Not being online does not mean we’re not present

The other day, a family member was saddened that I exited a WhatsApp chat group. “Why so sad?” I thought. As though I had severed ties with friends and family. Then I wondered if we have become so conditioned by technology that we believe the Internet is the only way to maintain our bonds with one another. As though our online absence means we’re not present. Ironically, we’re always simultaneously multi-tasking, so are we authentically present while we interact with each other online?

I kindly reminded them that this is just WhatsApp, one of the many platforms us humans use for interconnection with each other on the Internet. It is just another human-constructed tool that helps facilitate our human connection. Nothing unhealthy about that. Except that we have become so dependent on it that we have, ironically, become disconnected from ourselves and others as interconnected spiritual beings. My presence, or the lack of it, in this digital space has no bearing on our family and friends spirit bonds.

You all have my email, my phone number, my home address. You know where to find me, and I you. Yet these three points of contacts are impermanent. They are just human-made frameworks.

But what is permanent is the bond we have down to our spirit level. Not even death could sever this connection. Even if we tried.

We are all connected down to the quantum level. Modern science offers a glimpse into this through quantum entanglement—the phenomenon where particles remain inextricably linked across vast distances, mirroring the ancient truths we’ve always known. What the physicist calls entanglement, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit, and Chinese philosophy recognizes as the Tao.

We are woven together by a fabric that existed long before the first fiber-optic cable was laid. For better or worse, we are connected—with or without the Internet.

Namaste