Braiding Three Strands of Troubling the Water: a Chant, a Miracle, and a Logion
“♪ ♪ The wellsprings of life are bubbling up anew each moment. So when the angel is troubling the waters, it is no time to stand on the bank and recite past wonders. The wellsprings of life are bubbling up anew each moment. ♪ ♪” Wellsprings of Life, by Paulette Meier.
The Miracle
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.
3 In these lay a great multitude of invalid folk — blind, halt, withered — waiting for the moving of the water.
4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water. Whosoever then first stepped in, after the troubling of the water, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
5 And a certain man was there who had an infirmity for thirty and eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been in that state a long time, He said unto him, “Wilt thou be made whole?”
7 The infirm man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.”
8 Jesus said unto him, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.”
9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked. Now it was the Sabbath on that day.
John 5
“The man in the Miracle of the Pool of Bethesda says to Jesus, when asked if he would be made whole: ‘Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.’ He describes his disease, which makes him psychologically halt, lame and withered. He is always too slow: he is always second, never first. A man who acts only from Truth is acting from what is second in him. If he acts from his will, he is acting from what is first in him. Jesus gives him the power of acting from his will—that is, power to take up the bed of Truth he lies in and walk and do it and live it. Jesus separates him from the world, from the power of the senses, and makes him see the Truth he has been taught in a living way. So the man is cured or his psychological disease—the disease of higher Truth being paralyzed by lower Truth. All this was done on the Sabbath—that is, on a day which in the language of parables means complete separation from the world and its cares.” Maurice Nicoll, The New Man, p71.
“Jesus takes the place of the angel stirring the water of Truth and making it living Truth. Jesus always represents, in miracles, the power of Good acting on Truth and making it living.” New Man, p71.
Angels as Divine Messengers/Forces
Angels represent the active presence of divine consciousness breaking into ordinary reality. When an ‘angel troubles the water,’ it signifies moments when the divine disrupts the status quo of our spiritual complacency.
“One of the properties of light is that in outer space it’s darkness. It doesn’t become light till it hits a reflective surface. And that is what we are to divine consciousness. We are the reflective surface.” Cynthia Bourgeault, In the Wake of St. Brendan, disc4 track10.
Troubling as Sacred Disruption
The word ‘troubling’ suggests that divine action often appears disruptive from our limited perspective. What looks like disturbance to the ego/personality is actually the stirring of deeper transformation. The angel’s action opens the closed circle of stagnation into the spiral of growth.
“A miracle takes place when the energy of the world undergoes either an increase or a diminution. This presupposes an opening in the circle of the world. For a miracle to be possible, the world must be an open circle, the world must be a spiral, i.e. it must have an ‘uncreated’ sphere or a ‘sabbath’.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p243.
Water as Consciousness
Water can symbolize consciousness, the flow of life, the realm of the heart. When angels ‘trouble’ the waters, it represents divine grace stirring the depths of our being – not just surface healing, but fundamental transformation of consciousness itself.
“[Water] means that order of truth, and those ideas and practices that stir a person inwardly into a state of being alive and form a living spring in him of fresh meanings, so that he never thirsts.” Maurice Nicoll, The Mark, p130
The Timing of Divine Intervention
The ‘certain seasons’ when angels stirred the water suggests that divine grace operates according to its own rhythm, not our demands. But as Paulette’s chant suggests, when we recognize these moments of divine stirring, we must respond rather than remain passive observers.
Beyond Competition to Communion
The higher meaning transforms the mechanical, competitive scramble (first one in gets healed) into a recognition that when divine presence is active, everyone who responds from their depths can be transformed. The ‘troubling’ creates an opening for all.
Present Moment Awakening
The ‘angels troubling the water’ can represent breakthrough moments when the veil between ordinary and sacred consciousness becomes thin – when we suddenly recognize that the divine is actively present right here, right now, inviting our conscious participation in the work of transformation.
“Yearning is not a means to an end. Yearning is an end in itself. It’s a cosmic relational bridge, particularly between the realms. And as soon as you can get used to that and ride it, knowing that as long as you’re riding your yearning, and that the riding of it is going to be the immediate participation in the divine life. It’s not like God is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. God is the rainbow, and the yearning is the rainbow.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Silence As Presence Feb 2025, 53:00 04 Silence Sat am teaching.
Passive vs. Active Faith
The man represents those who wait passively for healing/transformation to happen to them, relying on external circumstances (the stirring of the water) rather than responding to the divine presence that’s actually available to them right now. Third Force lies between the polarities of active vs passive.
