The advantage of questioning? Just think about how much stuff we’re told all the time to not question… at all. So many of our religions are that way. In a lot of Western religions it’s a basic tenet that you have to have faith. You’re not allowed to question. Uuuuuh, that’s not a good idea. If we’re not allowed to question, we can be fooled willy-nilly, right? We need to question our assumptions.
The problem with assumptions is that they’re assumptions.
I find that usually it’s an outside source that helps me question my assumptions. One I really like – I read a book called “Caesar’s Messiah.” This is a really hard read, I’ve got to warn you. The author is a historian and he goes, point after point after point, arguing and arguing that the whole story of Jesus was made up by the Romans in order to control the Jews. I don’t know if I believe it or not.
I don’t need to believe it or not. Like, what does it matter? What does my belief matter? The thing I really liked about this book was that it got into basic assumptions that I’ve had my whole life about how the world works, about how history works, about how religions work. It put this little crack in my ssumptions and made me go, “Okay, maybe things are way different than I always assumed they were.” So it became a nice tool to start to slice away other beliefs. This is exactly how nonduality works.
Nonduality is a knife that we use to slice through our concepts about things.
Let’s look at a very basic assumption: believing that Jesus Christ existed at all. Did he? We don’t have any proof. Do you need proof for something to be true? Do you need proof for something to not be true?
The cool thing about it is that you can go, “Okay, what if the old story is true? What does that mean? How does that mean the world works?”
Then go the other way. “What if this new story is true? What does that mean?”
What’s cool about challenging assumptions this way is that then I start noticing assumptions society works on that might not be that useful.
Like, have you ever questioned the fact that love is good, that we need more love? That’s a basic idea of all New Age spirituality. That’s one of the main teachings of Christianity. I never thought to question it. What if teaching people to love is a good way to control them and conquer them and keep them from rebelling? I mean… I don’t know for sure. You don’t know, either, but what if?
Always question. What’s the result of this, and what’s the result of that? Maye we don’t ever find the answer, but at least question it.
Nonduality says, if it’s a thought, it’s not real.
Nonduality does not say that nothing is real… just that if it’s a thought, it’s not real.
So then we have to disentangle what’s a thought and what’s real? What’s the difference? Is the thought about an apple different than the apple itself? Yes, it is.
So we can dive into this. My recommendation is to have some fun with it. There’s no need to get all depressed and angry. If you do that, I think you’re falling into a trap.
There’s also no reason to be searching, searching forever. No.
Life is alive. You’re alive. Use that to work through all these crazy, crazy things. Have some fun with the questioning.
One of my very favorite things to do when I notice myself thinking about something is to go, “So, what if it was the other way around?”
That goes straight to the heart of this story really easily. Did Jesus exist? What if it was the other way around? What if Jesus was actually invented by the Romans, never existed, and the purpose of it was to control the Jews? What would that mean? How would we be seeing that playing out now?
Then if I find myself going the other way and getting fixed it’s time to stop, “Oh yeah, hey, I believe this new thing.”
Stop, wait a second. What if it was the other way around? What if the stories of Jesus that we hear really are true? What would that mean?
So questioning, questioning, questioning. This is what nonduality really is telling us to do. Don’t just blindly accept the bullshit that runs through your brain.
Maybe that should be my new [Laughter] catchphrase.