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The English "individual" derives from Latin individuus, meaning "indivisible, not able to be divided." This is, ironically, an indivisibility that blocks the forthcoming of an awareness of unity and oneness, the real indivisibility. The "individual" consciousness, then, is a sense of being in-on-oneself, self-enclosed, fixated on the self-sense. This means not one-with others but one-turned-inward, one-with-oneself: literally, the one self keeping that fragment of oneness from seeing the lie of self as the one. This indivisibility, therefore, is a part of the whole, being a one-self isolated from the globality we are together. This is a reason we spiritually speak of awakening: awakening from the darkness of delusion, the belief I am something in and by myself. Rather, I am something by being something more, in something more, not in myself.
So, we have this odd sight. Individuals walking around self-referencing as a so-called complete self that is a part alienated from the whole, longing to belong, to be-with, to enjoy the communion of unity arising out of oneness, for one cannot connect in Presence with others while being self-enclosed in self. Individual is the fixation of an "I" longing to be in communion and, yet, not seeing that the self-enclosure is not a final freedom but a final prison. The individual is alone in his or her own cell, even if many are sharing the same cell, for physical proximity cannot negate the self-enclosure of individuality. The cell is only a collective of celled selves, each in his or her own psychological space.
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And, oddly, I was brought up and served in religious groups that taught a heaven filled with individuals. I even heard the term often "personal salvation," which is, by definition, an individual experience of God. Again, a contradiction. No one can have an individual experience of Totality. Anyway, what would be likeable about a so-called paradise filled with self-enclosed, so isolated, beings? Why would one aspire for an individual salvation, anyway, as a final resolution to his or her need of Grace? How is it that so many find attractive the worship of an individualistic god who seems rather content being apart from those who do not do what "he" says? Is such what we could call Love? No.
Love entails the absence of individuality, god or you. Love particularizes, while retaining the totality of Totality. Love does not individualize, to do so would fragment Love itself in a fragmentation to a self-enclosed boundary. Love is not a boundary including all, Love is boundless, no boundary.
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