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 that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Jesus uses the word “place” three times in three verses, and that seems to contradict my assertion that heaven is not a place. This is just one example. I have received several other comments that quote a verse and say, “What about this verse?” So I thought I would do an episode on how to interpret scripture from a nondual perspective. You could call this a nondual hermeneutic.
The cause for the confusion is the typical Christian understanding of Scripture. Christians think that every verse in the Bible has to be in harmony with every other verse. That there can’t be any contradictions or disagreements. Christians, especially the more conservative varieties – see the Bible as the infallible, inerrant, authorative Word of God. They see it as a divine answer book where every verse in all 66 books is completely compatible with every other verse in the Bible. There can’t be any errors, contradictions or disagreements.
That assumption is not true. There are contradictions and disagreements all over the Bible, and anyone not deliberately filtering them out will notice them. A good example is what the four gospels say happened on Easter morning at the tomb of Jesus. There is no way you can harmonize the details of these four accounts. People say they can, but their solutions are so convoluted that they are laughable. People distort the Biblical accounts to make it conform to their understanding of biblical inerrancy.
Where did that view of scripture come from? It is certainly not in the Bible. As I have said before nowhere does the Bible say that these 66 books are infallible and inerrant in everything it says – spiritual matters, historical matters and scientific matters. That idea does not originate from scripture; it is brought to Scripture. People read scripture through that filter. When people assume the Bible is literally true and cannot contradict itself, they will go to bizarre lengths to demonstrate that theory.
The Bible is viewed as a giant jigsaw puzzle with every piece fitting together perfectly. The problem is that the pieces do not fit together. There is no reason to think that they should. Fundamentalists try to put the puzzle together perfectly, but they are left with a lot of pieces that do not fit. Big holes and gaps in the jigsaw puzzle. They will explain, “We can’t fit these pieces in because we do not have full understanding of God’s mysterious ways. We just have to trust the pieces fit together somehow. Just have faith.” So the puzzle is left unfinished or pieces are forced into places or cut and pasted to fit. This model of scripture as one seamless whole is not found in scripture and does not fit the evidence.
There is no reason to think that every book – much less every verse – has to agree with every other. There is certainly no reason to think that what I say or anyone says can agree with every verse in the Bible. That view of scripture is false. I cannot – and no one can explain every verse
The Bible is not a magical book that gives one answer to every question. The understandings of biblical authors changed over the centuries. So when people ask me, “What about this verse?” I do not need to make every verse or writer in the Bible agree with me. They don’t. I do not feel the need to fit every verse in the Bible into a grand systematic theology of Christian nonduality. It is not about getting every idea in every verse to fit into the cosmic nondual jigsaw puzzle. Nondual reality is beyond ideas. Nonduality is beyond the mind, which is the meaning of the word repentance. I cannot and do not feel the need to explain every verse.
Having said that, a lot of scripture does fit a nondual model of reality. Not all of it. Most of the Bible is dualistic. Much of the Bible does not teach nonduality. It would be dishonest for me to pretend the Bible is the Great Christian Handbook of Nonduality. It isn’t. But there are glimpses of nondual reality throughout the Bible. That is true of some books more than others. Jesus’ words in particular are filled with pointers to nondual reality.
That brings me back to that passage I mentioned at the beginning about Jesus preparing a place for us. I will give you my interpretation of it. It sounds very dualistic, as if Jesus is physically going someplace. That “place” is his Father’s house that has lots of rooms in it. Jesus is talking like he is a manager of a heavenly hotel and is getting rooms ready for his disciples. Do people really think there is a literal Holy Day Inn somewhere with separate bedrooms for each of us or maybe family suites?
The word used in the Greek text here for place is topos. We get the word topographic, like in topographic maps, which shows the terrain, identifying places by elevation as well as latitude and longitude. That word sure sounds like a place, but only if you take it literally. That is the problem with most interpretations of scripture. Most Christian make the mistake of taking everything literally. But as a friend of ours used to say, we are to take scripture literarily and not literally. Treat most images as figures of speech and not scientific or historical facts.
Taking it literally does not make sense. If someone insists that Jesus is talking about a real place, I would ask them to locate that place (topos) on a map – a topographic map. Give me GPS coordinates for our Father’s house. Give me an address. They can’t do it because heaven is not a place. If you press them they say it is a place, but not a place on earth. Then tell ne exactly where not on earth it is. Is it in the atmosphere? In the stratosphere? Is it between here and the moon? Is it in our solar system? In our galaxy? Where is this place?
They will say it is not in space. If it is not in space, then it is not a place, because a place in in space and time. If you keep pressing they will likely admit that it is not a physical place but a spiritual place. Which means that it is not a place at all. A spiritual place is an oxymoron. To call something a spiritual place is using the word “place” as a metaphor, which is exactly how Jesus is using it, which means that heaven is not a place. When the gospel writer pictured Jesus ascending physically to heaven, it is not mean to be taken literally, as if Jesus is flying to some place just out of sight. It is symbolic. It is using a physical metaphor to point to a spiritual truth. Just like when Jesus said he was a door, he was not saying that he was made of wood and had hinges.
Our dualistic language and dualistic mind can only think in dualistic categories, and that is how it expresses itself – in metaphors and symbols. That is how they are to be interpreted. They are meant to point beyond dualistic thinking to that which is beyond mind, and beyond time and space, beyond duality.
That is how I interpret Jesus’ sayings. If you take his words literally they sound dualistic, but Jesus is pointing beyond dualism. That principle of interpretation is even more true of other passages which were written before Jesus. I interpret all Old Testament passages in the light of Jesus’ teachings.
When you take the words of scripture literally, you miss the teaching of scripture. You are reading them through a dualistic lens that distorts them. But when you read them through the nondual lens of Christ, you see clearly. The apostle Paul used that metaphor. Paul says that most people wear a veil over their minds and hearts when they read scripture.
Paul writes “Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
Wow! That passage says it all! To read scripture literally is to read it with a closed mind and a closed heart. But when one reads it from nondual awareness through Christ, who is the teacher of the nondual reality called the Kingdom of God, then the veil is taken away. We see clearly. We are free. When Christ sets us free we are free indeed. That is liberation.