There is only one thing going on. All of the universe can be traced back to a single cause. That cause unleashed energy. The energy formed Spacetime. Elements formed. Molecules formed. Galaxies formed. Stars formed. Life formed. And all there is continues with momentum, an Intelligence Energy moving all according to the momentum and it's own internal logic.
The One Thing. Forming into patterns, shapes, manifestations. Manifesting as all that's perceived. Patterns occurring. Solid patterns, shapes of liquids and gasses. Life is shaped. All these are forms of The One Thing. They rise and they fall away as the energy moves in different directions.
This is all one thing. The UNI-verse. There is only one thing going on. Religious people might call it Creation or Brahman or the Buddha Mind. Philosophers might call it the ground of being. Spiritual seekers call it consciousness. Non-conceptual ever-present self-shining presence/awareness, undivided, just this and nothing else.
What is the human being? Who am I? Who are you? What is our identity? What is our true identity? Ask someone. Perhaps they'll say, "My name is David Porter. I am computer programmer. I live in Brisbane. I have two children. I own a house. I have some money in one bank, and some debt with another. I have a driver's licence. I am on reddit/facebook/twitter". All of these things are properties of the person. They describe the person, but they are not the person. All these things form an abstract identity. They are not the real identity.
Perhaps they'll say, "I am this body. There is a body here. This body is me." But what we think of as "my body" is only known through sense experience, the same as we know other bodies. We see it, we hear it, we feel it. We think "my body" is somehow connected to "me", but we will see later this is not necessarily the case.
And what is it we think we sense, when we sense a body? Flesh, bones, blood - organic matter. Made of what biology calls cells. Cells die out and are replaced all the time. The body of today is a completely different body to what it was last year. The genes give the blueprint for the cells, but the genes are always being expressed differently. That's why you don't look exactly the same you did as last year.
Ok, so people will say, "I sense the body so I am the mind interpreting this sense experience. My mind is interpreting perceptions as mine and somehow local to me and my body. But the mind is an illusion also. Is it in the head? What part of the brain exactly? Can you see, touch, smell or taste it? Some cultures experience this from the "heart", and other cultures experience it from the head. The sense of self is not anything that can be considered real. It has no substance. It's actually an elaborate illusion.
The illusion is a production of a highly developed brain. The brain has thoughts. But this brain is so complex, it can actually also have thoughts about thoughts. "A thought. A thought about a thought. I thought a thought. I'm thinking. I'm thinking thoughts". We can even ask: "Who is this I that had a thought?"
The "I" thought is just a thought. No different in nature to other thoughts. Thoughts in the mind allow the mind to construct a picture of reality. The picture is like a 3D motion picture with sound. It's provably not an accurate picture because the senses have been shown to be defective in many ways. The picture is limited but it's good enough to allow us to survive and reproduce - that's what it's for. So we go about survival - eating and drinking and sleeping and reproducing. The movie in the mind is so convincing because our survival depends upon it. And our brains have learnt to include the "I" thought in the movie. Our minds have built up an image of what's out there based the information coming from the senses, and have included this character "me" in the picture.
When the thought "I" is stripped of the possibility of it referring to my body or my mind, what can it refer to? All we have is sense experience of something out there. Something is going on. And, as we saw earlier, there is only one thing going on. I must be that One Thing. I am the One Thing. You are the One Thing. All This is The One Thing. Could only ever have been that one thing. Realise it now.
In fact it can only be realised here and now. To realise it in the past or future is to believe in illusion.
It's always been the truth. Always and everywhere, you are the One Thing.
One thing. Not two. Not more than one, not multiples of one. One thing. Let go of the fictions "I am a body" or "I am a mind". You are the One Thing. The One Thing is the true nature. That is the only identity.
To realise this is to end suffering.
Old Man welcomes emails. The address is: w.david.porter@outlook.com
The Old Man has satsang in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. All welcome. Email for details. The address is: w.david.porter@outlook.com
An earlier, unrealised, dualistic version of this is here.