Despite what you believe, you are independent of no thing. Wherever you are, in any given moment, you are one with all of your surroundings and all that occurs within it. That which is inside cannot be independent of that which contains it—or rather, whatever we perceive as “inside” is entirely reliant upon its “outside" environment. The two seemingly separate parts, the inside and the outside, are in fact inseparable—together they form one. This is the natural reality of all things—no thing can be expressly considered without its surroundings.
All things are as they are because of the environment which conditions them.
Therefore, the apparent duality of things, such as the belief that the inside has nothing to do with the outside, is a false perception created by mind. It does not reflect the truth of reality. This duality in our moment-to-moment belief is what separates us from seeing truth in all of the things we experience. Because of this, everything we perceive is poisoned by delusion. You are not separate from your environment, you are one with it. The unity of all things doesn’t simply end within the limits of your perception—every inside is also an outside to a deeper-yet inside, and every outside is the inside to an even greater outside. The truth of reality is no different than an infinite set of Russian nesting dolls that are stacked one within another, where each seemingly separate doll is contained within the next.
Reality contains all that is—it is non-dual, it is at odds with no thing, as no thing can ever stand apart from it.
Reality is inclusive of everything, as are you. You are not separate from your environment—you are one with it. You are not separate from the food you eat—you are one with it. You are not separate from the stranger in the market—you are one with her. You are not separate from the argument you have someone, you are one with them and with it. You are not separate from the goods you consume—you are one with them and everything that caused it to be whatever it has become. Neither are you are you separate from the tragedies that occur on the other side of the world—you are one with them too.
All things are conditioned by all things. No thing is independent of anything else—including you.
The idea that our personal “self” is somehow independent of all the things that surround us is one of the greatest illusions that our mind plays on us, and because of this delusion, we believe we are the central character of our reality, that we are the subject which all things happen to, rather than together with. But reality is not “ours” to claim. Reality is not divided into billions of separate pieces—it is one. It is unified by all combined experiences.
Our awareness (our True Self) cannot be independent from that which we experience.
Together, our senses and the things they perceive, form the two sides of the same coin—we call this experience—and the two seemingly separate sides are entirely inseparable. The perception of a duality between us and the rest of the world is the root of our false sense of a separate self, which then becomes the petri dish from which all of our “personal” problems are born from—from the egoic state of mind that believes it is independent of all other things. It is because of this egoism that we take everything personally, and because of it, we cause ourselves to needlessly suffer. When we identify ourself as being separate from everything else, we isolate ourself in a conceptual misunderstanding whose only by-product is emotional discontent with the reality we perceive. In truth, we cannot divest ourselves from any experience we perceive. We are not a mere witness to our experiences, we are one with them.
The truth is non-dual. Every inside is reliant upon its outside.
You can only isolate yourself from your surroundings mentally, but in reality, no separation exists. So why not live in a world of truth instead? By believing you are independent of all things, you only victimize yourself into living a life of harmful delusion and lies. by Brian Thompson
