Oneness

I think i will preface this by noting one big difference between the Pharisees (as portrayed in our Library of Writings known as the Bible) and Jesus. The Pharisees created a lot of separation between themselves, and the Jews and others: Don’t talk to the Samaritans, don’t touch the lepers, hate the tax collectors (who were traitors and thieves, the worst kind of snitch/rat that even thieves and traitors hate!). Gentiles were out also, and women not only weren’t allowed to read scripture but couldn’t even be touched in case they were “unclean.” The Pharisees were all about separate, separate, block, block, block.

Jesus, on the other (right) hand, included EVERYONE. He broke down the wall between the Jews and tax collectors by calling Zacchaeus down from the tree and having dinner at his house, as well as calling Levi/Matthew to be one of the disciples. He touched lepers a lot, healed Romans and other Gentiles, ate with whores and scumbags and not only talked to the Samaritan woman at the well but would have even drank water from the jar she touched (gasp)! Jesus also had women companions and followers and some of them supported him in his ministry. Every time the disciples wanted to send someone away, including children, Jesus always said “let them come.” Jesus not only broke down the exclusive barrier between Jews and Gentiles, he shattered the barrier between MAN and GOD by dying for our sins!  Jesus always moved towards joining, togetherness, community, ONENESS.

I can almost hear God’s instructions: Jesus, tear down those walls!

NO BOUNDARY

When i read the book “No Boundary” by Ken Wilber in college, it changed my perception of the universe and everything. I could no longer believe in the concepts of “heaven” (literally “the skies” = “the heavens”) and “hell” (Gehenna, a burning dumpsite outside of town) as separate places where we would be sent based on our actions, or even our beliefs. I strongly suggest reading the first three chapters of that book, but this is my own explanation and understanding of similar concepts, which may contain some memories of the book. (A bit of this is previewed in my article “What About Punishment?”)

Two quotes from No Boundary:

“As simple as that sounds, it is nevertheless extremely difficult to adequately discuss no-boundary awareness or nondual consciousness. This is because our language — the medium in which all verbal discussion must float — is a language of boundaries. As we have seen, words and symbols and thoughts themselves are actually nothing but boundaries, for whenever you think or use a word or name, you are already creating boundaries.”

“THE ULTIMATE METAPHYSICAL SECRET, if we dare state it so simply, is that there are no boundaries in the universe. Boundaries are illusions, products not of reality but of the way we map and edit reality. And while it is fine to map out the territory, it is fatal to confuse the two.”  –Ken Wilber

THE UN1TY OF OPPOSITES

The two diagrams above show that each set of opposites is created by the boundary between them. No part of either diagram is separate from the other parts. There is no concave without a convex, and no inside without an outside, EVER, and neither without their boundary. Each diagram is all ONE THING.

This concept, also represented by yin/yang as well as the ”tree of the experience of function and dysfunction” in Genesis, shows that tall/short, light/dark, good/bad as well as belief/unbelief and all such pairs, exist as two ends of each shoelace, and neither “part” exists alone. These examples exist on more of a continuum than the ones in the diagram, but note that even when we move from “in” to “out,” even if it’s through a man-made transition like a doorway, which is more sudden than those in nature like a cave, there is still a period of time where you are some of both – part in and part out.

To demonstrate the concept take a piece of paper, noticing that it has a left half and a right half. Rip off the left half and throw it away. Notice that the remaining piece still has a left half! And a right half, and it always will. Not that Dr. Phil is so wise, but he makes sense when he says “no matter how flat you make a pancake, it still has two sides.”

For another comparable, if you got rid of all “short” people, meaning they are in the short half of all height measurements – note that of everyone remaining, half of them are still short, given the new range. Even if only two people existed, one of them will be the short one. If they are exactly the same height, there is no such thing as tall or short for people.

Below is a visual representation of this. Note that whether each “end” of the pair is on the left or the right doesn’t matter. Reading left to right, or a number line that gets higher on the right, are arbitrary choices. There are very few extremely good, or ugly, or thin people etc. and very few really bad, or cute, or mean (but seems like a lot more, right?) people, and most of us are somewhere in the middle, which is represented by the bell-shape of the curve.

