I have recently been learning a lot about the principles of monism, non-dualism, and illusion.

The idea has always fascinated me, even as a child. I remember growing up, my favorite Disney song was Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas. The line in the song “we are all connected, in a circle, in a hoop that never ends,” was something I felt was, at such an early age, just the most deeply spiritual thing I had ever heard.

Sitting in Sunday school as a kid, I remember the Sunday school teacher explaining to us how we are all God’s children, and it being this wonderfully warm and fuzzy feeling.

When I was a teenager, and I first discovered some of the pagan and neopagan faiths, and learning about animism, and this idea of an eternal earth spirit that we’re all a part of it, it gave me endless joy.

Looking back, it seems my entire life has been leading, in various stages, steps, and paths, to the idea of non-dualism. The idea that not only are you one of God’s children, but that you are, in fact, a part of God. There is a wonderful quote by Alan Wilson Watts I’d like to share here:

“Jesus Christ knew he was God. So, wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). However, if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.” Alan Wilson Watts

The trouble with this idea, though, is in trying to explain it, and to understand it. Not just to those who have never encountered it before, but even to those among us who believe it themselves.

It is one thing to have a disconnected belief of it, to believe you are God in the same way that I believe the sun is the center of our solar system. I have never been to outer space, I have never observed, personally, the make up and size, and organization of our solar system. I believe the sun is at the center, because an awfully long time ago, people figured that out, and they have told me about, and made me read about it, and occasionally made me argue about it on Facebook, because this century has, thus far, been a bit of a mess. I do believe it, but I don’t *know it*

I have an intellectual, academic knowledge of it, but no personal real connection to it.

In the same way, oftentimes, when learning about such fascinating philosophical principles as non-dualism, we begin to accept them, and to believe them, but do not necessarily *know them,* if you take my meaning.

So, how can we begin to know that we are God? That everything around is God? How can we begin to really know that nothing exists that is not God, and that everything we see that suggests otherwise is an illusion?

We can think of “I.”

When I grab a bag of chips, and sit down and watch a movie, I think “I am going to watch this movie, I am going to watch Keanu reeves dodge bullets,” but what we could think, as an experiment, is “I am going to watch I, myself, in a different form, dodge bullets.”

It sounds silly, and it will feel silly. But try it. Just for a day, try to think of the actions of every other person, animal, plant, as “I.”

Try to feel what they must feel in that moment. Feel pride for their accomplishments, feel shame for their immoral behavior. Not pride that you know someone who did this thing, but the pride you would feel if you had done it. Not shame that anyone could do such a terrible thing, but shame that you have done something so horrible.

Spend one day trying to be every person you encounter. One day trying to understand the internal motivations of their decisions.

When you go to bed that night, think back on the day, think back on the millions of little decisions you made throughout the day, both as the body you currently are, and as all the others you became throughout the experiment.

Get plenty of rest, because I have one more experiment for you the next day.

Spend a day doing the opposite. Don’t try to be everyone you see, but also, do not draw into yourself. Try to spend this day thinking you are not I. You are not the body you inhabit; you are not even the mind that inhabits it. Spend this day breathing in and breathing out on autopilot, while you ponder what it truly means not to be this body, this self.

Spend the day imagining what it would be like if you were a ghost, without a body at all, watching and observing, able to move anywhere freely without having to pass through the space between, but unable to interact with the world, only observe it.

That is the condition of our soul, or atman. Trapped within us, yearning for the freedom of the infinite I, but confined within bodies that accept only a finite and tiny version of I. Trapped within creatures who have forgotten how to see the infinite, who have forgotten that their purpose is to learn and grow and explore the relationships between us.

We trap ourselves in cells, in cages, made of meat, and then we cry about our lack of freedom. We are infinite, we are unending. We are God. We have a limited understanding of what that means, but if we work towards it, we could understand it, if we tried.

Infinity is the in I of the beholder.