Are we really separate from others?

No one is an island, entire of itself; everyone is a piece of Continent,
a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is
the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor or thy
friends or of thine own were; any person's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Humankind.   -John Donne


We like to think of ourselves as islands, don't we?  We like to consider ourselves as unique, separate entities that really don't have any connection to our fellow human beings unless we decide to forge such a connection by talking to them, caring for them, being with them.  But we're way off base when we look at our realities this way, and we only have to look at the amazing amount of discord and stress and conflict in our world today to realize that we are causing this discord with our unfortunate tendency to consider ourselves as separate from everyone else.

We think it makes life easier for us if we maintain separation from others.  After all, we don't want to deal with everyone else's drama and problems and issues, and when someone starts getting annoying, it's easy to just cut off contact with that person.  But do we ever consider the possibility that so many people have issues and problems because of the ways that we separate ourselves from others?  Do we ever stop to think that perhaps acknowledging our oneness and our unity could be an important step towards healing many, many people of fear and anxiety that result from feelings of separation and isolation and aloneness?  Many or the current issues facing human beings are actually caused by our insistence on seeing ourselves as individuals rather than acknowledging our place as a part of the whole.

It's often difficult to focus on oneness and unity when so few others are doing so.  But it's not impossible.  We simply need to be willing to take a risk and love and care for others who may seem unlovable or unpleasant.  Loving them doesn't mean that we have to care for them as we care for a spouse or a child, but it does mean acknowledging their existence as human beings who are part of the same whole that we are--the human species, which is on this planet to live together and to share love, but which is actually living separately and refusing to share love with anyone other than their closest companions.

We are all part of one.  Why must we look at ourselves as separate when we are actually a whole, albeit a non-unified whole?