Is there any place for the idea of “Oneness” in our political system — or in any other human system, for that matter?
On October 28 the reader posting here as “SheerLuckHolmes” added the entry below to the Comments Section of this blog, in response to my question here about why there is such a Great Divide in America today. I love this Comment entry, and I wanted to interact with “SheerLuckHolmes” on this today…My remarks are in italic.
Neale…Your book series, CWG, pretty much makes this clear. There is so much “this vs. that”, et. al., because the basic belief system held tightly by humanity in separateness. The greatest majority currently on the planet have no doubt what-so-ever that we are separate from God and separate from every other person on the planet. With this belief system coloring all the thought patterns, speech & behaviors, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to come to any agreements for getting along with each other.
I agree with you in large measure. However, I am wondering if we can at least learn to disagree agreeably while we are waiting for all of us to “get” that “we are all One.” By the way, “we are all One” does NOT mean “we are all the Same.” Yet it is as CwG says…contrast does not have to produce conflict, nor difference create division.
The answer for humanity is not for us to become Identical, but to remain Individual. Yet Individual does not have to mean Indecipherable or Indistinguishable. We are all Individuated Aspects of The Divine, yet the great wonder of The Divine is that It can make Itself manifest in a million-billion-ka-jillion different ways and forms.
So I am not sure that a thought pattern of separateness makes it “difficult, if not impossible, to come to any agreements for getting along with each other.” I think that we CAN come to such agreements before we come to mutual understandings of our Oneness and mutual acceptance of our basic Single Large Identity.
People with the wealth of Warren Buffett make a stock buy of a billion dollars and the ‘average man’ finds that amount of wealth hard to conceptualize. Then that common man learns that this billion dollars is less than 5% of Mr. Buffett’s entire wealth and it is off the charts incomprehensible.
You mention the Democratic candidate’s plan to “redistribute the wealth.” Others say that is moving toward socialism, still others say it is moving toward fairness. Socialism has been tried before and failed. Capitalism has and is being tried before and is currently failing. All the other ‘ism’s have been tried and failed. What hasn’t been tried yet is any system where the motivating belief is truly ‘we are all one’.
Here I agree with you completely. I am now urging humanity to consider embracing a New Cosmology. That is, a new way of looking at all of life, which can produce a new way of experiencing it. This would include, of course, a new way of experiencing our economies; a whole new financial system; an entirely new commerce.
The New Cosmology Movement will ask and answer Life’s Four Critical Questions:
1. Who are we?
2. Where are we?
3. Why are we where we are?
4. What are we doing?
A much quoted statement of Jesus is something like, it would be easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
This does not mean that it is “bad” to be rich, or that rich people cannot get into heaven. What it means is that riches create great temporal temptations that can make it very difficult for the average person to keep his eye on the Main Chance. Wealthy people can more easily, one presumes, get “caught up” in the wonders of physicalization – to the point where all focus on the True Intent of the Soul is lost.
I belief this is because, after a certain point, true wealth becomes just numbers and, more importantly, power. And that power is always power over others. This is a demonstration of separation, in this case the power of the wealthy over the unwealthy.
Yes, agreed. Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Do you think any ‘wealthy’ person on earth would give up their wealth so that every person on the planet could be given an equal amount? Do you think either McCain or Obama would give up all of their money and accept a check for equal the amount that every other person on the planet would get also? The belief system of us vs. them is just too strong.
No, nor would I. Yet that is not the requirement of Oneness. The Unity of All That Is does not require All That Is to be Equal in All Of Its Manifestations. In fact, such Equality would defeat the entire purpose of physical life, which is to create relativity, and thus, contrast. So let us no confuse “Oneness” with “Identicality” or “Equality.” No one would argue for a single moment that every person on the planet be paid the exact same amount of money, no matter what they did for a living. That would not be Oneness, that would be insanity. It would also rob the species of much of its incentive.
No, what “Oneness” demonstrates is not “Forced Equality” – the same check for everyone – but the same OPPORTUNITY for everyone. Every aspect of Divinity is given the same opportunity to demonstrate and express the same degree, indeed, the ultimate degree, of Divinity. Yet not every individuation of God does so…nor should be forced to.
The wonder of life is Choice. It is the gift given to all of us. Religion calls this Free Will. When Choice is taken away from us, either directly or as a result of a system that simply robs us of it (as do some political systems and some economic systems and some social systems in our world), then Separateness rears its ugly head. Then we experience not only “difference,” but “division.” It is THEN, SheerLuck, that “The belief system of us vs. them is just too strong.” So what we need is a changed orthodoxy. A different cultural story. A New Cosmology.
This change is not going to happen over night, nor is it gong to happen over the next four years, regardless of who wins.
I agree. But I can get a tremendous kick-start if we elect Barack Obama as president of the United States, I believe.
It is going to take another generation, starting right now with each person who sees the value of ‘we are all one’.
Mr. Obama does – and has said as much.
As each individual starts changing their thoughts, words and deeds to live their spirituality of oneness with others, things will change.
Indeed.
I challenge each person reading this blog to examine their thoughts, words and deeds today. Can you give examples of how you are LIVING your spirituality on a daily basis to treat every other person you deal with as yourself?
Wow. Now this I totally “get.” This was a great challenge, SheerLuck. This was a great challenge to place before us. Terrific. Exactly on point.
I was once asked by a teacher of mine, “If you were brought to trial today and prosecuted for being a person of spirituality; would you be convicted by an overwhelming amount of evidence?” So I ask you, the reader, would you be convicted?
I am certain that I would be found innocent, by reason of insanity. No one would ever accuse me of being a person of spirituality. Not if they observed my behaviors for even one day. No, I would stand innocent on that charge. But I would be innocent by reason of insanity. It is insane for me to experience and express myself as NOT being a “person of spirituality.”
I am acting insanely. Every day. And so is most of humanity. Jesus did not act insanely. Neither did Buddha. Neither did Muhammad. Neither did Moses. Neither did Gandhi. Neither did Mother Theresa. Neither did, for that matter, my own mother…and very many other ordinary, “regular” people. Perhaps you are one of them. I most definitely am not.
So, SheerLuck, I am going to take you up on your challenge. I am going to do my darndest to treat every other person I deal with as I would want to be treated. It all gets back to something quite simple: The Golden Rule.
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On another note…CNN yesterday asked the following poll question on its news site: Which presidential candidate do you think would best help improve America’s image abroad?
Can you guess the results?
Here they are…
John McCain 14%
Barack Obama 86%
Big surprise.