One idea

[TheGlow]

I had a thought the other day.
What if by "we are all one" it is meant that honestly one soul is spending eternity living each and every life.

It is likely not accurate but if this were a widespread belief imagine the change that could take place. If you are me. I have no reason to hold back in how much I help or care for you. If everyone is me I would be more invested in helping everyone equally not just myself or a few chosen people.

If the person working a job and failing miserably screwing everything up is actually you, one would be more inclined to show compassion for the persons struggles and encourage the person vs berating them. They could be kindly helped vs fired.

The homeless person on the street. If it's actually you might be taken home given food, clothes, loved and helped to find a way they can get back on their feet.

The do onto others as you would have done onto you could be literal and if we all acted that way life for everyone would greatly improve.

[In vita mea]

Why wouldn't people be more compassionate/help more anyway? Whether we are all the same, or we are different souls, we share this journey together and so should strive to make the journey as enjoyable for ourselves and those others around us. Life will become that much more of an enjoyable party for everyone, if we can live life in that way.

The person struggling with their job, if shown compassion, may be less stressed and so go on to help more others around them. The guy on the street, if given support, will be more in a position to help others having learned from their experiences.

So help yourself, help others around you & see how the good deeds get passed along.

[essvass]

I've heard this thought (but may be not interpreted so literally) and I guess I've lived with this understanding but I don't thing I "own" it. I don't think I make this direct connection that if I, as an example, screwed up everything in my life it means that God screwed up everything in his/her life. It may mean though that God wanted to experience, how it feels to screw up everything in your own life.

Helping others because they are you would definitely be better than not helping them at all but still... it is so pragmatic. This takes out the humanity of it, which is that your heart goes out to someone else who is in need, and yes, we often think that it could be us but this is not the driving force of compassion. At least, I don't think so.

[TheGlow]

Sorry. I of course don't mean myself.
I was thinking how it would change the masses if they had this belief.

You don't bully yourself. Or step on yourself to get ahead financially.

Guess it was too late at night to try to post.

[wolfgaze]

Originally Posted by TheGlow

I had a thought the other day.
What if by "we are all one" it is meant that honestly one soul is spending eternity living each and every life.

It is likely not accurate but if this were a widespread belief imagine the change that could take place.

This may be exactly what is going on.... Keep contemplating this - there is value behind doing so...

[Bluescreens]

Treat others how you'd like to be treated, that's all I could gather from this.

[wolfgaze]

While I am personally not a big proponent of using the term 'God', this quote below speaks to the conceptualization being discussed in this thread:

"Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form. In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love. What is God? The eternal One Life underneath all the forms of life. What is love? To feel the presence of that One Life deep within yourself and within all creatures. To be it. Therefore, all love is the love of God." ~ Eckhart Tolle

[wolfgaze]

"When we view reality from the perspective of the Universal Mind, all the usually experienced polarities are transcended. This applies to such categories as spirit-matter, stability-motion, good-evil, male-female, beauty-ugliness, or agony-ecstasy. In the last analysis, there is no absolute difference between subject and object, observer and the observed, experiencer and the experienced, creator and creation. All the roles in the cosmic drama have ultimately only one protagonist, Absolute Consciousness." ~ Stanislav Grof M.D.

[ajay00]

Originally Posted by TheGlow

I had a thought the other day.
What if by "we are all one" it is meant that honestly one soul is spending eternity living each and every life.

This is in accordance with the philosophy of Advaita, which states that only pure consciousness exists , in all bodies , though it may appear to be distinct from each other, through the separative and illusory ego.

However in pure love , the ego dissolves and one finds unity with all things.

This is why Jesus stated that God is love.

Originally Posted by TheGlow

I had a thought the other day.
What if by "we are all one" it is meant that honestly one soul is spending eternity living each and every life.

It is likely not accurate but if this were a widespread belief imagine the change that could take place. If you are me. I have no reason to hold back in how much I help or care for you. If everyone is me I would be more invested in helping everyone equally not just myself or a few chosen people.

If the person working a job and failing miserably screwing everything up is actually you, one would be more inclined to show compassion for the persons struggles and encourage the person vs berating them. They could be kindly helped vs fired.

The homeless person on the street. If it's actually you might be taken home given food, clothes, loved and helped to find a way they can get back on their feet.

The do onto others as you would have done onto you could be literal and if we all acted that way life for everyone would greatly improve.

My sense is that there is only one entity in the whole universe, that some call God, of which we are a part and all separation is at one level an illusion.
Imagine a plate: we can be at different points on it, some closer to the centre, some at its rim, but it is all plate.