It sees subtleties, exceptions, mystery, and a bigger picture. Nondualistic thinking refers to a broader, dynamic, imaginative, and more mature contemplation of perceived events (Rohr, 2009). A nondualistic approach to understanding reality is open and patient with mystery and ambiguity.Jan 23, 2020
Dualistic thinking assumes a universe where there are only two contrasting, mutually exclusive choices or realities. This thinking is either/or, bad/good, negative/positive, all or nothing, and has a powerful effect on our belief system and actions. Duality blocks our progress.
Dualism is the concept that our mind is more than just our brain. This concept entails that our mind has a non-material, spiritual dimension that includes consciousness and possibly an eternal attribute. Non-Duality.
Nondual Christianity is “the peace that surpasses all human understanding.” It is sometimes called nondual awareness. This is just another term for union with God. It is the experience of mystics in the Christian tradition, and it is echoed in other spiritual traditions. It is the Way, the Truth, and the Life that is Jesus Christ.
Polarity/Paradox
Polarity thinking is about “both-and” and invites a move away from “you are wrong and I am right” thinking to “we are both right.” This kind of thinking supplements our traditional problem-solving (either-or) thinking and acting.
What’s the Difference Between a Problem and a Polarity? A problem can have a right — or best — answer. A solution exists. A polarity — also described as a paradox, conundrum, or contradiction — is a dilemma that is ongoing, unsolvable, and contains seemingly opposing ideas.
Basically, anytime you are dealing with things that seem at odds with each other or paradoxical, you’re dealing with a polarity and not a problem. Or as Beena put it, “not all problems can be solved, some problems are polarities to be managed.”
Biblical Examples
- Jesus is 100% man and 100% God.
- One God in three Persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit
- The Virgin Mary is with child
- God suffers and dies a horrific death for our sins, to set us free.
- God’s love and His demands
1 John 4: 7 ¶ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. …..16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
God’s demand:
1 Samuel 2: 2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. 3 ‘Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”
- God’s Wages:
Matthew 20:1 ¶ “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard.2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 “About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went. “He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6 About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7 “’Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ 9 “The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ 13 “But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
- In Luke 20:22 they tried to trick Jesus by asking him “Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
- He saw through their duplicity and said to them,
- “Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?”
- “Caesar’s,” they replied. He said to them, “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
- They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent.