Truth is one. Sages call it by different names.
Rig Veda (c. 4000 BC)
“In the beginning was only Being; One without a second. Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos and entered into everything in it. There is nothing that does not come from him. Of everything he is the inmost Self.”
The Chandogya Upanishad, Chapter 6, 2:2-3
The Self is all-knowing, it is all-understanding, and to it belongs all glory. It is Pure Consciousness, dwelling in the hearts of all.
Mindiha Upanishad 8C BC
This is to be understood by the heart, there is no separateness at all.
The Upanishads (The Complete Guide to World Mysticism – Freke & Gandy, p.133)
The Lord of all, the knower of all, the beginning and end of all – that Self dwells in every human heart.
Lookout – it’s gone. Look in – it’s gone. Don’t look – it’s gone.
It cannot be remembered, it cannot be forgotten, it cannot be grasped by any possible means.
It is beyond all limits and bounds.
It is pure oneness, where nothing else exists.
To know it, you must become it!
Upanishads (quoted by Malcolm Hollick in Science of Oneness p.315)
When a man realises that all beings are his own Self, there is no further grief and delusion for him, because he is established in the unity of the individual and the cosmic soul.
Isha Upanishad, 7.
God is one, hidden in all beings, all-pervading, the Self within all selves, watching over all doing, dwelling in all being, the witness, the perceiver, the single one, free from all qualities.
Svetasvatara Upanishad 6:11
He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings…
Buddha, d.544BCE
‘From out of the many particulars comes oneness and out of oneness comes all the many particulars’.
Heraclitus 535–475 BC
Most of the world’s religions serve only to strengthen attachments to false concepts such as self and other, life and death, heaven and earth, and so on. Those who become entangled in these false ideas are prevented from perceiving the Integral Oneness.
Lao Tzu, C5th BC
Can you dissolve your ego? Can you abandon the idea of self and other? Can you relinquish the notions of male and female, short and long, life and death? Can you let go of all these dualities and embrace the Tao without skepticism or panic? If so, you can reach the heart of the Integral Oneness.
– Lao Tzu, fifth century BC
You can’t see it because it has no form. You can’t hear it because it makes no noise. You can’t touch it because it has no substance. It cannot be known in these ways, because it is the all-embracing Oneness…
It has no beginning and no end. This is the essence of Tao.Stay in harmony with this ancient presence, and you will know the fullness of each present moment.
Lao Tzu, fifth century BC
He lives in wisdom who sees himself in all and all in him, whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart…
Bhagavad Gita 400-200 BC
The whole world is pervaded by Me, yet my form is not seen. All things have their being in Me, yet I am not limited by them.
Bhagavad Gita 9:17-19 400-200 BC
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”
The Bible: Exodus 3:14
[“God reveals the essence of divinity to Moses: I AM what I AM [Exodus 3:14]. A more accurate Hebrew translation would be “I will be whatever I will be.” In either case, the Hasidic understanding of the text is the same: God is all that is. God is all that is happening at every moment. God is I AM—not a being or even a supreme being, but Being itself”. . . Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Hasidic Tales: Annotated and Explained (Jewish Lights Publishing: 2004, 2013), 4.]
I am the One Who Is (YHVH), there is nothing else. Beside me, there is no god…
The Bible: Isaiah 45:5
“May they be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one.”
Jesus the Christ in the Bible (John 17:22-23)
Jesus says, ‘Lift the stone and you will find me, cleave the wood and I am there’
The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 77
In God we live and move and have our being’
St Paul in the Bible: Acts 17:28
The tender flesh itself will be found one day — quite surprisingly — to be capable of receiving, and yes, full capable of embracing the searing energies of God. Go figure. Fear not. For even at its beginning the humble clay received God’s art, whereby one part became the eye, another the ear, and yet another this impetuous hand. Therefore, the flesh is not to be excluded from the wisdom and the power that now and ever animates all things.
Saint Irenaeus of Lyon (c.130-c.202) Adapted and translated by Scott Cairns, Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life (Paraclete Press: 2007), 5-6.
All things are linked with one another, and this oneness is sacred; there is nothing that is not interconnected with everything else. For things are interdependent, and they combine to form this universal order. There is only one universe made up of all things, and one creator who pervades them; there is one substance and one law, namely, common reason in all thinking creatures, and all truth is one–if, as we believe, there is only one path of perfection for all beings who share the same mind.
Marcus Aurelius 121 –180 AD
Look at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the fish in the river and sea: God’s spirit dwells within them. There is no creature on earth in whom God is absent. . . . When God pronounced that his creation was good, it was not only that his hand had fashioned every creature; it was that his breath had brought every creature to life. Look too at the great trees of the forest; look even at your crops. God’s spirit is present within all plants as well. The presence of God’s spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful; and if we look with God’s eyes, nothing on the earth is ugly.
Pelagius (360-418AD) The Letters of Pelagius: Celtic Soul Friend, ed. Robert Van de Weyer (Arthur James Ltd.: 1995) as quoted by J. Philip Newell, Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality (Paulist Press: 1997), 10-11.
When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness, we return to the origin and remain where we have always been, … One in all, all in One – if only this is realised, no more worry about not being perfect!
Jianzhi Sengcan, The Third Patriarch of Zen, d.606AD, quoted in Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, p.75
I am Truth, There is nothing wrapped in my turban but God. There is nothing in my cloak but God.
Mansur al-Hallaj (c. 858 – 922) – a Persian mystic, poet and teacher of Sufism.
(God says) All Being is reflected in Myself, who am Love. My brilliance reveals the form of things, just as a shadow indicates a figure.
