I feel like one of the first things I should do here is explain that. It comes from my experiences with ego loss/ego death (more on that later) and my other spiritual and life experiences.
A few years ago, I had my first experience with ego loss–it’s this feeling you get, like an epiphany, where you realize that individuality is an illusion and everything in the universe is part of the same thing. It’s a euphoric experience for most people, where you realize that “connected” just doesn’t cut it. For things to be connected, they have to be separate, but this goes even deeper. There’s no connection because there is no distinction.
Think of it like a table with a bunch of legs. Where the legs touch the ground, they appear distinct. Further up, in the plane of the table legs, it still looks like they’re separate…but when you get to the plane of the table, they’re indistinguishable.
I think it’s like that with us, too–all things that have life appear to be individuals at first, but when you go deeper, there is no distinction. We’re just pieces of soul energy that are acting like individuals. I have a little of this feeling all the time, but I also realize that if everyone in the world were always experiencing ego loss, we’d all die.
I think the gods are just as separate and individual as we are–which is to say, they’re not. (I’m not sure if this makes me a hard polytheist or a soft polytheist.) Furthermore, I think that we’re made of the same “stuff” that they are; they’re just a lot bigger and a lot older.
I believe that when we die, the individuality dissolves completely and our soul stuff goes back in the “pile” and can be reincarnated into other beings, but not as the individuals we once were. Part of you could go into a plant and part of you could go into a bug and part of you could go into a star, if that makes sense. The idea of this loss of individuality disturbed me when I first encountered it, but now it seems like the only thing that makes sense.
So when I talk about being an “Alive-Thing” and other stuff being “Alive-Things” I’m trying to convey what’s really important–that everything is just a manifestation of the same stuff. Although individuality is helpful and applicable in day to day life, it’s really just an illusion, and you are just as much you as you are that tree outside or that bug under your desk or that duck you saw at that pond one time.
…well, that’s what I think, anyway.
Tales of an Alive-Thing 