June 17, 2025 • 24 mins
What if the boundaries we perceive between ourselves and others, between humans and nature, between mind and body, are all illusions? This profound question lies at the heart of our exploration into the myth of separateness—a story so deeply embedded in our culture that we rarely question it, yet it shapes every aspect of our lives.
The belief that we are fundamentally separate creates suffering on every level. When we see others as "them," empathy collapses, social systems become exploitative, and our sense of self grows fragile and performative. Our separation from nature leads to ecological destruction, while our divorce from the sacred creates an existential vacuum—a spiritual hunger that no amount of consumption can satisfy.
Yet biology tells a different story. Through mirror neurons, we literally feel others' emotions. Our microbiome connects us to ecosystems. Trees communicate through underground networks. Quantum physics shows particles influence each other across vast distances. In moments of deep presence—whether through meditation, love, or crisis—people consistently report experiencing a profound unity with all life.
Meanwhile, global systems depend on maintaining this illusion of separateness. Industrial capitalism breaks life into units of profit. Nation-states foster "us versus them" thinking. Religions that become institutions stop pointing toward oneness and begin policing access to it. Modern medicine treats the body like a machine rather than an ecosystem. These systems metastasize, producing war, loneliness, ecocide, and spiritual amnesia.
The antidote isn't fighting these systems on their own terms—it's remembering what they've forgotten. When we reintegrate what they've severed—body with mind, self with earth, pain with purpose, spirit with collective—we become dangerous to systems that profit from our disconnection. Our liberation isn't just personal; it's systemic.
What kind of world might we create if we truly remembered we belong to one another—not metaphorically, but biologically, emotionally, cosmically? Every time you choose to see someone rather than judge them, every time you honor your own need for rest or truth, you break the spell of separation. You become the bridge to a world where success means rising together, power means stewardship, and love is our natural state.
Ready to remember you were never alone? Subscribe now and join our evolution of consciousness.
Episodes are updated weekly. If you want to support this evolution of consciousness please show me by following, sharing this channel with those you love, and leaving a review.
If you enjoyed our time today please donate on Buy Me a Coffee or automatically support monthly on Buzzsprout.
Let's master your universe together.
One-Time Donation: https://buymeacoffee.com/themanhattanprophet
Monthly Support: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2433170/support
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Evolved
Podcast, a place for unfilteredtruth, deep reflection and
heightened awareness.
Here, knowledge isn't justinformation, it's a tool for
transformation.
Each episode is designed tochallenge illusions, reveal
patterns and empower, not toentertain but to awaken.
(00:26):
We live in a world that teachesus to divide Me from you, mind
from body, human from nature.
It's a world built onboundaries Between countries,
between races, between what wecall self and what we call other
.
But what if those lines arelies, not real, mere illusions
(00:48):
self and what we call other.
But what if those lines arelies, not real, mere illusions?
What if the aching loneliness,ecological collapse, the
fractured systems we navigateevery day are not just symptoms
of a broken world, but symptomsof a broken story?
In this episode, we're going tochallenge the narrative that
you are alone.
We'll explore the quantumphysics that says we're
entangled, the ecosystems thatwhisper our interdependence, the
(01:11):
microbes that shape our minds,the emotions we pass between
each other like breath.
Because the truth is you werenever separate, not from each
other, not from the earth, noteven from the source that gave
you life.
And once you see it, you can'tunsee it.
So take a breath, let's begin.
(01:32):
You might be wondering why doesany of this matter?
This idea, the illusion ofseparateness might sound
abstract, esoteric, likesomething distant from your real
life.
After all, you've got to paybills, a job to keep people to
take care of.
What does an idea aboutconnection and oneness have to
do with any of that?
And here's the quiet truth mostof us are never told Everything
(01:56):
.
This illusion that you are alone, that others are them, that
nature is outside of you, thatyour mind and body are split,
shapes every single decision youmake, whether you're aware of
it or not.
It shapes how you move throughthe world, how you treat others,
how you talk to strangers, howyou handle conflict, how you
define success, how you live andhow you love.
When you believe you areseparate, you overwork yourself
(02:19):
because you think your worthmust be earned.
You ignore your body's painbecause you've been taught it's
a machine.
Your worth must be earned.
You ignore your body's painbecause you've been taught it's
a machine.
You distrust others, withholdvulnerability and live behind
masks.
You exploit the earth'sresources because you've
forgotten they're your own lungs, your own skin.
You seek validation fromman-made systems that were never
(02:39):
designed to honor your truth.
You might not say it aloud.
But the belief is there.
I am alone, I must protectmyself, I must prove myself, I
must survive, and from thatplace it's almost impossible to
truly feel safe, connected orfree.
But the moment you start topeel back that illusion, even
(02:59):
just a little, something shifts.
You realize your worth wasnever conditional, your pain was
never a weakness, yourintuition was never a fantasy
and you were never meant to doany of this alone.
This isn't just spiritualpoetry, it's the foundation of
consciousness, the lens throughwhich you see yourself and the
world.
Change the lens and everythingchanges.
