US and THEM................. the illusion that separates rather than unites!

I've been thinking on this for a long time now. And contrary to what may seem obvious to most that to unify means to group I am have come to the conclusion that in fact the opposite is true. Here's why...

Most people are happy to think of the world in terms of us and them. Constantly searching the world for acknowledgement of their perceived reality in which we belong to a group of "us'es" and they belong to the enemy group called 'them'.

In the world of such people you can always blame 'them' for everything that is wrong thus giving 'us' the right to hate 'them' and to do what ever necessary to protect 'us' from 'them'. Wars are fought on this basis and it doesn't really matter what the fundamental believes are it's  in effect the 'us' and 'them' principle that causes the fractions who war against eachother.  It is not relevant what the cause for this fighting is in the end what matters is 'us' and 'them'.

There is also another type of person who although they also assemble their perception of the world on an 'us' and 'them' basis try to make this into an inclusion by saying things like 'we' love 'them'. 'They' love 'us' etc. Although this group of people believe that their world is different from the 'us' and 'them' that cause wars in effect it is still the same belief. It is the belief that we are some how separate entities that can be grouped in to general groups of actions, behaviours etc based on a certain set of pre-determined factors.

The truth is that there is no 'us' and 'them' it is all an illusion. The terms us and them are useful for making generalised statements of any number of people who by choice or other factors belong to a group of similar people.  It is not the usage of the terms us and them that is the problem. The problem starts when we forget that they are just words not reality as such. In reality there is no such thing as us and them....there exists only individuals. And these individuals do things based on their individual choices Therefore when we are done an injustice we should think of it in terms of the individual as supposed to the imaginary group that we've placed them into. The same goes for any good deeds that are done. It was the individual who did the deed not the perceived us/them group. Even if a number of people work together to achieve a task it is still the individual within that group who make it happen. Not the 'group' per se.

I hope you see where I am getting with this.... the first step in opening ones mind up to inclusion  is to undo the false perceiption that us and them represents reality and instead realise that to recognise unity for what it really is we need to first recognise the individual for what it really is. One entity just  like me who makes choices based on it's perception of reality.

So just for today - don't make snap judgements about the people around you based on the us/them principle. Instead recognise the groups that you place people in and then undo these by looking at a group one individual at a time and notice the differences in each person with in that preceived group.  Is your perception of the group really relevant on an individul basis? Does this person really fit neatly into the group  that you've placed them in or not?

Once you recognise the groupings that you make and take a closer look at the individuals you place within that group. Recognise that most will not fit neatly into your definition of that group and that that group is only an illusion.