In this episode I talk about the value of reading the scriptures of faiths other than our own. I also explore the concepts of the inspiration and authority of scripture from a nondual perspective.
In this episode I talk about the value of reading the scriptures of faiths other than our own. I also explore the concepts of the inspiration and authority of scripture from a nondual perspective.
The last episode I recorded was on the Bhagavad Gita, and it got me thinking about how Christians can benefit from reading scriptures other than our own. There is a famous scripture verse that all Christians familiar with conservative forms of Christianity know. It says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”
Notice it says: “All Scripture.” Not just Christian scriptures, but all scriptures. It could not mean only Christian scriptures because there were no Christian scriptures when that verse was written. The Christian canon was not established until the fourth century. The author of that book of Second Timothy (which most biblical scholars say was not Paul by the way) was thinking of the Jewish scriptures when he wrote that. Furthermore he was not even thinking of the whole Old Testament. The OT canon was not finalized until the second century AD. He was thinking of the Law and the Prophets when he wrote that.
So you can’t use that verse to prove that only the Christian scriptures are inspired. That is not what it meant. So we should either reject all writings not considered scripture when 2 Timothy was written, or we have to admit that it includes more than just the Torah and Prophets. If it includes more than these Jewish writings recognized at the time, why not include more than just the Christian scriptures? Why not includes the scriptures of other faiths? I believe that the scriptures of all faiths are inspired by God, and useful for our spiritual growth.
But most Christians believe there are no genuine scriptures besides the Christian Bible. Conservative Christians think that only the Bible – composed of what we call the Old and New Testaments – is the Word of God. In their mind the holy books of other faiths are not inspired by God. They say that at best they are the words of men and at worst inspired by demons.
But I agree with Second Timothy that all scripture is inspired by God. When you read all scriptures, you find that out for yourself. You recognize the voice speaking in those scriptures as the voice of the Spirit. When you notice that, it undermines the exclusivism of traditional Christianity. For that reason reading “all scriptures” is a subversive activity. I encourage you to be subversive. Nondual Christianity is subversive Christianity, just like the nondual message of Jesus was subversive. That is why he was crucified.
Having said that, the Bible has a special place in my heart because it is my tradition, but it is not the only divinely inspired writing. The Upanishads are inspired by God. The Tao Te Ching is inspired by God. The teachings of the Buddha are inspired by God. Zen koans are inspired by God. So is the Gita. The Quran is inspired by God.
That does not mean that I accept everything these scriptures say. Every scripture emerges from a certain cultural and religious context. Not all religions are the same. Some are more dualistic than others. Some are more egoic than others. But to differing degrees all are inspired by same Spirit. They are wells that draw upon the same aquifer of Living Water. It is just a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff, the divine from the ego.
When Christians read our own or other scriptures it is important to remember the nature of scripture. They are not magical books. They did not drop out of the sky whole, regardless of what some religions teach about the origin of their scriptures. No scriptures are inerrant or infallible, including the Christian Bible. Even though evangelicals and fundamentalists make that claim, the Christian Bible never makes such a claim for itself. That idea was later later by people who put the Bible in the place of God and came to idolize scriptures.
Scriptures are not even authoritative. I know that is also a subversive thing to say, but the Bible never claims it is authoritative. It says that scriptures are helpful and useful. 2 Timothy says: “All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” Useful, not perfect. The KJV uses the word profitable, not infallible.
This flies in the face of Christian doctrines of the inspiration and authority of scripture. Inspiration, yes. Authority, no. The only authority is the Word of God, which is not a book but the communication of the Spirit. When the Bible speaks of the Word of God it is referring to God, not a book. Those who claim authority for scripture are really saying that their teachings about scripture are authoritative.
When they say that the Christian scriptures are inerrant or infallible, they are really saying that their interpretation of the Bible is inerrant and infallible. It is a way religious leaders coerce people to accept their teachings. That you to have to agree with them or you are lost. They make their interpretations of the Bible into creeds and traditions defended by religious authority structures. By doing that these religious people are enshrining the ego and making the human ego the authority for the spiritual life.
Scriptures were not dictated to humans by God. They were written by human beings like you and me. They reflect the state of human knowledge at the time, including scientific and historical and medical knowledge at the time. They are not perfect. They are not supernatural communication from God. They are human writings that point people to God.
The most important thing to remember when reading any scriptures is that the Spirit that inspired those writings dwells in you and inspires you. That does not make you perfect, but it makes you inspired. Trust that Spirit! That is what the scripture writers did. The people who wrote the scriptures never dreamed that their writings would one day be considered sacred scripture.
The apostle Paul never imagined that his letters would someday be collected and considered on the same level with the Torah. In the same way Christians seldom think that they could have insights as inspired as prophets or apostles, but why not? It is the same Spirit operating in us! The purpose of scripture is not to convey doctrines for believing or rules for living. They point us to know God firsthand. They lead us into the same awareness of God as the scripture writers had.
I must also say that not all written scriptures are of equal value, just like not all books in the Bible are of equal value. Leviticus does not hold the same value to me as the Gospel of John. All the scriptures of the religions of the world are inspired, but they are not all of equal value. We discern their value by looking to the Spirit who inspired them. We judge scripture by the Spirit.
Some Christians accuse me of making my spiritual experience the ultimate authority. They say that I am placing myself above the Bible and thereby deluding myself. That I am placing my human judgment above the authority of the Church. That I am putting myself up as the ultimate judge of what is true and what is not. I have two responses to that.
First, in the end we all decide for ourselves what is true, whether we admit it or not. Everyone does that. Evangelicals say, “No,” that they trust the Bible and not themselves. But they had to decide to trust the Bible at some point. Someone told them the Bible was inerrant and they believed it. Even though the theory of biblical inerrancy is very recent.
When they decide to trust the Bible, they are actually trusting the judgement of a bunch of churchmen in the fourth century who decided which books should be in the Bible and which books should not. Why trust them? Who appointed them as infallible decision-makers? Even if we decide to trust the Bible as inerrant, who are we going to trust to interpret the Bible? Ultimately we have to trust the Spirit inspiring us to guide us. No matter how you look at it, it comes down to us having to trust the Spirit.
The second thing I would say is that I am not putting the human individual up as ultimate judge of spiritual truth. I do not trust the self at all. The human self is incapable of judging in spiritual matters. It cares only for itself and not the things of the Spirit. I do not trust myself. I trust the Self – with a capital S – not the self with a lower case s. We are to trust the Divine Self, whom we call God, rather than the human self. If you can’t tell the difference between Divine Self and the human self, then you are in big trouble!
The spiritual life is all about the Divine One we call God. That nondual Reality is what all scriptures of the world point to – in various degrees. That is what all religions point to – some better than others. That is what all spiritual practices and rituals are meant to lead us to. This Divine One is the Source of all spiritual truth and all scriptures and all Nature and the whole universe. Furthermore “That thou art!” as the Upanishads say. This Divine nondual reality is all there is. It is our true nature, our true Self.
The Truth is One, as God is One. This One is Truth. This is the Way, the Truth and the Life, as Jesus said. He was speaking as the Divine Self. We have access right now to this Ultimate Reality. When one is aware of this, it is obvious. It is plain as day. It is like waking from a haze or unconsciousness. It is like being born again or resurrected. Everything else is seen as secondhand religion compared to immediate awareness of the One Reality. All scriptures point to this direct awareness if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.