The Illusion of Separateness

It seems to me that the cause of much moral and spiritual malaise is succumbing to the illusion of separateness. This illusion is that there exists a you that is a completely separate entity from everything else. Given this illusion, you view yourself as identical with your body, or at least with some parts of your body. You would then see your interaction with anything not-you as purely physical. That is, you receive input signals from the five bodily senses, you process them in your brain, and you respond by moving your body in some way.

The illusion of separateness arises from an abstraction that is made of the world that is useful for some purposes but should not be mistaken as the complete reality. This abstraction is that the world is comprised of completely separate objects (of which each person is one), and that they can only relate to each other through external, physical means. This abstraction seems to make a lot of sense to our experience. We look around us and see other objects, each with attributes. Meanwhile, the success of the physical sciences seems to confirm this view of reality.

However, while the abstraction of separateness works well in some areas, it fails in others. It cannot account for consciousness or even experience. It provides no guidance on moral questions and has nothing to say about the meaning of existence. These shortcomings are fine as long as we understand that the abstraction of separateness is useful for some things but not others. It's good at predicting where a ball I throw will land; it's not so good at answering why I should act well toward other people. It is when this abstraction is mistaken for a complete description of reality that we succumb to the illusion of separateness.

Given this illusion, there would seem to be no meaning to existence possible. Experience and consciousness remain mysteries, or even explained away as illusions themselves. The only justifications found for moral action are empty, utilitarian ones.

The illusion of separateness even affects many people who are religious. But for them, the idea of a God must be that of an external Being, and usually one that relates to them in an authoritarian manner, providing external rewards and punishments for good or bad behavior.

What sort of purpose in life can there be if the illusion of separateness is true?

An alternative exists to the illusion of separateness. It is to understand that the elements of reality are not vacuous things but rather lively experiences. Furthermore, each experience is a process of being influenced by other experiences, actualizing (i.e. combining these influences with an element of self-determination), and then subsequently becoming an influence in other experiences. However, one can think of the nature of this influence as actually becoming a part of, or ingression.

This shift in understanding of the world enables one to see past the illusion of separateness. The world is seen not as a pile of dead objects but as a rich web of experiences. Each experience ingresses upon all others in varying ways but also retains a degree of self-identity and self-determination.

There are many ways to describe this insight, that reality is defined by life that is all united in some way. Some people describe it by saying that we are all part of God. Others describe it by saying that the spirit of God is in everything. Some people may even discard the concept of God altogether and describe it in yet other terms (perhaps focusing on the Now, or present moment). And yet other people may just feel the truth of this insight without trying to formulate it in words.

The power of this insight with respect to moral and spiritual questions is two-fold. First, it washes away the misleading illusions that would obscure answers, or even the possibility of answers, to these questions. Secondly, this insight helps reveal the answers, but not by providing logical axioms to derive subsequent truth in words, but instead by pointing at the experience we all have that must ultimately serve as the basis of that truth. It is in that transcendent experience that we must ultimately find these answers.