July 3, 2025 • 36 mins
Tracking Wisdom
Episode 30
The Ten Commandments: Signs of Progress on the Spiritual Journey
Recorded - 06/23/25
DESCRIPTION:
The primary focus of our discourse today revolves around a profound reexamination of the Ten Commandments, which we contemplate not merely as divine edicts but rather as commitments that foster a deeper understanding of our relationship with the divine and one another. We engage in a critical analysis of the traditional interpretations that imbue these commandments with a sense of punitive consequence, juxtaposing this with the notion of an all-loving God who grants humanity the gift of choice. This exploration leads us to consider the commandments as signposts or waypoints on a spiritual journey, rather than immutable decrees intended to incite fear and guilt. We assert that true alignment with these principles manifests not through compliance, but through an intrinsic transformation that reflects our inner peace and harmony. Ultimately, we aim to elucidate how these commitments can serve as guiding principles that enrich our lives and foster a more profound sense of communal and personal well-being.
Takeaways:
- The episode delves into the reinterpreted understanding of the Ten Commandments as commitments rather than obligatory dictates of divine law.
- Both hosts express a significant friction with the traditional portrayal of an angry God juxtaposed against the concept of unconditional love.
- The discussion emphasizes the importance of personal inner peace over compliance with external rules, suggesting a deeper alignment with one's true self.
- The notion of commandments as signposts on a spiritual journey is proposed, highlighting the importance of personal choice and freedom in spiritual development.
- The conversation explores the relationship between external harmony and internal peace, suggesting that both aspects can mutually influence one another.
- The hosts reflect on the idea that traditional religious teachings may sometimes foster guilt and fear rather than the intended inner peace.
Episode Resources
- What Is the Meaning of Wu Wei as a Taoist Concept?
- What Are the Five Precepts? - Buddhism Way
- Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue by: Neale Donald Walsch
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Transcript
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 the Tracking Wisdom
(00:27):
Podcast. I'm Ryan.
I'm Peter.
And today we have, I think, areally interesting topic. This is
something that's been on mylist of discussions for a number
of years now. And what we'regoing to be diving into today is
digging into the TenCommandments from a reframe of what
(00:49):
I consider the conventional ortraditional teaching or understanding
around the Ten Commandments assort of divine law.
I think the definition of sinin a way, sure.
And, and rules, to me it comeswith this sense of obey and punishment
(01:10):
almost. You know, it bringsthat sense. My first exposure to
looking at the TenCommandments from this kind of lens
was actually through myreading with conversations with God
where in the narrative it wasreframed as 10 commitments. So want
to dig into the friction Ifeel with the idea of commandments
(01:35):
from an all loving God and thefreedom of choice and what the implications
of that are and then reframeit more as signs, more like waypoints
on the journey than absolutedictates from the divine. For many,
(01:56):
God is the unconditional love,the one essence that flows through
all things. And in Christianscripture, and I suppose it's probably
also Old Testament thathumanity has been given freedom of
choice by an old knowing allloving God. And yet we have this
(02:21):
image or interpretation ofrequirements and rules that we could
choose to not obey and thenthat angers God somehow. So it's
really conflicting to me tonumber one, conceptualize or experience
(02:42):
a God of love and tendernessand acceptance that also gets angered
and doesn't want to bedisobeyed. You know, this, this sentiment
rubs against my intuition andmy experience. So if God is all powerful
and omnipotent, why would wenot just be made to do the things
(03:06):
that would that God wants usto do? And if it is to give us choice,
is it actually a choice if wedo the wrong thing and are then punished?
Now that's not to say thatthere's no consequence and I think
we'll talk about that a littlebit. But I don't believe in this
(03:26):
sort of retribution andretaliation from an all loving God
based on our choices. Theconventional teaching or understanding
this fosters fear and guiltand, and repression as opposed to
an inner peace which from myunderstandings from the Gospels and,
(03:47):
and the New Testament is thepursuit of this inner peace. And
I think that that's where thisconversation kind of goes, where
it's more about achieving thatoneness and peace and understanding
versus a compliance basedmechanism. Anything you want to share
before or say before we move on?
(04:10):
Yeah, but it's kind of farafield because I, I'd mentioned Tom
Campbell off Mike, who's aphysicist who talks about kind of
the nature of reality a laDonald Hoffman. And one of the things
that he says is that universalconsciousness is learning. And so
(04:31):
I think the interview I heard,someone explicitly asked him about.
No, he said, he said, well, sofor example, that's why Old Testament
God's different from NewTestament God. I was like, oh my
God. It's like, oh, OldTestament God was immature God. And
basically he says that'sessentially what he's postulating,
(04:52):
is that the reason that weexist as, and we've talked about
this with conversations withGod and other things. Right. As,
as pieces of consciousness, aspieces of the divine, is that we
exist so that the divine canhave our experiences. But he takes
a step further, further to sayit's how the divine learns. Yeah,
(05:13):
so God learned by creating anavenue and then running the, the
exercise for 4,000 years orwhatever. And then it's like, oh,
oh, maybe I don't have toforce this so much. Like, and, and
then I realized it's likelearning as a parent.
(05:35):
Yes, right.
I mean, we've had thoseexperiences and this is like what
we've been talking, I've beentalking about a lot is, you know,
the need to control as aparent and then the need to let go
and say, oh, yeah, you knowwhat? All I really need to do is
love you. I don't need tocontrol you. As long as I love you.
You make your own decisionsand you'll be guided by love and
(05:55):
not by fear, and then youwon't go wrong. And that's the way
we want to be as parents. Butthen we constantly fall back into,
oh my God, I, you can't dothis. And anyway, so that's like
you're talking about thisthing. I'm like, oh my God. Like
everything else I've beengoing through recently and I just
heard about on the, on the wayin here, it kind of resonates once
(06:19):
again every time we do this.
It's funny actually, when youwere talking about, I'm like, oh,
this actually kind of relates.I didn't say anything to you, but.
