When we look around, we see multiplicity, diversity, and separateness. You are there. I am here. Your thoughts are yours; mine are mine. Oneness is not evident. Yet, from Edgar Cayce’s conscious connection to the Universal Consciousness, he saw and taught oneness: “The first lesson ... should be ONE - One - One - ONE; Oneness of God, oneness of man’s relations, oneness of force, oneness of time, oneness of purpose, ONENESS in every effort – Oneness - Oneness!”
For Cayce, our thoughts were not just ours! In fact, he could tell exactly what we had been thinking because our thoughts left an impression upon the Collective Consciousness to which we are all connected – whether or not we are aware of this. And he could “read” these impressions. Thoughts for him were “things.” During one of his psychic readings he had difficulty determining a person had actually done something or just thought about doing it, because thoughts made as strong an impression upon the Collective Consciousness as actions! That’s a scary thought – oops, I just made another impression upon the Collective Consciousness! Cayce encouraged us to grasp the implications of this unavoidable oneness.
Is it possible that everyone and everything is a part of some unseen Collective, some indivisible Whole within which all the multiplicity exists, and each affects the composition of this Collective? Cayce says Yes. “Not only God is God, but self is a part of that oneness.” In several readings Cayce pressed us to simply believe this and live as if it were true! In this way we would come to know that it is indeed true. “Let this, my children, be the lesson for you: The intent in relating to each and every individual should be to bring forth that best element in each, in ONENESS of purpose, in oneness of spirit, in oneness of mind, towards each and every one that you contact – for the individuals, in the final analysis, are one.” In some manner that we don’t readily perceive, all the individuals we meet and interact with each day are a projection from the singular Collective.
These are hard teachings to understand and harder to live by. We’ve all heard the admonition, “think before we speak,” but this level of oneness would suggest that we need to “think before we think!” Does thinking negative thoughts about another person actually affect that person at some unseen level? Do these negative thoughts make a recording upon a Collective Consciousness, a recording that someone like Cayce can read? Ancient Hinduism included the concept of an Akashic Record – an etheric film that records all thoughts, all words, all actions from the first OM of creation until the last OM of silence. Nothing is lost. Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is unknowable.
Cayce could give readings on the activities of celestial beings, past lives of incarnate beings, and even so-called “dead” people – who he said still live, just in another dimension beyond this one. While his body was on the couch and his conscious mind was asleep, but his deeper mind could tell us about long-forgotten events in our early childhood that subliminally affects us today. He could tell us about ancient past lives that influence our outer self’s feelings and talents in this present life. In some readings he could see a person’s house and what they were doing as the reading was about to begin, such as: “Yes, we have the red mailbox. We are entering the house. She is in the bedroom praying.”
How can this happen without some sort of connection beyond time and space. How can distances be of no matter when contacting someone else’s mind?
In the 1960s and ‘70s, when meditation was taking hold in this country, meditators began to speak of experiencing a sense of oneness when they reached deeper levels in their meditations. When questioned about this, all they could say was that at some moment in their meditation all life seemed connected. But the gap between this inner meditative feeling and our outer sensory perception is a chasm! There is simply no outer sensory corroboration for such. Oneness is an inner perception that defies outer evidence. Apparently, oneness has to be experienced firsthand in order to overcome all the outer contradictions to its existence. And short of rare miraculous epiphanies, meditation appears to be one of the best way to perceive the unseen oneness. Even Jesus had trouble making the oneness argument with his disciple Philip at the Last Supper; finally conceding that if he could not believe Jesus’ oneness with the Heavenly Father, then let the outer miracles act as evidence of this oneness with God.
But let’s press this oneness idea a little further. How can selfish or evil people still be in oneness with the Collective? And if they are, simply because there is no way to be outside of the Whole, then why are they allowed to do so much harm to others? In a very complex discussion between one of the greatest questioners of Edgar Cayce, Morton Blumenthal. Since the discussion is so complex, I’ll paraphrase here:
Mort’s Dream: “On Oct. 15, Thursday, at home I had this dream: It seemed my mother and I were in a hotel where many people were passing by. Then there was a typewriter with a sheet of blank paper in it, waiting to be used by one of the many applicants for the position of stenographer. The typewriter also seemed to be waiting for my more perfect understanding of something else - some final thing - the first 3 principles of which I had two. In the midst of all of this, a voice said: ‘ALL of these are GOD!’”
Cayce’s reply: “This dream is presenting to the entity the oneness of purpose, of intent, of the WHOLE BEING AS ONE. For ALL is of God, see? And as the entity gains knowledge from living the various phases of oneness, he gains that first principle of which the other two he already has. That first principle is this: God is in you manifesting to other individuals through every animated situation that is presented in a physical world. For, every force which may not be separated or produced by man is of God and of the Universal Forces. These are the three forces in man: (1) Spiritual - of God; (2) Cosmic - the forces made by man; and (3) Subconscious - the force that bridges the Spiritual and the Cosmic, connecting the spiritual with the cosmic.”
Mort: “It seems to me that this dream imagery tries again and again to drive home to my dense physical mind that God is One....”
Cayce: (Interrupting) “Correct.”
Mort: “God is all of these people passing in the hotel and all of the applicants for the stenographer job....”
Cayce: (Interrupting) “Correct.”
Mort: “All these people are animated forms of God. Also, God is all of these consciousnesses....”
Cayce: (Interrupting) “Except that God is not the cosmic forces made by free-will man. These are not related to spiritual forces. These are earth made.
In many of his readings Cayce explained that evil is man’s misuse of the gift of free will. The Creator allows this because free will is the only way for any soul to reach its original purpose for existence: to know itself to be itself yet choose to be one with the Whole, with the Creator and the creation. If free will is taken away, then the soul no longer has the freedom to choose to become an eternal companion with the Creator. As the theological concept goes, man was made a little less than the angels but with the potential to judge even the angels. This is why souls misusing free will are allowed more time to discover their true purpose, even if they do harm along the way. Eventually, as recorded in the Bible’s Revelation, God will stop time, separate misusers from those who have tried to fulfill their purpose. God will then “wipe the tears from everyone’s eyes” and set up “a new heaven and a new earth” for the companionable souls to enjoy with God. The Revelation says this Golden Age will last a thousand years. Cayce then tells us to put it in our hearts and minds to be a part of that Golden Age.
