The Tao of Christ
264 episodes - English - Latest episode: 14 days ago - ★★★★★ - 84 ratingsThe Tao of Christ is a podcast which explores the mystical roots of Christianity, which Jesus called the Kingdom of God, which church historian Evelyn Underhill called the Unitive Life, which Richard Rohr calls the Universal Christ, and which I refer to as Christian nonduality, unitive awareness, or union with God. This is the Tao of Christ.
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Episodes
Holy Communion and Nonduality
November 21, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 9.19 MBThe Lord’s Supper is a symbol of what I call unitive awareness, which Jesus called the Kingdom of God. Also called Holy Communion or the Eucharist, this Christian ritual is a symbolic proclamation of nonduality.
Already Whole
November 18, 2020 12:00 - 14 minutes - 10.3 MBIn chapter five of John’s Gospel, we find a story that teaches us an important truth about nonduality. It is the story of Jesus healing a man at the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. It is much more than just a miracle tale. Like all the stories about Jesus in the Gospel of John, this is intended as symbolic. It is proclaiming the ultimate healing that comes about by realizing one’s true Self and waking up to the Truth of Eternal Life. On the surface this is a physical healing story, but it is...
Drinking from the Well of Nonduality
November 15, 2020 12:00 - 14 minutes - 10.1 MBEvery chapter of the Gospel of John proclaims nondual reality. Today I am going to deal with one of the greatest chapters in the gospel, but one that does not get the attention it deserves. Chapter 4 has the story of Jesus meeting with a Samaritan woman at the well. It is a powerfully symbolic story. This story is filled with dualities. It is like a living illustration of the Yin Yang symbol. Here is a man and a woman, a Jew and a Samaritan, two different races and two different religions....
What John 3:16 Really Means
November 12, 2020 12:00 - 16 minutes - 11.4 MBIn this episode I look at the most famous verse in the Bible. I interpret John 3:16 as a description of unitive awareness or nondual Reality. The verse is not a call to evangelical Christian conversion but a call to spiritual awakening.
Jesus was Spiritual but Not Religious
November 09, 2020 12:00 - 14 minutes - 9.95 MBNonduality has more to do with spirituality than religion. Nonduality is represented in the mystical branch of every religious tradition, but it tends to be relegated to the periphery of the religion. It is sometimes branded as heresy and persecuted by the religion’s powerbrokers, especially in Western religions. That was the case in Jesus’ day. He was opposed by both the temple priests and the synagogue leaders of his own faith. Jesus was a disrupter of what we would call today organized ...
How to Turn Water into Wine
November 06, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 9.33 MBIn this episode I look at the famous story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee and interpret it as an expression of nonduality. It is symbolic of the transformation from seeing this world as duality to seeing it as nonduality. This story is a symbolic reenactment of the creation story with Jesus playing the role of the Source or Word of creation. John 2:1-11
Come and See: The Path of Direct Inquiry
November 02, 2020 12:00 - 14 minutes - 10.3 MBOne day John the Baptist was with two of his disciples, and he saw Jesus walk by. He exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God!” I can imagine Jesus saying under his breath, “Give me a break, John. Will you stop saying these things?!” Anyway John’s two disciples follow Jesus down the road. Jesus turns around and says, “What do you want?” They answer, “Rabbi ,where are you staying?” Jesus responds “Come and see.” That response “Come and see” is more than just an offhand comment. It is his approach...
The Man Who Did Not Wake Up
October 29, 2020 11:00 - 14 minutes - 10.2 MBIn this episode I look at a person who is mentioned repeatedly in the first chapter of the Gospel of John: John the Baptist, not to be confused with John the apostle. I call him “the man who did not wake up.” We could call him the unChrist or the unBuddha. He was a popular preacher in his day and even considered a prophet by many including Jesus. But he never saw the Kingdom of God, which was Jesus’ term for nondual awareness. I see him as an example of a spiritual seeker who never reached ...
Enlightenment Christian Style
October 25, 2020 11:00 - 17 minutes - 12.2 MBIn these episodes I am interpreting the Gospel of John as a gospel of nonduality. In this episode we look at John 1:9-14 : The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will ...
