Human Oneness: One Earth One Love 5

Inner Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

Inner Work

For the weeks of October 7 & 14, 2019

Human Oneness

On the surface, we are all different and quite separate. Obviously, we have separate bodies. Not as obviously, even in our billions each one of us is different than all the others. Not only do our bodies differ, but we also have different potentials and talents, different histories and experiences from birth onward. We have different memories, education, training, skills, desires, passions, and values. Our personality patterns of thought and emotion are different, as are our habits of action. We can certainly celebrate these differences; they make the world interesting, dynamic, and surprising.

Yet underneath all that, we can discover a profound and universal sameness. This goes well beyond our common physical needs, such as for air, water, food, and sleep. We are all members of the human brotherhood and sisterhood. And even more deeply, we transcend our separateness. This is not simply a matter of accepting our differences. It means leaving our differences where they are, on the surface, and delving beyond separateness, into the levels of sameness.

When we are with another person, how can we be in touch with our mutual sameness? First, there is our shared consciousness. You know what it means to be conscious. You know consciousness first-hand, in yourself, as the awareness that is the context of all your experience. When you see another person, you can choose to notice that they too have this in them, the very same consciousness you have in you. We all share this one field of consciousness. We are all conscious in the same way, with the same substance of contextual awareness. Practicing this perception helps us transcend our separateness.

But not only consciousness, our will, our very personhood, in its root, is the same. When we look at another person, we know there is someone there, inside that body, just as we are here inside ours. This is not about consciousness, not about the screen of awareness; it is about the one in us who is conscious, the one in us who watches that screen of awareness. The fundamental fact of being someone is the same for both of us. And when we look at the bare reality of that, at the capacity to choose, at the will to be, it is the same in both of us. Yes, once that will gets involved in detailed choices in the world of conditioned desires, our actions and attitudes differ greatly. But our inherent capacity to choose, our will, our beingness, our very self, are one and the same.

I am who I am, and you are who you are. Before involvement with the particulars of personality and personal history, of personal goals and desires, my I and your I, in their pure state, are one and the same. The outward face of our I is individual and unique, while the inward face is universal, an emanation of the one higher will.

Will is will. Our will is who we are. That is who looks out through our eyes. That is who hears our thoughts. That is who does what we do. And in its root, there are not many wills, there is only one will with many manifestations. We all share in that one will, the will of our source, the will of life, the will of the Earth, the will of the Sacred. That is who we all are: the human will. When you see another person, practice connecting with this reality, that you and they are inherently, deeply, one and the same.

For this week, please work to transcend separateness by practicing the perception of human oneness.

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