When Worlds Collide : Understanding The Challenges Of Life On Planet Earth....

[Dr. SohiniBen Shukla]

Right now as you read this, you know yourself to be living on a planet called Earth in a physical incarnation that you share with about 7 billion other people and over 8 billion other living species. In this solar system that we are in, we think of ourselves as being one race of human beings, sharing one planet and one reality. But do we really? 

When we examine this fact on a deeper level of awareness, we begin to realize that there are many more worlds within this one world that we envision ourselves to be living in. What is more so, is that there are numerous realities as well. And I am not even talking here about the heavy duty ideas of quantum physics, parallel Universes or multiple dimensions. I am simply talking about the fact that each one of us, being a physical individuation of source energy, is its own world and reality. This means that we have about 7 billion worlds sharing 1 planet. 

Although the idea may be simple for us to grasp and know conceptually, the depth of this idea has major implications for understanding life here on this planet. It opens up a whole new understanding when we move past the concept, and actually apply it. 

If we look at the state of the world today, 10 years ago, 100 years ago or even 1000 years ago, we see that although much has changed, one thing remains the same. We cannot seem to get on the same page of understanding when it comes to life on this planet. Why is this? Why is it so hard for us to apply concepts that should be so fundamental to increasing the quality of life for all, especially when we have the means to do so? Take the idea of peace for example. It cannot be argued that it would improve everyones lives, yet we choose not to apply peace on this planet, both personally and collectively. It can be done tomorrow worldwide if we really wanted to, but we don’t. This is just one example of what happens when worlds collide. 

We May Be One, But We Are Each Unique 

In recent years the phrase “we are all one” has gained increasing popularity. It is used by many in spiritual and non-spiritual circles alike, often indiscriminately. I used to use this phrase too, and sometimes still do, but today in a very different way. What I have noticed is that many who use this phrase, often use it in a way that strips us of our unique individuation and diminishes the purpose of our individuality. 

In my experience thus far, yes, we are all one meaning we have all come from the same source of creation, but this does not make us all the same. And although this may seem obvious to you, I feel it all too often gets lost in many spiritually oriented people who are trying to take on a conceptual “love & peace” view of the world, rather than an experiential one. We may all have the same general purpose of spiritual evolution, but our unique purpose and how we see or experience reality is very different. 

This is not meant to divide us or make us focus on our differences, rather than our similarities. Instead it is meant to acknowledge the gift of uniqueness that we each are. In allowing myself to explore this idea, I have come to grasp why so much misunderstanding, chaos and confusion exists in our world today. We are simply trying to merge everyone into the same reality. To do this however, goes against the basic law of free will. This is why people speak about love, but what the concept of love actually means to each person is so different. The same goes for similar concepts like peace, compassion, equality and so on. We each understand these concepts through our lens of reality, through our personal state of awareness and evolution to that point. 

Similarly, this message is also not meant to depress us, but rather to empower us to be more understanding of the different levels of existence and concepts shared on this planet, as to why things are the way they are. We may think we are all talking about the same things, but more often than not, we aren’t. Billions of different worlds are colliding and the final outcome is a rather disorganized state of affairs, where most have to learn through life the hard way. 

You Are Your Own World and Reality 

Artwork by Cameron Gray

And so, as many of us think that we live in one world, the truth is we do. However, this is not the world we are thinking of. The one world we live in, is our personal world. Each of us comes into this life and physical incarnation at a different level of evolution, we are then conditioned by the various cultural, religious and political influences depending on where each physical incarnation takes place. This builds various biases, beliefs and perceptions about the world as we know it. Most of us continue life at this pace, possibly with some small bursts of various awakenings that may change some of these patterns. Others, may have major awakenings and drastically shift the course of their lives, sometimes even multiple times. 

The most important thing to note here is that there really are as many worlds co-existing on this planet as there are human beings. Each one of us lives in our own world, with its own perceived reality. Embracing our unique qualities and individual paths is not a bad thing that should be seen as separating, rather than uniting us. 

In order to fully grasp the wholeness of who we are and really put the phrase “we are one” into action, rather than as just a concept, we have to embrace our own unique purpose and individuality first. Just as, in order for a seed to know itself as being part of the planet, it has to experience itself as a plant first. The same goes for us. 

When we embrace our unique individuation, purpose and level of existence, we can then begin to see how we fit into the whole. This is where I feel many people in spiritual areas have skipped a necessary step. This being, to fully embrace yourself first, before you can embrace the totality of all creation. You get to know the whole, by first getting to know the parts that make it so. Thus to understand the external world, we need to first understand the internal parts that make it up. 

Spiritual Grades of Evolution 

To best summarize what I mean by all of this, I’d like to use a simple analogy that all of us are familiar with based on the current model of education that spans from kindergarten through college. Through this analogy it is my intention to help you see and understand why our Earth is in the state that it is. And again, the state I am referring to is neither bad or good. It is simply a disorganized state, where we are not living from a state of high efficiency or coherence. 

To illustrate this, I want you to imagine the following scenario. You have just arrived in a brand new country that you know nothing about. As part of your tour of their culture, you are taken to visit a local school. You walk into a classroom and you notice something odd that you have never seen back in the schools of your own country. This classroom is full of kids of all ages and they are all trying to learn together. You notice some kindergarteners, a high percentage of elementary school kids, some high school kids and a handful of college kids. All of these beings are trying to learn and coexist together. The teacher is of course trying to do the best job they can by adhering most of the curriculum to the high percentage of elementary school kids, and so this leaves a lot of the kindergarten kids restless and getting into all sorts of trouble, while it leaves the college kids bored or frustrated. The older kids often try helping the younger ones understand the concepts before them, and while this works sometimes, other times it is a useless endeavor. The older kids soon realize that the younger kids can only grasp certain things at different levels of their development and there is no point in trying to teach them the same things they are learning themselves, or things they are not yet ready for. 

Okay, so let’s come back from the visualization. I am sure you have guessed it by now as to the purpose of that scenario. This is the easiest way to envision very much what is happening here on Earth. Planet Earth is like one giant classroom. It is fun, it is exciting, sometimes the lessons are easy and sometimes they are hard. But the biggest challenge in this classroom is being with kids of all ages and at all very different levels of learning. This is how I have come to see and understand planet Earth. And so we may all be one, coming from the same source, but we are all at very unique levels of our personal evolution. It is this, that poses the greatest challenges on this planet. 

Akasha by Elreviae

When we begin to see our planet from this perspective, we begin to understand why there are those of us who like the kindergarteners are only interested in fulfilling their own needs and captivated only by their own existence. Then there are all sorts of elementary school kids who are each at very different levels themselves. Some just want to play, while others actually want to learn something. Some are causing themselves all sorts of trouble, not yet understanding how this “school” works, but as they want to figure things out for themselves, as kids often do, they won’t hear from the older kids about how things can be done differently. Then there are the high school kids who are starting to see through the system and rebelling against it in all sorts of ways. They are often the activists who want to make a change, who want to be heard, who feel like they must do something. And then there are the college kids, again all at different levels of their personal mastery and specialization, who are starting to understand that the only way to change the world, is by changing yourself. 

If we compare life on this planet to other planets where life forms exist, what we know of so far, is that one of the biggest reasons why our planet is so unique is because it breeds such diversity. What we know about other civilizations is that they are much more aligned to being at a similar level of evolution. This naturally makes it much easier for their societies to coexist together in peace or work for a common goal. On our planet, because there are such wide variations of beings, this is very difficult to do. As you can imagine a 4th grader wants very different things than a 10th grader, or even a 7th grader! And so we have those on our planet who want to play with guns, those who have no problem killing others whether it be humans or animals, those who want to create beautiful architecture, or those who are interested in learning all they can about their existence. Also, since there is a greater predominance of elementary school kids, just as the teacher in the above example, our society is geared towards these elementary “grade levels”. And instead of “a” teacher, we have a system put in place to keep the majority under control in various ways, be it political, religious, etc. 