Nonduality and the Gospel of John
October 20, 2020 11:00 - 14 minutes - 10.3 MBIn this episode I begin a study of the Gospel of John, interpreting it as a proclamation of the message of nonduality. Last time I gave you some background information on the gospel, and today we are going to get into the text itself. The Gospel of John begins with the beginning. It repeats the famous words of Genesis 1 “In the beginning ….” But instead of telling a dualistic story of creation, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” it says “In the beginning was the Wor...
The Gospel of Nonduality
October 15, 2020 11:00 - 15 minutes - 11 MBI have been thinking about going through one of the gospels in the New Testament and showing how it presents Jesus’ message of nonduality. People have been contacting me and asking me to do the same. So I am going to give it a try. I have chosen the Gospel of John because it is the most nondual book in the New Testament. In this episode I give background information on this gospel and explain how and why it came to communicate the nondual teachings of Jesus so faithfully, compared to the ot...
A Story of Heaven and Hell
October 10, 2020 11:00 - 15 minutes - 10.6 MBA Christian, a Jew, a Muslim and a Hindu wake up in the afterlife.
The Threefold Path of Jesus
October 05, 2020 11:00 - 18 minutes - 12.7 MBI have had listeners contact me when they are at an impasse in the spiritual life, and they ask the question: What can I do? What can I do to experience unitive awareness, to know nondual awareness? What can I do to wake up, to be enlightened or liberated or experience eternal life? In the New Testament the form of this question is normally phrased as: what must I do to be saved or to inherit eternal life or enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Many have been on the spiritual path for a long time ...
Is This World an Illusion?
September 30, 2020 11:00 - 15 minutes - 10.4 MBIn this episode I explore the oft repeated claim that this world is illusory. That it does not really exist. How does the Indian concept of maya jibe with the Christian belief in the reality and goodness of creation? The truth behind the word maya is not that the world does not exist. It is that it is not what it appears to be.
The Spiritual Nature of Consciousness
September 25, 2020 11:00 - 16 minutes - 11.6 MBIn this episode I explore the idea that is advanced by many nondual teachers that the brain does not produce consciousness. They say that consciousness exists separate from the brain. One person compared the brain to a radio receiver that picks up the radio waves of Cosmic Consciousness. They use out-of-body experiences, Near Death Experiences, and past life memories as evidence that consciousness exists independent of body. Many think that when the body dies there is no significant change i...
Depression and Nondual Awareness
September 20, 2020 11:00 - 15 minutes - 10.9 MBIn this episode I explore the effect that nondual awareness has on depression and other emotional and psychological problems.
How to Enter Through the Narrow Gate
September 17, 2020 11:00 - 13 minutes - 9.55 MBJesus tells us how to enter into Unitive Awareness, which he called the Kingdom of God. He was a teacher of Nondual Reality and taught how to enter into what other spiritual traditions call Enlightenment, Liberation or Spiritual Awakening. In the Sermon on the Mount, he said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Jesus...
Seek Peace and Pursue it
September 14, 2020 11:00 - 14 minutes - 9.68 MBThis episode explore how to sustain the sense of inner peace in nondual awareness, and how to express that inner peace in peacemaking in the world.
Deep Calls to Deep
September 11, 2020 11:00 - 14 minutes - 9.81 MBIn recording these episodes I try to communicate Unitive Awareness. It is not easy. Not only does language seem inadequate to the task of communicating this indescribable reality, but even the process of communication has pitfalls. I have been noticing recently how important it is to pay attention to who is doing the speaking and who is doing the listening. Which “I” is speaking and which “you” is being addressed. As I have said, there are two selves, what Thomas Merton has called True Sel...
God and Consciousness
September 08, 2020 11:00 - 15 minutes - 10.8 MBIn this episode I explore the relationship between Nondual God and Consciousness.
