The Oneness Paradox

What is oneness, and why do we desire it so much?

I believe oneness is our blueprint for spiritual homeostasis, a natural return to balance, harmony, and unity. However, the tendency to move out of this original state is part of our naturalness, as well. That's the oneness paradox we must learn to manage with skill.

PARADOX

In other words, losing the oneness experience is part of regaining it. When we grasp this paradox, we start to appreciate oneness as a unity that embraces diversity and differentiation. Oneness does not need to be a homogenous mushy soup of unity.

HOMEOSTASIS

The key is awareness of oneness lost as it is lost. If the desire to restore oneness begins when we lose it, a different process ensues in contrast to recovering or restoring oneness after the fact. We learn that there is no need to lament this loss but be present in the unfolding process and be willing to guide its return back to spiritual homeostasis.

PERFECTIONISM
The loss of oneness is the explication, the unpacking of the oneness gained. While we want to sustain oneness as much as possible, trying to hold on to oneness gained can often reflect our egoic perfectionism. The process becomes more organic when we realize how ludicrous it is never to lose oneness.

CONTEXT

Contextualizing our loss is also essential. Being willing to lose our oneness for the sake of love is the equivalent of giving up one's self for the sake of another. That other can be another human being or the divine, our sacred other. Oneness, the state, is integral to our relationship with divinity, with ultimate reality. We often forget that oneness is about relationships, not some static, arbitrary projection of the mind.

UNITY

Since oneness is about relationships, we must be willing to look at the unity of the many parts that constitute the structure of the self. But unfortunately, spiritual practitioners often envisage the ego as only one thing, making us unaware of the ego splitting itself into a good and bad cop, the former trying to be spiritual.

GOLDEN PATH TO WHOLENESS

WHOLENESS

I prefer wholeness to oneness because it is a harmony containing many parts, even parts that are impure, difficult, challenging, or deviant.

When we approach oneness through a linear process, we use some abstract benchmark of what oneness is (or is supposed to be) and therefore impose a blueprint upon our reality. This imposition is how we inadvertently corrupt oneness, i.e., equating oneness with our human notions of perfection or projecting a mental concept of oneness upon wholeness.

ACTION

Darn it, there goes my oneness again!

Stop lamenting the loss of oneness and treat it as essential to your evolutionary spiritual process and ongoing awakening.

Okay, so you lost your oneness. So what? Recover it again. It is our sense of perfection that interferes most with our oneness.

Paradoxically, renouncing perfection does not, by default, enable us to evolve. On the contrary, often, it can cause us to regress or become complacent that we've renounced perfection. As a result, we end up settling for mediocrity.

FRAGMENTATION
Technically, we are not at oneness when divided within ourselves; one part pitted against another, superego against the ego, ego against the instinctual self (the id), or any such combination.

The key to oneness is knowing how to integrate the various parts of self―this is the real key to oneness instead of simply sensing oneness.

If this topic and process interests you, we've got several programs that pursue this process while engaging in powerful spiritual practices.

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