The Same Self Is in All of Us - Eknath Easwaran
The same spark of divinity–this same Self–is enshrined in every creature.
My real Self is not different from yours nor anyone else’s. If we want to live
in the joy that increases with time, if we want to live in true freedom
independent of circumstances, then we must strive to realize that even if there
are four people in our family or forty at our place of work, there is only one
Self.
This realization enables us to learn to conduct ourselves with respect to
everyone around us, even if they provoke us or dislike us or say unkind things
about us. And that increasing respect will make us more and more secure. It will
enable us gradually to win everybody’s respect, even those who disagree with us
or seem disagreeable.
Most of us can treat others with respect under certain circumstances–at the
right time, with the right people, in a certain place. When those circumstances
are absent, we usually move away. Yet when we respond according to how the other
person behaves, changing whenever she changes, and she is behaving in this same
way, how can we expect anything but insecurity on both sides? There is nothing
solid to build on.
Instead, we can learn to respond always to the Self within–focusing not on
the other person’s ups and downs, likes and dislikes, but always on what is
changeless in each of us. Then others grow to trust us. They know they can count
on us–and that makes us more secure too.
We can try to remember this always: the same Self that makes us worthy of
respect and love is present equally in everyone around us. It is one of the
surest ways I know of to make our latent divinity a reality in daily life.
About the Author: Sourced from Eknath Easwaran's Blue Mountain Journal,
Winter 2015, Volume 26, No. 3. Eknath Easwaran
