[leijggeds]

if a couple living 2000 years ago had, say, three children, their grandchildren might number, say, 11 children after 20 years. these 11 might have, say, 38 kids 20 years later,105 next gen., 450 next, 1800 next, 6000 next, 22,000 next, 80,000 next, 300,000 next, 1,000,000 next, now we're 250 years gone with @ one million descendants and that's probably a conservative figure even allowing for celibacy and early death. even if you cut this figure in half (i.e., 500,000 circa 250 a.d.) you're up to @ twenty million by 325 a.d.!

now i believe that this brings up a very interesting point, in that most if not all the western world's population can be descended from, for the sake of argument, one person, mitochondrial mary if you will.

so now, each of us can be potentially directly descended from jesus as well as being directly descended from everyone else from that time too!

a common stumbling block to understanding oneness is how one person can have the all within them when the next guy has all within them as well.

well, as the drop can absorb the ocean, so can every other drop absorb the ocean as well. and as you grow to encompass and become all there is, so do all others.

there is a pyramid of descent from every person (that has children), which soon superimposes with your contemporaries' pyramids of descent, just as you and your contemporaries' forbears' pyramids are superimposed, moving forward from mitochondrial eve. looking at this mechanism in a reverse manner affords a view of a model of our evolution into oneness in terms of our connectedness with other selves.

i really don't know if you're going to know what the heck i'm talking about, but it was a point of illumination for me that is failed by words. it's just an allegorical attempt to communicate.

-mark