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Oneness through Relational Mysticism

By Muffy Weaver

You are here to make one another known and in so doing to know oneness. (A Course of Love, D:Day15.15)

To return to love is to return to your true Christ identity. It is a matter of oneness. (Choose Only Love, BkV:15.V.12)

Interbeing is the understanding that nothing exists separately from anything else. We are all interconnected. (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Nature is through us, not around us. And society is also not all the other people. I’m surrounded by society. I’m also society. So society is through us. (Thomas Huebl)

Many great teachers tell us that we are all one—we are not separate from the Earth we walk upon, the trees that shade us, or from one another. We belong to each other and to all of nature. How can we live and breathe and know the reality of these words in the depths of our bodies, hearts, minds, and souls? Our conditioning is shaped by the Western paradigm of hyper-individualism, with its emphasis on materialism, competition, and individualism. How do we deconstruct that ideology?

Healing happens through connection. We become more of who we really are in the presence of others—people, and animals, and all of life.  Human existence is fundamentally relational. Healthy relationships are vital for well-being. The collective and individual are interdependent.

You are to create in community, in dialogue, in commitment and togetherness. You are to be the living Covenant of the New. (ACOL, D:5.16) In what A Course of Love calls “dialogue” there is the experience that our kinship, our wholeness, and our union is known through relationship.

Thomas Huebl describes a deeply participatory practice he calls “relational mysticism.” It is a profoundly immersive, embodied, and co-creative impulse in which we are led by our love of humanity and our belongingness to care for one another and for the world—both its beauty and its heartbreaks. Thomas Huebl, PhD, is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator who integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science.

As cultural mystics we build the capacity to witness fragmentation and hurt in order to heal our individual, ancestral, and collective trauma. Each time one becomes more aware of, and receptive to what was a previously unconscious aspect of oneself, that fragmented piece of yourself is invited back into the fold and you become more whole. Your conscious wholeness impacts our collective wholeness.

Choose Only Love expresses it this way: To fully express yourself is the only way to know yourself as God knows you eternally. For this to be a reality here and now we must retrace our way of being. This means that we must begin by lovingly recognizing and accepting all feelings, desires, and needs, respecting and honoring all that arises, and remaining in the silence of the heart. In this silence, where we observe without judgment, we lovingly look forward to the universe giving the answer to our desires. (BkI:8.VI.1)

And again, The key is to feel. Why? Because it is through your emotions and feelings that the process of transformation is taking place and means to complete it. (BkIV:17.IV.5)

Joanna Macy, who at 96 is, as of this writing, in hospice at her home, is a spiritual giant, environmental activist, author and scholar of Buddhism and deep ecology.  She coined the term “The Great Turning” in reference to these times. She writes:

“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful, or hopeless, or pessimistic, or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world. You don’t need to do everything. Do what calls your heart; effective action comes from love. It is unstoppable, and it is enough. In order to release fears that arise they must be exposed to the light and lucidity of compassionate awareness. Staying connected to our vulnerability is very important because it will keep our heart open. Individual healing is magnified when we share our vulnerabilities, emotions, and experiences in the presence of others. Embodied, present-moment witnessing enhances the healing process.”

In time, with practice, we come to feel in our bones our oneness with all life. For many of us this is easier to experience in nature. We come to recognize that we are not separate from nature. It is no longer “I am on the planet” but “I am part of the planet.”

As Thich Nhat Hanh says so eloquently, The sun has entered me. The sun has entered me together with the cloud and the river. I myself have entered the river, and I have entered the sun with the cloud and the river.

And in time, with practice, we come to know that the suffering in other parts of the world—including the devastation taking place in Gaza, the daily bombardment of Ukraine—is also taking place inside each one of us.

Again, Thich Nhat Hanh: If you suffer, I suffer. If you are not safe, I am not safe. There is no way for me to be truly happy if you are suffering.

Joanna Macy writes: “We are capable of suffering with our world, and that is the true meaning of compassion. It enables us to recognize our profound interconnectedness with all beings. Don’t ever apologize for crying for the trees burning in the Amazon or over the waters polluted from mines in the Rockies. Don’t apologize for the sorrow, grief, and rage you feel. It is a measure of your humanity and your maturity. It is a measure of your open heart, and as your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal.

“Out of this darkness a new world can arise, not to be constructed by our minds so much as to emerge from our dreams. Even though we cannot see clearly how it’s going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination. We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts.”