The Three Principles of Oneness: How Embodying the Cosmic Perspective Can Liberate Your Life
160
The Three Principles of Oneness: How Embodying the Cosmic Perspective Can Liberate Your Life
160Hardcover
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780764358135 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. |
| Publication date: | 10/28/2019 |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d) |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Why Oneness?
Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe.
Erwin Schrödinger
We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars ...
Carl Sagan
The new discoveries of science rejoin us to the ancients by enabling us to recognize in this whole universe a reflection magnified of our own most inward nature; so that we are indeed its ears, its eyes, its thinking, and its speech — the mystical theme of the space age is this: the world, as we know it, is coming to an end. The world as the center of the universe, the world divided from the heavens, the world bound by horizons in which love is reserved for members of the in-group: that is the world that is passing away. Our mythology now, therefore, is to be of infinite space and its light, which is without as well as within.
Joseph Campbell
We are not simply in the universe, we are part of it. We are born from it. One might even say we have been empowered by the universe to figure itself out — and we have only just begun.
Neil Degrasse Tyson
What is the greatest yearning of the human being? Over the years I have come to realize that the human heart and mind are constantly seeking to understand and know the universe and themselves, to have a sense of belonging and a way to personally express this belonging. In other words, we are constantly seeking a bigger perspective and a deeper connection that will give meaning and purpose to our lives. A word for this sense of cosmic connection is Oneness. We desire to experience Oneness within the world and ourselves. It is the very deepest thirst and hunger of the human soul: a need for meaning and a way to live out of this meaning.
As a spiritual teacher I have found that the most powerful experiences of Oneness in which I have participated were with those I was ministering to as they faced the greatest changes in their lives. Folks shared the need for a deep connection across all lines of age, ethnicity, gender, or creed. What is this sought-after wholeness composed of? I have identified three basic components:
1. The need for a Cosmic Perspective, where we awaken to a deep and abiding sense of connection with the universe and how it actually seems to work; a view that personally opens us up to a larger sense of identity, beyond the limits of our egocentric selves.
2. The need for a mindfulness practice to create calm and clarity, in order to enhance a sense of Oneness within ourselves.
3. The need to creatively participate purposefully and meaningfully in Oneness with others and with the world.
It seems that when one or more of these areas are lacking or when they are out of balance, we experience a deep and lonely form of existential suffering. Why, in the context of Oneness, does this cause us to suffer? It can all be traced back to a basic misunderstanding: we do not fully comprehend and appreciate our connectedness. As long as our minds are not free from this basic delusion of separateness, we will continue to suffer.
Rediscovering Oneness
My pastoral approach to these issues is to help folks through a process that begins with humility. Life is very mysterious, and there is so much that we don't know but really wish we did. Maybe we can gain a new perspective from one of our greatest living physicists, Sir Roger Penrose. I was once able to interview him after he had just released a new book on physics at the age of eighty-five. I asked him how he was able to continually come up with such fresh and exciting insights, and he said that it was quite simple: he just goes back to the beginning and starts over again as if he knew nothing.
In the Buddhist tradition this is called "beginner's mind." It is said that while in the expert's mind there are few options, in the beginner's mind the possibilities are endless. From this humble space of "not knowing" we can observe and test the evidence, then testify to what we have discovered. We can open up to the great questions by learning to observe and understand the universe through our senses and the technologies that have increased that sensorial understanding.
Therefore, in this book, I would like to
1. Enlighten — help you wake up to the Three Principles of Oneness and to what we know about the universe.
2. Educate — teach you how this knowledge is scientifically sound and can inform and provide an evidence-based spiritual foundation for your life.
3. Embody — help you integrate this knowledge in a way that is healing and transformative, both personally and corporately.
This process is one that I know, from my decades of experience, can help heal the division that has occurred between our understanding of how things work, which we call science, and why things matter, which we call spirituality. Spirituality, in this sense, is not so much about its classical expressions in religion, but a way of describing a Cosmic Perspective, similar to what Einstein called "A Cosmic Religion."
Einstein stated, "I am of the opinion that all the finer speculations in the realm of science spring from a deep religious feeling, and that without such feeling they would not be fruitful. I also believe that this kind of religiousness, which makes itself felt today in scientific investigations, is the only creative religious activity of our time."
By seeing science as a part of an informed sacredness, we can turn to nature itself as a sort of Holy Scripture. When I am asked, in my capacity as a Buddhist minister, to participate in interfaith celebrations and to provide a symbol of our inspired texts, I bring a flower to demonstrate that nature is humanity's oldest and most reliable holy record.
To begin our quest, let us start with what we know, based on our best scientific evidence, about our universe and ourselves. Then I will share an interpretation of one of humanity's oldest spiritual narratives.
