Seeing the One in the Many

Everything around us, everything in the universe, has the will to be itself. This is the defining and enabling characteristic of the reality we experience. The condition for having a material existence is the will-to-be. Without that, a thing stays as a potential in the quantum soup of the universe. To descend out of that undifferentiated, entangled oneness and into material existence takes the will-to-be.

This condition applies equally to us. Our body has the will-to-be, which becomes particularly clear in its push to fulfill its needs and when its life is threatened. That rises on another level when we consciously engage our will-to-be. In that case, being translates into the creation and development of our soul: our inner body and our individuality, our I.

This engagement with being opens up the possibility of awareness of the being all around us, even the being of inanimate objects: rocks and buildings, ocean waves and clouds, mountains and deserts, trees and cars and digital displays.

It may be easiest to start with large formations, whose presence is more readily apparent, due to their sheer scale. A few striking and natural examples include El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, the red rock cliffs of Canyonlands National Park, the ocean, any mountain, and other massive parts of nature. We can include human-made objects, like large buildings, bridges, and ships. The practice is to open to the thing and feel its presence, feel its will-to-be, feel it being there. Gradually we can extend that perception to smaller things, to the point where we can feel the will-to-be in anything, living or not.

Why does this matter? If it is the will of the universe that manifests as all the material in the universe, including us, then by opening to the will-to-be of things we take a conscious step toward the Real from which this all derives, the greatness to which we so intimately belong. And as a byproduct, this act of intentional perception resonates with and affirms our own will-to-be.

We can walk through life in the field of will and the being it generates. That all-encompassing field of will is of a kind with our own will and embraces us. In the stillness, in the stillness of will, in the unity, before we emerge as ourselves, we are intimately connected with the all.

This perception is not far from us. Right now, you can get a sense of everything around you, including this Earth you are on. Everything is there being itself, just as you are. You can know this and feel it in a deep, direct, visceral way. This is the field of will and the being it generates. This is how we are connected. This is the one amidst the many.

For this week, look to this connection with everything, look to the will-to-be in all that surrounds you, and be with that. This is our intimacy with the universe, with the table and chairs, with the trees and the sky, with people. This releases us into this vast new and awesome world to be ourselves and more than ourselves.

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