Christianity & Non-duality
Non-duality in Christianity and Taoism
As a teacher of ‘interfaith as inter-spiritual living’, I greatly admire the videos and books on Christian Non-duality by Marshall Davis. Inspiring!
The Golden Rule is the heart, or is the context, for the inter-spiritual;
I have never seen the like of the many brilliant videos and books by Marshall Davis.
But one part, of one book, disturbs me. That book is The Tao of Christ: A Christian Version of the Tao Te Ching
We will need to touch base with other teachers who teach in the same area including Coleman Barks, Wayne Teasdale, and Ken Wilber;
Wayne Teasdale’s book is seminal and he coined the term ‘interspiritual’ and he shepherded the 10 year interfaith dialogue that gave rise to the Snowmass Principles see HERE
Ken Wilber is a colossus of the mystical and philosophy see HERE
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In his book The Tao of Christ: A Christian Version of the Tao Te Ching Marshall Davis brilliantly says;
“How does one make muddy water clear? Be still, and the water will clear in time. How does one become still? Let everything happen, and stillness appears.”
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However, Marshall’s rendering may not best serve his purposes?
Those purposes are;
“Many phrases in the Tao Te Ching echo concepts and passages in the Christian scriptures.
I have tried to make these connections explicit.
I use the word ‘gospel’ to describe the eternal message of God in much the same way that in the New Testament says that the gospel was proclaimed to the Hebrew people centuries before the birth of Christ (Hebrew 4:2)
It is my hope that this Christian interpretation of the Tao Te Ching will reveal how God worked in the hearts of the Chinese people long before the first Missionaries ever told them about Jesus of Nazareth
It is also my hope that this translation will make it easier for Christians to hear the voice of Christ in this ancient Chinese work.”
So the purpose is to write a new ‘translation’ using Christian terminology that will ease the likelihood that Christians will accept the Tao Te Ching. and its ‘mysterious’ writer
It seems to me that this strategy’s chances are dependent on how many of Marshall’s brilliant YouTube videos or books they have watched or read
There are 250 translations of the Tao Te Ching -see HERE
The best site for reading many of the translations has been maintained by Gábor Terebess from Hungary — see HERE
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Question — How much weight should we give to chapter 1 of the Tao?
My view is that providing you have a good understanding of a good (composite) translation Chapter 1 is complete in itself. It is an archetype for the mystical ‘dual Non-dual’ heart of all great and genuine religions.
The remaining chapters are commentaries and branches of Chapter 1.
This is why below I focus on only Chapter 1. If you get the Chapter wrong the whole house falls.
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Coleman Barks ‘re-presentations’ of works by Rumi is a good example of where someone doesn’t have mastery of the two relevant languages. He read many translations. He is an accomplished poet and professor of literature. He went frequently to Iran (visiting the family of a friend of mine). He was honoured with a doctorate by Tehran University — see HERE
Barks also had a mystical relationship with Rumi.
Perhaps Barks might subscribe to my dictum “All translation is creation.”
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Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching created by Marshall Davis for Christians
The God who can be described
is not the new God.
Is not the true God
The name that can be spoken
is not the name of God
God is unnamable
Naming God is the beginning
of religion.
Let's go and you find God
Hold on, holder and you get theology.
Knowing God and not knowing God
are ultimately the same.
Their source is unknowing
In the beginning darkness
Was on the face of the Deep.
Know this and you know all.
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I made a composite ‘translation’ of the Tao Te Ching to eliminate certain problems when teaching it within our One Garden interfaith as inter-spirituality sessions;
Roger’s (composite) version of Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching
The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The unnameable is the source of heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of the 10 thousand things.
When desireless, we can see/sense Infinite Mystery.
When desiring, one sees the manifestations.
Both spring from the same source but, differ in name.
A FEW ‘TAKEAWAY’ POINTERS
To ‘induct’ others into appreciating and loving The Way, The Tao Te Ching, we should prepare a version that best suits each particular learning group.
I created my composite version to avoid the term ‘darkness’.
Could we prepare versions suitable for the faith of others including Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Baha’is?
In Marshall’s version ‘Naming God is the beginning of religion’ is less true for Christian as well as others than The named is the mother of the 10 thousand things because things are of the dual world and religions, God, Non-duality, the ultimate of I = Awareness, are not things. Thingifying no-things is anathema, blasphemy even.
Marshall’s Knowing God and not knowing God are ultimately the same is not the case. Knowing God is accepting the ineffable. The closest we get is in the Non-dual state which is timeless, spaceless and massless, but it must not be an assertion that I am on a par as a separate being with God which is ultimate blasphemy. The truth of I = Awareness is that I am God but he is not me. I am in God but he cannot be said to be in me.
Having written all of the above I must repeat the books and videos by Marshall Davis are one of my biggest breakthroughs into deeper inter-spiritual understanding for which I will always be grateful.
A reminder of the age of the Tao Te Ching;
Above is a part of a Taoist manuscript, ink on silk, 2nd century BCE, Han Dynasty, unearthed from Mawangdui tomb 3rd, Changsha, Hunan Province, China. Hunan Province Museum
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For me, all those about whom I write articles, point unerringly to
‘I = Awareness’
Here is the Abstract from a brilliant journal article by Buddhist professor of psychiatry Arthur J Deikman. The complete article is in ‘More Resources’ below;
Abstract:
Introspection reveals that the core of subjectivity — the ‘I’ — is identical to awareness.
This ‘I’ should be differentiated from the various aspects of the physical person and its mental contents which form the `self.
Most discussions of consciousness confuse the ‘I’ and the ‘self’.
In fact, our experience is fundamentally dualistic — not the dualism of mind and matter — but that of the ‘I’ and that which is observed.
The identity of awareness and the ‘I’ means that we know awareness by being it, thus solving the problem of the infinite regress of observers.
It follows that whatever our ontology of awareness may be, it must also be the same for ‘ I’.
OTHER RESOURCES
Many versions of the Tao Te Ching on the Terebess site;
5 translations of the Tao Te Ching compared side by side
Marshall Davis has a whole range of YouTube videos on Christ, Christianity and the Non-dual — see here Marshall Davis
Books by Marshall Davis see HERE
