Oneness

Joseph P. Kauffman
of that person. And when you compassionately send your
love and care to that person, you are contributing that
loving energy to all that exists.
Love is the profound connection we feel when we
realize our oneness with others, when you look into the eyes
of another person and realize that person is you. Every
being comes from the same life essence as you; they are the
same consciousness, just inhabiting a different form.
Whether you are looking into the eyes of another
human, a dog, a fish, or an insect, or whether you are
feeling the presence of life in a plant, in the soil, or in a
mineral, it is all the same consciousness inhabiting a
different form. Everything is you.
You don’t exist in the Universe; you are so intertwined
with the Universe that you can be nothing but the
Universe itself. Your true nature is consciousness, and this
consciousness is connected to the consciousness of the
Universe. Doing harm to any one of consciousness’s
manifestations—whether it be another person, animal, or
plant—is essentially only causing harm to yourself.
All humans, animals, and plants are made up of cells
that are alive and conscious. Their consciousness is
arguably far more simple than our own, but it must exist at
some level because they perform tasks and respond to
their environment. They know that they must be doing
whatever it is they are driven to do, but they do not see
that billions of them come together to create a human, a
plant, or an animal.
In the same way, we are so focused on living our own
individual lives that we are unaware we make up an entire
organism called “Earth,” and that we are its many cells,
living together as one. Although currently, we behave as if
we are a virus to the earth, slowly destroying the organism
that we are a part of, rather than ensuring its health and
survival. This is of course a result of our ignorance and our
failure to see how we and the Earth are one.
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