(03:22):
So no, this isn't irrelevant.
This is the quiet linchpin ofyour entire life.
It's the water you've beenswimming in the story, beneath
your story, and once you see it,you can start telling a new one
, one where wholeness isn't areward.
It's your starting point.
From the moment we are born, webegin absorbing stories that
(03:45):
will shape our sense of reality.
These stories are not just toldto us.
They are built into thelanguage we learn, the systems
we live in and the relationshipswe form.
One story above all becomes ascaffolding for everything else
the story that we are separateSeparate from one another,
separate from nature, separatefrom the divine, divine,
separate even from parts ofourselves.
This story is so deeplyembedded that we rarely notice
(04:09):
it, but it touches everything,from the way we structure our
economies to the way we grieve abreakup.
It tells us success must comeat someone else's expense, that
love must be earned, that natureis a resource, that life Is a
competition and our pain is apersonal failure.
When we believe we arefundamentally separate from
other people, suffering arisesin the form of ego, competition,
(04:32):
judgment, alienation andconflict.
Empathy collapses.
If I am fundamentally not you,your pain becomes less real to
me and compassion becomesoptional.
Social systems becomeexploitative.
Others are treated as means toan end, labor, resources or
threats rather than extensionsof ourselves.
(04:55):
Loneliness and identity crisesgrow.
We obsess over definingourselves in contrast to others,
and our sense of self becomesfragile and performative.
This illusion gives rise totribalism, racism, economic
disparity and war, all rooted inthe idea that my survival is
not your survival.
(05:16):
Separating ourselves from naturehas led to the ecological
destruction and spiritualdesolation of the modern world.
We treat earth not as a livingsystem we are embedded within
but an object to dominate.
Biodiversity, loss andpollution stem from this
delusion of control rather thanthe real world interdependence.
Indigenous worldviews, whichsaw rivers, forests and animals
(05:40):
as kin, were dismissed asprimitive by a mindset that
prized extraction overreciprocity.
When we forget that we arenature or the actual universe
reflecting on itself, we createsystems—industrial agriculture,
fossil fuels, consumerism—thatextract until there is nothing
left to sustain us.
(06:01):
This is not just environmentalcollapse, it is a spiritual one.
Modern materialist paradigmshave divorced consciousness from
the cosmos, reducing life tomechanisms and meaning to myth.
The sacred becomes irrelevant.
The soul is treated as fantasy.
Healing becomes pharmaceutical,not holistic.
(06:23):
Death becomes final, nottransformational.
Our bodies are treated likemachines, our emotions like
glitches.
This division creates anexistential vacuum.
People suffer not only frommental or physical illness, but
from spiritual hunger, a loss ofmeaning, mystery, a connection
to something greater thanthemselves.
(06:43):
These divisions are illusionscreated by the mind, amplified
by culture, religion and economy.
But in truth there is no other.
There is no out there, there isno non-spirit, there is only
interbeing, a seamless web oflife, intelligence and energy
that we are never outside of,only asleep within.
(07:06):
When this illusion ofseparateness dissolves, whether
through deep love, meditation,sacred medicine or crisis,
people often report a profoundunity with all life, with the
universe, with the divine, andin that unity, suffering recedes
, not because pain disappears,but because the isolation around
(07:26):
it does.
But what if that story isn'ttrue?
What if it's not even close?
One of the most fundamentalerrors in the modern human
worldview is this belief inseparateness.
This illusion fractures realityinto artificial categories self
and other, humanity and earth,spirit and matter, and and from
that fractured, profoundsuffering arises.
(07:47):
We construct identities incontrast to those around us and
structure entire systemseconomic, political, even
cultural on the premise ofscarcity and survival.
But biology itself tells adifferent story.
Human beings are neurologicallywired for connection.
The presence of mirror neuronsin the brain means we literally
(08:07):
feel the emotions of others.
Our nervous systems synchronizein moments of shared experience
.
This is not metaphorical, it'smeasurable.
We wince when someone else ishurt.
We cry when another's voicecracks.
The boundary between my emotionand yours is far more porous
than we were taught.
Our interdependence with natureis equally irrefutable.
(08:30):
The human microbiome, thecollection of trillions of
microbes living in our bodies,comes from the world around us
soil, food, water and contactwith other living beings.
These microbes regulateeverything from our digestion to
our mood.
You are, biologically speaking,a living ecosystem.
You are not in nature, you arenature itself.
(08:54):
This truth deepens further inecological systems.
Trees, once thought to besolitary organisms, are now
understood to exist in complexunderground communication
networks via microhazel fungi,through which they share
nutrients, send warnings andsupport weaker neighbors.
Nature reveals that forests arenot collections of trees, but
(09:16):
communities.
Your breath, too, is not yourown.
Every inhale is oxygen producedby plants.
Every exhale is carbon dioxidereturned for photosynthesis.
The cycle is seamless there isno line where you end and life
begins.
Even modern physics offersinsights that shatter the myth
(09:38):
of separateness.
In the quantum realm, entangledparticles influence each other
instantaneously across vastdistances, defying the classical
notion of locality.