Unfriend Your Self
September 06, 2020 11:00 - 14 minutes - 10.1 MBIn this episode I explore the two selves – the True Self and the false self. I talk about a strategy to draw attention away from the little self and thereby live out of the Big Self, using the idea of unfriending on Facebook. In the background you will also hear a guest appearance by my cat Percy, as he meows for attention and plays with a squeaking toy, thereby impersonating the false self.
Trinity and Nonduality
September 04, 2020 11:00 - 13 minutes - 9.26 MBIn this episode I explore how the Christian doctrine of the Trinity points to nondual Reality and can usher us into unitive awareness.
Liberation by Grace through Faith
September 02, 2020 11:00 - 14 minutes - 10.2 MBThe doctrine of salvation by grace through faith is well known in Christian circles. But the principle’s real power is found when it is applied, not to doctrines but to Unitive awareness or Nondual Awareness. The Protestant principle is true after all, but applied to Reality and not to ideas. You can call it salvation or eternal life. Other spiritual traditions call it enlightenment or awakening. The Christ called it the Kingdom of God. The Buddha called it nirvana. Zen calls it satori. He...
You Are Not Who You Think You Are
August 31, 2020 11:00 - 16 minutes - 11.3 MBYou are not who you think you are. You are not WHAT you think you are. French Christian philosopher and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin famously said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Even that does not quite communicate it. It makes it sounds like there are a lot of little spiritual beings having human experiences. There is only one Being, what Christian philosopher Paul Tillich called Being Itself or the...
The Book of Job, the Problem of Suffering, and Spiritual Awakening
August 29, 2020 12:00 - 22 minutes - 15.2 MBMany Christians do not investigate – or even know about - the possibility of spiritual awakening because they do not hear about it from the pulpit or see examples of it in the Christian Bible. So they settle for a second-hand faith of believing in things. But the truth is that there are biblical examples hiding in plain sight. One of them is the Old Testament character of Job. Job is an Old Testament Buddha whose account of spiritual awakening is recorded in the Book of Job. The events tha...
The Hunting of the Snark
August 26, 2020 12:00 - 12 minutes - 8.33 MBIn this episode I interpret Lewis Carroll’s enigmatic 1876 poem “The Hunting of the Snark” as an allegory of the spiritual life. In particular I see it as portraying the spiritual practice known as self-inquiry. If you are interested in reading the poem, here is an online version of it from the Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43909/the-hunting-of-the-snark
Seeing God in Your Backyard
August 22, 2020 12:00 - 17 minutes - 12.2 MBThis is an experiential episode where I take the listener through the process of seeing God – experiencing the true nondual of ourselves and the universe – as seen in our own backyards.
Aging and Enlightenment
August 19, 2020 12:00 - 15 minutes - 10.4 MBThis episode explores how aging is related to the spiritual life. In fact aging helps us in spirituality. It is an aid to what we call spiritual awakening or enlightenment, what Christians call salvation, the Kingdom of God or eternal life. We can see the value of aging in the four classical Indian stages of life known as ashramas. The aging process is about shedding the small self with all its attachments and identifying with the Divine Self. It is about dying to self, dying before we die s...
Revelation and Nonduality
August 15, 2020 12:00 - 11 minutes - 7.91 MBToday I am going to talk about Revelation and its relation to Nonduality. By the word Revelation, I mean the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian bible. But it is also related to the theological concept of Revelation, meaning that God reveals God’s self to us. The Greek word for revelation, found in the first sentence of the Book of Revelation literally unveiling or uncovering, which is exactly what spiritual awakening is. Spiritual awakening is an unveiling of what is and has...
Donald Trump as Zen Master
August 12, 2020 12:00 - 14 minutes - 9.95 MBThe title Zen Master is probably not the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of Donald Trump. He is not a religious or spiritual man. Trump is a nominal Christian at best. Zen Buddhism is certainly not part of his life. Yet in a sense he has played the role of Zen Master for me. In this episode I explain how the controversial of the 45th president has led me into a greater openness and aided the process of integrating nondual awareness into daily life.
