All Is One

 

You’ve likely heard the pithy expression, “All is one.” At this juncture, you are probably in a better position to understand what it might mean than you may have been previously. When uttered in the contexts of partial and full enlightenment, this statement refers to two fundamentally different things. In the context of partial enlightenment, “All is one” refers to a deeper spiritual dimension beneath the world’s surface. On that deeper level, all is one. At the same time, all is not one on the world’s surface; it is still many.

 

On the other hand, when uttered in the context of full enlightenment, the same assertion—“All is one”—literally means all is one. Everything in experience is one. There is nothing outside of oneness and nothing but oneness.

 

In full enlightenment, since all that you experience is already one, a deeper spiritual realm residing beneath the world’s surface isn’t required to find oneness. Everywhere you look, you already see oneness. In everything you touch, everything you hear, everything you think, and everything you feel, you already encounter oneness.

 

So, in the case of full oneness, “all” literally means all—all of experience is one thing and therefore “one.” However, with partial oneness, “all” doesn’t literally mean all. Instead, it applies just to an underlying level of existence; only on that level is all “one.”

 

In short, the same statement—“All is one”—can have two fundamentally different meanings. Depending on the context, it could express the experience of either partial or full oneness.

 

(End Book II Quote)