Standard Christianity, or the 4 spiritual laws, draws a diagram like the one below, with Jesus as the bridge to pure goodness, which is God. Good – 0 = God; cute, right?  It makes sense for it’s own purpose, but it doesn’t represent how God would have to place or separate us for eternity, if it’s based on our level of belief.

If God were to try and separate the good from the bad, or the believers from the non-believers, the following applies in both cases: In the mix of all the people who ever lived, suppose a trillion, and suppose we each have a trillion thoughts and actions during our lives, then by math at least a few somewhere in existence either acted, or believed, half good/correct and half bad/wrong; or committed themselves half to Jesus and acted selfishly the other half of the time. So they’d be rated at 50% good and 50% bad. What about the next human, who had one more bad thought during his life, or believed one less iota of correct doctrine, or said a slightly less nice thing to the barrista at Starbucks that one day, or believed one iota less that Jesus loves him and died for his sins, so his rating is 49.99999999999999% good, or accurate, or committed. Would it be fair to send one to an eternal hell and the other to eternal bliss? Absolutely NOT, and you know it! The diagram below represents that idea:

The big square is a blow up of the small square, a cross section of all the people who ever existed, wherever we are on the scale. If we are split in two when we die, where are the people who are exactly in the middle gonna go? Blue dude is almost exactly as good or believes infinitesimally close to purple chick. Could one go to “heaven” and one “hell”? That seems insane doesn’t it?

If God is omnipresent, which seems like an assumed belief of most people that is rarely discussed or acknowledged, it would look like this:

If God is omnipresent, then IT is in the knife used to stab someone to death, and in bullets that kill, but also in the hearts of those who sing, dance, work, strive, live and love so deeply every day.

HUMAN1TY

As human beings and doings, we set up boundaries that separate our selves from inside and outside of us.

INSIDE:
I can talk about “my hand” as if it was outside of me, but my hand IS ME, or part of me, but then again there is no “me” without all the parts. But what is it inside my brain that sees my hand, that notices all these things, reads this page and thinks my thoughts? Am i my thoughts? If i picture something, like a beach ball, is the image of the beach ball part of “me”? Some other “thing” inside me thought of the beach ball, something else inside, that is not my thoughts, is seeing and identifying the image of the beach ball, and all the other thoughts.

Since i can’t personally perceive that core thing, because every attempt just results in a thought of it, which is not it; is that source or thing coming from somewhere else?  What is the power behind, what is running my human, meat shell? It’s definitely higher than i am! Is it connected to the outside, all, everything that we can’t see? Is it an emanation of The Great Spirit, of universal love/light? Getting in over my head, try the book!

OUTSIDE:
When i look at a tree, what is happening? I am not actually “seeing” the tree, i am “seeing” light rays which bounced off of it, which are then absorbed by the photoreceptors in my eyes, which send electrical signals to other retinal neurons for initial processing and integration, and then via the optic nerve to other parts of brain, which process the image, which is a learned behavior. Between me and the tree and anything else i see, are a bunch of light, UV, X and many other rays, which i can’t “see” because my being filtered them out, or through evolution we have filtered them out so that we can function. I can’t actually “see” the tree at all.

Is the tree “separate” from me? The act of “seeing” includes me, the tree, the light and everything in between; it is one action, one flow, that does not exist without all of the “parts” involved. (Also note that our human perception is very limited. I we could go inside the sun, it would appear black to us because we can’t see any of the rays at such high wavelengths.)

My field of vision is one thing. I can pretend to separate things out, but nothing in my field of vision exists without the other things. The tree, plus everything that is “not tree” complete my one picture.

It is kinda hard to grasp that i could be “one with you” or “one with an umbrella,” but imagine a scene where you are having lunch with some friends on a warm summer day on a patio under an umbrella that is creating some nice shade. The umbrella is “one with the shade” right? Because take away the umbrella and the shade goes with it. The umbrella always creates shade, well EVERYTHING DOES, unless in total darkness, and the shade takes on the shape of whatever is casting it, based on where the light is coming from. The shade cannot be separated from the object casting it.

The umbrella also shielded you from the sun, so you have a little bit less sun damage, a little less wear on your eyes from squinting, because of the umbrella. The umbrella has created permanent influence on your skin, eyes and muscles, that are part of you forever.

