Monday, January 17, 2011

One.

hands heart

“Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.”-John Lennon

"I look forward confidently to the day when all … will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions."- Martin Luther King Jr.

One.

I caught a few minutes of “Driving Miss Daisy” recently; there’s a scene where two Southern cops call Hoke “boy” several times, in that superior, swaggering, dripping-with-honeyed-hatred manner some Southern whites of that time held. That accent toward anyone has always turned my stomach. I also just finished reading “Island Beneath the Sea” (Isabel Allende), a story of slavery in Sainte-Domingue (before it was Haiti) and then later in New Orleans. Brutality toward any other being is so difficult to read about or watch.

One.

When Fear rules and guides a person—instead of Love—anyone who is the “other” (not like “us”) is to be viewed with suspicion, instead of welcomed and embraced with kindness. Witness the separateness and segregation of early immigrants: Jews, Italians, Irish with their foreign languages and customs; the separateness of women, requiring new laws to break that separateness; the separateness of Cuban refugees; the separateness and segregation of blacks, of the hatred and brutality they endured; the separateness of gays; the separateness of Latinos, those with legal status and without.

One.

The elimination of separateness seems to move through four stages:

  • Tolerance 
    No one really likes “them” in our schools and society, but the “other” is tolerated, allowed limited contact
  • Acceptance 
    At some point, it’s accepted that the “other” is here, like it or not, so just make the best of it.
  • Integration
    Beyond acceptance, there comes a measure of equality and the “other” becomes more integrated into society, less noticed as different.
  • Ignorance 
    The most complete acceptance is when the “other” is so fully integrated into all facets of life (work, schools, business, politics) that one makes no distinction at all. There is no longer any difference that fosters fear as before.

Ignorance of any difference is the goal, of course, where there is no fear or suspicion, no separateness. It’s the place where we truly become One. We see a person as tall, short, black, white, one-armed, male, female, gay, straight, etc., of course, but we make no judgment or criticism. We make no assumptions based upon the physical make-up of a person.

One.

“… your essential nature is pure consciousness. Beyond the disguises of ego-mind and the physical body, you are pure awareness, pure joy and pure potentiality.” – Deepak Chopra

When we drop away the ego and the physical, we realize that our essence—all of us—is a Divine nature, and the Divine doesn’t have a physical body. We inhabit our physical vessel for such a brief period of time and yet, some people spend far too much time noting the differences between our bodies instead of the sameness of our souls. We are not our bodies. We are not our bodies. We are not our bodies. When our mortal vessels can no longer live and we are released from our body, we will no longer have gender. We will no longer have skin color. We will no longer have sexual differences. We will no longer have handicaps or illnesses.

All these require a physical body and without a body, we then fully and completely realize Truth: we are the same.

One.

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6 comments:

Laura said...

Oh Rose, I have no words to add to yours, except thank you for writing about this so eloquently. ♥

Debra She Who Seeks said...

It's a long and winding road (to use another Beatles quotation) and a hard journey. Worthwhile of course but not easy.

rebecca said...

Isn't it amazing that we are born as One without suspicion or prejudice of another's color, ethnicity, religion and so forth? Yet, as soon as we are born, that road to separateness begins to be cultivated by our parents, peers, the community in which we live, society and we follow in form. We become that which has been delicately molded by the "outsiders." Yet, if we were to peel off the layers of suspicion and prejudice and all the byproducts each births, we would eventually get to the core of our true soul and heart and thus then realize that it is a beautiful place from which to live.

This was a blessed post. This was an "ahh!" post. Thank you for this, dear heart....

((abrazos))
Rebecca

Thotman said...

Imagine there's no heaven... What a sad almost hopeless imagining.

Unknown said...

Agree....aha! I so enjoyed this post, Rose. Thank you.

Darla said...

Beautifully eloquent. And I love how you repeated "One" throughout, as a touchstone to return to again and again. May it be for all of us now.