We are all absolute at the core of our cells; in that void of pure potential that has yet to take shape as the matter we more familiarly know as the substance of life. So, the more we wake up and become conscious of this absolute core that is just as much “us” as anything we can touch, the more it spills out…as the deep understanding that we are not separate from anything in this world.

This is why becoming conscious beings alters everything for us, although (in truth) nothing ever needed to change. That momentum of change comes from us and our innate desire to return to what we already know; which is the very rocket-fuel of evolution. In other words, in order to live in truth with what we now remember about ourselves, we start to iron out all those practices that assert we are separate and this is what manifests our divine blueprint in human form.

At some stage, this inevitably comes up against the vast territory of all the ways that we play out an idea of separation through mindsets related to the body. There is, after all, no avoiding the human body that we “live in”, however abstract we may prefer to remain. When we perpetuate separation in this way, we inevitably perpetuate it through the matter of each and every cell in our body, these being relatively long-lasting markers of what we believe in and, thus, do including what we consume. When we manifest a separation idea as our body, through our choices including our thoughts, this becomes a deeply uncomfortable state of being to a consciousness that is now aware of its absolute nature, since it creates obvious dissonance. This can manifest as pain, health crisis or even a back-flip into even more unconsciousness to make that pain go away (facing up to it is not for the faint hearted) and, yes, this dissonance can prove to be an evolution point since its friction serves as a catalyst to personal growth. Sometimes, a person will put themselves through one dissonance rubbing-point after another before they start to get anywhere but it can be a powerful way to work on areas where we have wandered very far from out absolute selves; often choosing separation though we claim we no longer believe in it.

These seperation behaviours relating to the body can be as subtle as what we think about ourselves in the absence of self love but it is easier to describe how it works by focusing on what we choose to put into the body and what this says about what we claim to believe (which may no longer be consistent with what we now remember about ourselves at the absolute level). And, of course, it spirals out to how we live our life in the “outside world”, including where we live, who we spend time with, how and why we work, what we use to motivate ourselves. Under-running all of this, we are designed to constantly gravitate towards creating a state of homeostasis; you could say, where inside matches outside. Which is why people start to notice that they can no longer perpetuate behaviours that were normal to them before their consciousness began to stir; which can feel like it unleashes a whole set of new challenges for them to now wade through, just as they expected things to get easier because they feel more enlightened!

Say, for instance, a practice such as drinking alcohol or taking drugs (including many that are prescribed); these practices exacerbate a state of separation from ourselves, in the way of taking a holiday from who we experience ourselves to be, which is why they are so popular as a habit or recreation of sorts. Sometimes we can get away with these practices since we only feel separation for as long as the hangover or for a day or two of remorse over what we did or said when we were outside of our consciousness. At other times or as we get closer to our absolute state, these “harmless” recreations become longer lasting zones of dissonance and pain because of how agonising separation feels when we are so consciously aware of its opposite state. Paradoxically, this can result in chronic addiction to use of substances that perpetuate seperation in order to run away from ourselves more consistently, to avoid this pain (assuming ourselves to be the source of it…). In other cases, we come to realise the joy of non-separation to such a high degree that we start to put aside the need for recreations that take us back into the experience of a fragmented self “for harmless fun”, no longer seeing the point in it, even when it harms no one but the person indulging in it. There is no judgement of it or those that still choose it; simply, in our case, no need for it.

Take, then, the habit of consuming other living creatures as food under the mistaken belief that this is necessary or healthy (it is neither, as science is now amply demonstrating, but there is a very determined backlash insisting that this is the case). You could say that, at the absolute level, there is no right or wrong and so this practice is perfectly fine. However, what we eat comes into the realm of the manifest and, in that zone, we have only one dilemma; either to become in form as we are at the absolute or to perpetuate a belief in separation. If we take it as read that we are all one, as is absolutely the case, then it is also a given that we would never do to another what we would not want to experience, or agree to, for ourselves. In fact we would only ever want to express love and respect for other living beings and so there is no question of being prepared to claim dominion over other creatures or causing them any harm, entirely for our own pleasure.

So, once we become conscious, we are well and truly confronted with this dilemma and it simply won’t go away until we face up to it; because to perpetuate the meat-eating habit we have to deny we are all one…which is to perpetuate a separation belief. We perpetuate it not only for as long as it takes to consume the “food” but for a much longer hang-over period as that “food” takes shape as the very cells of our body; the stuff out of which our skin and organs, blood and bone are made. In other words, our belief in separation becomes who we are as a manifest being for days, weeks and even months until the body renews again, which it does in overlapping phases. Thus we are forced to live in a state of dissonance day-in-day-out until we cease this practice for as long as it takes to, quite literally, recreate ourselves from a completely different belief mindset and its associated lifestyle habits. This is one of the reasons so many people who cease eating meat report no changes and, perhaps, even a state of feeling the worse for it; since there is an adjustment period that requires a full cleanse-out and, in the interim, their cells (used to the familiar and not yet tuned-in to the new) can feel all at-sea and really quite unsettled.

