Beyond Belonging

Just days ago I had a thought that was a subtle alteration of my view of the word belonging but it had a very dynamic impact on me. In an instant, it was like popping the cork on a well shaken bottle of champagne. What follows is what came forth from that fountain, but was not the cause of it. I really don’t know what happened.

One definition of belonging is: Acceptance as a natural member or part.

Wikipedia’s description of belongingness also popped up when I did the search:
Belongingness is the human emotional need to be an accepted member of a group. Whether it is family, friends, co-workers, a religion, or something else, people tend to have an ‘inherent’ desire to belong and be an important part of something greater than themselves.


I “belong” to a number of groups. One of them is Ria Baeck’s Collective Presencing, and in this particular instance it was a Deep Dive, which is a short term closed group of 15. We were engaging with a question that included the word “we.” Strangely, I paused at that word when pondering it shortly before getting on Zoom for our call. On this Blog I have often written about the I, the We, the I/We, and the oscillation between the two, so that way of blending came to mind. It occurred to me that the word belonging itself was an impediment to that oscillation. Note in the definition above the use of the word “member”. A member is a distinct thus separate part.

I have previously described an experience in which there was a loss of identity, where there was simply experience occurring without, at moments, even the awareness that it was occurring. This is how I described it in the Post Experiences of Being :

It is reminiscent of “time flies when you’re having fun” except that it has been much more frequent and there has been a rapid oscillation between experience and then noticing that I was just lost in “it”. There appears to be no “I” in the experience. Rather, the experience is noticed after the fact and there is then a re-cognition of the lack of identity during the experience, which is really no surprise given the immediate nature of experiencing. But what is new is the sense that whatever it is that holds identity in place lets go and simply allows experience to occur. It feels like what life or consciousness desires is access to experience, here in this place, through portals such as us, and that it uses every available avenue to do just that. But in one case, it was not just me. I was doing a “What is present?” practice with someone and there was a mutual experience of free-flowing dancing in the expanse of imagination, one leading and one following. We experienced exchanging the roles of leader and follower, which began to accelerate back and forth so fast that, in an instant, leader and follower were merged. Both of us were gone. There was no I and no We. After the fact, it seemed that dance was simply occurring, as if consciousness had been set free to enjoy itself.

It seemed to me, in that moment several days ago, that the word belonging itself was a kind of thought-barrier to stepping into a merged We, which I think must precede the weaving in and out of pure experience/loss of self-reflective awareness that I had experienced. At least initially, and I will get to that, I thought that the “emotional need” described by Wikipedia was not ultimately for belonging but for the pure delight of this weaving. I think that integration or integrating would be a good way to describe the entry into this stage beyond belonging.

Some blending happens in any close relationship and marriage is a commitment into a more intimate kind of We blending. But I see integration as a step beyond that. I then wondered if  a group can reach a kind of integrated state. Yes, I think so, perhaps not to the weaving stage, but at least to the integrated We stage. I once had an experience like that. Granted that it was drug induced, but it was very powerful and no one who was there will ever forget it. In my college years seven of us were gathered together to try “peyote buttons” for the first time. We had all done many hallucinogens before, including mescaline, which comes from the peyote. For some unremembered period of time that evening, anything that came out of anyone’s mouth was either added to or simply agreed with. I clearly remember hearing “Yes, that’s how it is” or “That’s right” over and over. I have often since described it like one brain with seven mouths. This is clearly beyond both belonging and the simple blending that occurs in most of the marriages that I’ve seen.

I recently read a book by Jeff Carreira called “American Awakening.” Referring to William James he says: “James had an intriguing vision for how the process of consciousness, including the process of thinking, can go on in a line that looks intelligently directed, but does not require the existence of any independent entity that could be called a ‘thinker’…As human beings, we mistakenly see ourselves as the guiding force of our thought process, when in fact it is a completely automated process led by the desire to experience satisfaction.”

Perhaps this “experience of satisfaction” is, again, that dancing of a We in and out of “being an experience”, as I described in the excerpt above. Either way, it is within the realm of possibility that our thoughts are not solely our own, ever. And though in my peyote experience the arising thoughts all seemed to be in alignment, even in our own personal internal “dialogue” there are clearly debates from different perspectives going on with some frequency. Any group in the dynamic flow of being integrated would certainly experience both as well.

In my more recent post Integrating the We, I described how I have been infused by the essence of now over 1,100 delightful souls that I have had the privilege to get to know over my lifetime and that all of their essences are now inseparably “me”. Thus the notion that “my” thoughts arise from that kind of blended me/us, is not out of alignment with James’ idea that thoughts are simply a “process of consciousness” that  “does not require the existence of any independent entity that could be called a thinker”. It is also clear that for me what “comes to mind” is very often evoked by the presence of who I am with, so I am inclined to think that we are already, in vary degrees, blended with most people that we come into contact with. But integrating feels like a further step that seems to require acknowledging and choosing to be integrated. I think that it requires knowing that you will have to give up the notion of “your” thoughts, which is tantamount to letting go of your “self”. Though it is often said that the ego is a problem, no one really wants to give up the self, as that may infer giving up the beloved belief in your soul or “who I really am.” But perhaps “who I really am” is a merged state of a higher order that re-incorporates a Self that existed prior to the evolutionary differentiation that led to the more narrowly experienced “self” that you now consider yourself to be. This expanded self, experienced as a re-integrated “I”,  will recollect all of the experiences and wisdom that “it” gathered when differentiated. The I that you then experience yourself to be will still be the I that you experience now, just with more experiences under its belt, so to speak. Each formerly individuated “I” will still just be experienced as the expanded I. There is no loss, only gain. It is this state, I think, which we actually are gravitating towards and which the word belonging may blind us to.

I see a progression of deliberately choosing to be integrating with others, then weaving in and out of the integrated We/pure experience, and then regularly oscillating from there to an expanded I, in an ongoing process. It is all just a practice for individuals and groups that exists, in this moment, only in my imagination. Though the process will surely be messy at times, hopefully it will also be joyful at times. Re-unions generally are. 

“From Delight all these beings are born, by Delight they exist and grow, to Delight they return.” – Taittiriya Upanishad: