The right side:
No, this is not a political piece, God knows we have quite enough of those floating around these days. Have you ever noticed how the Bible always refers to the right side of things? The right side of the boat (John 21:6), the right hand of God (Psalms 110:1, Psalms 118:16, Isaiah 41:10, Isaiah 41:13, Psalms 89:13, Hebrews 1:3, Hebrews 8:1, Hebrews 12:2, 1st Peter 3:22, Acts 2:33, Acts 7:56, Acts 5:31, Romans 8:34) and so on and so on.
Either God is right handed and very proud of it, or perhaps, just maybe, this is referring to something else.
If you’ve been hanging around here for any time at all, you know that I, along with the ancients and many other spiritual sages interpret the Bible as an allegory. In fact, the Bible refers to itself as an allegory in Galatians 4:21-31. So what is an “allegory” exactly? According to the Oxford dictionary, an allegory is: A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning…
Hmmmmmm…
I like how Neville Goddard put it “The Bible is not a book of secular church history, but a psychological drama that unfolds in the minds of human beings.” That being said, what can we gather about all these references to the right side in the Bible? I believe these are speaking about the right side of the brain. The right side of the brain is the spiritual, creative, artistic side. It’s also the side which contains our wonderful human imagination, which we know is actually Jesus Christ. The left side of the brain is where memories are stored. The left side is the reasoning and analytical part, which contains the ego. Now this isn’t a bad thing, we definitely need the left side of our brains to function in life; however, when we let the left side dominate our life, then our reality becomes somewhat fixed, boring, and monotonous. It works like this, if you touch a hot stove as a kid, your left brain stores that memory which prevents you from ever doing that again; the problem is, some people allow this sort of left brain thinking to become a lifestyle, and that works like this, you touched a hot stove and burned your hand one time, and so you decide you’d be better off not using a stove ever again. Sounds silly, but you’d be surprised how many people actually live like this. They walk outside barefoot one time and accidentally step on a piece of glass, and they never walk outside barefoot ever again. They never get to feel the sand between their toes, or the soft green grass in the springtime. It’s a shame, but it happens. This is what living in the left side of the brain does to a person, and it lays the foundation for living a life in fear, rather than faith.
So, back to the story in John 21:6. In this story or allegory, we read that the disciples have been out in the lake fishing all night long and haven’t caught a damn thing, and up walks Jesus, and says something to the effect of “Hey there, why don’t you cast your net on the right side of the boat?” The disciples mumble to themselves, and say something to the effect of “Why bother, it’s no use, but fine, if you insist, ugh…” And what do ya know! They cast their net on the right side of the boat, and they catch so many fish that they can’t even contain them all.
This story shows us the amazing reality creating power of our imagination! The switch from the left side to the right side made all the difference in the world. The right side is where the big fish are, in the deep water of consciousness. As a matter of fact, one of the greatest film directors of all time David Lynch (who was big into meditation by the way, RIP) wrote a book titled “Catching the Big Fish” which you should definitely check out some time if you like his movies.
It all comes down to this, you can live your life according to the left brain if you so desire, and it will be safe, secure and the same old crap day after day. Or you can start engaging your wonderful human imagination and create a reality for yourself that you actually look forward to waking up in every day. It’s totally up to you. Jesus (imagination) came that we may have life and life more abundantly. (John 10:10) Just remember this quote “A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships were made for.” -John A. Shedd
