Holism is the nature of nature

Vic Shayne
3 min readMay 26, 2020

Vic Shayne
author
Consciousness: The Potentiality of All Existence: Exploring reality and belief as a subjective experience

Holism may not be everyone’s worldview, but the fact remains that holism is the only way things are.

Holism means that the universe and living nature are understood in terms of interdependent, interacting parts that cannot exist or have function in isolation. All of existence and all things that exist are more than the mere sum of their parts or elementary particles. Apropos to healthcare, we find that medical science does not embrace holism, but natural healthcare does. Medical science is based upon reductionism, meaning that it looks so closely at the parts that it remains ignorant that these parts should not be changed or addressed, lest they face repercussions that impact the whole. Similarly, corporate mindsets do not embrace holism, but rather see everything in terms of separation — how others “out there” can be a source of profit and exploitation. And the egoic self is not a holistic entity, because it is based upon a collection of thoughts that break up the totality of consciousness into fragments.

Drugs are the result of reductionist thinking; plants for healing agents are the result of holistic thinking. Burning fuel from fossil sources is reductionistic; but solar energy is holistic. Seeing yourself as an independent individual is blindness, while understanding yourself as the whole is true seeing.

What is independent and isolated in the entirety that is this wholeness of consciousness? Nothing is independent or isolated. Nothing.

We are the whole

Human beings are holistic systems, and all of life is holistic — a whole that is regarded as part of a greater whole. Everything imposes itself upon everything else, and it is impossible to state that anything lives or exists in isolation without being impacted by some other force or being. If we bring this down to the food level, we find that foods themselves are holistic, and they grow in a holistic environment. A human being requires whole foods to live and thrive. And the foods we eat require a whole environment of sun, shade, wind, rain, sound, insects, birds, water, earth, and so on. And each of these seemingly independent forces also have a holistic universe that gives them existence, viability, creativity, and destructiveness. Nature is complex, alive, and dynamic. All of its parts are interrelated, and ever-changing. The whole is one big, singular, indivisible movement.

Finding happiness

We gaze out into the world from this perspective that is not a thing, but rather a capacity to be aware. What do we see? If we do not stare at any singular thing too closely, then we see the entirety of the scene, all related and inseparable. When we criticize others, we are criticizing ourselves. When we hate, we hate that which is us. When we find joy, we embrace the totality of all that is. Can we afford to forget this and get wrapped up in reductionism to the exclusion of true happiness?

When we look out onto the world through our senses, we find an endless scene full of wonder and expressions. But when we look back at ourselves — the source of this seeing — then we find no scene at all, but rather an infinite, indivisible, vastness of potentiality. Ignoring all ideas about yourself, all knowledge, all experience, all memories, and all preconceived ideas, can you see that you are made up of all there is and yet nothing at all?

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Vic Shayne

NY Times bestselling author writing about reality beyond thought, consciousness, and the self to uncover what is fundamental. https://shorturl.at/mrAS6