Unity and Difference

It’s desirable for me to find disagreement with others, sometimes, because it sharpens my understanding of myself, what I’m thinking, doing and feeling, if I’m paying attention, and not just trying to be "right". I don’t have to be "right", I just want to be.

Difference–it’s what lets consciousness expand so it can turn around on itself and see what it is. Difference is what creates individuals. There is no "mass" without individuals. In most creation stories, first there was one. There was no mass, just an individual personality, undifferentiated "oneness". Then there was "other" and one, which makes two. They were individuals, and there became "together" and "separate" with conscious awareness of one and two and ONE, simultaneously. There was no separation, only different points of view. Then there became MANY, and still there was no separation, only infinite points of view upon the Oneness, the ALL THAT IS.

In the view of oneness, there was individual, the primacy of the individual, the One, and of the Individual One of many. ESSENCially, there was no difference, no separation, no aloneness, only differing focuses, infinite universes in the ALL THAT IS, glorious rambunctious creation–the Universe giving birth to itself. Now, there are many myths about how this physical reality was created, and all of them have one characteristic in the blueprint, which is separation. Essence decided to experience "aloneness". In its wisdom, it created this game with a feeling of separation, because the effectiveness of the game depends on the single-minded absorption in it. Essence still knows there is no separation, but now its focuses forgot for the purposes of the game that IT IS A GAME.

There are some 6 billion focuses, i.e., "Humans" on this earth at any one "time", and all are different points of view, and each has a differing understanding of who and what it is. This is ESSENTial for the game, this differing understanding, because differing understanding is what creates the differing points of view, in other words the differing creations of experience for Essence to be knowing itself. There is no good or bad in this. There is no judgment of right or wrong. There is discernment of difference, and thereby the choosing of experiences for each focus’s intent, and this intent is the theme of that focus for the flow and set of experiences intended to further that intent, if you’ll pardon the repetitive alliteration. My understanding is different from yours, times six billion. In our forgetting, our belief in separation, we "understand" aloneness, and together we feel the Oneness, if we pay attention. Essence of consciousness doesn’t forget. It understands. It knows there is no separation, yet it can feel the separation we feel and that is part of the intent of Essence in this physical universe, to experience that aloneness.

We’ve gotten bored with this, and we are in the present now, times 6 billion degrees of understanding, realizing that there is no separation. Bit by 6 billionths of essential bits, we are "understanding" who we are. Looking at it from the WHOLE we see the mass moving in more of common direction and forget that the mass is composed of individuals. We are in this together, and always have been, and that’s where the mass consciousness comes from, in my opinion. On the other hand, the mass consciousness is not an entity. It is not some monolithic but amoeba-like energy blob. I see it as the river or flow of all our consciousnesses moving. Sometimes it moves in one direction, and sometimes it flows out like a giant flood with many riverlets of intent and understanding and awareness. But consciousness turning back on itself still sees its own individuality, its own identity. It feels its connection with the mass simultaneously with its feeling and knowing of its own identity. For identity once created, once realized, never dies; it’s never absorbed back into the mass. It never melts into its constituent links of consciousness. It is, and continues.

Coming back to where I started, the ALL THAT IS, is one and many, E PLURIBUS UNUM. The individual has primacy because that is what IS. The ALL IS; for there to be ALL, there must be many ONEs. There must be individuals to have a mass, or there is no mass of any THING. These individuals never die, they never are melted into the pot of molten consciousness. They may disperse, but they always know WHO they are.

In this, it’s not about whether you or I are right or wrong. There is only our differing points of view, of equal value and validity, and that my dear, is my point. *smiles* Your mileage and understanding may differ, see?