Interpreting religious scripture metaphorically through a "non-dual" lens.

[lmfao]

As far as consciousness work goes I've just been meditating for a couple of months now.I decided to read a bit of the Quran recently out of curiosity, since I'm a non-believer who was raised in a Muslim family.

I'm also relatively familiar with the Quran due to having read it at various points in my life,  with varying beliefs I had at the time of reading it. I'm just gonna talk about my thoughts on my own "non-dual" intepratation of the Quran. 

The Quran likes to talk about how those who commit themselves to God are ultimately on the right path and will be rewarded, and those who reject God will only find misery in hellfire. If we take "God" to be the "absolute" (or whatever word you want to insert here) , the nothingness from which everything comes from in your perception, then a take away from reading the Quran might be the idea that those who make a commitment to connect to the absolute (whether it be through yoga, meditation, devotion and etc) will reach heaven, a peaceful state of mind. However, those who are not mindful of and are ignorant of God will ultimately end up going through unbearable suffering (hellfire) as a result of them not connecting to the absolute. People will be trapped in suffering as a result of them not connecting to the absolute.

I don't have many thoughts as to what the morality preached could mean. Perhaps the Quran is also trying to say that being charitable and doing other "good deeds"  is a way to connect to the absolute, whilst doing "bad deeds" like adultery distances you from the absolute.

However, the worst sin you can do in Islam (from a non-dual intepratation) is to not acknowledge that the absolute is there, and to not try to connect to it. A fundamentalist would call this sin "shirk". Shirk is the rejection of the fact that God exists, and that there is only one God. You could interpret this as meaning that the chief sin you can commit is to not recognize that all is one and that there are no boundaries between things, an ultimately non-dual teaching. 

Provided we are going with a "non-dual" intepration of the Quran, then we ultimately find the Quran is just repeating the same message, over and over again, since it keeps on talking about heaven and hellfire.The Quran likes to emphasise heaven and hellfire to tremendous degrees, more so than the Bible on a whole in my opinion (depends on which part of the Bible as well as though).

Whether or not my intepration is separate from the authors' intent or not is unknown to me. Whatever the case, it was entertaining to read. My take away from the Quran is this: those who make the effort to connect to the absolute will find peace, and those who don't try to connect to the absolute will find misery. This is why it's important to set practices in place to connect to the absolute (Muslims like to pray for instance). 

So what do you make of religious scriptures? I feel as though that the Bible and Quran can only be seen in this light if you already have non-dual ideas about reality. The word "God" has different meanings to people, and it's ultimately a verbal semantic game when it comes to what you make of it. Given the fact that from a non-dual intepratation the Quran repeats the same message over and over game, it perhaps stands to reason that the Quran was written to be interpreted in the way that fundamentalists do so. But an argument about that would ultimately require an examination of history. 

Anyway, thanks for reading. And if anyone has a non-dual intepratation for what "Judgement Day" (the day when the world ends and every is either thrown into heaven or hell) signifies, I'm all ears. 

 

Edited March 11, 2018 by lmfao

[Nahm]

@lmfao Write “I am God” on a piece of paper. Then write down everything that comes to mind - likely a list of thoughts to the contrary. 

Then categorize those into columns of direct experience and not direct experience (belief/idea/thought).

Nonduality is a change in what you are, in reality, in all experience from here on out, by a billion degrees. Absolutely completely different in every way.  Looking for nonduality in scripture is like looking for eyesight on a poster. It’s very trap-ish. It’s like reading a book, understanding the duality in thinking, and then figuring you’ve got it now. Some people get stuck in scriptures and ancient guru’s, and have no idea they’re stuck.  The loss, is nothing was actually real-ized. Nothing was integrated. Same life, different way of looking at it. But the experience of life didn’t actually change at all, other than to be more enjoyable, conceptually. 

I would drop scripture, do practices everyday, use psychadelics, and see for yourself, DIRECTLY.

Listening to a variety of non dual teachers would be more helpful because they are talking to you about you directly, vs stories that you’re supposed to wrap your head around. Leo, Tolle, Spira, Hicks, Mooji - what arises from the greater mix of these would be much more helpful IMO. 

The Bible, Quran, etc, etc - these are books written by people, about God, to be read by people. Skip em all together. 

Only direct experience matters. The traps are cunning, many, and deep. 

[Truth Addict]

From my Arabic background:

Shirk literally means sharing; Believing in other Gods next to Allah.

Kofr literally means cover, and a kaffir is someone who covers the truth, and does not believe in Allah. Kofr is the rejection of the fact that God exists.

The day of judgement also mentioned as the day of Truth, the day of religion, the hour (zero-hour), the day of resurrection; is the last day of this realm according to the Qur'an. It happens suddenly, causing great horror to every creature on earth.

Believing in the day of judgement is essential to being a true Muslim. I don't have any non-dual interpretations to share. And I think it can be literal.

But anyways, don't you see the motivation? There's nothing more painful to avoid than eternal hellfire, and there's nothing more blissful to want than eternal peace in eternal paradise. ?

Edited March 11, 2018 by Truth Addict

[lmfao]

@Nahm yeah I agree. The description of God in those texts is not an attempt to convey non-duality. It's your typical "there's an invisible man in the sky who cares who you sleep with" depiction of God, a belief which many people vehemently cling to at the expense of their spiritual grow. Stage 4 in Spiral Dynamics might ring a bell to you. There might be some wisdom to extract from these books, but the way to do it would be fundamentally different to the way how most people do it. The way in which these texts "teach non-duality" is very indirect,   and is arguably completely wrong at times. 

Thanks for the advice to not get attached to one school of thought or one method of consciousness work. I should really be expanding my horizons. Funnily enough, I think I did Yoga accidently when meditating, cuz I was doing this stretch I made up for fixing my shoulder posture whilst meditating. After holding the stretch for a minute my arms were tingling with strange, but very pleasant, sensations. At that same time my mind quieted down a lot, and it felt really good. 

[Nahm]

@lmfao ?? Yeah. Religion’s it’s own little paradigm. It helps so many people while it insulates the overall falsity. One of the deepest ego viruses - it really gets down in there! ? Be nice if the east & west just called it human wisdom, and just start makin a ‘best of man’ wisdom pile. Make the “Juice” of it all.