Nondual Christian Awareness
August 08, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 9.2 MBRecently I received two comments from listeners about my episode on Nondual Meditation. One was from a listener from Canada by email. The other was in an online interview with Corey Farr who has a podcast entitled, “A Christian Reads the Tao te Ching,” which is an excellent podcast by the way. I will post a link to it. In addition to talking about my Christian version of the Tao Te Ching, Corey wanted to talk about meditation and referred that episode about nondual Meditation. So I went bac...
Nondual Christian Awareness
August 08, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 9.2 MBRecently I received two comments from listeners about my episode on Nondual Meditation. One was from a listener from Canada by email. The other was in an online interview with Corey Farr who has a podcast entitled, “A Christian Reads the Tao te Ching,” which is an excellent podcast by the way. I will post a link to it. In addition to talking about my Christian version of the Tao Te Ching, Corey wanted to talk about meditation and referred that episode about nondual Meditation. So I went bac...
The Gospel of Thomas
August 05, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 9.38 MBMany Christians are attracted to the truth of nonduality. It resonates as true at a deep spiritual level. Deep speaks to deep, as the psalmist says. But they are wary because it does not seem to fit with what the Bible says. Scripture has a powerful hold on Christians, and we hesitate to stray too far from its authority for fear of drifting away from the “faith once for all delivered to the saints” as the Letter of Jude puts it. What most Christians do not realize is that the books that we ...
Interview With Corey Farr about The Tao of Christ: A Christian Version of the Tao Te Ching
August 03, 2020 15:00 - 47 minutes - 32.7 MBIn this episode podcaster Corey Farr interviews Marshall Davis on his podcast “A Christian Reads the Tao Te Ching.” Corey interviews me about my book The Tao of Christ: A Christian Version of the Tao Te Ching. He also asks questions about nonduality and specifically my podcast episode on Nondual Meditation. So we get into nonduality quite a bit. So here it is. I hope you enjoy it. You can find the original recording at Corey’s website at CoreyFarr.com https://www.coreyfarr.com/
Nature as a Doorway to Spiritual Awakening
August 01, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 9.55 MBIn this episode I explore an alternative to the typical self-inquiry that is standard fare in nondualism. Meditation upon Nature - the natural envoronment and our connection to it - can be a more direct path to spiritual awakening.
The Bible and Nonduality
July 29, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 9.11 MBWhen it comes to Christian nonduality, one of the issues that is often raised by both inquirers and critics is its approach to the Bible. The nondual attitude toward Scripture is different than the traditional reverence that Christians have for the Bible. In traditional Christianity, Scripture serves as the foundation for everything that a Christian believes and does. When Christians want to know what is true and what is not, they look to the Bible. Christians use words like authoritative ...
Is God Personal or Impersonal?
July 25, 2020 12:00 - 12 minutes - 8.87 MBIt would be tempting to answer this question using concepts, but of course nonduality is not about concepts or ideas. It is about direct experience. So I will refer the question back to you my listeners and ask you to see for yourself. One of the standard tecniques in nonduality is direct inquiry into who or what we are. We look for a separate personal self with a name and a history, and discover to our surprise that such a being does not exist. The self or ego is just an idea tacked onto e...
Politics and Nonduality
July 22, 2020 12:00 - 15 minutes - 10.4 MBIn this episode I explore how we can engage in political and social activism as an expression of nonduality.
Cosmic Consciousness
July 18, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 9.57 MBIn this episode I explore the awareness of our unity – in fact our identity – with all life and all existence. This is manifested in most people as an affinity or love for Nature. Many people feel more in touch with God in Nature than they do in church. This is because we intuitively sense our primal connection to the creation. This consciousness is attested to in the Christian Scriptures and more importantly in our direct experience. This is cosmic consciousness. We are one with the cosmos,...
That Thou Art
July 15, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 9.3 MBIn this episode I explore the teaching of Jesus and the psalms, also found in the Upanishads, that the spiritual essence of humans is identical to the spiritual essence of the Universe. There is one essence of everything in the universe and that is divine.
