Do you ever feel happiness or pain when someone is smiling or crying in front of you? Have you ever asked yourself why does this happen?
Shri Krishna in Bhagavad Gita says I am a thread running through all the beads of a garland. I am a soul / Atman / Brahman residing in all living creatures. According to him, a Human being is composed of three parts: Body, mind, and soul. Mind and body are made of matter which gets eroded as time went by. On the other hand, the soul is indestructible, infinite, omnipresent, and imperishable. The realization of the soul is the biggest goal in the spiritual domain.
Does there exist any lump of clay by knowing which we can explain every other lump of clay? said Swami Vivekananda in one of his lectures in London. He was talking about the Universal principle which has vast implications in the materialistic as well as in the spiritual world.
Let's understand his statement from the mathematical domain. The addition is a mathematical operation used to add two numbers. Subtraction is nothing but addition with a reverse sign. Eg: 2 - 3 is the same as 2 + (-3). Multiplication is repeated addition. The division is repeated subtraction. The addition is a fundamental mathematical operation that can explain every other mathematical operation.
In Computer Science, can we develop an algorithm that explains every other algorithm? Can we develop a medicine that cures every disease? We don't know yet the answer to these questions.
In the Spiritual world, his statement is true. By knowing just one soul, we come to know every other soul of the Universe. The soul is the only common part that we share with every organism. Let's revisit the question I have asked you at the beginning of this article.
Yeah, I know you got the answer. Every living creature has a fragment of ourselves(soul) in it. That is why we feel happiness/sadness when someone is smiling/crying in front of us.
Are you ever in love with someone? Loving our beloved ones gives us a blissful feeling. Have you experienced bliss? Do you know why are you experiencing bliss? Loving someone unconditionally increases the area of consciousness. Due to that, we experience their innermost feelings which give us joy. By extending the same logic, Increasing the consciousness from one person to every organism of the universe gives the highest blissful feeling known as Samadhi. The feeling of oneness is the universal principle in the spiritual world to attain happiness.
The heart of Bhagavad Gita's message is the feeling of oneness. Shri Krishna and Arjuna is an allegory of soul and body respectively. The scripture is full of verses to spell out what this means:
I am ever-present, to those who have realized me in every creature. Seeing all life as my manifestation, they are never separated from me. They worship me in the hearts of all, and all their actions proceed from me. Wherever they may live, they abide in me. (6.30-31)
When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were his own, he has attained the highest state of spiritual union. (6.32)
That one I love who is capable of ill will, who is friendly and compassionate. (12.13)
They alone see truly who see the Lord the same in every creature, who see the deathless in the hearts of all that die. Seeing the same Lord everywhere, they don't harm themselves or others. Thus they attain the supreme goal. (13.27-28)
I am the self in the heart of every creature, Arjuna, and the beginning, middle, and the end of their existence.
A soul is also called Sunyata which means emptiness. In mathematics, we represent it with the symbol '0'. Emptiness is space/void. It describes all the characteristics of the soul. The soul is infinite, imperishable, and omnipotent. All these attributes can be explained by space.
Is there anything in this universe that never leaves you?
No, of course not! Shadow is not the answer. It leaves you in darkness. The right answer is space. It'll never leave you. Wherever you go, it is always with you. Hence, it's omnipresent. Space is an infinite entity, it doesn't have any boundaries. Space is imperishable. It's almost impossible to destroy it.
The Soul is present in every living creature. Sunyata(Soul) that exists within me also exists within you. If there are n living creatures in the Universe then how does the knowledge of one soul gives us the knowledge of every other Soul?
I know my soul i.e I have the knowledge of what '0' is. -------- (A)
Knowledge of every soul means 0 + 0 + .... n times which is equal to 0. -------- (B)
Using A and B, we prove Swami Vivekananda's statement i.e By knowing just one soul we come to know about every other soul of the universe.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is a fictional story about a boy who had passed through various stages of his life only to realize the feeling of oneness at the end of his life. Hemann Hesse writes
Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realization, the knowledge, what actually wisdom was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness. Slowly this blossomed in him, was shining back at him from Vasudeva's face: Harmony, Knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling, oneness.
Always keep the conscious thought of the oneness of all life in your mind. Is it possible to harm anyone if you keep it in your mind? No, Of course not. Injuring others means to injure your own self. On the contrary, helping others means helping your own self. We never help others, we only help ourselves.
In Courage: The joy of living dangerously, Osho explains
In Meditation, dialogue also ceases. Then you have dialogue in silence. Words drop because when the heart is really full you cannot speak. When the heart is too overflowing only silence can be the medium. Then there is no "other". You are one with the Universe. You neither say anything nor listen to anything. You are with the one, with the universe, with the whole. A oneness -- this is Meditation.
The crux of the entire article is the "Feeling of Oneness". Live your life through the lens of Oneness and see the difference it creates in your life.
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