©2001 Jon Youngblood Unity Through Understanding A Guidebook for the Recently Alive

Part Three:  Unity Through Understanding

Chapter Twelve: Unity

12.5 Unity

"One of God's greatest gifts, is unanswered prayers"

from the song Unanswered Prayers by Garth Brooks - No Fences

Unity¹ is "The state or quality of being one; singleness."  When we enter into a devotional or rapturous relationship with God we are seeking unity with our Creator.  When we experience samsara or we enter into a meditative relationship with the Universe, we are seeking unity with "all that is".  When we experience the Understanding of the mechanics of the physical world, we likewise recognize Unity directly through the intellect rather than through an act of faith.  It was faith that got us to seek this knowledge of how things are constructed.  Unity is coming to be something that can be perceived and Understood without the need for belief.  And while it enables the Mind to bypass faith, or perhaps even (if I dare say it...) surpass it, through understanding, Faith will continue to play a part in acquiring that feeling of connectedness that is the highest achievement of the Mind of Man.  A state of perfect inner peace.  An inner feeling that everything is as it should be.  That we and everything around us is in fact one single process going along as it has always been intended to go.  Having a feeling of union, of direct connectivity to all of existence, is considered the highest form of enlighten in almost every religious circle.  

Evolution occurs slowly, gradually, making small adaptive changes as it goes.  Like a good carpenter who needs more space but respects a well built home, nature does not tear everything down and start from scratch.  Rather, it remodels, redesigns, one room at a time, building on what was already serviceable.  When there are sweeping changes in the life code - DNA - it is more often than not, fatal to the species that is so unlucky to acquire them.  This is a verifiable and common sense aspect of nature.  And, if you care to go further, of the very aspects of Deity itself.  This change is the greatest common bond between faith and physics.  Through change both are joined at the hip as it were.

Religion has managed so far to change and adapt to its people as we have changed over time (SEE Part One Chapter Three).  Will these changes continue and lead us to a new level of friendly co-operation here in this world; and more importantly with this world? Or is there on the horizon a new decline of intellectual achievement in order to maintain traditional belief systems that have lessened in their ability to adapt to a changing and more complex time?  The odds often seem frighteningly stacked in the favor of the latter.

Although there are many new and wondrous ways of looking at old problems, the New Age spiritualisms seems to fail us because this collective of believers, in their quest for new interpretations of old feelings, have become so overly diplomatic - a sure improvement over the iron fist of the First Universal Church - that they allow the individual the freedom to pick and choose in such a way that makes the connection to “other” less defined.  This is a result of the New Age Freedom that has given us so much as individuals at the cost of true solidarity;  we are never together on anything if we have the freedom to choose otherwise.  (See also: 11.2  Individuality and Freedom.)

The irony is, as you recall from earlier discussions, much of the “new” spirituality is based on the rediscovering of ancient teachings and miracles - but we have been doing that since the renaissance!  Nothing new about that!  So again, the self can not be as certain, by the value of numbers, of the rightness of his or her choices, religiously speaking, if one is free to make them in isolation rather than make them in the comfort of numbers within a deeply committed tribe or other group that shares solidarity.  Or so I have heard it said.  For myself, being an observer of some of the more ‘fringe’ spiritual/religious groups, while appealing to some inner need to rebel, they do not hold the same substantive power as the more traditional - historically established - faiths.  So the irony is that by promoting “freedom of choice” over strict adherence, the New Age faiths had created a set of “laws” (one of religions primal functions (see also:  3.7 Religion and Law) that were, by their very nature, unenforceable!

The Traditional Faiths offer centuries of refinement in the expression of faith that the New Age philosophies have yet to replicate.  So the arguments of traditional faiths remain.  Who is right?  What happened to building an empire of One God - One Faith?  Is it simply an impossible concept for us to Understand?  Of course it is not.  But why do so many have a feeling that religion has become the modern equivalent of the Tower of Babel?   Who - as Monty Python in the Life of Brian so wittingly pointed out - was the first ‘splitter’ within the Judeo-Christian world dividing the idea of One Faith unified under one universal (Catholic – the word means “universal” as you recall) Church?  It can be argued that any point could be said to be the starting point - BC?  AD?  Post Reformation or Pre?  When were the seeds of dissent first planted that grew into the downfall of Unity within the Christian Faith?  When did it all go to hell (Hell defined as a place riddled with error)?  To the Jews it was the Christians.  To the Christians it was the Muslims.  To the Catholics it was the Protestants.  To the Protestants it was the sons and daughters that converted to eastern beliefs. 

There is no clear point of measure as to when it all went to hell because it never ‘went’ anywhere.  It has been doing it all along!  Splitting, separating, dividing, sect and sub-sect since before Judaism was Judaism!  The early Judaic Faith was as separatist and fragmented as any of the branches to follow.  The Big Three, and all of the hundreds of variations on a theme - Catholic to Mormon, High to Low, Quaker, Rollers, Pentecostals - you name it - has never been a truly Unified religion.  Never.  Not once.  And not just in the Big Three.  Other religions have ‘evolved’ through time in their own ways.  But that is another chapter. 

The point here is that tradition faith becomes so nerve wracking for the potential faithful trying to decide with any certainty who to follow among the dozens of differing sects that I, for one, gave up.  And like to many others sought out those heretical eastern alternatives.  Learning more about God’s creation from science the whole time…

As far as inter-religious Unity, then, we should not hold our expectations too high.  To many of us it appears that traditional faiths have lost their punch, and the New Age Faiths have little by design. Science, which can be viewed as a kind of New Age Faith, is the only one of them that offers a glimmer of hope for the recognition of symbiosis of purpose between traditional faith and modern scientific understanding.  The purpose of which is defined as the survival, and betterment, of mankind.  Traditional faiths have had centuries to refine their battles and become entrenched.  Science, oddly enough, as a relative newcomer in the business of shaping our worldviews, actually offers new possibilities of mutual cooperation with the humanities as a rational and viable next step in human evolution:  Understanding replacing mere belief.

It might then behoove us (I love that word - it has such a bovine quality to it…) then, to focus as individuals, and on our larger associations, on adding onto existing structure rather than trying to tear (each other) down and build anew from the ground up.  We have a long and solid foundation that has served our ascendants very well (in duration if not in success …) for thousands of years.  Perhaps by redefining our relationship with faith, and its expression through worship, in recognition of a Holistic and anthropomorphic Universe, gradually, conserving the well built foundations laid before us by both the old and new world cultures, we will better ensure our continuation as a species.  A species gifted with the greatest miracle of all:  Mind.

The common goal of all of the worlds great Faiths has been unification - holding a group of people together through common beliefs. Which makes the current animosity between Faith and its offspring Science all the more ironic.  At first the scope of Faith only encompassed unity at a tribal level.  Unifying a group of usually related individuals so that the whole group would benefit.  Later, as with Christianity, it would come to embrace a larger scope of people.  The two primary goals of Religion, Answers and Law, achieve their ends by means of unification of an extended family, tribe, nation, or congregation.  As long as all participants agree, then the Answers are self-evident and the Laws are carried out (by compliance or punishment). 

The eastern religions have done the same thing but in a different way.  The Chinese philosophy of Taoism for example proclaims the inherent unity of everything as an intrinsic "way" in which everything simply “is” (the word Tao means “the way”) and any apparent division of purpose is but an illusion.  It is “the way”, whether we comprehend it or not, that the greater Whole, or process, or organism, works.  It is neither loving, nor is it not hostile.  “It is not this, it is not that”.  It simply IS. 

            Hindus likewise find unity by being joined together as likened to a group of actors in a Cosmic Play.  You, as an actor, don't really get hurt.  You don't feel real joy - unless you are very good actor indeed.  You only pretend to feel the Divine Discomfort for that matter!  It's almost as if the Hindu worldview turned the ideas of monotheism upside down.  We are all God.  Each and every one of us are “God”, as well as all other perceiving organisms to boot.  This pantheistic religion offers no direct answers in terms of clearly defined proclamations.  There are no real answers to the Hindu mind because it’s all a show.  The Answers, if there are any at all, lie behind the curtains where you are not allowed to be when you are on the stage.  You cannot be in two places at once and while you are in life you are on the stage.  Only when you die will you be able to see the show for a show.  To carry the analogy further, it is believed that with proper and rigorous training, you can learn to catch a glimpse into the wings when your attention to the drama can be temporarily suspended.  But for most, from this perspective, this is something that is only rarely attained even by those who have spent a lifetime pursuing it.  When it is attained, we call those persons holy men.  We call them saints, prophets, or messiahs.  And it is from them that we get our second hand accounts of what is behind the screen.

East Meets West

So what are we seeking when we seek Unity?  Not unity of thought or belief or worldview.  As I have said earlier, there is not danger of diversity being subjugated by conformity.  Allan Watts, after years of research into comparative theology came to Understand Unity in a way that approaches the developing of a lesson plan, or teachable epiphany as it were, that can be learned and understood by a broader range of individuals.  He explains Unity as an experience that has been lost to the mind by the very thing that has made our mind unique in nature (on earth anyway) 

            We have been perpetually taught to think in terms of parts.  This is due to a side affect of language.  In order to speak of a thing, it needs to be described as a clearly defined object with boundaries with which we can distinguish it from its surroundings so that a label (word) can be applied to it.  This label then allows us to think and communicate the qualities, position, etc. of this thing, say for example a tree.  The tree, now a clearly definable object, can be said to have branches and leaves and bark.  It can be said to be on a hill surrounded by a grassy clearing.  And so on.  This provides us with an extremely useful convention for communicating, through language, information about the tree.  Or whatever we have isolated and labeled for the sake of exchanging knowledge about.

