Oneness

(Mother, 1929:) “The sense of separation is spread everywhere, but it is an illusion; it is one of those false moods of which we must be cured if we want to enter into the true consciousness. The mind cuts the world into small bits: it says, here this stops, there that begins, and by this fragmentation it succeeds in distorting the universal movement. There is one great flow of a single, all-embracing, all-containing consciousness which manifests in an ever unrolling universe. This is the truth that stands behind everything here; but there is too this illusion which masks the truth from you, the illusion of these many movements which imagine that they are separate from one another, that they stand by themselves, in themselves and for themselves and that each is a thing in itself apart from the rest of the universe. They have the impression that their action and reaction upon one another is something external, as if they were like different worlds standing in each other’s presence but with no point of contact except some external relations at a distance. Each sees himself as if he were a separate personality existing in its own right. This error of the separative sense has been allowed as part of the universal play, because it was necessary that the one consciousness should objectify itself and fix its forms. But because it has been allowed in the past, it does not follow that the illusion of separateness must always continue.
         In the universal play there are some, the majority, who are ignorant instruments; they are actors who are moved about like puppets, knowing nothing. There are others who are conscious, and these act their part, knowing that it is a play. And there are some who have the full knowledge of the universal movement and are identified with it and with the one Divine Consciousness and yet consent to act as though they were something separate, a division of the whole. There are many intermediary stages between that ignorance and this full knowledge, many ways of participating in the play.”

(Mother to Satprem, 1962:) “When I speak of the ‘world of Oneness’ I don't merely mean having the ‘sense’ that all is one and that everything takes place within that One. What I mean by Oneness is that you can't distinguish between conceiving the action, the will to act, the action itself, and the result. It's.... All is one, simultaneous.
         But how? It can't be explained — it simply can't! You can get a glimpse of the experience, but ... ultimately, it's inexpressible, we have no means to express it.
         If we say ‘all is simultaneous’, we're talking in platitudes.
         We always express things in terms of high and low. As I've often said, other words are needed, another way of formulating things.”

(Student, 1956:) “Sweet Mother, here it is written: “All are linked together by a secret Oneness.” What is this secret Oneness?

(Mother:) It is precisely the divine Presence.
         Because the Divine is essentially one, and yet He has subdivided Himself apparently in all beings, and in this way recreated the primordial Oneness. And it is because of this divine Oneness — which, however, appears fragmented in beings — that the Unity is re-established in its essence. And when one becomes conscious of this, one has the joy of the consciousness of this Oneness. But those who are not conscious — what they miss is the joy of consciousness. But the fact remains the same.
         Sri Aurobindo says: the Oneness exists; whether you are aware of it or not, it exists, in reality it makes no difference; but it makes a difference to you: if you are conscious, you have the joy; if you are not conscious, you miss this joy.”

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See also

• Cosmic consciousness
• Ego
• =1 "ESP"