I speak often of how all ideas we hold of separation, of “otherness” between souls, are illusions cast on us by our current incarnation. So, I wanted to explore this concept more deeply.

I LOVE the short story The Egg by Andy Weir in which a nameless character “you” meets a universal being “I” to find out that he (in the story, the you character has just been a human male) is a fledgling version of that supreme being. We quickly learn the I character created the universe as we know it for the sole purpose of bringing the fledgling being into maturity, and for a moment outside of time, between incarnations, the you character finds out he will live the lives of every man and woman who ever have, and ever will, live on planet Earth (and perhaps beyond… I believe the story leaves open to interpretation whether there will be additional lives in other places).

I strongly encourage you to read the story, because it paints the picture in a way our human minds can understand it of how our souls really are one. I’m not endorsing the story as absolute truth, and I suggest none of us get too hung up on the particulars. It illustrates the truth without necessarily being the truth. I don’t claim to know the particulars and I bet Andy Weir wouldn’t claim that either. He’s simply providing a beautiful parable from which we can learn.

We live differently when we remember that our fellow souls are actually fellow drops of the same divine substance placed in different incarnate bodies. Another swoop of the metaphoric glass and part of our animating substance would’ve been scooped up with part of theirs and poured into a different incarnate vessel. Perhaps we do reincarnate, and this mixing will actually happen. More likely, this is an extremely limited view of how it all really works, but it’s about the best we can do with our limited human brains.

Ultimate love, ultimate creativity, this is where our souls come from and where they return to. Our time spent incarnate enriches the overall experience of the collective, and that collective – that ultimate source of love/creativity – CRAVES incarnate experience. This is why the only improper way to live is in the pursuit of injuring yourself or your “fellow selves.” As long as we’re pursuing love and enlightenment, we cannot live improperly, because we are here for the purpose of experience, the dip of the finger into the glass as Weir put it.

In this knowledge, recognize your fellow souls as who and what they are, not “others,” but rather pieces/drops/shards of the expansive and everlasting whole, just as you are. To injure them is to injure ourselves and to injure ourselves is to injure them. Injure no one. Pursue truth. Join with the collective often to remember the truth through meditation. It really is this simple.