What Is Unity?

Hint: It’s not uniformity

Human languages are poor means of communication so it’s worth taking the time to clearly define key terms/concepts.

When you hear “unity”, what comes to mind? What does unity mean to you?
Pause to crystallize your thoughts.

Here’s my take…

We experience the world as an apparent duality – a scale between two opposites. But duality is an illusion, like light and shadow: one exists while the other is the absence of it – one is “what is” and the other is “what is not”.

At the core, there are only two driving forces: Love and Fear – Fear being the absence of Love.

There’s Unity and Separation – Separation being the absence of Unity – so only Unity is “what is”.

To avoid potential confusion:

• Unity and One/Oneness are not about the numerical one. It’s not about uniformity. It’s like fractals (appearing similar at various scales) or Russian dolls (nested within one another).
• Humanity has been misled by the comforting belief ”we are all the same” and by the easiness of uniformity. We are all different and that’s precisely why Unity Makes Strength.

Answering specifically what triggered this: ReTribalize’s email “Stop trying to save all of humanity” (Instagram post)

[…]
From this meta crisis, many preachers of world peace and world solutions rise up to help humanity.
They are woefully misguided.
If I were to create a new religion: I’d stop trying to save all of humanity.
Religions that preach unity or aim at world peace always end in tyranny or totalitarianism.
We can’t make everyone believe the same thing, so therefore, let’s stop trying.
Let’s create religions and spiritual subcultures that aim at real concentration of an ethos and distinction, with simple respect for neighbors.
No more of this one world government. One world religion. One world unity… It’s bullshit.

Unity is at the core of your vision of tribes – aligned people.

To understand how Unity is applicable globally, think in terms of Russian dolls (a tree of graphs and sets) and lowest common denominator.

In your vision, a tribe shares common values – that’s a level of Unity. But there are always subgroups; and the lower you go, the greater the common denominators are. Right? There are different levels of Unity refining down from the tribe to its individuals. 

Can you imagine the same upward – from tribes to humanity? The higher you go globally, the less you share in common… but there still are common denominators… and that’s where you can unite.

Don’t you think that uniting higher makes the lower stronger?