Threads of Awakening:
A MULTIDIMENSIONAL Map of the Spiritual Journey
By Pierce Salguero
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THE ONENESS THREAD

The emptiness thread is prioritized in many spiritual communities. In particular, Asian traditions often enshrine perceiving the illusory nature of the self and phenomena as the sine qua non of awakening. In other words, they feel that if you have not deepened to the far end of the emptiness thread, then you are by definition not awakened. However, most spiritual seekers in the modern West use the word awakening differently. It usually refers to a wide range of spiritual experiences that reveal profound insights about the self and the world, and that lead to a permanent change in identity or life purpose.

If we use this broader definition of awakening, I can say that in my experience, the vast majority of people undergoing an awakening process experience a range of phenomena and insights that are not limited to just emptiness. While the first thread might possibly be a mandatory component of awakening, it is not the only component, and it’s sometimes not even the most salient or significant one. There are other kinds of experiences that can, for many people, be just as important.

The oneness thread is a case in point. This thread is among the most common for people to experience. However, it is not universal: it is entirely possible to go through the complete awakening process without the oneness thread ever being very active. Or, it is entirely possible to experience epiphenomena of this type that don’t amount to a thread because they have no trajectory of development. That being said, if oneness emerges as a proper thread, there will be a trajectory toward an ending point where this thread becomes the whole of existence, just like in the previous chapter. 

You can think of this thread as including the whole gamut of spiritual, mystical, and religious experiences relating to intimacy, connection, and unity. These include feelings of love, such as being loved, being held, being protected, being supported, being cared for; and also feelings such as extending love, protection, and support to others. Others will describe their experience more in terms of being connected with divinity, sacredness, holiness, mystery, benevolence, or healing; or with a god, goddess, angelic beings; or with a benevolent universe or cosmic intelligence; or with the highest good imaginable; or the totality of the cosmos. Like with all the threads, many people will find these experiences impossible to explain or to put into words.

The specific language people use to talk about this thread and its implications will depend on their backgrounds, beliefs, and practice communities. This thread is prioritized in Christian mysticism, Sufism, Mahayana Buddhism, devotion-based Hinduism, and goddess traditions worldwide, among others. Each of these traditions holds up different ideals or paragons, including the mystic, the bodhisattva, and the bhakta or Hindu saint. When speaking of this thread, a given person might speak of God, Goddess, Christ Consciousness, Guan Yin, the Buddha, or any number of other specific names for deities or higher beings. Or they might use more secular terms like the interconnected nature of the universe, the evolutionary quality of the cosmos, or the noosphere that encompasses all of humanity. Of course, the thread can also open up spontaneously for people with no religious or spiritual context, and they may choose entirely different language to use. 

Whatever we call it — and we might change what we say and how we understand it as we deepen into it — when this thread first opens, it often arrives in the form of a clear, obvious, tangible experience. This may involve strong emotional states such as universal compassion, motherly love, or divine presence. Or distinct body sensations such as bliss, warmth, or tenderness. Or a visual or auditory experience, such as seeing a vision or hearing the voice of Jesus or Ramana Maharshi calling to you. Or, a more nebulous intimacy that you can’t really put your finger on but is still undeniable.

It’s also possible that the experiences associated with this thread will be subtler than all of that. Someone may, for example, feel a diffuse and general sense of connectedness or intimacy or unification with all things. Or, perhaps, a quiet sense that everything is sacred or holy or benevolent. Rather than a big flamboyant vision of the Virgin Mary radiating love, for example, you might just have a quiet sense that her divine presence is always in the background. 

