Afleveringen
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This episode was prompted by an email that I received from a listener He wrote:
My question is this: If there is no puppeteer, why do I see circumstances that line up in ways that there is no possibility that they are random? I see this on a regular basis and can give you instance after instance. I used to use this awareness to maintain my dualistic thinking. I believe flow happens in a different way now, but I wondered how you approached perceived providence.
He goes on in this and a follow-up email. He is talking about the sense that at times we sense the pattern that is at work being the scenes. If human history is a cosmic drama, then once in a while we glimpse the script.
I deal with that a bit in the episode where I talk about the closing vision in Herman Hesse's book Siddhartha. We try to make sense of our visions at such times. We use words like Providence, synchronicity, déjà vu, predestination, kismet, divine coincidence, which the pastor at our church calls God-incidence.
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Recently I have been talking about how nonduality is integrated into and expressed in everyday life. In the past couple of episodes I have been addressing moral and political decisions, such as politics and war. Specifically I have talked about the Gaza war and dualistic American politics of right versus left, conservatives versus liberals, Republicans versus Democrats.
The responses I have received indicate to me that I am not communicating very well that nonduality is not political position or a worldview or a philosophy or a religion or an idea or a principle or something like that. That means that I need to get back to basics once again. So that is what I am doing today.
I have said before that I see two approaches to awakening to Ultimate Reality. Self-inquiry and God-inquiry. We look inward in search of a self and we look outward in search of a God. Both inquiries end up in the same place: the realization that there is no self and no God.What I mean by that is that there is no separate self and separate God as traditionally understood. When it is seen that there is no separate self and separate god, it is seen there is no problem. All problems, including the problem of suffering and the problem or evil drop away when Reality is seen.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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We live in an age of outrage. Everyone is outraged about something or other. The most recent outrage is over the war in Gaza. Students on college campuses across our country and around the world are calling attention the unending killing going on in Gaza. That is causing outrage by counter protesters who support Israel and see the protesters as terrorist sympathizers and antisemites.
Politics these days are no longer civil statesmanship. It is the politics of outrage with each side casting the other side as a danger to our nation and our rights. Culture warriors on the right and Social Justice warriors on the left, both outraged at the other. We live in an age of outrage. If you are not outraged about something, then people think you do not care.
It is so easy to get caught up in this outrage. To be outraged by the threats to constitutional rights and freedoms. To be outraged at the destruction of our environment. To be outraged at callous disregard to human life and human suffering and human rights. I am not immune to these feelings and thoughts. No one is immune. It is part of our American culture and even our world culture. Yet when one views all this from nondual awareness something shifts.This episode explores how nondual awareness changes our perspective on what is happening in the world and in our society.
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Christian Nonduality and the Biblical God
Addressing Religious Compatibility and Violence
Marshall addressed concerns about the compatibility of non-duality with the Old Testament God's violent nature, specifically in light of the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Marshall clarified that true Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are religions of peace, and the violence perpetuated in the name of these religions does not represent their true teachings.
Divine Reality and Scripture Interpretation
He also claimed that every scripture, when taken literally, distorts this divine reality, but at its best, it serves as a window to this nondual reality that is the heart of all spiritual traditions.
Non-Dual Perspective on Gaza Conflict
Marshall discussed the ongoing conflict in Gaza from a non-dual perspective, emphasizing the importance of understanding the suffering and complexities on both sides. He urged compassion and love towards all parties involved, rather than aligning with one side or labeling them as 'good' or 'evil'. He spoke of the importance of non-dual awareness in achieving lasting peace and encouraged spiritual people of all faiths to embody peace and speak out for it.
AI-generated summary -
I got an email from a man who is in constant chronic pain. He asked me to do an episode on the topic. I talked about the OT Book of Job and the Problem of Suffering a while back, but this man was talking about something less philosophical and more practical. How do we deal with pain, especially when that pain is intense and continuous?
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This episode is about the Holy Spirit and how this important Christian belief and experience fits into nondual Christianity.
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In this episode I talk about how to approach American politics - and especially the 2024 election - from a nondual perceptive as nondual awareness.
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I have talked about repentance before in a nondual context, but I have not dedicated an entire episode to it. So today I am. The call to repent is normally talked about in moral and ethical terms, but that is just the surface of it. When followed to its end repentance is a path to spiritual awakening. It is the door to what Jesus called the Kingdom of God. Jesus said, âRepent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.â
This episode has a discussion of the difference between awareness and consciousness, including a discussion of this topic by Nisargadatta Maharaj. -
In this episode I explain how to interpret the apocalyptic passages of the New Testament from a nondual perspective.
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In this episode I explain how the traditional Christian teaching on the forgiveness of sins is insufficient and how complete forgiveness is an expression of Christian nonduality.
