III
THE MEANING OF UNIVERSAL ONENESS
“Everything that is, is of every other thing that is. All things in My
universe are indissolubly united as one.” From The Divine
Iliad
When we speak of oneness—or universality---or unity—or the One Thing of scientific terminology, I doubt if one in a thousand has the slightest idea of what those terms really mean. We are so accustomed to multiplicity of units of every conceivable kind in Nature that separateness and separability are fixed concepts in our thinking. Also our own individuality of so many human individuals makes it well nigh impossible to think of mankind as one man inseparable from other men. It is still more impossible to think of the whole universe as One Thing with not one separable part.
Nevertheless it is true of God’s universe that there are not two separate or separable things in it. Likewise it is true that there are not two individual human bodies or two individual human souls in the vast entirety of this universe.
It is difficult to look into the starry heavens and think of all those
millions of stars as one star. Yet they are all so indissolubly bound
together that any action or variation upon one is as much a part of ever other one as any happening anywhere happens everywhere.
Everybody who is familiar with radio knows that a voice sounding in England can be recondensed into sound anywhere on the planet-but few realize that every such sound is universal in its extent, reaching to the farthermost star with as much certainty and precision as to the next city from its point of utterance.
The growing comprehension of this electric age makes is possible for moderns to understand that principle of universality which, except for a few mystics, the ancients could not comprehend. These few did understand it, however, for their illuminations into cosmic awareness gave them that all-knowing. To them alone, God’s processes of creation are fully known. Such knowledge can never come through the senses until inspiration unfolds in man to a sufficient extent to enable him to see and hear with the eyes and ears of the Spirit within him what he sees and hears with the eyes and ears of his body. When inspired man can interpret the effects recorded upon his senses into the cause of those effects, then he comprehends the omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence of God. He then has knowledge, but not until.
The more we know how God’s thinking processes take God’s knowing of His one idea apart—give it form and body, with seeming multiplicity, separability and individuality, then void all of those qualities by merging them into the oneness from which they came for the purpose of repeating them eternally—the more we can understand that God alone IS—that every point in the universe is the same point—that every extension from any one point is as though there were but one dimensionless point in all the universe.
Consider the oneness of any part of God’s idea, such as the calm ocean. Its unchanging stillness, unbroken by waves of motion which seemingly divide it into many measurable units, might be likened to the stillness of the one Light of God’s unchanging knowing, unbroken by the thinking of that knowing into many seemingly changing and measurable parts. Upon that calm ocean there are no separate or separable units to give multiplicity or individuality to its oneness. There is nothing there which changes, nothing to measure. One could not put his finger anywhere upon it and return to locate that same point, for every point upon it anywhere is the same point. There is no everywhere in it, for there is no extension in it—nothing that is relative to any other thing---for there is no other thing in the ocean’s oneness for it to be relative to. The ocean can be relative to the shore, for that is another idea, but the oneness of one idea cannot be relative to itself.
The moment the still balance of the ocean becomes extended to two
unbalanced opposite conditions, the unchanging oneness becomes a
changing multiplicity. The unity of the ocean-idea is divided into wave units of that idea. Separateness and separability come into seeming being when one can count oneness into infinity—where the measureless can be measured—where variation from oneness gives individuality to varying and changing units.
Wherever unity is manifested by infinite numbers of units, no two of those units are alike. Likewise, where one balanced equal pressure is divided into two opposite unbalanced pressures, motion becomes imperative for the purpose of seeking balance.
The import of this is the fact that all divisibility and multiplicity, all
individuality, changing, measure, unbalance and disunity come from
oneness---from unity itself. Furthermore, all of these qualities of
separateness return to the oneness from which they came for the
purpose of again expressing their separateness in infinite numbers of forever changing units.
That fact of the division and multiplication of the unity of God’s
knowing into the infinity of God’s thinking—for taking His One Idea apart and expressing it as many parts—then putting all those parts together again into the unity from which they came—is the one dominant characteristic of Creation. That is what Creation is---many changing units of moving light-waves arising from the stillness of the one Light, then returning to that stillness for rebirth into light-waves of motion.
Consider another phase of separateness, changing, individuality and
measureableness arising from the same ocean-idea as mists and vapors instead of waves.
The love principle of Nature is manifested by the giving of ocean to the heavens and the regiving of an equal amount by the heavens to the earth. Multiplicity, separateness, individuality and the variation of changing are manifested in the countless units of cloud forms,
raindrops, brooks, creeks, rivers, waterfalls, torrents and other forms which manifest the idea of water when set in motion as an infinity of units.
Consider the individuality of brooks, rivers and other streams. Each has its separate form. No two are alike. Their individuality is named by man as Stony Creek, North Mountain Brook, Hudson River or Niagara Falls. The forms of each unit of water thus divided from its oneness are as different from each other as every man is different from every other man.
Consider, also, the fact that every raindrop, book, river and stream
seeks the unity of the ocean from which it came for the purpose of
finding the balance of that oneness in order that it can repeat its
seeming separateness.
In this manner, life springs from oneness to manifest one-half of the life cycle, and returns to oneness as death to manifest the other half. That is the inviolate order of Nature. There is no other order. That is the law of Nature. There is no other law than that one of rhythmic balanced interchange between the opposite halves of cycles which forever spring from oneness to manifest oneness in multiple forms of individual expressions.
