The One

“ On the one side, his outlook is hard and literal and low; on the other, he seeks, through intellect, to transcend the infinite in time and space and truth. On the side of himself, as individual, he knows no right or wrong. On the side of himself, as social, [86] he recognizes the infinite in duty, and seeks harmony through the infinite in love. ”

“ In a magnificent ode Jalāluddīn Rūmī describes how the One Light shines in myriad forms through the whole universe, and how [p. 153] the One Essence, remaining ever the same, clothes itself from age to age in the prophets and saints who are its witnesses to mankind.
“Every moment the robber Beauty rises in a different shape, ravishes the soul, and disappears.
Every instant that Loved One assumes a new garment, now of eld, now of youth. ”

“ The fact is that love is of two kinds—one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other. ”

“ The fractional entities of vitality are embraced in the oneness of the unitary Ego. Life," she added, "is the garnered condensation of objective impressions; and, as the objective is the remote father of the subjective, so must individuality, which is but focused subjectivity, suffer and fade when the sensation lenses, by which the rays of impression are condensed, become destroyed." ”

“ But let us place ourselves, by the poet's help, within the soul of Lear or Hamlet, and we shall be able to follow the process by which the spiritual power, taking the form of passion in the one, and of thought in the other, and working outwards, draws everything into its own unity, according to the same activity of which, however impeded by the "imperfections of matter," we are conscious in ourselves. ”

“ From eternity Thou hast existed with none to equal or rival Thee, and wilt abide for ever the same. I beseech Thee, by the eyes which see Thee stablished upon the throne of unity and the seat of oneness, to aid all them that love Thee by Thy Most Great Name, and to lift them up into such heights that they will testify with their own beings and with their tongues that Thou art God alone, the Incomparable, the One, the Ever-Abiding. Thou hast had at no time any peer or partner. Thou, in truth, art the All-Glorious, the Almighty, Whose help is implored by all men. ”

“ The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so! To my own Gods I go. It may be they shall give me greater ease Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities. ”

“ In the degree that we come into the recognition of our own true selves, into the realization of the oneness of our life with the Infinite Life, and in the degree that we open ourselves to this divine inflow, does this voice of intuition, this voice of the soul, this voice of God, speak clearly ”

“ In this instance the genesis is clear, and it makes for the one-man theory. In other instances, I can quite imagine myths arising from a spectacle witnessed in common by a multitude, or an incident developing itself under the eyes of many. ”

“ The answer to the first is the need of the One to differentiate itself into the Many, proving its universality and its power to integrate and raise up the good. But, he shows, the answer to the second question is in the conduct of the individual. ”

“ As being essentially pure consciousness, the oneness between the Real and the Self is known by the awakened; and by hundreds of great texts the oneness, the absence of separateness, between the Eternal and the Self is declared. ”

“ If I had a good thing on you'd be the first man I should come and tell. I should say, 'West, old chap, you and me was pals long ago when we was young, and I ain't the one,' I should say, 'I ain't the one to turn me back on a chum.' That," remarked Mr. ”

“ RHYME OF ONE You sleep upon your mother's breast, Your race begun, A welcome, long a wished-for Guest, Whose age is One. A Baby-Boy, you wonder why You cannot run; You try to talk—how hard you try!— You're only One. Ere long you won't be such a dunce: You'll eat your bun, And fly your kite, like folk who once Were only One. You'll rhyme and woo, and fight and joke, Perhaps you'll pun! Such feats are never done by folk Before they're One. ”

“ Now we have a chance, all of us, to be ourselves! Each of us may say, ‘I am myself, one!’ Think of that, my friends, each one! Each of us a unit, responsible only to his or her unity, if I may so express it. ”

“ Here, then, we may see the impress of a Single Mind, in the unity and harmony which pervade the visible universe; while, at the same time, we discern the qualities of that Mind,—its Power, in the grandeur of the plan, its Wisdom in the perfectness of its beauty and order, and its Love in the presence of that great pervading force which draws into intimate connection and union its innumerable parts. ”

“ Who is there, O my God, that can be deemed worthy to be remembered when Thou art remembered, and where is he to be found who can be regarded as capable of hinting at Thy nature or worthy of mention in the court of Thy transcendent oneness? From everlasting Thou hast been alone with no one else beside Thee, and to everlasting Thou wilt continue to be one and the same. No God is there beside Thee, the God of power, of glory and wisdom. ”

“ As around that romping-place
At a terrifying pace
⁠Lungeth, plungeth he!
And that hero seems to be
⁠All unconscious of our cheers—
⁠Only one dear voice he hears
Calling reassuringly:
⁠"All-Aloney!" ”

“ Have we never for instance, felt the power wherewith the orator unites and holds together a thousand men as if they were but one; with flashing eyes and throbbing hearts, all attentive to his words, and by the difference of their attitudes, by the variety of the expressions of their countenances testifying to the unity of that single living feeling with which he had inspired them? Whether it be indignation, whether it be compassion, or whether it be enthusiasm, that one living influence made the thousand for the time, one. ”

“ I have gathered my universe about me. It is as if I had lain all still in my soul and some beautiful eternal sleep—a minute of it—had come to me and visited me. All men are my brothers. Is not the world filled with hastening to me? ”

“ We see his shadow falling over the path of another person or feel his presence like a breath of wind. Perhaps we hear no more of him at the time, but in another book we meet him again, and now he is the hero, whom we follow until we think we know him like a dog-eared schoolbook—until some sudden turn upsets our theories, and we leave him in the last chapter with a baffled sense of imperfect understanding. ”

“ He speaks to us one by one, distracted by the very excess of life, separated from humanity by the multitude of men, dazzled by the shifting variety of hues into which the eternal light is broken by the prism of the world,—one by one he accosts us, and leads us gently back, if we will follow him, into a more tranquil region and a serener air. ”

“ There is also another unity of equal moment, seldom found wanting, indeed, in any of the genuine plays of our poet, but which is particularly observable in this, that unity of feeling which we have once before had occasion to notice, and which, in the present instance, has given an uniform, but an extraordinary, tone to every part of the fable. ”

“ But what were those signs of the coming of that Just One, which had been so long and so clearly foretold, and whereby they might easily have discerned those times, had not the veil been on their heart? They are many in number ”

“ He was “the parson,” in canonical phrase—that is to say, The Person, the somebody of consequence among his own people. These men were not, however, smoothed down into a monotonous aspect of life and manners by this remote and secluded existence. They imbibed, each in his own peculiar circle, the hue of surrounding objects, and were tinged into distinctive colouring and character by many a contrast of scenery and people. ”

“ Side by side, they felt their hearts lifted above every little transient, paltry entanglement by so much power, beauty, and nobility; they felt that their hearts were breaking old bonds, and that the secret of their spirit was more intense, profound, and overpowering. ”

“ She has seen many heroes, yet this is he for whom she has waited so long. Each knows all the depth of the other's thoughts, and so they stand and gaze each into the other's eyes and into the other's heart. ”

“ So for a minute or two he stood, a figure instinct with passion, energy, vitality, before men who, God knows with reason, had lost all three for the moment. A colossal figure beyond them, ahead of them, asking more than mere ordinary men could do. ”

“ There we see him standing, an unknown youth, teeth clenched and face determined, fronting the world, and anticipating his own future in it, with something of that feeling which, call it what we may, and smile at it as any one may in the retrospect, has probably, by God’s own ordinance, filled every great and honest heart at the outset of a great career:—
Lay the vain impostors low! ”

“ A million men, miserably held in subjection, their necks under the yoke, not compelled by force, but enchanted and charmed by the word ONE, neither the power of whom they need fear, seeing he stands alone ”