This is a major question thatyou raised, like a major theological
question that you raised, itcomes up and again and again it's
like, well, how do youreconcile the angry God and the loving
God? This postulation thathumans are. Are fragments of God
(06:45):
consciousness separated sothat God can have our experiences
or observe our experiences orlearn whatever. Right. Somehow God
is interested in ourexperiences, created us as separate
in order to have somethingthat it couldn't have without us
(07:06):
being separate. And it justfits very nicely.
Yeah.
And then the other thing is,and we've talked about this many
times from a Western Buddhistperspective, I say that because I
don't really know if it'sdifferent from more traditional Buddhist
interpretation, that theBuddhist precepts, which are kind
(07:31):
of analogous to commandments,are taught as not Buddhist being
commandments.
Right.
You know, it's not that youcan't do these things, it's that
these things aren't alignedwith spiritual goals of growth and
attainment or whatever. Youknow, peace.
Yep.
Right. Which is, I think whatyou said as well.
(07:53):
Yeah. And I think that that'sessentially where this line of reasoning
ends up going.
Right. And we've touched onthis before, that these are characteristics
of wholeness as opposed to, Imean it's a, it's a chicken, egg
thing or. It's not chicken oregg, it's chicken and egg. Right.
(08:15):
That these are both. Both. Ifyou manage to live this way, it's
easier to realize yourwholeness and awakening. And also
if you just have a spontaneousawakening, you tend to align and
(08:39):
experience things in this way,you know, aligned with commandments
or precepts or ethics,spiritual values. And so it's. I'm
trying to find an idiom, I wasgonna say a two way street. It's
not really two way street, butanyway, it's chicken and egg. It's
both the cause and the resultas an anecdote.
(09:01):
This friction that I'mdescribing as far as a discordance
between my understanding ofwhat the divine is or would be and
the way that it tends to bepresented in mainstream religion
and mainstream Christianityspecifically, was an obstacle to
(09:26):
receiving the value and themeaning behind what I think the teachings
are intended to convey. Andthat's not to say that another person
who hears it in this way hasthe same obstacle. And this is something
that I'm continuing to come toterms with, I guess in my own experience
(09:49):
and self awareness is ittouches specifically on things I
think you've said more so thanI have. But that just because it's
an obstacle to me doesn't meanit's an Obstacle to everybody. Right.
I have often I've expressedfrustration in the way these are
(10:10):
communicated. And that's notto say that communicating them in
a new or alternative way wayis wrong. You know, the pursuit of
trying to share what resonateswith me and us is not an irrelevant
pursuit. But it also doesn'tmean, because I find value or more
(10:36):
alignment or spiritualawareness and fruit from hearing
it the way that we'reexpressing it doesn't mean that somebody
else doesn't receive thatmessage and fruit by hearing it in
the conventional way. Right,right. So this is in no way intended
(10:56):
to chastise anybody on, on theway they of their understanding,
but share that. I havepersonally felt friction with this
punitive, retaliatory, angrydescription of a God to me is just
a personification of, of ourhumanity. Right. The way we parent
(11:20):
the way. And so whenhistorical people were conceiving
of their understanding of acreator, this parental figure is
a natural image to describethat kind of relationship. And it
would also be reasonable toexpect that, that in the absence
(11:42):
of, you know, continued deeperexperience. And that's not to say
that mystical experiences andunderstanding didn't exist back in
those days. And as I've saidbefore, I believe some of this is
a function of the distancefrom the original teaching and the
translations andreconveyances, perhaps through people
who don't fully understand theoriginal meaning, has introduced
(12:07):
some noise that's sort of myperception of how we in part got
to an angry God, so to speak.But your comment about the maturity
of God, that's what I wasgetting back to before. That's an
interesting thought becauseit's insinuating not that God isn't
(12:31):
all and perfect in and ofitself in its existence, but that
it's continuing to learn aboutitself. Who is God? What is God?
And in fact that is part ofwhat is described through conversations
with God is this investigatorylearning. So that was an interesting
(12:51):
thing that you brought up.
Yeah, I think what, what'sstriking me is I'm feeling a little
intellectual tension with. Iguess it's the comment that I made
about our experience asparents that I feel attention with
anthropomorphizing theinfinite. You know, it's a convenient
(13:12):
way of expressing it, but Ireally want to be very cautious about
saying, oh, this is literallywhat it is like. Okay, so learning
is learning. That doesn'timply a human experience.
Right.
But I think where, where weget into a lot of trouble in, in
trying to talk about thesethings is over anthropomorphizing
(13:34):
and kind of justifying. Well,of course God's angry. It's like,
well, wait a second, God's nothuman. So you can't say, of course
God's like, that doesn't makeany sense. And so there are similarities,
but it doesn't mean that Godis human. Like, you know, God's not
human. You know, we're createdin his image. I buy that, but that
(13:57):
has a very, very, very broadinterpretation, right. What that
means. So just to just, justto make that comment. But I think
the other thing I was noticingis that, you know, if you're starting
out with a society, you'restarting out with Garden of Eden
or post Garden of Eden andbasically growing community of human
(14:21):
beings that are evolving. Youknow, one of your priorities is,
hey, don't kill each otherbecause it's going to screw things
up. So kind of like the TenCommandments are some priorities.
They're not the end point.They're just like, we, we have to
be able to live together andhave a certain level of harmony and
(14:42):
so that we can have communitygrowth and security so that we can
reach our point of spiritualgrowth, which, you know, it often
feels like we're only juststarting to get to, but we keep on
screwing it up. I mean, I, Ithink that. I think that's pretty
much the story ofcivilization, right? Is we start
(15:06):
to have it good and peoplestart to get interested in, you know,
advanced pursuits notpertaining to survival. And then
we start beating at eachother. So, like, oh, we have to worry
about surviving now, like, whywe had all this stuff, like, it's
all worked out. Just stopbeing jerks. But just to say that
(15:28):
that from a developmentalperspective or of just of civilization
or community or whatever, itdoes make sense to say, okay, hey,
to start with, let's not killeach other. Let's not take each other's
stuff. Okay. And it's not evena question of making it up as a rule.
Right. It's just, you wouldthink it's something that you learn.
