We are One.
“Oneness.” What is that, really? It’s a word that I hear often that pervades spiritual philosophies. Yet it always feels to me like true understanding of Oneness is just beyond our reach.
I don’t think we can know; I think Oneness is a concept beyond human understanding. Explaining Oneness is like trying to explain who God is. Which might be perfect, as I suddenly realize that God is the Oneness. Eureka!
Lesson over? No way. You know I don’t write stuff that short. 🙂
Along our spiritual journeys we talk about goals like getting closer to God/Source/Creator, opening our hearts, connecting with others, merging into the Oneness…all of them being different ways of saying the same thing.
And yet we, to varying degrees, are not there yet. So what’s the issue?
First of all, we are there. Every single one of us is already part of All That Is. You have never not been part of the Oneness of God. What’s missing is our full awareness of that connection.
I got a chance to learn more about this during a recent session with Anja, one of my clients. Anja was talking about “merging with God” and the resistance to it that she could feel within her ego self. As we sat with that resistance, I received a vivid image that so perfectly explained why Anja’s ego (and probably anyone else’s) would fear merging into God/Oneness:
The human ego thrives on separation. It forms your identity by holding you apart from everyone and everything around you, so that it can compare and contrast you against them.
Oneness, meanwhile, is seen by your ego to be like a vast ocean. Your ego is standing on the beach, believing it’s supposed to decide whether it wants to go in. (It’s unaware or unaccepting of the fact that you’re already part of the Oneness ocean.) Someone standing apart from the ocean sees one body of water, with no distinction from one drop to another. Even standing in the water, the only drops you can distinguish are the ones that cling to your skin. And those – are they individual big drops or clusters of little drops? How big is a drop of water, really?
To your ego, a drop of water in the ocean loses its identity, triggering the ego’s biggest fear. Someone looking at the Oneness ocean won’t be able to tell which drop is you.
To your ego, being part of the Oneness is like merging into an ocean of souls that are all the same. Therefore it does what it can to keep you from merging with God – as if that could be avoided. As if you aren’t already one with All That Is.
As this vision formed and I shared it with Anja, I heard a new thought like an announcement over a PA system: What your ego doesn’t know is that a soul in the Oneness is self-aware.
By default your ego doesn’t know this, because 1) your ego is incapable of taking on your soul’s perspective, and 2) your ego’s default behavior is to define you not only by comparison but according to the opinions of others. Your ego believes that you will only know who you are if someone else knows who you are.
It doesn’t occur to your ego that while you’re standing on the beach looking out at one big body of water, all of the individual drops are saying “Whee! It’s great to be a drop of water here with all of the other drops!” Each drop knows very well who it is and what role it plays in creating the vast ocean.
[pq]A drop of water entering the ocean joyfully merges into something greater than itself.[/pq]
This is how your soul feels too. It joyfully knows who you are at the same time that it’s One with All That Is.
You can feel it in certain moments when you’re heart is open to other people – when your entire being is focused on the experience you’re sharing with someone else, rather than your perceived separation from others or the thought that you still have further to go on your journey before you can live in Oneness. You can access it now, and you know that you are when you feel what your soul feels – Joy and Unconditional Love.
Your turn
Want to feel the Joy and Love of Oneness? Go to the Comments section below and write about a time when you felt connected to another being. Maybe it involved a child, an animal, or a friend. As you write, let your heart fill with the feelings from those moments. You’re not writing for us, you’re writing for you and your soul.
Better yet, go out and create a new moment of Oneness: Tell us about something you’re going to do right now to fill your heart with Joy and Unconditional Love. Then go out and do it!
Id have to say my greatest oneness experiences happened with my Spirits Partner Alex. We met in 10th grade gym, that year we skipped ever lunch and meditated in my car. The experience was soul enhancing and life giving. I remember sitting in the parking lot of a church, us holding hands and vibrating crown to toes for an entire hour. When the session wad over we were bursting with energy we immediately jumped out of the car and ran around and around the parking lot, with sparks in our eyes and then ran to hug one another. We were in complete utter oneness, I cherish that moment.