Oneness Does Not Equal Sameness

This is a rewrite of a previous blog post I wrote back in 2011.  What a joy to revisit and edit this important topic to share with you for such a time as this!

Often times our brains get busy trying to understand and make sense of Spiritual principles intellectually while the body is unknowingly re-tuning itself to the vibrational match of a newly (re)introduced eternal verity.  Something which was always known, but at some point became unknown or hidden, as the result of the conditioned experiences of one’s life.

What I have learned along my personal Spiritual path is that my body often gets it long before my brain does.  Then when the time is right, the spark occurs followed by a resonant mental understanding, followed by a heartfelt sense of grace and knowing.  Magic.

“Oneness does not equal sameness.” 

Consider the simple hindu greeting and salutation upon meeting or the valediction upon parting ways of “Namaste.”  Namaste literally translates as “I bow to you.”  It also has the deeper spiritual meaning that the life force, the divinity, the Self or the God in me is the same in all. “Namaste - the God in me honors the God in you.”

Honoring the God in another person is becoming aware that we are all made of the same stuff, yet we are not identical expressions of that stuff!  Wouldn’t that be boring if we were?  A bunch of me’s or a bunch of you’s walking the planet and nobody else?  Spooky thought.

I had an experience of embodying oneness at a 5 night silent retreat with one of my favorite enlightened guys, Adyashanti.  There were 400+ attendees on this retreat and we were four days deep into the container of silence.  In the second silent sitting of the afternoon I opened my eyes suddenly, looked around the room and noticed that everyone was together in the same silent container, observing the same things: passing thoughts, coughing, inner peace, still body, still mind - through different eyes, in different bodies.  Suddenly I was hovering above the crowd. Then I was looking through the eyes of the person next to me, then before me, then the person across the room to the right, and then across the room to the left.  

I shook my head quickly in an attempt to think something.  I have the subtle memory of attempting to get back into my body or brain but I couldn’t seem to locate that little me.  Another good head shaking was enough to wake up my thinking and all I could say was, “WOAH,” to myself silently in my head before closing my eyes again. 

While it may sound a bit strange or different, it was a profound mystical experience that transformed me.  I recognized that the magnitude of the realization for me at that time, in where I was spiritually, was a bit vast for me to reside in for more than a few seconds.  Gratefully it has gradually integrated within me over time.

The realization of this type of eternal verity - oneness - presents the same dilemma as many other realizations on this path.  It's the great paradox that we are, in fact, spiritual beings having a human experience. Not one or the other, but both at the same time.  God in form.  Individualized, unique expressions of the Divine.  I have discovered that as long as I am having this human experience I must honor both the Oneness, the Divinity in me that is the Divinity in you, and the uniqueness of me and of you.  I can't afford to forget nor undervalue the human experience expressed in so many different ways.  Nor to pretend that we are all the same.

I’m a 5’3”, 40 (something) year old, female, Hispanic, with brown hair, hazel eyes, and athletic.  You may be a 5’8”, 22 year old male, person of color, with brown hair, brown eyes, and not athletic.  Each of us with our own unique life experiences, conditioning, ancestry and heritage.  Privileged or burdened by circumstances that we were born into, beyond our control.

Living in this paradox makes life a thrilling adventure.  God is all there is and you are God in form in your own uniquely fabulous way.  Divine and human.  Just like the quarter has a heads side and a tails side.  Both are the quarter yet each side is uniquely different.  Yes we are one, but we are not the same. 

We are called to honor the Divinity within one another, and simultaneously honor the uniqueness of one another as the individualized expressions of the Divine that we are.  We cannot honor one without the other.  To do so is to bypass or dismiss the human experience and pretend that it is not happening.  This is like saying the quarter is only the heads side or only the tails side, or it is neither heads nor tails, it is just a quarter. That's the mistake or conundrum we may find ourselves in after embodying the verity of oneness.  It’s actually both and.  Many individualized expressions of the One.

I honor the Divinity within you that is you, and simultaneously honor the unique individual, expressions of the Divine AS you!  Now time to take that eternal verity and see the world through the eyes of the Beloved Presence, honoring all of it.

Today I invite you to look at the people around you with love and compassion, without judgment, noticing their unique beauty.  What do you think is their nationality or ethnicity? What kind of body shape do they have? What color is their hair and their eyes? What age are they? How tall, etc.?  Be curious.  What brought them to where they are today?  What was their ancestry like? What might their privilege or burden be? And then ask the same questions of yourself.  

Lastly ask yourself this: How might I help create a world of inclusion?  How may I contribute to creating a world that works for everyone? 

Namaste.

The Benefits of Spiritual Coaching: Oneness Does NOT Equal Sameness!

Another remarkable benefit of having a spiritual coach is that they can help to clarify any confusion about Spiritual Principles which may arise along one’s path of spiritual awakening.  

Often times our brains get busy trying to understand and make sense of Spiritual principles intellectually while the body is unknowingly retuning itself to the vibrational match of a newly (re)introduced eternal verity.  Something which was always known, but at some point became unknown or hidden, as the result of the conditioned experiences of one’s life.

What I have learned along my personal Spiritual path is that my body often gets it long before my brain does.  Then when the time is right, the spark occurs followed by a resonant mental understanding, followed by a heartfelt sense of grace and knowing.  Magic.

