Unlike personal insight, mystical insight is not based on thoughts, emotions, perceptions or learning. It is not based on what you become in time. It is based on what is sensed, what is understood, though not by the five senses. The five senses give us knowledge and understanding of the manifest world, but never mystical insight. Mystical insight does not come by way of the five senses. It is knowledge of the unknown and unseen, not the black and white world of distinctions and concepts.

The problem comes because our distinctions, conclusions and concepts about "The Unknown", which is not at all black and white, are black and white. We project the known onto the ever-new and "knowledge of the unknown" is born. I know x is all it takes to be separate again.

As much as we'd like to, we cannot come together in knowledge, neither instinctive, nor accumulative. The formulation of ideas about what we know, forever creates contrast. The only way to come together is to be without the known. The absence of the known is the new.

Knowledge has a purpose, both instinctive and accumulative, but in knowledge, we never meet. Knowledge is useful but never helpful for overcoming separateness. I know x is all it takes to be separate again. The paradox is that the knowledge we acquire about reality turns everything into objects. Therein lies the separation.

The basis of individuality is not the basis of oneness. The basis of oneness is a different foundation. It is not like the basis of friendship or partnership. It is not like-mindedness, common interests, shared ideas or a personal connection. The basis of oneness is the reality of oneness itself.

You may enjoy a special connection to some, but you are one with all.

The Mistake

To be without the known does not imply that we have gotten rid of some capacity, but rather that we have gained a capacity. We have gained a capacity for fresh seeing. We have not lost access to a personal perspective, we have gained access to a universal perspective. We have gained a capacity to perceive from a vantage point which is Being itself.

To collapse one into the other, the individual into the universal or the universal into the individual is the mistake. To reduce all of life to one or the other is the error. The charge to be "innocent as doves but cunning as serpents" is true to the paradox. For there to be wholeness, ample space must be given to innocence, instinct, intellect and intuition.

Exclusion is suffering. To exclude, you have to deny some aspect of what is. If we begin with what is verifiable, this is a good start. To begin, the obvious is as good a place as any. Rather than start with some belief, we would do well to begin with what is obvious.

In the east, there is a deeply rooted prejudice that there is not room in the house for two "I"s. This is poetically expressed by Rumi? In the west, you have to lose your life to keep it. This is expressed by Jesus. Well, what do you think? How do you feel about it? Is there room for you and oneness or is there just room for oneness?