Mystics from every tradition have been telling us since time immemorial that all things are already one, but we often fail to see this due to our illusory views of the world.

The emphasis here should be on the latter part of that statement, meaning our views of the world.

It would stand to reason that many of the people that have made an impact in this world did so because they disconnected from the groupthink and instead turned inwards.

History would verify this.

So far, what I’ve seen is that much of the “oneness trip” is an illusion propagated on half truths which keeps it’s followers disempowered, ungrounded, and off their centers.

Oneness itself is a talismanic word which often puts people into a state of disempowered hypnotic projection.

Wait, what?

Still with me?

These are tall statements I know, so here’s what I mean.

A talismanic word is basically something that sounds deeply attractive and elicits an emotional response in people, yet it is rarely, if ever clearly and specifically defined. It’s hard to hit a target that you can’t see.

Power institutions have been using these for a very long time because they work so well in getting a group of people to dedicate their psychic energy to the “group-think” while taking them out of their center, and as such, the present moment.

Lastly, the thing, whether it be “change,” “oneness,” “unity,” “the cure,” etc. is always coming sometime in the future, if only A,B, or C.

Rarely is it grounded in the now or anything tangible.

This is disempowering in the sense that a persons psychic sovereignty and personal power is left at the door in the hopes of a collectivized realization of the said ideal or vision.

Further, the conversation and focus is on “what we will do” or “what will they do,” which is to say that it’s directing focus from the only domain of which we have any real influence. This is hypnotic in the sense that the ideal or catch phase blinds a person to the dynamics and aliveness of their own psyche. It puts a person in what many call the “consensus trance.”

Since the psychic energy is directed to the talisman and the person is taken off their center, the external thing and the ideology of it functions as a surrogate or simulacra for the internal experience of the individual.

Carl Jung said “Until you make the unconscious conscious, you will experience it outside of yourself and call it fate.”

Friedrich Nietzsche said “If you still experience the stars as something above you, then you lack the eye of knowledge.”

My hypotheses here is that as people we are fractured and divided within ourselves.

Many of us are psycho-phobic and self-murdered. 

That is to say: we have chosen to live inauthentic lives and we avoid the painful reflection of responsibility and looking inside ourselves for the answers.

This article isn’t about getting into the how and why, but let us be brief and say that this is largely due to the dominant paradigms in our world and our division and concomitant desecration of the natural world.

Basically we are conditioned to feel divided from nature and further divided from ourselves. We’re taught about the good, bad, higher, lower, left, right, spiritual, physical, ad infinitum aspects of ourselves.

So then we could ask ourselves: who really needs to be unified?

What good could it really do to bring together a bunch of fractured and divided individual psyches?

Wouldn’t they—by default—just create more division and fracture?

Wouldn’t this be like taking gardening advice from a person who’s own garden does not bear fruits and is overrun with weeds? Perhaps then the real solution is the empowerment of the individual psyche arriving back to a place of wholeness.

As a side note, if we look at the etymology of the word holy, it has the same roots as the words whole and holistic. Thus, to be whole is to be holy and to be holy is to be whole.

This is what I meant earlier about the oneness trip being a surrogate and simulacra.

We are seeking externally for what we are lacking and afraid to create inside.

In other words: a person may feel an inner sense of division and separation and unconsciously projects it out into the world. Then they see the talismanic word of oneness, which leads them to believe that they’ve found “the” solution. As long as the person is projecting outward in this way, they are giving their power over to someone or something else.

More importantly, they are failing to take responsibility and ownership of the state of their own psyche.

Here’s a summary:

• The oneness trip is fundamental a psychological projection which occurs as a result of individuals feeling divided and fractured with in themselves.
• The conversation about what we, us, and them, rarely gets anything done as this takes the individual away from the only place where it has any real influence.
• Fractured and divided individuals will create more division, since you can’t give what you don’t have. Whatever baggage a person has will be carried with them wherever they go until it is dealt with.
• The real solution might be individual empowerment and sovereignty through doing the inner work of healing the division by putting an end to the self hatred and psycho-phobia that created the problem in the first place.
• When a person embarks upon this journey, they engage numerous benevolent and helping energies which can offer assistance and guidance when necessary. This requires great courage, strength, and faith, hence the mythology of The Hero’s Journey.

What about gurus?

Teachers are useful, groups can be supportive, of course. We are human beings and we don’t exist in isolation, but in a complex web of interrelation and interdependence.

If someone broke into your house stole a few things from you, and then tried to sell them back to you, would you consider that immoral and a violation of your rights?

Freedom, psychic sovereignty, and empowerment are gifts you give to yourself.

The existential fact is that only you can reside in your center, no one else can do that for you.

Once we each start to operate more from our center and get in touch with our own personal power, sovereignty, and rights, then we are more empowered if and when we decide to collaborate with others.

As Albert Einstein said, “You can’t solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

In conclusion: 

Some have the belief that human nature is bad and that we are broken and need to be fixed. My belief is that our nature is truly one with nature, but it’s our false ideas and ego driven aberrations which block the natural love, guidance, and support that the cosmos is constantly trying to offer.

The former belief creates a mindset and life style based on acquisition and accumulation, both materially and psychically.

The latter belief creates a mindset centered around reducing, eliminating, and arriving back to a place of simplicity.

Lao Tzu said:

“The man of the world learns something everyday, the man of the Tao unlearns something everyday.”

Another way of putting this is simply acknowledging the false as such. Then we need to go forward with the systematic deprogramming and removal of that until we arrive back to that place of simplicity, authenticity, and wholeness, which is our natural state.

Relephant: 

Alan Watts on Spiritual Materialism.

Why we Mistake Spirituality for Psychosis.

Author: Brandon Gilbert 

Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: alicepopkorn at Flickr