(15:52):
I mean, just talking abouthaving a roommate, right? It's just
like really small community.It's like you have to learn to have
peace in, in that household.You start to learn how to share things,
which basically means, youknow, the Ten Commandments.
Yeah.
(16:12):
So I guess I'm saying it's notonly a question of a potentially
punitive approach.
Right.
It's also just some basicguidelines of interrelationship.
Yeah. Helpful relationship behavior.
You're talking about peace inan interrelational or communal sense.
(16:34):
And yet what I'm talking abouthere is finding that peace internally.
And they're not dissociated,they're not mutually exclusive.
They're very much related.
Exactly. I'm citingconversations with God. It's where
I originally heard thisconcept. But I'm not specifically
trying to discussconversations with God's specific
(16:56):
excerpt. But the point withconversations with God as it was
presented that way and the waythat I'm understanding the statements,
let's call them statements, isnot what you should do. Right. It's
not do these things. It ismore when you are in alignment with
(17:23):
the divine, when you areliving in accordance with the flow
of life. You know, these areimageries that are in are cross denominational
Wu, Wei and Dao. And you know,you were talking about the Buddhist
precepts that when you are inthe divine pursuit or living in that
(17:50):
way, you will observe thesethings in your behavior. You will
observe that you have nodesire to kill things when you are
living in this. I don't wantto use too much flow state stuff,
but that's just what's comingto. I also don't want to be very
(18:11):
stringent on the theologicallanguage because I think they all
are kind of speaking to thesame thing is it's not a rightness
and wrongness. It's. It isliving in accord with the way things
are. So that in conversationswith God he called it the 10 commitments,
(18:33):
which presented it more in asI guess God's promises to us that
these will be. You willrecognize these things in yourself
or in your experience when youare on the right path. Air quotes
if you want, you know, were toput some value judgment behind it.
(18:54):
And so the way I'm seeing thisis not commandments and rules and
dictates, but waypoints andsignposts that are evidence that
you are on the path, that you,you will observe that you do not
have a desire. And this Ithink is important. There's actually
(19:14):
a point in my notes nextbecause this brings what I think
is hard for people tounderstand is the Sermon on the Mount
where Jesus was talking aboutnot committing adultery. But if you
look at a woman lustfully,you've already committed adultery
in your heart. And I thinksometimes, and I included had a hard
(19:38):
time understanding I didn't doanything. How have I committed adultery?
And then am I now in trouble?Right? And I think the idea is getting
away from compliance basedthought about it. And I think this
was also where the historicalJewish culture or not the culture.
(20:00):
But the leadership felt likethey were righteous because they
didn't do these things. Butthat doesn't mean that your inner
person, your inner self wasactually in alignment and that the
punishment is not eternaldamnation or getting kicked out of
(20:22):
heaven, but is the opportunitycost of observing the peace and well
being that comes from livinginternally. It drives internally.
Your behavior is arepresentation of your inner being.
So, so just reflect on mypersonal experience. When I was practicing
(20:45):
Christian, my concern wasnever what's going to happen when
I die. As a teenager I wasn'tlike, oh my God, what about when
I die? I never, never had thatquestion. My concern was, why am
I miserable? And as you, youknow, anyone who's heard me talk
(21:08):
for more than a little bit,it's like, my concern is suffering.
I mean, that's, and that's whyI find Buddhism so attractive, because
it's like, hey, I'm gonna talkabout suffering. Oh great. That's
what I wanted. That's why Iknow, you know, it's like, because
I'm suffering now, I'm notworried about suffering in the future
after I die. I'm, honestly, Idon't, I believe I'm much less likely
(21:33):
to suffer after I die thanwhile I'm being alive. So that's
something that for me is avery strange kind of thing. It, it
feels to me like very much anartificial construct of a culture.
You're gonna die, you're gonnasuffer after you die. It's like,
why would I be like, I'msuffering now? You know? And so while
(21:57):
you were talking, I wasthinking in terms of peace and harmony,
like aligning. Not so muchspiritual life per se. Right. Or
spiritual pursuits, but justtrying to have some peace, trying
to have internal harmony. Butas we touched on, works both ways.
(22:19):
Like if you have internal,internal harmony, you have more external
harmony.
Right?
You create external harmonyfrom your internal harmony. And at
the same time, if you cancreate external harmony, it's easier
(22:40):
to find your internal harmony,which is the purpose of all kinds
of monasteries and spiritualcommunities of all kinds. Right.
Is you have commonalitywherein you're all acting in accord,
you have more harmony amongstyou, you have more opportunity then
(23:04):
to access your inner harmony.And so it really, really works both
ways. Oh, punishment. Sothere's a, you know, the idea that,
you know, that anger, you'renot punished for being angry, you're
punished by being angry.
Yes.
Right. That these thingsinherently create internal suffering
(23:30):
and that people who do thempersistently are probably. Well,
I don't Say, probably Ibelieve that they're able to do them
persistently because. Becausethey're very good at lying to themselves,
that they're operating in aschema where what they're experiencing
(23:53):
is the best that they can hopefor. So I am bullying, I am acquisitive,
I am taking, I am harmful, I'mexperiencing power. That's the highest
happiness. There's a hugeamount of internal conflict and suffering,
but. But it's ignored because,well, I know that I have more than
(24:18):
you do. I know that I'm betteroff than you are, therefore I'm happy.
And this is what happiness is.And it's a misunderstanding of what
happiness is. And it's afailure to recognize how much suffering
is going on internally. Butthat's the nature of that way of
being, right? It's this totalcommitment to not reflecting. Like,
(24:40):
I will not experience myfeelings because my feelings make
me feel bad. It's like, you'reright. It's not your feelings that
make you feel bad. You haveunpleasant feelings. That's not what
makes you feel bad. What makesyou feel bad is feel like being bad.
And so that there's. That'skind of the failure of the message,
(25:02):
right? Like, I shouldn't doall these things because they're
bad. But look how well I dowhen I do these things. And look
how air quotes happy I am. Youknow, I'm doing so much better than
you. I'm so much happier thanyou. I mean, you're being a sucker
by letting me trample you.Whereas if you are the, let's say,
(25:24):
victim, at peace, fully openand full of compassion and not suffering
by being beaten, then you'reactually better off. You're actually
suffering less than the personin power. So. So I think that. I
guess my point of that littleexploration is that that's where
(25:48):
the messaging feels right? Ifyou say, you must not do this because
you will be punished and youwill burn in hell, I'm not burning
in hell now because I'mwillfully ignoring my suffering,
right? Right. Then it getsturned as to see, I can prove you're
wrong, or, well, I don't carebecause hell's not here. Right. It's
(26:13):
like I'm not dead. Like I'mnot dead yet. And I don't believe
that anyway. Right? So I don'tbelieve what you're telling me. So
therefore I can do thesethings. And I am happier when I think
the other way of teaching itis, well, look at what you're experiencing.
(26:37):
Are you at Peace. Are youreally happy?
Yeah.
And when you do these things,pay attention. Does this make you
more at ease or does that makeyou more tense?
Right.
You know, and when you look atit that way, if you're able to pay
attention, of course, whatwe're talking about here is meditation,
mindfulness, right? It's like,that's not trivial. But if you're
(26:58):
so inclined to, to do it thatway, then you will see, you will
see the universal humanexperience. You'll see the truth,
capital T, like, in thatanybody who pays attention has.
That experience, the oppressormodel, so to speak, what you were
just describing directly leadsto that fear and clinging. Even if
(27:23):
the superficial perception ofthe experience is I'm winning, I'm
gaining, by definition, italso includes a fear of losing and
a fear of also being takenadvantage of or whatever other fears
might come into play. Andthose fears continue to degrade the
(27:47):
piece. You know, is thatdescribing that those who are not
grasping to gaining, thosethat are not fearing lack, have the
peace? You know, that's kindof how I, how I see that. And I.
And again, you know, to, tobring it back to the Ten Commandments
(28:12):
commitments, these signpostsof, of progress and, and the way
or however you want todescribe the pursuit of inner peace
is that as you develop moreinner peace, more awareness of your
(28:32):
true self, you will experiencethese or recognize these behaviors
as described through the tenCommandments in your outward behaviors.
But I think it's interestingand it's not a, it's not a perspective
I really dug into in trying toprep for this, for this episode.
(28:53):
Was your point the two waystreet kind of thing, that harmony
in your external experiencecan open up opportunities to work
on your inner experience andthat they do, in a way feed off each
other. It's not just yourinner. Your outer experience is not
just reflective of your innerpeace or inner experience, but also
(29:17):
that taking active steps to.So in that regard, compliance, air
quotes does have some value,but only if you take it to the next
step. It's not the end, right?It's not just don't kill people,
it's don't kill people andcontinue to work on what angers you
(29:39):
to the point of imaginingkilling people, or work on the fear
and lack that is driving youto covet and be jealous of somebody
else and what they're doing.Because that's where the peace will
start to really ruminate. Theoutward actions can help create an
(30:03):
environment for inner work,but it doesn't do the inner work.
Yeah, so I'm, I'm kind ofdrifting into this non compliance
headspace because of what Iwas just talking about like the,
I like our term noncompliance, you know, the, I don't
(30:26):
really want to say sinnereither, but the, I don't know, the
violent aggressor, taker.Right. In, in the short term or from
an individual perspective,there are benefits, right? So, so,
because I mean you pillage andyou know, hoard stuff and just have
(30:49):
more stuff. And I, so I thinkthere are potentially individual
benefits of I don't know whatelse, you know, power, whatever.
But what you're really lookingat is more of the same. There's more
of what you've been getting,you got more of. Now what there isn't
is growth. What there isn't isimprovement. What there isn't is,
(31:13):
you know, building ofcommunity of, you know, the species
expanding into somethingdifferent by exercising culture.
And so I think there is ashort sightedly valid, a value proposition.
But again, that's a veryweirdly narrow definition of success.
(31:38):
It is. And I think that thatis in part what the gospel teachings
related to the commandmentsand the commandments as described
by Moses are kind of gettingat is that that's not actually winning
you anything.
Well, I mean, I think thepoint is civilization and, and species
(32:00):
success versus individualsuccess. I mean I think that things
like commandments come out of civilization.
Right.
As opposed to, you know,troops of animals acting biologically.
Right.
But I think, you know, when wetalk about the, the opposition to
(32:24):
something like commandments,the opposition to these constraints
on behavior that is a.Instinctual. What am I saying? Like
this more basic evolutionarydrive kind of stuff versus any intention
towards improvement and growthand gain.
(32:47):
Right.
Real gain.
Right.
Progress and then getscomplicated. And now I just said
the word progress. I'm like,well, yeah, well what about, you
know, people who do. That'sthe way to define progress. It's
this whole, it's thematerialist paradigm versus you know,
what we been talking about,you know, like the, the are learning
(33:08):
about the fallacy ofmaterialism. Right. And that material
progress is again just very,very short sighted and narrow and
not anything like the progressfor which we have potential, which
is almost inconceivable. Soanyway, yeah, that was just weird
(33:31):
going thinking that way alittle bit about like well, what's
in it for me it's veryuncomfortable. It's like. But I wanted
to pursue that a little bitbecause I think that's kind of the
point.
Like that's, that's A contradiction.
That's who this is talking toin a way. Right. I guess that's the
(33:53):
reason for what we started outwith, which is the commandment and
the forcing it. Because thereare people who are not open to. They're
not looking for increasedpeace. Is that fair?
They may not be conscious thatthat's what.
(34:14):
But that's what I'm saying. Imean, if you're talking to spiritual
seekers who are looking forincreased harmony and peace and love,
you're going to teach usdifferently. Not to say that teachers
do teach, but what I'm sayingis if you were starting out there
and developing this system,your approach would be different.
(34:34):
Your approach would bedifferent. But in reality, historically,
you're not starting out withthat. So I think what we're looking
at in terms of like, wow, thisseems confusing, right? This seems
contradictory. This seemsconfusing is because we're looking
back through time, right?Right. To things that started out.
