The title of this episode “I am You and You are Me” sounds like I am quoting the lyrics to John Lennon’s song “I am the Walrus”: "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." There is also the rap by Zico with that title “I am you, You are Me.” But I am not quoting song lyrics here. I am expressing the unitive awareness that we are all one.
I wrote a blog recently entitled the Parable of the Chipmunk in which I describe my encounter with a chipmunk - or perhaps more than one chipmunk – who kept getting into our screened porch, regardless of how much I tried to patch up the holes in the screen to keep him out. What I did not talk about was my sense of comradery with this little guy. We were playing hide and seek with each other. And it was as if we both knew it.
It does not take much interaction with living creatures to feel that we are very much alike. My wife likes to watch animal videos. I am trying to read or write and she keeps saying to me, “You’ve got to watch this!” And I plead, “No more cute animal videos, please. I am trying to keep my train of thought.”
When I watch them it is clear that we are not all that much different from other animals: cats or dogs or monkeys or mice or birds or whatever cute little wild creature happens to be starring in the video. It is clearly the same intelligence that is animating all of us. I would say that the same consciousness is expressed in different bodies in different animal forms. Recognizing that is self-recognition, self-realization.
This is true of the birds that come to our feeders. The same consciousness that is in me is also in the animals that wander through our yard at night – the fox and bear and coons and possums – and even the insects. Yes, even plants that have intelligence as well, as well as microscopic organisms.
We live in a world of one consciousness expressed through all these life forms. I look into the eyes of animals, and it is the same consciousness looking back at me. One consciousness, many bodies. Seemingly many bodies. But of course there is no real separation. Everything is this consciousness.
This the genius of indigenous spiritualities. It is the truth behind spirit guides and what is called animism, which is aware of spirits in all things, not only living creatures but seemingly inanimate objects like rivers and stones. It is the same truth seen in Christian mysticism. What we call God is the same consciousness. Meister Eckhart said in a sermon: “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
That is nondual reality. That is nondual awareness. The problem arises when we believe that we are separate creatures and species and ethnicities. That is the cause of conflict between nations and races and religions and politics. We live in a spiritual unity, but we think it is duality. That is the source of all spiritual problems as well as other types of problems – environmental and ecological problems, social problems, financial problems, international problems, including war and poverty and ideological clashes.
The cure for all humankind’s problems is as simple as noticing the oneness that is always everywhere present. This truth is communicated in some movies I have seen. I think movies are the new scriptures. I think I might do an episode on that sometime, how films re the new scriptures. People used to quote scripture. Now they quote movies. People watch the same movies repeatedly, just like people used to read the Bible repeatedly.
I have been watching the Apple TV series Dark Matter. I read the book by Blake Crouch earlier and liked it, so when it was made into a series I began to watch it. It is about the multiverse, which is a popular topic today. A man is kidnapped by his identical self from another universe, and it is all about him trying to get back home.
A man confronts himself in another body. They look at each other, and they know they have the same consciousness. The Tom Cruise Sci-fi movie Oblivion is about a man who discovers that he is a clone. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in a film where he plays a man who has been cloned. It is entitled The Sixth Day which is a reference to the biblical creation story. These characters in these films are confronted with the fact that they are the other even though they think they are unique.
That is the reality we all live in. We are the other. We are all the same. The same consciousness is looking out of your eyes as is looking out of my eyes. There is one consciousness in all creatures, whether they be whales or otters or gorillas or anything. I call that consciousness divine. I call that consciousness God.
That doesn’t mean we have the same memories or the same sense of a personal self. But behind all those superficial differences is the same intelligence. It is this intelligence which is the Source of the universe. If you want to use theistic language and say the consciousness “created the universe” fine. But creation assumes separation between a creator and creation. There is no separation. It jut appears that way. All is one.
Realizing that we are one Being, with a capital B, one Ground of Being or Being Itself, one Ultimate Reality, and consciously experiencing that reality is the solution to all the problems of humankind. It is the solution to the crises in the headlines – whether it be the Gaza war, climate change, LGBTQ discrimination, racial prejudice, the border crisis, right versus left politics, and everything else that is tearing our nation and our world apart.
The root cause of all of injustice and violence is duality. People really think they are different from others whom they see as dangerous. Once those differences dissolve in nondual awareness, then the way opens for a solution to human problems. This is the only real solution. All other solutions are stopgap measures, just temporary cease fires between groups who see themselves as enemies.
This is why Jesus command us to love our neighbors as ourselves - because they are ourselves! This is why Jesus commands us to love our enemies, which is a command that Christians refuse to obey. They would rather take up arms and march to war as Christian soldiers rather than obey our spiritual commander-in-chief, Jesus Christ. This self-deception.
I am you and you are me, and we are Christ, and Christ is God. That is what Jesus prayed that we would know in his final prayer in the Gospel of John. Paul says we are one body, which is Christ. The verse by the apostle Paul that I quote the most is “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” Paul knew that unitive reality, even though sometimes he writes like he has forgotten it.
Once we know that we are all one, the hate and fear and anger and violence falls away. The fearful negative emotions and thoughts cannot remain in us unless we feed them. If we do not feed the illusions, Reality is clearly seen. We are one. All is one. Realizing that oneness one person at a time – one seemingly separate person at a time - is the way to inner and outer peace.
