It is my sense that a belief in non-duality (which is to say a fundamental belief in the oneness of all), leads naturally to pluralism. It makes perfect sense that it would - if all is one, then irrespective of your role on the world’s stage, you are nevertheless part of the whole, part of the one. Or rather, one should probably say you are the one, as to say ‘part’ suggests you can in some sense be broken off.

This would render the appearance of all divisibility always, ultimately, illusory. This pseudo divisibility comes down to our subjective sense of things. We seemingly perceive the world from a limited vantage, which leads to our vocabulary of me, and we, and you, and them. Herein we see the dualistic nature of language.

This means that although we may identify with narratives which have a dualistic component to them, narratives with two seemingly irreducible elements, it is to be understood that at a deeper, more fundamental level this duality is an illusion. Take for example the Christian doctrine that God created the world ex nihilo, God created the cosmos out of nothing. This is a clear duality: the creator, and his creation. If one is seeking to understand this doctrine in non-dualistic terms, they have to imagine that though there is a duality, at a deeper level this duality dissolves. One may achieve this by stating that the duality is a consequence of the limitations of language, which as stated is by default dualistic. In this way then, the ex nihilo doctrine is only “true” in a very limited sense, and underlying it in some esoteric sense, there is an ultimate indivisibility.

Though I am taken with this non-dualistic approach, I’m not sure where it leads… It seems to render all truth conditional. Is that a problem? In the same way that the ex nihilo doctrine is rendered to be conditionally true, is seems, from a Christian vantage, to make the entire Christian narrative conditional. Take as another example, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Another dualistic Christian idea - you’re either with me (i.e. Jesus), or you’re not. This is one of those passages that liberal Christians often knock up against. Jesus is evidently being an exclusivist here, isn’t he? A classic liberal Christian response is to focus on the two words, ‘the way’. The argument goes something like this: Jesus is an exemplar of ‘the way’, ‘the way’ being the way of selfless love, and although it makes perfect sense for Jesus to speak of himself as being ‘the way’ (i.e. the exemplar of selfless love), it is nonetheless possible to follow ‘the way’ and not be an explicit follower of Jesus. But this need for what we might consider a ‘get out’ rests on yet another Christian dualistic paradigm, namely that of heaven and hell. Liberal Christian unease is due simply to the fact that it seems unjust for good people, who are not Christians, to go to hell, and this leads them to their nuanced reading of the John passage, one that at least allows for the possibility that good (non-Christian) peoples could, in God’s mercy, go to heaven. If we were, however, to dissolve all the dualities in play, it would render the hair splitting over the John passage meaningless.

All truth claims, narratives, identities, and allegiances are only meaningful when understood in their everyday dualistic sense, but through the lens of non-duality they are all rendered meaningless. But of course, we all live in the everyday dualistic world. So what, I wonder, does this non-dualistic understanding of things offer us? Does it not bring us back in a circle to where we began? It seems that we would continue to inhabit the world, our truths, our claims, our narratives, and our identities in much the same way we did before, but perhaps with subtle differences. One possibility is that we would hold to our truths, our roles, etc, more lightly, more playfully, as we know they’re all ultimately illusory - we need not take them so seriously. It could lead one to think in pluralistic terms: all paths lead to God, all ways are equally valid, etc. But it also seems that the inverse could equally be true. Knowing that all is illusory, we could commit ourselves more zealously to the roles we happen to find ourselves inhabiting. Returning to the John passage, if we know that all is ultimately illusory, but we find ourselves inhabiting a Christian identity, then why not performatively inhabit the role of someone who interprets said passage in the most literal terms possible. Perhaps this would make for a better Christian, one who strives to spread the Gospel, etc… I’m of course uneasy with this line of logic, but at least I know my uneasiness is an illusion too.