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with anybody. The ego comes in between; the "I" asserts itself. It is a wall. It proclaims, "You are you and I am I." And so even the most intimate experience does not bring people close to each other. The bodies may be near but the people are far apart. So long as there is this "I" inside, this feeling of otherness cannot be avoided.
One day, Sartre said a wonderful thing: "The other is hell." But he didn't explain any further why the other was hell, or even why the other was the other. The other is the other because I am I, and while I am I, the world around is the other -- different and apart, segregated -- and there is no rapport.
As long as there is this feeling of separation, love cannot be known. Love is the experience of unity. The demolition of walls, the fusion of two energies is what the experience of love is. Love is the ecstasy when the walls between two people crumble down, when two lives meet, when two lives unite.
When such a harmony exists between two people I call it love. And when it exists between one man and the masses, I call it communion with God. If you can become immersed with me in such an experience -- so that all barriers melt, so that an osmosis takes place at the spiritual level -- then that is love. And if such a unity happens between me and everyone else and I lose my identity in the All, then that attainment, that merging, is with God, with the Almighty, with the Omniscient, with the Universal Consciousness, with the Supreme or whatsoever you want to call it. And so, I say that love is the first step and that God is the last step -- the finest and the final destination.
How is it possible to erase myself?
Unless I dissolve myself, how can the other unite with me? The other is created as a reaction to my "I". The louder I shout "I", the more forceful becomes the existence of the other. The other is the echo of "I".
And what is "I"? Have you ever thought calmly about it? Is it in your leg or your hand, in your head or your heart? Or is it just the ego?
What and where is your "I", your ego? The feeling of it is there, yet it is to be found in no particular place. Sit quietly for a moment
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