“You will remember Third Force unites the opposites and contains something of them both and yet is neither of them.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p786.
Present Moment vs. Past Wounds
After 38 years by the pool, the man was trapped in his story. Jesus calls him into the present moment where healing is immediately available.
“In terms of the energy and in the growing, growing awareness as the emergence of second body within you, this structure of carrying the whole turtle shell of the story of yourself on your back is a tremendous cul-de-sac to begin with. And an energy sinkhole to boot. It takes a lot of energy to be constantly introspecting, to run and go back and forth between your story and yourself. Who am I? How am I doing? Is this what I want? Is this the right discernment? It is constantly pulling the energy you need that could sustain you for the rest of your life.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Integral Light Dec w021, 47:44 5-gebserian-integral-gurdjieffian-imaginal.
“Most of the time our selfhood is the selfhood of our lower centers and you’ll immediately be there in your story, in your wants, your many conflicted wants, in your narrative of yourself, in your issues, in your occupations. But there’s another place in you that somehow floats above this and that rather than grabbing on to the bait of any of these many stories of self, it’s able to stand in a different place. So, we’re keeping an eye on that, and consciousness, conscience is going to be both the bridge to it and the first fruit of it.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Encounter With Evil April 2023 NC, 17:38 05d – Thurs pm Teaching Evil.
Spiritual Materialism
People competing to be first into the healing waters mirrors how we can turn even spiritual seeking into another form of grasping and competition.
“To move beyond spiritual narcissism and spiritual materialism, to live as a cosmic servant, to live out of conscious love and intentional suffering. That’s the Chastened Self. Jesus called it the kingdom of heaven, and he kept saying it’s within you.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Holy Week 2024 in Rockland, 47:00 01 – Cosmic Cost of Arising Rockland 2024.
“There is a cost that you must pay. And if you fail to pay this, you fail to be a human being. Because you’re going to be stuck in your own little spiritual materialism agenda. Trapped in that cocoon of metamorphosizing the caterpillar without ever realizing that it has to turn into a butterfly.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Holy Week 2024 in Rockland, 10:50 04 – An Imaginal Vigil Rockland 2024.
The Logion: Seeking → Finding → Being Troubled → Astonishment → Ruling over All
Logion 2
Yeshua says…
If you are searching, you must not stop until you find.
When you find, however, you will become troubled.
Your confusion will give way to wonder.
In wonder you will reign over all things.
Your sovereignty will be your rest.
Being Troubled
A necessary stage in spiritual awakening. When we find what we’ve been seeking (divine truth, our true nature, the Kingdom), it disrupts our previous assumptions and identities. This is sacred disruption – the same kind of ‘troubling’ the angel brings to the waters. It’s the moment when our comfortable, closed-circle existence gets opened into the spiral of transformation.
Voluntary Suffering as Self-Troubling
Instead of waiting for life circumstances to force us into transformation (which is inevitable suffering), we learn to voluntarily enter the places of constriction, limitation, and difficulty. We consciously choose the narrow way, the letting go, the dying to self – troubling our own comfortable waters.
Consciously choosing constraint and discipline – in Centering Prayer, in relationships, in how we respond to triggers. Rather than seeking the path of least resistance, we intentionally enter the tight places where ego gets squeezed and transformation becomes possible.
Read Impression on Voluntary Suffering.
Ruling over All: the Alchemy of Conscious Participation
A fundamental shift in consciousness – from being subject to circumstances to recognizing our participation in divine authority.
When we consciously trouble our own waters, we’re not just passively enduring difficulty – we’re actively cooperating with the transformative process. Becoming conscious participants in our own transformation rather than reacting to life’s circumstances.
From Reactive to Creative
Instead of being ‘troubled’ by external events, we learn to initiate the troubling ourselves through practices like:
- Staying present with what we’d rather avoid
- Choosing forgiveness when we’d rather blame
- Embracing uncertainty instead of demanding control
- Entering contemplative practices that confront our illusions
The Pool of Inner Reality
The Pool of Bethesda transforms from an external place we go for healing to an inner reality where we learn to stir our own depths. We become both the angel troubling the water and the one entering the troubled waters. The movement from mechanical to conscious, from passive vs active to actively passive, from waiting for grace to cooperating with grace. We trouble our own waters in service of our awakening.
Read Impressions on the Kingdom of Heaven.
Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The New Man refer to Martino Fine Books, Eastford CT, 2019
Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
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