Inner and Outer Reflections

Everything in the universe stems from the same consciousness and so we are all one. Everything in your personal reality is a reflection of you and so you are surrounded by people, situations, and circumstances that ultimately teach you more about yourself.

These two laws: the law of oneness and the law of attraction or reflection are foundational for understanding most spiritual paradigms.

In some ways they seem contradictory, but they actually aren’t. You could use the body as a metaphor to understand this better. If you look at the body it seems as though it is composed of many different parts, but in reality, every part is made up of cells. There are different types of cells and if you were a single cell, you would likely be surrounded mostly by cells that resembled you, but all the cells started as stem cells. They all came from the same substance and all form one unit (the body).

You could also look at these two laws in terms of system. You are a single person- one unit- but you belong to many systems. You are part of a family, a culture, a society, a species, and a world. You are a human being and even though you are part of an entire world you are likely to be physically and emotionally closest to other humans.

Both of these examples are physical but the laws are actually describing energetic and spiritual principles and for this reason the examples will breakdown at a certain point.

I will try to explain them more comprehensively and individually below:

Law of Oneness

The force of existence which runs through us—the thing that animates us—runs through everything. I am tempted to call it a life force, but it runs through non-living things as well. This force could be called god or source or the universe, but it is the thing which is all things. It takes many different forms and yet the substance of it is the same.

I wish I could show the moving template that I see as I describe this. The image is of a line drawing where the line forms all kinds of shapes—flowers, buildings, kids playing; there is no break in the line and in fact the line is always in motion as if it were an escalator rotating through every image. Everything is made by that same line and there are no breaks or divisions in it, but everything made from it takes a different form.

This is the law of oneness and when you let the implications of it sink in they are profound. It means that you are the same substance as god and also of the most terrible villain you could think of. You are the same substance as the most admirable individual and as the rocks, furniture, and even trash. Understanding this brings in the understanding of both eternal worth and humility. It sounds funny that these two ideas would go together, but truly you understand what it means to both be infinitely valuable and humble when you comprehend the implications of being the same as all things.

Two other things that you learn when you grasp this are compassion and accountability. Again, they seem contradictory on the surface, but they are not. If you realize that you are part of all there is and all there is is part of you then you comprehend that the pain, disease, and lack of wellbeing in any other part is also part of you. Compassion grows from recognizing the pain of another on such a deep level that you feel it as your own, but in this realization, you also realize that if everything is part of everything then all parts must be accountable to each other. No single piece or part can be allowed to harm another without causing pain to the entire whole. You cannot cause pain to someone else without it coming back to you and they cannot cause pain to you without it coming back to them. Similarly, you cannot cause pain to yourself without it going out and impacting all of existence and you cannot cause wellbeing for yourself without it going out and impacting all of existence.

Recognizing this will reveal how the manner in which you interact with yourself also impacts the entire whole. This is where lessons about self-love and self-kindness can take on a deeper role. It is sometimes tempting to believe that depriving yourself of joy or kindness will somehow benefit the greater whole, but harming yourself brings harm to the whole. This can be taken to the opposite extreme and you can think that if you indulge yourself then you are helping the whole, but this is only true as far as your indulgence does not cause deprivation for another because each other is also part of the whole. This is where living becomes tricky, because you are not looking out only for you or only for the other parts of the all, you are looking for ways to benefit you and all others. You are looking for a way to live that is fully beneficial. This means that we are no longer playing the re-allocation game where we move resources from one place to another by depriving one group to sustain a different one, this means that we need to play a sustainability game where we find what is needed for all pieces to thrive. This is not an easy thing to apply, but it is the healthiest way to live within this state of existence. And fortunately, we live in a massively abundant world where there are enough resources for everyone if we steward them beneficially.

The Law of Attraction or Reflection

We are all made of the same energetic substance, but as conscious beings we get to choose which part of the spectrum we would like to experience most often. This is done using thought and focus to inspire action and change energy. From this law you understand that experiences within this reality are grouped based on similarity. You have the potential to take on many different energetic vibrations and have different types of experiences. The image for this is taking that line drawing from before and turning it into a three-dimensional image or map still made out of that same flowing line. Now imagine there is a highlight of yellow that appears in different locations throughout the image. Wherever the yellow highlight appears represents a focus or experience. No matter where it moves that highlight stays within the image created by the ever-moving line but depending on where it is located the view will change.

If you want to experience peaceful things you line yourself up with peaceful things. You focus on peace and create peace in your life until you become peace and then you watch peace congregate around you and spread out into all that is. You become it and then it gathers near you and then it spreads because one and all are the same.

This is a simplified understanding, partially because we can be influenced by things near us including past experiences and unconscious aspects. It is not easy for a human to become a single pure frequency and bring that frequency in automatically. It often takes significant work and learning to become closer and close to the frequency you want to bring in. It’s okay. The things you see around you reflect where you are and how you see yourself and if you learn to see them as a map they can give you some indications of things about yourself you may have overlooked and guide you forward. Think of the yellow light going through the image taking in the view it has at each point to see where it is in comparison to where it wants to end up and adjusting to those circumstance to move closer to the end point.

This part of the law tells you about the differences within the oneness and gives you the opportunity to move to different experiences. In doing so you become closer to those experiences and they become closer to you and you shape the whole as it shapes you.

Inner and Outer Reflections

All of that was just an introduction for what I really wanted this post to be about which is a statement about the way that the inner and outer parts of a self reflect each other. This means that if you want to learn about who you are, you can look out into the wider world and universe and see yourself reflected there, and that if you want to learn more about all that is you can look inside and find answers about the universe and world there. The image I get for this is a series of rings expanding around a constricted center so that it looks like an hourglass. You are the center who feels individual and the bigger world is both up above you (looking outward) and within you (looking inward). You can understand yourself by looking at others but you can also understand others by looking within.

Similarly you can change yourself by interacting with or changing your environment, but you can also change your environment by changing yourself. You are all things and all things are you and yet you can learn about different parts of all things or yourself by changing yourself or your surroundings. So you see, everything was set up to help you learn, grow and create. You look up and you see god. You look down and you see god. You look up and you see yourself. You look down and you see yourself. You look up and you see others. You look down and you see others. You change inside and you change outside. You change outside and you change within. You can change the world by changing yourself and you can change yourself by changing your point of perspective within the larger world.

This post is not practical. It would take books to break the ideas down into practical applications and even then it would not do justice for your own personal learning experience. It would actually take experiences, practice, reflection, and deep personal learning to make this practical for you. Luckily, you can make it practical and applicable for yourself by learning and experiencing and reflecting and seeking help if you need it. This post is just a starting point to think about, wrestle with, and come back to from time to time.

Most of the deepest wisdom can be found from going deep within or going so far out that you temporarily set aside your sense of self. When you find these types of wisdom you will notice that they are extraordinarily simple to describe and yet extraordinarily difficult to put into practice. It’s okay if it never comes out perfect, learn what you can, practice what you will and know that all of it makes a difference. Any progress you make is progress for all and a healthy all comes back to benefit you. So you see the workings of this system, what is inside becomes outside and what is outside gets taken in. Put your treasures inside of you and nurture them there so that they can sprout and take form outside and then replenish you internally with their external growth.

I know this was a lot, but thank you for reading and have a great day.