It costs me nothing to feel that I am; it is no burden to me. And yet
if the mental, physical, chemical, and other innumerable facts
concerning all branches of knowledge which have united in myself could
be broken up, they would prove endless. It is some untold mystery of
unity in me, that has the simplicity of the infinite and reduces the
immense mass of multitude to a single point.
This One in me knows the universe of the many. But, in whatever it
knows, it knows the One in different aspects. It knows this room only
because this room is One to it, in spite of the seeming contradiction
of the endless facts contained in the single fact of the room. Its
knowledge of a tree is the knowledge of a unity, which appears in the
aspect of a tree.
This One in me is creative. Its creations are a pastime, through which
it gives expression to an ideal of unity in its endless show of
variety. Such are its pictures, poems, music, in which it finds joy
only because they reveal the perfect forms of an inherent unity.
This One in me not only seeks unity in knowledge for its understanding
and creates images of unity for its delight; it also seeks union in
love for its fulfilment. It seeks itself in others. This is a fact,
which would be absurd had there been no great medium of truth to give
it reality. In love we find a joy which is ultimate because it is the
ultimate truth. Therefore it is said in the Upanishads that the
_advaitam_ is _anantam_,--"the One is Infinite"; that the _advaitam_
is _anandam_,--"the One is Love."
To give perfect expression to the One, the Infinite, through the
harmony of the many; to the One, the Love, through the sacrifice of
self, is the object alike of our individual life and our society.