Tao Te Ching
Oneness
In Eastern traditions, there is much discussion revolving around Duality and Non-duality, One Taste, and Oneness. In Western traditions, these discussions often categorize under the term, Monism. Our direct experience always has a unified wholeness but the foundation of our thinking process continually creates distinctions, separations, dualistic paradox, and conceptual fixations. While this process of separation and categorization benefits the pragmatic details of daily living, it also creates “golden chains” curtailing our creativity, innovation, individuality, and the most wise and skillful means of living our lives. While the seductive pulls of duality and non-duality normally pull us one way or the other, the possibility of reconciling and unifying these two opposites leads to the most wise and compassionate paths leading to happiness, peace, wisdom, and enlightenment.
Beginning with the ancient Greek Stoics and continuing through philosophers like Giordano Bruno and Spinoza, Oneness became a foundation for Pantheism’s belief that all reality has only one substance called at various times God, Nature, or just the Universe. Neoplatonism begins with this belief that everything comes from The One. A variation known as Panentheism describes a divine, cosmic force that interpenetrates all of life which pulls it more toward the dualistic side of the balance. This approach characterizes much of Hindu belief, Hasidic Judaism’s dimensions of Kabbalah, and the Christian theologies of people like Paul Tillich and Matthew Fox.
The popular Deism of the 17th and 18th centuries grew out of these philosophies, became popularized by thinkers like John Locke, David Hume, Voltaire, and Rousseau. Promoted in the USA particularly by Thomas Paine, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson; it became a strong inspiration for the principle of religious freedom, the First Amendment, and the abolition of slavery.
The Pandeism doctrine with it’s view of Oneness combined some pantheism with some deism, traces it’s roots back to Marduk and the ancient Babylonians, continued into modern times with advocates like Lord Tennyson and Robert A. Heinlein, and formed the basis for much of today’s New Age movement.
Quotes (95)
“Filled with infinite possibilities and one with the dust, the Tao unites the world into one whole like a deep pool that never dries up.”
“When you succeed, be one with success. When you fail, be one with failure.
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“In separateness lies the world's greatest misery; in compassion lies the world's true strength.”
“When we realize the universal oneness, there will be nothing we do not know. But if we do not realize the oneness, there will be nothing that we truly know.”
“Reality is now, all at once, one and continuous, not divisible, never any more or less of it and nothing that could stop it holding together but always alike and full of what is.”
“People have lost sight of the truth by coming to believe in two forms: one with the fire of heaven and light, one the opposite as a dark, heavy night. But in truth, everything at the same time is full of both light and dark, both equal.”
“at one time there grew to be the one alone out of many, and at another time it separated so that there were many out of the one”
“Use oneness [truthfulness] to put the 3 universal world virtues—wisdom, goodness, and courage—into practice.”
“The most truthful and capable of giving full realization to their human nature can form a trinity, a union of heaven, earth, and man.”
“He hewed the humans in two just as one cuts fruit for preservation… After that, with their natures hewn in two, each one missed the union with its other half… nor would it appear that we want anything else… cooperation and fusion - becoming one out of two. For this is the basis; this is our primeval nature, described as being whole.”
“All things are good and acceptable. That is why all things – a blade of grass or a hundred-foot pine, a leper or a legendary beauty, a national hero or a traitor – are equal in the Tao.”
“The ‘One’ in Ho-shang Kung’s commentary means the essence of Tao… the ‘One’ is the ‘key’ or ‘kernal’ of the Way.”
“It’s because Heaven becomes one that it graces the sky with constellations and light. It’s because Earth becomes one that it remains still and immovable… It’s because kings become one that they pacify the world. But Heaven must move between yin and yang.”
“We are all sprung from the same seed, all have the same father by whom mother earth conceives and supplies for a pleasant life and the continuation of our race”
“in the beginning the Eloheim created mortals male and female; they were one body, perfectly united and absolutely equal…. when you are redeemed from the Fall, male and female will cease to exist, you will become a perfect whole, accomplishing a single work.”
“The human features and countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more, are so fashioned that among so many thousands of men there are no two in existence who cannot be distinguished from one another.”
“All things are interwoven, a sacred bond uniting them into the oneness of truth.”
“Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together.”
“One is the beginning of numbers and the end of things. All things become complete when they become one. But… by focusing on being complete, they lose their mother… they crack, they crumble… their mother has no form.”
“When everything is seen as One, we return to the Source and stay where we have always been.”
“The mind is very great in capacity… When we use it, we can know something of everything, and when we use it to its full capacity we shall know all. All in one and one in all.”
“Although it has many parts like arms and legs, our bodies are one whole. In a similar way, all beings with their yearnings for happiness, their joys and sorrows are like one body, different but equal.”
“those who seek for something objective outside their own minds have all turned their backs on the Way…Buddhas and sentient beings do not differ at all.”
“Gather every thought and concept into the clarifying universe of body, speech, and mind that empties into the all-embracing mind.”
“The Ultimate in which all become the same is free of habit-forming thought and limitations.”
“Going from one to two is the origin of all delusion.”
“Just as a circle embraces all that is within it, so does the God-head embrace all. No one has the power to divide this circle, to surpass it, or to limit it.”
“Everything that is in the heavens, on earth, and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.”