When societies are different,life was different. I'm not. I'm
(35:00):
pausing because I'm like, oh,my God, life is becoming more like
that in terms of externalconflict and selfish rationalizations
and stuff like that. Sothere's a zeitgeist now that's tugging
more that way. And of course,that's what we're trying to move
the other way. Oh, this is aninteresting exploration. Thanks for.
(35:21):
Thanks for bringing this up.
No, I mean, this has been onethat I've been wanting to attack,
so I'm glad we were able toget to it. Hopefully the listeners
had something to take awayfrom that, and we'd love to hear
from you as well. Next episodehas a little bit of a callback to
hear specifically about idolsand worship. So join us next time
(35:43):
on the show. We hope youenjoyed it. Until next time.
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom podcast. Join us
next time as we continue thediscussion. Don't forget to follow
us on Facebook, Instagram andYouTube and visit www.eth-studio.com
(36:04):
for more information and.
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 the Tracking Wisdom
(00:27):
Podcast. I'm Ryan.
I'm Peter.
And today we have, I think, areally interesting topic. This is
something that's been on mylist of discussions for a number
of years now. And what we'regoing to be diving into today is
digging into the TenCommandments from a reframe of what
(00:49):
I consider the conventional ortraditional teaching or understanding
around the Ten Commandments assort of divine law.
I think the definition of sinin a way, sure.
And, and rules, to me it comeswith this sense of obey and punishment
(01:10):
almost. You know, it bringsthat sense. My first exposure to
looking at the TenCommandments from this kind of lens
was actually through myreading with conversations with God
where in the narrative it wasreframed as 10 commitments. So want
to dig into the friction Ifeel with the idea of commandments
(01:35):
from an all loving God and thefreedom of choice and what the implications
of that are and then reframeit more as signs, more like waypoints
on the journey than absolutedictates from the divine. For many,
(01:56):
God is the unconditional love,the one essence that flows through
all things. And in Christianscripture, and I suppose it's probably
also Old Testament thathumanity has been given freedom of
choice by an old knowing allloving God. And yet we have this
(02:21):
image or interpretation ofrequirements and rules that we could
choose to not obey and thenthat angers God somehow. So it's
really conflicting to me tonumber one, conceptualize or experience
(02:42):
a God of love and tendernessand acceptance that also gets angered
and doesn't want to bedisobeyed. You know, this, this sentiment
rubs against my intuition andmy experience. So if God is all powerful
and omnipotent, why would wenot just be made to do the things
(03:06):
that would that God wants usto do? And if it is to give us choice,
is it actually a choice if wedo the wrong thing and are then punished?
Now that's not to say thatthere's no consequence and I think
we'll talk about that a littlebit. But I don't believe in this
(03:26):
sort of retribution andretaliation from an all loving God
based on our choices. Theconventional teaching or understanding
this fosters fear and guiltand, and repression as opposed to
an inner peace which from myunderstandings from the Gospels and,
(03:47):
and the New Testament is thepursuit of this inner peace. And
I think that that's where thisconversation kind of goes, where
it's more about achieving thatoneness and peace and understanding
versus a compliance basedmechanism. Anything you want to share
before or say before we move on?
(04:10):
Yeah, but it's kind of farafield because I, I'd mentioned Tom
Campbell off Mike, who's aphysicist who talks about kind of
the nature of reality a laDonald Hoffman. And one of the things
that he says is that universalconsciousness is learning. And so
(04:31):
I think the interview I heard,someone explicitly asked him about.
No, he said, he said, well, sofor example, that's why Old Testament
God's different from NewTestament God. I was like, oh my
God. It's like, oh, OldTestament God was immature God. And
basically he says that'sessentially what he's postulating,
(04:52):
is that the reason that weexist as, and we've talked about
this with conversations withGod and other things. Right. As,
as pieces of consciousness, aspieces of the divine, is that we
exist so that the divine canhave our experiences. But he takes
a step further, further to sayit's how the divine learns. Yeah,
(05:13):
so God learned by creating anavenue and then running the, the
exercise for 4,000 years orwhatever. And then it's like, oh,
oh, maybe I don't have toforce this so much. Like, and, and
then I realized it's likelearning as a parent.
(05:35):
Yes, right.
I mean, we've had thoseexperiences and this is like what
we've been talking, I've beentalking about a lot is, you know,
the need to control as aparent and then the need to let go
and say, oh, yeah, you knowwhat? All I really need to do is
love you. I don't need tocontrol you. As long as I love you.
You make your own decisionsand you'll be guided by love and
(05:55):
not by fear, and then youwon't go wrong. And that's the way
we want to be as parents. Butthen we constantly fall back into,
oh my God, I, you can't dothis. And anyway, so that's like
you're talking about thisthing. I'm like, oh my God. Like
everything else I've beengoing through recently and I just
heard about on the, on the wayin here, it kind of resonates once
(06:19):
again every time we do this.
It's funny actually, when youwere talking about, I'm like, oh,
this actually kind of relates.I didn't say anything to you, but.
This is a major question thatyou raised, like a major theological
question that you raised, itcomes up and again and again it's
like, well, how do youreconcile the angry God and the loving
God? This postulation thathumans are. Are fragments of God
(06:45):
consciousness separated sothat God can have our experiences
or observe our experiences orlearn whatever. Right. Somehow God
is interested in ourexperiences, created us as separate
in order to have somethingthat it couldn't have without us
(07:06):
being separate. And it justfits very nicely.
Yeah.
And then the other thing is,and we've talked about this many
times from a Western Buddhistperspective, I say that because I
don't really know if it'sdifferent from more traditional Buddhist
interpretation, that theBuddhist precepts, which are kind
(07:31):
of analogous to commandments,are taught as not Buddhist being
commandments.
Right.
You know, it's not that youcan't do these things, it's that
these things aren't alignedwith spiritual goals of growth and
attainment or whatever. Youknow, peace.
Yep.
Right. Which is, I think whatyou said as well.
(07:53):
Yeah. And I think that that'sessentially where this line of reasoning
ends up going.
