The Tao of Christ
The Tao of Christ is a podcast which explores the mystical roots of Christianity, which Jesus called the Kingdom of God, which church historian Evelyn Underhill called the Unitive Life, which Richard Rohr calls the Universal Christ, and which I refer to as Christian nonduality, unitive awareness, or union with God. This is the Tao of Christ.
Episodes
I am continuing to look at stories of spiritual awakening in the Bible. This episode explores one of the most famous accounts - the story of Moses and the Burning Bush.
Today I continue to explore biblical stories of spiritual awakening. We have looked at Adam, Enoch, Abraham and Jacob. One would expect to find more stories of awakening in the rest of Genesis. But we look in vain for any hint that Joseph or any of his brothers or sister experienced spiritual awakening. That tells us something about spiritual awakening. There can be long periods of time without spiritual awakening. This episode exp...
In the last episode I looked at the figure of Jacob in the Book of Genesis. I said that I would be taking two episodes to explore Jacob’s spiritual awakening because there are two stories of awakening associated with him.
Jacob’s first experience was a vision/dream known as Jacob’s ladder, which we looked at last time. That happened when he was running from his brother Esau, who wanted to kill him for tricking him out of his birthr...
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.
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.
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 figur...
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 ...
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.
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.
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.
In this episode today I will explore how the use of psychedelic drugs relate to nondual awareness.
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 appr...
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 com...
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 statesma...
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 repr...
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?
This episode is about the Holy Spirit and how this important Christian belief and experience fits into nondual Christianity.
In this episode I talk about how to approach American politics - and especially the 2024 election - from a nondual perceptive as nondual awareness.
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, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”
This epis...
In this episode I explain how to interpret the apocalyptic passages of the New Testament from a nondual perspective.
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