“connected, bonded, safe, ‘at one with,’ at home”
With Brexit, the people of the United Kingdom have chosen to take a path that leads to disintegration. “The notion that global economic integration amounts to human progress had a good run, dominating the thinking of the powers that be for more than seven decades. But a new era is underway in which national interests take primacy over collective concerns, with trading arrangements negotiated among individual countries.”[i] That analysis is another way of saying that humanity, in moving away from a worldview of Oneness, has begun the “shift” from integration to disintegration.
One Brit Martin Eden, a publisher, spoke out against Brexit as he was waiting to catch the Eurostar to Paris to celebrate his 43rd birthday. “We’ve made a horrible statement to the rest of the world, and it’s very sad … we should be moving together,’ he said of Europe, ‘instead of moving apart.’”[ii]
Oneness provides the context for the integration rather than separation. This includes nations, ethnic and religious groups, and anyone who is “different than you” in the Global Village. The Chinese Communist Party encourages all ethnic groups to “bind together as tightly as pomegranate seeds”[iii] but it would be best if integration were done without coercion as is happening in western China with the Uighurs.
Sustainability is, in part, based on the process of community building, of coming together, of integration; and yet what we are seeing is disintegration, the collapse of the fiber of our communities. “Economic dignity means providing people with the capacity to care for family, pursue their potential and a sense of purpose, and contribute economically, free from domination and humiliation. It is about more than putting food on the table: It’s about making sure Americans have the chance to be at that table with their loved ones. It’s about ensuring that economic deprivation and structural disadvantages don’t deny people life’s most precious God-given moments, from bonding with newborns to caring for aging parents.”[iv]
Marsha Sinetar offers guidance in the insight below. She is speaking of how a person feels when they experience the feeling of Oneness, a realization that all of Creation is interdependent, interconnected and interrelated.
Insight # 14 comes to us from Marsha Sinetar. She is a modern-day organizational psychologist, mediator and writer who studies “self-actualizing adults.”
In a worldview of Oneness (P-A) “the individual feels subjectively safe. He is emotionally connected and experiences no separation, no splitting or fragmentation. He doesn’t feel isolated, separate or alone because—in a real way—he is connected, bonded, safe, ‘at-one-with,’ at home.”[v]
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Additional Reading:
- Integration and Disintegration, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 1
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#14 Integration and Disintegration
[i] Goodman, Peter. “Shift in Trade Around the Globe To Go It Alone.” New York Times. December 15, 2019, p. 1.
[ii] Lyall, Sarah. “A Mighty City Trembles at a Global Crossroad.” The New York Times Sunday. December 31, 2017, p. 14.
[iii] Buckley, Chris and Steven Lee Meyers. “Scarred but Resilient, a Uighur Town Clings to Its Cultural Past.” The New York Times. January 19, 2020, p. 6.
[iv] Sperling, Gene B. “Economic Dignity for All.” The New York Times Sunday. April 26, 2020, p. 8.
[v] Sinetar, Marsha. Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics. New York: Paulist Press, 1986, pp. 160-161.
