Before they were called prophets or Christ (anointed one) or buddha (awakened one) or jnani (knowing one), or arhat (worthy one) they were called seers. The Hebrew Scriptures say that was the term used in the time of the prophet Samuel. It reads, “the prophet of today was formerly called the seer.” Such people were able to see with spiritual eyes what could not be seen with physical eyes.
Jesus called this being “born again.” He said, “unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” This spiritual sight is what I am talking about today. In this episode I am looking at a story found in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John. It is the story of Jesus healing a man born blind. On the surface it is about physical sight and physical healing, but Jesus makes it clear that it is really about spiritual sight and spiritual healing. It is not about being visually impaired but being spiritually impaired.
The first thing this story addresses is psychological barriers to seeing the Kingdom of God, particularly guilt. Seeing the Kingdom of God, of course, is just another term for spiritual awakening or enlightenment or liberation or salvation. Then Jesus deals with is spiritual practices. Jesus then turns to the Pharisees and offers an indictment of traditional religion – what we might call today the institutional church or organized religion.
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