Published:
02/24/2014 02:13pm
We are ONE
We are ONE
[article originally published as 13th chapter of the book The Messsenger - The Awakening to a New World. English release date: june, 2014] All that exists in our known Universe was created from a common source. From a stone, a plant or an animal, going all the way to the human being, absolutely everything that exists has a common origin, a starting point of Cosmic creation. All atoms that make up your body, the chair on which you are sitting and the book you’re reading sprang up from the exact same Cosmic singularity.
We have a natural instinct of belonging in respect to our relatives, our parents and children, especially. Because these beings, we know, are extensions of ourselves, part of what we are. Parts of what our parents are, or have been, remains alive through us. The same is true regarding our children: we feel that our existence will live on through them. This is a gut feeling we all have. Nothing wrong with it, except for this is the kind of feeling we should have in respect to absolutely everything and everybody.
Look, if we feel connected to our parents and children because we share genes with them, why should it be different in regards to everything else that surround us? We share a single cosmic origin with all things. They are the same atoms and particles, endlessly “recycled” and restructured for millions of years. We are all part of one huge family, nothing more.
We fully understand that whenever our children are threatened we ourselves are at risk. In fact, we act immediately towards their protection – sometimes even exaggeratedly – because not only we are protecting them but ourselves, our very existence. Starting from the notion of a single big family, of which we are all part, how could you not protect another human being? Or any other species for all that matters? This being is no one else but yourself, is part of the same original energy; and if we live in the illusion of separation between us, it’s paramount to realize that it’s nothing more than an illusion. And it is preeminent that we cross over this illusion and reconnect with our belonging with the greater unity.
Many people see glimpses of this fact when they find themselves alone with nature, while contemplating the mountains or the ocean, or a lake. The beauty of nature has this kind of power, which speaks to our entrails and to our spirit. And whenever nature speaks to us – better yet, when we listen to it, for it never stops sending out its perfect message – it’s about this oneness, this sense of perfection, this common origin, this full embrace that nature is always talking about.
The Illusion of CompetitionHow would you be able to harm others without suffering the consequences yourself? How would it be possible to punch a hole on the boat in which you are sailing and pretend that the water leaking in is not a concern of yours? Sooner or later whatever happens to the boat will happen to you – therefore not only pretending it has nothing to do with you is illusory, pardon my frankness, it is stupid. We are all in the same boat and it’s up to each one of us to try our best to row and steer this boat towards safe waters and tranquil destinies. Those who insist on rocking the boat and punching holes on it are planting the seeds of their own shipwreck.
This is an aspect that has been unknown, dormant amidst mankind, for too long. But, nowadays, who’d be able to deny it?
Unfortunately, a great distance lies within recognizing and changing attitude. As we know, it is one thing to understand something and a much more challenging one to be able to act according to what we know. Due to the conditioning we went through since early childhood, due to the illusion of separation, the ego’s illusion of separated individuality – many of us face serious difficulties in changing attitude, in trying to stop controlling other beings, in stop projecting our own problems and struggles upon other people.
This is a step, however, which cannot be left out in the evolutionary pathway. There is no shortcut or trick that can solve one’s problems, while our oneness with the whole remains unperceived, and while our everyday life attitude fails to reflect this same consciousness of oneness with the whole.
It’s not necessary that everybody take great action, that we all decide to save all mankind or to transform hundreds of individuals at once: it’s only requested from each one of us that we understand this oneness and act accordingly – within our circle of relationships, our family, our community and regarding those who work with us.
It’s essential to understand that there is no meaning in competition: if we are all ONE, who’d you be competing with? Whatever is being taken, is also being taken from you. Whatever is being won, is also being won by you. One’s happiness is everyone’s happiness; one’s misery is everyone’s misery.
We’ve known for so many eras that there is power in unity. We know that united we are powerful; and that we are able to change behaviors, solve problems, change our city, our region and the world when we act together for the greater good. You know that – but you’re not alone: your neighbor does know it, too!
We need to stop submitting to the forces and activities of exploitation which pushes mankind to this state of separation and makes us all forget the power of integration. To whom this fragmented attitude interests? Who’s gaining from our division? Only those who want to conquer and hold captive the conquered, obviously.
Think for a moment: who is gaining from the greed, the competition and the weakening of the power of the collective will? No more than a handful of beings and the handful of companies which represent their interests. Interests that have nothing to do with what’s best for people and for mankind. Interests that are selfish and closed around themselves and which generate benefits for just a few.
Just as a slave master pushes slaves against each other, for if they united, they’d form a power too strong to stop, the masters of the economic power push people against each other; using an ingenious trap called competition – which is nothing more than what keeps men from uniting.
