E Pluribus Unum
You’ve seen it more times than you can count.
On the back of a dollar bill, just above the eagle.
Stamped into coins that pass unnoticed through your hands.
Etched into the Great Seal of the United States.
E Pluribus Unum.
Out of many, one.
At one level, it’s political. Thirteen colonies, many voices, one nation. A practical statement of unity formed out of diversity.
But like many enduring phrases, it carries more weight than its original purpose. It lingers. It suggests something deeper, something not limited to geography or government.
Out of many… one.
That idea does not stop at borders.
When I turn to A Course in Miracles, I find the same idea, but expanded beyond form, beyond history, beyond bodies:
“…You are one Self, united with your Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace.” (W-pI.95.10:2)
The Course is not talking about political unity. It is pointing to something far more radical.
Not many becoming one.
But the realization that the many were never truly separate to begin with.
The world shows us differences everywhere we look. Different bodies, opinions, histories, beliefs. It insists on the “many” as the starting point. And from that assumption, unity becomes something we try to achieve, negotiate, or enforce.
The Course reverses that.
It starts with the One.
And then gently suggests that what we call “many” is simply a perception layered over that underlying unity.
In that light, E Pluribus Unum becomes more than a national motto. It becomes a quiet echo of a deeper truth.
Out of many, one…
or perhaps more accurately…
behind the many, One.
And if that is true, then every conflict, every judgment, every separation I think I see is not a fixed reality, but a call to remember.
Not to create unity.
But to recognize it.
Because if we are already one, then the work is not building something new. It is simply seeing what has always been there.
And that changes everything.