The Practice of Oneness

We live in the World of Bodies, this familiar material world. We are constrained to obey its requirements, enabled to meet its challenges, and allowed to enjoy its beauty. And we can also live in higher worlds. The next one up, our personal Inner World, if developed appropriately, can give us access to presence, to connection, to true sharing, caring, and peace. The World of Light ushers us into cascades of energies and into the higher emotions, into love, compassion, devotion, and joy. That world can relieve us of a weight we did not know we carried: the burden of being ourselves. For each of these higher worlds, there is a whole set of spiritual practices to establish our place in them.

And then there is the World of Oneness, where our place is already established, though we do not recognize it as such. The effort needed for that realization is to penetrate the veils of separation. That effort is not an active one. We cannot force our way into Oneness, except perhaps temporarily and counter-productively by ingesting a psychedelic. Instead of any active approach, we need to find a way to open to the One, to let go of our separateness, our walls, to let ourselves be what we always have been: inextricably embedded in the seamless One that includes everything.

We can start with the simple act of relaxing, letting go of the tensions in our muscles, in our breathing, in our gut, in our emotions, in our mind, all of which ultimately lead to letting go of our separateness and returning to the One. Relaxing in this way requires practice, in seated meditation and in daily life. We relax into our own within. The more we practice this, the more readily it comes. You will reach a point where you can relax at will, in a moment, from head to toe, from self to muscles, from vision to touch, into the within.

In that moment, the veil that separates you from the One, from the Wholeness that surrounds you and permeates you — that veil vanishes. Then here you are, merged back into the within of everything. Your eyes still see, your mind still thinks, and your body still moves. But you, you are now All.

There is strength in the state of Oneness. No longer alone. Everyone you meet is in the same Wholeness as you. All that you see is no longer separate from you. Same for what you do not see, like the inside of your body and the inside of everything else. Nothing is left out. In this state of Oneness, you are of a piece with all that.

There is natural compassion in that state. Someone else's pain is yours as well. Another's loss is your loss. Another's joy is your joy. Everything is revealed as sacred. The world is spiritualized.

The perception of Oneness cannot be grafted on from the outside. We cannot decide that, because we know intellectually that everything is One, we will henceforth see everything as one. Rather, we come toward it from the inside. We notice that the formless within inside of us has no boundaries and nothing to distinguish it from the formless within inside of everything. This direct perception bypasses our ego, which cannot abide the truth that the center is everywhere, not just in me.

We have met something like this before, in our encounters with the conscious energy, the field of pure awareness underneath everything. It also is boundless and everywhere, and thus a major step toward Oneness. Yet the conscious energy leaves us at the center with our ego in place. Not so with the perception of Oneness.

For this week, please practice letting go into the within that you share with All.

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