Letter to a Friend
Dear friend,
I suspect I may think of “oneness” differently than some of you. I think of us (humans) NOT as “one” or the same. We obviously are NOT the same, and often not even similar in how we react or respond to each other and to life in general.
I DO experience, and therefore believe, that a single, perhaps unifying, Creative Energy is in and flows through everything: people, plants, animals, rocks, air, water, stars, etc. One might think of each person or thing as a complex, individual piece of a single puzzle.
More deeply, my own experience might best be described in this way. While I’m speaking specifically of human persons, my experience includes everything that has its being in “manifest form” at some level.
I envision a huge disco ball made up of innumerable mirrored facets. Creative Energy is not only within the ball, the ball actually emanates from this Creative Energy.
Each person (and thing) is a single facet of the ball through which Creative Energy expresses and experiences Itself.
I suspect that a large part of the Spiritual Path is not about discovery, becoming, or uniting with “god” (Creative Energy by whatever name you may choose to address it). It seems to me the goal, if you will, of the Spiritual Path is to become more and more aware of the Creative Energy which expresses and experiences Itself through the individual facet that is the complex, individual I AM that is you. As I get better at this, the less alone or separated I feel.
I feel (experience) myself as part of a greater Whole. I don’t get lost in the mass of Wholeness, or Union. Somehow the very fact of my individuality enhances both I and Thou (as opposed to Me and You/Thee), both me as and individual and Creative Energy as a Whole.
I think people fear to lose themselves if they pursue a Spiritual Path, and, instead, become lost in the pain of separation and abandonment. And, feeling lost, sink deeper and deeper into fear and rage and self (and other) destruction.
It hurts my heart to watch, and feel, the self-destruction of others. It especially hurts as I realize more and more clearly that I, as one of the complex individual facets, do not have the capacity to stop another’s’ self-destruction.
I can stay as true to that expression and experience of Creative Energy pouring through the facet I AM at any given moment. I am grateful that these given moments are more and more joined and consistent.
I can step back from judgment and hold that every facet is, at heart, an expression and experience of Creative Energy. Quan Yin expresses this concept as, “You are both Creator and Created, one and at the same time.”
I can encourage you to explore your own individuality (individual facet).
I can encourage you to embrace your own facet of “The I Am, which is my true self” to the degree that you are willing and able.
I can encourage you to love, honor, appreciate, and cherish who and what you are every day.
I can love and appreciate you as an individual AND as an expression of The Whole.
And, I do.
Blessings,
Charlotte
edited by Monique Huenergardt of MoReadsYou.com