We Are All One

At Swarthmore, I learned to question and to keep an open and critical mind with reference to the settled paradigms we were taught growing up. I hope readers will apply that to what follows.

I believe there is a creative force of vibrational energy, containing the universe that your and my souls are experiencing. Everything is ultimately made of that energy—we are all individual manifestations of it.

As such, we all have souls that are a portion of the infinite vibrational energy of that creative force. Just as one frame of a hologram contains all the information to replicate the whole, every individual soul contains all the information of the creative force. This is what is meant when it is said that ultimately all human beings are connected through our individual souls, which in turn are one with that force, whatever name we give it.

This isn’t how most humans were raised. Most of us were raised in a belief system that our tribe was “good” while the other was not only “bad,” but our “enemy.” Our education in “difference” permeates every facet of our lives.

Ultimately, this thinking will lead to the end of the human race, unless we develop a new belief system. Our own consciousnesses must evolve for the consciousness of the human race to evolve. We must accept a brand-new paradigm: None of us is “different” from one another—in our needs for food and water, for connection, for meaning, for community. We are, on the individual level, simply distinct from one another in name and form.

As I look back, I never really bought into the old paradigm. As a kid, I rooted for the Cleveland Indians while my friends—avid fans of the Yankees, Giants, or Dodgers—thought I was crazy. I remember telling them, “You root for your teams and I’ll root for mine! But can we agree that we all love baseball?”

When I arrived at Swarthmore, I soon learned that the student body was divided into “turkeys” and “jocks.” I chose to make friends based on the individual, not whether they fell into one category or the other. My friends in both camps thought I was unusual.

Perhaps that explains why, for more than 20 years, my passion has been reading about and studying how we each can replace this old paradigm. I have met some of the many people who are leading the movement to evolve human consciousness.

If you are open to learning more, you might start with the following:

Your mind may rebel against what Neale Donald Walsch says in his book The Storm Before the Calm, but I hope you can be open to his logic.

Barbara Marx Hubbard will tell you about what she is doing to lead a worldwide consciousness-evolution movement.

Also, the Shift Network will lead you to many others who work either individually or as groups to accomplish this evolution of consciousness.

The core statements on John Audette’s Eternea site are fascinating and worth a read.

Some of you may not agree with or understand my beliefs, but I hope that you will at least think about them with an open mind.

The point of an institution like Swarthmore is to seek and honor truth. This is mine, and I want to share it. I welcome questions and comments: rafwritings@aol.com.

To quote the great 13th-century Persian poet Rumi: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”