To make matters more complex, yet fun, we are not all at the same level or grade with respect to every area of existence. For example, a being may be at a college level when it comes to mastering personal relationships, but at an 8th grade level when it comes to living in harmony with nature. To add to this, when we speak of people having “spiritual awakenings” or experiencing “enlightenment”, this does not mean one awakening in a conclusive sort of way. We may each experience a spiritual awakening when it comes to a specific subject, or at a whole grade level, which we can equate with graduation from that grade. This would happen when we equalize all areas of existence to be at least at that level of evolution, as we proceed to the next. Even along these levels, as each child in the same grade, we too have different interests and preferences. Even when we reach the college level, we are still not done, for we are then involved in an eternal journey of specialization and further self mastery. 

This is also why we can begin to understand why sometimes something as simple as trying to have a conversation with others about topics which we may think we would all understand similarly, proves difficult. Let’s use some more examples to further understand on a practical level. Think about the topic of abortion for example, a 3rd grader will have a completely different understanding of this topic compared to a 9th grader, compared to a college kid. (Remember we are using complex human topics in the context of grade school analogies.) What peace means to a 1st grader is very different than what means peace to a 5th grader, and more importantly what each is willing to do in order to have peace. And so we can take any topic, the so called economy, politics, ethics, health or nutrition and understand why we have the misunderstandings and miscommunication we do. We may be talking about the same things, but each of our unique abilities to comprehend the vastness of each topic totally depends on our personal level of evolution. 

Ultimately, I am not sharing this so that you may try to figure out what supposed grade you or anyone else is in. That is not at all the point of this dialogue. The point is to realize that we are all at different levels of our learning, thus of our personal evolution and spiritual development. 

Concluding Thoughts

1. Although we are currently part of a collective reality on this planet, we each construct our own reality, based on our personal perspectives, past experiences, biases and level of evolution. Our personally constructed reality is the most influential force in our lives.
2. We are all at different stages of spiritual evolution, or in different grades. And a 3rd grader is no better or worse than a 9th grader. “Better” and “worse” are simply constructs of an unconscious ego-mind that lives in the world of duality.
3. We each need to be tolerant of the fact that we are sharing a planet with many other beings of every level, just as kids of all ages in one classroom. The older kids need more patience with the younger kids, for we were all once there. While the younger kids can save themselves a lot of hurt and pain, if they so desire, by taking example from the older kids.
4. In order to create most effectively, you must align yourself with those that share similar worlds to yours. This does not mean people of the same religion or same political party, but beings who choose to perceive reality and vibrate at a similar frequency to you.

In the end, I do not have a solution for you, because technically there is no problem. We simply have to recognize and understand the challenge before us, to be able to better get along with each other, and create the lives and world we most want to experience. We each came to this planet, this time and many times before, knowing this challenge very well. In fact, this is one of the reasons why we come here at all, as contrast can cause us to learn and evolve the fastest. It is why we tend to pick the families we do, religions, cultures and such. It can therefore be seen as a very positive, rather than negative thing, despite the challenges that it presents. As long as we don’t get caught up in other people’s realities, but see the bigger picture of what is going on, there is perhaps no better playground or classroom where we can have the chance to spiritually evolve at a faster rate. 

This article has been reprinted from Evolving Beings

About the Author 
Evita Ochel is a consciousness expansion teacher. Her diverse passions and expertise include being a writer, speaker, holistic nutritionist, web TV host, and author of the book Healing & Prevention Through Nutrition. Her health oriented teaching focuses on natural, whole, plant-based and organic nutrition for optimal health and longevity. Her spiritually oriented teaching focuses on consciousness expansion and heart-centered living for optimal joy and inner peace. Evita is also the creator of several online publications: Evolving Beings, Evolving Wellness, Evolving Channelsand Evolving Scenes, as well as Healthytarian—a lifestyle for the well-being of the mind, body and spirit.

[Ishema, Carol Suchecki]

This is a good balance to the idea of, "We are all One." I think this phrase is becoming so overused that we sometimes lose its true meaning.

[Dr. SohiniBen Shukla]

Dear Ishema,

Sometimes due to repeatation we feel like that...