This episode is a response to requests I have received. Two listeners asked how nonduality fits in with the Old Testament God. The people who contacted me were particularly concerned about the violence done by and in the name of the deity of the Hebrew Scriptures. At the same time I have been watching the news and am concerned about what is happening in Gaza and Israel. The violence, suffering, hunger and death going on in Gaza is heartbreaking. I think the two are related.
I look at what is happening in Gaza and I see the direct result of worshipping a violent God - the God of the violent passages of the Old Testament and the violent passages of the Quran. As a Christian I say the same thing about Christianity. Jesus was not violent, but the God of later Christianity became violent. This process began as early as the New Testament Book of Revelation.
Jesus did not ride into Jerusalem on a white horse and a sword on Palm Sunday. But once Jesus was packed off to heaven in the Ascension, some Christians – like the author of Revelation - made Jesus into exactly the type of Messiah who rides down from heaven on a white horse destroying his enemies. This is the God of militant Christianity, most clearly represented in the Crusades and now in Christian nationalism.
There are Old Testament passages where the Hebrews were ordered to commit genocide by exterminating the indigenous inhabitants of the land of Canaan. Joshua was ordered by this God to destroy every man, woman and child in the promised land. Centuries later this same deity ordered king Saul to completely destroy every man, woman and child of the Amalekites. Saul was punished by God when he did not obey that command.
The Book of Exodus proudly says, “The LORD is a warrior; Yahweh is His name.” This is the deity of Psalm 137, which says, “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”
In the opening words of his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins says: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
I need to make it clear now that this is not the God worshipped by the vast majority of Jews, Muslims and Christians today. True Judaism today is a religion of peace. True Islam today is a religion of peace. True Christianity today is a religion of peace. There are many passages in all our scriptures that advocate peace.
But the God of violent religionists, whether Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu or any other religion, is not a god of peace. That God is a nationalistic ethnic deity who is the champion of one religion against other religions, who fights for one nation and one people against other nations and peoples.
That is the god I see at work in Gaza... on both sides. That is the god responsible for the massacre of 1200 Israelis by Hamas and the capture of 200 hostages. That is also the god responsible for the slaughter of over 31,000 Gazans by the Israel Defense Forces.
This god of war is not the True God. Hamas does not represent the God of Islam, and Likud does not represent the God of Israel. Christian nationalists do not represent the God of Jesus. This bloodthirsty war god does not represent true Judaism, Islam or Christianity.
Now let me relate this to Christian nonduality. I am reading a book entitled The Anatomy of Courage by Peter Cawdron. It is science fiction set on a battlefield in Russia, and it gets very philosophical about war. One of its many memorable quotes is this: “War is an altar to an angry god – one that doesn’t exist.” The God of war worshipped by religious extremists does not exist. The violent God of the Old Testament is not real.
That is why I quoted Richard Dawkins a little while ago. If you have heard me tell my account of spiritual awakening, you will remember that the New Atheists were an important part of my deconstruction of my evangelical Christian faith. They showed me that the God that I believed in was not real. “God, rid me of God,” Meister Eckhart prayed. When the false god of theism is seen as an illusion then what remains is True God. Ultimate Reality is seen as always present all along.
The theistic God is a creation of the human mind and heart. That deity is a fiction. Theists have made God in their own image. The Ten commandments tell us not to make images of God. I interpret that as including theological images of God. Such images of God say more about the person who worships such a deity than it says about Divinity.
God is real, but God is not the theistic deity. There is God beyond God. There is God beyond all the images that religions use to picture God. Paul Tillich called this the Ground of Being or Being Itself. In the burning bush scene in the Book of Exodus God says “I am” and “I am that I am.” Hinduism calls this Brahman. The Tao Te Ching calls it the Tao.
Call this whatever you want. Names are nothing more than words meant to point to that that which cannot be named. Ideas about God are pointers to that which is beyond human comprehension. All scriptures are words. At their best they point to what is beyond words. That is true of the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Quran as well as the Upanishads, the Dhammapada, the Tao Te Ching and every other scripture.
When their words are taken literally, Scriptures distort and obscure Divine Reality. At their best Scriptures are windows beyond themselves to Nondual Reality that is the nature of the universe. Awareness of this Nondual Reality is at the heart of all spiritual traditions. This Reality is Peace. It is Love. It is compassion. It is Joy and Peace.
I look at the war in Gaza from a nondual perspective. I am aware of the dualistic perspective that my mind spins, but I choose to view it from the wider nondual perspective. When thinking and talking about this violence it is easy to take sides. It is easy to get wrapped up in the dualism of us versus them, good versus evil, right versus wrong.
It is easy to label one side as good and the other side as bad. Hamas as the evil terrorists who murdered 1200 Israelis and captured 200 hostages, and Israel as a persecuted minority fighting for their survival as a nation and a people. On the other hand we can picture Palestinians as the victims of decades of abuse and persecution by Israel, who are striking out the only way they can, and Israel disproportionately killing 31,000 people in retaliation for the Hamas attack.
The Anatomy of War says, “War satisfies our desire for vengeance, regardless of the cost.” We chose one side and turn the other side into monsters. But in so doing we become what we hate. As Nietzche said, “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.” It is easy to lose one’s soul when caught up in the narratives of dualism, and therefore lose sight of one’s true nature.
In every war there are at least two narratives, and it is tempting to chose one. How do we know what is true? The Anatomy of Courage again says, “For all the causalities in war, there’s one death that’s never mourned, one that is seldom even recognized. There has never been a gravestone for truth, but it is always the first thing that dies out there on the battlefield.”
It is difficult if not impossible to see what is true in times of war. There is no way I can see the world as a Palestinian or Israeli. Yet in nondual awareness I am Palestinian and Israeli. I share my true nature with both of them. They are me and I am them. Therefore in unitive awareness I respond with compassion for both. I respond to the suffering on both sides. I respond in love for those on both sides. For example that means I support Doctors Without Borders.
God Consciousness - Nondual Awareness - is the only thing that will bring lasting peace. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God. Spiritual people from all faith traditions must embody peace and speak peace. In Gaza this needs to be done chiefly by those who share the faiths of those involved - Jews and Muslims. People are much more likely to take members of their own faith more seriously. The rest of us – I am thinking of Christians in particular – can play a supporting role. The good news is that there are peacemakers in Islam and Judaism.
More good news is that from a nondual perspective everything is working out as it should, as it always has and always will be. How could it be otherwise? We need not despair or resort to questionable moral means to accomplish peace. Peace is here now. It is simply a matter of abiding in peace and speaking from peace. Then the war god of Gaza will be seen as the illusion that it is, and the Kingdom of God comes to earth as it is in heaven.