All forces of this trap push towards separation and consumerism, to loneliness and abandonment: because the more lonely and abandoned people feel, more they tend to find support in this game of individual competition and in giving in to the illusion that things, property and money are the answer to their affliction.
These forces do not encourage families to be united and cohesive. They split people apart, through competition, forcing adults to spend all their kid’s childhood away from them, because – allegedly – they’d be taking care of their children through their own economic and material achievements. These forces do not want friends to visit each other, ever, to spend hours and hours together, sharing simple pleasures: they encourage friends to always meet at an outside location so everything will orbit around purchasing and consuming. Why? Just because it generates more consumerism – after all, everything in your house was already bought. There is no longer “market interest” on you consuming what is already paid for: the market desire is that you throw out what you’ve bought and acquire new things.
This is the root and reason of planned obsolescence, for example, products that are created intentionally to last much less than they could. That was, in fact, a marketing strategy created by producers of light bulbs in the early twentieth century, which is something widely known – you can find movies and documentaries about it easily on the internet.
The goals of the market and the competition are exactly the opposite to the true interests of people. The objective of the market is to create dissatisfaction and unhappiness, which will lead to consumerism. But who among us wants to create dissatisfaction and unhappiness? Ask anyone what they want in life and the answer will always be a variation of the same notions: we want to be happy, healthy and satisfied. The quest for happiness is the very reason for life according to our own expectations.
SharingThe course of this boat may only be changed by replacing competition with sharing. And this is happening right now in the world, everywhere. The new generations are much smarter in this respect: it is much harder to convince them to do something that they actually don’t want in their heart. More than ever, our youth is adamant in seeking activities with greater significance than just “earning the bread”. They want to put meaning in their actions, they want to contribute and feel that they’re part of an activity that will improve life in the world.
Of course many still do not understand the depth of it, and are still thinking in a very individualized level. But the dreams “sold” by the market and the competition are losing strength on a daily basis. And that’s because the youth of our days know that the wild racing undertaken by their parents did not make them better people and failed to make them happier – as well as it did not help to make their own childhood happier or more wholesome.
The notion of winning by any means is vanishing and weakening, although it might not be so evident right now as it will be a few years from now. But the trend is absolutely clear. When analyzing these issues, it’s fitting to remember that majorities are never “born majorities”. Ideas take time to spread worldwide, even on such an interconnected world as the one in which we currently live. It takes some time inbetween the spreading of an idea and the effective change in attitude.
All ideas that are currently accepted by the majority were one day utopias shared by just a few. Then, they became accepted by a group of people – which may have been called “visionary thinkers” as much as “alienated madmen”. In time and slowly, because this is the nature of large masses of people; in a subterranean way, ideas start to find their place among a growing number of people that were, still at that point, disconnected from each other.
Only on a later stage these new ideas are effectively brought to light, when enough people believe in them, and become broadly accepted. And when this happens, suddenly all those thousands of beings who already believed in them can at last embrace each other and celebrate together what has finally became an idea whose time has come.
Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. In all cases there were (and certainly there will be) people who would not want to accept a new idea, a new vision of the world. Many continued to deny that Earth was round several years after this notion was proposed. Those are the kind of people who live in the past, who resent new ideas and feed bitterly in the nostalgia of a time that has passed. Opposing or fighting these kind of beings is meaningless and unfitting. Our duty is to follow the path and guide by example.
Many among us may still remember the old mechanical typewriters. They were tools to creating works that changed mankind and the world. There was a time in our history in which it was impossible to imagine the world without the typewriter.
When computers were introduced, no one fought against the typewriter, nor demonstrations were organized against its existence. Nobody protested or turned the transition to the use of the computers into an ideological or philosophical question; and certainly there were no such thing as a war to banish typewriters.
It was just a tool whose time had passed. It was not necessary to fight against its existence. Some typewriter manufacturers tried, for some time, to keep them around in the daily office life. Others turned to manufacturing computers. And so the transition was made, such as many others in human history, full of brief moments and impermanence.
Likewise, in the coming years, we will abandon several other tools that have played a role in our past. It will happen with the idea of market, competition, profit, property and even with the notion of money, as we currently know.
They will all be pushed aside, replaced by new tools and new ways of thinking and living. Some will cling to the older tools for some time. Just as some writers did with their typewriters until the end of their lives. Even if some beings refuse to leave their old tools behind, they’ll inevitably become obsolete. Time will ensure them all to be removed from their usual place just as the typewriters were removed from over the desks around the planet.
And someday we will gaze upon these old tools in the museums. Preserved, as nothing more than symbols of an era, of an old time we lived. We’ll look at them with a mix of affection and condescendence; affection for all that they have allowed us to do and learn. Condescendence, for finally recognizing that we once were innocent enough to believe these tools would always be dominant and indispensable.
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