Interconnection

Subhan writes, “Years ago, I heard someone say that the universe is one, and that we are all interconnected with everyone and everything around us. But that was NOT my experience.”

Years ago, I heard someone say that the universe is one, and that we are all interconnected with everyone and everything around us. But that was NOT my experience. I was me; and they were they. I was not the other; nor was I part of the trees and flowers, as some people had described it. This “oneness” they spoke of sounded like new age spiritual “woo-woo.”

And then, after several years of meditation, along with experimentation and exploration – in and out groups – I had some inexplicable moments, when there was a powerful feeling that could only be described as “love,” that flowed to whoever I was with.

And later, that same experience enveloped me in nature, and EVERYTHING seemed so… connected and vibrant, and loved!

It was as if “I” and the other, or “I” and nature had merged! This blew my mind!

I began recognizing that most of the time “I” was looking through “ordinary” eyes, where I never saw or felt a connection with what was being seen. And then, at rare times, there was that moment when the “looker” and the distance with others disappeared; and “I” merged with who was being looked at. At first, this was strange and unexpected. But at times, it DID happen! And, it was a joyous, deeply satisfying experience.

Skip forward several years to now, and this “love” that wells up within, has come more often. It flows to whoever or whatever is there! It isn’t anything that “I” am doing. It ONLY happens outside of any doing!

And still, it DISAPPEARS! And once again the separation takes over. It seems as if the mind HAS to create the disappearance and separation, in order for it to survive. Because, when this experience melts the separation, for a moment the mind disappears! The judgments disappear; the comparisons disappear. And what remains is an indescribable feeling of being connected.

Perhaps you’ve had similar experiences? With loved ones, being with them in a relaxed, joyous way, and, voila! There is an intangible moment of deep connection. Or, looking at the moon with a silver ring around it, and finding yourself in a kind of “blending” with it, along with a feeling of awe and reverence. Or looking at your child asleep, and suddenly your heart leaps out, and you are enveloped in this feeling of “love.”

So maybe we’ve always been, and ARE, deeply connected with everyone and everything. And, when the mind somehow loosens its grip, that connection appears, in the experience of “love!”

Perhaps this interconnection can be seen with an analogy to a spider’s web: If I go to one end of the web and vibrate it with a finger, the vibration travels all the way to the other end of the web, causing it to also vibrate. Maybe it’s just like that…and everything was, is, and will always be, interconnected – regardless of what the mind thinks and does!

Featured image by Jan Canty