“ On the surface of things there is discord, confusion and want of adaptation; but dig down, first to the centre of the world, and then to the centre of your own nature, and you will find a most wonderful correspondence, a most beautiful harmony, between the two—the world made for the hero and the hero made for the world. ”

“ He stood and gazed, then, with his arms folded on his chest, while the people walking to and fro passed and repassed him, and many a one commented as they went, and assigned him a history and a character from their own imagination. How seldom is it, in the busy world with which we mingle, that any of the conjectures regarding our thoughts, our feelings, our state of existence, are correct! ”

“ I am asking you to look up, not back, nor away among the long dead years for any cause or ideal. I am asking you to search for your leader among your contemporaries, not satisfied until you find him, not limited in your devotion when you have found him, taking his cause to be yours. ”

“ What they have, he has, and has in their degree—a plenary vision of life. He is the master of the fundamental theme; it enters into, echoes in, modulates and modifies all his particular emotions, and the individual poems of which they are the substance. Each work of his is a fragment of a whole—not a detached and arbitrarily severed fragment, but a unity which implies, calls for and in a profound sense creates a vaster and completely comprehensive whole His reaction to an episode has behind and within it a reaction to the universe. ”

“ Day by day her beauty grew beneath my brush, startling me often with its spiritual force and significance till my mind grew feverish over its work, and I could scarcely refrain from rising at night to give a touch here or there to the floating golden hair or the piercing, tender eyes turned, ah, ever turned upon the inmost citadel of my heart with that look that slew my father before his time and made me, yes me, old in spirit even in the ardent years of my first manhood. ”

“ The two, side by side, feeling each other's touch, feeling, for all we know, that other touch of the child who would come to such man's work after long years. Why should it not make itself felt, in more ways than one, that strange force which bids the race continue, which gives the spirit of kings or the spirit of slaves? ”

“ In the midst floated the soul, the self, the undying individuality, a light that shot out long rays, like a star, towards the ever present moments in an ever recurring life of which she had been, and was, and was to be, most keenly conscious. ”

“ All the world-generations have but one voice! “How can we become One? at harmony with God and God’s universe! Tell us this, and the dreary, dark mystery of life, the bright, sparkling mystery of life, the cloud-chequered, sun-and-shower mystery of life, is solved! for we shall have found one home and one brotherhood, and happy faces will greet us wherever we move, and we shall see God! see Him everywhere, and be ready to wait for the Renewal, for the Kingdom of Christ perfected! ”

“ Another, embracing a more exalted vision—so that he might receive indefinite additaments of power, knowledge, beauty, glory, &c.—is ready to forego the recognition of humbler individualities of earth, and the old familiar faces. The shapings of our heavens are the modifications of our constitution; and Mr. Feeble Mind, or Mr. Great Heart, is born in every one of us. ”

“ That they all may be one; as [684] thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; [685] that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, [686] that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. ”

“ Soul may divide from body, but not we
One from another; ”

“ We can define the Other, the true Being, as that which, if present to us in this moment, would end our conflict. In so far it seems something desirable and desired, — an object of longing. On the other hand, we may, and often do, regard Being as that in terms of which our ideas are to be controlled, set right, or, if necessary, wholly set aside as useless. In so far Being appears as a sort of fate, or perhaps as a supreme authority, which judges our ideas and which may thwart them. ”

“ Again and again it has finally been obliged to yield, this “whole world,” before a single soul; and we often experience yet to-day, in the smallest as in the greatest questions, the truth of the bold saying, “Who firmly holds to his mind, will fashion the world to himself.” ”

“ Is everything to be called an individual that can be thought of or spoken of as "one"? I have heard of a preacher who wished to prove that all nature testified to Unity a very good thesis but he tried to get at his conclusion by a short cut. "There is one sun, there is one moon, there is one great multitude of stars." ”

“ To wreak its homage on the land,
Who of us that is worth his while
Will, if he listen, more than smile?
Who of us, being what he is,
May scoff at others' ecstasies?
However we may shine to-day,
More-shining ones are on the way ”