Something miraculous occurs when a critical mass of individuals forms a whole.
Whole does not mean homogeneous. An engine is a whole, but is made up of lots of very different parts, each of which has a unique function. Engines, however, are static, mechanical systems. I prefer to think in terms of a living system or body, like my own. As a medical editor, I have learned that cells are really complex little microcosms, with all kinds of proteins that start and stop cellular processes and that let other substances inside or keep them out. And there are also substances that enable cells to communicate with other cells. Without going into the extraordinary technical detail (which I am not qualified to do anyway), just try to imagine that we humans as a species are as intricately diverse and organized as the cells in our bodies. Of course, we’re not that organized yet. The left thumb is at war with the right pinkie, and the mouth is sucking dry the bloodstream.
Can you imagine your own body not realizing that the foot is connected to the thigh? You couldn’t walk. Can you imagine what would happen if your lungs decided to go on strike? Or if certain rogue cells decided to start a new body of their own and began reproducing at a faster rate? When all the elements are not functioning together smoothly, the whole organism doesn’t function. That’s what seems to be happening with humanity at the moment.
Now can you imagine being a self-conscious cell (celf-conscious?!) of a supra-conscious organism? Free will doesn’t go away. And you’re aware of a will that is beyond yours, into which yours can flow, or not. Imagine being a cell in a finger and getting the call that the skin on the nose itches. A response is automatically coordinated through the hand and the arm to get you and your other finger cell buddies over to the nose to scratch it. And it all happens seemingly effortlessly, in flow, so to speak.
What can this body of humanity (and even the body of the earth, including humanity) as a whole accomplish with you accomplishing your part and everybody else, all the other cells, accomplishing theirs? What grandness could the earth/human organism be up to in the universe? It’s almost inconceivable—like my nerve cells trying to conceive of me wanting to write a book or make love.
Before we can get to this place of integration, we need to recognize just how connected we all are, as cells are in a body. And we need to expand our ways of being in “communication” with each other. I put the word “communication” in quotes because it is so much more than the external type of linguistic smoke signals we currently send to each other through writing and speaking. It’s more like a communication that involves feeling from the inside.
Sometimes it happens when I’m in love—and I am in such resonance with my beloved that I can sense his thoughts, his feelings. We’ve all felt those moments of oneness with another. Do we need to ALL be in that state of profound being-in-love-with in order to attain that kind of internal communication that my body’s cells have with each other?
Let’s try it and see what happens.