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In Jesusâ teaching children represented the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said, âTruly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.â Becoming like children is a metaphor that used for what in other spiritual traditions is called enlightenment, awakening, nirvana, liberation, self-realization or any number of other terms. Children know naturally what adults have forgotten. He need to remember what we have forgotten.
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In this episode I show how we can move from the Western cult of the self to Jesusâ teaching of Self-Realization.
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Today I am going to get back to basics. I am going to describe how to abide in nondual awareness, as much as that can be described. If I were to use Christian language I would call this dwelling in the Kingdom of God or living in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is the term Jesus used and is probably best translated âthe Spiritual Realm.â This is also called âliving in the Spiritâ or âwalking in the Spiritâ or âabiding in Christâ or simply being âin Christ.â
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The phrase âWord of Godâ is used a lot by Christians. I hear it in church every Sunday. When Christians talk about the Word of God, they are usually referring to the Christian scriptures. In this episode today I am proposing another way of understanding the term â a more inclusive use of the term, which also happens to be the Biblical way of understanding the phrase.
Biblically speaking the Word of God is not limited to a book. We can say the Bible is the Word of God, but it does not exhaust the Word of God. Also it is important to note that the Christian Scriptures â the New Testament - is not called the Word of God in the Bible.
So what exactly is the Word of God? In the Bible the phrase refers to God speaking. It is the living Presence and Power of the Divine speaking to us from the depths of the Spirit. It is otherwise known as Nondual Reality, which can be known directly but expressed only imperfectly in words.
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In this episode I interpret the biblical Christmas stories in a nondual manner.
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Humans are a story-telling species. You could say that story-telling is what distinguishes us from all other creatures on this planet. Families tell family stories to strengthen their family bonds. Nations and political parties tell stories that distinguish from others. Religions tell stories of their origin, nature and identity.
As individuals we tell stories about ourselves. In that way we develop a personal identity. At some point we may notice that many of the stories that we tell ourselves do not ring true to our experience, and we begin the process of deconstruction. That is what I did with my evangelical Christianity.
If we go deep enough in this process we see that all stories about ourselves are false. They are fictions that we have adopted to help us navigate a confusing world. In this episode I explore how we can go beyond our stories to discover our true unformed nature behind the stories we tell ourselves. -
There is a common misunderstanding about nondual awareness, spiritual awakening, liberation, self-realization, enlightenment or whatever you want to call it. The misunderstanding is that it is cure-all for everything that ails us. That the culmination of the spiritual search is a cessation of all psychological pain. It is not. This episode explores the brokenness of the human condition, even after spiritual awakening, and how brokenness can lead to realization of our True Nature.
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For many people the news is stressful. I read a TIME magazine article the other day entitled âWhere to Seek Help if the Israel-Hamas War is Impacting Your Mental Health.â There are regular senseless mass shootings. A big issue is political discord in American politics.
Political opinions affect churches and divide churches. They divide families. It is only going to get worse in the coming year until the 2024 general election. Then we will see what happens between Election Day and inauguration day.
How does nondual spirituality address this? How does Christian nonduality deal with this? In this episode I address the âus versus themâ mentality of the world from a nondual perspective.
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In this episode I ponder the inability of me - or anyone for that matter - to communicate the nature and the experience of this unitive reality that Jesus called the Kingdom of God, and which most of us simply call God, the Divine, the One, or Reality.
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When I look at Christianity I see lots of fear. It seems to have become a religion based on fear. Preachers tell us to be afraid, be very afraid. Fear God and fear punishment for sin and fear Judgment Day and most of all fear going to hell. Fire and brimstone preachers have learned that fear keeps people in the pews and in their particular form of Christianity. At least it used to. People are wising up to the scare tactics. They do not work the way they used to. But still many preachers try to keep people under control by making them afraid to step outside of the parameters of their particular type of Christianity.
Remnants of this fear continue in peopleâs hearts and minds long after they have left fear-based religion behind. This is especially true if we were trained to fear when we were young. It is difficult to let it go. I run up against this all the time in people I talk to about Christian nonduality. People who have left fundamentalism are still afraid that they might be wrong, that they have fallen away from the true faith, that they have backslidden, that they have committed apostasy, that they are going to hell for leaving their church. They can feel the fires of hell licking at their heels long after they have left the idea of hell behind.
Christians are hesitant to think outside the box of Christianity. It feels dangerous to them. They are hesitant to read the scriptures of other faiths. They are hesitant to explore beyond the Bible. That voice in their head makes them afraid that if they start to question some doctrines of Christianity, then they are falling away from the faith, and Satan is deceiving them to believe in doctrines of demons. They are afraid that if they start to explore other philosophies, then they are starting on a slippery slope to hell.
The worst part of this fear is that it robs us of the spiritual joy that is our birthright. In response to all that fear, I say, âFear not.â That is the message of God in the Bible, and it can be our experience in the spiritual life.
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