To a mind the title of this article may seem like a contradiction or a paradox. Yet the first phrase in the title derived from a common spiritual phrase used now-a-days: "We are all One". In a certain light that does speak truth, but it implies that there are separate people and those separate people are somehow all connected. The second phrase in the title is more accurate (as far as words go).
When I was a spiritual seeker (if it can even be called that, more like the seeking does itself), I often heard that we are all one and it resonated with me, so I can understand the confusion that the mind has picking-up resonating concepts and believing them. I imagine that the phrase: "We are all one", was picked-up on after hearing those words in a 'teaching'. Knowing how the mind works, I imagine that phrase was not the complete message that was being translated. Yet, the mind will ignore the parts it can't understand and only take the parts it can understand.
The reason the mind can understand that 'we are all one' and not 'there is Only One' is because the mind needs to separate existence in order to exist. The job of the mind is to separate and it's a very useful tool, but not so useful when used to understand the true nature of reality (for more information on the mind and how it works click here). The whole assumption about life in general is that who we are is limited within a body/mind organism. When you look at a chair, you can see where it starts and where it ends. When you look at the body, you can see where it starts and where it ends, so naturally if you assume you are a body, then you will assume you are limited to where the body resides. Assuming this limit, is why the idea of a separate individual personal self is so widely excepted.
However, let's look at this more closely. Every body/mind organism refers to itself as I. If you think of yourself as the body, then you say "I am this body". Yet is this I an objective source that can be found? Can you find a start and end to this "I"? If there is no start or end to I, then how do you know that the I is limited to the body?
Consequentially, either the I is everything and there is nothing else (One Self) or there is no I at all (no-self) or both or neither. Either way the conclusion is the same: there is only one. This is the part where the mind has a difficult time. This is where fear might arise. The minds job now becomes useless and purposeless, if nothing is separate then that means there is no meaning. No God and Satan fighting over your soul. No higher or lower levels to move from or to. No learning something to take it somewhere better. No experience means anything at all. All experiences are the same one experience. Nowhere to go and nothing to do. Nobody to make anything better. No improving self. If you learned everything, remembered everything, experienced everything, bettered yourself on every level of your being; then where are you going to take it to and what are you going to do with it? No limit means there is no growth or expanding because infinite is unlimited. Infinite is everything or nothing or both or neither. No matter how the mind looks at it: one is one is one is one...
If you stop the world-wide assumption that you are a separate limited individual self, something interesting starts to happen. You see yourself everywhere and in everything. I mean that quite literally. The computer screen I am looking at, is quite literally me. Something else interesting happens too, everything stops being you doing it (no reference-point). Quite literally these words are typing themselves. This body is an empty shell running on stimulus response that has no choice in what happens.
I know that seems paradoxical, how can everything be you, when you are not there? How can self be everywhere and self not controlling any part of it? All this is just What It Is. This Is It. One. One being everything and doing nothing. It's only paradoxical to the mind. When the mind realizes its uselessness in understanding any of this, it gives up and something quite natural and spontaneous reveals itself. In fact, it always was and is always there being natural and spontaneous. The mind is the only thing that gives rise to the illusion of choice, self, separation, individuality, and all the things that you think your reality consists of.
This is not something new, this is the same old message that has been taught ever since language was developed in the appearance of 'time' and from all apparent 'places' across the so called globe. This one same message: Jesus taught, Buddha taught, Krishna taught, all the people offering satsangs everywhere today, and apparent 'people' 'you' will never hear of.
Yet, the mind takes this message and tries to understand it. That is why religions are formed out of it. The mind can only understand concepts and ideas. This message is 'dangerous' for minds (not like it matters much more than anything else). You know what the word God means? It means the same-thing as One or Oneness, Awakening, Ascension, Liberation, Enlightenment, Non-duality, Advaita, Self-Realization, True Nature, Nirvana, No-self, I Am that I Am, Nothingness, Pure Awareness, Divine, Spirit, Presence, Eternal Now, Isness, Egolessness, Transcending, Subjective Reality, Prime Source, Unconditional Love, Absolute Truth, Collective Consciousness, Formless Existence (and the list goes on)... all these things are pointing to the same one thing that the mind can never understand. One is One is One is One...
Posted by: Nicholas Powiull
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