If there is any lover in the world, 0 Muslim, it is I.
If there is any believer, infidel, or Christian hermit, it is I.
The wine, the cup-bearer, the musician, the instrument and the music,
The beloved, the candle, the liquor and the inebriation, it is I.
The seventy-two religious sects in the world
Do not really exist;
I swear by God every religious sect-it is I.
Earth, air, water and fire: do you know what they are?
Earth, air, water and fire-and the soul as well; it is I
Truth and falsehood, good and evil, pleasure and suffering, beginning and end,
Knowledge, learning, asceticism, devotion and faith-it is I.
Be assured that the fire of hell and its flames,
Paradise, Eden and the angels of heaven-it is I.
Heaven and earth and all they hold: angels, demons, and men – it is I.Jalal Ad-Din Rumi at www.onelittleangel.com
In the poem above, Rumi expresses the transcendent consciousness that is all-encompassing, god-consciousness, if you like, for god is all-pervading. The divine is present in all through each.
Such a state of consciousness must be of practical use if it is to be of any use at all. How are we inspired by it? I know that it inspires me to ask questions such as these:
Where am I not? Where are you not? How does the dominant perception of separation affect us? Does it draw us closer to one another? Does it help us experience the wholeness that we are? Does it help us go beyond the culture of ‘blame and shame’? Does it make us more likely to see goodness and greatness rather than pass judgment?
It is I, Lucy
For Online and Offline Mentoring/Meditation/Workshops/Retreats Contact lucy@lucylopez.net
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[...] Lucy Lopez wrote a fantastic post today on “Interconnectedness – It is I!”Here’s ONLY a quick extractThe beloved, the candle, the liquor and the inebriation, it is I. The seventy-two religious sects in the world Do not really exist; I swear by God every religious sect-it is I. Earth, air, water and fire: do you know what they are? … [...]
I am inspired by it because it is a magnificent truth – meaning that the philosopher’s stone for life is – love.
I feel sometimes that forgetfullness is responsible for any attitude of blame – forgetting that I am also – always in a relationship to the object of blame.
Take for example a traffic collision – no matter how much I like to think the other is solely to blame – if I weren’t there, at that particular time, in that precise space – there could have been no collision – how could I possibly exclude myself from the equation, other than not seeing things as they really are?
On another tack – we were talking at home about “love thy neighbour as thyself.”
I realised an unfamiliar reversal of that golden rule – most people are probably kinder to others than they sometimes are on themselves – so the instruction also encourages us to love ourselves – to be happy – to be realistic about things we have no power over.
Loving oneself may sound arrogant at first, but first we must accept firmly that the concept is literally impossible – there being no seperate “subject/object” within ourselves – and having accepted that all of life is one, we cannot exlude “ourselves” from that equation – so it merely implies allowing, permitting ourselves to enjoy our life, love and liberty – whatever it is we choose to do with it.
And that can help us to remember.
Exactly Tim – there is no loving oneself independent of loving all! Oh should I say: There is no loving oneself, period! Unless by ‘oneself’ we mean ‘all’.
Then again there is no ‘all’ ‘to love’ when All is Love – our essential nature!
And yes, how do we remind ourselves? How do we stay in awareness of this fundamental truth?
For me it is through formal and informal meditation (where I experience this truth)and through reading, writing and reminding others.