Esoteric Meaning Behind The Five Loaves And Two Fish
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Matthew 14:15-20 informs us that the Apostles went to Jesus and told Him the large crowd which followed Him were hungry: they had no food with them to eat. The Apostles wanted to send them to the towns and villages to buy food (Luke 9:12). The Apostles informed Jesus that a boy there had five barley loaves and two Fish but which was not enough. Jesus told the crowd to sit down on the grass and to bring the loaves and fishes to Him. After blessing them He told the Apostles to distribute the food to the crowd. After all had eaten the Apostles collected the left-over’s which filled twelve baskets. This basically, as we know, is the gist of what is one the Bible’s greatest but least understood allegorical content.
To derive any meaningful understanding from this story it’s necessary to read it non-literally, for, to read it literally, in my view, offers no practical benefit whatsoever. Also, reading it as applying to our individual self rather than to a crowd of people in some field, as portrayed in the scripture, will certainly deepen expansion of awareness thereby allowing for consciousness-based knowledge assimilation.
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Let us commence this esoteric reflection into the loaves and fish. The Apostles, in this case, are the innately present spiritual aspects, or divine characters, of the awakening soul – the aspects totally committed to the soul’s maturation process into Christ consciousness, hence they’re referred to as followers of Christ within; generally referred to as the twelve tribes of Israel, they are the twelve baskets which become spiritually filled.
The word “crowd” pops up in the Bible repeatedly. In Mark 5:25-30 a woman (symbolizing a soul) wanted to see Jesus in the market place (the mind) and was prevented by the crowd – the crowded thoughts milling around in our head blocking spiritual light. She raised herself above the crowd – entered meditation — thereby touching His cloak, the love nature of the soul. Again, in Luke 19:3 Zacchaeus, a tax collector — one operating out of lower self, a magnet for stress and perpetuator of ignorance, climbed a sycamore tree — transcended his/her thoughts – thereby experience the spiritual Christ presence within. Jesus said to Zacchaeus: Luke 19:5: hurry down Zacchaeus for I must stay in your house today – house meaning dwell within our heart as Presence. In this verse “crowd” is again referring to compulsive thought activity in our head which clouds over our true spiritual nature, thus taking the mind out of present moment awareness thereby compelling it to live out of subconscious thought programs and, in doing so, perpetuating spiritual ignorance. Therefore, “crowd” in this instance symbolizes the multitude of thoughts which swirl around in the head on an hourly basis which are to be calmed, by the expression sitting on the grass – a pasture proving abundance of peace of mind.
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Next we’re told a young boy had five barley loaves and two fish with him. The young boy here symbolizes the non mature or non awakened aspect of the soul, one not yet mature in Christ consciousness.
What actually do these five loaves mean? Are they bakery bread loaves? No, not at all, the five loaves as mentioned are the five senses in their non purified state. This is why they’re referred to as barley loaves, for barley was considered at the time to be a very low form of food nourishment. The loaves symbolize the potential of experiencing Life purely or divinely by providing abundant spiritual nourishment or Christ Presence into our heart and mind.
What do the two fish symbolize? Are they salmon, trout or pike? Well, no, they’re not fish that we normally catch in the sea or a lake. The fish symbol, I believe, represents two arching lines forming the shape of an eye <>. These two fish then symbolize the left/right brain hemispheres, and, more specifically, the pineal and pituitary glands which allow for these two hemispheres becoming one All-seeing awareness or, the eye of the soul. Vitally they contain the Spiritual Idea or Ideal of the whole cosmic universe or divine plan which becomes birthed into consciousness. They need awakening through natural means such as when Kundalini energy rises upward from the base of the spine. These two glands are the distributer mechanisms through which spiritual awareness and bliss infuses into our hearts and minds, when eternality becomes reality within consciousness. This awareness grows to serve as capacity of divine understanding: perceptibility through heightened awareness as opposed to ordinary human discrimination by way of the unstable intellect. In this latter mode, our personal world amounts to compilations of lower ego mind-sets, a life devoid of mature spiritual awareness (hence the boy having only barley loaves). In this undeveloped state our hearts and minds are denied direct Christ Presence within, full stature of life, hence personal suffering.
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Pure awareness is Ultimate eternal reality – “always was and always will be” Presence — and available for each of us through spiritual awakening. This is why Jesus didn’t send the people away to buy nourishment in the market place to get enlightenment elsewhere. Instead, he told them to sit down – to meditate. John 6:3 puts it: Jesus went up a hill and sat down with the Apostles. Here Jesus (divine inner guidance) is informing us to enter into meditation thereby know His love nature directly by way of purification of the five senses and glandular/chakras system along the spine. This is why in Luke 9:13 Jesus said to the Apostles: you yourselves give them something to eat, “them” meaning the entire spiritual mechanisms – mind, body spirit — which require healing from the get-go of our lives, for we’re born with original conditioning, the carry-over from previous incarnations.
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By now we have to accept that, this story, like so many biblical stories, did not actually happen they’re parables, allegorical content to make philosophical points. So, how do we practically bring our five loaves and two fish to Him? By meditation, that’s how, as qualified again in Luke 9:16: Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up to heaven, thanked God for them, broke them and gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people – people being the thought processes, and, broke them, meaning release of the spiritual nectar or bliss into consciousness. This then is where the so-called multiplication of the loaves and fish come in. The multiplication is when our limited human senses are raised, purified to serve abundantly of divine nature; in other words, the more love and divine nature we give away, the more of such we receive – the inner reward is instant – as we sew so shall we reap in consciousness the nature of God, unconditional love.
