If you and I are One in divine universal consciousness, then why do you annoy me so?
When we start asking questions and playing with Oneness consciousness, we inevitably come to a conundrum. A place where we ‘know and experience’ oneness, perhaps in moments of prayer, synchronicity, or just sublime presence and then some odd character of the universe shows up right in front of us and we are bothered to tears.
For those of us who have experienced the after moments of Oneness, it feels elusive, especially when we do mundane things like legal or administrative paperwork, or have to chat with our irritating colleague. Sometimes it feels like a dream that couldn’t possibly be true, or we forget completely.
The millionth time this happened to me, I decided to wonder why.
I realized that I allow myself to surrender to the infinite wonder of the cosmos only in certain spaces, times and places, because that’s where I feel safe. So, often, in those spaces and places, I am actually able to experience myself and by extension the universe with much more expansiveness.
This allowance has a limit though; it doesn’t extend outside my house or meditation circles. So, in any other part of life - relationships, work, walking down the street, at a café, I return to the mundaneness of experience.
After Ecstasy, Laundry - the Mundane & the Magic
For most of us there is a difference between a magical or miraculous experience and a mundane one. We discriminate between what is holy and what is boring, what we prefer and what despise, as well what we attract (or want to) and what we repel (or want to).
This is where poles and magnetism helped me understand my nature differently.
Have you ever met someone that you described as your ‘polar opposite’?
Poles, like ours here on Earth are two ends of a magnet. You can’t have one without the other.
If you break a magnet in half, a new north and sole pole are created, and they do a dance of attraction and repulsion. Same as us, it turns out!
Magic and the mundane, like what is scorned and sacred are two poles of the same magnet. We know one, because we know the other. And we continue the dance of attraction and repulsion until we know this magnet so fully and so deeply, that we no longer have stories, ideas, notions, beliefs, tethers or attachments to either pole.
I used to lie a lot as a child, compulsively, even when I didn’t need to. As part of my healing journey as an adult, I became obsessed with truth and authenticity, well past the point of sanity. If a friend didn’t tell me something because they weren’t ready, I would experience it as a lie of omission. This revealed a lot of confusion around trust within myself and around me.
I understood this as an experience of the magnetic column of truth-lies. I was still learning this and playing in the attraction repulsion game. The more I let go rules and notion that I inherited, the more I was able to surrender, and eventually clarity and allowance emerged. Now, I feel different now about what I understand as truth and what I understand as a lie.
I can’t actually explain it, but I’ve had many experiences where I hear something off-the-wall ludicrous, and know there is some truth there; conversely, I’ll hear something purely factual, like 1+1 = 2 and know that this is incomplete and a half truth, somehow.
This exists in our notions of Oneness and separation as well. We seek Oneness because we feel separate and we ‘feel a call’ towards things or people or places. That’s us, exploring this particular magnet, or at least a pole of the magnet. And, it’s amazing because this is such a fun, experiential way of learning.
A realized being to me, is one who has perhaps played with this Oneness-separate magnet and knows it’s push-pull dynamic. It was fun, and now they are off playing with other magnets. They know that in moments when they feel separate, isolated and in despair, they are connected to whatever their unique understanding of God or the One or the Universe is.
I have known people to offer up more of their love to themselves and to those around them when the moment is maddening dark. It is as if they transmute surrounding burdens and despair into warmth and light. Perhaps they can do this because they do not forget who they are; and this remembrance lights the way.
So, as long as people and situations annoy and bother me, I know I’m still working on this within, and it is a part of my learning at my own pace. What also exists here are the things I want other people to say, to do, to be - a chunk of expectations, laced with judgement and disappointment.
The thing with Oneness is that it isn’t enough that I feel it myself, if I’m going to exclude you from it, and then blame you for the separation pain.
There is no exclusion here even from the things we do not want or like, because… Oneness.
My experience of Oneness absolutely includes you and the spaces, times and places between you and I. In moments where it does not, I know now that it is I who has created the exclusion. But it is okay, because there is a lesson there from a generous universe, and we are all learning here in Earth School.