As we walked in silence a passage from the Bhagavad Gita came to me: "We live in wisdom who see ourselves in all and all in us. We are forever free who have broken out of the ego cage of 'I and mine.' " The Bhagavad Gita described a voice within all of us that tells us each the same thing: what we want is not money, fame, or material possessions, but a world of peace, hearts filled with love, and an earth where the air and water are clean, the environment healthy. We want to rid ourselves of those unwanted habits and negative thoughts that prohibit us from living in peace with ourselves, the environment and our neighbor.
A circle of trees . . . I felt I was bringing the journey home to the ordinary dimensions of my life, rooting it in the place I lived every day. I lay back on the earth and looked up through the branches of an oak, feeling suddenly like the sun was my own heart pulsing up there with light. Wind swirled, and it seemed to me it was my own breath billowing through the branches. The crocus bulbs were buried in my tissue, the cedars growing from my body. The birds flew inside me. Stones sat along my bones . . . a jubilant, stunning loss of boundary, a deeper sense of oneness than I’d ever felt.
I knew that I was part of one vast, universal quilt; I knew that this quilt was itself, the Holy Thing, the manifestation of the Divine One. And I loved this universal quilt, every stitch, color, and fiber, with a heartbreaking love. It was one clear moment in time, like going to the Deep Ground that underlies all things and seeing, really seeing, what is and being pierced by the unbounded nature of it.
~ from THE DANCE OF THE DISSIDENT DAUGHTER by Sue Monk Kidd
Namaste, dear friends around the world! One of the ways this greeting is translated from the Sanskrit is:
"I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Truth, of Light, and of Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One."
Let us strive to dwell in that place within ourselves more and more, until finally we are able to live the truth that we are, truly, all one in the One. Only in this way can wars cease; only when we all dwell in our unity can we bring peace to the world. May we come to know this truth in the depths of our being as we meet together in oneness in the Silence. Namaste!
Realize that we are truly one. We may be different in our cultures, color, beliefs, sizes, shapes, morals, and education, but we have the same feelings of wanting to be loved, accepted, and safe. We want our families and children to be healthy and safe and happy. We all need love in our lives.
The universe holds its breath as we choose, instant by instant, which pathway to follow; for the universe, the very essence of life itself, is highly conscious. Every act, thought, and choice adds to a permanent mosaic; our decisions ripple through the universe of consciousness to affect the lives of all. Lest this idea be considered merely mystical or fanciful, let's remember that fundamental tenet of the new theoretical physics: Everything in the universe is interconnected, one with everything else. . . . There are no secrets; nothing is hidden, nor can it be. Our spirits stand naked in time for all to see -- everyone's life, finally, is accountable to the universe.
It does not matter what name you attach to it, but your consciousness must ascend to the point through which you view the universe with your God-centered nature. The feeling accompanying this experience is that of complete oneness with the Universal Whole. One merges into a euphoria of absolute unity with all life . . .
