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Oneness

personal development

Now that we’ve explored the three primary principles of truth, love, and power, it’s time to address the secondary principles of oneness, authority, and courage. These secondary principles are derived from the pairings of the first three. Oneness is truth plus love. Authority is truth plus power. And courage is love plus power. These secondary principles will help deepen your understanding of conscious living. The three-part combination of truth, love, and power is intelligence.

Oneness is the principle that results from combining truth and love. Whereas love is the ability to connect by choice, oneness is the recognition that being connected is your natural state. Love is choosing to connect. Oneness is knowing you’re already connected. Oneness has no specific target; it’s an omnidirectional feeling of connection to everyone and everything at the same time. Oneness is pure unconditional love.

One day several years ago, I (Steve Pavlina) was having lunch in my backyard while watching some birds. I tried to imagine what it would be like to experience a sense of total oneness. Soon I felt my consciousness expanding beyond my body. I instantly grasped that the birds in front of me were just as much as my physical body was. My field of awareness continued to expand, and I sensed that the wall at the edge of the yard was also me. And finally this feeling stretched to encompass everything in my field of vision and beyond. My consciousness was no longer localized; it was everywhere. I still saw everything through my body’s eyes, but my inner senses told me I was much more than this singular point of reference. I felt an intense surge of positive emotion, but it was so overwhelming that it knocked me out of that state.

Although this experience lasted only seconds, it had a deep and enduring impact on me. For several weeks, my mind struggled to catch up. I had to discard my old model of reality that assumed the world was made up of completely separate individuals and objects. I stopped seeing a world of independent individuals, and I began seeing reality as one giant body composed of individuals cells. Some cells were totally unaware of the body and were inadvertently competing against their fellows. But other cells noticed the body and were working for its good. The most intelligent cells understood that the health of the body and the health of the cells were inextricably connected. The body cannot survive without the cells, nor can the cells survive without the body. Oneness is the deep realization of this simple truth.

With some practice, I learned to re-create this joyful expansion of awareness at will. It was like listening to a familiar radio station. The station was always broadcasting, but I had to tune myself to the right frequency to hear it. I found that the easiest way to tune in was to ask myself, Where is the joy? That question would help me listen for the right frequency, and once I got the frequency, the volume would gradually increase until I was feeling extremely joyful and connected.

The mind-set of oneness cannot be compartmentalized. It isn’t some side project you add to your personal development to-do list, only to fade back into separateness when you head to work the next day. If you resonate with oneness, it changes you from top to bottom. You can no longer continue treating everyone as completely separate from you.

Let’s go deeper into the principle of oneness by exploring its various aspects: empathy, compassion, honesty, fairness, contribution, and unity.

* Source: Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina

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