So, to recap, our choice is to do something about this dissonance and change, or to live with it… perhaps, even, send ourselves back to sleep via a denial that eating flesh is out of sync with who we remember that we are at the absolute level. Because to have one foot in and one foot out of that knowing is to feel very divided indeed, in ways that can be quite unpleasant and physically challenging  and our body will often tells us…and keep telling us…when we are so out of sync with ourselves by producing health crisis after health crisis, until we start to listen.

If we take that easy route of falling back into forgetfulness about our absolute self, we can at least take comfort from the normalcy, the tradition, the massive cultural advocacy of the habit of meat-eating and this can feel like slipping back into a cosy bed or a favourite pair of old slippers. We self-congratulate for avoiding a near-miss with social ostracism and continue on as we were before, gripping onto the comforting habits of old, while feeling, at some level, stuck or slowed-down in our self-realisation process yet unable to quite put a finger on why.

However, should we turn around to face new territory and dare to stop these separation practices…and once we get past the oh-so precarious cooling-off period, when we are liable to change our minds back again…we find ourselves in a whole other territory that is like realising another dimension in apparently the same (through really quite different) body. Once we get safely past that initial trial by many temptations, with our mind jumping around like a monkey on the furniture, trying to tell us that we made the wrong decision, that we don’t feel any better and perhaps even worse for the changes we have made; and when that monkey-mind fills us with scare-mongering such as how we are now marginalised or considered weird, at risk of losing all our family and friends, socially displaced, untenably inconvenienced, spiritually mistaken and even nostalgic for those good old days…oh yes, then great things start to happen.

It’s as though a new quota of light starts to flood our body cells as the message of non-separation filters through the processes of renewal. And as though a heavy burden of disharmony has been laid down by the side of the road to be left behind forever. Its like having the scales drop from our eyes so we can see, at last, so clearly what was once a longed-for concept, almost a legend, about how this world used to be before separation took such a grip. Like filling up to the brim with the joy of knowing (not just hoping) that we are, after all, literally “all one”, unified by our sentience plus the added joy of bumping in to others, who start magically appearing, who also know and live by this. We start to dare to look other sentient beings, animals that we once averted our gaze from, squarely in the eyes and see their souls shining right back at us; no longer denying our shared qualities. We even notice how they seem to appear more often, step much closer, stay for longer, speaking volumes to us without words and no need of translation. We start to meet what feels like family literally everywhere we go and find that same somewhat bizarre, at first, feeling of familiarity reciprocated (without guardedness or agenda) by those others whose paths now synchronistically cross ours to the point our numbers seem to swell so we no longer feel so isolated. People met only briefly, who we can sense have been through this same transformation process, feel like souls we have shared whole lifetimes with and can pick up with exactly like we were never for a moment separated (because, of course, we weren’t). Our step feels lighter on the earth; we walk taller, more confidently, less apologetically and significantly less burdened. There’s a different quality about our cells, as though they are freed from long incarceration to become resonant with other molecules that, say, make up the leaves of the trees or the patterns of snowflakes; which we now feel in a whole other way to how we used to experience the so-called “external” physical world before. In fact, we become tuned-in to Nature at a whole other level, as though let back into a secret world that was never meant to be exclusive; only, we were the ones to slam the door in its face when we decided to leave and become separate, in our own mind’s eye, and now (at last) we have returned.

And if you are already experiencing aspects of all this and feel you are doing just fine slipping some separation mindsets into a no-go area, hoping to preserve and step around them, believe me it gets so much better when we work through them instead. Especially if they are ones which contradict a perspective of love, for self and for other; this, in my experience, is the trickiest territory to deny when personal evolution is your aim. You can postpone it but it will keep on coming back into view.

The other thing is, it can feel (as you embark on this journey back to who you absolutely are) like you are in danger of making yourself even more seperate….initially….as you break free from mass behaviours that no longer feel resonant. When you lifestyle habits make you the oddity, when you can’t travel so easily without planning how you will get your next meal or just say yes to hospitality and do as others do, you might feel like you have never been more separate in your life and yet here’s the beautiful paradox. You are more connected in love now than you ever were in a paradigm that gathered together over shared separation behaviours; and, in no time, you will find your own tribe and that tribe is growing, fast. But it takes courage to believe in this and to be one of the ones that is prepared to go there on trust. Of course we are in a minority, for the moment; that’s why the world has been in such a fragmented state for so long.

As separation breaks down in us, we are able to discern other, deeper, separation mentalities that are only keeping us from ourselves and our best manifestation practices, including our health. In short, we are well on the way to re-gathering ourselves from places where we had become the fragmented and dispersed idea of who we are over many eons. As we hug ourselves back together, cell by cell, being by being, we can’t help but notice how that which is (and only ever was…) absolute at our core, which was never fragmented or separate to start with, becomes more and more manifest in the world, as us and around us in an ever-widening circle of realisation. This is the true process of absolution; no need of forgiveness…much more of a blessing that we bestow upon ourselves as we come back together again with all that we already are.