Jesus and the Woman of Samaria There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, "Give me to drink."... Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? " for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, 'Give me to drink'; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. " — John 4:7, 9 –10 The meeting of Jesus with the woman of Samaria was not a chance encounter, but a divinely devised guru-disciple reunion. The Samaritan woman was a morally lost disciple of a previous incarnation whom Jesus wanted to redeem.... Jesus spoke of the inner experience, the uncovering, with the help of one's guru, of the wellspring of divinity within the soul. "The thirst of incarnations is slaked by whosoever will drink the effervescent waters of the well of Divine Bliss in the soul, springing up into everlasting life"—this is the wisdom Jesus sought to convey to the woman at the well. — Paramahansa Yogananda Drawing by Heinrich Hofmann

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