Here’s the thing: spiritual Oneness is your birthright.
Deep down, you know this. I know this. We all know this. Something about it resonates deep within your bones.
“But isn’t Oneness something reserved for the spiritually advanced or elite?” we tend to protest. “Don’t I have to be worthy to earn it?”
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Nope.
Experiences of spiritual Oneness can come spontaneously or after years of vigorous spiritual practice. There doesn’t seem to be a consistent, objective pattern.
But the truth is that Oneness can be felt by anyone. There’s no secret or elite club here. No matter what age, gender, race, background, intellect, or level of spiritual development you have, Oneness is your destiny. In other words, not only do you have the right to experience it, but it is an integral part of your journey as a spiritual seeker. And ultimately, in the words of the wise sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, you are That.
In this article, I’m going to explain the best ways to directly feel and embody this sacred Original state of being – the essence of your True Nature.
Table of contents
What is Oneness?
Oneness is an experience that transcends the mind. When we experience Oneness, we feel a connection with everything in existence on every level. In other words, we feel ‘at one’ with all things.
Another way to put it is that Oneness is the feeling of fullness, vastness, and completion – it is the experience of embodying our true nature, the Self that exists beyond our limited personalities (also known as our egos).
Other names for Oneness often include Non-Dual Awareness, Unity, Buddha-Nature, Christ-Consciousness, and Enlightenment.
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Why is it So Hard to Experience Oneness?
Put simply, the reason why it’s so difficult and rare for us to experience Oneness and wholeness is that our minds won’t let us.
While our minds help us to plan, imagine, create, structure and logically understand life, they also simultaneously fragment existence. When life is broken down into thoughts, concepts, ideas, and beliefs, we cannot directly experience the Oneness of everything. Instead, we perceive life through a broken lens. Until we can take off those cracked glasses, we will continue to see ourselves as isolated and separate little entities who see the world in black and white.
The problem is that most of us have forgotten that we are wearing those cracked glasses. We live most of our lives believing that we are our thoughts and limited mental identities. We’re kind of like fish who have forgotten what the concept of water is. The only reality we have been conditioned to live in is the one dominated by the mind. We forget that we’re so much more than our thoughts and mental stories. We lose touch with our true nature.
Contrary to popular belief, Oneness is not a “special” experience – it’s actually the most natural and normal state of being possible. But from the perspective of the mind, it seems truly novel and exciting because it’s such a rarity!
Splitting & Inner Fragmentation
Because our minds dominate so much of our lives we also tend to feel internally fragmented. The nature of the mind is to seek understanding and safety. And to understand life and be safe, we must see some things as “good” and some things as “bad.” Splitting life into good/bad and right/wrong is a very natural process because it helps us to survive. If we didn’t have the capacity to split life into opposites, we wouldn’t be able to understand that stepping in front of oncoming traffic is fatal (or “bad”) and letting our children play with knives is dangerous (“bad”).
But at the same time, splitting life into polarities also creates tremendous suffering in us. Why? Because we grow up learning that some parts of us are “good” while other parts of us are “bad.” We then attach to the “good” parts of ourselves and repress or deny the “bad” parts of ourselves.
What happens when we start to perceive ourselves in a fragmented way? The answer is that we feel flawed, lacking, “not good enough,” and incomplete. We start to feel insecure, anxious, lonely, depressed, and in some extreme cases suicidal. Our essence has been diluted. We feel fake and inauthentic. Emptiness haunts us. We greatly crave to love and embrace ourselves, but how can we fully accept who we are when we hate some parts of ourselves and love other parts?
This is why spiritual integration is so important. Integration is the opposite of fragmentation. When we integrate, we unite different parts of ourselves that may have been missing for years or decades. When we seek integration, we are seeking Oneness and wholeness. We’ll explore the subject of integration more a little later.
Ultimately, Oneness and wholeness seem so alien to us because we perceive our inner and external worlds through the fragmented lens of the mind. And by the way … the whole concept of an inner and outer world is itself a division created by the mind! Do you see how deeply embedded into our realities the mind and its concepts are?
Is Oneness the Same as Enlightenment?