CHAPTER 2Arising from oneness
Is evolution a theory, a system, or an hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforward if they are to be thinkable and true.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Arising from Unconscious Oneness: How Things Work
First, let us explore what we know from science about how things work. Some fourteen billion years ago, astrophysicists tell us, our universe was born. Around five billion years ago, our earth came into being. Then 800 million years back, life first emerged as cellular organisms. Next emerged the creatures of the sea, land animals, and dinosaurs, followed by the rise of mammalian and primate life. Human ancestors evolved two million years ago, with Homo sapiens appearing about 200,000 years ago.
Consciousness in its most primitive form had evolved into the self-consciousness of human beings. While this evolution allowed us to become more fully human, it was also the catalyst for the beginnings of our struggle with existential anxiety. Unlike the animals all around them, our human ancestors knew that they would die. They could anticipate the future and remember the past. As the Australian Aboriginals say, they had left the "dreamtime" and were no longer unconsciously one with nature.
Unlike their cousins in the animal world who responded in the moment to a clear and present danger and then returned to a relaxed state, humans tended to remain on high alert even after the threat was past, anticipating its reappearance. In fact, their relentlessly spinning minds continued to weave whole new worlds of peril whose sole existence was in the mind. The tigers no longer just existed outside the cave dwelling; they had become "tigers of the mind," a constant, relentless psychological predator kept alive and present by fear. The Oneness of the unconscious animals became the separation of the self-conscious beings.
At the same time, the instinct for survival became more complicated. Now, it was not enough simply to survive physically. Now the sense of self-identity, the Ego, had to be preserved as well. All of the origin myths of our collective humanity would, in one form or another, recall this primeval experience.
In order to alleviate this angst, the self-conscious beings attempted to establish control over their environment by projecting animation onto their surroundings. They created gods who were like humans writ large that would protect them from danger. This adaptation became an integral part of their communal cohesiveness, giving them a surrogate totem parent to watch over them and establish codes for their behavior. Perhaps even more important than mere survival, the struggle to be free from the suffering of existence and to find harmony with the universe became the central drive of conscious human life.
Arising into Conscious Oneness: Why things Matter
Now that we know how things work, let us explore why they matter. To begin, we might wonder how we can free ourselves from the suffering caused by this existential sense of separation. Further, we might wonder how we can once again experience Oneness. There are ancient and modern insights that can help us find answers.
Let us turn back nearly three thousand years to one of human history's greatest sages, a person named Shakyamuni, who became known in history as the Buddha or the "Awakened One." What does his experience have to teach us about experiencing a universal consciousness rather than this sense of separation that causes us so much suffering?
According to the ancient narrative, the Buddha went on a spiritual quest to understand the nature of suffering and, if possible, to find an answer to it. Legend has it that after years of vigorous but fruitless searching, he sat down one evening under a large tree, vowing not to leave that spot until he had found some answers. It has been said that on that night, while gazing up at the planet Venus, which appeared to him just before the dawn, he had a sudden and life-changing experience of Oneness. This Oneness was before all things, and in Oneness all things hold together. In seeing the star, he realized that not only was he in the universe, but that the universe was in him. He was born of stardust; everything was one and he was one with everything. As the Zen teacher Shodo Harada has written, the Buddha cried,
* * *
That's it! That's it! That's me! That's me that is shining so brilliantly!
This mystical experience would cause a breakthrough into a new realm of consciousness. Gazing upon the morning star, shining beyond the horizon, the Buddha's mind was carried above any terrestrial limits, so that the confines of his ego were outshined by the spaciousness of an abiding, cosmic awakening. He discovered within himself the very secret of the universe: that there is no disconnected or separate self. In his deep state of contemplation he was able to touch the universal consciousness behind his thoughts, feelings, and sensations. His personal ego self transmogrified as the universal true self. This new realm of being was one of infinite compassion, creativity, and connection. In this Oneness his uniqueness as a human being was not diminished but was affirmed and transformed. Individuation and self-reliance would be the ground upon which he now walked; caste or king would no longer define him. Thus, the life of the Buddha was understood as the hero's journey of one who realized his identity with eternity and, at the same moment, his participation in time.
The Buddha also discovered a new significance and source of what it means to be truly human by looking into the very nature of being and doing. He became a reed for the life-giving breath of the universe, which flowed through him and the entire universe in interdependent origination. He awakened to the reality of Oneness where there is only being. The universe and I are one. I am the universe and the universe is I. He realized that the mind of each individual is completely interconnected with the larger mind of the universe.
In addition, the Buddha realized that our feeling of separation is an accumulated conditioning that creates a sort of darkly shadow through which we perceive our lives, which we then project onto the world. The process he discovered could help all self-conscious beings to clear away this veil of irrational conditioning that prevents us from experiencing life as it really is and to live more fully and love more freely. In other words, we could live in such a way that we are so focused on giving of ourselves completely and so engaged in our lives that we begin to eradicate our archaic boundaries. We enter into a larger and stronger arena of cosmic consciousness unbound by conventional or limiting ideology.
