June 26, 2025 • 41 mins
Tracking Wisdom
Episode 29
The Illusion of Separation: Sin, Forgiveness, and the Divine Within
Recorded - 05/12/25
This episode delves into the profound and often contentious themes of sin and forgiveness within the context of contemporary spirituality. Ryan and Peter engage in a critical exploration of how traditional Christian interpretations may inadvertently perpetuate a sense of guilt and separation from the divine. They propose an alternative framework, wherein sin is viewed not as a mere list of wrongdoings but as a manifestation of the illusory separation created by the ego. The discussion emphasizes the importance of recognizing this separation as the source of suffering, advocating for a paradigm shift towards understanding repentance as a movement towards unity and love. Furthermore, the speakers articulate that forgiveness is an internal process rather than an external decree, suggesting that true grace arises from self-acceptance and the acknowledgment of one's intrinsic divinity. This enlightening conversation encourages listeners to transcend rigid moralistic views and embrace a more holistic understanding of their spiritual journey, fostering a deeper connection with themselves and the divine.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Views, interpretations andopinions expressed are not advice
nor official positionspresented on behalf of any organization
or institution. They are forinformational and entertainment purposes
only. Now join Ryan and Peterfor another episode of the Tracking
Wisdom Podcast.
Good morning, everybody.Welcome back to another episode of
(00:26):
the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.I'm Ryan.
I'm Peter.
And today I wanted to talk alittle bit about sin, forgiveness
and the divine within and thecontext of perennial wisdom and what
I interpret to be sort of thecontemporary or conventional institutional
(00:46):
teachings of the Christianchurch. Now I want to disclaim that
what we're discussing isopinion and acknowledging that it's
not the traditional orconventional teaching of the modern
day Christian churches andthat Christian churches in various
(01:06):
denominations have differentperspectives on many of these things.
But what I wanted to do todayin the intent of the discussion,
is to create a bit of areframing around the concept of sin
and forgiveness and grace andjudgment and some of these terms
that can at times have loadedor preconceived notions about them
(01:31):
and tie it in with this ideaof perennial wisdom, perennial philosophy
that we've been discussing andwhere I see and Peter sees this overlap
of this wisdom inChristianity, but also in other traditions,
namely Buddhism and the like.So the background context on this
(01:53):
was that I had been listeningto the radio and I listened to Christian
radio and the whatever it wasthat came up, it was like an advertisement
and it said basically sincomes between us and our perfect
God and it frames it. And Ithink that this is part of my point
(02:15):
that I think, at least in myexperience in the Christian church
and the, the takeaway thatI've felt like the messaging presented
is that sin is related to ourthoughts and actions and the bad
things that we do. And thatwhen we do these bad things that
(02:38):
are antithetical to God'swill, that that's sin. And in that
sin we create a barrierbetween us and God in our relationship
with God and in the essence ofit, it does allude to this duality
of God being an externalentity and us being individuals en
(03:01):
masse. And what I picked outof it as far as applying the perennial
wisdom lens, the perennialphilosophy is that sin in and of
itself is not the things thatwe do. It's not being bad or doing
that are in antithetical toGod's infinite wisdom and nature.
(03:24):
But it is the essence of theegoic separation, something that
I perceive as thepersonification of the devil or demons
or Satan as the egoic mind,that state of being that perceives
only separation and perceivesthe fear of being alone versus our
(03:48):
true nature, which I wouldcall the spiritual being or the like.
And that tug of war betweenthose two states of being, that that's
sin, that the, the sin is notthe things we do, but is this essence
and illusion of separationthat creates that barrier between
(04:13):
the experience of the onenessof the true love and, and absolute
nature of God. I think I said everything.
So, so, so, yeah, so the, theway I was coming to it is that sin
is suffering or sin. Sin iswhat creates more suffering in us.
(04:36):
And suffering is the sense ofseparation. Separation is suffering,
suffering is separation. Andso, you know, so in our view, God
is not a separate entity fromwhich we are separated. God is our
nature and our experience isone of suffering because we experience
(05:01):
the illusion of separation. Soseparation occurs as soon as we're
incarnated. If once we're bornas physical organisms, we are by
definition physicallyseparated from our environment and
from other organisms. And itjust increases as we are socialized
(05:21):
because our culture emphasizesthat physicality and separation.
So even if you're notreligious, you're still indoctrinated
with separation, which iscontrary to our absolute reality
because the prevailing view ismaterialism, that our physical experience
(05:46):
of the world is real, is theultimate reality. This is the real
world, the real world. Thereis no other real world which happens
to be false, you know, in our,in our belief and in fact in our
experience. And I guess I, Ikind of want to. Speaking of experience.
(06:07):
So I came in today, not verywell. And we spent some time with
Ryan off mic, going throughmy, my recent experience. And then
we had a mishap where westarted to discuss this topic and
we weren't, we didn't, wefailed to record. But the fact is
(06:28):
that going through thatexercise of exploring this with Ryan,
I feel so much better thanwhen I came in because it was the
exercise of looking atseparation and non separation and
suffering and non suffering.And so I feel much more at peace
(06:52):
than when I came in. I have amuch stronger sense of reality than
I had when I came in. So Ithink, you know, the idea of sin
is pointing at this reality ofseparation causing suffering. But
it is not the separation ofour souls from separate deity. It
(07:19):
is our perception, ourwrongful perception of separation
or our embracing of theillusion of separation. And the other
thing I was going to say aboutthe concept of sin as part of the
Judeo Christian tradition isthat, you know, what I've named before
(07:42):
is the idea of teaching to abell curve or designing your belief
system to a bell curve. Inother words, how can we structure
this to have the biggestimpact on the most people? And that
teaching right and wrong andsin and virtue, I guess right, black
and white, is so much simplerthan teaching something like, well,
(08:05):
what is it that increasessuffering and what is it that decreases
suffering? So that's my ethicsis not what's right and what's wrong.
It's what is increasingsuffering in this situation. What
is decreasing suffering, whatis easing suffering in this situation.
It's much easier, and I hadsaid earlier that, you know, as parents,
(08:29):
we know it's much easier toteach, do this, don't do that than
it is to teach well what'sbest right now. How do we work through
the situation to find what'sbest? It's much easier just to say,
never this and always that.And man, it's just hitting me right
now in terms of what I'm goingthrough with my conditioning and
(08:52):
my, my, my family strugglesvery really along these lines. So
it's like really pointingdirectly to my suffering and the
suffering that I create. But,but just to say that teaching right
and wrong, teaching black andwhite and defining things that way
and listing commandments ismuch easier and has much more impact
(09:17):
statistically than teachingmore or less, you know, more suffering,
less suffering. And I thinkthis has the, I mean, people will
call this relativism becauseit is. Which has, Has a bad rap.
