Daily Meditation: Friday, October 27, 2006

The human being is defined by the fact that he is endowed …

10/27/2006

The human being is defined by the fact that he is endowed with consciousness, but this consciousness only truly manifests when his sensibility is awakened to the notions of collectivity, of universality. This faculty allows him to enter into the heart and soul of others, to the extent that when he causes them to suffer, he himself experiences the pain he has inflicted on them. He understands that everything he does to others, both good and bad, he does to himself. To all appearances, of course, each of us is distinct and separate from everyone else. But in reality, a part of us is connected to the collectivity and lives in all creatures throughout the cosmos. Once this collective consciousness is awakened in you, you will sense in your relations with others that everything – your thoughts, feelings, words and actions – comes back to you like an echo, because your being, which extends throughout the universe, has become a collective entity. This is brotherhood in the true sense.