When we awaken to this reality, we begin to realize that it is in our common human suffering that we most clearly experience the Oneness that opens the wellspring of our compassion. While our strengths tend to divide us, our suffering is the common denominator that connects us with every other human being. Furthermore, it is in seeking mutual benefit for all that individual freedom is truly realized.
The Buddha's contemplation brought forth the fruit of compassionate action, since he knew that the Way of Oneness was nothing less than a mission to help others free themselves from the suffering and shame caused by their sense of dualistic separation. It was, and is, a call to live out the life of an awakened being or bodhisattva: to fully accept oneself without the need for validation, to love freely with a boundless heart beyond our fears and limited identities, to give completely of oneself as an expression of that infinite light and love that is Nirvana. We can realize ourselves as Buddha: a new type of being who has confronted the great matter of life and death and emerges from the muddied ooze of our primordial past into the flowering, lotus-like, of an expanded humanity.
CHAPTER 3Voices of Oneness
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein
This new consciousness of the Cosmic Oneness is said to have awakened in Buddha, and, I believe, can awaken in a unique way in all of us. Modern thinkers such as Edgar Mitchell, Alan Lightman, and Neil deGrasse Tyson have had their own personal experiences of Oneness and, while not being exactly the same as the Buddha's, have touched what I believe is a part of the same source of spiritual insight. Furthermore, their modern experience can tell us a great deal about how this perspective might look in the twenty-first century. This perspective shows that we are all connected and that this matters a great deal. These individuals, and many others, have not only become aware of this connection but have been inspired enough by what they have learned that they now share it with others.
The Astronaut
The first "voice of Oneness" is the late astronaut and the sixth man to walk on the moon, Edgar Mitchell, who had a life-changing experience when he saw Earth from his spaceship. He described a "blue jewel-like home planet suspended in the velvety blackness from which we had come. What I saw out the window was all I had ever known, all I have ever loved and hated, or longed for, all that I once thought had ever been and ever would be. It was there suspended in the cosmos on that fragile little sphere. I experienced a grand epiphany accompanied by exhilaration, an event I would later refer to in terms that could not be more foreign to my upbringing in West Texas and later, New Mexico. From that moment on, my life was irrevocably altered. I not only saw the connectedness, I felt it."
This led him to devote the rest of his life to the meaning and application of his experience. Through his books, his public appearances, and the cofounding of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, he would explore the frontiers of consciousness and how the insights gained could help heal humanity's wounds.
The Artist and Astrophysicist
Alan Lightman has fashioned a career that spans both the scientific and the literary. He has made notable contributions in the field of physics, and his novel Einstein's Dreams has received popular and critical international acclaim.
None of this, however, compared to the experience he had one fateful summer night on a private retreat. In his book Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, he describes how he was in a boat heading for his summer home off the coastal waters of Maine. At some point, before he docked, he decided to lie down in the darkness beneath the starry sky. Shortly afterward he had a powerful experience. He suddenly felt as if his body had dropped away and he was connected to all things: the stars, the ocean, and the cosmos. "I felt a merging with something far larger than myself, a grand and eternal unity, a hint of something absolute."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Three Principles of Oneness"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Anthony Stultz.
Excerpted by permission of Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword, 6,
Preface, 8,
Acknowledgments, 10,
Introduction: The Cosmic Perspective, 11,
ENLIGHTEN,
Chapter 1 Why Oneness?, 13,
Chapter 2 Arising from Oneness: How Things Work and Why They Matter, 16,
Chapter 3 Voices of Oneness, 20,
Chapter 4 The Sounds of Separation from Oneness, 27,
Chapter 5 Personal Experiences of Oneness, 30,
Chapter 6 Science and Spirituality, 37,
EDUCATE,
Chapter 7 The New Emergent Myth, 42,
Chapter 8 The Three Principles of Oneness, 48,
Chapter 9 The Three Poisons and the Three Practices, 51,
Chapter 10 The Second Discovery of Fire, 55,
EMBODY,
Chapter 11 Sharing the Teachings of the Buddha in the Twenty-First Century, 57,
Chapter 12 The Four Directions System of Mindfulness, 61,
Chapter 13 Ask Sensei Tony: Oneness with Ourselves, 75,
Chapter 14 Ask Sensei Tony: Oneness with Others, 89,
Chapter 15 Ask Sensei Tony: Oneness with the World, 100,
Chapter 16 Ask Sensei Tony: The Mystery of Oneness, 118,
Chapter 17 Living out of Oneness, 137,
Bibliography, 154,
Index, 156,