Physicist David Bohm proposedthat what we see as separate
parts of the universe areactually enfolded expressions of
a deeper, undivided whole.
Beneath the apparentfragmentation, there is
(09:59):
coherence.
Wholeness is not a poetic idea,it is the literal structure of
reality.
And then there is consciousness, perhaps the most intimate
domain in which the illusion ofseparateness begins to dissolve.
In moments of deep meditation,spiritual awakening or the use
of certain plant medicines,individuals often report a
profound sense of unity, amerging with all life, a loss of
(10:23):
personal ego and the directexperience that there is no true
boundary between self and otheror matter and spirit.
These experiences are not rare.
They are consistent acrosscultures, times and traditions,
and they often leave theindividual with a lasting sense
that what they had believed tobe reality was merely a narrow
sliver of something far vaster,more interconnected and more
(10:45):
alive.
All of this points to a singletruth that perception of
separateness is an illusion, adream we inherited from our
culture, our institutions andour fear.
But it is not real.
And when we begin to awakenfrom it, we find not a loss of
self but a returnness towholeness.
(11:06):
We find that earth is notbeneath us but within us, that
the divine is not elsewhere buteverywhere, that our lives are
not disconnected from oneanother but woven together in a
field of being so subtle, sovast and so intelligent that we
can only call it sacred To healpersonally, collectively,
(11:27):
ecologically.
We must return to this, knowingnot as philosophy but as real
lived experience.
To live otherwise is to becompletely delusional.
If that's your vibe, good luckwith everything.
Indigenous cultures never forgotthis, nor did mystics.
In Hinduism, this is tat tvamasi thou art that.
(11:52):
In Taoism, it is the flow ofthe Tao which moves through all
things.
In Christianity, it was thekingdom of heaven within.
These weren't poetic ideas.
They were maps of the realhuman experience.
And yet here we are, living ina world built on the lie of
separation, a world where peopledie for pieces of land, where
(12:15):
parents fear their children'sidentities, where the success of
a company might require thesilent suffering of thousands.
Let me ask you something whenwas the last time you looked at
a stranger and felt like theywere you, not metaphorically,
viscerally, like a part of yourown nervous system?
When was the last time youlooked at a tree and felt not
like an observer but a sibling?
(12:36):
When was the last time you saidthe words my life and knew it
didn't quite fit what you meant?
The illusion of separation isnot an abstract error.
It is the root of our disease.
It is what makes us numb, iswhat keeps us fighting ghosts,
it is what allows cruelty toexist, not just in systems but
(12:58):
in the quiet cruelty we showourselves.
But here's the secret theillusion only works if we
believe it.
That's why it has to bereinforced constantly through
media schooling and fear.
The illusion is fragile, itneeds repetition, it needs shame
, it needs speed, and that's howyou keep someone from noticing
(13:19):
the field they're standing in Todismantle it.
We don't need to fight it.
We need to slow down enough tofeel what is always true, To
unlearn, to reconnect, to pause,breathe and remember.
We begin to dissolve theillusion not through ideology,
but through attention, throughpresence, through choosing to be
with what is, without trying tolabel or escape it.
(13:42):
The shift begins with somethingsimple but radical A new
orientation to the world, one inwhich the boundary between self
and other is porous, one inwhich difference is not division
, one in which life is notsomething we survive but
something we are.
If the illusion of separatenessis the root of suffering, then
(14:04):
healing begins with unlearningthat illusion, not
intellectually butexperientially, begins with
unlearning that illusion, notintellectually but
experientially.
This process is not aboutachieving unity, it is about
remembering it.
Beneath our stories, identitiesand defenses, we are already
whole.
The stark reality is that theillusion of separateness is not
(14:24):
just a psychological error, itis the foundation of global
systems.
Psychological error, it is thefoundation of global systems
built to dominate, extract anddivide.
These systems do not justtolerate separateness, they
require it to function.
The more fragmented we are fromeach other, from our bodies,
the earth and our truth, themore controllable we become.
(14:45):
Let's examine them on anindividual basis.
Take industrial capitalism, forexample, whose core dependency
is the belief that your valuelies in what you produce or
consume.
Industrial capitalism breakslife into units of profit.
The body becomes labor, naturebecomes resource, time becomes a
commodity.
It requires separation betweenworkers and owners, producers
(15:06):
and consumers, human beings andecosystems.
The emotional severance fuelsconsumerism.
Disconnected people fill thevoid with things and the earth
is strip-mined to meet thisartificial hunger.
Rather than healing the innerworld, the system monetizes it.
The more broken we are, themore products we need.
(15:28):
The more distracted we are, theless we take back our autonomy.
It metastasizes through plannedobsolescence,
hyper-individualism and thesacred myth of economic growth,
even as the planet burns.
Take nation-states andgeopolitical borders.
These foster the belief in usversus them.
(15:51):
I know this sounds far-fetched,but in truth, borders are
imaginary lines Made throughviolence, real violence.
