Many / One

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Compiled by JoAnn Kite

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The Glorious Presence
Ernest E. Wood
An explanation of the Vedanta Philosophy, including Shankara's Ode to the South-facing Form.

1 "Everything is in intimate touch with other things….with no empty space between. This is a dance in which the partners are holding each other closely."

2 "A breath of Will blows eternally through the universe of souls in the direction of the Right and Necessary. It is the air which all intellects inhale and exhale, and it is the wind which blows the world into order and orbit." Ralph Waldo Emerson

3 "We are brothers; sons of one sweet mother."

4 "Being IS unity."

5 "My I and every I is that one I, the Glorious Presence….the mystery of mysteries, the joy of joys, the presence of all in each…variety mysteriously governed by unity. This is the principle of the whole – the ultimate self-existent power – which governs evolution from within."

6 "Anyone who is intent upon knowing the One Reality finds the One Reality everywhere."

7 "The earth is honey for all beings; all beings are honey for the earth also -…It is the self, the immortal, Brahman, all. Just as all the spokes of a cartwheel are fixed in the nave and the circumference, so are all beings fitted in the self, which is without before or after, or inside or outside, the knower of all." Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, II, 5

8 "Being is one, though named variously."

9 "The whole reflects into every part."

10 "Somehow everything is Brahman. We have constantly to remind ourselves of this piece of knowledge and then we shall value our present experience."

11 "One thing is sure – all is one; the world, mind and all."

12 "The three mental steps towards knowledge of the One Reality are: 1. Listening, 2. Reflecting, 3. Contemplating. Listening means paying attention to the statements of the Scriptures with reference to the One Reality, and also to the words of seers and sages on the subject."

13 "If I were to try to name the new era, I would say it is characterized, whether consciously or not, by an inward-rising feeling of sympathy and companionship with other men and all things."

14 "Love is a kind of knowledge, an awareness of other lives. With it we begin to live in others, and cannot ignore the wounded bird or the lost child."

15 "There is no complete error, no complete ignorance – ever. In the world what resists us helps us, as the ground which obstructs our feet, but is necessary in walking. There is no escape from the self."

16 "I see that when souls reach a certain clearness of perfection, they accept a knowledge and motive above selfishness." Ralph Waldo Emerson

17 "From the unreal to the real is not from one thing to another, but from the complexity of duality and multiplicity to the simplicity of unity."

18 "The Vedanta Philosophy has as its basis the belief that the universe of our experience is only one reality and it can be known."

19 "There is something marvellous in the power within a seed, and when that seed is the human soul, containing the powers of will, thought and love, no one should dare to measure its possibilities by an undeveloped imagination…it is for him to be his own gardener, to understand his own destiny, and to make his circumstances assist him in its swift achievement."

20 "This belief that our world is one indivisible thing is held by modern scientists today, and they come very near to proving it also – at least nothing ever happens to create a doubt of its truth….the world of our experience is in some way one."

21 "Greece, Rome, Chaldea, Peru, Egypt and all live now in us. Their material triumphs have turned to dust, their old languages are dead, but the gain of character that was achieved by those ancient labors is ours now and forever."

22 "The world is of one piece, the same spirit which is in the saddle in the globe is also in the atom."

23 "A man does not understand anything unless he loves it." Goethe

24 "In that fullness of unity the whole is fully present in the part."

25 "Everything that occurs is worthy of our most appreciative attention, since it is in some way Brahman."

This body of quotes compiled by JoAnn Kite