Here’s a transcript of what he posted:
“I actually did this at a Ram Dass retreat once. They have these bumper stickers that say ALL ONE. Now you cut that L out and it says ALONE. You can’t be more alone than if you are a totality. There’s no one to talk to. It’s just you. All one. So what do you do to combat that loneliness? You invent a universe populated with beings and you get lost in that universe and some desperate attempt to deal with the infinite horrifying never-ending sense of being alone. We are the fragments of a lonely God trying to entertain itself [and] desperately trying to not remember that we’re all one thing. All the hippies are like, ‘you wanna merge with the universe.’ No you don’t. You merge with the universe your first thoughts gonna be ‘Oh, Fuck! I’m back. Goddamn it. It was all a dream!”
Now, I don’t think he’s wrong. In fact, I think he’s put his finger on the ways that enlightenment sort of turns back in on itself.
The more we “wake up” to the reality of our Oneness, the more we have to struggle with the lack of relationship, which is sort of ironic.
I dealt with this question in my book, SOLA DESUS: What If God Is All Of Us?
The tension, for me, was the paradox of Pantheism versus Panentheism, and the idea of relationship is what brought me to the realization that it isn’t one or the other, but somehow it’s both.
Because, we do have a relationship with Divine Consciousness, even if we ourselves are that Divine Consciousness.
Or, perhaps a better way to say it is that we are the product of an illusion of separation that the Divine Consciousness created as a way to avoid the infinite loneliness of Oneness.
The idea that this illusion of separation was created by Divine Consciousness is interesting because it suggests that awakening from the illusion isn’t necessarily the point of our existence.
In some ways, as Trussell points out, awakening to the reality of Oneness leads us back to the original loneliness that the Divine Consciousness was trying to escape from. But now some of us are finding separation uncomfortable and unreal which leads us out of the dreamworld of separation and into the actual reality of Oneness.
However, once we’ve awakened to this Oneness, what do we do next? How do we operate in a universe specifically designed to accommodate separate individuals?
Better yet, is there some happy medium where we can be aware of our shared Divinity without losing our individuality? Sort of a half-awake/half-asleep limbo-land reality where we know we are One but we continue to relate to one another as projected illusions as separate individuals?
I guess what I’m asking is: Is there a necessary separation within the reality of Oneness? Is there an aspect of division that is beneficial to Divine Consciousness?
To put it another way: Is there a way to be ALL ONE without also being ALONE?
Before we get too deep into that question, here’s something else that I came across this morning:
Now, the quote itself is shared in the context of an email from someone discussing the construction of sequential art [comic books] and the use of panels to convey motion and action and emotion.
I was already thinking about the Trussell quote when I read this and so it sort of sparked another line of thought for me. What if when the Creator [the ALL] divided into billions of separate consciousnesses that corresponds to taking a single static image and cutting it up into smaller panels?
In the example that preceded this quote, the author pointed out that a single static image has no movement, but if you were to cut that single image into three or four panels you suddenly create the sense of movement and story.
In other words, a single image has no sense of space or time. But when you arrange those pieces of the image into a sequential order, suddenly you’ve created the illusion of both space and time.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
If you take away those panels [the little rectangles] what you have is a single, unbroken picture of a tree with several birds flying behind it.
But once you add those panels, you’ve created the illusion of space between each panel and movement of a single bird within and across those panels.
To me, that’s sort of a metaphor for the ALL dividing itself into sections to create space, and time, and relationship as well as individual pieces of the whole which operate separately in relationship to one another.
Ultimately, those lines between the picture are not real. But they help create the illusion of separation and movement, as well as the flow of space and time.
Here’s artist Scott McCloud, from UNDERSTANDING COMICS: THE INVISIBLE ART explaining this concept a bit further:
That got me thinking: When the Divine Consciousness was ALL ONE and ALONE there was no space or time. Everything was the Divine and the Divine was everything. Out of that great ALONE-NESS the ALL ONE created separation of itself into billions of expressions of consciousness. This separation of the larger whole into smaller sections [or panels] created both space and time.
In that context, when I re-read the quote above it means something a little deeper to me.
“Painting taught me that things don’t exist in themselves. They’re created by the relations between them.” – Robert Bresson
Painting, art, creativity, creation, etc. is what emphasizes the relationship between things that did not exist previously.
If you take the quote and make it about humanity [creation] then it takes on another meaning: “People don’t exist in [or by] themselves. They’re created by the relationships between them.”
Which, in some ways, is pretty close to what Duncan Trussell is saying about how the ALL ONE created ALL OF US to not fee ALONE.
The fact that we exist as separate expressions of the ONE proves that the relationship was/is the entire point of creation.
And maybe the entire thing is just one continuous cycle where the ALL feels ALONE and creates ALL OF US as expressions of the ALL – which, in turn, creates the illusion of separation so that the ALL can experience relationship through each of us.
Slowly, the illusion begins to fade and the awakening happens until the illusion is shattered and everything returns to the ALL ONE which then becomes ALONE again, and the whole thing cycles back around again, infinitely.
Who knows? Maybe we are all merely fragments of a lonely god learning to experience community within the illusion of space, time, and separation.
What do you think?
**
The newest book from Keith Giles, “The Quantum Sayings of Jesus: Decoding the Lost Gospel of Thomas” is available now on Amazon. Order HERE>
Keith Giles is the best-selling author of the Jesus Un series. He has appeared on CNN, USA Today, BuzzFeed, and John Fugelsang’s “Tell Me Everything.”
He co-hosts The Heretic Happy Hour Podcast and his solo podcast, Second Cup With Keith which are both available on Spotify, Amazon, Apple, Podbean or wherever you find your podcast fix.
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