“Oneness does not equal sameness.”  Consider the simple hindu greeting and salutation upon meeting or the valediction upon parting ways of “Namaste.”  Namaste literally translates as “I bow to you.”  It also has the deeper spiritual meaning that the life force, the divinity, the Self or the God in me is the same in all. “Namaste - the God in me honors the God in you.”

So honoring the God in another person is becoming aware that we are all made of the same stuff.  But we are not identical expressions of the stuff!  Wouldn’t that be boring?  A bunch of me’s or a bunch of you’s walking the planet and nobody else but you, or me?  Spooky thought.

I had an experience of embodying oneness at a 5 night silent retreat with one of my favorite enlightened guys, Adyashanti.  It’s hard to describe the experience without sounding woo-woo or cheapening it but I am going to give it a shot here anyway.  

There were 400+ attendees on this retreat and we were four days deep into the container of silence.  In the second silent sitting of the afternoon I opened my eyes suddenly, looked around the room and noticed that everyone was together in the same silent container, observing the same things like thoughts, coughing, peace, body, mind - through different eyes in different bodies.  Suddenly I was hovering above the crowd, then I felt as if I were looking through the eyes of the person next to me, then before me, then the person across the room to the right, and then across the room to the left.  

I remember shaking my head quickly in an attempt to wake my brain up.  I have the subtle memory of attempting to get back into my body or brain and I couldn’t seem to locate me.  The head shaking was enough to wake up my brain and I said “WOAH” to myself silently in my head and closed my eyes again.  See, it sounds weird when I put it to paper.  But it happened and I recognized that the magnitude of the realization for me at that time, in where I was spiritually, was entirely too intense for me to reside in for more than a few seconds.

So the great paradox, the fine line of realizing this eternal verity presents the same dilemma as many other realizations on this path which is that we are in fact spiritual beings having a human experience.  God in form, individualized, unique expressions of the Divine.  As long as we are having this human experience we must honor both, the Oneness, the Divinity in me that is the Divinity in you, and our uniqueness.  

I’m a 5’3”, 40 year old, female, caucasian, with brown hair, hazel eyes, and athletic.  You may be a 5’8”, 22 year old,  male, person of color, with brown hair, brown eyes, and not athletic.  That’s what makes this life one thrilling adventure, our oneness and our individuality.  

So we honor the Divinity within one another, and at the same time we honor the uniqueness of one another as the individualized expressions of the Divine that we are.  We cannot honor one without the other.  To do so is to bypass the human experience and pretend as if it is not happening, which if you think about it, seems kind of silly!

Adyashanti once told me, “Elizabeth, you must allow your spiritual heart to marry your human heart.”  I was so deeply in love with the Spiritual nature of Life that I forgot that the gift for me was the human experience.

Affectionate awareness is what he called it.  I honor the Divinity within you that is you, and simultaneously honor the uniqueness, the individual expression of the Divine AS you!

In closing, A Spiritual coach can assist one in navigating, understanding, and embodying principles such as this.

Namaste.

The Benefits of Spiritual Coaching: Clarifying Confusion

Change your thinking, change your life you heard one day.  Ok, great, you thought to yourself, I am ready.  You took CSL101, Foundations class and became a member of the Center.  Then you took the Power of Your Word course and began to use our form of affirmative prayer, praying and praying often, for yourself and others.  Ultimately, you began to spend more time consciously aware of your communion with the Divine through prayer in all areas of your life.

One of my teachers, Adyashanti, is a big proponent of meditation, and for extended periods of time too!  He once told me that meditation is easy when you’re on “the cushion,” in the privacy of your own home without the distractions of the external world.  Your REAL meditation begins “off the cushion,” out in the world. So there it is!

I have found the same to be true for prayer.  In my conscious and sacred time of communion (on the cushion) with the Divine, prayer is deliciously different.  REAL prayer begins when I am out in the world (off the cushion), still delicious and an entirely different experience.  Can I access that sacred, prayerful state in all that I think, in all that I say and in all that I do?  Even in the face of adversity?  Even in the face of THAT?  Yes, especially in the face of THAT.

Onto one of the pitfalls, or common areas of confusion that I have discovered on my own and in the lives of others who I have coached on the spiritual path.  And that is in thinking that we need only pray, and then wait.  Here’s the absurdity with that...if your prayer includes the desire for transformation in relationship, maybe you are seeking that right and perfect romantic partner, your soulmate.  So you pray and then spend your spare time sitting on the couch in front of the television or reading a book alone...thinking the soulmate is going to materialize in your living room or come knocking on your door.  I’m not saying that is not a possibility, or that it cannot happen that way.  I am saying that there may be work for you to do out in the world, off the cushion, as it were.  Such as saying yes to attend a party your friend is throwing or attending other events you are drawn to say yes to attending and then being open to the possibilities the Universe provides.  

And believe me, the Universe ALWAYS provides.

We have a saying that you may have heard in Religious Science as follows: “treat and move your feet.”  This is to say pray, and then do the work necessary to create an environment wherein your prayers may be answered.  If you wanted to grow corn, you wouldn’t plant your seeds in the carpet of your living room.

Go get ‘em!  Much Love to you on your path.