The Gospel According To Advaita

"Love thy neighbor as thy Self" is Judeo-Christian Advaita. Jesus tells us to love even our enemies. His social ethic is rooted in uncompromising non-duality. We do not love our enemy because our enemy is akin to our Self, but because our enemy is our Self.

In Jesus' parable of the last judgment, the Lord says, "In so much as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto Me." This vision too is born of Advaita. What "Me" appears in the judgment at the end of time? A man with a beard and sandals walking the dusty paths of first century Galilee? Of course not.

Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus identifies not with his biological parents or tribe, but with the eternal I Am. I Am is the Christ-Self in each of us. And when we meet one another as the radiant I Am, judgment is over. It is the end of time. What Jesus means by the parable is: "In so far as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto your Self."

Advaita is the essence of the social Gospel. Non-duality is the soul of Christian peace-making. Conflict dissolves when we see that there is no other.

Painting by Rembrandt