When we say that life of man flows through him to manifest the idea of man as a part of the God-idea, it is like saying that the ocean forever flows through each brook and river to manifest the idea of the ocean.
Whenever we say that man has a forever changing body to manifest the idea of man, it is like saying that the brook has a forever changing body to manifest the idea of the brook.
Likewise, when we say that our bodies live and die because they appear and disappear in cycles, it can likewise be said that the bodies of brooks and rivers appear from the mist, disappear into the oneness of their source and reappear from it in countless cycles of appearance, disappearance and reappearance.
We cannot see the bodies of brooks when they are mist of heavens, nor when they disappear into the oneness of their ocean source, but that does not mean that there is a discontinuance anywhere in their cycles.
Likewise, then man’s body disappears from our sensed vision into the earth and heavens from which it formerly appeared as an assemblage of gases, liquids and solids, we think of that body as having discontinued. We say it is dead. Yet it will appear from that same oneness of earth and heavens into which it disappeared as the same kind of a complex body which has no resemblance whatsoever to the earth or heavens from which it sprang.
Every individual separate thing which appears from any unitary source, whether from space, seed, earth, ocean or sun, disappears into that same oneness to lose its identity in its unity, and as surely reappears from that same source to regain its identity as a multiple unity of that one. That, again, is God’s law. That is the order in which Nature asserts its continuity. The wombs of Nature are also tombs. Rebirths arise from death. Earths and heavens interchange equally. What earth gives to heaven in one-half of a life cycle, heaven gives back to earth to complete the cycle.
Consider the earth. If you dig a shovel of it anywhere, it all seems the same, yet out of it have come, and gone, countless millions of many varieties of flowers, insects, birds, animals, vegetables and chemical compounds to become digested into the oneness of that shovel full of earth. Think of the marvelous colors of growing things; think of the perfumes of flowers, the sounds of insects or of animals which have come from that earth and have gone back into the oneness of its dust. Think of the noises of city streets and of industry. All these have come from that dust of earth and have returned to it as death, as the death half of their cycles for reborning as their opposite life half.
Consider the seed of the tree. In its oneness it is the whole tree, every leaf of it—no two leaves being alike—every branch and twig of it, the bark of it, and the spiral of its unfolding. Yet the finest microscope in the world could not find even one of those countless leaves which will unfold from that seed into the variformed chlorophyll greens that, likewise, could not be found in the seed.
Consider the sun itself. In its oneness of incandescent light is every unit of form in all this creating universe. All animal life and vegetable life is there, together with all mineral forms, forms of metals, of crystals, the ruby, diamond and sapphire. Throughout the immense bulk of the sun is as much a oneness of simulated light in its incandescent form as the earth is a oneness of simulated light in its condensed form.
Everything we know of in our familiar environment of earth comes
from the sun to manifest the idea of creating things in countless
individual units of each idea. Our senses recognize these forms. We give each one a name to recognize its individuality. We analyze each one and note its differences from every other one.
Consider all waves of the ocean as being extensions of the ocean;
therefore all being extensions of each other. If each wave is an extension of every other wave, it therefore follows that every action taking place on any one wave is likewise taking place on every other wave.
As no two waves are alike, so likewise are no two actions alike. A
powerful action may take place upon one wave such as the catastrophe of a steamship broken in two, while nothing extraordinary takes place upon any other wave, small or large, within miles of that catastrophe.
Yet it cannot be said that one wave of the ocean was guilty of sinking that great ship. Every wave of the entire ocean, small and large, near and far, was equally responsible for the sinking of that ship, for one wave could not be except that all other waves be.
Likewise, all men, being extensions of each other, are equally
responsible for the actions of each and every other man. No man on
earth can say, “I am innocent. I have done nothing to hurt anyone.”
Civilization is the sum total of all mankind’s thinking. It is what every man has made it. Not even the unborn babe is exempt from guilt of the entirety of the world’s criminal actions as well as he is glorified by the greatest of noble actions. Every act of every man either lifts or lowers all mankind, as every raindrop and rising mist either raises or lowers the entire ocean. The Hitlers, Mussolinis and Napoleons are the products of the same civilization as are geniuses such as Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Edison. When one man hurts the world, it is because hate is in the world as a product of man’s thinking. No one could or would hurt another if love alone were in the world.
Not one man in all Creation, except Jesus, has manifested only love. The world of men hate and fear as well as love.
Everything in this solar system emerged from the sun to manifest its
own individuality in countless units. It then returns to it to lose its
individuality and separateness in the oneness from which it sprang.
That which was hot incandescent formless light becomes the cool form of a meadow violet, or orchid of the swamp, or a rose in your garden. The oneness of earths and oceans comes from the oneness of the sun. Each is an extension of the sun just as all forms which emerge from their seed are extensions of their seed—as their seed are extensions of the sun.
This is a universe of One Thing---LIGHT—the still Light of God. All creating things in it are simulations of that Light expressed by motion. All variations of form in the universe are variations of motion. Variation of motion deceives the senses of man into believing in varied substances of varied things. There are no substances nor varied things.
Individuality, separateness, change, measure and form are due entirely to spiral light-waves which centrifugally extend from the sun and return to it centripetally to repeat the extension and retraction.
There are no separate things in the universe. There are no two of
anything. The universe is wholly MIND, omnipotent, omniscient,
omnipresent MIND.
That which we call vibrating waves of matter are but the electric
recordings of God’s knowing as manifested by His thinking.
God alone IS.
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