We can find oneness in several places.
I’ll make this short since I have gone into it in more detail in other articles.
ONENESS IN IMMEDIATE NOTICING
One general form of oneness is what we notice in our own first-person experience.
Here, I find my nature as capacity for all my experiences – for the world, this human self, and anything else as it appears to me. One place I find oneness is my nature as capacity for the world as it appears here.
Another place I find oneness is within my sense fields. All my experiences – of the world, this human self, and anything else – happen within my sense fields. Within sight, sound, taste, smell, sensations, thought, and so on. These sense fields are a seamless whole. Any sense of boundaries and any labels come from my mental field overlay. This is another oneness.
I find that all my experiences – of the world, etc. – happen within and as what I am. This is yet another aspect of oneness.
These are all aspects of the same, and all ways to explore and find oneness for ourselves.
ONENESS IN A CONVENTIONAL SENSE
We also find oneness in the world, in a conventional sense. And many of these stories of oneness come from science.
The universe is a seamless evolving whole.
All we know and see and know about is a part of this evolving seamless system.
We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe.
All Earth life share ancestors. We are all intimately related. We share huge amounts of DNA with a large number of species – whether we call them animals or plants.
And so on, and so on. There are always more examples of oneness in the universe and the natural world.
ANTIDOTE TO A SENSE OF SEPARATION
Why is this important?
Because it’s an antidote to a one-sided sense of separation. Especially in our western culture, it’s easy for people to feel disconnected and separate from just about anything – themselves, others, society, nature, existence.
Exploring the connections, and also exploring these forms of oneness, is an antidote to that sense of separation and isolation.
We can find the oneness already here, in our immediate experience. And we can find it in the universe and nature – which we are an intrinsic part of.
We can engage in all sorts of practices to explore this for ourselves.
We can explore the first general form of oneness through inquiry, basic meditation, heart-centered practices, body-centered practices, and so on.
And we can explore the second through deep ecology, ecopsychology, ecospirituality, epic of evolution, the universe story, big history, shamanic work, rituals, and Practices to Reconnect.
We can find these two forms of oneness for ourselves, and allow it to transform us and our life in the world.
Photo: NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, spiral galaxy NGC 4651