In this episode I am going to talk about unitive awareness in the sense of seeing that we are all and in all. When the separate self is seen as illusory, when the ego pops like a soap bubble and the flimsy boundary between us and the world falls away, then we see our true nature is all and in all.
There is one World Soul – or better yet World Spirit – who is the spirit in every human being. People think they are separate selves, separate beings but we aren’t. We are one Self, one Being incarnated in 8 billion separate bodies who are alive today. The reason for the anxiety, fear, angst and suffering that so many people have is because we think we are separate and different. We think that when these individual bodies die then we die. But we don’t. Only one small expression of us dies. We are Life Itself.
That is the truth behind the Scripture verses that talk about God being “all and in all.” The Letter to the Ephesians says, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” There is another passage from the Letter to the Colossians, written by the same hand at about the same time. It lists all different types of people “Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free” and then declares “but Christ is all and in all!”
All and in All
Today I am going to talk about unitive awareness in the sense of seeing that we are all and in all. When the separate self is seen as illusory, when the ego pops like a soap bubble and the flimsy boundary between us and the world falls away, then we see our true nature is all and in all.
Sometimes the sight of this is overpowering. That is what happened this Easter Sunday. We are in Florida now for a few weeks, enjoying a respite from the cold of New Hampshire. One of the first things I did upon arrival here in Florida is look for an outdoor worship service to attend. I found two, but they were only for Easter Sunday.
One was a widely publicized Easter sunrise service at 7 AM on the beach sponsored by several local churches. The other was a smaller outdoor service an hour later at 8 AM in the nice shaded area outside a Presbyterian Church that we had visited in previous years. I wanted to go to the beach one, singing Alleluia as the sun arose over the horizon sounded nice. At 6:30 AM Easter morning I told rolled over in bed and said to my wife, “Okay, we need to get out of bed now if we are going to get to the sunrise service on time!” She put a pillow over her head and said, “No way!” So we ended up going to the 8:00 service.
It was a nice service, and it was the first in-person service that we have attended since autumn. Because it was Easter we were emotional. I was particularly captivated by the young woman at the front who was translating all the hymns into American Sign Language. She was filled with joy, and it was beautiful to watch. Her motions and expressions so clearly depicted the words of the songs. I could see Christ incarnated in her and through her.
After the service we went back to the condo we are renting and watched our NH church’s streaming Easter service at 10, and then went for a walk on the beach at 11 AM. It was on the beach that the incarnation of Christ in everything and everyone caught up with me. The beach was filled with families enjoying the Easter holiday. As I watched them, and I could easily see God/Christ in every person. Every person was me staring back at me. I was every man and woman and child. By me I mean the True Self, the One Self who is the only One of the universe.
The Divine Self is incarnated in every person who lives now and who has ever lived. There is one World Soul – or better yet World Spirit – who is the spirit in every human being. People think they are separate selves, separate beings but we aren’t. We are one Self, one Being incarnated in 8 billion separate bodies who are alive today. The reason for the anxiety, fear, angst and suffering that so many people have is because we think we are separate and different. We think that when these individual bodies die then we die. But we don’t. Only one small expression of us dies. We are Life Itself.
After our walk we rested on a couple of chairs overlooking the beach and watched a family at play – parents with a boy about 7 or 8 years old. The boy looked and acted very much like I did at that age. I remember from the old family movies my father took. I could not help imagining that I had traveled through time and was looking at myself 65 years ago. It is the same self in me and in this child. As I was thinking about that I remembered an interesting thing that happened to me a decade ago.
It was May of 2012. I had just discovered nonduality. Even though I had studied mystics all my adult life, I had never come across the term nondual or heard anyone who called themselves a teacher of nonduality. At the time I had been deconstructing theism and my Christian faith and was having glimpses of oneness. I was wondering if anyone else was seeing this oneness I was starting to see. So I did a Google search. I really wasn’t interested in religious expressions of it at the time, so I did not look at the Buddhist, Hindu or Advaita Vedanta folks. I was looking for someone without religious trappings. I came across a man named Scott Kiloby, an attorney in Indiana who was talking about nonduality. I watched some of his videos and read his book. It just so happened providentially that he was going to give a talk a few miles away from my home in NH. I did not know at the time how rare this was. No one comes to rural New Hampshire to give talks on Nonduality. I signed up.
The session was at a ski area, during the off season. I arrived early and was looking for the meeting place and couldn’t find it. There was another guy in his 20’s looking for the same place. So we looked together and finally found the building. As we were waiting we were talking to each other since we were the only ones there. I thought he looked familiar, so I asked him his name. He said it was Marshall. I replied, so is mine! I asked his last name. He replied Davis. I thought he was joking me so I asked to see his driver’s license. This is the only other Marshall Davis I have ever met in my life. Here we were both at a nondual presentation.
I could not get over the fact that I was looking at myself thirty-something years younger. He reminded me of me. The truth is everyone is me. We are all the same Person, the same Divine Reality. We all share a soul – or in biblical terms share the same spirit. And this is not just true of humans. We share a soul with every living creature. The same Divine Self that animates dogs and cats and squirrels and pelicans and crows and fox and groundhogs and bears and every other creature is our Self. There is One Self that is all and in all.
That is the truth behind the Scripture verses that talk about God being “all and in all.” The Letter to the Ephesians says, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” There is another passage from the Letter to the Colossians, written by the same hand at about the same time. It lists all different types of people “Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free” and then declares “but Christ is all and in all!”
A few verses previously it relates this to the Christian experience of resurrection. It says, “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed (disclosed, unveiled), then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”
The one Self is the Divine Self that we call God. When this Divine Self is incarnated in physical form we use the term Christ. Christ is the incarnation of the Divine Self in physical form. Christ is all and in all. I see this not only in people and animals, but in trees and plants and the tiny insect that was crawling in circles over my hand during the Easter service. I elbowed my wife and showed her this crazy little white insect running in circle over the back of my hand. The bug was preaching a sermon better than the one I was hearing from the preacher.
I am that little insect running in circles. The same Self, the same Consciousness, the same Life, which is me is this insect, which is why I gently blew him off my hand rather than cause him harm. This is the source of the ethic called ahimsa, which is non-injury to all living things because they are us. Which is where the where the Christian missionary Albert Schweitzer got the idea. It is the source of the concept of reincarnation, which is not really about individual spiritual entities being reborn in other forms because they did not get it right in the previous life. Reincarnation is about the one Self being incarnated in all beings.
This is also the meaning of the Christian idea of resurrection. Resurrection is not about individual souls being raised in new indestructible bodies some day in the future. It points to the truth that what we are is indestructible and it is incarnated in every body that has ever lived and ever will live. This one Self is Christ. All the separated bodies are one Body, the Body of Christ.
Christ is the embodiment of the Divine in all people and all things. The physical universe is the body of Christ. That is what the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper points to. It is not magic food that confers eternal life. It is a pointer to Sacramental Reality. The whole universe is sacramental. The whole earth is holy. God is all and in all. Christ is all and in all. When we know ourselves to be one in God and Christ, then we see that we are all and in all. That is Christian nonduality. I see this every day, but I saw this especially clearly this Easter Sunday.