Separateness

• 23 September, 2020
• culture
• perspective
• society

Separateness is central to the human perception of existence. It hasn't always been this way. It's only been this way for the past 5,000 years of our evolutionary history when we learned that we could influence our environmental reality from our thoughts and through our focus of conscious attention direct our thoughts and emotions to influence our reality.

Through this discovery human culture changed to explore this new phenomenon of being able to focus our conscious attention and direct our thoughts and emotions to influence and seek control over our environment.

The Fall of Man

As a species we started to believe that we were far more evolved than other species, separate and distinct from our natural environment, and also separate and distinct from each other. This is where the shift from developing our consciousness as a whole to only developing our narrow focus of conscious attention started.

Mankind is paying a very heavy price for that shift in focus in developing consciousness, a price which has slowed down or even halted the course of human evolution. This price is of course ignorance.

Now here please understand that I'm not referring to ignorance in the form of a lack of conscious awareness relative to our existential or environmental reality. The universe and the environmental reality is coming at us constantly in a multidimensional continuum of sensation and experience. This means that everything is happening everywhere all the time.

But what I am referring to is the kind of ignorance that comes from a conditioned emotional and psychological attachment to this cultural belief in separateness which manifests itself as a conscious choice to persist in this belief in the face of experienced reality and truth which repeatedly shows that everything is connected and interdependent.

Let me give you an example of what I'm referring to here a mother and a newborn baby.

Both share the exact same environmental reality. Yet both perceive that environmental reality completely differently.

From the perspective of the baby, probably not more than a few weeks old, baby and mother are one and the same. You can only perceive your reality and existence in terms of your consciousness and conscious awareness. This conscious awareness can only be developed through the felt sense of immediate experience, meaning that your level of consciousness is directly relative to your experience and awareness of life.

Throughout much of its short life this baby's life experience was gained in the environmental reality of its mother's womb, part of her body. It's now conscious of the fact that its environment has changed but it has yet to achieve any kind of autonomy, its sensory nervous system is not at all well developed, it has very little motor coordination skills, all it knows how to do is to suck, cry, pee and poop - the bare bone basics of life.

However from the conscious perspective of the mother its completely different. Everything is separate and has been ever since the positive pregnancy test. She is the mother, a woman, and the baby is her child, she's a parent, and conscious of her role as a mother she's probably going to have a plenty of ideas of how her child is going to be living for the first 18 or so years of life.

Enlightenment and evolution

At the time of its birth this baby was born as the most highly evolved member of the species and completely enlightened and perceptive of its connection to its environment and everything in it.

At some point during the first year or eighteen months of its life inevitably its going to experience trauma and from that traumatic experience go through the sensation that it is somehow separate from its environment and its mother.

Development of perceptions of separateness

Now it could be rather early and come from the trauma experienced when suckling on its mother's breast and no milk is produced. It could be a bad case of nappy rash. It could be a loud noise which startles it. Trying to stand up for the first time and falling over. Being left to cry for too long. But somehow in some way this baby is going to experience trauma and experience the sensation or get the impression that it is separate from its environment and mother.

As the baby grows into an small infant and becomes more familiar with their environment they're going to develop a sense of self and other. From their perspective they're going to get used to being carried, wheeled around in a buggy, pram or pushchair, and get used to seeing the legs of humans who are much bigger than they are.

Development of Ego

By the time they're three or thereabouts and a toddler they're going to be testing their power out on their parents and developing an Ego. Depending on how their parents respond to their tantrums and raise their child the toddler will have a well developed Ego which is a compromise between their inner world and their outer world. Out of this the child will start to develop a relationship with themselves and develop feelings and emotions about themselves.

Through a process of constant socialization through parents, education, social interaction, the media, the government, and so on this child is going to be taught how this world and reality works. From this this child is going to develop a distorted perception of who they are, who everybody else is, and their environment.

More than likely they're going to become very confused as to what the difference is between actual reality (consciousness, energy and space) and symbolic and cultural reality.

Assuming this child is being raised in the West somewhere, they're going to be told such things as God is this old man living in the sky who created everything in existence, that Santa Claus is this old fat guy in a red suit who breaks into their home once a year to leave everybody presents under some decorated fir tree.

They might go to church and Sunday school and learn the Bible and that God is watching them and knows everything about everyone and everything. Then they're going to be read stories from the Bible and learn that God created Adam and Eve as the first man and woman, and everyone was born from them despite the fact that Adam and Eve had two sons and no daughters. They're going to be taught how to pray where everyone is expected to get on their knees, put their hands together, close their eyes and tell God what he should do. Then to make things more interesting they're going to sing religious nursery rhymes.

Of course this child is going to go to school to learn many things in many different subjects. They're going to go to one school which is focussed on playing, where they get taught to read and write, learn the alphabet A B C and also learn to count and use numbers to learn that 1 + 1 = 2, 2 x 2 = 4, 6 - 4 = 2, and so on. Then when they go to the next school they're going to learn that a + b = z.

Mental confusion

Is it any wonder how most people become confused as to who they are, who everyone else is, and how they relate to their natural and social environment - which are two completely separate things but which many people believe are one and the same?

Many people seem to have a messed up sense of understanding the difference between what they do and what happens to them.

For example I think we can all agree that we cut hair the same as we cut grass. So how does this end up as understanding that grass grows but hair doesn't? Why do we say that we are growing our hair but never say that the earth is growing grass? Why do we believe that our physical bodies are part of who we are but then turn round and say my heart is beating? Is your heart not part of your physical body?

I mean why is it that our hearts are beating but we are breathing? Why is it never "my lungs are breathing", or even "my brain is thinking"? How come it's always "my stomach is rumbling" but never "I am rumbling in my stomach"?

Where do we get the notion that we are completely separate from our natural environment?

I mean how long do you expect to survive without breathing air, drinking water or eating food? How do you manage to move around without being physically connected through gravity to the dry surfaces of this planet? Can you somehow naturally live under water, for example in the sea? Do you have the natural ability to fly through the air?

It's like people say stuff like "I came into this world." Did you? From where? The Moon? From Mars? Were you somehow brought here from outer space by aliens and left behind in a shopping bag? Where exactly did you come from?

Is it therefore any wonder than we suffer when we are so confused as to how we relate to each other and our natural environment, cannot tell the difference between naturally occurring reality and social reality from human thinking, and are so confused about what we do and what happens to us?

This is the difference between trauma and suffering. One is real, the other is a social construct which arises out of our conditioned beliefs in separateness.