Hrvoje Butkovic

That's fine. It's all about me anyway.

wordy

I side with David B.
Scientific research shows that altruistic punishment has emerged to combat cheaters. What "The Oneness" buddhists and other believers talks about seems to fail to recognize physical and social reality as it is. The physical source may be one on the subatomic level but socially as individuals we are not one with the others even in tight communities. Humans are hierarchical as animals and keep track on each other on which level we are in the pecking order. Such tracking and keeping inner record of one's place in that order might be unconscious by automatic pilot and could be hidden even from inner introspection.

Your body might know your place in the hierarchy but your conscious recollection could be in delusion on how popular and respected you actually are. And it is rather hard to know this too without direct challenging the order by disobeying it. If you ask people to tell you they would not tell you cause they also use their auto pilot to do the tracking and could only guess and could have same delusion on it's structure.

Bullying often give a clue on your level. If very few or none defend you and if the bullies goes without punishment you get hard evidence on your low status.

Hrvoje Butkovic

The thrust of your argument seems to be that modern social structures accurately reflect human nature. This may be the case, but I don’t think that the conclusion follows automatically. Communities that are not hierarchical in structure have existed and flourished throughout human history. They have their disadvantages (inability to repel external aggression being historically prominent), but they shouldn’t be discounted out of hand.

I’m much happier treating other people as my equals than deferring to my supposed superiors and bossing around my supposed subordinates. I find it difficult to relate to concepts like popularity and social status. Going on the premise that my feelings betray my true nature, experimenting with oneness seems to be a step in the right direction.

Leonard

Hrvoje, I must say that I sympathise with you. But I feel I also must say that what you are describing is a reflection or a result of your temperament: that´s the kind of person you are! That´s the way you want to act because it is how you think you´ll get the best results. It is part of your social strategy. If it is genuine, it may be the only strategy that will truly work for you.

But I think that it should not be confused with the concept of oneness. Oneness is a fact of life, and it is part of the framework within which we live. However, oneness is not solidarity and it is neither "good" nor "bad" -- these are concepts that we use as social animals, in a social environment and for the good of our own interests and and those of our own species.

Life does not expect us to realize oneness, so to speak. But I believe that if we do, we may gain equanimity and peace and we may have a better life.

Hrvoje Butkovic

I think that this summarises my position quite effectively. If oneness is a fact, then social behaviour that is consistent with it should give the best results. It is probably worth saying that this is where my temperament is now, having undergone a fair amount of shifting in recent years.

aupmanyav

You took words out of my mouth, oneness is a fact, whether people understand it or not. But then again, social behaviour consistent with it may not give the best results. People modify their behaviour depending on that. Saints and other great people do not modify their behaviour on it. That is knowing the oneness and incorporating it in their life (In Sanskit and Hindi we have a word 'Atmasaat', to make it one with one's life). For example, a saint saw a lion eating a cow, he offered himself to be eaten, if the lion would leave the cow. The saint was on some errand, he promised to come back to the lion as soon as he could finish the work. And that is what he did.

premjan

Oneness leads to the common paradoxes of whether you ought to run if you were threatened by an elephant - if the elephant and you are one, ought you to be afraid? Perhaps it requires a rational rather than an emotional response.

Radical oneness as in Islam also can lead to a jettisoning of commonsense morality. For instance if a woman is raped, you could see it as natural - an expression of the laws of nature where men want to impregnate as many women as they can. Hence the right thing to do is not punish the rapist. A bit absurd perhaps by our standards.

So oneness can be a valid perception but should not be an agenda. This is part of the philosophy of qualified oneness (vishishta advaita) in Hinduism.

Philippe*

One could add that in Vedanta and Yoga, the realization of Oneness is something deeply spiritual not a plain mental realization. It doesn't imply an enlargement of the ego in the sense of the consciousness in self-contemplation but the erasure of the ego. The Oneness doesn't exclude the diversity.

Philippe

Hrvoje Butkovic

Something else that I've noticed is that approaching life from the perspective of oneness makes the Golden Rule more meaningful and easier to apply.

aupmanyav

Oneness need not make you blind to the rushing elephant. You may understand it but the elephant does not. True, oneness can make life sweeter.