Dialog 001 - One Being

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This post is an e-mail conversation between a reader and me.
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GARY:

In the course of writing blog posts, a significant realization dawned.

At least, it seems significant to me. There's always the possibility I am deluding myself.

I feel a need to have it checked out by people who have the capacity to discern and will tell it to me straight.

It is a simple request, without expectation. When and if it is in the flow for you, will you check out this page and give me your honest feedback?

Dispel the Illusion with a Greeting!

Do my conclusions seem to you to have any merit?

Thank you for your presence.

We are O.B.

***

NATE:

Hi Gary, 

Nice to hear from you. I checked out your post, and I have a question.

If we are all one being, why is it that if me and you are both hungry, and I eat food, you will still be hungry?

***

GARY:

We have a common core - one being of pure consciousness - with all that is. Not only humans, but everything - plants, animals, minerals, planets, stars, empty space are at the most fundamental level - self-existent consciousness.

The one being is also the one true self, the first cause, the creative source. When I identify with the separated persona, my human awareness blocks itself from knowing that the totality is in cup and content the one being. Nothing, not even nothing, exists apart from the one being.

The design of diversity gives us unique experiences, yet the full design which has not yet manifested is that we know ourselves as the undifferentiated one being and the defined human in the same moment. Identified with the true self, neither of us is hungry! Identified with the persona, we experience a sense of separateness, of individuality - and if you eat food, my stomach won't be filled. That is the apparent nature of things until pure consciousness expands human awareness as the barriers dissolve.

We are one being.

***

NATE:

The only design that I know is manifest is the one right now. I do not know what will be or could be. But right now, if I eat food and you don't, I'm pretty sure you will die. I do not know of any mind that can overcome this truth. 

If I cannot satisfy your hunger by eating food myself, in what way are we one being?

***

GARY:

Thank you for taking the time to read the post and question me. It is needed, and what I asked for.

With regard to your questions, I have one in return, asked gently: 

Eating and living, not eating and dying — what have they to do with being?

Being simply is. In our 'is-ness,' our common existence, we are one being. Like viewing an optical illusion, we experience what we focus on. We live in a society of 'do do do'. I am not suggest we 'be be be', but as Amit Goswami says, 'do be do be do.'

Doing is practical, functional and often automatic. Being is brought into doing by expanding human awareness with O.B. consciousness.

That my body would eventually succumb to the unfolding we call death while you eat and continue in your present form is evidence not of our being O.B. but of the illusion of separation. Of course, it seems real. Perhaps the only reality.

It seems you are viewing this from a perspective of individual existence. I see individual existence in the context of the greater existence. There is no separation between those two distinctions, in the greater reality accessed in the Now. Separation is accessed in dualism, the linear. Separation is not an enemy when it is accessed consciously and in balance with O.B.

We perceive our separation over the five senses and the intellect, yes? The perception that we are one being comes over deep feeling and inner knowing. It bypasses the analytical brain, which for some I am sure is shaky ground. For me it is the most solid ground. That you eat and live and I don't and die does not affect the underlying reality.

There is wisdom in nature's design that apparently one of us eats and lives and the other doesn't and dies. It gives opportunities to consciously choose empathy, compassion, caring and kindness towards each other. In w.a.o.b. consciousness, dropping judgment, prejudice, jealousy and all things which put up barriers — and acting from the expanded qualities are natural. It is pure pleasure to do anything in this state of expanded awareness, which I have experienced in too brief moments. Most of the doing of modern life quickly replaces expanded awareness with mechanical action.

When emphasis is continually placed on separation, the one being at the foundation of existence is removed from perception by the cloud of numbed and distracted human awareness.

I see you are looking for practical, daily life proof that we are one being. O.B. consciousness has practical application and value when it is embodied through actions. We eat and breathe and act as individuals but our underlying existence in the present moment is one totality. This understanding is coming to light in the sciences. 

Your responses have been helpful.

***

GARY:

The feeling for answering you is present, but the words are not!

I'd like to take another shot at it, if you will indulge me.

You and I are apparently in separate bodies, though physics tells us that is also an optical illusion.

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying 'Our separation from each other is an optical illusion' though the context is unknown.

In our apparently separate bodies, when you eat and I don't, you live and I die.

We also have apparently separate identities, sometimes referred to as the persona or ego.

In my search for a way to respond further to you, Google and Goodreads presented these quotes from Amit Gotswami, which say what I wanted to:

“It is not just do do do. It is not just be be be. It is do be do be do.” -  Amit Goswami

“Consciousness is the agency that collapses the wave of a quantum object, which exists in potentia, making it an immanent particle in the world of manifestation.” -  Amit Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe

“The new paradigm posits instead a monism based on the primacy of consciousness — that consciousness (variously called Spirit, God, Godhead, Ain Sof, Tao, Brahman, etc., in popular and spiritual traditions), not matter, is the ground of all being; it is a monism based on a consciousness that is unitive and transcendent but one that becomes many in sentient beings such as us. We are that consciousness. All the world of experience, including matter, is the material manifestation of transcendent forms of consciousness.” -  Amit Goswami, Physics of the Soul: The Quantum Book of Living, Dying, Reincarnation, and Immortality