Modern nations require theillusion of separateness To
justify war, enforce immigrationpolicies and prioritize loyalty
to flags over shared humanity.
Patriotism becomes a form ofspiritual amnesia, convincing
(16:14):
people to die for constructswhile ignoring their shared
breath with strangers across theseas.
It metastasizes in dronewarfare, ethnic cleansing,
xenophobic politics, bordermilitarization.
The system survives by keepingyou afraid of the other, even if
the other is just you, in adifferent body with a different
name.
When people polarize one another, when people delineate, when
(16:39):
people try to create divisions,they believe that they are
taking a stand for themselves,but in truth they are a victim
of a system, of a mechanism ofthought, a perverted, deluded
understanding of the actualreality of their existence, of
(17:01):
their life.
This disconnection is fueledeven by organized religion.
When it's weaponized, it'srooted in the illusion that we
are separate from the divine.
When religion becomesinstitution, it stops pointing
towards oneness and begins topolice access to it.
God becomes a male authorityfigure in the sky.
(17:21):
You become a sinner in need ofsaving.
A priest, pastor or prophetbecomes your translator to the
divine.
This separation fuels obediencethrough shame, violence in the
name of purity.
It metastasizes in holy wars,theocracy, moral policing, the
erasure of indigenousspirituality and earth-based
(17:43):
wisdom.
Natives all over the world areviewed as savages, as animals
with a lack of understanding anddeep insight.
However, in truth, theirinsight and knowledge is closer
to the reality of the actual,real world existence.
What better way to controlpeople than to convince them
(18:04):
they are fundamentally unworthy,unless redeemed through
submission to a god, to anideology to doctrine.
This is even ever-present inthe practice of modern western
medicine.
Modern medicine excels attrauma repair but fails at
holistic healing.
It treats the body like amachine, not an ecosystem.
(18:28):
Illness becomes a malfunction,not a message.
Symptoms are silenced, notlistened to.
Symptoms are treated, curesdisregarded.
The patient is a passive object, not a self-healing system.
It metastasizes inover-medication,
(18:48):
over-specialization, medicalgaslighting of women and
minorities, profit-drivenhealthcare that treats but never
cures.
The illusion of separatenessmakes people alienated from
their bodies, turning toinstitutions instead of
intuition.
When you believe your body isbroken and your pain is random,
you surrender your agency andyour healing to a system.
(19:12):
These systems together form aglobal metastasis, a cancerous
replication of the illusion ofseparateness.
They produce war with us versusthem, loneliness, you versus
the world, ecocide, man versusnature, medical dependency, body
versus self and economicdespair, worker versus owner and
(19:35):
, lastly, spiritual amnesia, theego versus the source.
In this world, love is in trutha liability, rest is considered
laziness, Compassion isweakness and unity is a threat.
These systems don't just dependon separation.
(19:55):
They are terrified of yourwholeness, because a person who
remembers they are part ofeverything cannot be controlled
when you reintegrate whatthey've severed your body with
your mind, yourself with theearth, your pain with purpose,
your spirit with the collective.
You become dangerous to thesesystems because your liberation
(20:17):
is not just personal, it'ssystemic.
So now, as we come to the end ofthis conversation, I want to
leave you not with an answer,but with a question, a question
that might change how you seethe world from this moment
forward.
What kind of world could wecreate if we truly remember that
(20:38):
we belong to one another, notmetaphorically, not spiritually,
but biologically, emotionally,cosmically?
Because the opposite of theillusion of separateness isn't
an ideology or a utopia, it'spresence, it's wholeness.
Its presence, its wholeness,it's the felt sense that we were
never meant to live in piecesIn a conscious world awake.
(21:06):
Success would no longer meanrising above others, it would
mean rising with them.
Power wouldn't be domination,it would be stewardship, holding
the whole gently in our hands.
Work wouldn't be aboutexhaustion or extraction, but
about sacred offering what wegive back to the web that gives
us breath.
Love wouldn't be a scarcity ora transaction.
(21:27):
It would be the natural stateof beings who no longer fear
their own vulnerability, whoremember that connection is the
oxygen of the soul.
In that world, we would listendifferently to our partners, to
our children, to the earth, tothe subtle voice within us that
we've ignored for too long.
We would walk slower, speakmore truth, unlearn more than we
(21:53):
achieve and, perhaps, mostradically, we would suffer
together instead of alone,because suffering shared,
becomes compassion andcompassion changes everything.
This world I'm describing isn'tfar away.
It isn't locked in some distantfuture.
It's's one shift away From fearto presence, from ego to
(22:17):
essence, from me to we.
And so you, right now, areholding the thread.
Every time you choose to seesomeone instead of judging them,
every time you listen withoutneeding to fix, every time you
honor your own need for rest,truth or softness, you break up
the spell of separation.
(22:37):
You become the antidote, youbecome the bridge.
We don't heal the world that wehave known by fighting it on its
own terms.
We heal it by remembering whatit forgot, by becoming the very
thing it's missing Wholeness.
So, as you leave this space,pause, feel your body, feel your
(23:00):
breath, the same breath thatthe trees exhale.