“Without deceit, spiritual and temporal affairs are one;
With deceit, spiritual and temporal affairs are different.”
“This is the meaning of Lao-tzu’s entire book: opposites complement each other”
“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
“Study the art of science… Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
“The body is not a thing apart but a house for the soul. The physician, therefore, must treat the two simultaneously and strive at bringing them into harmony which is the only true health.”
“Union is as if in a room there were two large windows through which the light streamed in it enters in different places but it all becomes one.”
“To know what truly endures is to know that Heaven and Earth share the same root, that the ten thousand things share one body, and that there is no difference between self and others.”
“The wise rule the world through selflessness. All things come to them because they are one with all things.”
“All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity.”
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
“… any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
“Although there are many wonderful spiritual techniques, by far the best practice is the unification of luminosity and emptiness.”
“Our names united before the whole world as representative of the unity that a man and woman can achieve and must achieve – and will achieve all over the world… the deep companionship that has developed between us so that we almost have one breath, one life, one interest.”
“Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. Deal ye one with another with the utmost love and harmony, with friendliness and fellowship.”
“This notion of an all-enveloping noetic unity in things is the sublimest achievement of intellectualist philosophy.”
“I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight”
“For me whatever is in the atoms and molecules is in the universe. I believe in the saying that what is in the microcosm of one’s self is reflected in the macrocosm.”
“I seemed to catch a glimmer of the true light. I reflected how truly everything is in anything. If one could really understand a coneflower, he could understand this Earth.”
“Nature compels us to recognize the fact of mutual dependence, each life necessarily helping the other lives who are linked to it. In the very fibers of our being, we bear within ourselves the fact of the solidarity of life.”
“The spirit that penetrates all things is the World Soul... filling all things, binding and knitting together all things that might make one frame of the world.”
“The truth is that we all are one, that all of us together create god, that god is not man's ancestor, but his descendant.”
“This tree—I see it pushing its roots ever more deeply and widely into the soil yet lifting itself up to the sky as if in prayer for light and warmth... I feel in myself the same lust for light and growth; this tree and I are kindred souls sharing the same hunger and the same life.”
“If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.”
“The Golden Age is an age of innocence and bliss; for to live wholly within the limits and cyclic boundaries of one’s own wholeness is true innocence and bliss… tragedy coming only as one attempts to go beyond these boundaries”
“We always want to alter the outer hoping thereby to change the inner…I think we miss this basic thing, which is; the world is me and I am the world.”
“Above all, the one important message of Taoism is the oneness and spirituality of the material universe.”
“Every existence is my existence, every consciousness if my consciousness, every sorrow is my sorrow and every joy is my joy”
“Our names united before the whole world as representative of the unity that a man and woman can achieve and must achieve – and will achieve all over the world… the deep companionship that has developed between us so that we almost have one breath, one life, one interest.”
“individuality can be transformed in a process of growth, but retains its character. It becomes wider and more all-encompassing and transparent until it reflects the whole universe and becomes one with it.”
“Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact we have no fear of death anymore,nor actual difficulty in our life… When you can sit with your whole body and mind, and with the oneness of your mind and body under the control of the universal mind, you can easily attain this kind of right understanding.”
“We need myths that identify the individual not with his local group but with the planet”
“The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity... we still share genes around, and the resemblance of the enzymes of grasses to those of whales is a family resemblance.”
“The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get... to preserve the absolute unpredictability and total improbability of our connected minds.”
“The great oneness of everything may be the ultimate reality, but we don't usually notice it very much in our everyday lives.”
“Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different”
“We become compassionate not from altruism which denies the self for the sake of the other, but from the insight that sees and feels one is the other.”
“Wholeness, rather than fragmentation, is the basic nature of reality... In effect, the fragmentation expressed in conventional medicine and in our social relations may be a distortion of nature, a false premise which has permeated our lives.”
“Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature”
“Forget yourself. Become one with eternity. Become part of your environment.”
“Although we are in different boats you in your boat and we in our canoe we share the same river of life.”
“We can't let people drive wedges between us... because there's only one human race.”
“The external air and internal breath are linked through breathing. The external space of the sky and the internal space of the mind are linked through openness.”
“Our ancient experience confirms at every point that everything is linked together, everything is inseparable.”
“There is no such thing as independence, it’s an illusion — interdependence is what matters”
“Once you are really into something,you become part of that experience, or it becomes part of you. When you become part of the teachings, you are no longer hassled. You are no longer an entity separate from the teachings. You are an embodiment of them.”
“Awareness without choice or awareness that contains no experience…you begin to see yourself as tables and chairs or rocks and sky and water. You begin to identify with the phenomenal world completely.”
“poems of Parmenides and Empedocles… designed to lead the reader to a direct experience of the oneness of reality and the realization of his or her own divinity.”
“Music frees the soul from the cage of the body. Music transforms the Many to a One.”
“an utterly direct expansion of the heart... Compassion is a spontaneous feeling of connection with all living things. What you feel, I feel; what I eel, you feel. There's no difference between us.”
“When evaluating global happiness, it is wrong to count the happiness only of the upper classes, of Europeans or of men. Perhaps it is also wrong to consider only the happiness of humans.”
“the very society we create differs based on whether we believe ourselves to be fundamentally separable and independent, or fundamentally connected and interdependent.”
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