Nondualism is the view that things are connected rather than separate. Photo: By Enis Can Ceyhan on Unsplash.
Thought for the Week: Gerard Guiton gives praüs a chance
‘What did Jesus mean when he said,“The meek shall inherit the earth”?’
What did Jesus mean when he said, ‘The meek shall inherit the earth’? Surely it’s the powerful and their descendants who ‘inherit’ the earth and its riches. Isn’t that what history tells us? Look at the landed aristocracy, there’s a lot of inheriting going on there. And a great deal of power.
But Jesus was right. The biblical Greek word for ‘meek’ (praüs) entails exercising majestic strength, a disciplined calmness, by those who know when to be strong or angry and when not to be; who know their boundaries, and how far to go. Crucially, praüs also involves being compassionate, being aware of the needs of others and their uniqueness to Love, and of generously extending oneself for them without the need for praise or reward.
I think the key to giving praüs a chance is laying down classical theism in favour of nondualism (the view that things are connected rather than separate). Under classical theism the meek will never inherit the earth. The odds are stacked against it, odds that are always contentious. As James Nayler said, contention needs wearying out. This demands patience and perseverance. So, how it this to be done?
‘Praüs involves being compassionate.’.
We start with ourselves because we already have the answers. By transcending within we listen to each of them. This is best done in silence, and nondualism is conducive to silence. Nondual thinking is what Jesus was really about. If we study his Beatitudes and ‘I am’ sayings, we’ll have started on this path. We’ll realise that Love is not ‘out there’ beyond the universe because there is no ‘out there’, just an ‘in here’. In other words, Love is All. If we look around us, everything we see is All –sentient, non-sentient and inanimate.
Everything is All-ness, Is-ness, Consciousness. All-ness is unity and interconnection. When we look closely at interconnectedness we see communities successfully and peacefully at work. We experience equality between people – people living lives that are simple, sustainable and regenerative. We have a greater understanding of Truth. And we begin to be autobasileia, as Origen said of Jesus: living the Way by being the Way.
Jesus wasn’t shy in coming forward. But to spread the peaceable kingdom is to encounter old-fashioned ignorance, underpinned by classical theism, with its hierarchy and authoritarianism. Nondualism is quintessentially democratic. It gives Love new understandings. It refreshes our lives by nurturing that of Love within us all, and that of Love in the Earth: ‘Love is All there is’, sang the Beatles rightly, which is another way of saying ‘Consciousness is all there is’. As a consequence, the meek will inherit the earth, inevitably.
