7. I am the True Vine
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. Jn 15:1-6
If the I AM is the true vine don’t we have to feel ourselves to be part of a larger reality. Each branch surely represents each life that we live on this earth and the vine is all these lives working towards the full expression of who we really are.
Who is this Father? It is a difficult concept to understand. We could say that the Father is the first principle; the one with the highest conscious awareness and through his thinking created this diverse universe. We could also say that the Father as the vinedresser is a governing principle. Vinedresser is not the Greek word used here. The word used is georgos from ge, earth, and ergo, to do or to work. This is a cultivator, an earth worker, one who is cultivating the whole earth where the earth represents a state in the evolution of mankind. To say that georgos means tiller of the ground is severely limiting the concept of the Father which is probably why the translator chose vinedresser instead because he (presumably) didn’t understand the esoteric meaning of what was being expressed by John.
We can only really understand the concepts of the vine and the Father if we have a concept of what our I AM really is. Each of these seven I AM sayings can assist us to experience its reality. Some people say that we are really part of the One, which this Father can represent. But what does that really mean in terms of our life today? If we think that we are just part of the whole we might be tempted to sit back thinking that the Father is doing all the work. The text here makes it clear that this is not the case.
The first work that we have to do is to have an understanding of what our I AM actually is. Each of the I AM sayings in St John’s Gospel assists us to build the right images of this I AM and the seventh one is a particularly graphic image. Our I AM is a vine which experiences life on earth through its many branches. In each life we have the opportunity of bearing fruit. If we don’t the life is taken airo, to lift, to carry away; if we do, the life is not pruned but cleansed kathairei, impurities are removed.
What seems to be the case here is that if we can see from the perspective of the vine then, when things are taken away from us, or painfully purged of impurities, we know that it is for the good of the whole. Yet, of course, we feel the pain in the isolation of the branch rather than from the perspective of the whole vine. From that perspective the pain may really be joy.
These posts are a quick view of the I AM sayings, the ebook is always free, or you can buy a paperback copy from Amazon
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This cannot be a coincidence! Kristina, it seems that what you share somehow speaks directly to my current experiences. Recently, i experienced a period of anxiety followed by deep sadness. Remembered what was taught in studies on Genesis, the great cycles of time and the conditions of consciousness, particularly warmth/ fire and air. Focused on the breath, breathing, long, slow, gentle breaths, allowing the sadness to be. Eventually was able to ‘see’ the sadness (difficult to describe); then the sadness lost its edge; then there was ‘non-sadness‘ (difficult to describe); eventually there was joy exactly as you described.This is AMAZING!Thank you once again!Joanne
It seems to me Joanne that each time one of us can do the work you describe here we create light in the darkness. So it is not just for our own benefit that we experience the sadness (which we must) and then to transmute it into joy but that our ability to do this contributes to the evolution of this earth.Thank you for sharing.