Remember the people who haveloved you back into yourself,
Remember the feeling ofbelonging.
Even if it was fleeting, it wasreal and it still is.
Let it guide you back to theworld, not to escape it, but to
reenter it as a kind of medicine, because this world doesn't
(23:22):
need more cleverness, it needsmore remembrance.
It needs more people like you,who are willing to live with
their heart open, who are braveenough to walk gently, love
fiercely and stay awake, nomatter how loud the illusion
becomes.
You are not alone.
You never were.
(23:44):
As you continue listening to theEvolved Podcast, I'm going to
unveil the true nature of theworld that exists right under
your nose.
I'm going to analyze with you,out in the open, the systems at
play here and the ways we cangrow together and evolve.
My aim To provide you with realways to touch higher levels of
awareness through truth andknowledge.
Episodes are updated weekly.
(24:04):
If you want to change yourworld for the better and support
this evolution of consciousness, please show me by following,
sharing this podcast with thoseyou love and leaving a review.
If you enjoyed our time today,please donate on Buy Me A Coffee
, linked in the show notes below.
Until next time, let's level upand master your universe.
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Evolved
Podcast, a place for unfilteredtruth, deep reflection and
heightened awareness.
Here, knowledge isn't justinformation, it's a tool for
transformation.
Each episode is designed tochallenge illusions, reveal
patterns and empower, not toentertain but to awaken.
(00:26):
We live in a world that teachesus to divide Me from you, mind
from body, human from nature.
It's a world built onboundaries Between countries,
between races, between what wecall self and what we call other
.
But what if those lines arelies, not real, mere illusions
(00:48):
self and what we call other.
But what if those lines arelies, not real, mere illusions?
What if the aching loneliness,ecological collapse, the
fractured systems we navigateevery day are not just symptoms
of a broken world, but symptomsof a broken story?
In this episode, we're going tochallenge the narrative that
you are alone.
We'll explore the quantumphysics that says we're
entangled, the ecosystems thatwhisper our interdependence, the
(01:11):
microbes that shape our minds,the emotions we pass between
each other like breath.
Because the truth is you werenever separate, not from each
other, not from the earth, noteven from the source that gave
you life.
And once you see it, you can'tunsee it.
So take a breath, let's begin.
(01:32):
You might be wondering why doesany of this matter?
This idea, the illusion ofseparateness might sound
abstract, esoteric, likesomething distant from your real
life.
After all, you've got to paybills, a job to keep people to
take care of.
What does an idea aboutconnection and oneness have to
do with any of that?
And here's the quiet truth mostof us are never told Everything
(01:56):
.
This illusion that you are alone, that others are them, that
nature is outside of you, thatyour mind and body are split,
shapes every single decision youmake, whether you're aware of
it or not.
It shapes how you move throughthe world, how you treat others,
how you talk to strangers, howyou handle conflict, how you
define success, how you live andhow you love.
When you believe you areseparate, you overwork yourself
(02:19):
because you think your worthmust be earned.
You ignore your body's painbecause you've been taught it's
a machine.
Your worth must be earned.
You ignore your body's painbecause you've been taught it's
a machine.
You distrust others, withholdvulnerability and live behind
masks.
You exploit the earth'sresources because you've
forgotten they're your own lungs, your own skin.
You seek validation fromman-made systems that were never
(02:39):
designed to honor your truth.
You might not say it aloud.
But the belief is there.
I am alone, I must protectmyself, I must prove myself, I
must survive, and from thatplace it's almost impossible to
truly feel safe, connected orfree.
But the moment you start topeel back that illusion, even
(02:59):
just a little, something shifts.
You realize your worth wasnever conditional, your pain was
never a weakness, yourintuition was never a fantasy
and you were never meant to doany of this alone.
This isn't just spiritualpoetry, it's the foundation of
consciousness, the lens throughwhich you see yourself and the
world.
Change the lens and everythingchanges.
(03:22):
So no, this isn't irrelevant.
This is the quiet linchpin ofyour entire life.
It's the water you've beenswimming in the story, beneath
your story, and once you see it,you can start telling a new one
, one where wholeness isn't areward.
It's your starting point.
From the moment we are born, webegin absorbing stories that
(03:45):
will shape our sense of reality.
These stories are not just toldto us.
They are built into thelanguage we learn, the systems
we live in and the relationshipswe form.
One story above all becomes ascaffolding for everything else
the story that we are separateSeparate from one another,
separate from nature, separatefrom the divine, divine,
separate even from parts ofourselves.
This story is so deeplyembedded that we rarely notice
(04:09):
it, but it touches everything,from the way we structure our
economies to the way we grieve abreakup.
It tells us success must comeat someone else's expense, that
love must be earned, that natureis a resource, that life Is a
competition and our pain is apersonal failure.
When we believe we arefundamentally separate from
other people, suffering arisesin the form of ego, competition,
(04:32):
judgment, alienation andconflict.
Empathy collapses.
If I am fundamentally not you,your pain becomes less real to
me and compassion becomesoptional.
Social systems becomeexploitative.
Others are treated as means toan end, labor, resources or
threats rather than extensionsof ourselves.
(04:55):
Loneliness and identity crisesgrow.
We obsess over definingourselves in contrast to others,
and our sense of self becomesfragile and performative.
This illusion gives rise totribalism, racism, economic
disparity and war, all rooted inthe idea that my survival is
not your survival.
(05:16):
Separating ourselves from naturehas led to the ecological
destruction and spiritualdesolation of the modern world.
We treat earth not as a livingsystem we are embedded within
but an object to dominate.
Biodiversity, loss andpollution stem from this
delusion of control rather thanthe real world interdependence.
Indigenous worldviews, whichsaw rivers, forests and animals
(05:40):
as kin, were dismissed asprimitive by a mindset that
prized extraction overreciprocity.
When we forget that we arenature or the actual universe
reflecting on itself, we createsystems—industrial agriculture,
fossil fuels, consumerism—thatextract until there is nothing
left to sustain us.
(06:01):
This is not just environmentalcollapse, it is a spiritual one.
Modern materialist paradigmshave divorced consciousness from
the cosmos, reducing life tomechanisms and meaning to myth.
The sacred becomes irrelevant.
The soul is treated as fantasy.
Healing becomes pharmaceutical,not holistic.
(06:23):
Death becomes final, nottransformational.
Our bodies are treated likemachines, our emotions like
glitches.
This division creates anexistential vacuum.
People suffer not only frommental or physical illness, but
from spiritual hunger, a loss ofmeaning, mystery, a connection
to something greater thanthemselves.
(06:43):
These divisions are illusionscreated by the mind, amplified
by culture, religion and economy.
But in truth there is no other.
There is no out there, there isno non-spirit, there is only
interbeing, a seamless web oflife, intelligence and energy
that we are never outside of,only asleep within.
(07:06):
When this illusion ofseparateness dissolves, whether
through deep love, meditation,sacred medicine or crisis,
people often report a profoundunity with all life, with the
universe, with the divine, andin that unity, suffering recedes
, not because pain disappears,but because the isolation around
(07:26):
it does.
But what if that story isn'ttrue?
What if it's not even close?
One of the most fundamentalerrors in the modern human
worldview is this belief inseparateness.
This illusion fractures realityinto artificial categories self
and other, humanity and earth,spirit and matter, and and from
that fractured, profoundsuffering arises.
(07:47):
We construct identities incontrast to those around us and
structure entire systemseconomic, political, even
cultural on the premise ofscarcity and survival.
But biology itself tells adifferent story.
Human beings are neurologicallywired for connection.
The presence of mirror neuronsin the brain means we literally
(08:07):
feel the emotions of others.
Our nervous systems synchronizein moments of shared experience
.
This is not metaphorical, it'smeasurable.
We wince when someone else ishurt.
We cry when another's voicecracks.
The boundary between my emotionand yours is far more porous
than we were taught.
Our interdependence with natureis equally irrefutable.
(08:30):
The human microbiome, thecollection of trillions of
microbes living in our bodies,comes from the world around us
soil, food, water and contactwith other living beings.
These microbes regulateeverything from our digestion to
our mood.
You are, biologically speaking,a living ecosystem.
You are not in nature, you arenature itself.
(08:54):
This truth deepens further inecological systems.
Trees, once thought to besolitary organisms, are now
understood to exist in complexunderground communication
networks via microhazel fungi,through which they share
nutrients, send warnings andsupport weaker neighbors.
Nature reveals that forests arenot collections of trees, but
(09:16):
communities.
Your breath, too, is not yourown.
Every inhale is oxygen producedby plants.
Every exhale is carbon dioxidereturned for photosynthesis.
The cycle is seamless there isno line where you end and life
begins.
Even modern physics offersinsights that shatter the myth
(09:38):
of separateness.
In the quantum realm, entangledparticles influence each other
instantaneously across vastdistances, defying the classical
notion of locality.
Physicist David Bohm proposedthat what we see as separate
parts of the universe areactually enfolded expressions of
a deeper, undivided whole.
Beneath the apparentfragmentation, there is
(09:59):
coherence.
Wholeness is not a poetic idea,it is the literal structure of
reality.
And then there is consciousness, perhaps the most intimate
domain in which the illusion ofseparateness begins to dissolve.
In moments of deep meditation,spiritual awakening or the use
of certain plant medicines,individuals often report a
profound sense of unity, amerging with all life, a loss of
(10:23):
personal ego and the directexperience that there is no true
boundary between self and otheror matter and spirit.
These experiences are not rare.
They are consistent acrosscultures, times and traditions,
and they often leave theindividual with a lasting sense
that what they had believed tobe reality was merely a narrow
sliver of something far vaster,more interconnected and more
(10:45):
alive.
All of this points to a singletruth that perception of
separateness is an illusion, adream we inherited from our
culture, our institutions andour fear.
But it is not real.
And when we begin to awakenfrom it, we find not a loss of
self but a returnness towholeness.
(11:06):
We find that earth is notbeneath us but within us, that
the divine is not elsewhere buteverywhere, that our lives are
not disconnected from oneanother but woven together in a
field of being so subtle, sovast and so intelligent that we
can only call it sacred To healpersonally, collectively,
(11:27):
ecologically.
We must return to this, knowingnot as philosophy but as real
lived experience.
To live otherwise is to becompletely delusional.
If that's your vibe, good luckwith everything.
Indigenous cultures never forgotthis, nor did mystics.
In Hinduism, this is tat tvamasi thou art that.
(11:52):
In Taoism, it is the flow ofthe Tao which moves through all
things.
In Christianity, it was thekingdom of heaven within.
These weren't poetic ideas.
They were maps of the realhuman experience.
And yet here we are, living ina world built on the lie of
separation, a world where peopledie for pieces of land, where
(12:15):
parents fear their children'sidentities, where the success of
a company might require thesilent suffering of thousands.
Let me ask you something whenwas the last time you looked at
a stranger and felt like theywere you, not metaphorically,
viscerally, like a part of yourown nervous system?
When was the last time youlooked at a tree and felt not
like an observer but a sibling?
(12:36):
When was the last time you saidthe words my life and knew it
didn't quite fit what you meant?
The illusion of separation isnot an abstract error.
It is the root of our disease.
It is what makes us numb, iswhat keeps us fighting ghosts,
it is what allows cruelty toexist, not just in systems but
(12:58):
in the quiet cruelty we showourselves.
But here's the secret theillusion only works if we
believe it.
That's why it has to bereinforced constantly through
media schooling and fear.
The illusion is fragile, itneeds repetition, it needs shame
, it needs speed, and that's howyou keep someone from noticing
(13:19):
the field they're standing in Todismantle it.
We don't need to fight it.
We need to slow down enough tofeel what is always true, To
unlearn, to reconnect, to pause,breathe and remember.
We begin to dissolve theillusion not through ideology,
but through attention, throughpresence, through choosing to be
with what is, without trying tolabel or escape it.
(13:42):
The shift begins with somethingsimple but radical A new
orientation to the world, one inwhich the boundary between self
and other is porous, one inwhich difference is not division
, one in which life is notsomething we survive but
something we are.
If the illusion of separatenessis the root of suffering, then
(14:04):
healing begins with unlearningthat illusion, not
intellectually butexperientially, begins with
unlearning that illusion, notintellectually but
experientially.
This process is not aboutachieving unity, it is about
remembering it.
Beneath our stories, identitiesand defenses, we are already
whole.
The stark reality is that theillusion of separateness is not
(14:24):
just a psychological error, itis the foundation of global
systems.
Psychological error, it is thefoundation of global systems
built to dominate, extract anddivide.
These systems do not justtolerate separateness, they
require it to function.
The more fragmented we are fromeach other, from our bodies,
the earth and our truth, themore controllable we become.
(14:45):
Let's examine them on anindividual basis.
Take industrial capitalism, forexample, whose core dependency
is the belief that your valuelies in what you produce or
consume.
Industrial capitalism breakslife into units of profit.
The body becomes labor, naturebecomes resource, time becomes a
commodity.
It requires separation betweenworkers and owners, producers
(15:06):
and consumers, human beings andecosystems.
The emotional severance fuelsconsumerism.
Disconnected people fill thevoid with things and the earth
is strip-mined to meet thisartificial hunger.
Rather than healing the innerworld, the system monetizes it.
The more broken we are, themore products we need.
(15:28):
The more distracted we are, theless we take back our autonomy.
It metastasizes through plannedobsolescence,
hyper-individualism and thesacred myth of economic growth,
even as the planet burns.
Take nation-states andgeopolitical borders.
These foster the belief in usversus them.
(15:51):
I know this sounds far-fetched,but in truth, borders are
imaginary lines Made throughviolence, real violence.
Modern nations require theillusion of separateness To
justify war, enforce immigrationpolicies and prioritize loyalty
to flags over shared humanity.
Patriotism becomes a form ofspiritual amnesia, convincing
(16:14):
people to die for constructswhile ignoring their shared
breath with strangers across theseas.
It metastasizes in dronewarfare, ethnic cleansing,
xenophobic politics, bordermilitarization.
The system survives by keepingyou afraid of the other, even if
the other is just you, in adifferent body with a different
name.
When people polarize one another, when people delineate, when
(16:39):
people try to create divisions,they believe that they are
taking a stand for themselves,but in truth they are a victim
of a system, of a mechanism ofthought, a perverted, deluded
understanding of the actualreality of their existence, of
(17:01):
their life.
This disconnection is fueledeven by organized religion.
When it's weaponized, it'srooted in the illusion that we
are separate from the divine.
When religion becomesinstitution, it stops pointing
towards oneness and begins topolice access to it.
God becomes a male authorityfigure in the sky.
(17:21):
You become a sinner in need ofsaving.
A priest, pastor or prophetbecomes your translator to the
divine.
This separation fuels obediencethrough shame, violence in the
name of purity.
