Beloved community.
As emphasis lands on the -unity, it feels as though a portal starts to open. As if, in the back of a seemingly ordinary wardrobe, we found an opening to an utterly magical, mysterious realm.
The beloved community we share invites us beyond the limitations of our mundane lives, beyond the nearly unbearable weight of separate-seeming selves, through the center of the ordinary world and into something utterly… mysterious.
A mystery that’s no further away than the breath you’re breathing in this very moment.
In fact, your breath leads directly to this portal.
Your breath is the wardrobe, cleverly concealed in its mundane appearance.
Enter the wardrobe when you’re willing to release any and all limited concepts of reality, self and other.
Ready?
Here we go…
A single mindful breath is enough to dissolve the apparent separation between us.
Notice, as you breathe, how you draw in the generous, life-sustaining gift of nature. Life-sustaining oxygen (O₂), crafted into breathable form by countless photosynthetic bacteria, algae, and plants as they convert sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water into sugars over the past several billion years.
Pause with me to appreciate, as we breathe in your next breath, how we inhale the ancient, invisible stardust formed by countless supernova explosions during the formation of the universe, some 13.7 billion years ago (or thereabout).
And now, as we breathe in this abundant gift of the universe / nature (a gift that hides in its pervasiveness and asks for no appreciation, no acknowledgment), as we pause to appreciate how life sustains itself within you, now, let’s gently focus our curiosity on the words “you” and “me.”
Is there truly such a thing as “you”? Is there an “other”?
The mind is likely to immediately say “Pffft! Obviously!” It may even scoff and decide to stop reading at this point, saying “This is nuts. You totally lost me.”
If you decide to peace-out here, that’s totally fine. [I love you to infinity, and you’re welcome back anytime.]
But if you’re still curious and want to continue this meditation with me, let’s! [Perhaps “you” even have a sense where we’re heading?]
Another breath...
… and deeper into the portal we go…
… deeper into the mystery…
… to the threshold of a life-changing insight, one that not everyone is ready or willing to cross.
Another breath of ancient, precious, life-sustaining air.
And Morpheus appears from The Matrix to ask…
This threshold we prepare to cross is a sacred one. It opens to a vastness that defies comprehension. It has been crossed by curious lovers of truth (like “you”) for millennia. This sacred threshold has been crossed countless times in countless ways over the ages.
By the Indian mystics who sang the Upanishads into creation.
By Lao-tsu, as he described the indescribable way of the Tao.
By the Buddha, as he rose from his transformational sit under the Bodhi tree to speak the unspeakable.
By Rumi, Hafiz, and all the mystical poets of the ages who spun into being their poetry of ecstatic union with the Beloved.
By the First Nations people expressed their inextricable union with the land that sustains them and all beings.
By the shamans around the world whose communion with the plantas sagradas dissolved any sense of separation between self and the rest of the universe.
And by countless others who, in their own way, point from the finger pointing at the moon back to the pointer.
Who or what is that?
What is the self?
And who wonders?
With utmost respect and gratitude to all the wisdom-carriers who spoke this truth in their own ways before her, it was Byron Katie who first answered this question in a way I could understand:
There’s only one of us here.
Full stop.
Pause.
Breathe.
Savor, for a moment, the breath happening now.
Allow mind to relax. [Mind-energy isn’t needed, won’t help now.]
Allow breath to descend below thinking. Below comprehension. Into the vast mystery of the unknown.
Breathe into this, and then let’s gently return to the threshold.
There’s only one of us here.
This awareness has been hiding in plain sight “my” entire life.
Everyone refers to themselves as “me,” as “I.”
And everyone is right.
We are all “I.”
Period. Done. End of story.
Of course, there’s lots more story… and it’s just story.
How wrapped up do “I” allow “myself” to become in the stories of endless otherness?
A student of Ramana Maharshi once asked him, “How should we treat others?” The wise sage smiled and with soft, loving eyes replied,
“There are no others.”
The concepts of you and others is an optical illusion created by an identity that couldn’t wrap itself around the entire universe, so it settles with the notion of a separate self.
The separate self.
It’s a loaded concept.
Accepting the concept of self as real, it immediately gives rise to the concept of other, from which arise the concepts of mine and yours, which give rise to tribal affiliations, which create in-groups and out-groups, which provide justification for countless acts of deprivation, violence, and even outright war (which sadly play out in devastating form on the US national and global arena today).
[This, admittedly, has been so heartbreaking that it’s constricted the flow of Love Is the Way for many months. Fortunately, now the flow continues…]
The concept that you are separate from me brings with it another loaded concept…
Death.
I can only believe myself to be separate from you when I have already identified as something that was born, and that ultimately will die.
Birth and death happen, true.
