Indications of Oneness in Basic Human Experience and Perception

[Buddha Dharma]

Before science told us that we were all made of the same star stuff, or contemporary psychology said that we play on one another's consciousness as external factors- there were humans that concluded we have always been interconnected.

Hinduism and Buddhism tend to non-duality. That we are all Brahman having a mortal experience, or are Buddha at our fundamental core- carrying the uncultivated seeds of Nirvana.

Mystic traditions in the monotheistic religions and some pagan philosophical thought have both suggested we're actually unified in one cosmic reality.

What indications do you suppose suggested this to the primitive mind? Without science or psychology suggesting to us our interconnection.

What do we see in basic perception and interactions in every day life that causes us to say to ourselves: there is no fundamental divide between self and other?

 

[Quintessence]

Ironically, I'd wager the source is the either-or dichotomous thinking inherent in all humans. If you suppose that things are fundamentally divided, it's not hard to speculate the hypothesis of the contrary.

 

[Tumah]

Mystic traditions in the monotheistic religions

In some, not the.

 

[Buddha Dharma]

One possibility that has occurred to me and may indicate an interconnection- is our ability to feel for others in any situation. Situations we may never have been in during the course of our present life, but if we look deep within we can empathize.

This suggests to me that perhaps we've been all these things at one time. That something in us remembers that we were these things, and it awakens.

At times I've allowed myself to entertain this thought, suspending any skepticism to receive insight: 'everything people believe they hate through prejudice, they have been'.

This thought seems to tie in with what Buddhists describe as the Buddha recalling all previous existences with the attainment of Nirvana.

It is said the Buddha recalled having been everything in the universe at the moment of awakening. That he recalled being saint and sinner, creature and vegetative life- and came to know seeming division as misleading.

 

[Buddha Dharma]

In some, not the.

Jewish mystic thought doesn't speculate about interconnection between things, or there is no school that does?

 

[Buddha Dharma]

Ironically, I'd wager the source is the either-or dichotomous thinking inherent in all humans. If you suppose that things are fundamentally divided, it's not hard to speculate the hypothesis of the contrary.

Now that is interesting. Have any further thoughts on this matter? As a rule, you are correct. Every idea in human thought seems to have it's accompanying negative. Do you think it runs any deeper than that?

 

[Buddha Dharma]

@Vouthon have anything from the noteworthy tradition of Christian mysticism with it's extensive literary corpus you can add? What suggested to some Christian thinkers that God contains all life, and that this is all more than just our being mere servile creations?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Before science told us that we were all made of the same star stuff, or contemporary psychology said that we play on one another's consciousness as external factors- there were humans that concluded we have always been interconnected.

Hinduism and Buddhism tend to non-duality. That we are all Brahman having a mortal experience, or are Buddha at our fundamental core- carrying the uncultivated seeds of Nirvana.

Mystic traditions in the monotheistic religions and some pagan philosophical thought have both suggested we're actually unified in one cosmic reality.

What indications do you suppose suggested this to the primitive mind? Without science or psychology suggesting to us our interconnection.

What do we see in basic perception and interactions in every day life that causes us to say to ourselves: there is no fundamental divide between self and other?

I always favored the symbolic depiction concerning duality/wholeness through Yin and Yang.

Duality is noticed whereas you can see it in the symbol, there is also the depiction of wholeness.

The part I find interesting is the suggestion of wholeness in duality and duality in wholeness. Where neither is actually true or false, and remains indistinguishable as well as interrelated. It's one of those areas where in essence there is no true right or wrong answer here.

The Human Experience remains an embodiment. ...



MU.

 

[Axe Elf]

I don't know that there would be any such indications in "ordinary" or "basic" human experience and perception, but then God gave us peyote and psilocybin to transcend everyday perception for experiences of the divine oneness.

 

[Buddha Dharma]

I don't know that there would be any such indications in "ordinary" or "basic" human experience and perception, but then God gave us peyote and psilocybin to transcend everyday perception for experiences of the divine oneness.

There is always that, yes. Psychedelics add an interesting dimension to this topic.

 

[Quintessence]

Now that is interesting. Have any further thoughts on this matter? As a rule, you are correct. Every idea in human thought seems to have it's accompanying negative. Do you think it runs any deeper than that?

