God in Everything

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This is another great theme of the Vedanta, this Oneness of life,

this Oneness of everything. We shall see how it demonstrates that all

our misery comes through ignorance, and this ignorance is the idea of

manifoldness, this separation between man and man, between nation and

nation, between earth and moon, between moon and sun. Out of this

idea of separation between atom and atom comes all misery. But the

Vedanta says this separation does not exist, it is not real. It is

merely apparent, on the surface. In the heart of things there is

Unity still. If you go below the surface, you find that Unity between

man and man, between races and races, high and low, rich and poor,

gods and men, and men and animals. If you go deep enough, all will be

seen as only variations of the One, and he who has attained to this

conception of Oneness has no more delusion. What can delude him? He

knows the reality of everything, the secret of everything. Where is

there any more misery for him? What does he desire? He has traced the

reality of everything to the

 

Lord, the Centre, the Unity of everything, and that is Eternal

Existence, Eternal Knowledge, Eternal Bliss. Neither death nor

disease, nor sorrow, nor misery, nor discontent is there. All is

Perfect Union and Perfect Bliss. For whom should he mourn then? In

the Reality, there is no death, there is no misery; in the Reality,

there is no one to mourn for, no one to be sorry for. He has

penetrated everything, the Pure One, the Formless, the Bodiless, the

Stainless. He is the Knower, He the Great Poet, the Self-Existent, He

who is giving to everyone what he deserves. They grope in darkness

who worship this ignorant world, the world that is produced out of

ignorance, thinking of it as Existence, and those who live their

whole lives in this world, and never find anything better or higher,

are groping in still greater darkness. But he who knows the secret of

nature, seeing That which is beyond nature through the help of

nature, he crosses death, and through the help of That which is

beyond nature, he enjoys Eternal Bliss. " Thou sun, who hast covered

the Truth with thy golden disc, do thou remove the veil, so that I

may see the Truth that is within thee. I have known the Truth that is

within thee, I have known what is the real meaning of thy rays and

thy glory and have seen That which shines in thee; the Truth in thee

I see, and That which is within thee is within me, and I am That. "

 

- Swami Vivekananda