Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:7-12

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

Thought for the Day: In this passage Paul reveals the dualistic mindset prevalent in his Greco-Roman culture (and ours, unfortunately). Without even stopping to think that perhaps Jesus was trying to teach oneness, completeness, wholeness with the Universal Mind that is God, Paul is completely tainted by the idea that the body is a vessel for the soul, that the two are completely separate, and that the body is finite while the soul is infinite.

If we think about this from a new point of view, from a monistic (there is only one basic substance) point of view, then what we understand, as Jesus taught, is that there is no separate body and soul. The only thing that exists is the Universal Mind, the consciousness of God, Christ Consciousness, Buddha Mind, whatever you want to call it. When Jesus says, “I and the Father are one,” he means it, and he means it for all of us. There is only One thing in all the universes, and that is a consciousness of intense energy that creates all physical reality, one quark at a time. It is appropriate to call that conscious energy God.

We are imbued with the very mind of God at a sub molecular level. It is what we are. It is what everything is. When we accept that, we see the world and everything in it differently. No longer is there “us” and “them.” There is only One. Jesus understood this. It’s why he rails against the socio-political system of his time that created hierarchical structures based on wealth and power. It’s why he ministers to the poor and the outcasts of society. He sees beyond the labels, beyond the dualistic mind that creates a false sense of lack and causes people to think some are better or more deserving than others—a mindset that is worse today than ever. Jesus sees only God everywhere he looks—in everyone’s eyes, equally, because he knows that not only is he literally the substance of God, but that God is all there is, the only substance that ever was or ever will be. All things are created not by God as some separate alien scientist—that’s dualistic thinking. No. All things are created from God.

This is a difficult teaching today, even though our science points us clearly in this direction. In the First Century? Forget it. It’s no wonder the Romans despised Jesus and his fellow Jews thought he was a lunatic. Any new and radical teaching, as Paul correctly understood, is met with resistance. But when we are one with the Universal Mind, as was Jesus, then we are not crushed by the outside world, we are not destroyed, we do not despair, and we know that it is impossible for us to ever be abandoned.

Prayer: God of wonders, reveal Yourself to me as an intimate part of my being—one, not two. Reveal Yourself to me in every person I encounter today, so I might better understand we are one, not two. Let the leaders of the world and the soldiers doing their bidding look into each others’ eyes and see one, not two, so that they are compelled to throw down their weapons and embrace each other as the particles of God we all truly are. Amen.