Attribution

Important note: All the posts on this blog were written by Bob Harwood (AKA 'zendancer') on the forum spiritualteachers.proboards.com. I have merely reposted a collection of them in blog format for the convenience of seekers. Some very small mods were made on occasion to make posts readable outside of the forum setting they were made in.

Oneness is a direct experience.

When it occurs, "you" are not there. The experience makes it obvious that reality is a seamless unity and that the universe is centered at every point. That which sees is the only thing that sees because it is the only thing here. Obviously what's being pointed to is not a thing because it has no boundaries, but we can use the word "thing" to point to that thingless thing. The body retains the memory of the experience, and there is never any doubt about the unity that was experienced. It is not held as a belief in the mind because it is a direct experience, and is directly known through the body.

Does it matter? Well, it eliminates the usual fear of death because it is seen that the unified field of all being is never born and never dies; it is infinite, and all life forms are simply momentary manifestations of that infiniteness. Humans do not worry about their condition before birth, and one glimpse of the infinite takes away all worry about their condition after death. It is not so much that the infinite is seen as it is an experience of being one-with the infinite or being lost in the infinite because all boundaries are absent during the experience.

This kind of experience (without an experiencer) is somewhat different than realizations in which various assumptions/ideas/beliefs are seen to be false. Seeing through the illusion of selfhood, for example, is a realization rather than an experience. When it is seen that selfhood is a fictitious idea, only, what then remains? The body/mind, universe, and awareness. Life continues, but there is no longer the idea or belief that there is a separate person at the center of what's happening.