Like Oneness, the term ‘enlightenment’ is also thrown around a lot on the spiritual path. But are they the same thing? Yes. In my perspective, they are the same thing. However, I don’t like using the phrase enlightenment because it’s such a loaded word.
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Oneness to me feels more embodied. I personally resonate way more with this term than enlightenment which seems very cerebral and overly focused on the “light” aspect of existence, which itself is one-sided. In my experience, the point of our existence as humans is about embracing both our humanity AND divinity – not just focusing on the “love and light” aspects of spirituality which bypass anything too raw and real.
The spiritual journey is not just about ascending. We also need to descend. We need to dive into the dark waters of our minds and do some soul-searching. We need to get comfortable with the blood, dirt, and grit of being human. To avoid our wild side is to avoid, deny, and disown a major and essential aspect of us: our divine and messy humanity. As such, wherever possible I try to avoid the phrase ‘enlightenment’ as it seems too lopsided. Oneness (or ‘wholeness’) feels more holistic and realistic – these terms feel truer. But ultimately, no words can truly describe the experience that is being pointed to here. That, to me, is the most essential thing to remember.
Oneness and the Spiritual Awakening Journey
For most spiritual seekers, Oneness is the motivating drive to go on the inner journey. We may have experienced a moment of utter freedom and union with all of Life. Or perhaps there’s a painful longing to ‘return home’ (i.e., to the state of Oneness). But whatever the case, Oneness is at the very core of the spiritual awakening journey.
Like a mandala, our journey takes us around the axis with the hopes that one day, by Divine Grace, we will unite with the center of it – the center representing spiritual self-realization or Oneness.
How to Experience Oneness (5 Paths)
I want to be realistic and clear with you here: the tools and practices I’ll be recommending aren’t an “instant bliss” pill. I would caution you to be careful of anyone who tries to sell you “enlightenment-in-5-easy-steps” because there’s no such thing. Oneness isn’t like instant noodles. I’m not going to churn out some Buzzfeed, clickbait advice because that would dishonor how truly deep the path of Oneness is. Countless people have spent their entire lives on this path.
So with the utmost respect for the true commitment and sincerity needed for this path, I offer you five helpful paths. There are countless practices out there, but I have included only those that I have personally experienced and found helpful. So I encourage you to both pay attention to and also look beyond the scope of the tools presented here.
1. Meditation and mindfulness
Yes, this might seem cliche, but just because meditation and mindfulness have entered the mainstream market it doesn’t mean that they lack true value.
Certainly, the approach many modern teachers have towards meditation is secularized and watered-down. But there are many ancient techniques – such as Vipassana (thought awareness) and Anapanasati (breathing awareness) meditation – which help you to gain direct insight into the nature of your mind.
Mindfulness is another simple way of gaining access to the experience of Oneness. Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment. Ironically, mindFULLness is less about the mind and more about sharpening your awareness and ability to live in the present moment. More accurately, it can be thought of mindLESSness (without the negative connotations). Many glimpses of peace and inner wholeness can be experienced through these two popular practices.
2. Solitary nature immersion
Spending time alone surrounded by nature is another beautiful way of accessing a state of wholeness and Oneness. Training yourself to simply observe nature as a passive form of meditation is nourishing to the soul and can fill you with a sense of inner peace. I have found myself so soothed by the presence of trees and birds around me that I have temporarily become One with everything around me. Nature immersion is a powerful practice for many mental and physical ailments, so it is worth experimenting with.
Read: 4 Eccentric Ways Trees Can Heal You »
3. Mind-altering plant medicine
Powerful and life-changing moments of Oneness are common to experience while taking various forms of plant medicine. If you’re interested in exploring this path, I recommend seeking out a genuine shaman or spiritual guide who can support you through such experiences as they can often be intense and overwhelming. (On that note, it’s best to keep away from any type of plant medicine if you have a severe mental illness.)
Examples of plant medicine include ayahuasca, San Pedro, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, DMT, and marijuana. How do these plants help us experience moments or periods of Oneness? The answer is that they temporarily remove, alter, or distort the fragmented lens of the mind. Once the veil of our limited perception has been removed, there is space for us to experience a more whole and integrated version of reality.
