The Tao of Christ

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 “the Spiritual Realm.” This is also called “living in the Spirit” or “walking in the Spirit” or “abiding in Christ” or simply being “in Christ.” View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

Discover the multifaceted meaning of the 'Word of God' beyond the traditional Biblical context. Explore how it signifies the living presence of the Divine, communicating with humanity in deeper ways. Delve into the concept of non-duality, revealing the universal accessibility of this divine connection. The discussion invites listeners to rethink identity and their personal relationship with the sacred.

In this episode I interpret the biblical Christmas stories in a nondual manner.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

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

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

For many people the news is stressful. I read a TIME magazine article the other day entitled “Where to Seek Help if the Israel-Hamas War is Impacting Your Mental Health.” 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 “us versus them” mentality of the world from a nondual perspective. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

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

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 people’s 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, “Fear not.” That is the message of God in the Bible, and it can be our experience in the spiritual life. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

I have been receiving quite a few questions recently asking me how I would interpret certain passages in the Christian scriptures. People quote verses that seem to contradict what I am saying, and they want me to explain them. For example I recently said in an episode that heaven is not a place. It is the spiritual reality not in the hereafter but here and now. Someone asked me how I would explain Jesus saying, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going.”Jesus uses the word “place” three times in three verses, and that seems to contradict my assertion that heaven is not a place. This is just one example. I have received several other comments that quote a verse and say, “What about this verse?” So I thought I would do an episode on how to interpret scripture from a nondual perspective. You could call this a nondual hermeneutic.View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU

I read Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha back in the 60’s when I was in college. It was a rite of passage back then. But I did not really know experientially what it was all about until I was in my sixties. Later in this episode I am going to take a look the closing vision in Hermann Hesse’s book Siddhartha and show how it informs Christian nonduality, and in particular how it informs the nondual understanding of what happens after the death of the body. View Marshall's books here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marshall-Davis/author/B001K8Y0RU