The Feeding of the Five Thousand (Rabel)

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^6:1After these things Jesus went away to the other side of the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. ^6:2And a great multitude followed him, because they beheld the signs which he did on them that were sick. ^6:3And Jesus went up into the mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. ^6:4Now the passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. ^6:5Jesus therefore lifting up his eyes, and seeing that a great multitude cometh unto him, saith unto Philip, Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat? ^6:6And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. ^6:7Philip answered him, Two hundred shillings' worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little. ^6:8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, ^6:9There is a lad here, who hath five barley loaves, and two fishes: but what are these among so many? ^6:10Jesus said, Make the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. ^6:11Jesus therefore took the loaves; and having given thanks, he distributed to them that were set down; likewise also of the fishes as much as they would. ^6:12And when they were filled, he saith unto his disciples, Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, that nothing be lost. ^6:13So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves, which remained over unto them that had eaten. ^6:14When therefore the people saw the sign which he did, they said, This is of a truth the prophet that cometh into the world.

Now we come into one of the gigantic, truly memorable metaphysical teachings of Jesus. This is one of the very few things in the life of Jesus which is dealt with in great detail by all four gospels. It is the Feeding of the 5,000. You will notice on P. 86-87 of H.G. all four gospels give it the full treatment. Since all four gospels give it the full treatment, its meaning is on both literal and metaphysical levels. There is something there of value in the Synoptic sense as an actual historical event in the life of Jesus. But the fact that it is in John means that it has a purely esoteric, metaphysical meaning also. It is only this latter meaning that I am at all interested in and that I wish to deal with in this class. I don't want anyone talking to me about fishes and pieces of bread.

In the bible, bread always means spiritual substance. The number 5 always refers to man's current 5 senses. Fish in the Bible always refers to ideas. If they are fish handled by Jesus Christ then they have to be Divine Ideas. The number 2 in the Bible always stands for polarity, duality. Then we have 5,000 hungry people. 5,000 is a symbolic number. Anytime zero's follow a number in the Bible it means whatever that number stands for is now being referred to in an unlimited or unspecified way. You see you have 40 days and 40 nights which means you have unlimited balance and sufficiency - a sufficient amount of time.

Q: Is this different from "infinite" time?

A. Yes, it’s different. This is referring to human beings.

So we have 5,000 hungry. 5, the natural or sense man, unlimited and unspecified hunger. In other words this represents all the needs, the responsibilities, the desires and longings of the natural self. You see, it’s only the natural man who could be hungry. "He who hungers and thirsts after righteousness" is not Christ but is the human side. So all of the natural world or natural life or natural organism hungers that any man has are wanting to be fed. Everyone has his own 5,000 to feed. You've got your set of 5,000 things to take care of in your natural man and in your natural world of everyday living, I've got mine, you might have 50,000 but it’s still 5,000 on the symbolic plane.

There's only one thing that can take care of all these needs and hungers in the right way. That is your spiritual nature, the Christ. You have to begin this feeding of your 5,000 from where you are with what you've got. You can't wait to get more before doing what has to be done now. Jesus was only concerned with what do we have to work with where we are right now.

All that they had at that moment before these 5,000 hungry people was 5 loaves and 2 fishes. So, starting with that and being what He is, that initial potential of supply could be utilized into all the needful supply or fulfillment which is all sufficiency in all things. But it didn't even end there.

Only the Gospel of John (Luke suggests it) tells, "When they were filled He said to the disciples, "Gather up the broken pieces which remain over so that nothing be lost." Nothing is ever lost in Spirit. "So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with the broken pieces from the 5 loaves which remained over unto them that had eaten.”

Now here, we want to see what this initial supply is. The initial supply symbolizes that which you always have available to you which your spiritual awareness from the Christ-mind can start handling and cause it to become your prosperity. This is your all-sufficiency in all things or that which will rightly meet and handle the earthly or natural responsibility you may have. But it will even do more than this. It will also give you an enrichment of consciousness — the 12 Powers — added substance, the left over pieces of bread in the baskets.

Now what are these symbols of this initial supply. Start with the bread which means spiritual substance. We have 5, meaning the 5 senses. We have spiritual awareness handling this. First Jesus (Spiritual Awareness) looks up to heaven. This means spiritual awareness always recognizes the true source. Secondly, He gives thanks and blesses these things. Spiritual awareness handling that which is on hand means that we must learn first of all to handle our senses with spiritual awareness. We must become aware that our senses are really spiritual in origin, character and purpose instead of material and sensual. We have to begin to let our spiritual awareness handle or manipulate our expression of our 5 senses by realizing their spiritual origin, character, and purpose.

This is so different from some of the teachings that say we must deny the 5 senses or reject the 5 loaves of bread because it's not enough. Instead you take the 5 loaves or 5 senses and begin handling them with your spiritual awareness. Begin realizing and affirming that they all have a spiritual origin, character and purpose. This is one of the essential steps in developing this Jesus Christ-type of prosperity consciousness.

Things aren't really things for their own sake. All things are symbols to serve the purposes of Christ. We have to also let our spiritual awareness handle the 2 fishes - the 2 great or Divine Ideas of polarity, of duality or YES and NO, affirmation and denial. We must begin expressing these ideas with spiritual awareness rather than emotional reaction.

If you could look back on your life and see a film, an akashic film, of every time you've said "yes" or "no" to someone or something you'd be appalled at the number of times that "yes" saying and "no" saying constituted just emotional reactions. Once we allow our spiritual nature to take over the breaking or the expressing of our 2 fish - Yea, Yea; Nay, Nay; all our yes saying and no saying will be directed and motivated by spiritual awareness and we will be prospered.

If you could take a typical prosperous businessman and examine his talents and skills which got him to that point of success, you would find almost in every case this man had skill in knowing when and how to say YES and NO. Now this works even on the most materialistic, literal plane. Think of how much more meaningful this is when you're having this done on the spiritual plane of expression. You are letting your spiritual awareness have the complete control of the breading of these 2 fish - these 2 great polarity ideas — YES and NO. This is the skillful and the spiritually motivated right use of denial and affirmation. It also requires functioning in earthly life, on the natural plane with spiritual awareness of your 5 senses. We must come to realize that our use of the 5 senses is really always a spiritual matter. Then all of your sense expressions are under the direction of your spiritual awareness. We then say "yes" when needful, no when needful, breaking off the fish through spiritual awareness the result will be the bringing forth of what is the ideal prosperity consciousness.

By this, I mean a consciousness which doesn't run around cooking up the latest gimmicks and techniques to get, get, get! The me, me, me syndrome. That's kindergarten prosperity and is rather dangerous. But with the spiritualized prosperity consciousness you will be a permanently, walking consciousness which always is able to realize all sufficiency for all things feeding the 5 senses.

Text of the original transcript of the last two paragraphs of page 127 through page 129.

Transcribed by Margaret Garvin on 04-01-2014