The Spiritual Awakening of Jacob
July 11, 2020 12:00 - 12 minutes - 8.8 MBThere are examples of nondual spiritual awakening throughout the Bible. It is just that they are not usually identified as such or taught as such. One such example is the story commonly referred to as Jacob’s Ladder. Today I will look at that story in combination with another story from Jacob’s life that happens a number of years later - the story of Jacob wrestling with God. We might call that Part 2 of his awakening. Together they tell how Jacob woke up to the nondual nature of reality, wh...
Nondual Meditation
July 08, 2020 12:00 - 16 minutes - 11.2 MBIn ths episode I explore the difference between traditional meditation, Christian meditation, and nondual meditation.
Christianity and Nonduality
July 04, 2020 12:00 - 15 minutes - 10.8 MBIn this episode I explain how the nondual message of Jesus became the institutional religion that we know today as Christianity, and how the original message of Jesus can be recovered in our lives. I also explain why I describe myself as as a nondual Christian or a Christian nondualist.
The Liberation of Moses
July 01, 2020 12:00 - 12 minutes - 8.91 MBOne reason why Christians do not pursue the spiritual goal of what is called enlightenment, spiritual awakening or liberation is the lack of role models in the Bible. Buddhists pursue Enlightenment because that was the Buddha’s experience, and he is an example for others. That is the main focus of the early Buddhist scriptures. The same is true of Hindus, with the example of sannyasi, sadhus and yogis who practiced the disciplines of asceticism and meditation. The Hindu scriptures, especiall...
Seeing What You Really Are
June 28, 2020 12:00 - 18 minutes - 12.9 MBThis episode is going to be very practical. I am going to point directly to what you really are. There are three steps I am going to take you through. In reality there is only one step – just seeing. The first two are preliminary steps to the third step, which is the only one that counts. Kind of like when a long jumper runs up to the approach. Only the final takeoff counts. The first step is to look carefully at our physical nature. The second is to look at our psychological nature. The thi...
The Christ Within
June 24, 2020 12:00 - 12 minutes - 8.45 MBChrist is within you. Christ is not sitting on a golden throne next to his Heavenly Father in some distant heaven where he rules over the world. This traditional language of Christian theology is true in a spiritual sense but not literally. Heaven is not in the sky or outer space. The ancient geography of the heavens describes the inner landscape of the soul. Christ is within. That idea is regularly voiced in popular Christianity, especially the evangelical variety. Evangelicals talk about ...
Hypocrisy and Nonduality
June 20, 2020 12:00 - 12 minutes - 8.92 MBJesus could not stomach religious people who self-righteously judged others. He called them hypocrites. The word used in the Gospels is the Greek word hypokrites, which is transliterated directly into the English language as hypocrite. The word refers to “an actor” or “a stage player” in Greek theatre. The Greek word is a compound noun made up of two smaller Greek words, which literally translate as “an interpreter from underneath.” That is a reference to actors in ancient Greek theater wh...
Sin, Forgiveness and Nonduality
June 17, 2020 12:00 - 14 minutes - 10.1 MBSin is duality. Nonduality is salvation. Forgiveness is nondual awareness. That in ten words is what I talk about in this episode. The only sin is not looking at who we really are – and who God really is - and not believing what we see. It is being too blind to see, as Jesus told the Pharisees. That is the original sin. The only solution to this sin is to open our eyes. It is so easy. Even a child can see it. In fact only when we see like a little child can we do it. Jesus said that children...
The Origin of Duality
June 14, 2020 12:00 - 14 minutes - 9.7 MBNonduality is Reality. That was the insight of Jesus and the earliest Christian message of the Kingdom of God. Nonduality is the truth at the core of all great spiritual traditions of the world. But if nonduality is reality, then where did duality come from? If all is One, how did two come about. How did we find ourselves in this seemingly dualistic world? Every religious tradition has its own origin myths to explain this. The Tao Te Ching says simply, “The Tao begot one. One begot two. Tw...
Christ Consciousness
June 11, 2020 12:00 - 13 minutes - 9.01 MBThe oldest Christian message is Christ Consciousness. One of the oldest sayings in the New Testament is found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, but Paul did not write it. It is much older. It is from an early Christian hymns which Paul was quoting in Philippians 2. It reads: Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. But emptied Himself, and took the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness ...