In this episode I explain how the traditional Christian teaching on the forgiveness of sins is insufficient and how complete forgiveness is an expression of Christian nonduality.
In this episode I explain how the traditional Christian teaching on the forgiveness of sins is insufficient and how complete forgiveness is an expression of Christian nonduality.
Traditional Christianity focuses on sin and forgiveness of sins. So much so that Christians have a difficult time seeing how other religions can possibly be true if they do not make forgiveness of sins and getting to heaven as the main goals of the spiritual life. Forgiveness is both the strength and the weakness of Christianity. There is no doubt that we need more forgiveness in the world. The problem is that Christianity does not solve the problem of forgiveness as thoroughly as Christians think it does.
This is demonstrated in the lives of Christians. In my experience as a pastor for forty years, Christians do not seem any more forgiving than people of other faiths or people of no faith. Yet Jesus makes it clear that if we are not able to forgive others, then we do not know divine forgiveness. Christians believe that they are forgiven by God through faith in Christ through conversion, and it doesn’t matter how forgiving they are to others afterwards. But that is not what Jesus says.
He says in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Then immediately after the Lord’s Prayer he explains, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Forgiveness has not been received if it is not passed on.
Many Christians struggle with forgiving others. And they know intuitively that this indicates something is wrong with their spiritual lives and their theology of forgiveness. That is why so many Christians need constant assurance that they are forgiven by God. They preach the grace of God, but their lives do not demonstrate that they know grace or that they are able more than others to bestow grace to neighbors and strangers and enemies. Many have not discovered the source of true and complete forgiveness.
Last Sunday in the church we attend, a group of about eight young men from Teen Challenge came and spoke to the congregation. Teen Challenge is a Christian ministry started by David Wilkerson as a ministry to urban street gang members back in the 1950s. It was made famous by the book and the film, The Cross and the Switchblade. Today it is called Adult and Teen Challenge and has expanded to men of all ages, but still is mostly younger men. It is a successful ministry that helps men with substance abuse.
Several of these men shared their testimonies with the congregation. These kids have been through hell and come back from the edge of death, and it was all due to their faith in Christ. They shared their experience of the forgiveness of God for what they have done, and it is working wonders in their lives. After they spoke, we celebrated the Lord’s Supper, with its focus on the confession of sin and the forgiveness of sin.
Throughout the service I was aware of that which is deeper and more radical than what is offered in the traditional Christian gospel. As successful as this gospel has been for these young men, it is not deep enough. It is not that the standard Christian preaching on forgiveness is bad; it is fine as far as it goes. It is just that it is not complete. Jesus offers something better. There is a need for a more radical solution.
The forgiveness of Nonduality is more radical. The word radical comes from the word that means root. The word radish comes from it. Nonduality strikes at the root of the problem of sin and guilt and shame and the fear that we are unlovable and unforgiveable. The heart of the forgiveness found in nondual reality is the realization that the self that is guilty of sin is not real.
Christianity focuses on the individual self. It says that this individual self is guilty of sin and needs to be forgiven of sin. The Gospel of Nonduality exposes the lie at the root of that assumption. As long as we cling to the self, we will feel guilty and feel the need to continually confess our sins and our sinfulness and be forgiven over and over again – every day and every Sunday worship service and every communion service. As long as we think we are a self, that self will need forgiveness and it will never feel completely at peace.
The gospel of Nonduality solves that problem. It says that there is no self. The self is literally a figment of our imagination. It is a mental construction created by our minds. There is no self in any permanent sense. Obviously there is a personal self relatively speaking. We use it every day. But it is simply an app that we use. It is program of the body’s brain, and it dies with the body. There is no need to fear that this separate self is going to end up in a hell separated from God or hope that it will exist forever in a celestial heaven worshipping a separate God.
Separateness is a myth. It is a falsehood. People talk about the “big lie” in American politics these days. Well spiritually speaking the big lie is that we are an individual self, separated from God and from others and everything else. It is not true. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. We cannot be separated because our essential nature is not separate. It has never been separate. Sin cannot separate it.
The separate self is the sin. Belief that we are a separate entity is the original sin. It perpetuates the idea that we are separated from God. Get rid of the self, and you get rid of sin and separation. You get rid of the need to continually confess and repent of sin. You get rid of guilt and shame and fear of punishment. You get rid of all the psychological and emotional suffering that comes with self and sin. The solution to the problem of sin is the death of the self. That is what the Cross symbolizes.
Having said that, this does not mean that behavior doesn’t matter. Sure it does! No self takes care of behavior. Without self we are selfless in our actions. There is no need or thought to hurt others to protect the self. It is the insecure fearful separate self that does harmful things. When you see through the self, then the destructive behavior of the self is neutralized. It loses its power.
We live life from the Source, which in Christian lingo is called the Spirit. You can call it is the big Self or Atman the No-self Anatta or Christ consciousness or God consciousness or whatever you want to call it. It is the Eternal Center which is our true nature.
When the tyranny of the self is ended, then we are free to live from who and what we really are. Call this the Tao if you want. Jesus called this the Father. The early Christians called it the Way. I call it walking in the Spirit or abiding in Christ. Call this whatever you want. It is living from our center and the Center of the universe.
While living as this True Nature, the old self still sticks around wanting to get back into the driver’s seat. It is not gone completely. It hangs around like a ghost hiding in the shadows. This self will grab the steering wheel on occasion and try to run our lives off the road. This old body-mind will continue do cause problems in life. It will sin because it is its nature. You could call it the sin-self or the sin nature. That is actually how the New International version translates it.
This sin-self still sins. And we do what we can to prevent that and makes amends when it does coopt our body-minds. We ask forgiveness and seek forgiveness for these misdeeds. It is like a parent who has to apologize for the bad behavior of their spoiled kid. Or a person who has to apologize for the behavior of their dog who gets off the leash and digs up the neighbors’ flower bed or even bites the neighbor’s kid. You must apologize when the pet dog does that. We apologize when our pet self does that. I call this my pet ape in another episode.
But I do not have to worry that my pet dog is going to end up in doggy hell and be tortured for all eternity for its sins, or that it needs to be saved in order to go to doggy heaven. The same way I do not worry that my pet self will go to hell or needs to be saved to go to a heaven designed for selves. That idea of heaven is a fantasy created by the self, which cannot imagine not existing. The self is not permanent or eternal. It is just a temporary function of the body-mind designed by evolution to help humans survive this earthly existence. What we really are is the one eternal permanent reality that is the source of this relative reality.
We live as this nondual reality by living a life of selflessness, love and forgiveness. It is easy to live this life because we can see that everyone we meet is this same life. We are all one. One Life expressed through many bodies and many minds. Some of us just have better behaved pet dogs and apes and selves than others. But everyone is just doing the best we can to live this life until we lay down the body-minds and return to what we have always been and are now. The one True Reality.