1/21/17

INCLUSION

Oneness is true inclusion. Oneness means that every shape, color, age, religion, gender, sexual orientation, cultural background, economic class, and human experience is equally important and equally valid. It means that our differences are beautiful and they have to be acknowledged. It also means that our unity is beautiful and must be acknowledged. It means no one is left out. No one. Not even Trump, or Hitler, or members of the Ku Klux Klan.

It doesn’t mean we have to agree with everyone, or like them, or allow them to misbehave. By all means Oneness does not mean condoning abuse and oppression. It does mean that our healing ultimately comes from acting in our relative conditions while at the same time seeing from the planet’s-eye-view, and then the universe’s-eye-view. It means practicing coming from the Source Of All Being that is inside each and every one of us in every move we make. It’s a practice. It’s a work-in-progress. And most of all it’s a paradox.

If we could really see as God sees all the time, there’d be no need to be human beings. And it seems that somehow it’s important for us to go through this human experience. Some part of the divine plan for the cosmos has involved all of us being here, in these seemingly separate bodies, for at least a little while. For some reason this has happened.

There’s so many ways to refer to ultimate reality and the source of all being. Each different word and conceptual frame can be useful at different times — to help us find balance in the midst of all sorts of stormy weather we find ourselves in: God, Universe, The One, Nature, Emptiness, The Divine, All That Is, The Goddess, The Force, The Tao, The Truth, Love, etc. But the one that seems especially helpful to me right now is Great Mystery. This is all such a mystery. How we got to this point. How we get out of this mess. How can we make sense of the enormous suffering and aggression we see all around and inside of us? What’s the point?

We don’t know.

We don’t know. And maybe that is how we find our way through—we come together and acknowledge that we don’t know. None of us. And that’s okay. In fact, that’s sort of all we can count on. And it’s enough, when we remember to go moment by moment, feeling our way along this mysterious, winding, inclusive, eternal path.