Healing Division in Our World Through Oneness
by Faith Spencer
Today’s world is fragmented. Most U.S. adults tend to view life through a lens of political party affiliations and “us versus them.” There’s an evolutionary basis for this. In prehistoric days, loyalty to one’s own group (“us”) helped ensure survival, as did a skeptical and distrusting attitude about outside groups (“them”). Unfortunately, our brains don’t tend to change old habits very easily.
So now, when we check out the news, our minds automatically begin their “duty” of separating what’s good or bad, who’s right or wrong, who’s “us” and who’s “them.” We are all too ready to judge those on the “other side” for their transgressions, even feeling secret delight at their travails and missteps.
Yet the mentality of “us versus them” is a slippery slope, eventually leading to hatred and discriminatory behavior against perceived outsiders. Today’s headlines are dominated by the news of war and armed conflict, underscoring the catastrophic implications of a separatist mindset.
Sometimes this mindset is called “othering,” a habit of segmenting that reduces empathy and prevents genuine dialogue (Curle, 2020). In our everyday lives, this might look like a decision that “all Republicans are selfish” or “all Democrats are immoral,” alongside a resulting tendency to avoid, ignore, or look down upon those who we believe are in those categories.
Psychologist Rick Hanson calls this tendency “It-ing.” In his book Neurodharma he writes, “When we regard people as an ‘It’ to our ‘I,’ it’s easy to overlook, discard, or exploit them” (2020, p. 87).
And it’s not just people we may regard as “its”; we can also consider animals and our planet to be “its”—unimportant and unworthy of protection. This, of course, leads to denying the planet’s or animals’ rights to thrive and be healthy, and to using them solely for our own purposes.
The truth is most of us fall into the trap of thinking negatively about certain people or living in a selfish way without considering all the consequences of our daily actions. I know I’ve personally fallen into the trap of seeing people of a certain political persuasion as “wrong-minded,” which denies their humanity. The truth is, in most ways, they’re just like me, and they have their own reasons to believe as they do.
According to many spiritual traditions, the origin of this segmented, separatist way of thinking is the ego. None of us is immune to its influence. The ego is the part of our human mind that says we are set apart from others— that instead of being held in perfect unity, we are separate entities that must judge and categorize the world for a sense of comfort and control. From this toxic belief in extreme separation and “otherness” comes all the problems we encounter in our world, whether it’s discrimination or the destruction of the environment.
The alternative to this worldview is embracing the idea of an inherent oneness of all life, which the majority of spiritual traditions teach, and toward which many sciences point, including quantum physics. This perspective is the remedy we need for this ailing, fractured world.
The Science of Oneness
When quantum physics was born in the early 1900s, certain mind-bending discoveries convinced many physicists that the world is inherently unified. Physicist Erwin Schrodinger said, “Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe.”
Physicist David Bohm said separation was an illusion, one that “cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion.” In Bohm’s 1980 book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, he wrote that viewing the world as separate parts is “in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today. This is now well known, this way of life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population, world-wide economic and political disorder and the creation of an overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most people who live in it” (p.2).
Even today, some quantum physicists, such as Jon Hagelin, PhD, and Amit Goswami, PhD, spread the message of oneness. In his blog, Goswami wrote that “science, in the form of quantum physics, has rediscovered the spiritual oneness of everything” (Goswami, 2019). These physicists make it their mission to popularize a new understanding that can lead to a less divided world.
The Spirituality of Oneness
And while it’s true that oneness may seem hard to accept, it isn’t anything new. For centuries, countless spiritual traditions have espoused oneness as the truth of life:
Buddhist teachings convey the interconnectedness of all life, including the concept of annata, which means non-self (meaning that the individual self is an illusion, and we live in an intertwined world of emptiness or śūnyatā).
In Hinduism, Brahman is the divine essence of everything, and each person is bestowed with a part of this essence, called Atman, that connects each person with this greater source.
In Sufism, the goal is to achieve wahdat-al-wujud, which means unity of being.
In Taoism, followers attempt to merge with the harmonizing force of the universe called the Tao rather than following the ego or considering oneself separate from all that is.
In the Jewish Kabbalah tradition, Ein Sof is the source of all things, described as an endless infinite light, and alma de peruda is a term that represents the illusory world of fragmentation or separation.
In Christian mysticism, followers strive for a sense of unification with God, Jesus, and all things through prayer.
And, not to neglect mainstream Christianity, the trinity is an example of oneness—three aspects of one divinity—and Jesus said, “I and my father are one.” What’s more, in John 17:21, Jesus prays for unity among his disciples: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.”
All these traditions offer specific ways to experience a state of oneness. This is important because merely understanding oneness intellectually may not lead to substantial change in our worldview, perspectives, and actions.
As transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilbur explains in his book Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy: “The ecological crisis—or Gaia’s main problem—is not pollution, toxic dumping, ozone depletion, or any such. Gaia’s main problem is that not enough human beings have developed to the postconventional, world-centric, global level of consciousness, wherein they will automatically be moved to care for the global commons” (2000, p.137).
Wilbur adds that acquiring this level of consciousness involves “going through at least a half dozen major interior transformations,” which are found through a “genuine path of interior growth and development” (2000, 137–138). He mentions intensive meditation, contemplative prayer, and active rituals as practices that cultivate this growth.
We can all meditate. We can all pray. By doing so, we can eventually develop into people who automatically want to care for others and the planet, and who treat everyone like an important part of our unified family, regardless of their beliefs or outward actions. We have the power within us to transcend the idea of division and embody the oneness that spiritual traditions teach. It starts with us.
References:
Goswami, A. (2019, March 6). From quantum physics to quantum politics. Amit Goswami, Ph.D. (blog). https://amitgoswami.org/2019/03/06/from-quantum-physics-to-quantum-politics/
Hanson, R. (2020). Neurodharma: new science, ancient wisdom, and seven practices of the highest happiness. Harmony Books.
Wilbur, K. (2000). Integral psychology: consciousness, spirit, psychology, therapy. Shambhala Publications.
Curle, C. (2020, January 24). Us vs. them: the process of othering. Canadian Museum for Human Rights. https://humanrights.ca/story/us-vs-them-process-othering
