Oneness & Individuality – How Can We Have Both?

How Can Oneness & Individuality Exist at the Same Time?

I was having lunch with a friend the other day – a friend who has a very different view of reality from mine. We’ve been friends for a long time, with various ups and downs and commitments that pulled us in different directions over the decades, but somehow we always seem to find our way back to each other.

When we first met, 40 years ago, our views of reality were not so radically different, or at least I didn’t think they were, but now we find ourselves pretty much at the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to politics, religion, and some lifestyle choices (i.e. keto diet vs. low-fat whole plant foods, fundamentalist Christian vs. pantheistic pagan, conservative Trumper vs. Green Party environmentalist, etc.).

You may wonder what on Earth we have to talk about! Fortunately our long history helps to bridge the divide.

Bridging the Chasm

One of our most fundamental differences is our perception of Source, Spirit, Creator, God, Goddess, All That Is, or whatever you like to call the Divine.

It seems pretty obvious to me that there is some sort of intelligent design to our universe – a sentient intelligence. The divisions show up when we start trying to name and define it.

As my friend started explaining her fundamentalist Christian point of view, postulating that “God” is a separate someone (male) who created us and lives in a heaven that we can only access if we follow the rules of religion, I started squirming inside.

Of course there is a whole lot more she could have shared about her views that would have made me squirm even more, but the concept of a separate “God” cut off from us in a distant heaven always stops me short.

Time to change the subject, I thought. But once I was alone, I started wondering how anyone could come to that conclusion.

I Experience Source as Oneness

I can’t imagine myself  being separate from the sentient Life Force Energy that enlivens everything in the universe.

So I started looking for a metaphor that would explain my experience of having individual consciousness while also being one with Life, or Source – or “God” if you like. I prefer not to use that last title, because I think it is way overused and people tend to interpret it as my friend did, like some separate guy in the sky.

But we are not really separate, are we?

If you have done much meditating you’ve probably had an experience of Oneness with all that is. It is a basic exercise in my Faehallows Magical Foundation Course.

Once you have that experience, it becomes a knowing that you can’t shake – even when your mind takes over and tries to convince you that you really are separate.

As I tried to find a picture that could express the way I experience the Oneness, the image of a fetus in the womb popped into my mind. It’s the perfect metaphor and magical too – the microcosm in the macrocosm. The child’s body is part of the mother’s body and totally dependent on her, yet also an individual with its own consciousness and destiny.

With this image, the Divine starts to feel decidedly feminine, though I tend to think of it as neither gender, or maybe a combo. I’m guessing we only have the male-female polarity in the denser dimensions, but who knows?

The Universal Womb

I like to think of myself, and all of us, as being fully supported and protected in the universal womb, sometimes called “the void,” while still being free to create the life of our dreams.

Maybe our dreams are not even ours, but it seems like they are.

What about you?

Do you have a favorite metaphor that explains your deepest philosophical understandings? I’d love to hear about it.

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