Sample Quotations on Oneness

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The expression is introduced by one or more facets of oneness it expresses. Each is a viewpoint into the larger whole of all there is, like the face of a gem with infinite faces.

It is followed by the author, his/her tradition, nation of origin (when alive and current nation, if different), and date of publication or year of death if there was no publication.

Here are a just a few of the expressions and quotations for an inkling.

   with all

He, the door of whose breast has been opened,
Sees the sun reflected in every atom.

   Jalal ad-Din Rumi     Sufism     Tajikistan, Turkey (Persia)     1230

  of opposites 

Harmony would lose its attractiveness if it did not have a background of discord.

   Unknown     Taoism     China     Traditional

   inner–outer   with the Divine

In moments when the inner lamps are lit

And the life’s cherished guests are left outside,

Our spirit sits alone and speaks to its gulfs.

A wider consciousness opens then its doors;

Invading from spiritual silences

A ray of the timeless Glory stoops awhile

To commune with our seized illumined clay

And leaves its huge white stamp upon our lives.

    Sri Aurobindo     Yoga     India     1950

   with vice

There is no man who is not at some time indebted to his vices, as no plant that is not fed from manures.

   Ralph Waldo Emerson     Transcendentalism     United States     1860 

   of life   through touch

Pace your hands on the Earth Mother. Try to feel the natural life force surging within. Embrace a tree until you can feel the life force within it. A tree is like a pipeline or conductor bringing energy from the sky to the earth. The same life force energy surges through all life. When you embrace someone and you feel good energy surging between you, that is the same life force energy that is in the trees and the other creatures.

   Sun Bear and Wabun     Native America     America (Chippewa)     1980

   in good and evil

   Rabbi Shmelke and his brother once petitioned their teacher, the Preacher of Mezeritz, to explain to them the words of the Mishnah: “A man must bless God for the evil in the same way that he blesses Him for the good which befalls.”

   The Preacher replied: “Go to the House of Study, and you will find then a man smoking. He is Rabbi Zusya, and he will explain this to you.”

   When Rabbi Shmelke and his brother questioned Rabbi Zusya, he laughed and said: “I am surprised that the Rabbi sent you to me. You must go elsewhere and make your inquiry from one who has suffered tribulations in his lifetime. As for me, I have never experienced anything but good all my days.”

   But Rabbi Shmelke and his brother knew full well that from his earliest hour to the present he had endured the most grievous sorrows. Thereupon they understood the meaning of the words of the Mishnah, and the reason their Rabbi had sent them to Rabbi Zusya.

   Unknown     Judaism     Israel     Unknown

     with the cosmos

Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?

   Henry David Thoreau     Transcendentalism      United States     1854

   with life   with humanity

My mission is not merely brotherhood of Indian humanity….But through realization of freedom of India I hope to realize and carry on the mission of the brotherhood of man….I want, if I don’t give you a shock, to realize identity with even the crawling things upon earth, because we claim descent from the same God, and that being so, all life in whatever form it appears must be essentially one.

   Mahatma Gandhi     Nationalism     India     1929

   in danger

Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.

   Victor Hugo     Romanticism     France     1862

   in art  in scale

If you study Japanese art, you see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time how? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying the policy of Bismarck? No. He studies a single blade of grass. But this blade of grass leads him to draw every plant and then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure.

   Vincent Van Gogh     Art     The Netherlands     1888 

   life–nature

The young science of Ecology has been built up since Darwin's time and is based on the recognition of this fact, that in addition to the operation of Natural Selection, the environment has a silent, assimilative, transformative influence of a very profound and enduring character on all organic life. In the subtle ways of Nature, sun and earth, night and day, and all the things of earth and air and sun mingle silently with life, sink into it and become part of its structure. And in response to this profound stimulus, life grows and evolves, the less whole in harmony with the greater whole of Nature.

   Jan C. Smuts     Science     South Africa     1926

   in action   in effort

The minute one stops going forward, one falls back. The moment one is satisfied and no longer aspires, one begins to die. Life is movement, it is effort, it is a march forward, the scaling of a mountain, the climb towards new revelations, towards future realizations. Nothing is more dangerous than wanting to rest. It is in action, in effort, in the march forward that repose must be found, the true repose of complete trust in the divine Grace, of the absence of desires, of victory over egoism.
 True repose comes from the widening, the universalization of the consciousness. Become as vast as the world and you will always be at rest. In the thick of action, in the very midst of the battle, the effort, you will know the repose of infinity and eternity.

   The Mother     Yoga     France     1957

   of thought  with nature

Profound quietude delivered me to the transparent moonlight. After enlightenment one understands that the six classics contain not even a word.

   Wang Yang-Ming     Neo-Confucianism     China     1529

   by oneself

Neither by words nor by the patriarch;
Neither by colors nor by sound was I enlightened.
But, at midnight, when I blew out the candle and went to bed,
Suddenly, within myself, I reached the dawn.

   Unknown     Zen Buddhism     China     Unknown