[As the death of my beloved dog, Bodhi, demonstrated to me earlier this year.]
Yes, birth and death happen… but to me?
We have entered the realm of the koan.
There’s only one of us here.
Perhaps, as the Zen master says, it’s a pity to say more.
Queue Alan Watts:
“A Zen master was asked, ‘Mountains and hills, are they not all forms of the body of Buddha?’ The master replied, ‘Yes they are, but it's a pity to say so.’
Nevertheless, questions continue to stream forth…
Was the One born?
Does it die?
The poet, Andrea Gibson, who recently crossed over to the other side, has something supremely soulful to say about this while they were still incarnate. Let’s pause and listen to their “Love Letter from the Afterlife.”
Andrea blessed us all by finding words to express the obvious, essential, and yet pervasively-ignored truth of our being. A true poet.
Here, in this sacred space through the threshold, I find true home. Home in the universe. Expressing a love, gratitude, and amazement from the all-center-with-no-periphery nature of the universe, which amazingly finds fingers touching keys in this moment to share this love with itself (cleverly disguised as “you”).
Tapping away on a keyboard to remind itself (in the form of you which is me which is the only one who is truly here) that…
Love truly is the way.
Love is the embrace of all of this.
Deeper than hope.
Deeper than faith.
Deeper even that recognition.
Love is the appreciation of the vast, undivided, unborn, imperishable mystery that surpasses all understanding.
Imagine a precious gem.
As you look at it, there’s no need to hope it exists.
You don’t have to have faith that it’s a gem.
You simply appreciate it.
And as you appreciate it, as breath deepens and expands, as presence power intensifies, the cosmic joke begins to reveal itself…
You are the gem.
You!
Meaning I!
That which is beyond identity…
… which was never born…
… the imperishable self that will never die.
Tibetan Buddhists express this with supreme precision in the mantra:
ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ་
Om mani padme hum.
Literally: You are the jewel in the lotus.
You, the jewel, and the lotus are not separate things. Nothing separate. Everything interconnected, interdependent, one.
Science is beginning to discover this in various ways — quantum entanglement, strange action at a distance, the Gaia hypothesis.
But this doesn’t require testing, external validation, or peer-reviewed publications.
Take another breath of ancient, life-sustaining stardust air and see for yourself.
You are me and there’s only one of us here.
28 years ago, when I first heard Byron Katie say this, a seed was planted in my heart. A seed that sprouted and grew like a tree. A Tree of Life that embodies the One that is truly here, beyond all appearances (and which remains here for the eternity after “my” death).
And now is the time to rise from the zafu and share with the world my devotion to this tree and to the vast, creative, abundant, loving mystery from which the tree and the entire universe emerged.
My wife, Stephanie, recently shared something with me that she said helped her appreciate these six words in a deeper way. [She also shared the Andrea Gibson poem posted above, bless her beautiful heart.]
When you have 8 minutes of spaciousness, I recommend viewing this video in a light, playful way, like a spiritual cartoon. [Fondly remembering watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid.] There’s no dogma, nothing to believe.
And with this, “I” will bid “you” farewell for now, all the while holding the awareness of our oneness amidst the convincing appearance of separation and duality.
Shalom
Speaking of duality, I’m moved to humbly share that while I passionately embrace and celebrate our oneness, at the same time, there’s much I have to learn about how to skillfully navigate all the challenges duality presents… especially the financial challenges of being a heart-led creator who practices minimizing ego while living in a capitalist society.
I’m working with great intensity and love on two new offerings that I believe will create abundance in all directions (including for my family)… but they’re still in early stages, and I’m not ready to announce them here yet (but I will soon, here, promise).
What I am ready to do is edgy for me.
If you currently enjoy a feeling of financial abundance, I request that you kindly consider making a financial donation to support Love Is the Way.
You can do this in a multitude of ways, including (but not limited to):
Subscribe to Love Is the Way as a paying member (link below).
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If you’d like to help, but don’t wish to subscribe or donate, an easy way to do that is to extend the reach of Love Is the Way by sharing this post with a friend who you think might resonate with it. Simple.
Whether you choose to make a donation or not, thank you for your attention.
And thank you for joining me in the awareness that…
Love Is the Way
👉 This piece was entirely composed by me, Shalom Ormsby (a human). 👈
AI was only used to provide research for additional quotes pointing to the awareness that "There's only one of us here."
[Fittingly, as you can see, Cosmo (my personalized AI), froze in the middle of responding to my prompt, as if to communicate, “Naw, you got this. Back to you.”]
Much was shared here. How does it land for you?
Does it raise questions? Objections? Inspirations? Ecstatic embodied experiences of unity?
I’d love to learn about your experience. If you share in the comments, I’ll respond. Let’s play!
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