It metastasizes in holy wars,theocracy, moral policing, the
erasure of indigenousspirituality and earth-based
(17:43):
wisdom.
Natives all over the world areviewed as savages, as animals
with a lack of understanding anddeep insight.
However, in truth, theirinsight and knowledge is closer
to the reality of the actual,real world existence.
What better way to controlpeople than to convince them
(18:04):
they are fundamentally unworthy,unless redeemed through
submission to a god, to anideology to doctrine.
This is even ever-present inthe practice of modern western
medicine.
Modern medicine excels attrauma repair but fails at
holistic healing.
It treats the body like amachine, not an ecosystem.
(18:28):
Illness becomes a malfunction,not a message.
Symptoms are silenced, notlistened to.
Symptoms are treated, curesdisregarded.
The patient is a passive object, not a self-healing system.
It metastasizes inover-medication,
(18:48):
over-specialization, medicalgaslighting of women and
minorities, profit-drivenhealthcare that treats but never
cures.
The illusion of separatenessmakes people alienated from
their bodies, turning toinstitutions instead of
intuition.
When you believe your body isbroken and your pain is random,
you surrender your agency andyour healing to a system.
(19:12):
These systems together form aglobal metastasis, a cancerous
replication of the illusion ofseparateness.
They produce war with us versusthem, loneliness, you versus
the world, ecocide, man versusnature, medical dependency, body
versus self and economicdespair, worker versus owner and
(19:35):
, lastly, spiritual amnesia, theego versus the source.
In this world, love is in trutha liability, rest is considered
laziness, Compassion isweakness and unity is a threat.
These systems don't just dependon separation.
(19:55):
They are terrified of yourwholeness, because a person who
remembers they are part ofeverything cannot be controlled
when you reintegrate whatthey've severed your body with
your mind, yourself with theearth, your pain with purpose,
your spirit with the collective.
You become dangerous to thesesystems because your liberation
(20:17):
is not just personal, it'ssystemic.
So now, as we come to the end ofthis conversation, I want to
leave you not with an answer,but with a question, a question
that might change how you seethe world from this moment
forward.
What kind of world could wecreate if we truly remember that
(20:38):
we belong to one another, notmetaphorically, not spiritually,
but biologically, emotionally,cosmically?
Because the opposite of theillusion of separateness isn't
an ideology or a utopia, it'spresence, it's wholeness.
Its presence, its wholeness,it's the felt sense that we were
never meant to live in piecesIn a conscious world awake.
(21:06):
Success would no longer meanrising above others, it would
mean rising with them.
Power wouldn't be domination,it would be stewardship, holding
the whole gently in our hands.
Work wouldn't be aboutexhaustion or extraction, but
about sacred offering what wegive back to the web that gives
us breath.
Love wouldn't be a scarcity ora transaction.
(21:27):
It would be the natural stateof beings who no longer fear
their own vulnerability, whoremember that connection is the
oxygen of the soul.
In that world, we would listendifferently to our partners, to
our children, to the earth, tothe subtle voice within us that
we've ignored for too long.
We would walk slower, speakmore truth, unlearn more than we
(21:53):
achieve and, perhaps, mostradically, we would suffer
together instead of alone,because suffering shared,
becomes compassion andcompassion changes everything.
This world I'm describing isn'tfar away.
It isn't locked in some distantfuture.
It's's one shift away From fearto presence, from ego to
(22:17):
essence, from me to we.
And so you, right now, areholding the thread.
Every time you choose to seesomeone instead of judging them,
every time you listen withoutneeding to fix, every time you
honor your own need for rest,truth or softness, you break up
the spell of separation.
(22:37):
You become the antidote, youbecome the bridge.
We don't heal the world that wehave known by fighting it on its
own terms.
We heal it by remembering whatit forgot, by becoming the very
thing it's missing Wholeness.
So, as you leave this space,pause, feel your body, feel your
(23:00):
breath, the same breath thatthe trees exhale.
Remember the people who haveloved you back into yourself,
Remember the feeling ofbelonging.
Even if it was fleeting, it wasreal and it still is.
Let it guide you back to theworld, not to escape it, but to
reenter it as a kind of medicine, because this world doesn't
(23:22):
need more cleverness, it needsmore remembrance.
It needs more people like you,who are willing to live with
their heart open, who are braveenough to walk gently, love
fiercely and stay awake, nomatter how loud the illusion
becomes.
You are not alone.
You never were.
(23:44):
As you continue listening to theEvolved Podcast, I'm going to
unveil the true nature of theworld that exists right under
your nose.
I'm going to analyze with you,out in the open, the systems at
play here and the ways we cangrow together and evolve.
My aim To provide you with realways to touch higher levels of
awareness through truth andknowledge.
Episodes are updated weekly.
(24:04):
If you want to change yourworld for the better and support
this evolution of consciousness, please show me by following,
sharing this podcast with thoseyou love and leaving a review.
If you enjoyed our time today,please donate on Buy Me A Coffee
, linked in the show notes below.
Until next time, let's level upand master your universe.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.