Right. And we've touched onthis before, that these are characteristics
of wholeness as opposed to, Imean it's a, it's a chicken, egg
thing or. It's not chicken oregg, it's chicken and egg. Right.
(08:15):
That these are both. Both. Ifyou manage to live this way, it's
easier to realize yourwholeness and awakening. And also
if you just have a spontaneousawakening, you tend to align and
(08:39):
experience things in this way,you know, aligned with commandments
or precepts or ethics,spiritual values. And so it's. I'm
trying to find an idiom, I wasgonna say a two way street. It's
not really two way street, butanyway, it's chicken and egg. It's
both the cause and the resultas an anecdote.
(09:01):
This friction that I'mdescribing as far as a discordance
between my understanding ofwhat the divine is or would be and
the way that it tends to bepresented in mainstream religion
and mainstream Christianityspecifically, was an obstacle to
(09:26):
receiving the value and themeaning behind what I think the teachings
are intended to convey. Andthat's not to say that another person
who hears it in this way hasthe same obstacle. And this is something
that I'm continuing to come toterms with, I guess in my own experience
(09:49):
and self awareness is ittouches specifically on things I
think you've said more so thanI have. But that just because it's
an obstacle to me doesn't meanit's an Obstacle to everybody. Right.
I have often I've expressedfrustration in the way these are
(10:10):
communicated. And that's notto say that communicating them in
a new or alternative way wayis wrong. You know, the pursuit of
trying to share what resonateswith me and us is not an irrelevant
pursuit. But it also doesn'tmean, because I find value or more
(10:36):
alignment or spiritualawareness and fruit from hearing
it the way that we'reexpressing it doesn't mean that somebody
else doesn't receive thatmessage and fruit by hearing it in
the conventional way. Right,right. So this is in no way intended
(10:56):
to chastise anybody on, on theway they of their understanding,
but share that. I havepersonally felt friction with this
punitive, retaliatory, angrydescription of a God to me is just
a personification of, of ourhumanity. Right. The way we parent
(11:20):
the way. And so whenhistorical people were conceiving
of their understanding of acreator, this parental figure is
a natural image to describethat kind of relationship. And it
would also be reasonable toexpect that, that in the absence
(11:42):
of, you know, continued deeperexperience. And that's not to say
that mystical experiences andunderstanding didn't exist back in
those days. And as I've saidbefore, I believe some of this is
a function of the distancefrom the original teaching and the
translations andreconveyances, perhaps through people
who don't fully understand theoriginal meaning, has introduced
(12:07):
some noise that's sort of myperception of how we in part got
to an angry God, so to speak.But your comment about the maturity
of God, that's what I wasgetting back to before. That's an
interesting thought becauseit's insinuating not that God isn't
(12:31):
all and perfect in and ofitself in its existence, but that
it's continuing to learn aboutitself. Who is God? What is God?
And in fact that is part ofwhat is described through conversations
with God is this investigatorylearning. So that was an interesting
(12:51):
thing that you brought up.
Yeah, I think what, what'sstriking me is I'm feeling a little
intellectual tension with. Iguess it's the comment that I made
about our experience asparents that I feel attention with
anthropomorphizing theinfinite. You know, it's a convenient
(13:12):
way of expressing it, but Ireally want to be very cautious about
saying, oh, this is literallywhat it is like. Okay, so learning
is learning. That doesn'timply a human experience.
Right.
But I think where, where weget into a lot of trouble in, in
trying to talk about thesethings is over anthropomorphizing
(13:34):
and kind of justifying. Well,of course God's angry. It's like,
well, wait a second, God's nothuman. So you can't say, of course
God's like, that doesn't makeany sense. And so there are similarities,
but it doesn't mean that Godis human. Like, you know, God's not
human. You know, we're createdin his image. I buy that, but that
(13:57):
has a very, very, very broadinterpretation, right. What that
means. So just to just, justto make that comment. But I think
the other thing I was noticingis that, you know, if you're starting
out with a society, you'restarting out with Garden of Eden
or post Garden of Eden andbasically growing community of human
(14:21):
beings that are evolving. Youknow, one of your priorities is,
hey, don't kill each otherbecause it's going to screw things
up. So kind of like the TenCommandments are some priorities.
They're not the end point.They're just like, we, we have to
be able to live together andhave a certain level of harmony and
(14:42):
so that we can have communitygrowth and security so that we can
reach our point of spiritualgrowth, which, you know, it often
feels like we're only juststarting to get to, but we keep on
screwing it up. I mean, I, Ithink that. I think that's pretty
much the story ofcivilization, right? Is we start
(15:06):
to have it good and peoplestart to get interested in, you know,
advanced pursuits notpertaining to survival. And then
we start beating at eachother. So, like, oh, we have to worry
about surviving now, like, whywe had all this stuff, like, it's
all worked out. Just stopbeing jerks. But just to say that
(15:28):
that from a developmentalperspective or of just of civilization
or community or whatever, itdoes make sense to say, okay, hey,
to start with, let's not killeach other. Let's not take each other's
stuff. Okay. And it's not evena question of making it up as a rule.
Right. It's just, you wouldthink it's something that you learn.
(15:52):
I mean, just talking abouthaving a roommate, right? It's just
like really small community.It's like you have to learn to have
peace in, in that household.You start to learn how to share things,
which basically means, youknow, the Ten Commandments.
Yeah.
(16:12):
So I guess I'm saying it's notonly a question of a potentially
punitive approach.
Right.
It's also just some basicguidelines of interrelationship.
Yeah. Helpful relationship behavior.
You're talking about peace inan interrelational or communal sense.
(16:34):
And yet what I'm talking abouthere is finding that peace internally.
And they're not dissociated,they're not mutually exclusive.
They're very much related.
