Science is catching up to what sages in the East have known for millennia, that everything is One thing and that thing is conscious. Not only is that one thing conscious, that's all it is, consciousness in varying forms and phenomena at all levels of subtle and gross manifestation. How pure consciousness is able to form the shape of a telephone pole would take more explaining than I’m able to fit in this blog post, but if you can go with me here for a bit and accept the idea that everything is One and that One is consciousness, there are some beautiful implications that come out of that. The most beautiful is that all this, everything we see and can’t see, everything that ever was or ever will be, everything to the ends of the universe and the ends of time is one giant Being. That sum of all individual consciousnesses is what some people call the Unified Field and what others call God. Seeing the world this way has changed my perspective in so many wonderful ways which I am happy to share with you here. Beings are not separate We tend as humans to see very rigid lines between beings. We perceive that we are completely isolated in our bodies and never does the spirit of one overlap with another. But beings are more like Russian dolls than toy soldiers. Think about the human body, each cell is made, consumes nutrients, excretes waste, and eventually dies like little beings in their own right. The earth is often referred to as the being Gaia that has been studied and proven to sense threats to its welfare and changes its behavior to reduce those threats. While some may find this blurring of the definitions between beings a bit threatening to their individuality, I find it makes me feel less isolated and connected. Everything happens for all reasons If everything is one giant Being, then nothing can be in vain. That one Being is evolving and all the little events in our lives are part of that larger movement. Every action is a like a pebble thrown in a pond, it may be small but the rings of effect touch every other thing in that pond. If everything is one giant Being than everything that happens to us and everything we do is crucial to the whole. Everything is conscious on some level If everything is one thing and a property of that one thing is consciousness, then everything has a level of consciousness to it. I don’t mean your breakfast is going to start having a conversation with you. No, it has oatmeal consciousness. Just like a frog has frog consciousness which has a very different repertoire of behaviors than human consciousness. However, the more you meditate and let your awareness go to the ocean of Self where the boundaries between things really get fuzzy, the more out of meditation you will perceive what feels like a layer of vitality behind everything you see. And once you start perceiving that, you start noticing some reciprocation of attention. You can sense that everything can give and receive love in some way. Have you ever seen a garden that gets a lot of human attention versus one that is only mechanically maintained for example? The Universe is never against us I know this one can be a tough one to swallow, but it is true that the Universe is not out to get us. It is us and we are it. Tat Tvam Asi which translates to “I am That” is a Sanskrit phrase that speaks to this. I am That, you are That, all this is That. “That” being unbounded Being. This One Being would not act against itself. Until you are able to raise your consciousness to the point where you experience that Oneness in the waking state, it can feel like there are forces conspiring against us as individuals. But these forces, if they are uncomfortable are the effects of Karma which is pushing us in the direction of our evolution.
Endless Synchronicity
When you see everything as a single Being, all that randomness seems to come into alignment. You experience coincidences and see synchronicity everywhere. That person you just were thinking of suddenly calls, you run into your old college roommate in a Tube Station in London, you need advice from a neurologist and get seated next to one on a plane. The underlying grand intelligence behind everything starts to shine through and seems to wink at you around every corner. Love is in all directions As I walk through life now seeing everything around me as extended Self, it is impossible to not feel love in all directions. Love is the recognition of Self in another, it’s the movement back to Unity, not the Unity itself. We need that separation of manifestation, the disguise of maya (illusion), to be able to experience love in the first place. While we are able to have that Unity experience with our close family and friends, when you start to see everything as one giant Being, that love extends to everyone and everything: the crazy lady at the ice cream shop who kept insisting I put sprinkles on my daughter’s ice cream, the light shining on the fence in front of my house at sunrise, the telephone pole that was once a towering tree in the forest, even Republicans (just kidding ;) Nothing ever dies If everything is one giant Being than nothing can ever truly die. There is nowhere to go. True things can transform, but transformation is the only constant of nature. Change is what’s happening all the time. You today have transformed from who you were ten years ago from who you were as a child. Did you as a child die? No, of course not, you simply evolved and changed form. All the cells in your body have lived and died every seven years which means not one cell is alive in you today that was alive in you as a child, yet here you are with memories from then. That is because your consciousness is not body dependent. While it can be difficult to communicate with those whose consciousness is no longer locatable in their bodies, that doesn’t mean they no longer exist, they have simply transformed.
I am That. You are That. All this is That.