I can frankly say that plant medicine has changed my life. I have had some intense and paradigm-shifting experiences of ego death and merging with all of existence. Skeptics suggest that such experiences are meaningless hallucinations, but these profound glimpses into the Ultimate Reality have been validated by my own sober everyday experience. The only thing I can say is that you must experience it to believe it. If you haven’t tried plant medicine yet, I recommend doing some thorough research and giving it a try.
4. Inner work that focuses on integration
There are many forms of inner work, but not all of them focus on exploring, accepting, and integrating the repressed and rejected parts of you. While this path can be slow, it is – in my perspective and experience – the deepest work you can do. There are no quick fixes here. To have more than a fleeting glimpse of Oneness, you must make the unconscious conscious. As luminary Carl Jung once said:
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Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries.
We must seek to reunite with the lost parts of ourselves and develop psychological balance. Only then can we experience authentic spiritual Oneness. Examples of integration-centered inner work include shadow work and inner child work.
5. REAL Self-love, compassion, and acceptance
Love is the most expansive feeling and reality there is. When we truly and genuinely love someone or something from the depths of our being, all barriers are torn down. All mental constructs are obliterated. All division disintegrates. All that remains is openness, expansiveness, and yes, the experience of Oneness.
As humans having a spiritual experience we have a complex relationship with ourselves that is often defined by extreme highs and lows. Sometimes we think we’re the cat’s pajamas, and other times we feel like a pile of turd. But if we can manage to embrace both the highs and lows and truly understand the nature of our minds, we can experience real self-love, and learn how to love ourselves more.
When we can embrace both our humanity and divinity, we can experience self-compassion and self-acceptance. These qualities and practices are essential on the spiritual path. Without learning to love ourselves in all our weirdness and sacred wildness, it’s impossible to fully open to the experience of wholeness and Oneness.
9 Inspiring Oneness Quotes
To end this article, I’ll leave you with a few other perspectives on Oneness spoken by ancient and modern poets, sages, mystics, and religious scriptures:
For those who are awake the cosmos is one. — Heraclitus
See the One — know the One
and affirm that it is One
Whether at the beginning or at the end,
all of this is only one single thing
Alas the eye of man sees double.
— Attar from The Book of Secrets
Oneness is not a metaphysical idea but something so simple and ordinary. It is in every breath, in the wing-beat of every butterfly, in every piece of garbage left in the city streets. This oneness is life, life no longer experienced solely through the fragmented vision of the ego, but known within the heart, felt in the soul. This oneness is the heartbeat of life. It is creation’s recognition of its Creator. In this oneness life celebrates itself and its divine origin.
— Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. — Albert Einstein
How can the divine Oneness be seen?
In beautiful forms, breathtaking wonders,
awe-inspiring miracles?
The Tao is not obliged to present itself
in this way.
If you are willing to be lived by it, you will
see it everywhere, even in the most
ordinary things. — Lao Tzu
How wonderful that a single Essence should
Refract itself like light, a single source
Into a million essences and hues.
— Shâh Ne’matollâh from The Drunken Universe
When you make the two one and
When you make the inner as the outer and the above
As below, and when
You make the male and the female into a single one
Then you shall enter the kingdom.
— The Gospel of Thomas
In the beginning was only Being,
One without a second.
Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos
And entered into everything in it.
There is nothing that does not come from him.
Of everything he is the innermost Self.
He is the truth; he is the Self supreme.
You are that, Shvetaketu; you are that.
Merge in the sea and become one with it,
Forgetting they were ever separate streams,
So do all creatures lose their separateness
When they merge at last into pure Being.
There is nothing that does not come from him.
Of everything he is the innermost Self.
He is the truth; he is the Self supreme.
You are that, Shvetaketu; you are that!
– Chandogya Upanishad
A hundred things
a million or more
if you look to their reality
are one
— Fakhruddin Iraqi
What is your experience with Oneness?
Can you recommend any other practices or paths that have worked for you? I’d love to read your thoughts, feelings, and discoveries in the comments.
I hope this article has helped to give you more clarity surrounding Oneness and, perhaps, has even opened up new paths for you to follow!
