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.
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.
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. I will show how it has its roots in Jesus’ teaching of nonduality. I will start off by reading Jesus’ words. He says:
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
There was a study done Barna Research group about a decade ago that surveyed American ages 16-29 years old to discover what they thought of Christians and churches, presumably to understand why so many were leaving the church. The result was a book entitled “unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity…and Why It Matters.” It revealed that this age group’s perceptions of Christianity was overwhelmingly negative. The three most common perceptions of Christianity were that Christians are anti-homosexual, judgmental, and hypocritical, in that order.
This is what Jesus is addressing in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus did not judge. He never had a bad word to say about those who were labeled “sinners” by the religious culture of the day. Unlike today when many Christians seem to define themselves by what and whom they are against. Jesus had a lot to say about judgmental religious people. Jesus’ most common accusation was that they were hypocritical. It is sad that 2000 years later those who say they follow Jesus are the ones who are doing exactly what Jesus speaks against.
Jesus’ words are rooted in nonduality. Judgment and its cousin condemnation are rooted in a dualistic way of looking at the world. The only way that you can judge is to divide into two. Only then can you judge between them. If all is seen as one, then one does not judge. We judge someone only if we see them as different from us. And different is dangerous to dualistic thinking. Different often leads to thinking they are worse, or at least their behavior is worse than yours.
This is ego. Ego is completely blind to nondual reality. The reality is that we are no different than the one that we are judging. Not only are we no better than the one we are judging, in nonduality we are the one that we are judging. By judging others we are unconsciously judging ourselves, which creates guilt and shame in us. That causes all sorts of problems, both personal and societal.
The other day I was reading a letter to the editor from a NH state representative in our local newspaper. It is the perfect example of judgmental attitude and hypocrisy. The letter was entitled: ‘Take kids out of schools, which are following path of Hitler.” The representative proceeds to compare Democrats to Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Stalin. He says that the Democrats are trying to turn the public schools into training centers for Hitler Youth. It was an awful letter than said more about him than anyone else.
The thing is that he could have made his case about education reform and parental rights without all the moralistic and partisan rhetoric, and people would have listened to him. I would have listened to him. God knows we need to improve American education. But all he did was divide people. His attitude is so condescending and judgmental, that even if you are sympathetic to his viewpoint on the issues, you don’t want anything to do with him or any bill he might propose.
This man does not see that he is no different than his enemy. He is unwilling to take the plank out of his own eye. He does not even notice that there is a plank in his eye. The reality is his position would not exist without the opposing position. That is why American politics has produced a two party system and not a three or four or five party system. We tend toward dualism. We need our enemies in order to reinforce our egoic identity. Enemies create each other.
You would not know what right was without wrong. Right cannot exist without wrong. Good cannot exist without evil. Freedom could not exist without bondage. Negative cannot exist without positive. There is no up without down. No high without low. No light without darkness. All dualities are in fact one reality that includes the two opposing sides. A coin cannot have a front without a back, yet it is still one. So is all duality. It is like a magnet. You cannot have magnet wihtout two poles. You cannot have a battery without a positive and negative terminal. A bird cannot fly without two wings.
What appears as duality is in fact nonduality. Nondual Reality includes dualities. When one sees the oneness at the heart of reality and that we are that nondual reality, then one sees that we include all opposites. That is the meaning of the Yin Yang symbol.
But the ego does not see that. It wants to be the good guy who is opposed to the bad guy, which means that somebody has to play the bad guy. We need our enemy. For us to be as righteous as we can be, they have to be as unrighteous as they can be. Hence the political rhetoric of comparing our enemies to the arch-villains of history.
This is true of both political sides of the political spectrum in the United States. Just so you realize, I am not taking sides. Progressives play the dualistic game as much as Conservatives. Progressives think that conservative are evil. Progressives compare Republicans to fascists and Nazis. If they are not fascists or Nazis they have to make them into fascists and Nazis in order to feel like they are in the right and opposing party in the wrong. Both parties do this. Both sides demonize the other side.
I got a comment on one my of my videos – Christianity and Nonduality - recently accusing me of being Satanic and demonic. I will read the comment: “Marshall Davis, you are bringing in the teachings of the pagans and satanist devil-worshiper & through them the devil.” This person has to see me as evil in order to consider himself as on the side of the good.
The scribes and Pharisees said things like this about Jesus. They said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” “He has an unclean spirit,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” Jesus said we would be called the same thing. He said, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for a disciple to be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!”
Religious people – especially in Western religions – see the world as a battleground between good and evil. God is good and the Devil is evil. The spiritual life is seen as a war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, between good and evil. The good feels the need to judge evil and destroy evil. That is the source of religious persecution and violence.
“East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.” Well, in nonduality the twain not only meet. They are seen as two sides of the same reality. Nondual Reality includes both good and evil. The God beyond God, the True God, the Ground of Being, Being Itself, the One Nondual Reality transcends and includes the duality of good and evil.
This is very difficult for those of us who have been nurtured in Christianity to see or accept. We are used to thinking in terms of a God of Light that is at war with the god of darkness, which is called the god is this world. But Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Resist not evil.” Resist not an evil one. That sounds like heresy to Christian ears. Christianity sees itself on the side of good resisting evil. The apostle Paul has a section that compares us to a Roman soldier putting on the armor of God and resisting evil. But Jesus says, Resist not evil. The Book of Revelation (also not written by the apostle) pictures history as a cosmic battle between good and evil. Jesus literally pictured as the good guy on the white horse and a sword slaying the forces of evil. But that is not the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus did not come into Jerusalem on a white horse with a sword, but on a donkey with palm fronds.
The Way of Jesus makes no sense at all to traditional dualistic religion or politics or culture wars or social ethics or war or national policy. But Jesus is not talking about those things. He is talking about spirituality. Spiritual awakening reveals that ultimately there is no duality. We wake up to see that we are one with our enemy. We include both evil and good, right and wrong. When we take the plank out of our own eye, we step back and say “Wow! How did I never see that before?”
When we see that we are the whole and not one half fighting the other half, that undercuts the tendency to judge others. We know that when we judge others we are actually judging ourselves, because they are our selves. To condemn people as being so different from us we have to kill them to rid the world of evil, then that is the height of hypocrisy and spiritual death.
This nondual teaching is difficult for people to see and accept. When we voice this people think we are surrendering to evil or collaborating with evil or secretly on the side of the demons. We are seen as dangerous. That is why Jesus follows up this teaching with these words. He says, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.” He is talking about how to speak this nondual teaching. He is saying, “This is holy. Be careful how you speak it and who you speak this to. Because people will not understand and they will attack you for it.”
This saying comparing people to dogs and swine would be condescending and judgmental coming from anyone but Jesus. But in Jesus’ mouth it is wisdom. He is saying that the gospel of nonduality is so radical, that we have to be careful how we speak it. That is why Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, but explained the parables privately to his closest disciples. This is the radical gospel of Christian nonduality.