The Tao of Christ

Today I am back to the series on Biblical Stories of Awakening. I am talking about one of my favorite characters in the Bible, the patriarch Jacob. There are two stories of awakening in the Biblical account of his life. They are both important so I am going to take two episodes to deal with them. The first occurred when he was a young man known as Jacob, and the second when his name was changed to Israel.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

I am going to take a brief break from the biblical stories of spiritual awakening to address a question that I am asked regularly by listeners. They may ask the question in different ways but it always comes down to the same thing. They want to know what spiritual practice would help them to spiritually awaken.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Last episode I began a series entitled “Biblical Stories of Awakening,” exploring accounts in the Bible that are examples of spiritual awakening to unitive awareness. I talked about Adam and Enoch. I also mentioned that I would be talking about Jacob next. Well I am changing that. I need to explore another important biblical character before Jacob. I want to talk about Jacob’s grandfather Abraham.  Abraham is a very important figure in the history of religion. Three monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – trace themselves back to Abraham. So you would think that if anyone was an example of spiritual awakening, it would be Abraham. But we do not see this happening in Abraham’s life. I must address the reason why.I was just going to skip over Abraham and go onto Jacob, but that would be ignoring the issue.  Abraham is typically exalted as a champion of faith, but I consider him an example of what can go wrong in the spiritual life. This explains why these three Abrahamic faiths do not - generally speaking - exhibit nondual awareness but have become entrenched in dualistic thinking.Abraham experienced a call to spiritual awakening, but he did not take it. He misunderstood it, and therefore missed it. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Today I am beginning a series of episodes entitled Biblical Stories of Awakening. People tell me that they appreciate it when I tie the Christian heritage and particularly Christian scriptures to nonduality. So I am going to focus on Biblical examples of spiritual awakening for a while.We do not find a lot of examples of nondual awakening in the Christian Bible. But they are sprinkled here and there throughout the Bible. The Bible begins with the Book of Genesis. The clearest example of spiritual awakening in the Book of Genesis is Jacob, and I will get to him next time. But today I am going to talk about the first two examples in Genesis: Adam and Enoch. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

This episode comes in response to several comments I have received over the last few months from people struggling with the difference between the traditional idea of eternal life as endless individual existence in fellowship with God and nondual union with God which is often imagined as absorption into God and the loss of any sense of personal identity.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Nondual awareness is the peace that surpasses human understanding. To quote the apostle Paul, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” In this episode I use the story of Jesus stilling the storm as an illustration of the peace that is always present in the eye of the storm.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

The title of this episode “I am You and You are Me” sounds like I am quoting the lyrics to John Lennon’s song “I am the Walrus”: "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." There is also the rap by Zico with that title “I am you, You are Me.” But I am not quoting song lyrics here. I am expressing the unitive awareness that we are all one. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

In this episode today I will explore how the use of psychedelic drugs relate to nondual awareness.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

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. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

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.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU