The Illusion of Separation
Lately I’ve been thinking about what it really means to be connected, to each other, to our bodies, to time itself. We are living in strange times, and the biggest concern is just how disconnected everyone seems to be. We distract, ignore, deny, deflect. We are separated, and that separation has caused this gaping, often described as a God-shaped hole in our souls that can’t be filled by endless distractions. We are living our lives online more than in reality, and our screens are a hollow replacement for genuine connection and community. As social creatures, it seems we’ve forgotten how to be human, as individuals and as a community. We’ve forgotten that we’re all in this together.
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” – Rumi
We are like drops of water temporarily separated from the ocean. For a short, brief shining moment, each drop looks and often acts separate, its own little world. But every drop is still made of the ocean and will return to it in time. Separation is both a gift and a curse when you don’t fully understand it and can’t embody it.
The gift is that we get to live life as unique beings, each with our own path, story, and relationships. The curse is forgetting that beneath all our differences, we are still part of one body. When we forget, fear and conflict grow. Wars do not happen because we are different. They happen because we forget that our differences exist inside a bigger unity. Hannah Arendt, a political philosopher who studied the roots of violence and totalitarianism, once wrote that loneliness and isolation are what make violence possible, when we feel cut off from others, we are more easily drawn into cruelty. Remembering connection isn’t just spiritual poetry; it is a safeguard against harm.
This is what the Buddhist image, with roots in Indian cosmology, known as Indra’s Net shows us. Indra’s Net is an ancient metaphor that describes the universe as an endless web, like a cosmic spiderweb that expand into infinity. At every crossing of the web sits a jewel, like how dew often forms on the delicate strands, and in each jewel you can see the reflection of every other jewel. And in those reflections are more reflections, stretching on forever. It’s a way of saying nothing exists on its own. Everything mirrors everything else. Each jewel reflects every other jewel, yet each one is still its own. That is us. We are both unique and connected.
And because we are more than just our own experience, we have to remember: if each drop of water carried pollution or disease back into the ocean, the ocean would bear the weight of it. The same is true for us. What we carry in our individuality, our healing or our harm, returns to the whole. Our separateness is temporary, but our responsibility to the whole is lasting. As above, so below. As within, so without.
The Body as Mirror
The universe shows us little hints, synchronicities that echo across different modalities. There’s something incredible about how many patterns show up in places we least expect. The macro and micro align, from the cosmos down to the atoms in our bodies. Each cell in our body is different, with its own purpose, but health only comes when all the cells work together. What happens when our cells get sick, when our bodies break down from poor life choices? We find ourselves struggling with dis-ease, from chronic inflammation to cancer, and left untreated or ignored, it spreads and makes everything around it sicker too. It is the illusion of separation playing out inside the body. I wonder if part of why we are seeing such a huge rise in illnesses and disorders is because our inner sickness mirrors our external struggles.
We already know the body records our experiences. Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score, showed how trauma is stored not just in memory but in the nervous system, the immune system, and even in how we breathe and move. The body keeps track of what the mind cannot always process, carrying the imprints of stress, loss, and shock. If we accept this, why stop at the personal level? Why wouldn’t our bodies also be shaped by the connections we keep? Our families, our friendships, the people we share space, belief, and relationship with, all resonate within us. We are living, breathing examples of energy manifested for a brief, shimmering time here on this planet. And yet, we make pretty strange and often downright messy choices, if I’m being honest. We stress over nonsense, distract ourselves with phones, get angry over things we can’t control, and then wonder why we’re sick, exhausted, and angry. A lot of our suffering is self-inflicted. A lot of people are addicted to drama and trauma.
But if trauma can echo through our cells and make us dis-eased, then harmony can help us heal. We are energy at our core, and energy isn’t limited by our flesh or thoughts. It’s connected to everything and everyone. The more you realize this, the easier it becomes to recognize and develop a sensitivity to it. Have you ever noticed you can make yourself happy, sad, or angry by watching something online in just a few minutes? If we’re that easily swayed by strangers on a screen, imagine the effects our family and ancestors have on us. Not to blame them for everything, but their trauma plays out in our lives even long after they’re gone, just like people on screens we’ve never met, but still form relationships with.
This is something I’ve experienced firsthand in Family Constellations work. For those who don’t know, Family Constellations is a therapeutic approach that makes visible the hidden dynamics of family systems. It shows how patterns, pain, and trauma are carried through generations, often without our awareness. What one generation cannot resolve, another often carries.
Science is finally catching up to what spiritual leaders have always known: we inherit more than DNA. We carry generational trauma in our bodies. Even something as simple as a grandmother suffering from malnutrition can affect her children, grandchildren, and beyond. If that’s true at the nutritional level, why wouldn’t the same be true of trauma or stress? These experiences live in us at a cellular level and are passed down. This may be part of why autoimmune and inflammatory conditions are so common today. Our bodies mirror the disharmony of the world around us. Just as societies turn against themselves, so does the body. Sensitive people feel this most strongly, their systems reacting to the same divisions playing out on a larger scale.
Carl Jung suggested that the body expresses what the soul cannot articulate. Illness is not just personal, it is symbolic, even collective. Our inflamed societies are mirrors of our inflamed bodies. But symptoms are not only punishment, they serve as signals, warning signs that we’re not in alignment, that something is separating us from our own divinity, be it our personal, career, physical, mental or whatever else is out of balance. The body is trying to guide us back into balance. Inflammation is not the end of the story to be placated with pills or injections designed to suppress without addressing the root cause of it’s disfunction, it is feedback, a reminder to return to harmony.
Society, Fear, and the Survival Brain
It makes sense that we tribalize, that we form groups. Biology explains this, and we’re no more evolved than we were thousands of years ago. Sure, our technology is sophisticated and we’ve reduced natural predation, but we’re still social creatures who form identity-based relationships. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when fear enters, we tend to separate, often violently. Separation lets us fixate on our identity within the tribe while forgetting we are part of a greater whole. That emptiness becomes a chasm, and what fills it is our choice. Too often, I’ve seen people fill it with fear, hate, and division. Instead of focusing on growth and learning so we can be better parts of the whole, we indulge in narcissism and selfishness under whatever guise is convenient or trending. The division grows, and with it, the chasm fills with fear, confusion, anger, and eventually hate.
Arendt warned of this too: that when people become isolated and cut off from shared reality, they are more vulnerable to ideologies that justify violence. Isolation makes us forget that the other person is a reflection of ourselves, another jewel in Indra’s Net. And once we forget, harm follows. We cling to separation because it’s easier to understand. We can measure it, label it, and hold onto it. Humans love to organize and understand, and separation is one way we learn. But we can’t stay there. The mystical, the spiritual, the connective, those things are harder to grasp, so we dismiss them as nonsense.
The brain plays into this. Its job is survival, and it’s very good at it. Imagine being stalked by a predator. You don’t need to ponder the mysteries of time, you need to act, fast. Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. The brain narrows in, keeps you alive. That is a gift. But everything has a shadow. The shadow is that our modern world constantly slams that survival button. Information floods in like a gatling gun to the face, keeping us on high alert. The brain thrives in short bursts of danger, but it isn’t built to live like this forever. In that state, we slide into fear and confusion, and in fear and confusion we’re easier to manipulate and control. Our brains fry, seeking distraction or pleasure just to stop spinning on the Ferris wheel of endless catastrophic news cycles.
This is why soul work matters. The soul is not wired for survival, it’s wired for meaning. When the brain is overcooked, the soul grounds us, offering rest. The soul connects us to love, compassion, wonder, belonging. It remembers that we are more than survival machines. Together, brain and soul carry a duality: one rooted in safety, the other in meaning. I am very much pro-science. But I am not pro-arrogance. Sometimes science acts like it has all the answers. The truth is, we know a lot about a little and a little about a lot. Science has become something like a monolith of irreproachable knowing, with no room for questions or alternative views. That is not wisdom or curiosity. That is ego. And ain’t nobody got time for that. Science takes things apart so we can understand them. That’s important. But we also need to put things back together again. Wholeness is the point.
The Greeks told this same lesson in the story of Dionysus. According to myth, Dionysus was the child of Zeus and the mortal Semele. If you weren’t aware, Zeus was quite the Grecian player with the mortal ladies, much to the chagrin of his long-suffering wife, Hera. This story is full of insane jealousy. Hera had her revenge against the mortal princess Semele, who, in fairness, didn’t know she had been seduced by Zeus. Hera plotted to have Semele ask Zeus to reveal his divine nature, and when he did, Semele was destroyed, as mortals could not gaze directly upon Zeus in all his resplendence. From the ashes of that tragedy, Zeus saved the unborn Dionysus, sewing him into his own thigh until the child was ready to be born. This “twice-born” origin is part of what shapes Dionysus, and the themes of jealousy, projection, and cruelty are woven into his earliest story. Who he eventually becomes — the god of wine, ecstasy, and celebration — makes more sense when you realize just how strange and broken his beginnings were.