Well, I mean, it, it's reallyin direct opposition to Judeo Christian
tradition of right and wrong.Now, having said that, you know,
(09:41):
what I've learned from aReform synagogue is that what's the
most important thing isstruggling with the issue, grappling
with the issue, interpretingthe issue. That's where our obligation
is. It's not, oh, just do whatyou're told. That's not, you know,
(10:03):
just obey. That's not theobligation. That's to say, just obey
is to. Oh, what's the word?Abdicate responsibility. Well, my
leader told me to do this. Godsays I should always do this, so
I'm just always going to doit. So, yeah, separation, suffering.
(10:25):
I mean, I think. Did I saythat? That suffering is separation.
Yeah, God's will. That was theother thing. The idea of, you know,
sin is violating God's willversus sin is creating separation.
There's an approach, I guess,Byron, Katie has a book called Loving
(10:45):
what is. And there's aapproach to that. Said that there's
a perspective that loving,what is dealing with reality as it
is, is how to Be holy or howto be happy. There's a quote I'm
trying to think, is it St.Augustine? I want what God wants.
(11:07):
That's why I'm so merry. And Ithink there's a metaphor here which
gets overextended, which isreality is God's will by definition.
Right. There's a creator.We're living in creation, therefore
what we are in is the will ofGod. That doesn't mean. And again,
(11:29):
this goes back to thesimplification. Right. Well, we wrote
down God's will here. No,that's. I think that's where the
oversimplification is. Right,Right. If we accept reality and we
understand the illusion ofseparation, that can come from dealing
(11:53):
with that reality sometimes ifwe overcome that sense of separation,
then we live in God's will. Welive in reality without conflict
with the way things are, andthen we're free to influence the
way things are withoutcreating unnecessary suffering. Ah,
(12:13):
that was the other thing I wasgoing to say, going back to the idea
of right and wrong and alwaysand never. That's not possible in
reality as biologicalorganisms. To say never kill is just
inherently false. Unless yousay, well, this isn't killing, because
(12:36):
that thing's not really. Itdoesn't count. Right. Because now
here we extend them. Analogyor metaphor, whatever. And because
God gave man dominion over allthese things, so we can kill these
things. But, you know, thiskilling is right and this killing
is wrong. No, this killingcreates more suffering unnecessarily.
(12:57):
And this killing supports ourlife and our ability to work to do
good and reduce the sufferingof others. Is it killing? It's still
killing, but it's notunnecessary killing and it's not
killing that createsunnecessary suffering. So I'm trying
to point to a way in whichthere's a kind of falseness to absolutes
(13:21):
and it. You know, honestly, Ihave to say that I'm experiencing
some resistance from myWestern, Judeo Christian framework.
Like, I, I do feel a littleuncomfortable saying that.
That there. But there's no absolutes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel aslight resistance to saying that
still, which is. Yeah, it's alittle strange to me. Yeah, so that's,
(13:43):
that's my take on it. Let'ssee where. Oh, are you going to get
to repentance still? Right.
Yeah, we'll touch onrepentance in a minute. And I just
want to respond to a couple ofthings that you had said. So, number
one, and you did touch onthis, but I had mentioned it before
and I figured I'd Share mywords with the group that, you know,
I had been talking, basicallytalking about right and wrong and
(14:06):
this idea of judgment and thathistorically I've taken sort of that
relativistic perspective whereright and wrong is more of a social
construct. And I don't fullydismiss that as part of ethics. Like
there, there is a. There is,in my opinion, some level of human
(14:29):
judgment is what dictatesright and wrong. But I've moved towards
a. More towards a positionwhere I acknowledge that there's
a way of existing in a way ofliving our lives and taking action
that seems to be in accordwith something greater. I generally
(14:52):
bring in, you know, the Taowhen I think of that, but it goes
to what Peter was saying aswell. And it. It speaks to Buddhist
teaching with the EightfoldPath and such. Where there is a skillful
way of living, there's a. Away of living and acting that essentially
(15:13):
creates less suffering or itdoesn't increase suffering. So I
align with that. And that iswhere I've moved more as far as away
from relativism a bit. But Istill stand by. And this is more
in a. A larger, I guess,holistic sense. And I bring it up
because I feel like it'll comeup a little bit more in the neck
(15:35):
in forgiveness and deity, thatI don't think that these things generally
are dictates from. Well, it'snot dictates from a separate God,
because I don't believe in aseparate God. I suppose, really,
you know, that. That thedivine is the divine spark and essence
(15:56):
within every living creatureand part of the cosmos. What's seen
and unseen. You know, all ofthat. And so what. But when you're
talking about the Bell Curve,I mean, that made. That makes perfect
sense from a teachingstandpoint. And of course, we. I
love your example with being aparent because we do speak that way
(16:20):
often, especially to youngchildren. And in many ways people
seek that out, like to befair. Right. There is a lot of people
who just want to be told whatto do. And so if you frame it in
a way to just do this, and inmany cases, or most cases, statistically
speaking, you're going to beliving in a. In better accord with
(16:45):
the state of God, essentially,that that makes sense. And as you
had mentioned, there's a.There's a trap with that. Right.
There's a hazard by takingthat absolute perspective that students
of that teaching can have, canmisunderstand how rigid that is.
(17:06):
I mean, I think the mostdangerous part is when we start to
punish each other for ourperceived violations of commandments
or requirements or laws. So Iwant to mention the distinction between
commandments and precepts thatwe see between, you know, Judeo Christian
(17:26):
tradition and Buddhisttradition. So in my understanding
of Buddhist precepts, theseare. These are strong guidelines
to maximize your progress onthe path. And to the extent that
you violate the precepts, youmay have more difficulty. You probably
will have more difficultyprogressing as the. On the path.
(17:49):
As Jack Kornfield says, it'sreally hard to be mindful after a
hard day of killing andpillaging. But there's a. There's
a story, Zen story, of amonastery that has a problem with
vermin in the rice. And thestudents, the monks, come to the
abbot and say, oh, we can'tkill. What should we do? There are,
(18:13):
you know, the way I heard thisstory was roaches. But anyway, the
vermin in the mice, oh, wecan't kill. What can we do? They're,
they're destroying the rice.We're, you know, our food is spoiling.
And, and the leader says, I'mnot going to tell you what to do.
You go figure it out. Andbecause, you know, that's the point.
It's not to do what you'retold. It's to figure it out. It's
(18:36):
to make the decision and dowhat's needed for the situation.
I mean, you know, you have tofeed the monastery. You're not saying
that the lives of the rats areunimportant, but you're saying we
have to keep the monks alive.You know, so unfortunately, you might
have to kill the rats, butit's, it's a question doing the work,
(19:00):
not just saying, well, ofcourse we're going to kill the rats
or not. You know, you stillhave the precepts telling you those
rats are important. Those are.Those living things are important.
Now you have to figure outwhat you're going to do, understanding
that their life is importantand your life is important. Yeah,
I guess I'll leave it at that.