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Thank you so much for your insightful sharing. All that you have said resonates as accuracy from the perspective of this individual form “I” find myself within. These days I spend much time within the sensation of oneness, wholeness, the fullness of being. And it becomes more clear with each passing day that this is indeed our true nature, that we are not separate at all, but one with the totality of being, not simply a part of it, but the fullness itself.
Of course it is true, and abundantly clear that individual organisms, such as humans, exist, just as the many cells of the human body exist, and all of the microorganisms within the human body, but they work together in harmonious play that brings about a fully functioning whole.
Now, “I” have just been speaking to the thinking-mind to some degree. But to experience the wholeness of being, one must let go of thought-mind to a very large extent, for it is the structured thoughts that have created the illusion within which we believe we exist. What I often say to friends and associates who wish to experience the true nature of being – the oneness – is to do so in “just this moment here”. For the mind will tell you, “I can’t stop thinking, that would be disastrous, or cause all kinds of problems for me.” So, just for this brief little instant, allow yourself to let go of the need to think, to judge, to decide, to accomplish, to do right, to avoid wrong, to do anything at all, and simply allow. Allow the being of your being to simply be. Allow, allow, allow. In this tiny moment of now, let be what already is without words, without effort, without restriction. Let go into the fullness of your being, of beingness itself, and the truth of oneness will present itself. Within this illuminated clarity, this realization, no additional clarification is needed. The self that is no-self, that is not “other” shines. Bask within this light for a little while. It is all the explanation you will need.
From outside of it – so to speak – where you may be now, you seek to comprehend or experience this oneness SO THAT you can gain the clarity that comes from it. Marvelous. Allow it to unfold, effortlessly. Allow yourself to not strive in the tiny moment of now. Allow yourself to let go in the tiny moment of now. Allow beingness to be as it is without attempting to change a single thing. Become aware that what you ask, what you seek is present with you even now, no distance away from you at all, for it cannot be away from you, for you are it – the one.
From outside of this sensation, this awareness, these words may seem like a riddle, but from within they are description of the experience itself, and one of many paths to what is already always present.
Allow these few simply words to resonate for a little bit:
This. Here. Now. Is. Already. Ever.
Hi! I have a doubt. Is it true that long hair has healing powers?
Another important article and thanks for sharing your experience.
Another practice that can help is to be very open minded. To view the world from every different perspective you can imagine. To understand.
And never let fear of the unknown to prevent us from searching for answers beyond our human senses.
Thank y for Your Articles i am on this path i know by my heart and expieriences. I have met my Tf and everythink has changed.
Without us actualizing oneness in our choices and actions, it is just one more concept of a conceptual human being!
What a brilliant article, it is about the very essence of life. It makes so much sense to me, and I used to feel like this as a child…going back to my inner child is the key for me.
This is so inspiring, this me at the moment my ups and downs, loved every word, it’s not easy but I can do it.
Thank you Sol
awesome as always….thank you…..tho i lean towards the Tao so to speak Lao Tse verse…”the law of relative opposites”….to tread the middle way is what set me off on that feeling of “oneness” ….so much more than words can describe….did leave me sad for a couple of weeks tho because it went away but the memory is powerful and makes me smile….its real and i know i will experience it again,,,,the “i am and everything is” thing….cheers.
The Tao Te Ching is a beautiful work that captures the essence of a mystic like no other book. I agree, the path of the middle is the one of balance that perfectly embodies Oneness (or the “Tao”). Thank you for sharing Pat :)
I love reading yours and Aletheia’s articles. This one particularly resonated with me for so many reasons.It’s brilliant! However I have reservations about no.3 :mind altering plant medicine. I understand you took great comfort from experimenting with them but I am not sure that this should be something that is recommended for everyone.Or recommended at all.