            What shattered our secure little world of stable “things” and “events” came, in part, from the east in the 50’s and 60’s.  Its message is representative of the “hippie” sub-culture and is almost humorously cliché in today’s culture in America.  A message so cliché as to have lost its impact on us.  Let’s reiterate:  “Oneness”, “The Universe is One”, “We are all part of the Cosmic Process”, “Everything is vibration”, and so on.  “Yeah, right” we say.  A silly notion born out of too much LSD or mescaline or something by a crazy group of simple minded Flower Children.  Perhaps the mind altering experimenters of consciousness in the 60’s did find that the perception of Unity was seen more clearly without the fretters of everyday internal chatter, but I certainly wouldn’t know such things myself (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  But the image of universal oneness was more the product of an eastern worldview than drugs and should be recognized as the triumph of centuries of the eastern mind working out its own theological perspectives.

            Even I tend to conjure up images of smug gurus, whacked out flower children, and phony peace - love - hug a tree types rather than attempt to grasp the full implications of the concept of “oneness” as a rational intelligent human being who fails to fall into any of those categories.  So I remind myself that any idea can be rendered obscure and laughable by overexposure from a “movement” or religious groupies that appear “different“ from the norm to which we are accustomed.  The outward appearance of the messengers can profoundly affect the perception of the message. 

The message, then, is that what we are is NOT parts within a mosaic of other parts.  That having been habituated into thinking of the world as definable (and label-able) parts, we have forgotten how to conceive of the world, and the Universe, ourselves included, as one whole process again - as it was before we learned to break things up into definable parts. 

            So this idea of “oneness” deserves serious scrutiny from a religious, philosophical, and intellectual standpoint.  The changes in worldview provided from such consideration can be incredibly profound.  It can change the very sensation of ourselves as we move about our day-to-day lives.  And it can impact how we will choose to live out the remainder of our lives.

            It is easier to start with our image of the tree.  The tree is thought of in the everyday sense as being a separate object - a tree.  It does not require a great deal of imagination to recognize that the tree has roots that reach deep into the earth.  And because it does not move around we can imagine the tree as part of the earth.  As kind of representing a beard that the earth is growing out of its face if you will.

            Well, you are just like that.  Except that you have more freedom of movement than a tree does.  But still you come out of the earth in the exactly same way that the tree does.  The tree produces leaves and so we can say that a tree leaves - its what a tree does.  It makes leaves.  It is easy to see the earth as something that “trees” just as a tree “leaves”.  And so the earth quite literally “peoples” itself.  It is a peopling planet.  It is a treeing planet.  It’s what the planet - given enough time, energy, and materials - does.  And so here we are.

            “OK” you might say.  I am not rooted into and dependent on the soil like a tree.  That is true.  But you are rooted to the earth by the atmosphere.  You are rooted to the earth by the materials of the earth that you require in order to maintain yourself as “you”; you must eat.  You cannot exist but for the existence of the earth.

            We separate ourselves primarily by our physical sensation of ourselves.  I feel my arm so it is “me”.  I do not feel that table over there so it is “not me”.  And yet you do not feel your toenails and yet you consider them to be you.  Because they move around with you, and appear connected to you, toenails are considered a "part" (there is that word again...) of what you think of as yourself.  Well, what about clothes?  They move around with you and appear connected (albeit loosely) to you and you do not have nerves in them like your toenails.  So why do we not think of our clothes as "us".  Obviously, clothes do not emanate directly from bodily processes as determined by DNA as toenails and hair and brains do, but when one experiences the epiphany of "connectedness", it can be understood that since there is no real separation between any of the so called parts of the universe, the clothes (or more specifically the materials of which they are fashioned) do emanate from the same planetary body - just as do nails, hair, brains, and people.

To be continued…

^{#1  u·ni·ty   Pronunciation Key  (yn-t)
n. pl. u·ni·ties}

1. ^{The state or quality of being one; singleness.}
2. ^{The state or quality of being in accord; harmony.}
3.  
   1. ^{The combination or arrangement of parts into a whole; unification.}
   2. ^{A combination or union thus formed.}
4. ^{Singleness or constancy of purpose or action; continuity: “In an army you need unity of purpose” (Emmeline Pankhurst).}
5.  
   1. ^{An ordering of all elements in a work of art or literature so that each contributes to a unified aesthetic effect.}
   2. ^{The effect thus produced.}
6. ^{One of the three principles of dramatic structure derived by French neoclassicists from Aristotle's Poetics, stating that a drama should have but one plot, which should take place in a single day and be confined to a single locale.}
7. ^Mathematics.
   1. ^{The number 1.}
   2. ^{See identity element.}

^{[Middle English unite, from Old French, from Latin nits, from nus, one. See oi-no- in Indo-European Roots.]}

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