(19:20):
So to move on, we want to talkabout the idea of repentance. And
frequently the flavor that iselucidated through the conventional
teaching of repentance is asense of being sorry and begging
for forgiveness or somethingalong that line. I mean, maybe begging
(19:42):
for forgiveness is an unfaircharacterization, but I think, at
least in my own experience ofthe teachings, it comes across that
way. And yet the wordrepentance and the Greek word metanoia,
which means repentance,metanoia, I don't know I don't speak
Greek. Means to turn back orto change one's mind. And I have
(20:07):
heard this taught in Christianfaith. So it's not that it's completely
absent but the recurringsentiment that I feel like comes
out of repentance is thisnegative punitive essence like repent,
repent. And the purpose of therepentance isn't there's a little
(20:27):
gnat in this room and it'sright in front of my face. I don't
want to kill it.
I have, I have this image, youknow, of repentance of like chest
beating regret, of guilt.Guilt for a thing as opposed to.
Well you said turning awayfrom that turning back. It's to returning
(20:50):
back from the past.
So when we think about theseparation of sin being the illusion
of separation and God and thatsoul essence being the oneness and
the ultimate reality that toturn away from the activities and
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the suffering and, and theillusion perception of separation,
the thing that creates aperception of separation and to recognize
by turning towards whichultimately in my worldview is an
inward turning, to turn inwardto recognize that divine spark within
(21:37):
is repentance. That that'swhere you will start to be able to
see and discern on your ownthose things that are in accordance
with the way of being that the correct.
I agree and I have to sayagain, I mean this is my immediate
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direct experience that youknow, what I've been doing with you
is returning to turningtowards. I see the nat. Turning towards
the truth, turning towards theexperience of non separation and
away from the conditioning orconditions that are amplifying or
(22:28):
supporting or strengtheningthe sense of separation. I mean that's
the way I came in this morningwas feeling frustrated and separate
and I mean maybe even guilty.I think there's a very strong sense
of separation. And then as westart to work through this content
and I'm thinking about yeah,what's, what's sin and what's grace
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and what's, you know, what'sreal and what's illusion. I, I much
more experience the sense ofconnection and belonging and non
separation and which I mean ismy experience in formal practice
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as well. So for me formalpractice is a generally group awareness
exercise which is kind of agroup meditation and coming together
with others and orientingtowards what is awareness, what is
the nature of awareness? Whatis the nature of my inner, my experience
of what is experiencing, whatI experiencing, what is that characteristic
(23:37):
of awareness? That's mypractice that brings me away from
suffering and into connectionand belonging and wholeness and that
Direct experience. And sothat's repentance for me. I mean,
clearly that's what's beingdescribed here. To me it's like,
(23:59):
yeah, if I turn away from mysense of separation and I turn towards
my sense of wholeness, allthis suffering disappears. It's quite
remarkable. So I think thatthis is what's being pointed to by
these teachings, butunfortunately not always in a skillful
(24:21):
or effective way. And that theoversimplification or maybe some
of the lessons that peoplehave heard about this are people
attached to the lesson,attached to the way this is taught.
Basically, you know, clingingto the finger, staring at the finger
(24:43):
and not trying to see the moonthat the finger is pointing to. That's,
that's what happens with. Thisis a sticky teaching. I guess that's
what I'm saying. This is ateaching that is fraught with suffering
because it is pointing to nonsuffering and yet people make it
be a cause of suffering. Andunfortunately I think it is often
(25:06):
intentionally used to causesuffering as a means of control.
Not always. And that's not tosay it's a bad teaching, but it is
a teaching that is very proneto exploitation. And I think I can
easily, very comfortably saythat it's a teaching that has been
(25:27):
the cause of a lot ofreligious trauma. And in fact I'm
not thinking of a specificthing that came up recently that
I won't repeat. But yeah, soyeah, yeah, I see.
It as, I mean as a differentway of saying essentially what you
said is repentance to me isbeing. Turning away from fear and
(25:53):
towards love. When we have.Guilt was the word that particularly
stood out to me. And that's a,that's a common experience for many
people. And from myperspective, guilt is a function
or symptom of fear. And sowhen we turn away from that and start
(26:14):
focusing forward on the lovingaspects of ourself, that we can move
beyond suffering and, and helpheal not only ourselves, but those
around us actually. But onthis point it brings me to the forgiveness
aspect and the generalteaching that God forgives us, God
(26:34):
forgave us. Well, I'll talkabout grace later. But forgiveness
being something externallybestowed upon us, upon our unworthy,
you know, biologic materialselves that are, have this inherent
sin which, you know, we, aswe've talked about isn't necessarily
(26:55):
what it is purported to be inour perspective. But forgiveness
to me is not an externalthing. So when we talk about sin
and forgiveness andrepentance, so sin being the separation,
the illusion of separation,repentance being to turn away from
that separation towards theloving oneness and unification that
(27:18):
is a spark within all of us.The forgiveness is our own internal
forgiveness. To forgiveourselves of the things that we judge
ourselves as being bad, thatthere's no need, well, that's going
to go into grace. So I'm not,I don't want to digress too much,
but that's my perspective onthe, the criticality of forgiveness.
(27:40):
Forgiveness is important, butforgiveness is not bestowed upon
us by God because we areperfect in God's eyes. We are created
in the image and likeness of aloving God. And our forgiveness has
to be because we are the oneswho have judged ourselves. We therefore
also need to be the ones toforgive ourselves.
(28:02):
So I think guilt, shame,forgiveness and grace are very, I
mean, you're struggling toseparate in conversation. And that's
what I'm saying, seeing aswell, it's like, oh, I want to talk
more about, you know, thesethings. And they're, they're. You
can't really talk about themin isolation because one implies
(28:26):
the other. I mean, to. Okay,so guilt is what I think the fear
of punishment or shame is. Youknow, the fear of rejection, maybe
of being condemned, of. Of notbelonging, not belonging. I mean,
this is all about belongingand connection and versus separation,
(28:52):
separation and rejection. Andthat they are, they are created socially,
but they're imposedpersonally. Right. I mean, we're
socialized into these valuesand we're told that our group is
going to punish us, is goingto reject us, which is not safe for
(29:17):
us as organisms. And in orderto try to protect ourselves from
that rejection by the group,we punish ourselves in guilt and
shame. And when no one elseknows. Right, Right. I mean, if we
commit a transgression and noone knows, we are punished. We are
(29:43):
punished by ourselves, by, byknowing how that, how that contradicts
the structure, the givenrules. And then on top of that, I
suppose if no one else knows,on top of that, there's the fear
of someone finding out andthen adding their rejection to your
own rejection. Whereas inreality, all the separation and rejection
(30:07):
is a construct of our physicalreality and our socialization that
ultimately there is noseparation, there is no rejection
because there are no separateentities to reject one another. And
when we turn towards God, ifyou will, then that is great. That's
(30:29):
grace, because basicallyeverything magically is made. Well,
without jumping through hoops, maybe.
