We are often told that everything is one. That everything is a unity.
As the ancient mystic Rumi said, "You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the whole ocean in a drop."
What does it mean? Can it be understood? The answer is yes.
It's a matter of perspective.
What is it that says I am me and you are you? That we are separated from each other? Think about it. What establishes that this is the case?
The answer to the question is that I myself make that distinction. It is my thoughts that state this. These thoughts and this perception are based on the thought construction of the "I". The self is the core of our perception of reality and we cannot see beyond it.
Our body works like a camera and takes pictures of everything in the world. If two people look at an apple, each person will have their own image of the apple in their mind. No one but the person in question can see their apple. We therefore do not see the world in itself, but only our own image of it. Thus, we live in an image world where the self is central.
In our visual world there is an enormous mass of thought and emotion. We think approximately 60,000 thoughts daily. We experience stress, worry, anger, anxiety, etc. In this confusion, in these thoughts and feelings, we judge and discern what is good and bad, right and wrong, good and bad. This makes clear the separation between myself, other people and the world around.
What if you were to erase this "I"? What would happen to the perspective?
We can get an idea if we think in the following way: Imagine that you disappear from the room in which you are sitting. Now there is only the empty room without yourself in it. Now imagine that the entire house in which the room is located disappears. Now only an empty plot of land remains where the house stood. Now imagine the entire planet earth disappearing. All that remains is a void, around which satellites and the moon orbit. Now we imagine that everything in the entire universe disappears, from the smallest dust particle to the largest galaxy. All that remains is an infinite void. Our perspective has now become this void. In this void everything exists; imagine that all the galaxies, stars, planets, moons and earth come from this void. Your mind perception is now the whole world. You look from the perspective of the whole world, where the whole world has become you. From this perspective, you are the smallest drop in the ocean, like the entire ocean itself. You are the individual and the whole in one.
This is more than a thought experiment. This is what happens when we meditate on surrendering and letting go of the self - the ego. When the ego dissolves, we have the entire universe within us, for we are the universe. All that exists is ourselves. It is existence itself. Pure existence and the source of all life. Mother of all creation. There are no thoughts, no judgments here. Everything just is. This is also the place of acceptance and unconditional love.
This is the meaning of all being one. Try out meditation, and see for yourself!
Michael