[Excerpt  Be and Become, © ProCreative, Sydney 2000]

Key Concepts:

1. The belief in “separateness” (i.e. that everything and everyone is separate, local and limited) is the root cause for the world’s ills. In an analogous sense, we are children, not yet having learned how to relate to others (other species, other races, “inanimate” objects and ourselves).
2. The belief in “separateness” causes humanity to focus on loss, pain and limitation. It separates (denies and ignores) our potentials for an inner-spiritual awareness and creativity, causing unnecessary upset, turmoil and difficulty.
3. This belief-system fuels competitive, combative behavior. It fuels the mechanistic scientific view that we are merely a lucky coincidence of molecules.
4. The belief in “separateness” allows the development of the belief in spiritual perfection (reliant on a separation between 'here and now,' and some ideal 'other' state).
5. Similarly, this philosophy leads to a belief in scientific certainty (reliant on perfection of knowledge and measurement) in which matter, energy, people, plants and planets can be fully understood by analysing the component parts (reductionism).
6. The belief in “separateness” is due to humanity’s immaturity. In terms of human development, we are in late adolescence, nearing adulthood. For the last few hundred years (during the industrial era) we have overly focused on the “masculine” qualities of difference, technology, objectivity and individuality, much as many adolescent males do. Hence Western science’s dismissal of the “feminine” aspects such as cooperation, interconnectedness and the “spiritual.”