We are all One!
It all began innocently when I was four and a half years old. We had just moved from our one room dilapidated apartment in south Tel Aviv to a new, larger apartment in the northern part of the city. Full of excitement, having not seen my grandparents since our move, I got on the bus with my mom. As we took our seats, I began to curiously look at the people around me. My eyes rested on an old man sitting directly across from me. Slowly moving my eyes from his stubby white beard, to his wrinkled face, then up to his gray eyes, I suddenly found myself inside his body. Looking through his eyes, I could feel his sadness and loneliness as if I was him. Before I knew it, just as abruptly, I was back in my own body looking at him.
I continued looking around me. This time, my eyes caught the sight of a pretty woman sitting at the back of the bus. I stared at her face, then her jewelry and her hair, again, at once, I was inside her body, sensing and seeing through her eyes. When I returned back to my body, a thought crossed my mind:
Oh I understand, we all have different faces and bodies, but the same thing is looking through the eyes.”
While I did not know it at that time, this experience became the foundation of my being. It provided me with a context–- we are all One– which opened me up to feeling and understanding myself and those around me. My love and compassion for humanity continues to be the driving force in my life.
When you look back, what experience deeply shaped your perspective and attitude toward life?
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2 Comments on “We are all One!”
That is a great story. It really evokes powerful imagery, as though were are a mass of thought and intelligence and potential and each person is a window or portal where it has an outlet. Thanks for sharing that. I was about 5 in the virgin islands when i woke up early one day and looked out the screen mesh of the tent seeing the trees sway and hearing them, they stopped being “trees” and became something much bigger, just an aspect of a massive living force and I was merged with it. I will never forget that.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Emil. I think each and every one of us has had that experience in some fashion. It is what we say about it, and how it affects us that ultimately determines whether it becomes a significant part of our lives. I believe that if as a society we created a space for children to share these natural experiences and put it in the context of belonging and spirituality, many more people would carry this connections with them for the rest of their lives and those lives would actually be informed by it.
We are ONE!