Every sound from every word that your friends said to you has made your eardrums vibrate, creating a teeny bit of wear and tear on them, not to mention that every word and thought expressed has caused the neurotransmitters in your brain to fire, creating images and thoughts as reactions to them, and a bit wear and tear on your facial muscles as you react and respond. Those thoughts and the effects of the neurochemicals and reactions are PART OF YOU FOREVER. Every car that drove by also created the same sound and memory effects, to varying degrees. And reading this article has also caused thoughts and created permanent physical effects and memories inside of you. It is part of you.

WE ARE IN YOU.

“A hydrogen atom in a cell at the end of my nose was once part of an elephant’s trunk. A carbon atom in my cardiac muscle was once in the tail of a dinosaur.” ― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“No matter what…it is with God
He is gracious and merciful
His way is through love,
in which we all are.
It is truly – A Love Supreme…”   
–John Coltrane

“Black holes are where God divided by zero.” –Steven Wright

SAYINGS BY ME

“There’s no such thing as happiness, just happy more or happy less.” –Tom Minkler “We are all drops of water in an ocean of God” –Tom Minkler “Son of God Son of man The son I seek is the son I am. Now I know who I am I am I am Now I know who I am; I am.” –Tom Minkler

“Rivers flow. Trees grow. This is the nature of truth. Is there a perfect tree? A perfect rock? Everything is a perfect representation of itself.   You are the perfect you.”   –Tom Minkler “I are. We am.” –Tom Minkler “If you’re not here now, where are you?”   –Tom Minkler

AMAZING SAYINGS

“It’s all good.”  –God, in Genesis 1:31 “Be still and know that I am God.” –Psalms 46:10 “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” –Brothers in Blues “Must we choose between left eye and right eye?”  –Stephen Mitchell “I am created in the image of God, no less and no more, I am.” –Julie100 on Oprah.com “The kingdom of God does not come if you watch for it. Nor will anyone be able to say, “It is here,” or “It is there.” For the kingdom of God is within you.”   –Jesus of Nazareth (Luke 17:20-21) “God is love.”  -1 John 4:8 “Love isn’t something that we’re in, it’s something that we do.” –Clint Black “Water which is too pure has no fish.” –Ts’ai Ken T’an “We dance around in a ring and suppose, But the secret sits in the middle and knows.” –Robert Frost “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” –Leonard Cohen “God made everything out of nothing.   But the nothingness shows through.” –Paul Valery “If God had wanted us all to be the same, we’d all have braces on our legs.”   –Forrest Gump’s Mom

In + WILLn = I(n+1) I+WILL=BEing “Forget about religion; this is just math… There’s you, and there’s everything that’s not you. Which is more important?”  –yhwh.com “I am what I am.” –Popeye “To see the World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour.”  –William Blake “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.” — Simon and Garfunkel “We all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun.”   –John Lennon “Knock on the Sky and listen to the sound!” –Zen saying “Anyone whose reward from God is deferred until tomorrow has not truly worshiped him today.”   –Abu Yazid Al-Bistami “I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.” –Garth Brooks “(You’re) Like a rainbow in the dark.” –Ronnie James Dio “Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while a great wind is bearing me across the sky.” –Ojibwa saying “If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?” –Dogen “Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.” –Lenny Bruce

I looked, and looked, and this I came to see: 
That what I thought was you and you,
Was really me and me.”
― Ken Wilber, No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth

“You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.”
― Alan W. Watts

“Each person you meet
is an aspect of yourself,
clamoring for love.”
― Eric Micha’el Leventhal

“There is only one all pervading God. It has only one message –
Love all, encompass all and transcend the limits of the selfish gene.”
― Amit Ray

“A spiritual journey is becoming what one has always meant to be-come and always was.
One with God’s Spirit.” ― Jazz Feylynn

“A free spirit is not bound by this, that, matter, materialism or opinion. They sing, dance and flow on the wind – for they are at one with it. They are nothing and everything – void and expanse. Even space and time does not confine or define them. For they are pure energy itself.”  ― Rasheed Ogunlaru

“If Christ attained the state of Absolute Divinity, so can you.
And once you do, then only you will understand the true meaning of Religion and God.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurons of Jesus: Mind of A Teacher, Spouse & Thinker