Nondual Christianity

Some of you probably read the note in our weekly newsletter, eNoticias, about a conversation Bishop Jack Spong once had with Carl Sagan. The astronomer did some math in his head, and then assured the bishop, “even if Jesus accelerated [after lift-off] to the speed of light, he’s not yet left our galaxy. He’s still in the Milky Way.” We chuckle at the words, because we live in a time where intergalactic travel is the stuff of both science and science fiction. But our story this morning from Acts wasn’t meant to give astronomers a starting point for plotting trajectories.

You won’t be able to point a telescope at a particular coordinate and find Jesus. Ascension isn’t a knowledge teaching. The Ascension is a Wisdom teaching.

Nonduality.

Richard Rohr, the Franciscan priest and teacher, known to many of you as the founder of the Center of Action and Contemplation here in Albuquerque describes the Wisdom this way: Richard describes Jesus of Nazareth as a teacher of nunduality. Are you familiar with that word? “Nonduality.”

Bruno Barnhart, the Camaldolese monk and Christian Mystic probably best described Christian nonduality. He talked about it as an intentional stance. The word simply means “not two.” God and Creation are not separate, not two. God and the soul are not two. You and I are not separate. Bruno Barnhart says that the shift to nondual thinking is a radical shift for Christians.

Dualistic approaches to Christianity have fueled the power imbalances that lead to abuse. Privileging Clergy over Laity, Men over Women, Certain Languages and cultures over others, the church has often reinforced dualities, blessed and baptized the binary divisions of our world which empower some at the expense of others.

The shift to a nondual understanding is radical, because it asks us to disconnect these power relationships, and to reconnect to fundamental oneness. It is as radical a stance today as it was when Jesus said, “I and the Father are One.”

Bruno Barnhart is one of the mid-twentieth century Christian monks, like Thomas Merton, who engaged in interreligious dialogue. Particularly Barnhart entered into conversation with Hindu and Buddhist traditions which taught nondualism, or advaita. Much of this work got underway in the 1960s and 1970s. But Barnhart does not see nonduality as something new for Christianity. He frames it as a recovery of Christianity’s original stance, of Jesus’ unitive way of seeing the world. “May they be one, as you and I are one.”

Similarly, Richard Rohr sees the work of Jesus, the preaching of Jesus, as oriented toward the conversion of the world. But for Jesus, that conversion is not what you might expect, given the agenda of the church. Jesus doesn’t care whether you’re an Episcopalian, not really. It’s not about making new Episcopalians, or even new Christians. It isn’t about that kind of dualistic identity, me vs. you. Jesus cares about a change of the heart and mind. Jesus wants us to be able to see the deep truth. We are not separate from one another. We are not separate from God. The illusion of separation is what gives some power over others. Jesus hopes we open our eyes to the truth of our unity. Jesus hopes we open our hearts and our hands to those on the underside of the games of power.

Cynthia Borgeault, one of Richard Rohr’s colleagues, one of Bruno Barnharts spiritual directees, is an Episcopal priest and Contemplative teacher. She describes the difference between dualistic thinking and nonduality as a “change of operating system.” She says faith is meant to completely reframe the way we see reality. She describes spirituality as a process of letting go. Letting go of our need for power. Letting go of our need to fully understand something. Because, as Augustine said, if you understand it, it’s not God. Spirituality is about letting go, even, even of our sense of self.

Ramana Maharshi, the Hindu teacher described the work of nonduality, of advaita, this way: “The wave is not separate from the ocean and any division of internal/external is only apparent.” We are not separate.

The Practice of Nonduality: Contemplation

Now, this all sounds like we could simply sit for a few minutes under a tree and reach enlightenment. We could simply ask the question “who am I?” realize we are one with God and one another, and walk away to nirvana. But, it doesn’t work that way, at least not for most of us. For most of us, letting go of our dualisms, letting go of our sense of separate self, letting go of our ego and our quests for power is the work of a lifetime.

