Are You An Individual?....

[BlueSky]

Are you an individual?

Don't know what that means........????

Can't know what that means......????

The question cannot be asked reliably....it assumes too much.

I would prefer to be asked if I experience a distinction from everything else and the answer would be yes but I would have to to add that I also experience a oneness with everything else. Then i would add......who cares if I 'think' of a term or way to define this experience?

James

[hybrid]

Originally Posted by WhiteShaman

Are you an individual?

Don't know what that means........????

Can't know what that means......????

The question cannot be asked reliably....it assumes too much.

this is the first thought that comes out when i read the OP.
and i said to myself uh-ha.

I would prefer to be asked if I experience a distinction from everything else and the answer would be yes but I would have to to add that I also experience a oneness with everything else. Then i would add......who cares if I 'think' of a term or way to define this experience?

James

yes i suppose i am an individual is a definition of an experience.

.

[Emmalevine]

The drop of water in the ocean appeals to me. Or maybe more apt would be the snowflake - a unique design, but part of the whole.

[Rah nam]

At least we practice individuality.

When I ask this question my divine self, it simply smiled a me, that's all.
Of cause I knew the answer before I asked.

[hybrid]

Originally Posted by Detlef

At least we practice individuality.

When I ask this question my divine self, it simply smiled a me, that's all.
Of cause I knew the answer before I asked.

.

some lived as individuals only without the benefit of connection to divine self. so the practice of individuality is gone astray and burdensome. it must be redeemed back to the divine's fold.

.

[Rah nam]

Originally Posted by hybrid

.

some lived as individuals only without the benefit of connection to divine self. so the practice of individuality is gone astray and burdensome. it must be redeemed back to the divine's fold.

.

Yes, all in divine order

[God-Like]

Hi Guys

A liitle newsletter from the 60's fell out of a book that I got for my mum's birthday - The heading was

Man Is an Individual

with two aspects, just like one piece with two ends. If you look at the ends, it is two, if you look at the rope it is one. One end of the rope Is limited the other end of the rope Is unlimited. One end Is man the other Is god. Man forgets that end and knows only the end of which he Is conscious and It Is the consciousness of limitation which makes him more limited. Otherwise he would have far greater means of approaching the unlimited which Is within himself - which Is only the other end of the rope, the rope which he calls or which he considers to be himself.

just wanted to share It.

x daz x

[7luminaries]

I am an expression of individual, collective, and One consciousness.

I know I experience individual consciousness (currently) attached to this body, which has an eternal, non-physical aspect...and I know that we all form a collective consciousness (though not all are aware of it either)...and that we co-create it and our reality in our joint venture with the Divine. And beyond that, there is the One Consciousness, which is ultimately unknowable but which we are always drawn towards.

I really like the rope analogy...we can unbraid the lower end a bit to visualize each thread a person. Twist it back to see how we are all connected to one another. Some threads lay right on top of each other...some are next to each other...and some are separated laterally by other threads...but all are connected at the Source. I also like the drop of water in the ocean analogy..because each drop of water is connected to the other and also in some fashion to the Whole.

I think these are good analogies of individual, collective, and Singular expressions of consciousness. You can be in the same "space" as someone, say a shaman taking his disciple on a spiritual journey. Whose space is it? If it's the shaman's, they are both sharing it. Or if it's a common space, they are both sharing it. You can share a lot of time & space with someone where at one end you feel like a single consciousness and yet your individuality is retained...or if we merge into the stillness then eventually we come back to "our selves".

Yet I am aware of the collective which is neither individual nor One, but is made up of all individuals, some aware and some not. Does anyone else feel this way?

peace/blessings
7L

Greetings..

'That which is', known here as TzuJanLi, Tzu, or Bob.. is a Part of the Whole, which by definition is BOTH.. one or the other, or both simultaneously, are revealed in accordance with the application of awareness.. the application of awareness is the choice made as potential unfolds into 'isness' and whether we choose to 'attend to what was', or remain in the 'isness'.. prior to the naming, there is only 'isness'..

Be well..

we are individuals and the whole or all that is at the same time.