The Way

John 14: 1-4

“Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me.”

Our lives go up and down like wheels turning; indeed we find the richness in our lives comes from both the downward and dark spiral of sorrow and the upward and light experiences of joy. However, in the center of this wheel, with a firm and steady consciousness, our heart can remain steady, untroubled, no matter what adversity comes. Jesus is pointing to this spot of imperturbability – a kind of knowing or belief or faith that all will be and all is well. Restlessness within the heart distorts one’s sense of self in God – but by stilling the restlessness of the heart, one is more apt to find union with God just as Jesus did.

“In my father’s house there are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself: that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.”

I am very fond of these passages in John. For me, Jesus is pointing to the multiple ways of living in and experiencing God – all of which exlemplify living a good life as though in a mansion – the finest of homes. As Jesus has found divinity within him, his message will beckon us to this very same finding – where he is in God, there we may find ourselves. When Jesus says he will come again – this is true, metaphorically and universally true. As Larry so aptly stated, Jesus “comes again in the eternal realm, ever present, and as vivid in our consciousness and awareness as we allow it to be.”


John 14:5-7

“Thomas saith unto him, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest: and how can we know the way?”
“Jesus saith unto him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my father also; and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.”

Jesus’ way is a universal path, a journey not exclusive to Christianity. This seems true for me because this same metaphor of the way, as a path of transition and transformation, of dying to an old way of being and being born into a new way of being is found in all major religions.

When Jesus says that “I am the way, the truth and the life” I again hear the voice of God speaking through him. If we ‘know’ this to be true, then we know God, also. Jesus repeats this in another form to Philip (John 14: 8-14). It seems we all must hear this in multiple ways to truly understand. Slowly, we must be able to open our hearts to this message, for rationally, from an identification with only our physical realm and self, it is bound to be confusing, and likely to be misinterpreted as Jesus speaking from his ego that he is “the only way”.