"The Self, or God, is not somewhere else—but is inside each of us. In loving oneself, one can only love the Self. Love itself is the 'form' of God." ~Ramana Maharshi
I read this in Robert Wolfe's book "Ramana Maharshi: Teachings of Self-Realization". This is a concept I've felt for most of my life. I'm not sure how or when this became clear to me, but it's nice to see it expressed here.
What's the difference between unity and Oneness? Would you use these two terms interchangeably? I'm not a native speaker of English. There's only one word for both in my mother tongue, but I love having the choice in English. To me 'unity' suggests harmony and a very strong bond, whereas 'Oneness' is conscious identity. A marriage, for example, could be a long-lasting and fulfilling unity of two people without the epiphany of eternal Oneness ever reaching them. But I could be wrong. I've googled both words and found some articles on Christian blogs about the differences. According to them, Oneness is reserved for Oneness with God. Although I'm not a Christian, I would agree that Oneness is ultimately identity with the One. However, I believe that we can find this identity with, or rather IN, each other and don’t need to have a preconceived notion of God to do so. Let me know your thoughts! #spirituality#love#oneness#unity#nonduality@philosophy@spirituality