The thought occurred like the proverbial light bulb in a comic panel, thanks to a line in Jon Cleary’s “The Easy Sin.” In 2001, his protagonist Scobie Malone, a homicide detective in Sydney, reflects as he walks down a street filled with cellphone-using pedestrians: “Nobody, it seemed, could remain unconnected to someone, anyone, for longer than five minutes.”
I had noticed this phenomenon as well, in the London of mid-2002 upon emerging in the West after almost four years spent mostly in a small village in India.
Although I didn’t feel culture-shocked going in either direction, I had to admit to being astonished at this particular trend. What was the need driving this obsession to be continuously plugged-in in this way?
I casually dismissed it as a sign of the times: new technology, new product, hype-to-the-hilt and everybody’s gotta have it—a keeping-up-with-the-Jonesing for the latest toy, using it simply because one can—and marked it down as 21st century hyperkinetic Attention Deficit Disorder acting out
But at the moment of reading “Nobody…could remain unconnected to someone, anyone…” (emphasis mine) the realization burst into my mind like a shooting star: what might appear to be a lack of the ability to be, or to be present, or to be quiescent—all of which may still be true—might even more fundamentally be the expression of a deep-seated need to be connected, to feel as if we are related in a meaningful way—not just by the accident of birth and blood, or proximity—but a fundamental and significant connection as important as Life Itself. That this phenomenon, which I had so superficially condemned as a lack of Awareness, might actually be a sign and symptom of a unifying facet of the evolutionary process which is inexorably revealing the fact of our Oneness—and perhaps even a precursor of the inevitable telepathic ability that will arise as Consciousness evolves further .
Look at it: the need to feel connected must primarily arise from our initial separation: the cutting of the cord. That moment of physical detachment creates a need in us for re-union that leads to the frantic coupling generally culminating in marriage which we believe will provide the ultimate wholeness, but which usually just results in further frustration and dissatisfaction. Then the maddening search for completeness begins again, leading through a quagmire of worldly obsessions.
Now in the 21st Century, the sense of isolation has developed exponentially, as we have increasingly acquired the wherewithal to entertain ourselves without need for physical proximity: radio, television, video/games, computers, and email—everything can be contained in a single room if necessary and we don’t ever have to leave our home.
And even more, in a niggling, subconscious way, we feel profoundly alienated in a world that tells us we have to live life in the most superficial way—a way that is essentially contrary to our deepest Nature. Our deepest Nature, which is already connected, is not at all concerned with how we look, what we possess, or the accoutrements of ‘being cool.’ Indeed, our deepest Nature would laugh indulgently at a need to ‘be cool’ the way an adult would laugh at a child playing grown-up.
Our deepest Nature knows that we are connected in the ultimate way—that each apparent individual is part of a singular Consciousness in the same way that individual cells are part of a single organism—and has been attempting to get our attention and awaken us to this fact: We are One. One spiritual essence permeates All That Is, and we are a part of That.
Just imagine everyone in the world on a conference call at the same time. On a subtle level, this is the reality: we are all plugged in to Universal Mind—which is the ‘brain’ of our organism, the place ideas come from, and why we can experience a discomfort that is not personal but transmitted by another ‘cell’ or group of cells that is suffering.
In fact, cancer and AIDS in individuals are symptoms of the disorder affecting human life on the planet as a whole: in the same way that cancerous cells destroy healthy ones, some of us are destroying each other; and Auto-immune Deficiency is self-explanatory.
Could it be more obvious that we need to create harmony in our selves and in our world?
We are One and not only that, we are the same in the most elementary ways:
So the next time you pull out your cellphone just to connect, stop and make the connection within. Take a breath, feel your heart beating, experience the essence of Life Itself moving in you and sustaining you. Realize that that same Life is moving in and sustaining all of us, and in the most subtle and profound of ways we are more than connected: We are One.
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