It’s difficult for us, as individual human beings, with the feeling of distinctness and separateness we have, to comprehend that everything is interconnected.

Indeed, we’re so alone, at times, in this physical form which seems to differentiate each of us from the rest – where all our fortunes seem to be varied and changing.

We feel like we are each born to compete with others. We observe the vast differences in the fortunes of one man compared to another, and we perceive that each living creature’s existence is a fight for its own survival, oftentimes at the expense of other living creatures.

On the ground, in real time, this is an undeniable reality, at least as the world is now.

However, once you get past your immediate perception of what is going on; once you abstract your view from the limits of your subjectivity, it becomes clear that everything is interconnected. We are all, spiritually speaking, philosophically speaking, and scientifically speaking, an indivisible unity – in other words: we are all one.

1. Science

“He dwells in us, not in the nether world, not in the starry heavens. The spirit living within us fashions all this.”

~ Aggripa Von Nettesheim

The big bang theory, or the scientific theory of the creation, suggests that all things are interconnected and made of the same substance. According to the big bang theory, the entire universe and all its contents were contained within a single point of infinite density and zero volume.

When this mighty explosion took place, the contents of that single point – a sea of neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons (positrons), photons, and neutrinos – formed the universe in its original state, and those particles cooled, forming stars.

“Nature is passion; we are sons of stars.”

~ Alexander Gesswein

Physicist and Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss explained in a lecture in 2009, that:

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded, and the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand….You are all stardust; you couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because all the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, and all the things that matter for evolution – weren’t created at the beginning of time, they were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars. And the only way that they could get into your body was if the stars were kind enough to explode. So forget Jesus – the stars died so that you could be here today.” 

Quantum theory also suggests that all things are interconnected. The phenomenon of superposition, i.e. that, at the quantum scale, particles can also be thought of as waves, shows that particles can exist in different states.

Indeed, in quantum mechanics, particles are thought of as existing across all possible states at the same time. This is very difficult to conceive of – and of course, we can’t just interpret in ways that suit our purposes. But the idea of non-locality – particles having no definite position and being present in more than one position at the same time – suggests a unity in everything.

2. Philosophy

“Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike, and there is no more of it in one place than in another, to hinder it from holding together, nor less of it, but everything is full of what is. Wherefore all holds together; for what is; is in contact with what is. Moreover, it is immovable in the bonds of mighty chains, without beginning and without end; since coming into being and passing away have been driven afar, and true belief has cast them away. It is the same, and it rests in the self-same place, abiding in itself.”

~ Parmenides

From as far back as Parmenides (b.506 BC), a Greek philosopher who came earlier than Socrates, there have been philosophers who saw the universe as a unified whole within which all things that exist are subsumed.

Baruch Spinoza (b.1632 AD) attempted to prove the existence of a single infinite substance, which is the cause of all things, of their essence and existence¹. Furthermore, he believed that the recognition of the union that the mind has with whole of nature is the highest good because happiness and morality can be derived from this, in something he calls the intellectual love of God (amor dei Intellectualis).²

150 years later Arthur Schopenhauer (b.1788) identified Spinoza’s universal substance with the Will, the striving for life, existing in every living thing.

3. Spirituality

“The depths of my soul produce the fruits of this world”

~ Alexander Gesswein

Spirituality has often reached the same conclusions through intuition that philosophy has arrived at through reason, and science through observation of phenomena. The central texts of Hinduism, the Upanidshads, contain texts that talk of the unity of the mind and the world.

Buddhism also contains the principle of oneness esho funi: e (the environment), and sho (life), are funi (inseparable). Funi means two but not two. Buddhism teaches that life manifests itself as both a living subject and objective environment. Although we perceive things around us as separate from us, there is a primal level of existence in which there is no separation between ourselves and our environment.

Even Christianity, with its essentially dualist view of the cosmos: that is, of God as creator and man as created thing, when seen as a metaphor, seems to hint at a similar view of things, God is manifested on earth in human form. In Christ, God becomes man. The One becomes the individual and the many. Subject becomes object. The Will is objectified.

“The indivisibility of all things suddenly dawns on the subject.  He is one with all, and his concern for himself necessarily leads to concern for others to which he is identical. Morality is founded thereon, the knowledge of which suddenly becomes the most powerful affection one has ever known: an extension of your power to infinity. At last you are able to be at peace with all around you, and are equipped with an imperishable source of pleasure. This is the definition of happiness.

