Listeners who come from Christian backgrounds sometimes have a difficult time with nonduality because it feels like it is an abandonment of Christianity. One man on a Zoom meeting I was having with a church labeled it as occult. Occult is from the Latin word occultus, which means hidden or secret. There is nothing hidden or secret about nondual awareness. This is not secret knowledge. This is as open and obvious as it can possibly be. It is hidden in plain sight.

Others note that I often quote other spiritual traditions, especially the Hindu Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching and the teachings of the Buddha. They think I am importing Eastern religious ideas into Christianity, and thereby compromising the purity of “the faith once for all delivered to the saints,” to quote the Letter of Jude. I am not compromising the gospel. This is the gospel of Jesus. 

All spiritual traditions point to the same Ultimate Reality. When Ultimate Reality is seen, one notices that. That is why I quote other spiritual traditions. One sees references to it everywhere, not only in religious texts but in poetry and literature. Aldous Huxley refers to it as the perennial philosophy, but it is not really a philosophy. It is a direct awareness of Reality that is expressed in a variety of ways in different cultures and religious traditions.

Is nonduality non-Christian or unchristian? No! It is deeply Christian. It is the essence of the gospel of Christ that is also found in other spiritual traditions. 

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