I would hope so - I'm not much for dualistic thinking (or monistic "unity" thinking for that matter). In general, humans are able to entertain a multitude of possibilities for a given situation or idea. In other words, it's not just about accompanying negatives or contraries and "this or that"; it's also "this, that, the other thing, and a bunch of other stuff too."

 

[Vouthon]

@Vouthon have anything from the noteworthy tradition of Christian mysticism with it's extensive literary corpus you can add? What suggested to some Christian thinkers that God contains all life, and that this is all more than just our being mere servile creations?

"...For, in the transformation within the Unity, all spirits fail in their own activity, and feel nothing else but a burning up of themselves in the simple Unity of God. This simple Unity of God none can feel or possess save he who maintains himself in the immeasurable radiance, and in the love which is above reason and wayless.

In this transcendent state the spirit feels in itself the eternal fire of love; and in this fire of love it finds neither beginning nor end, and it feels itself one with this fire of love. The spirit for ever continues to burn in itself, for its love is eternal; and it feels itself ever more and more to be burnt up in love, for it is drawn and transformed into the Unity of God, where the spirit burns in love.

If it observes itself, it finds a distinction and an otherness between itself and God; but where it is burnt up it is undifferentiated and without distinction, and therefore it feels nothing but unity; for the flame of the Love of God consumes and devours all that it can enfold in its Self...

Behold! by each of these images, I show forth to God-seeing men their being and their exercise, but none else can understand them. For the contemplative life cannot be taught. But where the Eternal Truth reveals Itself within the spirit all that is needful is taught and learnt......"

- Blessed John of Ruysbroeck (1293 - 1381), The Sparkling Stone

​

The Catholic mystic above is saying that his thinking mind assumes one thing, when he observes himself, while his unthinking mind during the experience itself feels pure, undifferentiated unity that "devours all" in one "Self".

The experience leads him to refine his prior understanding of God, as it did for another mystic Henry Suso:

"...In order to attain perfect union, we must free ourselves of God...The common belief about God, that He is a great Taskmaster, whose function is to reward or punish, is cast out by perfect love; and in this sense the spiritual man does divest himself of God as conceived of by most people. The intellectual where is the essential unnameable nothingness. So we must call it, because we can discover no mode of being, under which to conceive it..."

- Blessed Henry Suso (c. 1296-1366), German Catholic mystic & Dominican priest ​

 

[Buddha Dharma]

I would hope so - I'm not much for dualistic thinking (or monistic "unity" thinking for that matter). In general, humans are able to entertain a multitude of possibilities for a given situation or idea. In other words, it's not just about accompanying negatives or contraries and "this or that"; it's also "this, that, the other thing, and a bunch of other stuff too."

I like that thought. It is similar to Anekantavada in Jainism, which I find myself favorable toward on occasion.

This Jain concept posits an open-ended reality that is not truly one thing or another thoughts may attempt to grip with.

 

[Buddha Dharma]

"...In order to attain perfect union, we must free ourselves of God...The common belief about God, that He is a great Taskmaster, whose function is to reward or punish, is cast out by perfect love; and in this sense the spiritual man does divest himself of God as conceived of by most people. The intellectual where is the essential unnameable nothingness. So we must call it, because we can discover no mode of being, under which to conceive it..."

- Blessed Henry Suso (c. 1296-1366), German Catholic mystic & Dominican priest

I find this interesting. I seem to recall that the actual orthodox Christian view is that not even dogma tells us about God. Rather, indicates what God is not for one that sees. This creates an interesting, seeming contradiction in a worldview often fixated on orthodoxy.

Anselm of Canterbury for example, would appear to most readers to be engaging in double speak, when he says Christ is the ideal and first man in Monologium. Yet, that Christ is also the Father. That the appearance of Christ in relation to the Father is a beginningless generation.

It is the burning up of love for God, or godly love then- that Christian mystics hold is the indication of this unity?

 

[Mindmaster]

What indications do you suppose suggested this to the primitive mind? Without science or psychology suggesting to us our interconnection.

What do we see in basic perception and interactions in every day life that causes us to say to ourselves: there is no fundamental divide between self and other?

