The ABCs: O is for (Radical) Oneness

All is One or One is All?

In many spiritual traditions, there is a practice in which a selected scriptural passage becomes the theme for the week. At Radical Spirituality, we do the same thing, but in a radical way.

Each Sunday, I offer The ABC’s of Radical Spirituality, a single, simple word distilled from the common principles of all the world’s faith and wisdom teachings that serves as the exploration for the week. They are the roots of Radical Spirituality. And because I am that person, the words are in alphabetical order. We start with A and go to Z.

It’s a simple practice to get to the roots of what matters on our spiritual path. The best part is that you will get out of it what you put into it. If you just keep the word on a sticky-note on your computer, it will still work it’s magic. But to dig deeper, delve in, dive in, and see what you find.

O is for (Radical) Oneness

A person experiences life as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Our task must be to free ourselves from this self-imposed prison, and through compassion, to find the reality of Oneness. ~ Albert Einstein

By now, I think we can all agree that everything is connected to everything else. Whether we are speaking in scientific or spiritual terms, we live in an interdependent, continually creative cosmos, where everything is mutually dependent upon, co-arising and co-existing with everything else. It’s an endless net, an interwoven web, or a system of connected networks in which everything exists. We are all parts of that web.

That is the understanding at the root of our major faith and wisdom traditions: there is nothing that isn’t God/Source/Divine, or part of it. That includes toadstools, tigers, trees, and people. For most of us, that’s where the concept of Oneness begins and ends. Sometimes, this appears as the warm, fuzzy Oneness we feel when our hearts suddenly open, we see that we are all connected, and we experience beauty and love in everyone and everything.  

But that’s only one interpretation of Oneness, and the problem with that version of Oneness is that it emphasizes the distinct forms as parts of the whole, not the whole itself. In other words, All is One or All in One. But there is a much deeper understanding of Oneness that derives from many creation myths (and even science itself): The One is All concept. The Divine itself is One—the indivisible, undifferentiated Source of all—and that means that any concept of separate differentiation of parts is an illusion.

The revolutionary teaching of Judaism, the first of the Abrahamic monotheistic traditions, is that not only is there just one God, but God is Oneness itself. Christian doctrine stresses the “singleness” of the Godhead: it cannot be divided (even the Trinity is not a division of God). This echoes the teachings of Buddhism, which says that the all-inclusive, all-encompassing non-dual Void is the Absolute and contains everything, and Daoism explains that the Dao is all there is, everything is Dao, and the Dao itself is undifferentiated “not-two.” The Ten Thousand Things are generated from this undifferentiated wholeness, and yet are not separate from their source.

To understand this, consider the ocean and waves. Waves that arise and fall in the ocean appear as distinct things, but they are never separate from the ocean itself. They don’t just jump out of the sea and start walking across the beach by themselves. They are simply the ocean “waving,” expressing itself in the process of waves. The Source, the ocean, is not diminished or lessened by the existence of waves.

By the same logic, if Source/God is everywhere, nothing can be separated from it. Separation is the illusion; nothing is ever NOT Source. There may be differentiation, but never separation. You are just God “you-ing,” but you are still God. So is everything. And God/Source is never diminished by differentiating itself.

There is a subtle distinction here best summed up as the difference between All is One and One is All, or All in One, and One in All. This understanding is at the root of Radical Spirituality. You (or anything else) are never separate from Source because Source cannot be divided. One truly is All. All is in One. More to the point, One is One.

This week, we explore Oneness: Can you see how nothing is ever separate from Source or anything else?

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Deeper Roots

Your understanding of Oneness is dependent upon your concept of God/Spirit/Divine/Mystery and its relationship to the material world. To dig deeper, we need to explore some terms and concepts used in comparative religious studies: Pantheism, Panentheism, and Theism. These words refer to the different understandings of the relationship of God/Source to creation, or the degree to which Source and Creation are One.

Pantheism recognizes the entire Universe itself, in all its forms, processes and manifestations, as God. It’s a holistic understanding that says God is the sum of its parts, and the parts are God itself. In Pantheism, God is immanent, intimate, and personal. It is everywhere and everything: rocks, trees, spiders, water. Pantheism is also monistic, stressing the unity of all, and Absolute, or eternal and unchanging. All is One, even if it is divided into different forms. Many indigenous traditions are pantheistic.

Panentheism is slightly different, stating that the Universe is part of God, but not the whole of it. God is in the Universe but is greater than the parts themselves. Panentheism sees Source as both transcendent, or bigger than our immediate reality, and immanent, indwelling in all that is. Panentheism is also monistic, stressing unity, dualistic, in that it posits a separation between God and Universe, or non-dualistic, saying nothing is separate from God because God cannot be separated, and pluralistic, as it recognizes the many parts of the whole. In Panentheism, God is both Absolute and Relative. God’s absoluteness is an abstract unchanging dualistic (or non-dualistic) feature of a changing totality. Daoism, Buddhism and Hinduism and some Native American traditions are Panentheistic.

Classical Theism posits that Source or God is the Absolute, transcendent, and immanent Creator of all, separate and distinct from Creation, but knowable by creation. In Theistic traditions, we are all children of the same God (All is One), but we aren’t God itself – One is All. (And if you claim to be God, you might get excommunicated, as many mystics were.) Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are classically Mono-Theistic (One God as both transcendent and immanent creator separate from creation), but some historical and contemporary Christian mystics and theologians, Jewish Kabbalists, most Hasidic Jews, some progressive rabbis, and Muslim Sufis argue otherwise. They explain that, at the deepest root, these traditions are fundamentally panentheistic. When they say God is One, they mean that there may only be one God, but it’s everything and nothing is separate. Increasingly, the consensus – even among physicists – is One is All.

Therefore, depending upon where you fall on the spectrum of Theism (or non-theism), you will either view oneness as the sum of many – All is One -- or the indivisible whole of all --One is All.

It may be a subtle difference, but at its most radical root, it is increasingly evident that One is All, indivisible and inseparable.

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers,  and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere,  it is within each of us. ~ Black Elk

Reflection Questions

1. What does Oneness mean to you?

2. How do you experience Oneness?

3. What prevents you from experiencing Oneness?

4. How can you cultivate Oneness?

Suggested Practice

For this week, explore your understanding of Oneness. Do you see the many as One or the One as many? How does your understanding affect your actions in relationship to others? Is it possible to see everyone and everything as indivisible and inseparable from the One?

In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love. – Eckhart Tolle