There's Only One of Us
As the country and the world revel in this defining moment of our collective history with the election of President Barack Obama, it is wise to step back from the momentary celebration and take a realistic look at the broader picture. Yes, our spirit as a nation has been re-energized and uplifted. This was a state of both spirit and mind that was long overdue. Let's pray we're able to sustain it.
We're going to need it to get us through the challenges that lay ahead.
Just 48 hours into this Presidency, there are more than rumblings about our economic future. As a contributor to Andersen Cooper's AC360 blog, David Gergen,CNN Senior Political Analyst writes today of the very vocal concerns within and among economists and politicians over how to pull the nation through perhaps the most serious economic downturn in history. And I'm certain great minds are pondering that problem and it's possible solutions as I write.
But what about you and me? What is our part in all of this and what can we do to positively effect the outcome? I have one overriding suggestion.
Keep in mind that there is only One of Us.
Having spent most of my life feeling separate from other people, imagine my joy to awaken in recent years to the realization that we are all connected to each other in the most profound way. Not just as members of a common species, community or nation, but as individualized aspects of One Source. For when we trace our origins back to "the Beginning," whether through the pathway of science or religion, what we often stop short of fully grasping is that both of these pathways lead us to a single point beyond space and time...a single Source for All That Is.
The logical conclusion to be drawn from this realization is that originating or emanating from a single Source makes us, and everything else that has ever been or ever will be, an individualized aspect of that Source. This then makes it accurate to say with confidence and certainty that there is, ultimately, only One of Us.
Awareness of this fact changes how you see and act in the world.
If I have a home in which I safely live with sufficient food for daily nourishment and someone I know, or know of, does not...and I do nothing to try and aid their situation... I am consciously choosing to allow myself to suffer. Remember, there is only One of Us. For example, if I use my left hand to smack my right, am I not the cause of my own suffering? Can I really tell myself that 1) I don't know where the pain is coming from and 2) that I don't know how to stop it? I am either self-inflicting pain or permitting it to continue when and where I have the power to stop it.
If there is only One of Us, and I believe that to be true, then it's equally true that if I hurt another or disregard another I am hurting or disregarding myself. And if I fail to take steps to positively impact another's suffering I am allowing myself to needlessly suffer. The highest good for me, therefore, becomes the Highest Good for you. Which is why the contemporaries Jesus and Rabbi Hillel said "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" and "Do not do to another that which you would not want done to yourself." It turns out I am not so much my brother's keeper as I am my brother.
So what's all this got to do with a new President and an ailing economy, you ask?
We're all in this one together and the sooner we realize that there's only One of Us the sooner we can pull together to make sure no one crawls out of this hole at the expense of someone else's survival. For when that happens, it simply sows the seeds of future devastation.
In order to break the pattern of thousands of years of selfishness and greed based upon a mis-perception of separateness, it is our job now, yours and mine, to understand on the deepest levels that there is no you and there is no me. And when we are in that place together, there is only One of Us.And that's exactly the meaning behind the Hindu salutation, Namaste.
REMEMBER, click here to download a FREE copy of my e-book, "Too Many Secrets."
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