You may have heard of nondual Christianity, and you may have heard it called by another name: Contemplative Christianity, or Mystical Christianity. Both terms are popular. And both point to the ongoing practice at the heart of this way of seeing. There is a great deal of stillness, a slowing of the mind, an opening of the heart which must occur. In some ways Christianity in the so-called West is turning back to our Orthodox siblings in the East to relearn the wisdom of our tradition. The hesychastic traditions, the traditions of silence among the monks of Greece, which were passed down from the early desert teachers, have long invited Christians to aim for union with God through inner prayer.

You can really only know the wisdom of a teaching like the Ascension, of a teaching like this reading from John, through contemplative practice, through letting go, through returning to stillness.

And stillness isn’t easy. I have to be honest. I identify with the story I once heard of a nun who was learning about Centering Prayer, a way of Contemplative prayer that invites the practitioner to sit for twenty or minutes, and to attempt to let go of the monkey-mind, to use a sacred word to ever so gently let go of our thoughts. This is the practice I have been struggling to practice for more than 20 years. In the story, the nun turned to her teacher, Thomas Keating, the founder of Centering Prayer and complained. She said in the twenty minutes she must have had 1000 thoughts. Keating didn’t blink. He smiled and said, “oh, what a gift. 1000 opportunities to return to God.” There are no shortcuts in this kind of work. And yet, I don’t think we can really understand parts of our tradition, like the Ascension, unless we have practice letting go of control. Unless we have practice letting go of our separate self.

So I realize now that I’ve now preached about nonduality, and quoted a bunch of edgy contemporary Catholic monks and even a Hindu teacher. But I want to assure you, this nonduality, this teaching of non-separation between humanity and the divine is not at the edge of our tradition. We’re not making up some sort of new age spirituality when we talk about Contemplation. This is vintage Christian teaching.

Listen to some words from a sermon on the Ascension by Augustine. As Christian theologians go, there’s probably no one more orthodox, no one more mainstream than Augustine, and yet, listen to what he says about the Ascension.

For just as [Christ] remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him… Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now, through the faith, hope and love that unites us to him? While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth are with him…These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he is our head and we are his body. No one ascended into heaven except Christ. Because we also are Christ: he is the Son of Man by his union with us, and we by our union with him are sons of God.” Children of God. -Augustine of Canterbury, Sermon on the Ascension

Augustine begins to play out what this deep teaching means. We are, all of us, children of God.

Nonduality in Practice, in a Divided World

Friends We are living through days of painful duality. We our watching dualities tear us apart. We are witnessing dualities fueling widespread violence and oppression. A couple weeks ago, the Rev. Winnie Varghese, one of my favorite preachers in the church, said “anytime a society starts to jail its children,” you know you are in trouble. Last week my family returned for a visit to St. Louis, and while we were there we saw Washington University’s campus entirely fenced off. After a brutal removal of protestors by police, they fenced the whole campus. “Anytime a society starts arresting its kids, you know you are in trouble.”

What is so painful in these days, for me, is how thoroughly we seem ready to identify the “us” and the “them.” We are fed readymade identities, and we reject one another when identities don’t align. We fail to listen to one another, listening instead for trigger words, indications that will allow us to play our prerecorded tapes and to place the other in a camp we label “them.”

We were in St. Louis to take part in a bar mitzvah for the kiddo of a rabbi colleague of mine, and it was wonderful, but also painful to feel the fear in the room. Antisemitism is on the rise. It feels like our world is asking us to take a side, either against the brutal bombing of Gaza or against antisemitism. It feels like there is no room for both/and, for condemning all violence, for condemning all hate. It feels like we have to take one side or the other in a dualistic fight.

In painful divided days like ours, I want to say to you, you don’t have to choose either/or. Your faith asks you to practice dismantling dualisms. Your faith invites you to believe that Jesus ascended above all things that Christ might fill all things. Your faith invites you to see the other, to open your heart, to realize we are not separate. We are a part of a tradition that asks us to practice the deep and fundamental unity between us as people, and between humanity and God.

You don’t have to stand there, staring up at the heavens, wondering where Jesus has gone. You don’t have to point your telescope at a particular place in the cosmos. Christ is with you. Christ is within you. Christ is always here working to reveal the deep unity at the heart of it all. Blessed Ascension-tide.