“Consciousness is the true reality, and matter is an epiphenomenon bordering on trivial.” - Amit Goswami, God Is Not Dead: What Quantum Physics Tells Us about Our Origins and How We Should Live

“THE ANTITHESIS OF MATERIAL REALISM is monistic idealism. In this philosophy, consciousness, not matter, is fundamental. Both the world of matter and the world of mental phenomena, such as thought, are determined by consciousness.” -  Amit Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe [1]

Nate, what I haven't come across yet in my readings is that undifferentiated consciousness is the True Self of all that is. That is a leap I made on my own. If it is so, and this actuality is embraced by humans, it shifts everything in our daily actions and reality. Gotswami says, 'We are that consciousness,' and consciousness is the essence of Being. Yet somehow it feels more on spot and potent to say of the totality of existence, including our momentary individual expressions, 'we are one being.'

***

GARY:

I just came across these reviews of one of Amit Gotswami's books. They (especially the Kirkus review) give another view.

Also just had a thought:  what would provide convincing proof -- as sure as the earth is round and sailors won't fall off the edge -- that W?

Best regards,

Gary

KIRKUS REVIEW [2]

 Goswami (Physics/University of Oregon; coauthor, The Cosmic Dancers, 1983) uses quantum physics to promote monistic idealism- -the theory that both matter and mind have their origin in consciousness. The villain here is materialism--the teaching that everything is comprised of atoms--and its tag-along doctrines of locality (that interactions between objects occur in local space-time), strong objectivity (that objects exist independently of consciousness), and epiphenomenalism (that mind is an accidental by-product of brain function). According to Goswami, quantum physics has laid to rest this view of reality: Quantum objects jump from here to there without passing through intervening space, disproving locality; Heisenberg's uncertainty principle disproves strong objectivity, etc. Goswami's explication of modern physics- -which draws on everything from Winnie-the-Pooh to optical illusions--is a model of clarity. Vastly less satisfying is his brief for monistic idealism. For one thing, he writes off an important alternative, dualism--the ``common-sense'' view that mind and matter both exist, that a rock is a rock and a thought is a thought--in a few skimpy paragraphs. For another, his argument is inconsistent: He cites paranormal events as evidence for idealism, but when an exception arises (such as out-of-body experiences, which suggest dualism), he becomes a debunker. Worst of all, when he tries to describe how idealism actually shapes the world, he sounds like Madame Blavatsky with a hangover (``the universe exists as formless potentia in myriad possible branches in the transcendent domain''). Goswami's aim is inviting--who does not wish us to ``realize our full potential--an integrated access to our quantum and classical selves''?--but most readers will remain agnostic. More substantial than Fritjof Capra, which isn't saying much. This is one cosmic egg that may be too big to crack.


***

NATE:

We didn't know that it was sure proof sailors wouldn't fall off the edge until someone went all the way around and didn't fall off. Without experience through action, what are words speaking about?

Thanks for passing on these reviews. If I decide to pick up some philosophy in this line of thought, this will be a great starting point.

***

GARY:

May I have permission to publish our email exchange as a Whole Human blog post?

I feel this type of dialog is beneficial for readers.

***

NATE:

If you don't mind, I want to respond to your first response because it seems to come more from your personal thinking. I see what you are trying to clarify in your second email, and will have something to say on that at the end...

Individual existence and greater existence — is this not an illusion of separation? Where do you draw the line? I can only see the lines drawn in the imagination.

In the greater world, regardless of my perception, when I eat, my hunger is satisfied. When I sleep, I feel rested. When I walk, my body thanks me. When someone greets me with kindness, I feel touched by kindness and want to be kind in return...The change from summer to fall brings a crisp scent to the air. Plants are afraid when you bring a knife into the garden. The night-time quiets my mind. The taste of water after eating pineapple is sour.

When my mind and body sleep in death, I cannot eat, drink, feel rested, notice the change in the air between summer and fall...so what then is the state of my being? If the world continues after I die, which I believe it does, then I will no longer experience it. Other beings will, but I will feel none of it. I won't think anything about it. I won't interact with it. 

You are right that I am making points about practicality. But what is practical and what is more? Where do you draw such a line? Is not what we call practical actually being present in the one reality, which we are experiencing now and only now? I like thinking about the concept of One being, but if its foundation is not on the moment to moment observations and practicalities of our experience, then what does One being really mean?

...Thanks for discussing this with me, I enjoy our conversations. Please, feel free to post this email chain. 

About your follow-up email, the Einstein quote stands out to me - "Our separation from each other is an optical illusion." He may have been speaking scientifically- that chemically, the whole universe is an interconnected web of stuff constantly mixing together and changing, and human existence is just a part of that web. Now, in line more with a more spiritual/experiential understanding of One Being, I believe that our individual mind is one with the universal mind of action, in the same way that a pebble dropped into a lake makes ripples. But I understand that not to be a realization that takes me out of my body and mind, but rather engrosses me more in it. If my nature is as a pebble and my fate is to make a ripple, then moment to moment action is the seed and substance of that ripple.

I look forward to your response.

[1] Quotes from Amit Goswami

[2] Kirkus Reviews 

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