Various Ways Oneness is Perceived

             It turns out, the perception of oneness shows up in many ways.

As truth rises to conscious awareness (your immediate awareness, your living experience), ego takes the information that comes with this and turns it into what it can understand. This is how we get our spiritualities and religions. Truth rising to conscious awareness is not happening for the world, it is not happening for ego, but ego tries to make it so and pieces the information it has into a narrative that makes sense for it.

There is no doubt that the rising of truth affects the mind’s perceptions, no matter what ego does with it. Sometimes the veil of ego slips entirely and the purest oneness, the onlyness of truth, or pure consciousness, the space in which ego and its world appear, is seen in conscious awareness. This is considered a mystical experience because it is out of the norm. When this occurs, it is clear that conscious awareness is part of the onlyness of truth, and there may be a sense of seeing one’s “true self”, but it is also clear that ego and its world are not true. So, obviously it is not ego that sees this. In the experience, ego is gone so conscious awareness sees what is no longer blocked; it sees what is really here, pure consciousness. When ego resumes its central role in conscious awareness, it is rattled because a different reality was revealed, one it couldn’t see or understand, but that it senses is “greater”. It certainly cannot conceive of its own nonreality, so it concludes that both realities are true and that there is a relationship between them. It may feel it saw “heaven” or “God”, but in any case, as it was greater, it must be the source of ego and its world. Ego’s guilt and fear may increase, and it may strive to be worthy of what it is now aware of. Or it may blow up itself as special for having seen truth. It could also embark on a spiritual or religious journey to see this oneness again, or to try to manifest it in the world in its personal life or through social or political action. In any case, it is changed by the experience.

Once the onlyness of truth and the unreality of ego and its world are seen, this awareness may be diminished or pushed into the unconscious by ego. Its purity makes it the most powerful, therefore the most threatening, of mystical experiences to ego. It is also the rarest mystical experience.

Most who have mystical experiences have milder experiences of oneness that do not reveal the onlyness of truth and the unreality of the world and experience that they thought until then was true. These can come as one seeing that they are one with another or an object or that everyone and everything in their present awareness is one. For a moment, truth breaks into their experience as a milder oneness rather than onlyness. It then extends to some or all that is appearing in their conscious awareness at the time and the oneness experience becomes conflated with appearances. They feel that they have seen a oneness that binds all that appears; that is the source of all that appears. This is often considered God. They, too, may turn this into a spiritual journey, and/or social and political action that they feel reflects this oneness. But the oneness they experienced was not of appearances but of pure consciousness, the “space” in which appearances appear, and simply enveloped everything in their awareness.

Those mystical experiences are the obvious experiences of oneness. But as truth comes to conscious awareness, there are more subtle experiences of oneness that begin to occur. Synchronicity and coincidences and seeing connections and interconnections increase. And similarities stand out more than differences. For example, for this mind, the experience of being at a beach is the same no matter the beach and its unique features. The same with being in the country or in a city. So, it seems all big coastal cities (the only kind Liz has been in) are alike. All small beach towns are the same. All countrysides evoke the same experience. Experiences have “flattened out” to be the same and are less special. Differences are seen, of course, but are not experienced as significant. This may also explain the experience here of people suddenly being experienced as stereotypes and caricatures because both emphasize similarities rather than differences.

Understand that you cannot make yourself see oneness either in mystical or more subtle forms. There is no practice being suggested here. What is being described are the many ways oneness is perceived as truth rises toward and into conscious awareness.

The significance of oneness experiences is in the oneness, not in the context in which the experience arises. The mistake most make (certainly did here!), often painfully, is thinking a oneness experience indicates something significant (special) about the person, people, setting, or objects appearing when it is experienced. The same mistake is made with synchronicity and coincidences. They are random moments as truth rises to conscious awareness and are not related to what is appearing. Truth is not trying to signal to you to pay attention because who is present, what is appearing, or a connection seen has spiritual relevance. Instead, when these experiences of oneness occur, or you see an increase of changes in everyday perception toward connections and similarities, recognize they signal truth is, if not fully in your conscious awareness, nearby.

 

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