Originally posted by yic17
Yes, I have heard that before. But how can I know that we are ONE?
That's a little easier than the question in the OP, but still a little tricky to explain. I've got two approaches for you to consider...
First is the linguistic approach based on the word "universe," which I do not however think is just a matter of semantics. It's a
commonly-accepted word that basically refers to everything that people are aware of. However, you'll notice it's singular, not plural. So
everything that people are aware of, has already been given a name and a conception as a singular entity, ie something that is
one thing. If
you are comfortable imagining a universe that altogether is 1 thing and yet consists of everything, then by this reasoning you are already implying
that everything is part of 1 thing, and in that sense "all is one," ie "all is the universe."
The second approach you can consider is, where do you end, and your environment begins? If you try to pick this apart, you might realize that
"you" and "your environment" don't really have a clear dividing line, and really it's all just different forms of energy, more like a gradient
that fades to infinity than having any discrete borders. You could say your body ends with your skin but that's not really true when you consider
the energy fields that also make you alive, and in many ways are more vital than your skin, such as your EM energy field that makes your heart pump.
There are also parts of your body that you may be totally unaware of, while simultaneously being aware of something that's happening on the other
side of the world by some means of communication/sensory input. The relation between you and your environment is a vital one that also tends to
illustrate that there is a unity going on that transcends either of the individual components.
Why does consciousness make it so that many people don't know that they are connected?
My impression of this is because many things would not be possible if things were otherwise, and creation is all about new experiences.