Master and Disciple- Hypothetical Dialogue 2.
Disciple: Master, what did you mean when you said, “I and my Father are one…?” [John 10:30]
We see you lifting up your eyes to the Father in prayer (11:41;17:1); and even now, though you speak of Oneness (sameness), still you speak of the Father as if there’s a difference, as in you being in Him, and He being in you (v.v.10-11).
Master: Some think of God the Father, and do not realize Oneness, but have relationship through faith. Others think of the Self, and do not realize Oneness, but are not delimited by relationship. Yet toward the realization of Oneness there are two entrances: I and my Father.
Disciple: Why are there two entrances? Does that not make two rather than one?
Master: In appearance only, but the destination is the same. When a person knows the Father through me, they have relationship. But this relationship in it’s full maturation demands the cessation and dissolution of the ego-self by way of surrender in love. When a person comes to know I Am, too, the full maturation of this is the cessation and dissolution of the ego-self. So, really, it’s two approaches that both come to That.
Disciple: But this is so difficult to understand, even fearful in it’s approach. I can see that the Father is One, that the Father is God, but I cannot see that I am anything, and certainly not God!
Master: Of course being God belongs to Me, in my Self, and as the Son in My relationship to the Father. But when you say, ‘I’, what do you have in mind if not the false ego-self? So in your approach you falter out of reverential respect, and that is far better than some who set up their ego-self as a tyrant god, and are subsequently cast down, as was Herod [Acts 12:21-23].
Disciple: So when you say, ‘I’ and you say, ‘my Father’, you have in mind God?
Master: It can be no other way.
Disciple: Well, that makes sense, because you- though being a man [fully human] are God [fully divine].
Master: And what about you? Are you not in me, and I in you? This was my prayer to the Father [see 17:21-23].
Disciple: How can that be? You’re in us, and we’re in you- but still, our ‘I’ remains, how can we then still be One?
Master: That is simply how you’re perceiving it now, but you must come to know what I did for you on the cross, as our beloved apostle Paul did:
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” [Ga 2:20] -And again,
“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” [Phil 1:21].
Disciple: So the truth of you and your Father being One is somewhere in between “…I live; yet not I…”?
[walks away pondering].
Invite Leon to Speak