Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

SHEPHERD, GOOD

A symbol of the Higher Self who leads the higher qualities upwards, or tends the spiritual monads who incarnate in human forms.

“Verily I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door : by me if any man enters in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill and to destroy : I am come that they may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd who giveth his life for the sheep. . . . Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again." - JOHN X. 7-17.

Referring to the verses previous : "sheep" signify the higher qualities manifesting on the mental plane (sheepfold). The door represents the higher mind as the entrance from above to the soul. The "other way is the lower mind as the entrance from below, to which the desires (thieves) climb in order to tempt and capture the soul. The Higher Self enters by the higher "door"; to him the Divine Will opens the soul, and the higher qualities respond to the voice within. Verily, Christ is the higher “door,”—the way, the truth, and the life, and he is the ruler of the higher qualities. The desires (thieves), which before the Christ, rule first the lower nature, but the higher qualities remain latent until the Spirit stirs them from within. Through the Christ shall the mind be raised. The ego shall go in and out of the causal-body to his successive re-incarnations wherein he shall gather experience and the means of growth. The desire-nature (thief) is that which would kill out the spirit, and destroy the germs of the higher qualities. The Christ came that these germs might have life to become mature. The Christ laid down his life in the involution of the prototypal human soul, in order that he might take it again in the evolution of the many souls of humanity, and so fulfil the Divine Law of sacrifice.

Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep in the blood of the eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in every good thing to do his will." - HEB. xiii. 20, 21.

The power of the Self through harmony raises from death in the lower nature, the incarnate Self, leader of the higher qualities (sheep), within the Divine life of the individual soul who realises the Divine nature as his ideal of aspiration and eternal possession (covenant). The incarnate Self is the means of making perfect in every good quality the individual soul, whose whole nature is thereby brought into conformity with the Divine will.

See Also

ARCHETYPAL MAN
BISHOP
COVENANT
DOOR (higher)
LITTLE CHILDREN
REINCARNATION
SHEEP
SUN (door)
THIEF