Getting to unity from isolation
The opposite of isolation is unity. It is the bond and loss of boundaries between a mother and her newborn. It is the sense of love and closeness experienced with family during the holidays or a special occasion. It is the timelessness and sense of oneness experienced by two people in love. It is the state of mind experienced by all enlightened humans throughout history. We have all felt examples of this type of unity in our life but unfortunately it erodes away with a growing ego. Love and unity is a natural spiritual state that exist between all things until we start down the path of isolation (see previous post on”Isolation“)
Unity is a conscious choice
If we choose to live a life of love and unity then we must allow our spiritual nature to guide our life. Choosing love and unity is a matter of personal choice and responsibility. We make this choice by not allowing the ego to dominate our thought processes or our life. Referring to the circular diagram in this post, we go from isolation to unity through a process of conscious intention. Starting at isolation and moving to unity occurs by removing the blockages to unity and love. They follow in a fairly logical sequence, though they may not always happen in an exact order. Let’s also clarify and define unity as a sense of love and oneness with everything. To reach full unity requires the highest levels of consciousness i.e. See post (“Understanding Consciousness Part 5 Consciousness Energy Levels”) The following steps will bring us back to unity:
Respectful – This is the most basic consideration given to other living creatures as an acknowledgement of their right to exist. It leads to being humble.
Humble – We give others the respect of having their own free will. We know we have an opinion but that opinion is only valid as it pertains to our-self. We do not try to dominate other people with our free will choices.
Authentic – Here we no longer try to impress others by flaunting our material goods or achievements. We have a certain integrity to represent ourselves as we are, not as we wish others to see us. We could also describe this level as caring more about our integrity instead of what other people think of us.
Cooperative – Putting aside the selfish desire to have things exactly our way we start working with other people to achieve a common good. In the process of becoming wholly responsible for our lives we realize nothing happens without the cooperation of others.
Grateful – Gratitude is an inner state of mind that develops as one moves through the previous steps. This is not isolated gratitude for a particular thing, this is a state of gratitude that exist because we are happy with our life and who we are. It is an acknowledgment of the interconnectedness of all things. It is the recognition that we do nothing on our own but rather everything comes to us through an intricate web of people and circumstances.
Friendly – As we become comfortable with who we are and we accept full responsibility for our life and we achieve more with others we become friendlier. Every relationship has the potential to fulfill a need for ourselves or for others. It is the synergy that occurs through relationships that inspires us to be friendly. Since we no longer want to impress others or have anything to prove we are no longer paranoid of other people, therefore everyone appears friendly.
Sympathetic – It is the ability to see the pain, struggle and hurt in others. As we become friendly, people start to share their authentic struggles and pain in life and we are able to listen in a genuine and authentic manner.
Kind – When we recognize that everyone is struggling with their own hardships we begin to offer kindness to others. Even if people do not reciprocate with kindness, we remain kind.
Generous – Generosity develops as we move through all the previous steps. We wish to share in whatever success we have. This is the beginning of allowing our heart more influence over our actions in life.
Forgiving – As we become more heart centered we feel the pain of hatred, anger, grudges and judgment in our heart. The only way to free ourselves of this pain is through absolute forgiveness. We will never reach unity if we cannot forgive.
Empathetic – Along with forgiveness for our own benefit, we also realize that everyone acts in accordance with their beliefs. We can actually empathize with a previous enemy by trying to understand and feel things from their perspective. Empathy is the ability to walk in another person’s shoes.
Benevolent – The willingness to give whatever you possess to help another. It is the selfless nature of giving regardless of how much you have.
Sacrifice – Similar to benevolence, the last remaining thing we can give is our-self. This is the willingness to give of our time or money in order to help others. It is the willingness to sacrifice our own needs, desires or pleasure in the service of others. Here we are entering the realm of the spiritual. This sacrifice is empowered by the recognition that this physical life is fleeting and our existence is eternal. With this knowledge the heart is imbued with a spiritual energy that allows one to draw others together in unity.
Loving – The progression of all the previous steps leads to an unselfish love that gives freely regardless of affiliation or reciprocation. This love flows from a source not of our own. The power of this love can heal, alleviate pain and can have a dramatic impact on the lives of others through a shift to heart consciousness. This love draws others together in unity.
