Hindu
and Buddhist Nonduality:
Conflict
in the New Church Mind?
There are two
types of religions distinguished in terms of how they define God and reality. Hindu and
Buddhist traditions are generally based on nonduality while Islam and the Judaeo-Christian
faith are based on duality.
In nonduality
only God is permanent and real while the self is an illusion that vanishes when one
reaches enlightenment, and the universe an impermanent state that is periodically
dissolved and remade. That which changes and dissipates is not considered to be reality.
Eastern religions teach that the purpose of life on earth is to learn to transcend the
illusory self through raising one’s consciousness to the divine itself. This
achievement is called enlightenment or God-realization. Individuals ought to live their
daily lives by striving to detach all the qualities of self and life that adhere and
create the illusion of struggles in life, culture, nature, and individuality. This total
emptying of all morality and psychology is identified with enlightenment. The self has
then transcended into God, the only reality, void and empty of all appearance and of
changing qualites.
In strong
contrast to this point of view, duality presents God and creation as distinct, permanent,
and forever separate. Moslems, Jews, and Christians are taught that the purpose of life on
earth is to prepare oneself for life in eternity. The individual self (or unique soul) is
created immortal, and continues life after death in a spiritual body. The individual has
freedom to choose to act in accordance with the revealed commandments of God or
conscience, or to act against them. A spiritually good life leads to eternal heavenly
happiness, an evil one, to infernal and unending misery. God is the Omnipotent Divine
Person who creates the universe and maintains it in its order by intervening in its
operation. God gives the individual the power to learn the Commandments and to follow them
despite many inborn contrary desires. The individual receives this power through worship
and love of God. Atheism and lawlessness constitute the refusal to worship and love God,
an act of defiance that deprives the individual of the power to live a spiritually good
life.
Wilson Van
Dusen is a recognized authority on both duality and nonduality. He recently wrote:
Hinduism's advaita vedanta or
non-dual theology, probably represents the highest mystical insight possible. It is the
insight that ultimately only God exists. My friends know that I regard Swedenborg's
mystical revelations as the greatest ever. We can then ask the question, Can we also find
non-dualism in Swedenborg? The answer is a resounding yes. The highest revelation of
Hinduism is also in Swedenborg's revelations even though the two traditions had no
contact.
(“The Highest Insight
in Hinduism and in Swedenborg.” Published in the Messenger June 2001)
This point of
view is based on the apparent similarity between “God rules all” (Swedenborg)
and “Brahman is the all” (Hinduism). Since God rules all, the individual does
not possess actual power but only the illusion of prudence leading to desired goals. And
since God is the only life, human beings are merely receptors of God’s life, rather
than self-existent beings that are alive. From these considerations Van Dusen draws this
conclusion:
God
alone is real (nonduality). … What we try to do God is doing through us. Our apparent
duality is an aspect within a transcendent non-duality. The non-duality of God alone is
super ordinate to all appearances of duality. … The non-dual position in Hinduism
helped me to see it in Swedenborg's writings. … All our efforts to improve ourselves
do not create an us-versus-God dualistic situation-but rather our efforts are a part of
the working out of Divine Providence. (Van Dusen, ibid)
Van
Dusen’s position of nonduality leads him to the notion that since God alone has
power, “what we try to do” is actually “God doing through us.” Duality
on the other hand, maintains a distinct separation between the motive we have (“what
we try to do”) and God’s power that actually carries it out. The Writings reveal
that God chooses which of our motives are carried out and which are unsuccessful or
unfulfilled. God maintains us in freedom to persist or desist in any intention or choice,
and looks at our motive behind the choice. The quality of this motive—good or evil,
is attributed by God to each individual. The accumulation of all our choices is what makes
up our character or spirit. This spiritual self is what lives after death and is either in
heaven or hell depending on its accumulated character.
In view of this
we cannot equate “what we try to do” (i.e., the character of the individual)
with “God doing through us” (i.e., Divine Providence in managing all things).
This duality remains forever distinct.
