Unitive Awareness: Talks on Christian Nonduality

Description

In 2012 my life opened up into Unitive Awareness. These days it is often called nonduality. It is the fulfillment of the prayer Jesus offered on our behalf on the night before he died. In the Gospel of John Jesus prayed for his disciples in the first century. Then he said, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity.” Other translators render this last phrase “perfectly one” or “completely one.”Coming to know this oneness was the culmination of over forty years of spiritual investigation during my life. During those forty years there had been two previous openings to the Divine, three in all, spaced approximately twenty years apart. In each instance the separate, personal, human self dissolved into awareness that I experienced as union with God. The two initial openings were temporary. The first in 1973 lasted only a few minutes and the second in 1993 lasted months. But the third in 2012 has not ceased in the nine years since. It remains the ever-present substratum of living. At the time of this spiritual awakening I had recently been called to serve as the pastor of a community church in rural New Hampshire. As a pastor I attempted to preach in such a way as to bridge the gap between my experience and the experience of the people in my church who were under my spiritual charge. Upon my retirement from pastoral ministry in 2016, I was able to speak about unitive awareness more often and more directly. I did not have to address where people were spiritually; I could speak from where I was spiritually. Then in 2020 the coronavirus epidemic struck. It turned out to be a blessing for my ministry. The enforced seclusion of the pandemic gave me the time and opportunity to share my thoughts on the subject with a wider audience. I started a podcast called “The Tao of Christ” and a YouTube channel called “Christian Nonduality.” In this setting I was able to explore in depth the nondual awareness that had become the fabric of life. Those who were interested could tune in; those who were not could tune out. I was able to explore how best to articulate Christian nonduality. For over a year I posted from one to three episodes per week. I began to hear from people from all around the world who resonated with what I had to say.Many listeners had left Christianity but had retained a belief that the teachings of Christ were still important and contained something more profound than the church taught. Others were Christians who had remained in the church but felt like outsiders. They struggled to remain faithful to a religion that did not proclaim Jesus’ gospel of oneness with God. Others came from non-Christian backgrounds and were excited to learn that the truths that they knew were also taught by the Christ.Out of this year of podcasts and videos have emerged three books. The Gospel of Nonduality goes through the Gospel of John expounding the nondual teachings of Jesus. Biblical Nonduality reveals the nondual pointers in many famous stories and sayings in the Old and New Testament. This present book contains teachings on a variety of spiritual topics. They were originally broadcast as independent episodes, and therefore the reader will notice some overlap in the topics of discussion. This book is published in the hope that it will make the teachings of Christian Nonduality more widely available.