Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#2907 - Tuessday, August 21, 2007 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nondual Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
One: Essential
Writings on Nonduality. Amazon site: http://nonduality.com/one.htm
Check availability at your local Borders Store: http://www.bordersstores.com/locator/locator.jsp?tt=gn
Ray Morose discusses true surrender to Jesus and what it means.
The Dilemma of Practicing Christians
by Ray Morose
Practicing Christians can come face to face with a
variety of challenging theological dilemmas, causing some to
question the authenticity of a good portion of Christian doctrine
and practice. Amongst the many challenges, understanding the
difference between belief and faith is a priority, even if it is
not stated using that terminology. On the surface, belief and
faith appear identical and interchangeable. However, the reality
is they are worlds apart and that separation is the cause of
intense turmoil, confusion, and argument; potentially isolating
one from the very thing active Christians are searching for.
A feature of the book, The Mind of Consciousness,
explores the experiential aspect of Christianity that appears to
have vanished over time. With good intent, practicing Christians
have been lead into following form (theology, dogma and ritual)
rather than the formless nature of the original teachings of
Jesus. Meaning his teachings are experiential and designed to be
experienced, opening the doors for the release of an empirical
faith, and not simply used to defend or uphold theology, dogma
and ritual to support a belief. The book explores all aspects of
existence, using reproducible spirit logic to establish an
intellectual foundation for existence, and using experiential
processes to confirm that foundation. It provides practical
pathways to gain experiential insight into the core of those
teachings and parables, allowing the reader to see into their
depth, illuminating the light within them and so within
themselves. This provides the reader with an experiential
foundation for individual existence that is practical and usable
in daily life, supporting and enhancing Christian values as an
empirical reality and not just as an ideal.
What most practicing Christians crave is a personal
connection they can feel or experience, rather than simply endure
a potentially restrictive belief within a frail hope that somehow
theology, dogma and ritual is sufficient. It is not sufficient.
The teachings of Jesus are meant to be experienced and by the
experience achieve the personal connection they are searching
for. A variety of historical circumstances has precluded the
majority of Christians from actively engaging in the true
adventure of directly experiencing what they are practicing. This
misadventure has opened the door to subliminal and overt
hypocrisy on multiple levels: for if the teachings are not
directly experienced they can easily be manipulated or convoluted
to manipulate others. One of the greatest direct and indirect
manipulations that has obscured the experiential aspect of
Christianity is the indiscriminate mixing of the terms belief and
faith.
Practicing Christians are constantly facing the
dilemma of belief versus faith. However, few will use that
terminology to define their disquiet as they may not have a clear
definition of those two terms. Belief is contained within the
restrictive borders of theology and dogma, whilst faith is
unrestricted and cannot be contained within any form of border.
Normally, there is an attempt to create faith in a belief, but
that is attempting to superimpose non-restriction upon
restriction. It simply does not work as
restriction/non-restriction form a duality. Meaning, they are
constantly held at arms length from the other by their nature.
That is not implying it is impossible, just incredibly difficult.
The problem is, has been, and will always be the restrictive
borders of a belief attempting to constrain faith within its
borders, but faith is unrestricted and cannot be held within
borders. Hence, the difficulty of having restrictive beliefs form
an unrestricted faith, and an unrestricted faith is what Jesus
was constantly pointing at in all his teachings. Consequently,
have practicing Christians been missing the point of their
religion by focusing upon restrictive beliefs and rituals and not
focusing upon developing a true unrestricted and experiential
faith that is both belief and border free. Does that misalignment
result in merely paying lip service to their born-into or adopted
religion, potentially obscuring the real meaning and experiential
depth of Christianity within their lives? Or, has early childhood
religious conditioning, relying upon restrictive belief,
instilled fear as a guide rather than experientially discovering
an unrestricted faith that unveils compassionate insight and
equanimity as a guide?
