The more you talk about “Oneness”, the more likely you are to be a conservative.
Spoiler alert: this is why Christian fundamentalists go against Jesus’ teachings.
TLDR: A belief in oneness minus ego death equals cowardly behaviour.
(Yes, I’ve been posting frequently. I’m going through a period of introspection + revision of my life path).
I bet you’ve wondered why fundamentalist Christian people behave the way they do, and most importantly, why they’re so dogmatic but also, weirdly, paradoxically, go against the lessons found in their own dogma.
Well… I’ve been wondering the same thing for a long time, starting when I was 13 and about to get my Confirmation as a Catholic (spoiler alert: I didn’t, I gave up half-way and stopped attending church classes. No explanation given — but if you’re reading this, now you know why).
Ironically, the answer to that question came to me during some introspective meditation, now that I’m several years into my Buddhist path.
I know what you’re probably thinking: “Lucy will explain why Buddhism has a better key to understanding Oneness than Christianity”. If so… No. You’re completely wrong. Keep reading.
The picture I chose above summarises my central point here: when you’re always talking about Oneness, but at the same time you have an ego (and this ego is probably NOT under control yet), it’s sort of like believing you’re “connected to everything” by a blindfold that stops you from seeing or giving any importance to what happens around you. Can you poke or even hurt a blindfolded person? Sure. But can you draw their attention to SOMEBODY ELSE who is getting hurt in their field of vision? No… Because… What vision? It’s gone.
Worse yet: even if this blindfolded person decides to consider the possibility that others suffer, their conclusion won’t be, “well, what can I do to help?”, but instead, “that means I must suffer too. But if I don’t suffer from the same thing, it can’t be real, because I am them and they are me after all”. (This is a metaphor. We’re talking about blind belief in Oneness, don’t make me repeat it).
It’s a self-centered bias (or, BEST case scenario, a bias centered around their own small circle of acquaintances). It’s not a real understanding of Oneness — EVEN IF (PAY ATTENTION HERE!) there was a real spiritual experience where they saw the connection that exists between all things.
A real experience does NOT guarantee you’ll interpret it correctly. I’ll repeat for the zillionth time: I don’t always interpret my own oracles correctly. Aren’t they spiritual experiences? Yes they are. But I have an ego, sweetheart. And so does everybody.
What are the implications of choosing to put your focus on Oneness (and not on other topics of spirituality)? What makes Oneness that much more special for certain people, compared to other equally valid existential mysteries?
Note that I am not denying Oneness or even feeling sceptical about it. I fully accept that it’s real. The real question here, instead, is about the decision to put a lot of emphasis on it in your path and your spiritual lingo. What makes one focus so much on Oneness, bordering on an obsession with this one (pun intended) topic?
When you study analysis of discourse (one of the topics I learned when I was getting my degree in Linguistics, ten years ago), you learn a concept called Intentionality. This is a borrowing from Philosophy, but it has a lot to do with language, so we linguists use it as well. The basic premise of Intentionality is that it’s impossible to make an accidental utterance. Every word you say or write, every sentence you put together, every text you come up with, is loaded with a subjective intent. This subjective intent comes from the way you learned to look at and think about the world, and it is, as the very word implies, “subjective”. As in: not objective. Not the one and only possible truth, but A plausible truth you happened to like and choose.
This means, to simplify it, that one cannot just focus on a particular word/concept and say it assertively (bonus points for repeatedly), without having an agenda behind it. I know the word “agenda” is loaded, but scientifically it merely describes what you intend with what you say — it can be as evil as a masterplan for conquest and domination, OR as innocent as making your listeners feel good… And anything in-between. But good or bad, it will be there. It can’t “not” be there. That’s impossible.
Even learners of foreign languages (my specialisation topic) or babies learning their first language have an agenda behind what they say. For example, it’s likely that the baby is trying to experiment and see what the adults’ reaction will be if they repeat a word picked up from a nearby conversation. The student, on the other hand, might be trying to express an idea they already know in the native language. Even if one, or both, make a pronounciation or semantic mistake, the intentionality existed.
