Oneness 101 - do we need an education to know what we are?

We are so caught by the habit and belief that we must go through a process, a structured learning path, in order to know something, that we bring that methodology with us in the search for the Truth, the search for Enlightenment, for Oneness.

We feel we are lacking in knowledge - that if we just listen to the words of those who have "achieved" what we want and put their words into practice, we can then "achieve" what they have.

So - just as our education taught us - we take pieces of knowledge and try to construct a picture of what is being pointed to - we try to reach the wisdom by piling knowledge on top of knowledge.

But this entirely misses the point. You are literally swimming in Oneness RIGHT NOW.

You take yourself to be a separate person, housed in a bag of skin and bones, surrounded by a world of objects and other people. So necessarily in this situation, there will be some things that you like and some you dislike. There will be times when you have what you need and want, and other times you need or want more or better.

For ages, the ancient traditions have been saying the same thing that Science is recently discovering through the ability to look deeper into the reality of "things", of "matter" and the relationship of Consciousness to Objects.

There is one "substance" in which the entire manifest world is made of. Whether that is the Unified Field or Consciousness or Oneness or God doesn't matter. We don't have to wait for the next discovery in Quantum Physics to know what we are.

We can know it NOW - for what you truly are is not something you must attain, something known after volumes of knowledge are compiled and understood. The very act of understanding and knowledge itself is just more of the manifest world, of which there is no separation.

The "person" is the wall of false identification - seemingly blocking the view of Oneness - the ever-present Oneness that is inescapable, unavoidable, like the fish swimming in water and asking what the ocean is... When the fish identifies himself as a fish, a separate being, he misses the point that he is surrounded by, swimming in, and made up of nothing but the ocean.

Seeing through the illusion of the person requires an earnest look within - a questioning of the beliefs which have been given by parents and others. When we try to find this separately-existing entity, we can only find emptiness, silence... As we pay close attention, as we watch the arising of thought and emotion, we see that this sense of being an "I" only arises in thought, in belief, and is not always present.

But that sense of knowing, that ever-present seeing - is always there. And it is in this seeing/knowing that we may realize that Oneness is what we are. If the belief in the separate person is not there or known to be false as it arises, we then can step back, take a fresh look at what happens, and SEE.

As we close our eyes, we cannot find any separation, any boundaries, any distance from those "objects" that are part of the "world" we've always believed in. We find that all these sensations (perceptions, visions, sounds) are right HERE - there is an effortless seeing/knowing of everything - boundless and spacious, like the open sky.

This doesn't require gathering knowledge, because it's already the case, before the search even starts. We are swimming in this Oneness - the entire Universe is nothing but this Oneness. There are no separate objects - you are not separate from that chair, that desk, the planet, the Sun, the Universe itself.

And in this simple beingness, before the mind comes in and breaks it all down into separate things, there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to gain or lose, nothing to be born or die - for anything that appears to happen is only happening by and as that Oneness.

Pointers and "spiritual" teachings can help loosen the bonds of belief, long enough for us to see that THIS is already happening, THIS is all there is. But even if "YOU" believe yourself to be separate, THAT is also part of Oneness. Oneness doesn't have the capacity to care - if all is One, then what "part" makes any difference?

What part of your "story" of separation ever has any meaning or touches anything OUTSIDE of Oneness? Can you see that even the concept of INSIDE and OUTSIDE has no meaning? Is there anything that can be learned or practiced or lost? Can you gain it and then later, lose it? Can you only get it "intellectually"? Isn't this all still just Oneness, appearing as "someone who wants to be Enlightened"? Will your Enlightenment change Oneness? Could it ever?

Then what's the point? Do you ever need another semester of Oneness Education?