The Separated Consciousness
The wave contemplates its outline and believes it has ceased to be Water.
Separate consciousness appears when Consciousness becomes identified exclusively with the character's perspective.
Everything is contemplated from the self and for the self:
How does it benefit me?
How does it harm me?
What can I possess?
What threatens my identity?
It is not a second Consciousness born outside the All.
It is Consciousness experiencing itself from a Form that has forgotten its relationship with others and believes itself to be absolutely independent.
Contemplate a wave.
It has its own contour, movement, force, and duration. It can be distinguished from other waves, and none occupies exactly its place.
But it was never separated from the Water.
Uniqueness exists.
Absolute separation does not.
Separate consciousness confuses difference with isolation and autonomy with self-sufficiency.
It forgets the received language, nourishment, Water, care, the earth, knowledge, and the relationships that made its Form possible.
Then it calls "mine" what it never originated on its own.
From that contraction is born the possibility of turning the other into an enemy, merchandise, tool, or number.
Only when I stop Recognizing Life in the other Form can I demand for myself a dignity that I deny to it.
Presence does not erase the wave.
It allows it to Remember the Water.
You do not cease to be you.
You cease to believe that everything You Are ends at the limits of your character.
And when that separation falls, Unity does not grant you power over the other.
It returns to you responsibility before him.