Question #1: In the absence of thought to the contrary, you do not know what you cannot do. They formed their opinions of these matters based on introspection, inference, and other criteria. The wrote it down in various places we call scriptures and asked that we take it on faith until we know ourselves, but all of that is irrelevant exactly at the time where the truth is in ones own awareness. In the end, the writings are just to get ones heart and mind in alignment with the enlightened realization, but they are not the enlightenment themselves. No amount of reading, thinking, or hearing is relevant in and of itself.

Question #2: Is a problem of mixing layers, e.g. applying the rules and models of the material world to the inner world of the consciousness. They have absolutely nothing to do with one another and the quicker you realize that the easier your life will be. Since the awareness of the Self/oneness has nothing to do with the perceptions of the body or the rationalizations of the mind it only occurs when the Self is convinced to seek the Self and no longer buying into avidya. (ignorance, ones own delusions, ego, etc.) Until this time you can only seek the truth via shradda (faith) in gurus or scriptures, cavil, or entertain your own meanderings of the things being discussed.

Awareness is essentially beyond all this and it is experienced, but it is also irrational or perhaps better to say 'beyond' the rationality. The short of it is: There is no reason for it to be this way, but why does there have to be one? Who would feel smarter if they knew that reason? (only your ego) Likewise, it is impossible to know this connected nature of things without feeling the connection yourself. Everything else is a debate and walking away from the truth with every thought or word spoken. Fix your own house and you'll have the answers to these things, basically. Until then, it's speculation upon speculation....

 

[sun rise]

Jewish mystic thought doesn't speculate about interconnection between things, or there is no school that does?

I've found it worded in a different way in the sense of oneness:

According to the Chassidic view, a corollary of the foundational belief that “God is One” is that creation is energized by and suffused with God’s Oneness. Ecology According to the Baal Shem Tov

Know that [the highest three levels of the soul] Neshama, Chaya, and Yechida are [those spiritual levels] which have already been clarified to the point of being completely good [as opposed to an admixture of good and bad], and they have returned to their [original pre-Creation] levels [of holiness], to the aspects of G‑dliness and Atzilut, which shines in all the worlds, Beriya, Yetzira, and Asiya. And they [the highest levels of the soul] are the ones which effect true Oneness within all the [lower three] worlds, to bind them and unite them within the Infinite [Ein Sof], to draw down new [spiritual] influx. Oneness for Everyone

 

[idav]

Nature most likely the easiest ways for ancients to see a oneness out of the greater complexity of things. Life was likely very mysterious and we end up with various forms of animism popping up all over the world where religions likely find their anctient roots.

 

[rocala]

I am sure that there is more than one answer to this question. There is however at least one type of mystical experience that leaves you in no doubt of oneness. I had it, it is why I have a spiritual path. I have met one other who has but considering I have hardly ever mentioned it there are probably lots more.

 

[Tumah]

Jewish mystic thought doesn't speculate about interconnection between things, or there is no school that does?

I think not quite in the way you mean. Mysticism in Judaism is complicated and heavily technical (as pretty much all areas of study in Judaism tend to be). There is a concept of "singularity" (that is not G-d) out of which all things are eventually formed. But that singularity is too far removed from even the hint of the creation of what will be man as to be something relatable. I don't think that this is really the direction that Jewish mysticism takes.

 

[wizanda]

What do we see in basic perception and interactions in every day life that causes us to say to ourselves: there is no fundamental divide between self and other?

Self identification happens within the material dimensions (6D); through Wisdom being the Highest dimension (12D), those whom have become selfless through inner meditation, have realized that everything stems from the same Source (13D).

What indications do you suppose suggested this to the primitive mind?

The idea of primitive minds when they could memorize the whole texts, whereas we have like a 3 minute attention span in comparison.

non-duality.

Many religions have none duality when understood properly, everything stems from the CPU, where the reality is all made of consciousness; as we descend in dimension it becomes corrupted, and thus falling any lower than here consciously is Hell.

Whereas through higher consciousness we can ascend past the dimensions, even on recognizing what we're made from we can have a sense of Oneness in matter; yet to ultimately ascend to the top dimensions where Heaven (11D+) its self is Oneness, we have to reach a state of nothingness (Nirvana or 0neness).

For the mind to truly go beyond non-duality, it has to encompass that all of this is code around us (Maya 3D), and thus automatically comes to a state of knowing Oneness through Wisdom (12D).

In my opinion.