I of course didn’t know about my dyslexia at the time (I suspected it but… no tests yet), but I think I should add that dyslexic people, and other disabled people, have intentionality too. It’s just that they’re prone to stumbling on the execution of language — spelling, word order, etc — but intent is not something one can stumble upon. Either you have it (and express it through words), or you don’t (and stay quiet).
I’ll also add here a fun spiritualistic tangent: even a medium possessed by a spirit displays intentionality. It’s just that, in this case, the intentionality is believed to belong to the spirit (sort of like a puppet’s intentionality belongs to the actor behind the curtain)… But it’s there. It exists. It always exists behind verbal language.
Ahh, the fun speculations linguists get into! This brings back memories.
Anyway, I think it’s pretty clear: if anyone ever tells you they “didn’t realise” that what they said was based on an overarching ideological belief of theirs… Send them my way. I just want to talk.
So, back to our question: what does it mean when someone fixates on Oneness? Surely that’s a choice. It’s coming from somewhere.
The answer religious people will give you is that, well, they care about love and kindness and [insert here other tenets of their belief system]. It’s a common answer to that question, but… It doesn’t actually answer it! This is just a deflection.
Let’s unpack it: a Christian might tell you, in response to “why do you think Oneness matters”, that it’s because it’s important to connect with God, who is all-seeing and all-present and embodies Oneness. I mean, sure, there’s logic to it… But it’s still a deflection and not a direct answer to the question. When you look at their idea of God, there’s a lot to say about him, isn’t there? You could choose to put your focus on how he represents Oneness, OR you could choose a myriad of other characteristics of his which are equally important but not related to that, for example, his forgiving nature. I know it sounds logical to go like, “Lucy, you’re nitpicking. You asked about Oneness, the answer given was related to Oneness. What else do you want?”
That’s a very surface-level interpretation of what’s happening here! Just because you see the word in both scenarios, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s used with responsibility and integrity. We can try to hide our intentionality, we can make it appear as though it is one thing when in fact it’s another, etc. (That’s the whole point of analysis of discourse as a science — studying the complicated scenarios). And in this case, what the person intended by giving that answer was probably along the lines of “yes, you’re right, I have a thing for Oneness. Now, let me cherrypick one aspect of God in my religion and insert it into the discourse in order to back up what I already think and prevent you from questioning any further because of my appeal-to-authority fallacy (God’s authority)”.
A more honest hypothetical answer could be, simply, “because I care about the whole more than I care about the individual parts that constitute the whole”. Here, there is logical correspondence, and we don’t see any cherrypicking — but religious people are unlikely to be honest like that, since they usually have an agenda loaded with emotion and subjectivity.
I could go on a tangent and show you how the honest answer above is in fact delusional, since we can’t simply override our subjectivity in order to TRULY AND GENUINELY “care more about the whole”, because if that were the case, we would have no survival instinct or ego or understanding of separateness and would need constant assistance to go about life… But I won’t discuss that too much, since people can be honest AND delusional at the same time. It’s a thing.
Here’s my hypothesis.
This is where the Scientific bit ends and the speculations begin. If you disagree, feel free to let me know in the comments.
In a recent moment of introspection, I have come to understand that my supposed “difficulty” understanding Oneness is not technical… But ideological instead. In other words: it’s not that I can’t understand Oneness. Nobody understands Oneness. Only the enlightened can. I’m just in the same boat as everybody. The REAL issue lurking beneath the surface is, instead, that I have too much integrity to act like a certain group of spiritualist people who *pretend* to understand it.
Ya know… I’ve never been afraid of admitting that “I don’t know”. More people should practise these 3 magical words like a mantra.