Yeah, go ahead. So I have aquestion for you. I have my own thoughts
on it, I think. So you mademention of the way you Described
it as separation and the guiltand shame and the social construct
(30:51):
because it's not safe for usas organisms. I think that's legitimate
as far as a biological thing.I wonder. And this, my question is,
is our discomfort and ourguilt and shame? I think guilt and
shame is primarily a means ofcontrol socially to try and make
sure that the first part ofit. But is it is our discomfort with
(31:15):
separation because it isdiscordant with our true nature,
that our true nature isoneness. And when we, while it may
be to some degree a socialconstruct of hierarchy, of needs,
that in its essence it isbecause it's discordant with that
true nature of connection.
Yeah, you're touching onsomething that I was sensing as well.
(31:36):
This is so interesting that,you know, there's, there's a danger
in the way I'm expressingthings of saying, oh, well, then
we can do whatever we wantbecause all this is just other people
telling us what to do. Andyeah, you know, if you try that,
you'll know.
Right.
Because you're not going to beat peace. You're going to be pursuing
some ego concept of, oh, now Ican do whatever I want. I don't have
(32:01):
to follow these rules ofsociety. And you'll just be chasing
another version of a socialconstruct of freedom.
Right.
Of liberty. So I'm not sayingwhat's it. I'm not condoning anarchy.
Right, Right. And I'm notsaying, oh, this is all false control.
It's not. But it's also notthis absolute sense of, or absolute
(32:28):
real structure of punishmentand transgression. And, you know,
the kind of classical,stereotypical description of sin
and punishment and repentanceis not strictly true.
Right.
You know, there is truth inthere that we're trying to tease
(32:51):
out. That doesn't mean thatyou can't do anything wrong. That's
not what that means. Itdoesn't mean that you can't create
suffering by doing the wrongthing in the wrong time in the circumstance.
It doesn't mean that if youbehave unskillfully, you won't have
suffering.
Right.
You know, so if you ignore theguidelines and say, well, I'm going
(33:14):
to do whatever I want wheneverI want to do it, and then find yourself
behaving unskillfully, whichyou will because you're not behaving
mindfully, or you're notturning towards God and behaving
with God's will, then you'regoing to have a hell of a lot of
suffering. Did I mention God'swill? This Time while we record.
(33:34):
I think you did okay if youwant to touch on it, just in case.
Well, that. Oh yeah, I think Idid. Yeah. I want what God wants.
That's why I'm so merry that.Yeah. Reality is like. If we can
see reality and we can behavein congruence with reality, we can
be happy. Yeah, yeah.
(33:55):
And for me. So my, my takewith the whole idea of grace. So
my understanding of grace isthat my understanding of the most
common perspective andteaching from the Christian church,
the modern Christian church,is that we are inherently broken
(34:17):
and we receive forgivenessthrough Christ or however you want
to frame that through God'sgrace, that there's no action that
we can take that can fulfillthat to repay that debt, so to speak.
That it is only through God'sgrace that those transgressions have
(34:37):
been overlooked, so to speak.That's my rough interpretation of
it and my perspective. So as Ihad said, I think the forgiveness
is not externally bestowed butinternally rectified, reconciled
with our own judgments thatgrace is given because there's nothing
to forgive. And that's what Iwas kind of getting at before, that
(35:00):
we are created by a perfectbeing or perfect essence and are
perfect in the highest senseby nature. And so nothing we do can
remove that intrinsic essencethat we are fundamentally not broken.
(35:21):
And therefore grace is noteven really a thing because there's
nothing to give, there'snothing to grace. Grace is that there's
nothing to forgive, there'snothing to earn, there's nothing
given because we arefundamentally as we're meant to be.
So yes, I think again what'sbeing pointed to by the. The teaching
(35:48):
of grace. Right, this. Well,what is it? I mean, is grace. So
there's repentance and thenthere's grace and resolution, Right.
I mean that's the outcome ofgrace is return to wholeness, return
to non suffering. I think whatthat's pointing to. So what, so what
(36:08):
you're saying is in anabsolute sense there's not. There's
no grace because there'snothing to forgive. But I think in
my experience there is thisabsolute. Not absolute, not in the
sense of absolute A. But Imean there's absolutely an experience
of coming from suffering andtransitioning into non suffering.
(36:31):
That is an experience ofgrace. It is remarkable and contrary
to ideas of guilt and a kindof sense of wrongness. Really there's
something remarkable aboutmaking that turn. And there's. It's
definitely a sense of turningaway from. I mean, you know, in the
(36:55):
context of this conversation Ithink we'd say turning away from
sin towards repentance andthen receiving grace. And I can definitely
identify with the experienceof turning away from suffering towards
wholeness and thenexperiencing that transformation,
(37:17):
which is. It's anextraordinary moving experience.
And so it gets a name. And inmy shared practice it's the word
grace has absolutely been usedby many people as being the nature
of awareness. You know,because we're all, and I'm talking
about, you know, when we cometogether to practice. It's not like,
(37:40):
oh, we're all just, you know,we've been in bliss this whole time.
We're just gonna get togetherand share our bliss. We're all in
various states of sufferingwhen we come together. And then as
we practice, we come intograce and we come into connection
and we come into belonging andaway from the sense of separation.
(38:02):
And so I think it's ultimatelylike you say, ultimately there is
nothing. It's our true nature.It's our. There's nothing to get
or fix because that's theultimate nature of reality. But in
experiencing the transitionfrom illusion to reality, that's
(38:24):
okay. So we have thisexperience. So Ryan knows that I'm
like having one of my momentswhere tears are streaming down my
face as I come into contactwith this. That there is an ineffable
experience which I think wecall, that's what we call the divine.
It's. It's something that westruggle to express. And that's why
(38:48):
we come up with all theseterms that give us so much difficulty
and create so much conflict,is we want to talk about God and
the divine and grace andsomehow capture this, this ineffable
experience of moving fromsuffering and separation to belonging
(39:08):
and peace and non suffering.And at the same time, as Ryan's saying,
it's absolute reality. It'sour true nature. There's nothing
to change but there. So it'slike I'm going back and forth, there's
nothing to change. But at thesame time there's this experience
of transition. There's this,this, this change in way of being
(39:29):
where at one moment we're insuffering and when we succeed in
turning, then we're in nonsuffering. And it's, it's an overwhelming
experience that, that is theperennial wisdom that everybody's
trying to capture and point toand describe throughout all of human
(39:51):
experience. You know, from thefirst scratching on a rock to it's
like, oh my God, this is athing. I'm trying to share this with
other beings because that'sAnother nature of it. Right, right.
Is it wants to be expressed,you know, except by the. The hermits
who just want to leave mealone. I'm at peace. Yeah, sorry.
(40:16):
That. That's my. That's my. My experience.
It's perfect. I. I don't wantto take away from that takeaway.
I think it's. That was areally great way to kind of tie it
all up. And I think itacknowledges where I was trying to
go, but also acknowledging theimportance that there is this ineffable
(40:41):
experience that many peopleexperience, that the grace of peace
that is available to us. And Ithink that's where everybody's trying
to get to.
