Why Oneness?

By Steve Bhaerman

"Time to turn dueling dualities into dynamic duo dance partners."
-- Swami Beyondananda

One of my favorite books this year is Charles Eisenstein's thoughtful and inspiring book, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. The title itself says a lot, and one of Charles' key points is that we in Western Civilization are living between two worlds.  One world is the one in the title -- the world that represents the connection we have with the One Heart, and living from that connection.  The other world is the world of the human mind and the structures of separation we use to protect ourselves from other human beings.

The Oneness movement and Global Oneness Day is a way of affirming, reinforcing and living into the new reality of "we're all in this together" and thrival for all.  The more we populate this reality with our thoughts, feelings, attention and intention, the more "real" it will become.

Perennial wisdom -- the truths that reverberate through every religious and spiritual path and every ethical system -- tells us that all is connected.  The various expressions of the Golden Rule that are at the root of each of these systems reflect that connection.  So why is it then that the Golden Rule seems to have been overruled by the rule of gold rule:  Doo-doo unto others before they can doo-doo unto you?

It's because most human beings haven't really believed that we can function functionally as a collective.  We've collectively adopted the default belief that "human nature" is hard-wired, and we are hard-wired for a "me OR you" world.  

UNTIL NOW, that is.

In recent years, modern science has been echoing the call of ancient wisdom, that we are indeed connected and that the next phase of human evolution is realizing we are all cells in a super-organism called Humanity.  If that's true, then warfare and the more toxic forms of dog-eat-dog competition are a type of autoimmune disorder -- that threaten not just our human species, but the web of life.  The positive implication is even more profound:  What most of imagine as a utopian vision, "heaven on earth", the 50 trillion-cell community beneath our skins would simply call "health."

So ... can the super-organism Humanity experience the same level of health as a healthy human?  That is what we are playing this "game of awakening" to find out.

Global Oneness Day is a celebration of this great "upwising" -- where more and more human beings are ready, willing and able to hold this new view of our Humanity Potential, and live that evolutionary reality now.  As we join together in a virtual global local community, we take three key steps -- awareness, intention and action -- that will help heal the human spirit and bring forth that "more beautiful world".

Steve Bhaerman is an internationally known author, humorist, and workshop leader. For the past 23 years, he has written and performed as Swami Beyondananda, the "Cosmic Comic." Swami's comedy has been called "irreverently uplifting" and has been described both as "comedy disguised as wisdom" and "wisdom disguised as comedy."

As the Swami, Steve is the author of Driving Your Own Karma (1989), When You See a Sacred Cow, Milk It For All It's Worth (1993), Duck Soup for the Soul (1999) and Swami for Precedent: A 7-Step Plan to Heal the Body Politic and Cure Electile Dysfunction (2004).

In his "past life" (before Swami), Steve started an alternative high school in Washington, D.C. and co-authored a book about his experiences, No Particular Place to Go: Making of a Free High School. A political science major, he later taught history to autoworkers at Wayne State University in Detroit as part of the Weekend College. In 1980, Steve co-founded Pathways Magazine in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the first publications bringing together holistic health, personal growth, spirituality, and politics. Subsequent to Pathways, Steve was a freelance writer and co-author with Don McMillan of Friends and Lovers: How to Meet the People You Want to Meet (Writer's Digest Books, 1986).

Since 2005, Steve has written a political blog with a spiritual perspective, Notes From the Trail, hailed as an encouraging voice "in the bewilderness." His latest book, written with cellular biologist Bruce H. Lipton, PhD is Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From Here (Hay House, 2009). Steve is active in transpartisan politics and the practical application of Spontaneous Evolution. He can be found online at www.wakeuplaughing.com