Being One is an exploration of our sense of identity and the ways in which that identity prevents relationship. We habitually orient our perspective to our psychological center rather than to the interrelationship of the world around us. This perspective is a common element in all destructive habits. The viewpoint from our psychological center blocks the possibility of true and lasting relationship. It is the antithesis of happiness and, yet, it is the essential nature of our selves.
Our core sense of identity — the inner world of thoughts and feelings, the sense of solidity and location in the outer world of materiality — has become our addiction.
“Our addiction is to ourselves, to the concept of a “me” in relationship to a world of objects. Although we will not allow ourselves to thoroughly question and examine this structure of the me-centered world, we dedicate all of our energy to its maintenance.” –from the book
$11.95
133 pages
softcover
ISBN 0-9710786-5-3
Sentient Publications
Being One shows the development of the psychological center in both the individual and the society. The book maintains that the nature of this self is addictive. Like any other addict, the self lives only for the fulfillment of its compulsion.
The book delves into the true nature of addiction, the stages of relationship, and the discovery of authentic relationship through confrontation with the self-addiction and a shift to an inclusive perspective of our lives.
CONTENTS
- Introduction
- A Story About Love
- Alone – The Isolation of Me.
- The Birth of the Self
- Hope – The Projection of Together
- Infatuation – The Promise of Contact
- The Pain of Relationship
- The Addiction of Separation
- The End of Wanting
- Transcendental Relationship
- Fear- The Breakdown of Separation
- Love As the Great Confrontation
- Love is a Dangerous Word
- Authentic Aloneness
- When One Meets Another
- Sex and Separation
- Sex and Tantra
- Sex and Biology
- Sex and Religion
- The Problem With Psychology
- If I Do Absolutely Nothing I Would Die
- Community and Family
- Thought, Reality and the Internet
- What is Relationship?
- Ten Things We Can Do to Begin Relating
- Beyond Relationship, Beyond Love
- A Challenge To Relate
Excerpt from Being One:
Living Not Alone
Everything that lives,
Lives not alone,
nor for itself.
—William Blake
It is self-evident in a moment of stillness, in a quiet walk in the forest, in the beauty of a moonlit sky, that our lives are part of something immeasurable.
We know this. We know that we are both the teller of the tale and the expression of the story itself. We know that we are the meeting point of heaven and earth, the divine and the comic, the relative and the absolute. We can experience the divine in the depths of our humanness. We have the capacity to love.
We know this. But, we have forgotten it.
We have lost our way. We have lost our perspective. We have lost our understanding.
Like archaeologists of the soul, we begin to uncover the debris of our mind. Our need to exist in full relationship to our world is what drives us. The layer upon layer of ideas, conditioning and fear is what we dig through.
In this search, we have somehow forgotten that we have forgotten. The search has taken on a life of its own. The search has given us meaning that substitutes for what we have forgotten. But, searching for love will not replace love. Nothing will replace love. If we forget everything else, let us remember that.
As we move through our life, as we uncover each stratum of mind, as we make our way through each reaction and discover each new aspect of understanding, can we remember that the expression of love is life itself?
The great discovery of the archaeology of the soul is that the search is over before it begins because what we are looking for is what is looking. The wholeness of life is everywhere and is everything. We are already immersed in life and life in us.
In this we find that we do not need to discover love, that our being is one. But, now we can discover because we love. And, because we love, we know that we live not alone.
Then why, we must ask, do we live as if we were alone?
What others have to say about Being One
“This simple, powerful, and enlightening gem borders on the transformative. It challenges us to strip away our deceptions and see more clearly.”
—Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg
“Steven Harrison is an important contributor to the unfolding inquiry into what the true spiritual life is really all about.”
—Joan Tollifson, author of Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life
“I highly recommend this original and challenging book for those who want to discover the union of love. Being One could change readers’ lives if they reflect deeply on its contents.”
—George A. Maloney, S.J., author of Inward Stillness
“Are you attracted to the spiritual life as lived in human relationships, and tired of facile formulas for success? Being One will enrich your understanding of what it means to discover love.”
—David Kundtz, author of Stopping: How to Be Still When You Have to Keep Going
International Editions
- Dutch (Eén-zijn in relaties) – To order visit Samsara Books.
- French (Être un) – Editions Accarias-L’Originel. To order from Amazon.fr click here.
- German (Eins Sein) – Edition Spuren. To order from Amazon.de click here.
- India – To order the English edition published in India, visit Stonehill Foundation Publishing.
- Russian – Sophia Publishing House, 160 Frunze str., 160, Kiev, Ukraine