So.
Thank you for this conversation.
Oh, thank you.
We hope you enjoyed thisconversation. We'd love to hear from
(41:01):
you. If you have any commentsor you have your own experience you'd
like to share, there's manyways to reach out. And I guess, until
next time, stay open, staycurious, and keep on tracking Wisdom.
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom podcast. Join us
(41:22):
next time as we continue thediscussion. Don't forget to follow
us on Facebook, Instagram andYouTube and visit www.ethstudio.com
for more information and content.
Views, interpretations andopinions expressed are not advice
nor official positionspresented on behalf of any organization
or institution. They are forinformational and entertainment purposes
only. Now join Ryan and Peterfor another episode of the Tracking
Wisdom Podcast.
Good morning, everybody.Welcome back to another episode of
(00:26):
the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.I'm Ryan.
I'm Peter.
And today I wanted to talk alittle bit about sin, forgiveness
and the divine within and thecontext of perennial wisdom and what
I interpret to be sort of thecontemporary or conventional institutional
(00:46):
teachings of the Christianchurch. Now I want to disclaim that
what we're discussing isopinion and acknowledging that it's
not the traditional orconventional teaching of the modern
day Christian churches andthat Christian churches in various
(01:06):
denominations have differentperspectives on many of these things.
But what I wanted to do todayin the intent of the discussion,
is to create a bit of areframing around the concept of sin
and forgiveness and grace andjudgment and some of these terms
that can at times have loadedor preconceived notions about them
(01:31):
and tie it in with this ideaof perennial wisdom, perennial philosophy
that we've been discussing andwhere I see and Peter sees this overlap
of this wisdom inChristianity, but also in other traditions,
namely Buddhism and the like.So the background context on this
(01:53):
was that I had been listeningto the radio and I listened to Christian
radio and the whatever it wasthat came up, it was like an advertisement
and it said basically sincomes between us and our perfect
God and it frames it. And Ithink that this is part of my point
(02:15):
that I think, at least in myexperience in the Christian church
and the, the takeaway thatI've felt like the messaging presented
is that sin is related to ourthoughts and actions and the bad
things that we do. And thatwhen we do these bad things that
(02:38):
are antithetical to God'swill, that that's sin. And in that
sin we create a barrierbetween us and God in our relationship
with God and in the essence ofit, it does allude to this duality
of God being an externalentity and us being individuals en
(03:01):
masse. And what I picked outof it as far as applying the perennial
wisdom lens, the perennialphilosophy is that sin in and of
itself is not the things thatwe do. It's not being bad or doing
that are in antithetical toGod's infinite wisdom and nature.
(03:24):
But it is the essence of theegoic separation, something that
I perceive as thepersonification of the devil or demons
or Satan as the egoic mind,that state of being that perceives
only separation and perceivesthe fear of being alone versus our
(03:48):
true nature, which I wouldcall the spiritual being or the like.
And that tug of war betweenthose two states of being, that that's
sin, that the, the sin is notthe things we do, but is this essence
and illusion of separationthat creates that barrier between
(04:13):
the experience of the onenessof the true love and, and absolute
nature of God. I think I said everything.
So, so, so, yeah, so the, theway I was coming to it is that sin
is suffering or sin. Sin iswhat creates more suffering in us.
(04:36):
And suffering is the sense ofseparation. Separation is suffering,
suffering is separation. Andso, you know, so in our view, God
is not a separate entity fromwhich we are separated. God is our
nature and our experience isone of suffering because we experience
(05:01):
the illusion of separation. Soseparation occurs as soon as we're
incarnated. If once we're bornas physical organisms, we are by
definition physicallyseparated from our environment and
from other organisms. And itjust increases as we are socialized
(05:21):
because our culture emphasizesthat physicality and separation.
So even if you're notreligious, you're still indoctrinated
with separation, which iscontrary to our absolute reality
because the prevailing view ismaterialism, that our physical experience
(05:46):
of the world is real, is theultimate reality. This is the real
world, the real world. Thereis no other real world which happens
to be false, you know, in our,in our belief and in fact in our
experience. And I guess I, Ikind of want to. Speaking of experience.
(06:07):
So I came in today, not verywell. And we spent some time with
Ryan off mic, going throughmy, my recent experience. And then
we had a mishap where westarted to discuss this topic and
we weren't, we didn't, wefailed to record. But the fact is
(06:28):
that going through thatexercise of exploring this with Ryan,
I feel so much better thanwhen I came in because it was the
exercise of looking atseparation and non separation and
suffering and non suffering.And so I feel much more at peace
(06:52):
than when I came in. I have amuch stronger sense of reality than
I had when I came in. So Ithink, you know, the idea of sin
is pointing at this reality ofseparation causing suffering. But
it is not the separation ofour souls from separate deity. It
(07:19):
is our perception, ourwrongful perception of separation
or our embracing of theillusion of separation. And the other
thing I was going to say aboutthe concept of sin as part of the
Judeo Christian tradition isthat, you know, what I've named before
(07:42):
is the idea of teaching to abell curve or designing your belief
system to a bell curve. Inother words, how can we structure
this to have the biggestimpact on the most people? And that
teaching right and wrong andsin and virtue, I guess right, black
and white, is so much simplerthan teaching something like, well,
(08:05):
what is it that increasessuffering and what is it that decreases
suffering? So that's my ethicsis not what's right and what's wrong.
It's what is increasingsuffering in this situation. What
is decreasing suffering, whatis easing suffering in this situation.
It's much easier, and I hadsaid earlier that, you know, as parents,
(08:29):
we know it's much easier toteach, do this, don't do that than
it is to teach well what'sbest right now. How do we work through
the situation to find what'sbest? It's much easier just to say,
never this and always that.And man, it's just hitting me right
now in terms of what I'm goingthrough with my conditioning and
(08:52):
my, my, my family strugglesvery really along these lines. So
it's like really pointingdirectly to my suffering and the
suffering that I create. But,but just to say that teaching right
and wrong, teaching black andwhite and defining things that way
and listing commandments ismuch easier and has much more impact
(09:17):
statistically than teachingmore or less, you know, more suffering,
less suffering. And I thinkthis has the, I mean, people will
call this relativism becauseit is. Which has, Has a bad rap.
Well, I mean, it, it's reallyin direct opposition to Judeo Christian
tradition of right and wrong.Now, having said that, you know,
(09:41):
what I've learned from aReform synagogue is that what's the
most important thing isstruggling with the issue, grappling
with the issue, interpretingthe issue. That's where our obligation
is. It's not, oh, just do whatyou're told. That's not, you know,
(10:03):
just obey. That's not theobligation. That's to say, just obey
is to. Oh, what's the word?Abdicate responsibility. Well, my
leader told me to do this. Godsays I should always do this, so
I'm just always going to doit. So, yeah, separation, suffering.
(10:25):
I mean, I think. Did I saythat? That suffering is separation.
Yeah, God's will. That was theother thing. The idea of, you know,
sin is violating God's willversus sin is creating separation.