Many types of
thinking based on nonduality pose certain dangers to the New Church mind if ideas are
admitted uncritically or unknowingly. The nondual and the dual in the mind strive to
annihilate each other since they are inherently opposed. The Writings teach that certain
ideas can become impediments to one’s regeneration (AC 806, NJHD 21). For instance
the notion that both good and evil come from the same source can weaken our resolve for
character reformation. The Writings show that without regeneration of character we remain
infernal from heredity and cannot be saved for eternal heavenly life (NJHD 186). Weakening
the absolute duality of heaven and hell in our mind also weakens our motivation for
resisting our inherited evils and struggling to obey the commandments.
Nonduality as a
system of thought strives to turn categorical discrete degrees into a continuum. The
existence of discrete degrees is known only from the Writings (DLW. 173-281): God vs.
creation, angel vs. devil, male vs. female, self vs. Divinity, natural vs. spiritual.
These elements are created discrete and remain permanently distinct. Nonduality works to
replace the “vs.” with “and” while duality insists on absolute and
permanent distinctions. Duality is made of categorical (non overlapping) distinctness
while nonduality constantly pressures the mind towards similarity and commingling (as in
universalism, pluralism, relativism). New Testament concepts of pure vs. impure, good vs.
evil, truth vs. falsity, wolves vs. sheep, in the Church vs. outside, are systematically
eroded or altogether transformed by nonduality into something else, less distinct, less
permanent.
One of the most
popular and influential promoter of nonduality in the American climate is Joseph Campbell
whose books and audiotapes more than a decade after his passing on are still on the best
seller charts. Here are thematic arguments from The
Power of Myth.
by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Anchor Books; Reissue edition July 1991). I quote
from a review by Douglas Groothuis of the Christian Research Institute (Accessed on the
Web April 2002: http://www.equip.org/free/DC092.htm):
If you confess your sins you make yourself
a sinner; if you confess your greatness you make yourself great. The "idea of sin
puts you in a servile position throughout your life" (p. 56). He later redefines sin
as a lack of knowledge, not as an ethical transgression: "Sin is simply a limiting
factor that limits your consciousness and fixes it in an inappropriate condition" (p.
57). … Campbell believes our challenge is to say, "I know the center, and I know
that good and evil are simply temporal aberrations and that, in God's view, there is no
difference" (p. 66). In fact, "in God's view," you are "God, not in
your ego, but in your deepest being, where you are at one with the nondual
transcendent" (p. 211).
The Writings
reveal that “Father” refers to the substance of Divine Love (or Good), which is
the Lord’s inmost or Esse, while “Son” refers to its outward form called
Divine Wisdom or Truth (Existere). Love and Wisdom are united as one in the Lord and
proceed as one to create and maintain the universe (DLW 99). But in the unregenerate human
mind they are separated in reception (love into the will and truth into the
understanding). Regeneration becomes the process of reuniting these two so that the will
from love acts together with the the truth in the understanding. This unity of functioning
is called the church within where this love/truth duality is retained forever. It is the
permanent distinctness of the elements in a unity that maintains its perfection (DP 4). A
striking example from the Writings is the conjugial unity of the angelic couple by which
husband and wife function as one (CL 184). Another well known example is the unity of the
distinct heavenly societies by which they are integrated into the human form, creating the
ever increasing perfection of the Grand Human in the spiritual world (AC 5377).
Nonduality as a
system of thinking acts in opposition to these permanent dualities and strives to
establish a continuity between them, fudging the categorical and absolute distinction. The
New Church idea of unity or oneness between distinct elements is metamorphosed into a
dissolution of distinctness, either into sameness (nonduality) or else
“Emptiness” (unbounded, unqualifiable). The meaning of “oneness” is
entirely different in the two systems of thought. There is no overlap possible, even in
the same words (oneness, God, reality, spirit, bliss, love, self, sin, etc.).
It is prudent
therefore for the New Church mind to be clearly aware of the hidden opposition when
exposed to concepts of nonduality.