April 11, 2011

Wow! I guess we’ve got it wound pretty tight down here on Earth. It’s lonely and bad being one, and only a step above that being two. When does the joy of being one, or even one with another one, begin to kick in? How many ones does it take before it becomes good,meaning not lonely?

Don’t get me wrong here. I am not bashing Harry Nilsson. To the contrary, as a songwriter, he is one of the all-time greats. I like the guy, truly! A handful of his songs are, to my mind, among the greatest songs ever written, including “One,” which I am quite sure I will continue to enjoy singing along with every time I hear it. But, Harry, after all this time, I do have to take issue with how you are viewing the idea of One. Because, it seems to me your lyrics may have inadvertently contributed to some measure of the human suffering we’ve experienced in the last 40+ years or so.

Understand Harry, I’m not attempting to lay a guilt trip on you or anything. Besides, it wouldn’t do any good anyway, since you have already made your transition from this world and are not here to debate the issue with me. By now, in your ethereal formlessness, you already know the spiritual Truth of One, that you are spirit first and inextricably part of everything, and can never in Truth, contrary to the import of your hit lyric, be alone or lonely. So, knowing what you know now, Harry, do you still believe one is the loneliest number?

Because, I gotta tell you. I’m not buying the idea any more, even though I still love your song. Unlike you, Harry, I have not yet shed my spaceman skin suit. So, for all intents and purposes, I am still in a body that appears separate from everything else I can see. Even so, I am beginning to see that the idea of separation is not only not true now, it never has been! Everything is a part of the one “master” One where an idea of separation and loneliness have absolutely no meaning. In this reality, One is the holiest number!

In truth, it is not only the holiest number, it is the only number.

Well, at least the only number in Supreme Reality that has any real meaning. This master One can never be lonely, for it includes, everything and everyone in its Reality. There is no separation, no loss, no exclusions. It is indivisible. I am a part of it. You are a part of it. Everyone else is too. There has never been, nor can there ever be, even an instant where this will not be the Reality.

Of course, to believe the truth this implies, we have to be willing to go beyond the physical appearance, beyond the belief in the body as the primary Reality. Only bodies can suffer, or in Nilsson’s lyrical parlance, be lonely! So, where does this leave us? It leaves us begging the same question virtually every other issue in life begs us to answer: do you believe in a reality of separation and duality, or a Reality of Oneness?

In her classic metaphysical book, Lessons In Truth, metaphysical and New Thought writer H. Emilie Cady writes: “Every man believes himself to be in bondage to the flesh and to the things of the flesh. All suffering is the result of this belief.”

So, if being alone as “one” is perceived as the “loneliest” experience, and being lonely is expected to feel like suffering, then guess what? You will feel the experience of suffering. However, it does not mean that you are in your spiritual Reality suffering, just in your bodily, or human experience.

Once again, the investigation leads right back to the same consideration as stated above at the outset. Are we humans having a spiritual experience? Or spirits having a human experience? One of the true spiritual conundrums, but one we must decide upon and then live by as if your life depended on it. 

In Truth, your spiritual self’s life is eternal, so your soul’s life doesn’t really depend on which you choose. However, the quality of your experience in your body absolutely depends on your answer.

Like me, you are free to choose which you believe in. In truth, we do so choose in every single instant of our lives whether we are consciously aware of it or not. Usually, if we are choosing unconsciously, we identify with the body, and so Nilsson’s song could be seen as an invitation to open a bottle of wine, and attempt to drown our loneliness into submission, to dull the pain of suffering that loneliness brings.

However, if we are conscious of our spiritual Reality, our Divine Truth, then we know we are never alone, can never be and in truth never have been. We are part of the One that has been One since the beginning, as it shall be until the end.

That One, can never be lonely. It can only be wholly holy!

Stay Tuned In…