unity & diversity

This is another duality that we face in life. We face it in very simple, ordinary ways: when two people relate to each other, they are two separate people, different from each other, there is that diversity. And yet, by the word relate or relationship, we mean a meeting, a coming together, a connection, and in that connection there is some unity.

Societies also face this dilemma: how to honour and respect the diverse people and groups within the society, and at the same time, hold a feeling of unity, of togetherness? And this tension, between unity and diversity, has plagued societies for hundreds of years, for thousands of years, with some groups wanting to feel autonomous, separate, and others wanting to come together, to unify.

And if we look around us in the world, in existence, we see a great diversity of life: different plants and animals, different species. And this diversity is what makes life rich, varied, interesting. And yet part of the spiritual journey is about coming to a state of unity, feeling no longer separate from the rest of existence, becoming one with god, if you will. But more than just coming to a sense of unity, our spiritual journey takes us to a point where this duality is transcended, where both the feeling of unity and the feeling of diversity can coexist harmoniously, without any tension between the two. We could say that diversity is felt within the unity, or that the unity underlies the diversity of life. However we put it into words, this can be our lived, felt reality, once we have gone beyond the tension between unity and diversity.