One and One is still One

Cancer.

If there was ever a word that can generate more fear in us than this one, truly I don’t want to know it. The “Big C” immediately causes a course correction in the lives of everyone. No more living life the way you want to – these are the consequences for…

Depressing right? Who wants to even think along these lines, after all, you’ve got a life to live.

Any way you want to slice it, cancer always evolves into a discussion about you and your needs, whether you have it or someone you know has it. Ego hates the possibility of being detached from its host.

Consider how cancer is basically a cell that has gone rogue and is now terrorizing the community it lives within just like a suicide bomber on a jihad. Its fundamental task is dominating the territory, taking no prisoners while striving to gain more ground through aggressive re-population techniques. As weird as it might sound, cancer has an ego too – its needs come before anything else.

What if humanity, all 7.5 billion today and those who have gone before us, were not as independent as we have been led to live to be? Sure, you are as unique as the person next to you, but are you really separate or apart? What if all of us are part of one collective…for lack of a better term, let’s say consciousness. A great big thought!

Practically every mystic has tried to convey this concept to us over the ages, yet doctrines and dogmas have pigeon-holed it simply because losing control by a few over the masses is a higher fear than sharing a common origin. Ego or cancer. Same result.

According to the western tradition defined by the writer of the Fourth Gospel, the messiah, in communion with the deified image of his Father, seeks to convey the truth of their collective consciousness upon those who have, and will, follow his teachings. “…they be one as we are one…” is not a claim of egoic superiority by any stretch of the imagination. This man knew he was about to be arrested, tortured, beaten and killed. What kind of ego would say, “Come on boys, let’s do this together!” when none of his followers were certain about who they were committed to? Yet, the mystical reference remains: we are One.

Scratch any one of us hard enough, and despite the ideological colorings we display, the red of our life stream is the common denominator to our single nature. Your thoughts and aspirations, noble or ignoble, are not you. Even your actions upon these thoughts, are not you. In a collective consciousness, they are all of us.

Before you think I’ve gone off the socialist deep end of this topic, hear me out. Cancer cells are malevolent actors in a body and the body is designed to rid the body of such elements, sometime successfully, often only through some other form of intervention. Either way, the collective is affected in its entirety.

Our ego, its thoughts and aspirations, work within a collective whether we realize it or not. Malevolence isn’t just something found in a cell, it has a full-blown body of thought and actions carried out in a variety of manners by members of a collective within the Collective.

The Collective Consciousness of mankind has always dealt with the one who wasn’t willing to be one with all beings. Yes, it might have taken “time” for the affect to manifest, however, time heals all wounds. Sometimes, we run out of time before we see the healing, but this doesn’t mean that the process isn’t running its due course. It is what we do in the gap called “expectation” that forms our character.

When faced with terminal illness, there is an action which seems to appear without thought. Love. Sure, there may be fear, dread, angst, hatred, bitterness, denial, and a whole array of other emotions and feelings expressed at this moment, yet love seems to be the cream that eventually rises to the top.

Regrettably, it has to rise. It couldn’t just be at the top already; which means that it is a process. Jesus commanded those who follow him in the unity of his paternal relationship to love one another. Command. Why do we need to be told to love? Why am I not allowed to love whomever I want whenever I want? What does a command require that a natural inclination doesn’t? Grace-filled purpose.

Should my ego declare that I don’t need to love you, am I acting as a rogue cell in the collective consciousness of humanity? If my ego sees you as one of those who are against me, who is the rogue cell in the collective consciousness, you or me? If my talking-point is vindictive towards your talking-point which I see as vindictive towards me, who really has gone rogue?

“This command I give you…” Yes, we have differences, or better yet, we have egos. Yes, our ego gets in the way of others more often than not. Yes, our definition and acts of love are often hypocritical to those we think we are being loving to. Yes, our ego betrays our sense of self-worth. Yet, it is commanded simply to promote the collective consciousness through grace-filled acts. We don’t have to like it (and we often argue, fuss and fight against it), but it is the only solution to our chemo-alternatives. In the scheme of the collective consciousness, you are not your own. Paul got it. How about you?