Life experience tells me that there are two main groups of people who pretend to understand Oneness: A) the sheltered and privileged (let me guess: cis, hetero, white men from a developed country or not-very-poor areas of a developing country, or B) pushovers with zero self-respect (that’s where most women who obsess over Oneness fit in).
The above may sound harsh, and I probably could have worded it in a different way, but I’m feeling like fully driving the point home: there is a problem. It’s not a small problem. It’s serious. Do not brush it off. When you tone-police me or other bloggers, you’re forgetting the other side of the coin: the fact that people are less likely to listen to a warning that comes with sparkles and rainbows and the sweetest words. Sometimes, you need to shock.
Yes, Oneness is real… But no, we can’t fully grasp its relevance unless we become enlightened. No, not spiritually savvy and on the path to enlightenment. Fully enlightened. There’s no compromise on that one. Are the people who talk about Oneness enlightened? No. Zero percent of them, if you don’t count historical figures who already died. An enlightened being wouldn’t judge (even the “sheeple” they’re going against. Even their enemies. Even the perceived perpetrators of whatever it is they go against. Enlightened people don’t criticise to begin with). An enlightened being wouldn’t judge, wouldn’t envy, wouldn’t gaslight, wouldn’t mansplain, wouldn’t enable or turn a blind eye to oppression when in a position to help bring fellow humans fairness and dignity. Enlightened people have killed their ego. Fully.
Oneness, although existing and valid, only becomes an important topic of conversation AFTER you address the very real, very latent, very non-imaginary systems of oppression that come from the human “illusion” of separation and individuality. To say it’s an illusion is technically correct, but technicality is where its usefulness ends. Until AND IF that happens, we’ll just keep reducing Oneness to a mere gaslight technique similar to “why be a feminist when you can say you’re a humanist”, “all lives matter”, and “we’re all a little disabled anyway”.
And don’t get me started on advising regular working-class people against ambition, but saying NOTHING, not even in public and outside of these conversations, about the hoarding of riches by the billionaire class. How convenient, isn’t it? Money talks, and the metaphysical industry is not small. Take a look at how much it’s worth.
You don’t see indigenous people obsessing over Oneness. Many tribes all over the globe believe in this concept, so much so that their teachings get appropriated by one-time white visitors who then go on to claim they’re authorities in these traditions, reducing thousand-year systems of wisdom to whatever they saw and inferred during their brief visit consisting of a week-long retreat (AT MOST) and turned into material for a book or seminar.
But indigenous people won’t obsess over it. They won’t even preach it. If anything, the idea of Oneness is implied in some of their rituals and traditions, because yes, it’s important, but it’s not “the only thing that matters”. For instance, in indigenous cultures, Oneness does not override or invalidate the fight for social justice. On the contrary — they’re often making headlines with their protests against intrusive industrial projects on their land (something that doesn’t happen anywhere near retreats run by white people with money, I wonder why #sarcasm), predatory mining (oh, hello there, crystal collector. How are you?), deforestation for agribusiness (feeding vegans and meat-eaters alike, because people prefer to use emotional thinking and fawn over cute animals than reivindicate what REALLY matters, which is ethical procedence and permaculture, and don’t get me started on plastic pollution because of leather substitutes), among other issues.
Truth is, my friends, the human being is a part of nature. There’s no nature vs man dichotomy. There’s no natural vs man-made dichotomy. Indigenous people understand this, and it’s high time we pay attention to it too before we go anywhere near Oneness.
Until AND IF we stop the bullshit and agree to respect and help provide a life with dignity to fellow human beings, we are being hypocrites by focusing on “nature first” (or eco-fascists. Although, technically, they fall into “hypocrites” in my humble opinion).
That’s not to say it’s bad to go green or rethink our means of production and chains of supply — no, it’s a good thing, it’s progress all the same — but this becomes hypocritical when it’s enmeshed with a thinly-veiled agenda of denying long-oppressed groups of people some much deserved historical reparation in the name of saying “we’re all one anyway”.
I think, collectively, we can do better than that.