There's an approach, I guess,Byron, Katie has a book called Loving
(10:45):
what is. And there's aapproach to that. Said that there's
a perspective that loving,what is dealing with reality as it
is, is how to Be holy or howto be happy. There's a quote I'm
trying to think, is it St.Augustine? I want what God wants.
(11:07):
That's why I'm so merry. And Ithink there's a metaphor here which
gets overextended, which isreality is God's will by definition.
Right. There's a creator.We're living in creation, therefore
what we are in is the will ofGod. That doesn't mean. And again,
(11:29):
this goes back to thesimplification. Right. Well, we wrote
down God's will here. No,that's. I think that's where the
oversimplification is. Right,Right. If we accept reality and we
understand the illusion ofseparation, that can come from dealing
(11:53):
with that reality sometimes ifwe overcome that sense of separation,
then we live in God's will. Welive in reality without conflict
with the way things are, andthen we're free to influence the
way things are withoutcreating unnecessary suffering. Ah,
(12:13):
that was the other thing I wasgoing to say, going back to the idea
of right and wrong and alwaysand never. That's not possible in
reality as biologicalorganisms. To say never kill is just
inherently false. Unless yousay, well, this isn't killing, because
(12:36):
that thing's not really. Itdoesn't count. Right. Because now
here we extend them. Analogyor metaphor, whatever. And because
God gave man dominion over allthese things, so we can kill these
things. But, you know, thiskilling is right and this killing
is wrong. No, this killingcreates more suffering unnecessarily.
(12:57):
And this killing supports ourlife and our ability to work to do
good and reduce the sufferingof others. Is it killing? It's still
killing, but it's notunnecessary killing and it's not
killing that createsunnecessary suffering. So I'm trying
to point to a way in whichthere's a kind of falseness to absolutes
(13:21):
and it. You know, honestly, Ihave to say that I'm experiencing
some resistance from myWestern, Judeo Christian framework.
Like, I, I do feel a littleuncomfortable saying that.
That there. But there's no absolutes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel aslight resistance to saying that
still, which is. Yeah, it's alittle strange to me. Yeah, so that's,
(13:43):
that's my take on it. Let'ssee where. Oh, are you going to get
to repentance still? Right.
Yeah, we'll touch onrepentance in a minute. And I just
want to respond to a couple ofthings that you had said. So, number
one, and you did touch onthis, but I had mentioned it before
and I figured I'd Share mywords with the group that, you know,
I had been talking, basicallytalking about right and wrong and
(14:06):
this idea of judgment and thathistorically I've taken sort of that
relativistic perspective whereright and wrong is more of a social
construct. And I don't fullydismiss that as part of ethics. Like
there, there is a. There is,in my opinion, some level of human
(14:29):
judgment is what dictatesright and wrong. But I've moved towards
a. More towards a positionwhere I acknowledge that there's
a way of existing in a way ofliving our lives and taking action
that seems to be in accordwith something greater. I generally
(14:52):
bring in, you know, the Taowhen I think of that, but it goes
to what Peter was saying aswell. And it. It speaks to Buddhist
teaching with the EightfoldPath and such. Where there is a skillful
way of living, there's a. Away of living and acting that essentially
(15:13):
creates less suffering or itdoesn't increase suffering. So I
align with that. And that iswhere I've moved more as far as away
from relativism a bit. But Istill stand by. And this is more
in a. A larger, I guess,holistic sense. And I bring it up
because I feel like it'll comeup a little bit more in the neck
(15:35):
in forgiveness and deity, thatI don't think that these things generally
are dictates from. Well, it'snot dictates from a separate God,
because I don't believe in aseparate God. I suppose, really,
you know, that. That thedivine is the divine spark and essence
(15:56):
within every living creatureand part of the cosmos. What's seen
and unseen. You know, all ofthat. And so what. But when you're
talking about the Bell Curve,I mean, that made. That makes perfect
sense from a teachingstandpoint. And of course, we. I
love your example with being aparent because we do speak that way
(16:20):
often, especially to youngchildren. And in many ways people
seek that out, like to befair. Right. There is a lot of people
who just want to be told whatto do. And so if you frame it in
a way to just do this, and inmany cases, or most cases, statistically
speaking, you're going to beliving in a. In better accord with
(16:45):
the state of God, essentially,that that makes sense. And as you
had mentioned, there's a.There's a trap with that. Right.
There's a hazard by takingthat absolute perspective that students
of that teaching can have, canmisunderstand how rigid that is.
(17:06):
I mean, I think the mostdangerous part is when we start to
punish each other for ourperceived violations of commandments
or requirements or laws. So Iwant to mention the distinction between
commandments and precepts thatwe see between, you know, Judeo Christian
(17:26):
tradition and Buddhisttradition. So in my understanding
of Buddhist precepts, theseare. These are strong guidelines
to maximize your progress onthe path. And to the extent that
you violate the precepts, youmay have more difficulty. You probably
will have more difficultyprogressing as the. On the path.
(17:49):
As Jack Kornfield says, it'sreally hard to be mindful after a
hard day of killing andpillaging. But there's a. There's
a story, Zen story, of amonastery that has a problem with
vermin in the rice. And thestudents, the monks, come to the
abbot and say, oh, we can'tkill. What should we do? There are,
(18:13):
you know, the way I heard thisstory was roaches. But anyway, the
vermin in the mice, oh, wecan't kill. What can we do? They're,
they're destroying the rice.We're, you know, our food is spoiling.
And, and the leader says, I'mnot going to tell you what to do.
You go figure it out. Andbecause, you know, that's the point.
It's not to do what you'retold. It's to figure it out. It's
(18:36):
to make the decision and dowhat's needed for the situation.
I mean, you know, you have tofeed the monastery. You're not saying
that the lives of the rats areunimportant, but you're saying we
have to keep the monks alive.You know, so unfortunately, you might
have to kill the rats, butit's, it's a question doing the work,
(19:00):
not just saying, well, ofcourse we're going to kill the rats
or not. You know, you stillhave the precepts telling you those
rats are important. Those are.Those living things are important.
Now you have to figure outwhat you're going to do, understanding
that their life is importantand your life is important. Yeah,
I guess I'll leave it at that.
(19:20):
So to move on, we want to talkabout the idea of repentance. And
frequently the flavor that iselucidated through the conventional
teaching of repentance is asense of being sorry and begging
for forgiveness or somethingalong that line. I mean, maybe begging
(19:42):
for forgiveness is an unfaircharacterization, but I think, at
least in my own experience ofthe teachings, it comes across that
way. And yet the wordrepentance and the Greek word metanoia,
which means repentance,metanoia, I don't know I don't speak
Greek. Means to turn back orto change one's mind. And I have
(20:07):
heard this taught in Christianfaith. So it's not that it's completely
absent but the recurringsentiment that I feel like comes
out of repentance is thisnegative punitive essence like repent,
repent. And the purpose of therepentance isn't there's a little
(20:27):
gnat in this room and it'sright in front of my face. I don't
want to kill it.
