Christian Nonduality and the  Biblical God Addressing Religious Compatibility and Violence Marshall addressed concerns about the compatibility of non-duality with the Old Testament God's violent nature, specifically in light of the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Marshall clarified that true Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are religions of peace, and the violence perpetuated in the name of these religions does not represent their true teachings. Divine Reality and Scripture Interpretation He...

I got an email from a man who is in constant chronic pain. He asked me to do an episode on the topic. I talked about the OT Book of Job and the Problem of Suffering a while back, but this man was talking about something less philosophical and more practical. How do we deal with pain, especially when that pain is intense and continuous? 

This episode is about the Holy Spirit and how this important Christian belief and experience fits into nondual Christianity. 

In this episode I talk about how to approach American politics - and especially the 2024 election - from a nondual perceptive as nondual awareness. 

I have talked about repentance before in a nondual context, but I have not dedicated an entire episode to it. So today I am. The call to repent is normally talked about in moral and ethical terms, but that is just the surface of it. When followed to its end repentance is a path to spiritual awakening. It is the door to what Jesus called the Kingdom of God. Jesus said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”  This episode has a discussion of the difference between awareness and...

In this episode I explain how to interpret the apocalyptic passages of the New Testament from a nondual perspective.

In this episode I explain how the traditional Christian teaching on the forgiveness of sins is insufficient and how complete forgiveness is an expression of Christian nonduality.

In Jesus’ teaching children represented the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Becoming like children is a metaphor that used for what in other spiritual traditions is called enlightenment, awakening, nirvana, liberation, self-realization or any number of other terms. Children know naturally what adults have forgotten.  He need to remember what we have forgotten.

In this episode I show how we can move from the Western cult of the self to Jesus’ teaching of Self-Realization.

Today I am going to get back to basics. I am going to describe how to abide in nondual awareness, as much as that can be described. If I were to use Christian language I would call this dwelling in the Kingdom of God or living in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is the term Jesus used and is probably best translated “the Spiritual Realm.” This is also called “living in the Spirit” or “walking in the Spirit” or “abiding in Christ” or simply being “in Christ.” 

The phrase “Word of God” is used a lot by Christians. I hear it in church every Sunday. When Christians talk about the Word of God, they are usually referring to the Christian scriptures. In this episode today I am proposing another way of understanding the term – a more inclusive use of the term, which also happens to be the Biblical way of understanding the phrase.  Biblically speaking the Word of God is not limited to a book. We can say the Bible is the Word of God, but it does not exhaust...

In this episode I interpret the biblical Christmas stories in a nondual manner.

Humans are a story-telling species. You could say that story-telling is what distinguishes us from all other creatures on this planet. Families tell family stories to strengthen their family bonds. Nations and political parties tell stories that distinguish from others. Religions tell stories of their origin, nature and identity.  As individuals we tell stories about ourselves. In that way we develop a personal identity. At some point we may notice that many of the stories that we tell...

There is a common misunderstanding about nondual awareness, spiritual awakening, liberation, self-realization, enlightenment or whatever you want to call it.  The misunderstanding is that it is cure-all for everything that ails us. That the culmination of the spiritual search is a cessation of all psychological pain.  It is not. This episode explores the brokenness of the human condition, even after spiritual awakening, and how brokenness can lead to realization of our True Nature.

For many people the news is stressful. I read a TIME magazine article the other day entitled “Where to Seek Help if the Israel-Hamas War is Impacting Your Mental Health.” There are regular senseless mass shootings.  A big issue is political discord in American politics.  Political opinions affect churches and divide churches. They divide families. It is only going to get worse in the coming year until the 2024 general election. Then we will see what happens between Election Day and...

In this episode I ponder the inability of me - or anyone for that matter - to communicate the nature and the experience of this unitive reality that Jesus called the Kingdom of God, and which most of us simply call God, the Divine, the One, or Reality.

When I look at Christianity I see lots of fear. It seems to have become a religion based on fear. Preachers tell us to be afraid, be very afraid. Fear God and fear punishment for sin and fear Judgment Day and most of all fear going to hell. Fire and brimstone preachers have learned that fear keeps people in the pews and in their particular form of Christianity. At least it used to. People are wising up to the scare tactics. They do not work the way they used to. But still many preachers try...

I have been receiving quite a few questions recently asking me how I would interpret certain passages in the Christian scriptures. People quote verses that seem to contradict what I am saying, and they want me to explain them.  For example I recently said in an episode that heaven is not a place. It is the spiritual reality not in the hereafter but here and now. Someone asked me how I would explain Jesus saying, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you...

I read Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha back in the 60’s when I was in college. It was a rite of passage back then. But I did not really know experientially what it was all about until I was in my sixties. Later in this episode I am going to take a look the closing vision in Hermann Hesse’s book Siddhartha and show how it informs Christian nonduality, and in particular how it informs the nondual understanding of what happens after the death of the body. 

During the summer when the weather is good, we attend an outdoor worship service held by a Congregational church in a neighboring town. In her sermon last Sunday the pastor talked about her ordination exam five years ago. In preparation for the ordination council she invited some clergy friends to send her the most challenging questions that might be asked during the oral examination. One asked, “Is Gandhi in heaven?” He followed up with the question, “Is Hitler in Heaven?” Finally he asked a...

Recently I have been thinking about Jesus and his relationship to Christianity. I came across a quote that stated that Jesus was not a Christian. Here is the whole statement: “Buddha was not a Buddhist. Jesus was not a Christian. Muhammad was not a Muslim. They were teachers who taught love. Love was their religion.” Is that true? In this episode I explore that statement, focusing on the idea that Jesus was not a Christian, and why that matters today.  

This episode explores the final section of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus ends his longest and most famous teaching by warning us to be careful of those who would misinterpret his teachings to promote their own agenda. In other words he advises us to use discernment when it comes to spiritual teachers.   

In the last part of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus focuses on how to enter the Kingdom of God. From a Buddhist perspective this question would be expressed as how to enter Nirvana or how to be enlightened. The Hindu might ask how to be liberated. Different spiritual traditions have different terms for this, but it is the same spiritual reality. 

The section of the Sermon on the Mount that I am looking at today has to be one of the best, as well as the most neglected and misused portions of the teachings of Jesus. It is about not judging. “Judge not, that you be not judged.” I will show how it has its roots in Jesus’ teaching of nonduality.