The Tao of Christ

In this episode I start with Alan Watts, “The Book on the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are,” and go from there exploring how we can see and know who we truly are. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

In this episode I share my personal journey to pacifism and from pacifism. I explore the teaching of nonviolent resistance and how it differs from nonresistance. I look specifically at Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and how it is an expression of nondual nonresistance to evil.  View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Today’s topic comes from a listener in Alabama. He happens to be a retired United Methodist minister with a doctoral degree, so you know these questions are well thought out. He emailed me a response to my talk entitled "Living in the Mind of God." He has five basic questions. Here are the questions he asks:--  What happens to "me" after physical death? --  What about the resurrection of the physical body, or even a spiritual body? --  Is there no afterlife, no spiritual "me" to re-unite with my love ones and friends, and living for eternity in heavenly bliss?  --  Within the Mind of God, do we as individual personalities just disappear?  Are we no more than just a memory in the Mind of God, if even that?--   What is the point of awakening"" or "realization" or "salvation" if this is all a dream taking place in the Mind of God?  Does it change anything?  Isn't the "person" still just a thought form in the Mind of God?  Is it like one of my dream characters saying, "this isn't real, it's just a dream", but it doesn't matter and nothing changes?  And then I wake up from my dream and that "character" is gone and all there is is just a memory in my mind, if even that.Well that is a lot to deal with! I will do my best to answer them. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Nonduality is transparency. The physical world is seen as transparent to the Unitive Reality that lays beneath, like looking through a clear lake’s water to the lake’s bottom. Furthermore we see ourselves as part of the world as transparent to Reality. Apparent differences are seen as expressions of an underlying Unity. Using theistic terms we could say that the creation is a reflection and expression of its Creator. Transparency also applies to ethics. One of the most frequent downfalls of spiritual teachers – both Eastern teachers and Western preachers – is the lack of ethical transparency. Teachers and preachers often are not what they appear to be. Moral failings come to light and a leader falls from power. Often these moral failures have to do with money, sex and power. It is not surprising that Jesus deals with these topics on his Sermon on the Mount.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

I woke up early recently and lay in bed for a while resting in, knowing and enjoying this Reality that we call nondual awareness or unitive awareness. I was wishing there was some way to communicate this reality. At the time I seemed to know the exact words to express this. But when I tried to write down the words later that morning, it was impossible to do. Words seemed empty, flat and trite and could not express the richness of this reality. Yet in this episode I will try to express the impossible, for as the Bible says, nothing is impossible with God. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

The Sermon on the Mount is about how to live the nondual life. In this episode I explore Jesus' teaching found in the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Matthew about spiritual transparency - making the two one, the outer like the inner, the upper like the lower, and male and female into a single one. Jesus taught nonduality and how to live the nondual life. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

We are living in the Mind of God. We are ideas in the Divine Mind. You might say that the universe is a dream or a day dream that God is having, or a brainstorm that God is having. Indian philosophy says this world is a dream being dreamt by the god Vishnu. The Bible sees creation as more intentional. It says that the act of creation is consciously deliberate. God intentionally spoke this world into existence. But it is still all originating from the Mind of God. Its source is the Mind of God.We are not the time-bound physical beings that we mistake for ourselves. We are Being Itself. These physical forms are temporal manifestations of the Eternal. In essence we are the Source of all time-bound manifestations. We are the Mind of God. Abiding in the Mind of God is Awakening, Liberation, Enlightenment or Salvation. That is what it means by saying we are made in the image of God. The Changeless Eternal is our immortal Nature. Our mortal selves appear within that Divine Being. As Paul said, “In Him we live and move and have our Being.”  View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Listeners who come from Christian backgrounds sometimes have a difficult time with nonduality because it feels like it is an abandonment of Christianity. One man on a Zoom meeting I was having with a church labeled it as occult. Occult is from the Latin word occultus, which means hidden or secret. There is nothing hidden or secret about nondual awareness. This is not secret knowledge. This is as open and obvious as it can possibly be. It is hidden in plain sight.Others note that I often quote other spiritual traditions, especially the Hindu Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching and the teachings of the Buddha. They think I am importing Eastern religious ideas into Christianity, and thereby compromising the purity of “the faith once for all delivered to the saints,” to quote the Letter of Jude. I am not compromising the gospel. This is the gospel of Jesus. All spiritual traditions point to the same Ultimate Reality. When Ultimate Reality is seen, one notices that. That is why I quote other spiritual traditions. One sees references to it everywhere, not only in religious texts but in poetry and literature. Aldous Huxley refers to it as the perennial philosophy, but it is not really a philosophy. It is a direct awareness of Reality that is expressed in a variety of ways in different cultures and religious traditions.Is nonduality non-Christian or unchristian? No! It is deeply Christian. It is the essence of the gospel of Christ that is also found in other spiritual traditions. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

A while back I received an email from a listener asking about the meaning of life according to nonduality. He reasoned that if we are not individual selves – if personal existence is an illusion and not real – then what is the meaning and purpose of our human lives. It all seems rather pointless, he reasoned. Those are not his exact words. In fact I cannot find the email, so I am not sure he asked the question in those exact words but that is the gist of it.I want to address the sense of meaningless of human existence if we are in fact not really individual persons and have no future existence as persons. Some teachers embrace this meaninglessness openly. Tony Parsons for example calls human life “wondrously, gloriously meaningless.” If you have heard Tony on video you can just picture him saying that and laughing. Here is another quote by him. “All that is happening is meaningless, but it is so beguiling and fascinating that the mind is absolutely sure it has meaning.”That is how Tony approaches this question. He celebrate meaninglessness. Others are not so happy about it. One Amazon reviewer of his book “The Open Secret” call his approach “meaningless nihilism.” I like Tony Parsons. He has a radical and simple approach that appeals to me, without all the religious and spiritual trappings. I like that. The strength of his message is that it is blunt and uncompromising, which is exactly what many people need to hear! But I would use different words. Nonduality is expressed in and through everyone differently. People express it differently. I would not use the word meaningless. I do not think that human life is meaningless. In fact it is very meaningful. But it not meaningful because we are persons. It is meaningful because we are not persons. And we sense that meaningfulness not as persons but as nonpersons. Yet this meaning is expressed through persons … like Jesus and like us.As a Christian I look to the teachings of Jesus. Nothing against Tony Parsons. I think he is great and I recommend his videos and books. But Tony Parsons is no Jesus Christ. I want to look at what Jesus says is the meaning of life. But first I explore where most people seek meaning in life and then compare it to what Jesus says. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Last time I did an episode on the Beatitudes, not knowing if I would continue talking about the Sermon on the Mount or not. I am going to do at least this additional one. Jesus follows up his eight blessings by giving two metaphors that point us to our true identity. He calls us salt and light. In using these words he is employing images with a long history in various spiritual traditions, which explain our nondual nature. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU