24 STRATEGIES FOR PEACE ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 21: U - Unity

In the ancient temple of Delphi in Greece there is the phrase inscribed “I warn you whoever you are, Oh you who wish to probe the arcanes of nature, if you do not find within yourself that which you seek, neither shall you be able to find it outside. If you ignore the excellencies of your own house, how do you intend to find other excellencies? In you it's hidden the treasure of all treasures. Oh man! Know thyself and you will know the Universe and the Gods.”  

What are those treasures within they were talking about? Do they have anything to do with the fact that each of us is a magnificent constellation of 37 trillion cells all functioning in perfect harmony? Do they refer to our heart, an exquisite powerful machine which sends blood over the distance of 100,000 km capillaries - more than twice the circumference of planet Earth 125,000 times each day? Do those excellencies have anything to do with the mathematically calculated probability of each of us existing being 1 in 400 trillion? All the thousands of past generations surviving famine, wild beast, war and disease and finally resulting in you and I? 

Despite all those treasures that result in the miracle of our life we often carry this certain emptiness within. A peculiar lack. Insufficiency. A hunger of sorts. A hunger for what? Connection? Belonging? Meaning? Purpose? Completeness? Fulfillment? Wholeness? Something seems off. We are going through the motions day after day wearing masks, playing roles, trying, achieving, striving, self-improving, learning, acquiring. 

Yet at the end of the day when we lay in the darkness of the night we can feel something inside suppressed and forgotten by the demands that society, culture, religion, tradition, daily grind put upon us. What is it? What is this emptiness? What is this treasure within us? Who are you? Who am I? What is the mystery of existence? What is the common denominator between human, animal, tree, Universe and the Gods?  

The profoundly beautiful movie Unity narrated by 100 Hollywood actors and directed by Shaun Monson attempts to address just that. It is an in-depth study of what it is to be truly human. It examines the nature of the universe, our mind, our body, our heart, and our soul. It’s goal is to awaken us all. Awaken from what? From the illusion of separateness. Awaken to what? To the Unity of all life on this planet. 

When I studied Upanishads with the Himalayan yoga master swamij hoping to penetrate the arcanes of nature and the nucleus of my own existence I learned what the Teachers of the past intuited through meditative and contemplative practices thousands of years ago before the first book was ever written. 

I learned that I am not my body container, not my past, not my CPU or my mind, not my thoughts, not my accomplishment and not my rank in the society. I learned that I am a Life Force wearing my body container around. Raised in the paradigm of separateness I learned to see myself apart from other life forms. Like a wave in the ocean which forgets it is the ocean I feel my smallness and am blind to my vastness which is also the vastness of every one of us.

The movie Unity paints the tragic tapestry of human history: birth and death, love and war, sacrifice and corruption, creation and destruction, goodness and evil. Yet it ends with a message of hope, a message which defines our hunger and our destiny: to END our separateness, to evolve from Homo Sapiens driven by survival to Homo Spiritus driven by conscience and to merge 

the UNIVERSE and HUMANITY into UNITY

human + animal + tree

Not the same, but equal. 

What to do if you were interested in starting to thread a path towards self-realization?

Step 1: Decide that after the lifelong search for meaning in the external world of temporary pleasures NOW you are ready to seriously commit to a daily practice with your mind, speech and action for the purpose of self-realization, unity and permanent bliss and joy.

Step 2: Engage in the daily practices of mastering the activities of your mind to stop identifying yourself with your thought patterns (e.g. I am my emotion, I am my job, I am my bank account, I am xyz) for the purpose of expanding beyond the confines of your mind, attaining a permanent state of tranquility and equilibrium and the highest wisdom of your own excellencies and the Universe.

Step 3: To end all duality: me versus them, prejudice, racism, nationalism, homophobia, speciesism, ageism. To end all harm against others with thought, speech and action. To end conflict, violence, slaughterhouse, and inner and outer war.

Are you interested in moving beyond the mundane of everyday life?

In that there is an end of fear and the beginning of lasting peace.

Liberation from pain and suffering and joy permanent. 

Visit Butterfly11 to explore other strategies that will improve your mental and emotional wellbeing. Peace to us all!

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