Are we hallucinating the belief that we are separate?

Perhaps a wakeup call. The ego, when fully purchased conjures up some weird stuff. I would find myself thinking I have been through so much suffering. Not my suffering, it was just suffering that we all experience our own version of. That same suffering that propelled me on this path. A perception believed in when you look at it, when it just is life ....unfolding. Or it could be a concept taught by others, perhaps society or family that we grab and just run with it until our grave. Why? Because… it gives us a feeling of being alive. Jeezus, could one just pinch out a couple of candles for quick feeling and be done. I feel like I have reinforced the idea by being or feeling unhappy and that I am a suffering separate person from others, at times. It may often give me the illusion of specialness because the ego demands a firm ground from which to stand on…. to maintain this individualized separateness.  For sure, the positive that came out of this was my meditation to look at life, as it is.

Now, tell me if you don’t, like me, can watch a tearful reunion of family members totally not related to you and feel or exhibit some emotion. It is not just pulling up some old baggage that you have put in deep storage, but real connectedness to others that we share.  Our I is their I and we had better wake up.  It divides us and blocks our happiness. Joy that exists in nature, and it's free! Your I exists, sometimes far from your body, enough so that when you walk into a room carrying some unhappiness people will turn away. I should not ask for validation when I am unhappy either because it was my ego demands. All I am doing is unfurling the pathetic flag that smothers my ability to connect with others suffering and do something as simple as raising the vibration of a room. The only separateness we perceive is others' conditioning from the culture or society that supports this hallucination.

Today, I watched a young boy who was about 5, draw a shark in the condensed water on a 7-11 cooler door he opened. I gave him the thumbs up, and I immediately had a friend. He played hid and seek among the shelves of grocery items. I joined in the fun. I realized his mom works there, and she smiled at our interaction.