Compassionate – Compassion is a culmination of all the previous behaviors. It is a spiritual understanding of our struggle. It is the understanding that our truest nature is wholeness and unity, but in our quest to be individuals pursuing our own selfish desires, we must suffer with isolation and loneliness. This round trip is the only way of experiencing, understanding and ultimately desiring unity once again. Compassion comes from a place of knowing, this knowing can only be understood through experience. It cannot be described or learned it can only be experienced through sincere desire. Once it is experienced, there is an understanding and acceptance of all things.
Peaceful – As a person lets go of all desire and control, there is nothing left but peace. (see post on “Understanding The Soul, Creator Laws – Part 3 Of 6”) Thoughts cease and the desire to exercise free will is all but relinquished. There is only one desire, the alignment of our will with the creator. The illusion of the physical world falls away as unity is experienced.
Achieving true unity is a spiritual goal very few reach in a lifetime. We are only left with the teachings of those who have attained it. There are also great examples of those who reached the higher levels of sacrifice, love and compassion such as Mother Teresa and Mahatma Ghandi. Working towards unity is a lifelong process that is so easily sidetracked by the ego.
The benefit of this diagram is to bring awareness to what causes isolation and what brings us to unity. On the isolation side we are trying to prevent the actions, attitudes and behaviors that lead to isolation. This amounts to subduing the ego or not allowing the ego to run on autopilot. Moving from unity to isolation is the result of unconscious behaviors and a lack of self-awareness.
Going from isolation to unity is more of an intention. It is the transformation of being ego oriented into the intentional realm of the spiritual. Moving from isolation to unity requires conscious effort, self-awareness and diligent intent. It requires the control of our thoughts and a fundamental change in our belief systems. As these changes take place our thoughts, which were normally judgmental, become empathetic, loving and peaceful.
Applying the idea:
- Observe your closest relationships can you see how they reflect the attributes of achieving unity.
- When those same relationships break down can you see how the steps towards isolation got you there?
- Can you see it is very easy to slide down to isolation, but climbing back to unity requires a heightened sense of self-awareness and effort?
Please share if you found this post to be meaningful. I would love to hear your comments and thoughts… Thank you for reading : )
Totally agree, this is an amazing way of explaining it. Im just starting to flow my words and filter, organize and make sense of what I want to communicate. The problem is its too much information to put in writing and might take along time. Im blessed to still have a few years on my path of being awaken and reaching a level of consciousness I did not know existed.
Love to all and compassion to all.
It was great talking to you Gaston, I am so happy for you, and for having your experience. Thank you for reaching out to me and sharing your experience. Let’s keep in touch and continue our dialog. Thank you for your comment.
Chris,
Your second bullet point is key. Had I ever stopped to think that way, I’d not have gone through what I am going through this year. I’m grateful for what I am learning, but it is never fun to go through serious pain.
I’d dare to say that most cases begin with you becoming inwards-looking, but not in the sense where you are listening to your soul, but hiding from yourself. Then you shut to outside and start isolating yourself from the people you love.
What do you think?
Love,
Saulo
I think the greatest mistake people make is lying to themselves. We tell ourselves things that are not true and by our very thoughts we make it true for ourselves, (the ego in action.) If we could always remember at our core everyone is connected and everyone comes from a source of love then we would start with truthful thoughts, (our spiritual self in action.) We either tell ourselves we are being attacked and need to protect ourselves or we force our will onto others for our own selfish desires. It is easy to slide into isolation, this is why it is so important to feed ourselves daily with positive reminders of truth and authentic dialog with others. We will always find we have more in common than we have in differences, and if we focus on our commonalities we can always be in a state of unity with others.
Thank you for your authentic dialog, it helps me keep the right focus no matter what is going on in my life. Love Chris
Thank you, Chris.
Some people seem to be very closed to authentic dialog. They are so afraid of our reaction, or calculating what to say in order to have things happening in the closest possible way to a “best outcome” script they have in mind. It is so sad.
I was speaking recently to a friend who is my confident in spiritual matters, and I asked her how to get someone to open the heart. Many people have a block once you bring God into the conversation, but our conclusion was that if you begin with speaking of love, it’s a good first step.