Finite man now stands before Nature in rapturous confidence: The One and All, I am God: the world is my representation.  This is the greatest legacy of philosophy; and without our teachers of old, our necromancers, we would be unable to transcend the painful temporal succession, finally rising to the conception of our true freedom, sub specie aeternitatis [under the aspect of eternity].”

~ Alexander Gesswein

Footnotes:

¹. Baruch Spinoza, Ethica

². Baruch Spinoza, The Emendation of the Intellect ; see also: Alexander Gesswein, Ethics.

References: 

  1. Parmenides: Poem of Parmenides
  2. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
  3. Baruch Spinoza, Ethica
  4. Alexander Gesswein, Ethics – Maxims and Reflections. Selected Essays, Beginning with the Inellectual Love of God, 2016.

Do you feel interconnected to all things? Do you recognize a unity in the cosmos? Join the discussion.


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This Post Has 8 Comments

  1. Lynn K. Russell

    Excellent work, you have covered the material in a clear and knowledgeable way. And, yes I would like to get a copy of your Kindle book, please let me know when it’s available and what the name of the book will be.

    For most of my life I have studied various philosophies as well as science. I also did an enormous research of 2500 near-death experiences. From that work I write and facilitate workshops on NDEs, and the spirituality of science.

    Thank you,

    Lynn K. Russell

    1. Caroline Hindle

      Hi Lynn,

      Thank you so much for your comment and your interest in the book I referenced. It is an excellent read. The work you are doing sounds fascinating.

      You can find the Kindle edition of the book at the following address:

      https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Reflections-Selected-Beginning-Intellectual-ebook/dp/B01LX9UMPC

      The printed version:

      https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Reflections-Selected-Beginning-Intellectual/dp/0692812679/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1482057447&sr=8-2&keywords=alexander+gesswein

      I hope you enjoy it!

      Thanks again,

      Caroline

  2. John Scott

    With all due respect, have you ever considered not taking theory for fact? For example, the ‘ big bang theory, or the scientific theory of the creation’, which automatically validates a whole plethora of other as yet unproven theories, such as Earth being a sphere, the theory of Gravity, Darwin’s theory of Evolutuon,the Heliocentric model as opposed to a Geocentric, Earthly plane, etc.
    Everything, and everyone, is interconnected, yes. But not in the way that is commonly innerstood. Now is an appropriate time in humankind_story to reconsider many of the assumptions that, in time, have become adopted as fact, as ‘fait accompli’…

    1. Caroline

      Hi John,

      Thank you so much for your comment and bringing up these issues for discussion.

      Speaking about the Big Bang theory does not validate any other claim. It doesn’t even validate the Big Bang theory.
      I am speaking, in this article, about the unity that is central to different explanations of the world, from the view point of different disciplines.

      The respect, however, that people have for science and philosophy, as opposed to other ways of reaching conclusions about the world, is not incidental and we shouldn’t simply shrug it off as such. Philosophy is a discipline that involves extremely rigorous examination of assumptions and strict reasoning. Nothing in philosophy is just thrown out as an idea. Science deals with observation of phenomena and makes theories about what is possible based on what is observed.
      Neither discipline indulges superstitious thinking (i.e. the attributing a cause arbitrarily to an effect because the cause is not immediately obvious – for example: claiming a hurricane took place because the earth is angry with the afflicted people for being immoral or damaging the environment); and neither extrapolates to the point that they would make any definite claims without there being evidence of a definite nature – neither makes ‘leaps of faith’. They’re also disciplines that don’t accept anything as written in stone. They continually develop and correct themselves.

      Other disciplines don’t hold themselves up to these standards, and for this reason people justifiably trust science and philosophy more than they do other ways of reaching conclusions about the world.

  3. Boghos L.Artinian

    Interconnectedness

    When we are so wired each to each,
    That not a single soul is hard to reach,
    A new spirit is bound to teach
    That noncompliance is a breach!

    Boghos L. Artinian

  4. Boghos Artinian

    When we are so wired each to each
    That not one soul is hard to reach
    A new spirit is bound to teach
    That noncompliance is a breach

    Boghos L Artinian

  5. Rick

    The only interconnection we should only be concerned about is the interconnection with our creator: God.

  6. William Howe

    Shakespeare’s pun on the “globe” — the sphere of our head, the Earth, and of course the Globe Theatre — is telling given what we know today about our heads: We have billions of interconnected neurons and thrive on that interconnectedness. We are all, like Shakespeare, connectors who have the opportunity to connect up everything we encounter and perceive. And our heads, I suggest, are microcosms of the interconnected universe.

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