Todd Harper, 24, California, USA

For me, oneness is the foundation of my life, the solid ground on which I stand. It is the essential substance of life, as well as the medium through which life is experienced. It is an ever-present opportunity to participate in the way life comes into existence. Oneness is not a grand ideal to be strived for but never reached. It is as simple as a breath of air and even more necessary. My life can be likened to the strands of a spider web, with oneness being the space between and around the threads, the space that gives shape and meaning to every fiber of my existence in relation to the greater web of which I am a part.

Living from this space has necessarily brought a fundamental change in how I perceive and relate to life. Perhaps the most important aspect of this change is the experience of completion that naturally accompanies my experience of oneness. In past years, most of my life was governed by a nameless need that drove me onward from moment to moment without any lasting satisfaction. But in oneness there is no need to strive and nothing for which to strive. Rather than a sharp-edged hunger that demands fulfillment, oneness brings a fullness that honors every thought, feeling, and sensation that comes my way. It is a state of openness and receptivity that recognizes opportunity, not need, because all that is needed is already present.

I feel that there is a definite need for me to welcome oneness into my daily life, to allow the light of its presence to show me a different way of living. It is not enough to just touch it now and again when I feel like it. I think it needs my persistent attention and gratitude in order to become an active force in the world. And from what I see, the world needs this energy, this power. It needs people to carry it into the denseness of society, where it can do what is needed to remind us what it means to be a human being living on this planet.