Seeing through the illusion of separation.

It’s becoming clearer and clearer that our culture is not supporting our mental, physical and emotional health. We are bombarded with capitalist ideals of worthiness that leave us isolated, exhausted and often hopeless. Even if we are successful in meeting the culture’s expectation of us (maybe even because of it) we are not guaranteed happiness, freedom, inner peace. More than ever we are questioning the ways we have been conditioned to move through the world. We no longer simply trust the tenets of society (maybe some of us never did) as we watch the planet and our fellow humans suffer.

What do we do? In my own healing, I have come to understand how much our societal values have left me feeling broken and alone. We are encouraged from a young age to see ourselves as separate from life, from the earth, from each other. This sense of separation has never been true. How could we be separate from the earth or each other? Everything in the cosmos depends on everything else. We were never separate. And yet we suffer trying to reclaim our connection. We live in pursuit of ideals that will never truly solve this sense of separation. 

I believe each one of us has the capacity to see through the illusion of separation and unworthiness. We do that through our connection to the mystery of life and through our connection to all things. We heal ourselves and then we heal each other. As I reclaim my own connection to all of life, I am left with the simple truth of being. I am worthy because I am. You are worthy because you are. 

“When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. When you realize the depth and fullness of your love of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection.”

—Nisargadatta Maharaj