Jesus' Canonical Teachings of Nonduality (Part 1)
While traditionally understood within a framework of a personal God interacting with separate individuals, the canonical texts also contain references to a unified reality.
Clearly, Jesus’ teachings held layers of meaning, and he tailored each to the capacity of his audience. For the larger crowds he spoke in parables—earthly stories with heavenly implications. To his disciples, Jesus was more direct, offering enigmatic insights into the “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 13:11). Even still, his closest followers struggled to understand his meaning. This distinction, then, between public and private instruction as well as the indirect wording, indicates a wisdom that could not be simply stated or intellectually understood. Apprehension required a radical shift in perception.
From a nondual perspective this difficulty in understanding is directly related to the fundamental obstacle that stands in the way of realizing the nature of this unified reality: the belief of being a separate entity in the world. Experience is filtered through the lens of the ego, which constructs a world of “me” and “other,” subject and object. Seeing the world so fundamentally dualistic makes it very difficult to conceive of, let alone embody, a reality of radical unity where such distinctions are ultimately unreal. Jesus' deeper teachings likely point to this unified reality that a mind deeply conditioned by separation cannot readily process.
This awareness of oneness is expressed in the Gospels when Jesus speaks of relationship with one another and to him. In Matthew 25:40, he says, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” This is often interpreted as a call to empathy and service. But it can also be seen as a direct expression of the awareness of fundamental oneness. If reality is a seamless, indivisible whole, then an action directed towards any apparent part of that whole is an action directed towards the whole itself. Here, there is ultimately no “other” that is separate from the self, separate from the divine presence embodied as Jesus.
This awareness of divine oneness in Jesus was so transformative that it transcended his limited personal identity, the ego structure previously identified as a finite form. Jesus did not cling to his dissolving personal identity. Instead, he taught the gospel of this realized fullness and unity through necessarily figurative and symbolic language.
This is not the proclamation of a human ego asserting personal divinity. This is the voice of limitless, formless being, speaking through a limited form. ⬚
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