I have, I have this image, youknow, of repentance of like chest
beating regret, of guilt.Guilt for a thing as opposed to.
Well you said turning awayfrom that turning back. It's to returning
(20:50):
back from the past.
So when we think about theseparation of sin being the illusion
of separation and God and thatsoul essence being the oneness and
the ultimate reality that toturn away from the activities and
(21:13):
the suffering and, and theillusion perception of separation,
the thing that creates aperception of separation and to recognize
by turning towards whichultimately in my worldview is an
inward turning, to turn inwardto recognize that divine spark within
(21:37):
is repentance. That that'swhere you will start to be able to
see and discern on your ownthose things that are in accordance
with the way of being that the correct.
I agree and I have to sayagain, I mean this is my immediate
(21:59):
direct experience that youknow, what I've been doing with you
is returning to turningtowards. I see the nat. Turning towards
the truth, turning towards theexperience of non separation and
away from the conditioning orconditions that are amplifying or
(22:28):
supporting or strengtheningthe sense of separation. I mean that's
the way I came in this morningwas feeling frustrated and separate
and I mean maybe even guilty.I think there's a very strong sense
of separation. And then as westart to work through this content
and I'm thinking about yeah,what's, what's sin and what's grace
(22:52):
and what's, you know, what'sreal and what's illusion. I, I much
more experience the sense ofconnection and belonging and non
separation and which I mean ismy experience in formal practice
(23:13):
as well. So for me formalpractice is a generally group awareness
exercise which is kind of agroup meditation and coming together
with others and orientingtowards what is awareness, what is
the nature of awareness? Whatis the nature of my inner, my experience
of what is experiencing, whatI experiencing, what is that characteristic
(23:37):
of awareness? That's mypractice that brings me away from
suffering and into connectionand belonging and wholeness and that
Direct experience. And sothat's repentance for me. I mean,
clearly that's what's beingdescribed here. To me it's like,
(23:59):
yeah, if I turn away from mysense of separation and I turn towards
my sense of wholeness, allthis suffering disappears. It's quite
remarkable. So I think thatthis is what's being pointed to by
these teachings, butunfortunately not always in a skillful
(24:21):
or effective way. And that theoversimplification or maybe some
of the lessons that peoplehave heard about this are people
attached to the lesson,attached to the way this is taught.
Basically, you know, clingingto the finger, staring at the finger
(24:43):
and not trying to see the moonthat the finger is pointing to. That's,
that's what happens with. Thisis a sticky teaching. I guess that's
what I'm saying. This is ateaching that is fraught with suffering
because it is pointing to nonsuffering and yet people make it
be a cause of suffering. Andunfortunately I think it is often
(25:06):
intentionally used to causesuffering as a means of control.
Not always. And that's not tosay it's a bad teaching, but it is
a teaching that is very proneto exploitation. And I think I can
easily, very comfortably saythat it's a teaching that has been
(25:27):
the cause of a lot ofreligious trauma. And in fact I'm
not thinking of a specificthing that came up recently that
I won't repeat. But yeah, soyeah, yeah, I see.
It as, I mean as a differentway of saying essentially what you
said is repentance to me isbeing. Turning away from fear and
(25:53):
towards love. When we have.Guilt was the word that particularly
stood out to me. And that's a,that's a common experience for many
people. And from myperspective, guilt is a function
or symptom of fear. And sowhen we turn away from that and start
(26:14):
focusing forward on the lovingaspects of ourself, that we can move
beyond suffering and, and helpheal not only ourselves, but those
around us actually. But onthis point it brings me to the forgiveness
aspect and the generalteaching that God forgives us, God
(26:34):
forgave us. Well, I'll talkabout grace later. But forgiveness
being something externallybestowed upon us, upon our unworthy,
you know, biologic materialselves that are, have this inherent
sin which, you know, we, aswe've talked about isn't necessarily
(26:55):
what it is purported to be inour perspective. But forgiveness
to me is not an externalthing. So when we talk about sin
and forgiveness andrepentance, so sin being the separation,
the illusion of separation,repentance being to turn away from
that separation towards theloving oneness and unification that
(27:18):
is a spark within all of us.The forgiveness is our own internal
forgiveness. To forgiveourselves of the things that we judge
ourselves as being bad, thatthere's no need, well, that's going
to go into grace. So I'm not,I don't want to digress too much,
but that's my perspective onthe, the criticality of forgiveness.
(27:40):
Forgiveness is important, butforgiveness is not bestowed upon
us by God because we areperfect in God's eyes. We are created
in the image and likeness of aloving God. And our forgiveness has
to be because we are the oneswho have judged ourselves. We therefore
also need to be the ones toforgive ourselves.
(28:02):
So I think guilt, shame,forgiveness and grace are very, I
mean, you're struggling toseparate in conversation. And that's
what I'm saying, seeing aswell, it's like, oh, I want to talk
more about, you know, thesethings. And they're, they're. You
can't really talk about themin isolation because one implies
(28:26):
the other. I mean, to. Okay,so guilt is what I think the fear
of punishment or shame is. Youknow, the fear of rejection, maybe
of being condemned, of. Of notbelonging, not belonging. I mean,
this is all about belongingand connection and versus separation,
(28:52):
separation and rejection. Andthat they are, they are created socially,
but they're imposedpersonally. Right. I mean, we're
socialized into these valuesand we're told that our group is
going to punish us, is goingto reject us, which is not safe for
(29:17):
us as organisms. And in orderto try to protect ourselves from
that rejection by the group,we punish ourselves in guilt and
shame. And when no one elseknows. Right, Right. I mean, if we
commit a transgression and noone knows, we are punished. We are
(29:43):
punished by ourselves, by, byknowing how that, how that contradicts
the structure, the givenrules. And then on top of that, I
suppose if no one else knows,on top of that, there's the fear
of someone finding out andthen adding their rejection to your
own rejection. Whereas inreality, all the separation and rejection
(30:07):
is a construct of our physicalreality and our socialization that
ultimately there is noseparation, there is no rejection
because there are no separateentities to reject one another. And
when we turn towards God, ifyou will, then that is great. That's
(30:29):
grace, because basicallyeverything magically is made. Well,
without jumping through hoops, maybe.
Yeah, go ahead. So I have aquestion for you. I have my own thoughts
on it, I think. So you mademention of the way you Described
it as separation and the guiltand shame and the social construct
(30:51):
because it's not safe for usas organisms. I think that's legitimate
as far as a biological thing.I wonder. And this, my question is,
is our discomfort and ourguilt and shame? I think guilt and
shame is primarily a means ofcontrol socially to try and make
sure that the first part ofit. But is it is our discomfort with
(31:15):
separation because it isdiscordant with our true nature,
that our true nature isoneness. And when we, while it may
be to some degree a socialconstruct of hierarchy, of needs,
that in its essence it isbecause it's discordant with that
true nature of connection.
