What Is Unity? 
In Psalm 133 we read: “See: how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.”
The sense of unity is one of the greatest experiences that we can have. Usually it is restricted to moments or specific situations, such as a moment of intimacy with someone we love or a moment of breathless unity on a mountain top.
It is usually experienced only as long as there is no fear and insecurity. For example, we may feel a sense of unity in ‘our’ group or nation or belief, as long as ‘the others’ are kept safely away.
This is an illusion of unity, dependent on certain conditions or boundaries that we set up. It is more of a feeling of comfort than a feeling of unity.
Imagine how it would feel if unity was not just with a chosen few but with all life - with all living beings with whom we dwell together in this world?
Imagine if this sense of unity was not only with all life but with the source of life itself, namely the sacred that holds us all?
Too Much Ego, Too Little Unity
Unity is a wonderful thing, but why, often, is it so dependent on certain conditions? Is it because the dominant sense in our consciousness is that of separation, of being locked in a rather lonely and self-centred ego, or self, from which we look out at the world?
We are born as an integral part of the world, and then gradually learn to survive in it by being a separate self, an identity, occupied with looking after ourselves.
The experiences of unity, such as falling in love, come as a breakthrough, or memory, of how things can be without this separation. They are all the more wonderful because of the relaxation of these boundaries, this breach in the walls of the personal prison from which we run our lives.
Unity Is Possible
Moments of unity can be all the more ecstatic because of the contrast. I remember some sublime moments of unity in the peace dialogues we have between Israelis and Palestinians. Moments in which there is a silent joining of hearts and a genuine look of love in the eyes. The joy rises because of the sense of togetherness felt between people who are usually tragically separate.
But we have to be very aware that the experience of unity is not the same as thoughts about it. When we think, or talk about oneness, or unity, it does feel that there is an ultimate truth in it, though often hard to grasp, but it is still in the territory of concept.
I remember Swami Shyams, in the Himalayas, talking to my 11 year old daughter about unity. My daughter turned to him and said ‘how on earth can this nail be in one-ness with the wood it nails. They are two?’
Unity As An Experience
As a concept unity is something that we have, or form, in our minds. In other words, there is us, and there is the concept of unity. Two things. Duality. Unity gone. More than that, as a concept, we somehow feel we possess it. We can’t help it. Many go around talking about unity as if it belongs to them, though he or she often lives in quite the opposite way. A recent study by an Israeli researcher on those taking part in a New Age event, found that they were at least as busy with who is the ‘in-group’ and who is the ‘out group’, as the average person.
A potent example that illustrates the contrast between concept and experience is the primary statement of unity in the Jewish faith: Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad. ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One’.
Most Jewish people emphasise ‘The Lord is One’ as a key statement of faith in unity. In my opinion, it implies that God is one but we are separate. The way to the experience of unity would not be to regard ‘One’ or ‘God’ as the most important words in the sentence but ‘Hear!’ ‘Wake up!’ ‘Listen!’
By waking up, deeply attending to our moment by moment life in the world, we practice unity, we meet the Divine that includes both us and the world.
So how do we go about seeking a real experience and full understanding of unity? There are of course multitudes of ways which people have explored to realise their sense of belonging and intimacy with the whole.
There is intensive dancing, prayer, music, yoga, meditation, and the thousand ways to open the heart to the world. Yoga incidentally means union or unity in Sanskrit. And there are the non-dual teachings such as Advaita Vedanta in which there is no seeking for unity as something ‘over there,’ but a dropping into it right here.
But in all these ways, we have to be serious and committed. Prayer, for example, is the commonest way, but mostly it is far from unity – we pray to some other (deity or saint) for some benefit to ourselves or our group.
Only if the prayer is so intensive that we are absorbed and released from our boundaries, can it bring us to unity. In meditation, one of the best ways is to simply pay attention to what is coming in to us through the senses. If continuously present, we become more of a participant and less an observer, and gradually grow towards oneness consciousness.
There is an ancient Indian riddle that asks: what is the spiritual journey? It is like ants eating a cube of sugar. We would immediately assume that the sugar is the sweet spiritual experience and the ants are us that consume it. Actually, it is the other way around. We are the cube of sugar, and the ants are the spiritual experiences that gradually consume our separate self until we are ‘eaten up’ and disappear into the world.