For some time now, I’ve expressed the sense that I have had, that something happens sometimes in a TORI* gathering (as well as in other gatherings) that seems important in a much larger way than the experience of sentiment or affection or friendship or any other ordinary term about relationships. Lacking a vocabulary to describe that something, I (tongue in cheek) called it "magic."
Our vocabularies, of course, are our means of thinking, as well as of describing. I used "magic" because "everybody who knows me would realize that I didn’t really mean magic, for there is no such thing." The word I avoided, it’s clear to me now, was "spiritual." I didn’t really believe that there was such a thing as spiritual, either. It was simply a term to refer to (as distinct from "describe") anything outside our understanding of the real world. Perhaps it still is, but I’m not as hung up on being concrete and "realistic" as I was. I’ll admit to still having a fear of being identified with all those vague and imaginative "philosophies" collectively known today as "New Age."
On the other hand, what I’m getting a glimpse of today is that what I could only call "magic" then is a Reality that is not as inaccessible as I thought. Thanks to Ken Wilber, mainly. What he shows me is that a lot of philosophical and religious ideas that have been expressed over the past two or three thousand years have a common ground of experience, however diverse their vocabularies. They say, simply, that there are levels of consciousness beyond symbolic "thinking" that are not describable in words. And that these levels of consciousness can provide us with understanding that transcends the usual literal, reasonable, rational, analytical "understandings" that I used to be convinced were ultimately—well, ultimate.
Wilber also says that most people on occasion experience insights into these higher levels of consciousness. "Epiphany" is one word used, especially in Christian writings, to describe such insights. And what these insights suggest to us is that there is a Connection among us; indeed, among all things, that we usually tend to ignore. All of the major religions of the world acknowledge and pay lip service to (at least) a higher level of knowing and a discipline for getting there, called "mysticism." Almost universally, the experience is one of all boundaries, all limitations, all distinctions, falling away.
And that Connection—that Relatedness—is, I’m coming to realize, the "magic" of community. The coming together of a group of people in an awareness of their "oneness" is beyond the descriptive reach of mere language. "True community" is how Scott Peck refers to it. Jack Gibb points to the psychological and sociological components: trusting, opening, realizing and interdepending. It has to be experienced in order to truly know it.
The fact that it happens only sometimes, and only to some people even then, means that is not an inevitable experience. But for those who have experienced it, it is profound and unforgettable. I’ve heard people insist that it’s "like falling in love." Indeed, it might be an incidence of exactly the same phenomenon. Falling in love could very well be something more than "infatuation," with all the implications of that term.
*TORI (the acronym)
Being aware (on more than an intellectual level) of the Connection (the "Oneness") between us, we are naturally Trusting. If I am you and you are me, trust between us is effortless.
Being Open to you—in both directions—makes perfect sense if we are, at some level, One. To hide from you, or to close off to you is a symptom of illness, exactly as it is for me to hide some part of me from myself.
Realizing—in the sense of "making real"—is manifesting the truth that underlies appearances. In true community, each member is dedicated to expressing their deepest self, and to facilitating that process in the others.
Interdepending is both an acknowledging and a manifesting of that very oneness. There is no "they" in true community, only a "we." And, in reality, only an "I."
This is not the way our society usually works. Our economy depends upon competition for scarce resources. The illusion that if we all work harder at "getting ours" the world will somehow eventually support us all at the economic standard of living we strive for is a deception by those who want more than anybody else, who see us as "them," useful to their individual purposes. It’s difficult to keep the awareness of the ultimate oneness of the universe when others insist upon not only the fragmentation of humanity, but the threat of the "Other" and the danger of vulnerability. The walls we usually build between us and them are encouraged and reinforced by the manipulations of the marketplace. "King of the Mountain" is not only a child’s game.
It’s no wonder that the individual’s insight of Community is so rare. That doesn’t make it any less important. On the contrary.
December 28, 1998
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