Yeah, you're touching onsomething that I was sensing as well.
(31:36):
This is so interesting that,you know, there's, there's a danger
in the way I'm expressingthings of saying, oh, well, then
we can do whatever we wantbecause all this is just other people
telling us what to do. Andyeah, you know, if you try that,
you'll know.
Right.
Because you're not going to beat peace. You're going to be pursuing
some ego concept of, oh, now Ican do whatever I want. I don't have
(32:01):
to follow these rules ofsociety. And you'll just be chasing
another version of a socialconstruct of freedom.
Right.
Of liberty. So I'm not sayingwhat's it. I'm not condoning anarchy.
Right, Right. And I'm notsaying, oh, this is all false control.
It's not. But it's also notthis absolute sense of, or absolute
(32:28):
real structure of punishmentand transgression. And, you know,
the kind of classical,stereotypical description of sin
and punishment and repentanceis not strictly true.
Right.
You know, there is truth inthere that we're trying to tease
(32:51):
out. That doesn't mean thatyou can't do anything wrong. That's
not what that means. Itdoesn't mean that you can't create
suffering by doing the wrongthing in the wrong time in the circumstance.
It doesn't mean that if youbehave unskillfully, you won't have
suffering.
Right.
You know, so if you ignore theguidelines and say, well, I'm going
(33:14):
to do whatever I want wheneverI want to do it, and then find yourself
behaving unskillfully, whichyou will because you're not behaving
mindfully, or you're notturning towards God and behaving
with God's will, then you'regoing to have a hell of a lot of
suffering. Did I mention God'swill? This Time while we record.
(33:34):
I think you did okay if youwant to touch on it, just in case.
Well, that. Oh yeah, I think Idid. Yeah. I want what God wants.
That's why I'm so merry that.Yeah. Reality is like. If we can
see reality and we can behavein congruence with reality, we can
be happy. Yeah, yeah.
(33:55):
And for me. So my, my takewith the whole idea of grace. So
my understanding of grace isthat my understanding of the most
common perspective andteaching from the Christian church,
the modern Christian church,is that we are inherently broken
(34:17):
and we receive forgivenessthrough Christ or however you want
to frame that through God'sgrace, that there's no action that
we can take that can fulfillthat to repay that debt, so to speak.
That it is only through God'sgrace that those transgressions have
(34:37):
been overlooked, so to speak.That's my rough interpretation of
it and my perspective. So as Ihad said, I think the forgiveness
is not externally bestowed butinternally rectified, reconciled
with our own judgments thatgrace is given because there's nothing
to forgive. And that's what Iwas kind of getting at before, that
(35:00):
we are created by a perfectbeing or perfect essence and are
perfect in the highest senseby nature. And so nothing we do can
remove that intrinsic essencethat we are fundamentally not broken.
(35:21):
And therefore grace is noteven really a thing because there's
nothing to give, there'snothing to grace. Grace is that there's
nothing to forgive, there'snothing to earn, there's nothing
given because we arefundamentally as we're meant to be.
So yes, I think again what'sbeing pointed to by the. The teaching
(35:48):
of grace. Right, this. Well,what is it? I mean, is grace. So
there's repentance and thenthere's grace and resolution, Right.
I mean that's the outcome ofgrace is return to wholeness, return
to non suffering. I think whatthat's pointing to. So what, so what
(36:08):
you're saying is in anabsolute sense there's not. There's
no grace because there'snothing to forgive. But I think in
my experience there is thisabsolute. Not absolute, not in the
sense of absolute A. But Imean there's absolutely an experience
of coming from suffering andtransitioning into non suffering.
(36:31):
That is an experience ofgrace. It is remarkable and contrary
to ideas of guilt and a kindof sense of wrongness. Really there's
something remarkable aboutmaking that turn. And there's. It's
definitely a sense of turningaway from. I mean, you know, in the
(36:55):
context of this conversation Ithink we'd say turning away from
sin towards repentance andthen receiving grace. And I can definitely
identify with the experienceof turning away from suffering towards
wholeness and thenexperiencing that transformation,
(37:17):
which is. It's anextraordinary moving experience.
And so it gets a name. And inmy shared practice it's the word
grace has absolutely been usedby many people as being the nature
of awareness. You know,because we're all, and I'm talking
about, you know, when we cometogether to practice. It's not like,
(37:40):
oh, we're all just, you know,we've been in bliss this whole time.
We're just gonna get togetherand share our bliss. We're all in
various states of sufferingwhen we come together. And then as
we practice, we come intograce and we come into connection
and we come into belonging andaway from the sense of separation.
(38:02):
And so I think it's ultimatelylike you say, ultimately there is
nothing. It's our true nature.It's our. There's nothing to get
or fix because that's theultimate nature of reality. But in
experiencing the transitionfrom illusion to reality, that's
(38:24):
okay. So we have thisexperience. So Ryan knows that I'm
like having one of my momentswhere tears are streaming down my
face as I come into contactwith this. That there is an ineffable
experience which I think wecall, that's what we call the divine.
It's. It's something that westruggle to express. And that's why
(38:48):
we come up with all theseterms that give us so much difficulty
and create so much conflict,is we want to talk about God and
the divine and grace andsomehow capture this, this ineffable
experience of moving fromsuffering and separation to belonging
(39:08):
and peace and non suffering.And at the same time, as Ryan's saying,
it's absolute reality. It'sour true nature. There's nothing
to change but there. So it'slike I'm going back and forth, there's
nothing to change. But at thesame time there's this experience
of transition. There's this,this, this change in way of being
(39:29):
where at one moment we're insuffering and when we succeed in
turning, then we're in nonsuffering. And it's, it's an overwhelming
experience that, that is theperennial wisdom that everybody's
trying to capture and point toand describe throughout all of human
(39:51):
experience. You know, from thefirst scratching on a rock to it's
like, oh my God, this is athing. I'm trying to share this with
other beings because that'sAnother nature of it. Right, right.
Is it wants to be expressed,you know, except by the. The hermits
who just want to leave mealone. I'm at peace. Yeah, sorry.
(40:16):
That. That's my. That's my. My experience.
It's perfect. I. I don't wantto take away from that takeaway.
I think it's. That was areally great way to kind of tie it
all up. And I think itacknowledges where I was trying to
go, but also acknowledging theimportance that there is this ineffable
(40:41):
experience that many peopleexperience, that the grace of peace
that is available to us. And Ithink that's where everybody's trying
to get to.
So.
Thank you for this conversation.
Oh, thank you.
We hope you enjoyed thisconversation. We'd love to hear from
(41:01):
you. If you have any commentsor you have your own experience you'd
like to share, there's manyways to reach out. And I guess, until
next time, stay open, staycurious, and keep on tracking Wisdom.
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom podcast. Join us
(41:22):
next time as we continue thediscussion. Don't forget to follow
us on Facebook, Instagram andYouTube and visit www.ethstudio.com
for more information and content.
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