Oneness and Eachness

Yesterday on Facebook, Dreamwork with Toko-pa posted a quote that was both a sync and incredibly meaningful to me. It resonates so much with me that I want to share it here on my blog so it doesn't get lost and I am able to find it again.

"Some people in the New Age, particularly those who have dabbled in Eastern practice, have swung with the pendulum of enatiadromia to a new extreme or one-sideness. They will monotonously insist on the oneness of everything no matter what is being discussed, and use this obvious reality as a way of leveling all difference, distinction and discernment. This point of view can be even more limiting than the tunnel vision of the reductive thinker, since at least the reductive thinker is still thinking about and investigating something, no matter how much they miss the infinite, interelated context of the something. This type of New Ager, however, takes oneness as a truism that relieves them of the need for thinking, discrimination and discernment and pulls oneness out of a hat, like the most tired of magician’s rabbits, whenever any issue requiring discernment appears. Recognizing that individuals or groups that are in conflict are part of the same oneness is crucial, but it is also crucial to recognize their individual differences and what sets them apart. The great American pioneer psychologist William James wrote more than a century ago that besides the oneness of things, anyone who glances at the phenomenal world should also be struck by the eachness of things. We see a world of unique individual trees and people, for example, and not an homogenous mass of treeness or undifferentiated pool of humanity. The dynamic paradoxicalist recognizes that there is both oneness and eachness, these are the two poles of the paradox that must be held in mind to understand both interrelation and individuality."

By Jonathan Zap