Another strand of myth, from the Orphic tradition, tells of how the jealous Titans, already separated from the Olympian order and filled with rage and resentment, lured the divine child with toys, then tore him apart, boiling and roasting the pieces. Pretty savage thing to do to a baby, but again, this is a metaphor and a mirror of the Titans’ own sense of injustice and hunger for vengeance. Separation curdles into envy, and envy into cruelty. In some versions, his heart was preserved, and from it he was restored by Zeus, or in other tellings by Rhea or Demeter.In yet another Orphic account, Zeus’ thunderbolt destroyed the Titans, and from their ashes mingled with Dionysus’ divine spark, humanity was said to be born, which is why humans were said to carry both Titanic violence and divine potential. And now you know the origin of the name Titanic, from the Titans of the ancient world. But the myth is about more than violence or resurrection; it is about the interconnectedness and sacredness of origins. This allegory shows us that we were forged from opposites, and what we need is integration and remembrance. It is about the pattern of fragmentation and reunion. Dionysus was scattered into pieces, just as we often feel scattered in our own lives, divided by trauma, separation, or fear. But the myth doesn’t end in dismemberment. It ends in restoration. Wholeness is regained, and in that wholeness, Dionysus becomes divine.
The breaking apart teaches us, it exposes what is fragile and forces us to see what we’re made of. But the reunion, the bringing together of what was divided, that is what transforms us. It is not enough to know the pieces. Left in separation, the pieces breed violence. But put back together, they become something more. Wholeness is the point.
Return to Resonance
If you’re a certain age and read that section header, I’m sure you’re singing that song, Return to Innocence by Enigma from the Pure Moods album. I think we had the CD, possibly the cassette tape because we were classy like that. But in seriousness, we do need to return to the self, to pay attention to resonance. We think life is linear because that’s what it seems to us. Birth, life, death, the end. But nature shows us differently. Tides rise and fall, stars wheel back across the night sky. We can see nature breathing in and out with the seasons, the inhale beginning with the first plant bursting from the earth and the exhale as the leaves begin to fall. Life is not a straight line, it’s a cycle, and we belong to it. We are a part of it, not a part from it.
Maybe this is why we sometimes feel memory in places we’ve never been, or why dreams and visions seem familiar. Perhaps imagination isn’t invention but recollection. I certainly don’t have the answers and that’s the beauty of spirituality, we find what makes sense for us, as these fleeting moments having a human experience. We are both the ocean and the drop, living this one life now, yet part of a rhythm that returns again and again.
Science, spirituality, and myth all point to the same truth: the illusion of separation is temporary. Quantum physics and morphic resonance in biology are pointing in their own ways to fields of connection. In Buddhist philosophy, Indra’s Net shows us a cosmos where every jewel reflects every other jewel, infinite and interdependent. Heraclitus called this hidden order the Logos, the thread weaving together opposites like day and night, strife and peace, life and death. In Christianity, the Logos became flesh, reminding us that the divine and human are not separate but joined in one body. And in Buddhism, the Buddha’s teaching of dependent origination reveals how nothing exists on its own, but only in relation. Different traditions, same lesson: connection is the foundation of reality. Both are about right relationship and if I harp on this in many of my essays, it’s because it’s important, and it has been for millenia. We’re just a species with amnesia, to quote Graham Hancock.
To remember this doesn’t erase individuality. It honors our uniqueness as part of something bigger. Our lives don’t exist in a vacuum; they are always in dialogue with the lives around us. We are individuals, yes, but never isolated — each of our choices, beliefs, and actions ripple outward. It is the belief in separation that hardens into loneliness, fear, and violence, when instead it could lead us toward compassion, curiosity, and wisdom. We learn from each other, and in doing so we expand the self. That doesn’t mean permissiveness toward harmful behavior or beliefs, but it does mean remembering we’re all figuring out what it means to be alive.
We are drops of water having unique lives, but we are also the ocean, connected to every other drop. And in remembering, we also act with care. Each drop carries something back. Each life matters, not just for the sake of the self, but for what that life means and contributes to the whole. Some people show us what it looks like if we don’t do the work, while others inspire us to be better versions of ourselves. It’s all wholeness when you step back and realize just how awesome and inspiring and frustrating and scary and beautiful existence is for every single being, from single cell to something as complex and new as humanity. Wholeness is not just belonging, it is responsibility. That is where healing begins.
