads, that illness is just a misunderstanding. Such a spiritual philosophy in some Christian circles has caused people not to seek medical treatment for themselves or their children when they should. Many lives have been needlessly lost due to that approach to illness. That is not what this story is teaching and certainly not what I am teaching.
In one sense it is true that illness is unreal, but only in the sense that the whole physical universe is unreal in an ultimate sense. The only reality is God. Everything else is temporary. It comes and goes. Only that which does not change is real in an ultimate sense. Our temporal physical existence comes and goes and therefore is not real in this ultimate sense, and therefore neither are the conditions of the body. But while we are living as persons in this physical world we need to seek help in this world. That means when we get sick, we seek medical attention.
I don’t think this story is about physical healing at all. It is metaphorical. It is a parable about how to be saved from spiritual dis-ease and suffering. Jesus showed this man that he already was whole. Jesus pointed that out to the man by telling him to get up and carry his cot away from that place that system that reinforced his belief in his own brokenness and helplessness. Even though the text does not say it, I picture him reaching out his hand to pull the man to his feet to show him he is whole.
The truth is that we are already whole. The goal of all religious traditions is already here now. We are already saved, already free from bondage, already awake. We are one with Ultimate Reality beyond this physical world. We are what we seek. All spiritual systems propose some goal, just like this man had the goal of getting into the water at just the right time to be healed. Jesus showed this man that he did not need the water; he was whole just the way he was. All he had to do was get to his feet, and take away the symbol of his bondage. That is what the man did. He rose, picked up his cot and walked away.
The rest of this chapter is Jesus and the author of the Gospel talking expounding on the story. I am going to mention just a couple of the things that were said. The most important is an observation by the author of the gospel. He says that as a result of this healing and Jesus’ subsequent teaching about it, “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath [because he did this healing on the Sabbath], but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.”
They clearly heard Jesus teaching that he was equal with God. That his own true nature was divine. And he makes it clear that this is all of humanity’s true nature as well, insofar as they realize they are one with Him. Being one in Christ is being one with God. That is true wholeness. It is to see who Jesus really is and seeing who we really are.
Here is another interesting verse. Jesus said to the religious leaders who were accusing him of heresy, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” This gives us insight into Jesus’ approach to scripture.
Religions have scriptures. All major religions do, whether it be the Muslim’s Quran or the Jews’ Tanakh or the Buddhists’ Sutras or the Hindu’s Vedas or the Christians’ Bible. To differing degrees they see their scriptures as inspired. People find guidance from the Divine in their Scriptures. But what happens is that the Scriptures in time become substitutes for the Divine. Instead of going directly to the Source to which the scriptures point, they think that in the Scriptures themselves is eternal life.
That is secondhand spirituality. I have seen this in my own Christian tradition when Christians – especially evangelical and fundamentalist Christians – use terms like infallible and inerrant to apply to the Bible. They insist that Christians have to take everything these ancient writers said literally, even when it comes to science and history, complete with seven day creation, talking serpents and donkeys, the sun standing still and floating axe heads.
Jesus refutes that view of Scripture. He says, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” The purpose of the Scriptures is to point people beyond itself to the Eternal one to which it points, so that they may share in Eternal Life.
But Christians miss the point and will not come to the Eternal Christ. Instead they fabricate theological systems around the idea of Christ. They develop elaborate schemes of salvation that involve having to accept certain doctrines and practices. Other religions do the same thing with certain beliefs and spiritual practices. But all those are unnecessary. Like the man at the pool of Bethesda, we already have what we seek. All we have to do is get up and walk in it. It is just a matter of accepting it and trusting it. We are already whole. This story points us to that One Reality.