Exactly. I'm citingconversations with God. It's where
I originally heard thisconcept. But I'm not specifically
trying to discussconversations with God's specific
(16:56):
excerpt. But the point withconversations with God as it was
presented that way and the waythat I'm understanding the statements,
let's call them statements, isnot what you should do. Right. It's
not do these things. It ismore when you are in alignment with
(17:23):
the divine, when you areliving in accordance with the flow
of life. You know, these areimageries that are in are cross denominational
Wu, Wei and Dao. And you know,you were talking about the Buddhist
precepts that when you are inthe divine pursuit or living in that
(17:50):
way, you will observe thesethings in your behavior. You will
observe that you have nodesire to kill things when you are
living in this. I don't wantto use too much flow state stuff,
but that's just what's comingto. I also don't want to be very
(18:11):
stringent on the theologicallanguage because I think they all
are kind of speaking to thesame thing is it's not a rightness
and wrongness. It's. It isliving in accord with the way things
are. So that in conversationswith God he called it the 10 commitments,
(18:33):
which presented it more in asI guess God's promises to us that
these will be. You willrecognize these things in yourself
or in your experience when youare on the right path. Air quotes
if you want, you know, were toput some value judgment behind it.
(18:54):
And so the way I'm seeing thisis not commandments and rules and
dictates, but waypoints andsignposts that are evidence that
you are on the path, that you,you will observe that you do not
have a desire. And this Ithink is important. There's actually
(19:14):
a point in my notes nextbecause this brings what I think
is hard for people tounderstand is the Sermon on the Mount
where Jesus was talking aboutnot committing adultery. But if you
look at a woman lustfully,you've already committed adultery
in your heart. And I thinksometimes, and I included had a hard
(19:38):
time understanding I didn't doanything. How have I committed adultery?
And then am I now in trouble?Right? And I think the idea is getting
away from compliance basedthought about it. And I think this
was also where the historicalJewish culture or not the culture.
(20:00):
But the leadership felt likethey were righteous because they
didn't do these things. Butthat doesn't mean that your inner
person, your inner self wasactually in alignment and that the
punishment is not eternaldamnation or getting kicked out of
(20:22):
heaven, but is the opportunitycost of observing the peace and well
being that comes from livinginternally. It drives internally.
Your behavior is arepresentation of your inner being.
So, so just reflect on mypersonal experience. When I was practicing
(20:45):
Christian, my concern wasnever what's going to happen when
I die. As a teenager I wasn'tlike, oh my God, what about when
I die? I never, never had thatquestion. My concern was, why am
I miserable? And as you, youknow, anyone who's heard me talk
(21:08):
for more than a little bit,it's like, my concern is suffering.
I mean, that's, and that's whyI find Buddhism so attractive, because
it's like, hey, I'm gonna talkabout suffering. Oh great. That's
what I wanted. That's why Iknow, you know, it's like, because
I'm suffering now, I'm notworried about suffering in the future
after I die. I'm, honestly, Idon't, I believe I'm much less likely
(21:33):
to suffer after I die thanwhile I'm being alive. So that's
something that for me is avery strange kind of thing. It, it
feels to me like very much anartificial construct of a culture.
You're gonna die, you're gonnasuffer after you die. It's like,
why would I be like, I'msuffering now? You know? And so while
(21:57):
you were talking, I wasthinking in terms of peace and harmony,
like aligning. Not so muchspiritual life per se. Right. Or
spiritual pursuits, but justtrying to have some peace, trying
to have internal harmony. Butas we touched on, works both ways.
(22:19):
Like if you have internal,internal harmony, you have more external
harmony.
Right?
You create external harmonyfrom your internal harmony. And at
the same time, if you cancreate external harmony, it's easier
(22:40):
to find your internal harmony,which is the purpose of all kinds
of monasteries and spiritualcommunities of all kinds. Right.
Is you have commonalitywherein you're all acting in accord,
you have more harmony amongstyou, you have more opportunity then
(23:04):
to access your inner harmony.And so it really, really works both
ways. Oh, punishment. Sothere's a, you know, the idea that,
you know, that anger, you'renot punished for being angry, you're
punished by being angry.
Yes.
Right. That these thingsinherently create internal suffering
(23:30):
and that people who do thempersistently are probably. Well,
I don't Say, probably Ibelieve that they're able to do them
persistently because. Becausethey're very good at lying to themselves,
that they're operating in aschema where what they're experiencing
(23:53):
is the best that they can hopefor. So I am bullying, I am acquisitive,
I am taking, I am harmful, I'mexperiencing power. That's the highest
happiness. There's a hugeamount of internal conflict and suffering,
but. But it's ignored because,well, I know that I have more than
(24:18):
you do. I know that I'm betteroff than you are, therefore I'm happy.
And this is what happiness is.And it's a misunderstanding of what
happiness is. And it's afailure to recognize how much suffering
is going on internally. Butthat's the nature of that way of
being, right? It's this totalcommitment to not reflecting. Like,
(24:40):
I will not experience myfeelings because my feelings make
me feel bad. It's like, you'reright. It's not your feelings that
make you feel bad. You haveunpleasant feelings. That's not what
makes you feel bad. What makesyou feel bad is feel like being bad.
And so that there's. That'skind of the failure of the message,
(25:02):
right? Like, I shouldn't doall these things because they're
bad. But look how well I dowhen I do these things. And look
how air quotes happy I am. Youknow, I'm doing so much better than
you. I'm so much happier thanyou. I mean, you're being a sucker
by letting me trample you.Whereas if you are the, let's say,
(25:24):
victim, at peace, fully openand full of compassion and not suffering
by being beaten, then you'reactually better off. You're actually
suffering less than the personin power. So. So I think that. I
guess my point of that littleexploration is that that's where
(25:48):
the messaging feels right? Ifyou say, you must not do this because
you will be punished and youwill burn in hell, I'm not burning
in hell now because I'mwillfully ignoring my suffering,
right? Right. Then it getsturned as to see, I can prove you're
wrong, or, well, I don't carebecause hell's not here. Right. It's
(26:13):
like I'm not dead. Like I'mnot dead yet. And I don't believe
that anyway. Right? So I don'tbelieve what you're telling me. So
therefore I can do thesethings. And I am happier when I think
the other way of teaching itis, well, look at what you're experiencing.
(26:37):
Are you at Peace. Are youreally happy?
Yeah.