Love,
Saulo
Saulo, it is unfortunate, but much of historical Western Religion has been corrupted by men who institutionalized it and used it as a means of power and control. When God is mentioned it sometimes brings up a negative association of fearing God. This is what religion taught for so long, that we had to “be good” otherwise we were going to “hell.” The other misconception for many following western religion is that we get “one shot” at going to heaven and it depends on this lifetime. This again is a fear based threat to those being taught. Should we be kind and loving? Of course we should, but the achievement of remaining in the spiritual realm (Heaven,) takes hundreds to thousands of lifetimes. It’s not a “last chance” or “this is your one shot to get there” type of proposition. The whole purpose of life on earth is to “grow” to heaven. This is accomplished over a large expanse of time through many many lifetimes. This is why Karma was developed; it is so effective at teaching.
There is much truth in the bible and it contains great wisdom, but it also contains a fear based component. Fear is the antithesis of love and this is not an attribute of God. This means all fear based teaching of God is man made. God is love and therefore your conclusion of starting with love is the correct first step. No one can be led to spirituality or God, we must seek this for ourselves. We are given eternity to accomplish this. In Walter Russell’s book “The Message Of The Divine Iliad (vol 1) he relays Gods communication to him regarding man: “Seek Me. Know Me. Be Me. All men will come to Me in due time, but theirs is the agony of awaiting.”
Most hard core followers of religion will tell you the bible is the only word of truth about God. Yet God continues to speak to people throughout the ages. Divine communication occurs continuously, it happens through each and every one of us each time we love. Some have evolved over many lifetimes in developing their spirituality and thus their connection to the spiritual realm is strong. God is speaking through many and the message is always the same. Every enlightened sage, every awakened human, every near death experience, every medium, every psychic, every channeled message speaks of unity and love. Everyone speaks of the journey we must go through to find truth. It is the purpose of this website to be another signpost, another guide towards that ultimate truth. Yet only those who are seeking will ever find a website similar to this one. Only those who are seeking will find what they are looking for. Thank you again Saulo for your continued engagement in dialog. There is great joy in sharing this truth with others.
Blessings, Chris
Dear Chris,
The corruption of institutionalised religion affected me personally. I will never forget a conversation that I had with my grandmother a few years ago. She was complaining I had stopped attending the mass, and I said that I really didn’t agree with “the rules of the club” and she used as an example a few of her friends that go to the church but don’t really follow the rules.
My final argument was that it had become a club of hypocrisy. Why would I join a group where everyone is just pretending to follow the rules? Whom for?
But I was young, and I had rooted inside myself this need of being accepted by my peers. I mixed my spirituality with belonging to the club. I used to be any extremist in my approach. Things were either black or white. So if I didn’t agree with the club I must be an atheist. Since I couldn’t agree with the reasons for the institutionalized threats I received for my “sins”, I was not afraid anymore and decided just to leave. But the pendulum swung too far to the other side and I lost myself in the process.
Institutions tend to start serving themselves, and end up creating a barrier between us and God. So the Bible was written by men for an audience from a bygone era and is full of symbolism. We must keep all that in mind, and not cherry pick its teachings as people tend to do nowadays.
Chris, I thank you.
Love,
Saulo
Saulo, I am cautious about judging any religion only because given a choice of some or none, “some” is probably better at increasing one’s spirituality. Like all things in life we must be careful of being forced into another person’s beliefs. Many religions have turned off people due to the rigid nature of the teachings. Another part of it however is I believe inside of us we have an inherent feeling of truth. That truth tells us God is not judgmental, spiteful or cruel. I think we all can feel inside us a creator who is compassionate, loving and nurturing.
When we experience pain and hardship in our life it is self induced. Karma makes it difficult to understand it in the context of one lifetime, but it is all for our benefit and learning. God does not “allow” bad things to happen to punish. It is simply part of the law of cause and effect. Without it we would never learn the consequences of our actions. Many of the “New age” churches are getting closer to enhancing the relationship of individuals in their congregations with that of the spiritual. This is why many of the traditional religions are losing members to the newer churches. Blessings Saulo