I Am You

A spirituality of non-separation

“Do not claim, “There but for the grace of God go I.” Instead, proclaim, “There BY the grace of God AM I.”— Zeus Yiamouyiannis

At the most fundamental level, all creation and phenomena have, at root, the same essence. Some call it being “children of God.” Others say, “We are all stardust.” Still others talk about a “quantum reality” in which apparent separateness is simply unity experiencing itself simultaneously through every frequency of being as with a color apectrum when sunlight passes through a prism.

Ultimately time is collapsed. Space is collapsed… Ultimately I am You.

All this alleged concern with assigning responsibility, all this psychobabble about establishing emotional “boundaries,” all this prevalence (and rank ugliness) of supremacism (“I am apart and better than you”) is foolishness if not insanity… and each and every one of us knows it.

I am NOT more valuable in the eyes of God nor the Universe, nor more necessary, than You. And you are not more valuable or necessary than I. This is understood and shown by the very fabric of the universe itself. No mosaic picture can do without its multicolored tiles. No quilt exists without its integrated images, textures, and patterns. No earthly life persists without the beautiful and sometimes cruel diversity of every animal and plant, every creation and potentiality, every love and every hope.

So maybe I should ask a relevant question: “What the hell are we doing?”

Spiritual oneness meets differentiated existence or “My mind is blown; what do I do?”

I have been listening to hundreds if not thousands of hours of the amazing gifts of a Buddhist contemplative, Samaneri Jayasara, who puts together metaphysical reflections from some of the deepest mystics and spiritualists in history. They all seem to say the same thing. We are not this or that tile within the mosaic or this or that thread within the tapestry. No, we are THAT Unity beyond unity, or as Sufi poet Rumi says “You are not a drop in the ocean, but the entire ocean in a drop.”

It doesn’t really matter the mystic tradition, Christian mystic, Hindu Sikh, Muslim Sufi, Buddhist Mahayana, and to some extent Judaic Kabbalah (though to my reading far more emphasis is placed on human merit than godly grace in Kabbalah).

Jayasara offers one Hindu meditation which goes for 45 minutes enumerating all the things that are NOT reality, i.e. “There is no duality; there is no non-duality”. Christian mystics talk about how all creation and differentiation as a blessed, equally loved aspect of an eternal God. Buddhist mystics talk about the impermanence and changeability of all created things arising from and collapsing into an enfolding Presence.

In each of these theologies, poems, and philosophies there is an implied or explicit wholeness. There is a One from whom we spring and return, like the breath itself. And when one can tap into this One-ness, no matter what the path, one encounters and experiences spiritual Reality, accompanied by an affirming peacefulness.

We may change forms, but we do not die. We may wonder why we are here, but the very substance our existence confirms an original purpose that calls to us, sometimes confusingly. Existing as a sincere spiritual human being in a world of forms, can indeed be disorienting, like trying to find my “reason to be” among the many wares in a huge and strange bazaar.

There BY the grace of God

The original quote at the beginning of this essay, came THROUGH me, not from me. It was a divine answer to a question I asked in my heart: Why is there is so much unfairness and injustice, especially in human society? The answer: “There BY the grace of God AM I,” rather than “There but for the grace of God go I”. Injustice is built on a singular and metaphysically fatal error, that we are “apart, over, and against” each other, rather than inherently “connected, equal, and co-extensive” with one another.

If I operate on this primordial error, my distinct being existing versus your being, then it is a short step for me to to degrade you, use you, or dismiss you for my own ends. If I remedy this error, we can help each other deepen and expand who we are. This maxim operates not only between selves but WITHIN ourselves as well.

In our current regressed state of human evolution, we tend to pick out aspects of our being that we don’t “like” and then treat them as somehow lower and deserving of rejection, revulsion, or chastisement. Yet it is the “lowest” or “weakest” parts of ourselves that call to the higher, and it is the compassion of the highest parts of ourselves that heals the lower. This is especially true of childhood trauma, the one thing that stands most in the way of people truly “breaking out” of past patterns and finding new ways to contribute to human and worldly flourishing.

The practical and metaphysical fact remains: I cannot be authentically be “me” in my own creative and original right without you being authentically you to the same degree. In fact, I cannot even exclude you or call myself an individual against you without your inclusion and participation in my world!

What fools we mortals be. If we accept inherent inter-connectness and equality, the next question might be: How do we RELATE to each other in a way the ENHANCES creative and loving authenticity in each other. This is aided by a radical embrace of multi-faceted life on a metaphysical and practical level:

Reject nothing. Love your “enemy” in others and in yourself. I am uncertain AND confident. I am spiritual AND human. I am a sinner AND a saint. I am constituted as blessing, truth, and goodness, and I am capable of arrogance, error, and depravity.

My life is not to be edited, but DISCERNED and created, with ALL that I am. In so doing I can bring forth the nubile hope and call out the pretentious presumption. When it comes to me and you, having recognized this “unity of contradiction” in myself, I begin to see you in a richer, unedited, unforced way.

But what about abusers and narcissists?… Don’t we need “healthy boundaries”

So-called psychological “boundaries” can be stopgap necessities in manipulative relationships, where someone pretends to be loving (or maybe even deceives themselves that they ARE loving). Boundaries are never a solution though. We are built for connection, not boundaries. In a more mature psychology, my DIFFERENTIATION and uniqueness creates an inherent BORDER, rather than a boundary. A border is about who I am, and who I am not, authentically meeting your authenticity. It only needs to be recognized and revealed rather than enforced (as with a boundary).

Think about it this way. If I have a “border” (not boundary) notion when it comes to romantic dating, I am looking for someone who “gets me”, who enjoys the deeper, more “core” person I am, and wants the best for me from the best (and most authentic) of them, and of course, vice versa. There will be many sterling individuals out there, by nature, who will simply not fit this bill. The more authentically unique and spiritually nuanced you are, the narrower the chance of a potential match on this level.

Contrast this to the much broader, but shallower, transactional approaches of dating which use attributes to create an artificial commonality— shared interests, ambitions, images of the good life, etc. Here you most definitely DO need boundaries, because it is easy to fake all this in order to hook someone into an emotional identification with you. In the “swipe left, swipe right” culture of online dating, it gets even worse, where every lovely being is reduced, almost by design, to a consumable commodity that STRIPS them of their originality, creativity, and uniqueness.

The motto is this transactional arena is implicitly: “You for me”, rather than “we for us.”

Where is the MEDIUM of discernment once BORDERS meet and acquaint themselves?— the “voice” of the relationship itself! There is a certain ease of interaction, a language that seems to be shared rather than laboriously constructed. There is curious complementarity over differences rather than dissatisfied complication or triggered animosity and neurosis. Resounding resonance replaces overwrought desire and need. Calm patience and wonder rises over quixotic and unwise adventurism

The song of the universe is you and me

We are not talking about “twin flames” here or “soul mates” as they are popularly and mistakenly understood. A true meeting of spirits is almost always serendipitous, and not necessarily everlasting. It is not a “soul contract”, but a soul exchange. Far from fulfilling some fantasy of “together forever,” this exchange sees eternity in a deep and honest moment, a universe in a grain of sand.

There is a larger voice calling all of us, asking us to hear it and heed it. When two lovers happen to hear the same voice calling them together from this level, they are invited into a supernal shared space, quite above their individual job description no matter how spiritually “in the know” they had thought they were in terms of personal enlightenment.

This is the song of the universe.

This larger voices may come as a Siren gloriously wrecking us the rocks, but what a life we shall have! Or we may be pulled apart by the centrifugal forces of our relationships, as with Danish existentialist Soren Kirkegaard and Regine Olsen or famed Sufi poet, Hafez, and his apparent spiritual paramour, the Persian princess and poet, Jahan Malek Khatun. Or we may settle in peaceful bliss with one-in-a-million quirky individual who simply just enjoys us being who we are and serves as a Muse to our deeper spiritual beckonings.

Whatever it may be, let us meet our fate gladly, rather than holding back, “keeping our powder dry” or holding out for a fantasy of “I deserve more.” You and I don’t deserve anything. We are INVITED to something far greater and beyond all deserving. We are invited to be who we are, and if we are blessed to share that deeply with another AS another, we shall travel far beyond the borders of this skin.

I am you.

Blessings, Zeus