And when you do these things,pay attention. Does this make you
more at ease or does that makeyou more tense?
Right.
You know, and when you look atit that way, if you're able to pay
attention, of course, whatwe're talking about here is meditation,
mindfulness, right? It's like,that's not trivial. But if you're
(26:58):
so inclined to, to do it thatway, then you will see, you will
see the universal humanexperience. You'll see the truth,
capital T, like, in thatanybody who pays attention has.
That experience, the oppressormodel, so to speak, what you were
just describing directly leadsto that fear and clinging. Even if
(27:23):
the superficial perception ofthe experience is I'm winning, I'm
gaining, by definition, italso includes a fear of losing and
a fear of also being takenadvantage of or whatever other fears
might come into play. Andthose fears continue to degrade the
(27:47):
piece. You know, is thatdescribing that those who are not
grasping to gaining, thosethat are not fearing lack, have the
peace? You know, that's kindof how I, how I see that. And I.
And again, you know, to, tobring it back to the Ten Commandments
(28:12):
commitments, these signpostsof, of progress and, and the way
or however you want todescribe the pursuit of inner peace
is that as you develop moreinner peace, more awareness of your
(28:32):
true self, you will experiencethese or recognize these behaviors
as described through the tenCommandments in your outward behaviors.
But I think it's interestingand it's not a, it's not a perspective
I really dug into in trying toprep for this, for this episode.
(28:53):
Was your point the two waystreet kind of thing, that harmony
in your external experiencecan open up opportunities to work
on your inner experience andthat they do, in a way feed off each
other. It's not just yourinner. Your outer experience is not
just reflective of your innerpeace or inner experience, but also
(29:17):
that taking active steps to.So in that regard, compliance, air
quotes does have some value,but only if you take it to the next
step. It's not the end, right?It's not just don't kill people,
it's don't kill people andcontinue to work on what angers you
(29:39):
to the point of imaginingkilling people, or work on the fear
and lack that is driving youto covet and be jealous of somebody
else and what they're doing.Because that's where the peace will
start to really ruminate. Theoutward actions can help create an
(30:03):
environment for inner work,but it doesn't do the inner work.
Yeah, so I'm, I'm kind ofdrifting into this non compliance
headspace because of what Iwas just talking about like the,
I like our term noncompliance, you know, the, I don't
(30:26):
really want to say sinnereither, but the, I don't know, the
violent aggressor, taker.Right. In, in the short term or from
an individual perspective,there are benefits, right? So, so,
because I mean you pillage andyou know, hoard stuff and just have
(30:49):
more stuff. And I, so I thinkthere are potentially individual
benefits of I don't know whatelse, you know, power, whatever.
But what you're really lookingat is more of the same. There's more
of what you've been getting,you got more of. Now what there isn't
is growth. What there isn't isimprovement. What there isn't is,
(31:13):
you know, building ofcommunity of, you know, the species
expanding into somethingdifferent by exercising culture.
And so I think there is ashort sightedly valid, a value proposition.
But again, that's a veryweirdly narrow definition of success.
(31:38):
It is. And I think that thatis in part what the gospel teachings
related to the commandmentsand the commandments as described
by Moses are kind of gettingat is that that's not actually winning
you anything.
Well, I mean, I think thepoint is civilization and, and species
(32:00):
success versus individualsuccess. I mean I think that things
like commandments come out of civilization.
Right.
As opposed to, you know,troops of animals acting biologically.
Right.
But I think, you know, when wetalk about the, the opposition to
(32:24):
something like commandments,the opposition to these constraints
on behavior that is a.Instinctual. What am I saying? Like
this more basic evolutionarydrive kind of stuff versus any intention
towards improvement and growthand gain.
(32:47):
Right.
Real gain.
Right.
Progress and then getscomplicated. And now I just said
the word progress. I'm like,well, yeah, well what about, you
know, people who do. That'sthe way to define progress. It's
this whole, it's thematerialist paradigm versus you know,
what we been talking about,you know, like the, the are learning
(33:08):
about the fallacy ofmaterialism. Right. And that material
progress is again just very,very short sighted and narrow and
not anything like the progressfor which we have potential, which
is almost inconceivable. Soanyway, yeah, that was just weird
(33:31):
going thinking that way alittle bit about like well, what's
in it for me it's veryuncomfortable. It's like. But I wanted
to pursue that a little bitbecause I think that's kind of the
point.
Like that's, that's A contradiction.
That's who this is talking toin a way. Right. I guess that's the
(33:53):
reason for what we started outwith, which is the commandment and
the forcing it. Because thereare people who are not open to. They're
not looking for increasedpeace. Is that fair?
They may not be conscious thatthat's what.
(34:14):
But that's what I'm saying. Imean, if you're talking to spiritual
seekers who are looking forincreased harmony and peace and love,
you're going to teach usdifferently. Not to say that teachers
do teach, but what I'm sayingis if you were starting out there
and developing this system,your approach would be different.
(34:34):
Your approach would bedifferent. But in reality, historically,
you're not starting out withthat. So I think what we're looking
at in terms of like, wow, thisseems confusing, right? This seems
contradictory. This seemsconfusing is because we're looking
back through time, right?Right. To things that started out.
When societies are different,life was different. I'm not. I'm
(35:00):
pausing because I'm like, oh,my God, life is becoming more like
that in terms of externalconflict and selfish rationalizations
and stuff like that. Sothere's a zeitgeist now that's tugging
more that way. And of course,that's what we're trying to move
the other way. Oh, this is aninteresting exploration. Thanks for.
(35:21):
Thanks for bringing this up.
No, I mean, this has been onethat I've been wanting to attack,
so I'm glad we were able toget to it. Hopefully the listeners
had something to take awayfrom that, and we'd love to hear
from you as well. Next episodehas a little bit of a callback to
hear specifically about idolsand worship. So join us next time
(35:43):
on the show. We hope youenjoyed it. Until next time.
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom podcast. Join us
next time as we continue thediscussion. Don't forget to follow
us on Facebook, Instagram andYouTube and visit www.eth-studio.com
(36:04):
for more information and.
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