As with all threads, the initial opening to oneness may come as a surprise from out of the blue, or it can appear gradually and thus feel less dramatic. Either way, the opening of the thread is usually experienced as a personalized event. By this, I mean that the experience — whatever it is — will be something that happened “to me.” Some common expressions of this type of experience may include:

  • I felt the presence of a loving angelic being beside me, and knew that no matter what, everything was going to be OK. 
  • I saw that the universe is a field of love, and for the first time I understood why I was put on the Earth.
  • I felt a tremendous upwelling of compassion building up in my chest, and then it burst out of me like an ocean of care flowing to all beings.
  • I felt myself to be small and insignificant in the presence of an unspeakably holy and powerful consciousness.

Many people who undergo a strong mystical, spiritual, or religious experience go on to develop an ontological view about what it means. After the opening of the oneness thread, it’s possible that someone’s belief in God will be confirmed, or perhaps their previous agnosticism will capitulate to a new found faith. All of these are natural reactions as the mind attempts to grapple with this new data, understanding how to fit it into one’s worldview or mental landscape. 

If the heart/love/divinity type of experience is a true thread and not just an epiphenomenon, your life will over time come to be transformed in light of what you have discovered. The thread will deepen. And as it does, the baseline of your experience of the thread will move from the more localized or specific to increasingly more general and universal. Practices that can be used to deepen into this thread include traditional structured techniques of meditation, prayer, mantras, chanting, visualization, and so forth. Some common examples from Asian traditions that I discuss in A Lamp Unto Yourself include metta bhavana, tonglen, guru yoga, offering rituals, and surrendering practice. There are many other examples from Western traditions that I am less familiar with personally, but that I’m sure can be just as effective. Of course, you might also use less formalized methods like simply sinking into a feeling of love or warmth and relishing that sensation. Or, these kinds of experiences can just arise spontaneously without any kind of practice or priming. 

Again, an effective way of accelerating the deepening of this thread is to focus on some version of its central guiding question. For me, that would be something like: 

What still seems to be separate from this love/divinity/unity that I am experiencing — and is it really that way?

You might apply this inquiry to specific objects, directly evaluating whether or not they are included in the love or divinity. For example, if it’s easy enough to experience ultimate compassion for loved ones or even for “all beings,” then how about for a specific enemy? How about for an abuser? How about for your wounded inner child or your deepest fear? Whatever it is, when you find something that is not included in the field of love, divinity, or sacredness, apply the practices you are using and see if it’s really true that this object remains in opposition or separate from the field. 

In time, as this thread deepens, more and more of reality becomes infused with, enfolded into, or synonymous with love, divinity, sacredness, holiness, or God. The realization may arise that everything has been designed or preordained, or is manifesting in a way that is utterly perfect. You may discover a kind of non-resistance where you can trust in the benevolent nature of the universe and can give up the need to control or question reality. 

At a certain point, this thread eventually also becomes nondual, meaning that it will overcome the separation of subject/object or self/world or consciousness/phenomena. This will happen when you perceive that there’s a subtle sense of self, a “you” of some kind, that is experiencing or witnessing or aware of the love or the divinity that is arising. It’s as if you were here doing the seeing or feeling, and the love or divinity is over there being seen or felt. It’s as if you are some kind of observer, or consciousness, or awareness that is still separate from the field. Asking if that’s really true will likely dissolve this final barrier as well. Suddenly or gradually, you will come to see that there is absolutely nothing in the universe that is separate from the love/divinity, including anything that you could possibly call yourself. In other words, whatever you were calling “you” dissolves into the love. You are the divine. You are God. You are the Goddess.

At the very bottom of the thread, even this identification of “you are” is seen as a separation. It becomes too much to even say I am the love because it posits two things, me and the love that simply can’t be separated. The identification that’s inherent in the “I am” part of that sentence drops away and the “I” totally surrenders. It is dissolved into the totality, leaving only love, only divinity, only God, only Goddess. There is nothing that is separate, nothing that is left out of this total unification.

From this thread’s perspective, the tremendous value of this realization is obvious. There is no higher truth than the realization that nothing in the entire universe is separate and that it is all one love/divinity. The whole purpose of spirituality is to release all beings from the suffering of separation into this loving wholeness.