Love is not of the self. Self cannot recognize love. You say ‘I love’; but then in the very saying of it, in the very experiencing of it, love is not. But when you know love, self is not. When there is love, self is not.
— J. Krishnamurti, The First and Last Freedom
Posts tagged oneness
Be free from all dualities
Narendra — All is one, isn’t it?
Sri Ramakrishna — No, beyond one and two.
(source)
When the mind perceives duality then there is both duality and its counterpart, which is unity. When the mind drops the perception of duality there is neither duality nor unity. When one is firmly established in the oneness of the infinite consciousness, whether he is quiet or actively engaged in work, then he is considered to be at peace with himself.
— Yoga Vāsiṣṭha (tr. by Swami Venkatesananda, p.66)
The Vedas deal mainly with the subject of the three modes of material nature. O Arjuna, become transcendental to these three modes. Be free from all dualities and from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be established in the self.
— Bhagavad Gita 2.45
Love is a substitute for everything
We may feel jealous of a successful person, but we are never jealous of the success of our own children, even though they are someone other than us. When we see ourselves in the other person, love comes naturally. And where there is love, there is no room for violence, hatred, enmity, or jealousy. Love is a substitute for everything, but there is no substitute for love. And when that love becomes divine, there is no further need to say anything!
Why is somebody glad when their own child is successful but jealous when somebody else experiences success? Isn’t it the feeling of ‘mine’ and ‘other’ that makes the difference? I am happy if ‘my’ child succeeds but jealous when some ‘other’ person is successful. If a child that is born out of you is your own, then we are all children of the same God and belong to one God. We are all born out of the same source, live in the same space, and in the end go back to the same source. Ultimately, we all dissolve into each other. Then where is the question of ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’?
Swami Vivekananda says,
If a beautiful picture belonging to another is burnt, a man does not generally become miserable; but when his own picture is burnt, how miserable he feels! Why? Both were beautiful pictures, perhaps copies of the same original; but in one case very much more misery is felt than in the other. It is because in one case he identifies himself with the picture, and not in the other. This ‘I and mine’ causes the whole misery.
— The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 1, p.101.
‘I’ and ‘mine’ and ‘other’ is the cause of all misery. Drop the feeling of ‘mine’ and ‘other’ and simply enjoy success, appreciate beauty wherever you find it, and you will become the embodiment of success and beauty! ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and ‘other’ is mere illusion. When you drop ‘I and mine’, the whole world becomes yours. Then what remains is the feeling of oneness, pure Love. And when there is Love, where is the room for violence, hatred, enmity, and jealousy?
See also, How to overcome jealousy, hatred, rivalry and ego consciousness?
The entire universe is yours!
Man, made in the divine image, has come on earth to play his role intelligently in the cosmic drama of destiny designed by God. This life is not man’s own show; if he becomes personally and emotionally involved in the very complicated cosmic drama, he reaps inevitable suffering for having distorted the divine “plot.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda in “God Talks with Arjuna”.
We don’t know what caused us to come here on earth, we don’t know where we go in the end, we don’t know how the universe has come into existence. We may or may not believe in God. Yet, somehow all things have perfectly come together to bring us into existence, the chemical reactions, water, the perfect temperature, the perfect gravitational force… somehow, organisms started evolving on this beautiful earth, the sunlight providing life to everything, and the perfect system to assimilate the energies and sustain life, then came the fish and the frog and the monkey and the man.
The System takes care of everything. Our existence as human beings in the universe is tiny. Yet we think that we are the doers of everything. We are anxious to take good care of ourselves (often, at the cost of others). We fight with each other for survival forgetting that in order to survive, the first thing we have to do is to stop fighting with each other. We are just a tiny part of the big plan, our life in the System is for a very very short period, we come and go in a flash. But we entertain our own selfish agendas, petty desires, and behave as if we, with this little bodies, will live forever and even outlive the System! Invariably, the result of such arrogant attitude is suffering and misery for ourselves.
Then what is the way? How to live? The way is to stop identifying ourselves exclusively with this tiny body-mind complex and recognize that we are part of the System. This tiny body-mind will perish, but the System will survive. When we learn to recognize how beautifully the System has brought us into existence and sustains us, how lovingly the System takes care of us like a mother taking care of her baby, when we recognize how harmoniously our lives are interwoven with the life of the System and dissolve our narrow, selfish plans into the big plan and correctly recognize our part in the big plan, life becomes ever so graceful, ever so harmonious, ever so beautiful! Then we are no more separate from the System, we are no more part of the system, we become the System. In fact, we are the System.
The entire universe is one whole; and, when someone drops their holding onto limited boundaries, then what they gain is the entire universe.
~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
The one religion
“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“We want to lead mankind in the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this is to be done by harmonizing the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran. Mankind ought to be taught that religions are but the varied expressions of The Religion, which is Oneness, so that each may choose that path that suits him best.” ~ Swami Vivekananda
“The candles are many, but the light is one.” ~ Rumi
“Truth is one; only It is called by different names. All people are seeking the same Truth; the variance is due to climate, temperament, and name. A lake has many ghats. From one ghat the Hindus take water in jars and call it ‘jal’. From another ghat the Mussalmāns take water in leather bags and call it ‘pāni’. From a third the Christians take the same thing and call it ‘water’. Suppose someone says that the thing is not ‘jal’ but ‘pāni’, or that it is not ‘pāni’ but ‘water’, or that it is not ‘water’ but ‘jal’, It would indeed be ridiculous. But this very thing is at the root of the friction among sects, their misunderstandings and quarrels. This is why people injure and kill one another, and shed blood, in the name of religion. But this is not good. Everyone is going toward God. They will all realize Him if they have sincerity and longing of heart.” ~ Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
“I came to the conclusion long ago … that all religions were true and also that all had some error in them, and whilst I hold by my own, I should hold others as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we are Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu … But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian.” ~ M. K. Gandhi
“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.” ~ Albert Einstein