Can we celebrate our uniqueness and diversity and find strength in unity?
We often focus on our differences rather than on those things that connect us.
We seem to put a great deal of effort into separating ourselves from those around us. We talk about our colleagues, we complain about our family members, we shake our heads in wonder at those we read about in the news. Often, I believe this is in an effort to afford ourselves the luxury of believing we are in some way 'better' that those we speak about. And yet, do we not all have similar failings? Perhaps we think ours are on a different scale, or perhaps we are simply not in the news so our 'failures' are not broadcast for the world to see. But, I think in most situations failures are borne out of fear - fear of rejection, fear of separation - and who among us has not felt that fear?
If we put down another, we too, are devalued in our own subconscious mind but on the other side if we raise up another, we automatically also raise up ourselves. Is this in itself not evidence of our connection? Our oneness?
A rabbi asked his students, "When, at dawn, can one tell the light from the darkness?"
One student replied, "When I can tell a goat from a donkey."
"No," answered the rabbi.
Another said, "When I can tell a palm tree from a fig."
"No," answered the rabbi again.
"Well, then, what is the answer?" his students pressed him.
"Not until you look into the face of every man and every woman and see your brother and sister," said the rabbi. "Only then have you seen the light. All else is still darkness."
Hasidic parable
As told in "Seeking Peace"
Johann Christof Arnold
From our first moments of life we are connected to our mother. This carries on and extends to family and then to social groups.
Our ideas of differentness may come from seeing people with different body types, skin color or who have different customs or beliefs. This is often reversed very quickly when we are introduced to a culture or person that we may perceive as different from us as we quickly recognize that there is no difference , or at least that we are more alike than we are different.
To emerge from the darkness to see every other person as your brother and sister is to see every other person as deserving of our respect, kindness and love.
Buddhism teaches "Putting oneself in the place of another"
Christianity teaches "Love your neighbor as yourself"
Islam teaches "That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind."
How would it change the choices we make every day if we were to simply reflect on these teachings of oneness or interconnectedness? Would it change the way you vote? Would it change your relationships, your ideas about economics and conflict resolution? How would it change the policies made at a local, regional, national or global level?
If each of us were an individual wave - together making up the entire ocean, how would you differentiate one wave from the next? Without each other we cannot be ourselves.
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