Oneness starts with us

I have been working on writing my book the last couple of weeks.

After years of “trying,” I am finally doing it. Early this morning I was writing about the feeling of Oneness. I pointed out that I believe the feeling is in danger of becoming an intellectual concept. Do you know what that is?

That’s where we take a great idea and then we intellectualize the bejesus out of it until it becomes damn near incomprehensible as anything but a concept. Then we pay someone a bucket-load of money for a weekend workshop to simplify what was really very simple to begin with – a feeling.
My thinking is that if we are going to embrace the Oneness of all life then we, each and every one of us, must start to embrace the most disenfranchised people in the world.

Now I’m sure we can all identify the disenfranchised that we are familiar with — hell, they might even be ourselves. But here’s a piece that I was missing that dawned on me as I was writing this morning. In my world the most disenfranchised are a very select group – they are the people who I have disenfranchised; the people who press my buttons, who do not work for me, who I simply don’t like or who I find out of integrity.

I have created my own “sub-set” of disenfranchised who society doesn’t even recognize as a separate group or “the other.” They are the other in my life – and – my life only. Interesting, huh?

It reminded me of an old saying that I am very fond of – don’t even remember where it came from: “All of our challenges stem from our mistaken belief that something outside of our own hearts must change first.” If I am clear that the path of my life is to embrace and model this feeling of Oneness, then I must first embrace it in my own heart and find the consciousness that will allow me to accept all those who I have separated out as the other, as doing the exact same thing I am doing – the best they know how with the information and awareness they have at the moment.

Then I am on my way to feeling One with everyone and with all life. Who have you separated out? Who are your others? Time to accept them all and welcome them into your community. The only way we will all find acceptance is to model it as a way of life.