I personally love listening to repetitive shaman drumming(it relaxes me) and on several occasions I have gone into a trance and it has left me feeling very unsettled. I guess because of the fact that I have PTSD and struggled with being grounded and for a long time was heavily disassociative, I can say that for me anything that takes me too much into my mind is not what I am aiming for. In fact even people who are not known to have mental health problems have this issue.There are very few people on this planet that can genuinely say they live an embodied existence. So ” tripping” out in an effort to pierce the veil of the illusion of reality is NOT a good idea for most people. Well for one, these plant medicines create hallucinations.We give the hallucinations the meanings we choose to attach to them however,(from whatever is stored in the unconscious) these do not ground us, quite the reverse. Basically the “trip” or the heightened and different state of mind is the thrill and not the insights because these have always been within us and can be accessed in a deep enough trance state(with practice), without the side effects that one gets from taking mind altering plant medicine. I think the point I am making is that for me I want to be fully present and fully embodied in my human experience, things that take me away from this are just a variation of what I have experienced by default for so long now. I have heard of many shamans that are usually high most of the time taking these plant medicines in order to get more in tune with insights etc…Let’s be honest here these are just people who like to get high and happen to be shamans but frankly nobody needs to go down that route unless the aim is to be high all the time and not feel fully alive and grounded all or most of the time.
What I want to end on is to say that to experience being fully alive in my own body is the point to my existence. And it is so hard. How many people can truly tolerate great pain and great joy within their own skin and embrace both without choosing one over the other?THAT to me is the whole point of experiencing this human experience in a fully conscious way. Mind altering plant medicine alters the mind it does nothing for making me feel more in my body or feeling my human experience more fully, quite the opposite is true, so I would never consider it.
Hey Shae,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and I understand your concerns about the plant medicine.
There’s a caveat that I included in the article, which is that is should be performed with an experienced ‘Healer’. I don’t recommend someone go and just take it out of the blue, this is especially the case with people who have a history of mental illness in their personal history or that of their families.
It’s impossible for me to describe the effects of such an experience in words/writing, the proof of its effectiveness can be easily found through searches. Just recently I’ve been reading of the scientific research that is being done with PTSD and psilocybin (magic mushrooms).
These plants aren’t just ‘hallucionatory/tripping agents’, the effects are beyond keeping you stuck in your mind. With the right guidance, they can serve to temporarily subdue the ego’s defense mechanism, that is; the mental veils that prevent/protect us from seeing the origin of our trauma/wounds, and allow us to experience leaps of growth that otherwise could take years if not decades to achieve organically depending on the level of ‘ego cementing/attachment’ the person has.
This is just my experience from my own inner work and that which I’ve performed over the years with our clients. The drastic changes I’ve seen in people are bordering on miraculous, especially the elderly clients as the ego is much more cemented and less open to shifting perceptions. I suggest for anyone interest in further information to visit the MAPS research section.
I live in a part of the US where marijuana is now legal. I began using it a little over a year ago originally to help with my insomnia and during my Dark Night period I also began using it to escape. Many are aware of the basics – sativas get you “high” and indicas make you “stoned” (in da couch we like to say). So before my inner work began, I would use these mostly to clear my head, relax my body, and to get high with my friends. In retrospect, it largely exaggerated the cloudiness I was already experiencing and really was just making me high or stoned.
When I began my inner work, and as my chakras began to clear, something changed. I began to notice when I used different strains, I was no longer getting high or stoned, but instead could feel energy shifts around specific chakras. As I experimented with different strains, I have became very aware of the connection they have with the different chakras – sativas working the crown, 3rd eye, and throat chakras (get high), hybrids in the heart and solar plexus, and indicas working mostly in the gut and root chakras (stoned). In fact, I was meditating in the arboretum near my house, took a sativa strain, and began having downloads from my higher self. It was part of what triggered my first connection to Oneness, which lasted for nearly 3 days.
Interestingly enough, since I became self-aware these drugs no longer have the same effect on me as they used to. I believe that the inner work I’ve done (and continue to do) lifted the cloud and it no longer exaggerates the blockages I had. Now when I use marijuana, I strictly feel it moving energy around, helping me with my inner work. I have go-to strains for each chakra that I use that help me. I hope this information is helpful to some of you on your journey!
Thank you for sharing that insight Grey, I haven’t experimented much myself with inner work and marijuana but I can already see there will be more and more use of it alongside our personal growth as it does seem quite complementary to it. It’ll be exciting to see what others find during these experiences :)
Awesome, Mateo. Everyone’s path is different but we all seem to be aiming for the same place. I love how I get new ideas from you and Luna. Thanks for all that you do. Keep it coming. :)
That’s very true Jocelyn, the destination is the same but the paths are just as unique as the individuals on them. Thank you for sharing :)