Finding oneness
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    • GRATITUDE AND THANKSGIVING
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    • ONENESS: GOD OR MAN OR BOTH? PART 1
    • ONENESS: GOD OR MAN OR BOTH? PART 2
    • THE WAY TO LIFE
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  • ABOUT TOM STANKS
DR. TOM STANKS
WHO AM I?
Who I Am is Beyond Imagination!
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​         Identity with ALL
​         creates intimacy
            without fear.

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Happiness is connecting me with something more than myself. It's a mistake to think that my exterior reach is all that's needed to satisfy me and quench the yearning. In constantly moving out, I often fail to recognize that the move is actually to fulfill an inner need.  In my drive, words and thoughts are required, but I know something beyond them is needed to fill the void. That extra something is a personal experience of inner fulfillment. Could I be joined to what I want in a way beyond my normal ways? Beyond my current imagination? Is it possible to not only join it but to be identified with it so that my deepest urges are fulfilled? Would this identity create the intimacy that I so long for? I know my yearnings are deep and wide.      
    Albert Einstein said, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." Einstein refers here to a higher level of consciousness, a superior level of being. I am driven to seek what I think is good for me. If I am sincere I have to want whatever it takes to get me there. The drive to goodness is really a desire to love and to be loved. Percy Shelley phrased it this way in his poem, "Love's Philosophy:"

                                              "Nothing in the world is single;
                                                     All things by a law divine
                                              In one spirit move and mingle,
                                                     Why not I with thine?

                                              See the mountains kiss high Heaven
                                                     And the waves clasp one another; 
                                              No sister-flower would be forgiven
                                                     If it disdained its brother."

     More than anything else, it is love that moves me and attracts me to happiness, to oneness. I can be one only by a loving openness within me to accept it. Every positive feeling, like joy, praise or appreciation, is rooted in love; and every negative feeling, like fear, anger or jealousy, hides a desire to be loved. Whatever I do, SEEING IT AS GOOD, cannot be denied. I see it as good for someone or something. If I get a true picture of myself, it has love for its frame and opens out to mystery. 
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Love is ONENESS


"Behold but One
in all things;
it is the second
  that leads you astray."

                         -Kabir
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SUFIS​
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"True enlightenment
comes from understanding
the oneness
​  of all reality."

                         -Deng Ming-Dao
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TAOISTS​​
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"The separate-self is,
at bottom, simply
a sensation
​  of seeking."

                         -Ken Wilber
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MODERN MYSTICS​

​"Identify the atman as
the infinitely small within us 
and the infinitely great
outside of us."

                         -Paul Deussen
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HINDUS
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​"May they be one
as we are one;
me in them and
 you in me."

                         -Jesus Christ
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CHRISTIANS

​"Be a lamp
unto yourself.
Rely on yourself and not
on external help."

-The Buddha​​
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BUDDHISTS
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​- + -   Additional Reflections
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Photos used under Creative Commons from Muffet, Sierragoddess, Faith @101, efradera, Melia Skinner, wplynn, Blowing Puffer Fish