News is addictive. For that reason I stopped watching television news – which is the worst type of news – years ago. I never watch the news, except for a few minutes of the local weather at noon. I might catch a glimpse of the national and international headlines then, but that is all. But I read the news every day. Even reading news is disturbing. There are a number of stories that are disturbing at the moment. The big one is Gaza war – the Hamas attack upon Israel and the subsequent Israeli attacks on Gaza and the ramifications of this war around the world. All the human suffering!
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.” As we would expect, the war is traumatic for those directly experiencing it, but it is also difficult for journalists and ordinary people whose only experience is through the work of journalists. I see the stress in people I know. I see it in family members and friends. I see it in church when people voice prayer concerns.
Another issue in the news is the Ukraine war, and there are many others. Then of course there are the regular senseless mass shootings. A big issue is the political discord in American politics. The January 6 mobbing of the capitol building, which is still playing out in the various court trials of our former president. Here is NH we are in the presidential primary season. Every candidate came to NH in person this week to register to be on the ballot, except for our current president, who is skipping it. And of course there are the ongoing culture wars.
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 inauguration day.
How does nondual spirituality address this? How does Christian nonduality deal with this? I approach the news differently than most of my Christian sisters and brothers. They are all taking sides. The more conservative Christians are taking the side of Israel in the war and the side of Republicans in politics. The more progressive are voicing the concerns of the Palestinians and tend to be Democrats. They are battling it out. In other words it is very dualistic. Everything is seen in terms of us and them, right and wrong, good and evil, good guys and bad guys.
The “us versus them” mentality is present in so many countries these days. An antagonistic view of the world is destroying the Holy Land. It is also destroying the United States from within and threatens to undo our democracy. Our brothers and sisters are seen as enemies. Our common humanity is lost among religious, moral, and political differences.
There is another way to view the world that is rooted not in a dualistic mentality but in a nondual perspective. When I see what is happening today I see yin and yang, opposing forces that are part of a bigger unity. I see Israelis and Palestinians as two sides of a greater process. I see Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives as two sides the same coin.
I see myself in both sides. Spiritually I know that I am one with the people on both sides of this conflict in the Middle East. Humanity is one. God is one. Both the shema of Israel and the shahada of Islam profess this truth – that God is one. Jesus said that we are one with God. This is not just a platitude. This is an experiential reality. I am the Israeli. I am the Palestinian. I am the Jew and the Muslim. I am the Republican and Democrat. I am the liberal and the conservative.
There is only one Self, which we call God, and we are all one with that one self. Our separate selves are manifestations of this one Self. The individual selves are formed by history, culture, religion, genes and family. In the process we become convinced – I would say deceived – by our cultures and religions and political parties into thinking that we are different from those of other cultures and religions and ethnic groups and political parties. But in essence we are not.
It is easy to imagine that if I had been born in Gaza to a Muslim family I would see things very differently than I do today. If I had been born a Jew to a Hasidic family in Jerusalem or a Jewish family of settlers on the West Bank I would think differently than I do today. If I were born female or gay, I would have very different experiences. But I would still be me. Even though I would have differently religious, moral, and political beliefs and loyalties, I would at essence be the same.
That is because we all are the same under all the differences. We are the One World Soul, the Oversoul (as Emerson called it) that is not Jew or Muslim, male or female, gay or straight, Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal. When we step out of our conditioning and see that we are not a product of our conditioning, then we can see this clearly.
The result is compassion for all those who are lost in their conditioning and cannot rise above it. That does not mean we detach ourselves from the world, although some may do that. It does not mean that we do not speak and work for what we believe is right – freedom, justice, and peace. Not to act is to act. We have to act – just like we have to eat and drink and breathe. That is what we do as humans in history. We play our roles. That is what the Hebrew prophets taught me. They were people who spoke from God consciousness with the voice of God, but spoke for justice and mercy and peace. Thomas Merton taught me that as well.
We can do that because we rise above the world. That is the symbolic meaning of the ascension of Christ. To rise above our human condition and conditioning is grace. It comes from direct experience of the Divine. It is not the possession of any one religious tradition. Some Eastern spiritual traditions articulate this more clearly. But it is present even more dualistic Western religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
They all have mystical branches that see the nondual reality at the heart of the universe and in our hearts. This mystical insight into the essential unity of humankind and God and the universe is the only real hope for peace on earth. It is the only way that we can love our neighbor as ourselves, because we know they literally are our Self.
Without direct knowledge and experience of Oneness we are going to keep fighting each other until somebody decides to use the nuclear option. Or until we destroy our natural environment. Or until we release some biological pathogen that will cause a deadly epidemic that encircles the world. Or some other apocalyptic scenario.
That will be the end of the human race. But even if humans destroy ourselves, what we really are will not die because it is not subject to time and space. The death of us as individuals or the death of the human race or the earth or the universe cannot touch our deathless nature.
To live out of that deathless nature means compassion for other beings. That includes those who are suffering in wars or any other way. It includes compassion for those who consider us their enemies. That is why Jesus taught us to love God, love our neighbor as ourselves, and love our enemies. When we understand ourselves to be this Nondual Reality, then we act in accord with this compassion and love. That is the nondual perspective I look from as I read the news these days.