Nonduality Salon (/ \)

The Self, Maya, and the Heart: The Fundamentals of Non-Dualism, page 9

Again:
"I and my Father are one." John 10: 30

Explaining how his Truth is in fact the Truth of all, Christ states in John Ch 15:

"Abide in me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me. (verse 4)
"I am the vine, you are the branches...apart from me you can do nothing." (verse 5)

In John Chapter 17, Christ prays to the Father on behalf of the Apostles, that He sanctify them by His Truth, and that they might be one with the Father, just as He (Jesus) is. Here, one can see that His state is always one with the Father. One is quite clear that Christ’s permanent abiding state, when He says "where I am", is unrelated to the world.
He asks:

"Father, I will that they also, whom thou has given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which you have given me: For you have loved me from before the foundation of the world." (verse 24)

The notion of Spirit, that He (Christ) and God (the Father) are one in Spirit also conveys the sense of the formlessness of Brahman (the Father), as well as our own Truth as spirit versus body:

"God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (John 4: 24)

Apart from all Christ's statements and parables about non-judgment (Mat Ch 7: 1-2; Luke 6: 37-42; John 8: 6-11), non-attachment (Mat 6: 40), non-anxiety (Mat 6: 25-34; Luke 12: 22-32), perpetual forgiveness (Luke 17: 4; Mat 19: 21-22; Mark 11:25), compassion (Mat 25: 34-40), humility (Mat 18: 4), and so on, which all relate to a discarding of attention to the world ("Take no thought for your life." Mat 6: 25), probably the most profoundly direct instruction Christ gave concerning the teaching of non-dualism is from Luke 11:

"The light of the body is the eye: Therefore, when thine eye is single, your whole body will be filled with light...." (verse 34)

To a non-dualist, this is easily paraphrased as follows: The part of you that sees (the seer, one's Self) is your true light. Therefore, if you hold the seer (subject-"I") singlely or exclusively (versus giving attention to thoughts) you will have illumination - or what some call the "enlightenment of the whole body". This is the exact instruction of the non-dualists of the Vedanta tradition, with the same described outcome, as related above. (As if God’s First and Second Commandments were’t clear enough in terms of having no images before the “I AM.”)
And as to the Heart: "The wise man's heart is at his right hand, but the fool's heart at his left." Ecclesiastes 10: 2. And: "The pure in heart shall see God ("I AM")." Matt 3: 8.

Anyone in the east, coming to a similar conclusion about Christ, might call the approach of Christ the path of "sudden realization", because his teachings are often in the form of commandments or statements giving no ground (room to maneuver). His approach permits no delays, no second chance, no outs, no remedy, no alternatives to the tribulations of the world. His way to God (the "I AM" of the Old Testament) is full of beatitudes and purity (Mat 5: 2-11), blessedness and love (Mat 6: 38-48). But those that oppose the Spirit "will never be forgiven" (Luke 12: 10, Mat 12: 32; Mark 3: 29) and "will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there is great suffering and gnashing of teeth." (Mat 8: 12;14: 50; 22: 13; 24: 51)

In considering Christ as a non-dualist, like Krishna, or the Avadhut, the Rishis of the Upanishads, or one of the Buddhas, the approach might be stated as "radical" or "ruthless". The reading of the New Testament requires a constant coming to terms with Christ's life: His all knowingness of each person close or far away, now and in the future, how they will act, what will happen, when, and why; the constant ceaseless flow of power, where miracles fall from him, undirected. In the non-dualist texts, these are the powers described as God's, to be all knowing, all powerful, and so forth. In Revelations, Ch I: 8, Christ tells John:

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending" sayeth the Lord, "which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."

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