“Wholeness experienced first hand is infinite in its diversity and finds itself mirrored and embedded in each particular, like the Hindu goddess Indra’s net, a symbol of the Universe, which has jewels at all the vertices, each one capturing the reflections of the entire net and so containing the whole.”
Should we worship, uniformly, at the altar of oneness, using the idea of oneness to flatten out all differences? I think not.
It is in these differences that the beauty and magic of the dance of life are discovered. Truly seeing the ‘eachness’ and ‘suchness’ of every individual being, plant and animal, in sunlight, clouds, wind, rain, snow, rocks & sand, ocean & stream – it is here that poetry, art, music, science, wonder, grace and the true richness of the diversity on this planet fully blossoms.
All human faces resemble each other, yet how easily we see in each a unique individuality, an identity. How deeply we value these differences. The oceans are water, all connected, yet they have countless waves, every one different from all the others; the bottom is a landscape all its own, different everywhere, similarly the shoreline. The atmosphere circles the entire globe, but its winds, clouds, fog and precipitation are all unique and varied, day-to-day & place-to-place. Life on earth is a whole, yet it expresses as microbes, viruses, plants and animals in abundant diversity.
“So, there can be be no one place to be or a single way to live, no one way to practice our spirituality, no one way to learn or to love, no one way to grow or to heal, no one way to feel, and no one thing to know or be known. The particulars count!“
Quotes from Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Mandala Healing Touch 