The forgoing unveils the dilemma of practicing
Christians, even if it is not recognized as a dilemma, how to use
restrictive beliefs to develop unrestricted faith without
resorting to fear as a teaching tool. If one reads the teachings
of Jesus, nowhere does he use fear to teach, but employs short
stories and parables, allowing the listener, (now reader), to
experience the meaning in relation to their lives. Those teaching
stories and parables are designed to inspire compassionate
insight, revealing the true nature of our existence, exposing how
to positively and directionally interrelate with others and the
source of creation. Meaning, you must experience those teaching
stories and parables and not just know about them. By
experiencing them, you are developing experiential knowledge,
which is the cornerstone of an unrestricted faith, free of belief
borders. Then there is nothing to believe as the experience forms
‘what’ and ‘who’ you are, revealing and
inspiring compassionate insight and equanimity without trying to
do so. With that experiential knowledge, you become compassionate
insight, which is unrestricted faith in action and the foundation
of the Christian religion. It also releases a surety that is
fearless, as now you experientially know, free of restrictive
beliefs and constructs, and nothing can ever alter or unsettle
that surety. In short, belief requires effort. Faith is
effortless.
As faith is difficult to teach, simply because it is
unrestricted, belief processes have been established as a tool to
develop faith. Problems within that development arise as belief
processes, although easy to implement, normally rely upon
restrictive fear as a prodding tool to maintain restrictive
beliefs. However, the life, parables, and teaching stories of
Jesus that the Christian religion is built upon contain no
element of fear. In fact, they were presented to eliminate fear,
which is one aspect of the Good News. The intent of the
original compilers of the Christian religion was honorable.
However, that intent has been transformed by the restrictive
belief borders morphing into being more important than
understanding ‘how’ and ‘why’ the belief was
created and what it was created upon. The transformation may have
arisen as enforcing restrictive beliefs allow a few to control
large populations, which arguably had value in the early days of
our evolutionary civilization. At one time in our developmental
history, control by fear may have been relevant, but today that
relevance is gone, which is possibly one aspect of why the
populations of some denominations are thinning. One of the major
reasons for this desertion is that practicing Christians are not
actively encouraged, or given the opportunity, to explore the
experiential core of their religion. They are required to adhere
strictly to the restrictive borders of their belief, without
questioning ‘how’ and ‘why’ that belief
exists, which strangely enough is moving contrary to the
teachings of Jesus. Those teachings are founded upon experiential
knowledge, and restricting that adventure restricts his teaching,
preventing the development of a true faith as faith is
unrestricted and requires experiential knowledge to confirm it as
actual and not just accepted and presented as a required posture.
Belief, although directional and supportive, is
restrictive or confined within the created borders of the belief,
making belief an accepted direction. On the other hand, faith is
unrestricted and free of any form of borders, making faith
experiential. This is entering the great learning duality of
restriction/non-restriction, bringing experiential knowledge into
the world of Christianity, which to date has a tendency to
mistrust, question and sometimes repudiate such personal
approaches to understand that religion. However, if the gospels
of Jesus are read with openness, experiencing his statements and
parables are the core of his teachings. Meaning, they are
intended to be experienced, making the living heart of
Christianity experiential, using his teachings as empirical
guidelines and direction. When the gospels of Jesus are
experienced, a pure unrestricted faith arises of its own accord,
bypassing belief that may have taken the experiencer up to the
threshold of that experience, but not beyond it. It is right here
where theology can become a barrier to what the theology is
professing to accomplish. This is not suggesting belief inspired
theology is incorrect or wrong, just potentially limiting, as
most theology rests upon restrictive belief. However, the
teachings of Jesus rest upon unrestricted faith that is
internally released by experiencing the instruction within his
directional parables. The discovery and/or release of an
empirical faith can be referred to as true surrender, which is
experientially knowing the inner truth and wisdom of those
parables. When that discovery is a personal living reality, one
has entered into the purity of a perfect, honest, and boundless
faith, which is the true intent of the teachings of Jesus.
The daily adventure of exploring the experiential
depth of Jesus’ unrestricted parables gives practicing
Christians something to intellectually work with within their
daily lives, and not just accept and live by the theology built
upon those parables. The effort provides the means for each to
confirm their beliefs by experiential knowledge, revealing the
effortlessness of being living faith, actualized by living
within, and as, compassionate insight and equanimity. That one
action manifests the directional Spirit-Energy of the universe
within physical manifestation, which is personally ‘touching’
what cannot be physically ‘touched’. That demonstrable
actualization, unconditioned by any form of belief, unveils the
true directional and connective power of a living faith,
unveiling the universality of Jesus’ teachings that have
systematically been restricted, preventing that universality from
becoming actualized. With pure faith guiding your life, free of
encumbering beliefs, you will discover there is nothing to teach,
or your life is the teaching.
Ocean View Publications
Ray Morose
NSW 2483