Ask: Is Oneness a Double-edged Sword?

I have been feeling so much the sense of oneness with all I see and it is most pleasing when I see good things happen to people, animals, plants, world, environment, etc. because it brings such joy because I know I am them they are me. But what really brings pain is when I have this sense of oneness with people, animals, environment when horrible things happen to them and I truly feel horrible and a sense of helplessness and grief that doesn't leave me, for the same reason I see them as me and me as them. For example, wish everyone was a vegan so billions of animals don't have to be tortured and then horribly be murdered in slaughter houses, when the earth is being poisoned daily with all the chemicals and trash and deforesting done to it, when I see children and animals abused and big pharma, and corporations destroying everything for the almighty dollar, and its endless the victim victimizer scenarios that plague my mind. I truly want all to be well and happy, so in this case isn't this feeling of oneness a double edged sword when on the one hand it brings me such joy and on the other such pain. How do I see all this horror and feel good about it? Even though I totally can intellectualize that this world isn't real and I believe this with all my heart. But while in the world I must have a dream and I would rather all my dreams be in the positive rather than negative realm. I would rather be well than sick, rich than poor, happy than sad, see peace than war, see life rather than death, rather see me and others in comfort than suffering, etc.– JB

A Course in Miracles describes the kind of thinking that you do with a personal thought system (ego) as “upside-down thinking”. What this means is that the personal thought system teaches you that the world is not just an idea in your mind, but that it is in fact reality, and that it is your source – that your experience of peace or conflict is caused by it. This is “upside-down” because it is exactly the opposite of how your mind really works. In fact, you first choose the thought system – personal or True – that you want to experience, and then you either project conflict (personal) or extend Love (True) from your mind to the world.
When you experience God’s Love (Oneness) within yourself, you are detached from the personal thought system, its world, and its thoughts about its world. They are irrelevant to you, because you recognize that they are not about anything real. You experience a joyful, uplifting liberation from the limitations of a personal self, a body, and a world. The world may still be in your awareness, so the experience of Love extends to embrace all that you perceive all at once. This occurs no matter what is appearing and how the personal thought system would judge it. As Love extends from your mind, you recognize that It is coming from within you, so you recognize that form is not real, and what is appearing has nothing to do with your experience of peace or conflict.
You are not being told that to be at peace you must learn to see horror and feel good about it. You are being told that to be at peace you must be willing to recognize that all form, and the personal thought system’s thoughts about form, are not real. This awareness comes as God within you becomes more and more real to you, not as a nice idea, but as an actual experience. This takes time to develop, and if you find that you cannot detach from the world, then first you must focus on developing your awareness of God within you. (If you have completed the Workbook, look at my website, www.acimmentor.com, under 4 Habits for Inner Peace).
You are never in a world; it is only ever an idea in your mind. If you want peace, then your choice is not between a dream of a world that the personal thought system judges as “good” and one that it judges as “bad”, but between continuing to dream of a world and to awaken from all dreaming. The “happy dream” to which the Course refers is happy because you recognize that what the body’s eyes show you, and what the body seems to be experiencing in the world, is not real, so it does not matter what is appearing. It is still a dream only because you still perceive a world. The gentle path of awakening that the Course lays out is one where you will first experience the Peace of God within you while still perceiving a world, then you will put the world aside completely, and only the Peace of God will be left.

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