If I may give an example of how we bring our loaves and fish to Him. Observe the Tortoise. When the Tortoise wants to become non visible it withdraws all limbs inwards into its shell – bodily parts seem non-existent, dissolved. Similarly, when we meditate, our five senses become withdrawn from their object of experience, surrendered from all sense of bodily knowledge. Post meditation our senses then provide a totally different experience by the fact that they have been healed, rejuvenated, transformed to perceive spiritually. Through this regular practice our senses then function to interpret through Christ nature.
The pivotal words of this biblical instruction are: “bring them to Him”. This then is the formula whereby our senses become reconnected into their embryonic state thereby to function cosmically, ability of embracing the All. When, through expansion of consciousness, we begin to see and understand purely — decide through in-formed awareness. The difference thus between allegory stories and reality becomes startling in the form of, clear understanding emergence that there is a higher divine purpose behind this obvious phenomenal existence. That by soul awakening eternality nature becomes a conscious affair, for, here, the will of God has found a compatible nature through which to express — when our personal vibration matters for the greater good of this planet and the entire cosmos. The Nobler purpose of our life is in play.
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Matthew 6:6 reminds us that, when we pray that we go to our room. This room, of course, isn’t our bedroom, attic or any physical space. No, rather we individually go to the quite space or sanctuary we’ve created in our mind; the spiritual temple which our own inner Christ rebuilds for the Bread of Life to be ever at hand daily for assimilation, thereby nourish our transforming consciousness into His nature.
This going into our mind, our temple, is bringing the senses and entire nervous system to Him. This is soul purification: shutting the door to sensory and emotional experience thus halting the incessant mental activity which is controlling our life daily by way of unbroken thought cycles in the brain. Here in meditation we’re not seeking anything, listening for words of wisdom or uttering our wants and needs to Him. Rather, we’re tuning into the transcendental eternal Silence which alone cleanses and uplifts ordinary human consciousness into Christ consciousness – interrupting the cycle of automatically recurring emotive thought patterns. Belief in God at this point is not so much then an intellect decision, rather a coming upon, for, Belief is our natural divine reality, accessed by way of expanded awareness. Entering into transcendental silence — heightened awareness — awakens ability of clairvoyance, clairsentience and clairaudience: ability of clear visioning, clear feeling and soul hearing: intuitiveness which makes the abstract concrete, such as making transcendental silence a dynamic reality within. By transcendental silence is meant the difference between the choppy ocean surface and the calm silence of the bottom, when perceptions beyond the ocean bed open unto our psyche and senses. The experienced difference within is like the crash of a mega symphonic cymbal and the soft touching together of a butterfly’s wings.
Transcendental silence thus serves as capacity of Revelation when we begin seeing Bible stories as events which take place within consciousness: when our consciousness outgrows the need for parable stories; realization that it’s time for maturing beyond the installed Santa Clause paradigms.
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Once commenced upon, this earth journey of discovering Christ within our own consciousness comes to fruition by natural process. For, once that conscious decision of surrendering is made — like the Tortoise — finding and knowing Him becomes automatic regardless of religion or none. Without this process of bringing the five senses to Him we’re merely recycling spiritual ignorance, and, through such ignorance, faulty understanding grows and spreads like an overpowering contamination, a debilitating weed — or swaddling clothes — around our soul. The ensuing suffering thus is prolonged as a kind of blind martyr-like faith. Ignorance of divine nature is what is deemed suffering. In other words, notwithstanding the fact that we’re born, as the Bible puts it, natural man/woman then spiritual, its deemed accepted suffering to knowingly live through the lower conditioned senses when we’re provided with the means of transmuting this Maya, this ignorance prison and its binding influence. In many cases, through imaginary fear of God becoming angry, or our religious friends becoming hostile toward us, we remain loyal to religious dogmas and shallow belief systems which are clearly non soul serving. In this case, enforced literal scripture interpretation can be a major cause of procrastination to inner change and consciousness transformation. Thus it’s vital to see biblical teachings as relating to the human mind and all its complexities and how overcoming it spiritually and mastering this is possible.
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In conclusion, it’s worth recalling the protocol of the mental/nervous system. The five senses are duty bound to serve the mind with pleasurable experiences of any nature. In this context, the non-spiritually awakened mind, senses and intellect do not possess capacity of pure discrimination. The conscious mind thinks but ultimately it’s the intellect which decides. Therefore, making the intellect resolute is how we deal with the wondering mind in search of a sense fix. Bringing the senses to Him, to Transcendental Silence, achieves this miracle of transforming ordinary sensory perception into pure multisensory capacity: we could say water into wine, lower nature into pure spirit.
Personal stress is associated with almost 98% of all illness in the world today, thus making its elimination from our lives globally the single number one priority. Chronic stress is what maintains sub-consciousness or suffering in our lives. To this end, a meditation, Yoga or a mind-centring program of our choice reduces secretion of the stress hormone Cortisol from the adrenal glands and increases release of serotonin – the happy hormone — from the pineal gland in the centre of the brain between the eyebrows; all very good reasons indeed why Jesus instructs each of us to bring our loaves and fish to Him, to meditate daily. Meditation in time leads to integration of the conscious and subconscious aspects of our deeper mind thereby awaken out of compulsive suffering. By withdrawing from sensory experience and entering into utter silence within for the duration of our meditation, we’re fulfilling the above loaves and fish scripture perfectly.
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Source by Raymond Patrick Phelan
