If consciousness is primary—if mind is not produced by the brain but is the field in which the brain, the body, and the world appear—then every person you meet is not an entirely separate being. They are another aperture in the same field. The One Mind has split itself into countless vantage points, each appearing as “someone” with a history, a body, a point of view. You are one such vantage point. So am I. So is everyone we pass on the street.

From the standpoint of a consciousness-first, One Mind worldview, this turns the world inside out. The theater of reality is not “out there,” separate from us. It is staged within the mind, which then experiences itself through a billion angles at once. Every “other” you see is not outside your mind—they are inside the mind’s own dream of itself, and, in this view, all beings share the same underlying consciousness.

The Within Selves Interlinked practice is a way to build on this vision—not as a belief, but as an experiment in perception. As you walk behind someone, imagine you are looking through their eyes—that the same mind, at its essence, is witnessing the world from their angle as well as yours. In your mind’s eye, visualize an enormous, transparent coil extending from the back of their head to the back of yours. It’s as if both of you are connected to the same root system, sharing the same interior space.

The words—“Within selves interlinked”—become a key. Each repetition softens the mental wall between me and them. The cordon is not literal; it’s a perceptual device, a wormhole through which recognition can pass. You may begin to feel the scene not as two separate beings interacting, but as one consciousness conversing with itself from two different vantage points. You can even extend the exercise by imagining, in detail, what their point of view might feel like.

In this way, the practice becomes a lived question: Can I, in this moment, experience the One Mind beneath the many faces? And if so, what happens to judgment, to tension, to the feeling of distance?