– Hildegaard of Bingen (1098-1179AD) (Gifts from Hildegard – Wanda Nash, p.3)
I am life itself. For I am the whole of life – life was not torn from stones; it did not bud from branches; nor is it rooted in the generative power of the male.
Rather, every living thing is rooted in me…
I am the life that remains the same through eternity.
– Hildegaard of Bingen (1098-1179AD) (Gifts from Hildegard – Wanda Nash, p.19)
I am the supreme and fiery force who has kindled all sparks of life. I, the fiery life, blaze in the beauty of the fields, shine on the waters, and burn in the sun, moon and stars. I bring all things to life; I breathe in them all, because I am life.
– Hildegaard of Bingen (1098-1179AD) (Gifts from Hildegard – Wanda Nash, p.124)
I AM, can be spoken by no creature, but by God alone. I must become God, and God must become me, so completely, that we share the same ‘I’ eternally. Our truest ‘I’ is God.
– Meister Eckhart, 1260-1328AD (The Complete Guide to World Mysticism – Freke & Gandy, p.132)
Therefore I will give you still another thought, which is yet purer and more spiritual: In the kingdom of heaven all is in all, all is one, and all is ours.
– Meister Eckhart, 1260–1328, quoted in Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, p.76
The Ground of God and the Ground of the Soul are one and the same
Meister Eckhart
I am as rich as God; there is no grain of dust that I do not have in common with him.
Angelus Silesius, 1624 –1677AD (The Complete Guide to World Mysticism – Freke & Gandy, p.132)
The image of God is found essentially and personally in all. Each of us possesses it whole, entire and undivided, and all of us together do not possess it more than one person does alone. In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image, which is the image of God.
– Jan van Ruysbroeck, 1293-1381, Flemish mystic.
The eyes of my soul were opened, and I beheld the plenitude of God, wherein I did comprehend the whole world, both her and beyond the sea, and the abyss and the ocean and all things. In all these things I beheld naught save the divine power, in a manner assuredly indescribable; so that through excess of marvelling the soul cried with a loud voice, saying “This whole world is full of God.”
– Angela of Foligno, 1248-1309, Italian Franciscan tertiary
Eternally, all creatures are God in God… So far as they are in God, they are the same life, the same essence, the same power, the same One, and nothing less.
– Heinrich Seuse, 1295-1366, German Dominican friar,quoted in Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, p.57
The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possess it whole, entire and undivided, and all together not more than one alone. In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image, which is the image of God and the source in us of all our life.
– John van Ruysbroeck, 1293-1381, Flemish Mystic, quoted in Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, p.57
The love of God creates in us such a oneing that when it is truly seen, no person can separate themselves from another person.
– Julian of Norwich, 1342-1416, Showings, 65
“In the sight of God all humans are oned, and one person is all people and all people are in one person.”
– Julian of Norwich, 1342-1416, Showings, 51
There is nothing in the world other than God and God’s emanated powers which are a unity. Other than that, nothing exists. Although it seems that there are other things, everything is really God and the divine emanations.
– Rabbi Meshullam Feivush Heller of Zbarazh (ca. 1742–1794), author of several Hasidic sefarim
You will never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars… till you spirit filleth the whole world and the stars are your jewels,… till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made.
– Thomas Traherne,1637-1674, quoted in Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, p.67
My Me is God, not do I recognise any other Me except my God.
– St Catherine of Genoa, 1447-1510
Behold but One in all things: it is the second that leads you astray.
– Kabir, C15 AD, Indian Sufi mystic poet,
“All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.” . . .
Swami Vivekananda, 1863-1902
The human being is part of the whole, called by us the ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
— Albert Einstein 1879-1955
‘This Oneness is life, no longer experienced solely through the fragmented vision of the ego but known within the heart, felt in the soul. This Oneness is the heartbeat of life.’
– Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, b.1953 (Sufi teacher)
‘We are one after all you and I. Together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate each other’.
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1881-1955
‘The evolutionary journey has been leading to a state of communication with the love-light of spirit which is an experience of all–consuming oneness and all-embracing compassion’ . . . . .
– Tim Freke
This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.
– William James, 1842-1910
I believe in the absolute oneness of God and therefore also of humanity. What though we have many bodies? We have but one soul.
– Mohandas Gandhi, 1869-1948
Living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it always involves an inner experience of oneness.
– Henri Nouwen, 1932-1996
We stand expectantly awaiting the dawn of that day when religion will stand upon a scientific basis and the truths to which the ages bear witness will be substantiated and proven. Then there will emerge a new race, with new capacities, new ideals, new concepts about God and matter, about life and spirit. Through that race and through the humanity of the future there will be seen not only a mechanism and a structure, but a soul, an entity, who, using the mechanism, will manifest its own nature, which is love, wisdom and intelligence.
– Alice A. Bailey, 1880-1949
You must stop seeing God as separate from you, and you as separate from each other. The only solution is the Ultimate Truth: nothing exists in the universe that is separate from anything else. Everything is intrinsically connected, irrevocably interdependent, interactive, interwoven into the fabric of all life. All government, all politics, must be based on this truth. All laws must be rooted in it. This is the future hope of your race; the only hope for your planet.’
– Neil Donald Walsh, ‘Conversations With God’ Book Two
A Navajo chant expresses the depth of intimacy with, and participation in, nature:
The
mountains, I become part of it . . .
The herbs, the fir tree, I become part of it.
The morning mists, the clouds, the gathering waters, I become part of it.
The wilderness, the dew drops, the pollen,
I become part of it.
Elizabeth
Roberts and Elias Amidon, ed., Earth Prayers: 365 Prayers, Poems, and
Invocations from Around the World (HarperOne: 1991), 5.