New research claimed that people who believe in the sense of oneness are more likely to experience greater life satisfaction than others.
The study conducted by the American Psychological Association found that people who follow the idea that everything in this world is connected and interdependent appear to have greater life satisfaction than those who don't irrespective of religion and other aspects of their lives.
"The feeling of being at one with a divine principle, life, the world, other people or even activities has been discussed in various religious traditions but also in a wide variety of scientific research from different disciplines. The results of this study reveal a significant positive effect of oneness beliefs on life satisfaction, even controlling for religious beliefs," said Laura Marie Edinger-Schons, a researcher at the University of Mannheim and the lead author of the study in a recent statement, Eurekalert.org reports.
During the research, which was published in the journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, Marie and her team conducted a survey including 75,000 people in Germany. Participants of this survey were asked to respond to a series of statements designed to measure their belief in the sense of oneness.
The results showed that people who have a belief in oneness felt greater satisfaction when compared to others who do not have that belief of 'everything in the world is based on a common principle.'
To affirm her finding, she conducted another survey among the same group of participants some weeks later. However, she got similar results, and it also gave an indication that oneness belief in a person's mind will not undergo significant changes in the course of time, and will be stable over time.
Interestingly, participants who were involved in this research came from a variety of religious backgrounds, including Protestant denominations, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. It should be also noted that more than a quarter of those participants admitted that they were atheists. The research report also found that the feeling of oneness is independent of a person's religious beliefs and faith.
"I recognized that in various philosophical and religious texts, a central idea is the idea of oneness. In my free time, I enjoy surfing, Capoeira, meditation and yoga, and all of these have been said to lead to experiences that can be described as being at one with life or nature or just experiencing a state of flow through being immersed in the activity. I was wondering whether the larger belief in oneness is something that is independent of religious beliefs and how it affects satisfaction with life," added Laura Marie.
