One Soul Shared by All

 

On Friendship & Love

 

When Zeno, the Stoic, was asked, “What is a friend?” He replied, “a second self!”[1] This reply gives us a clue to the Greek understanding of friendship, which was of great importance to them. A friend, then, is not just any acquaintance or hanger-on. Indeed, Plutarch warns about having too many friends in his work in the Moralia; “...to look on one’s friend as another self. It follows, then, that a strong mutual friendship with many persons is impossible.”[2] We will come back to this subject of many friends later.

 

But now let us see what Aristotle thought of such matters. He being the great authority looked to for so many philosophical ideas. When he was asked, ‘What is a friend’? His reply was, “A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”[3] This is the opinion of no mean thinker, but of one of the greatest minds the western world has seen. However, in the East the same Idea of two bodies sharing a single soul was current long before Aristotle.

 

In the reign of King Saul of Israel, the king’s son has this said of him;

 

“After David had finished talking to Saul, Jonathan’s soul became closely bound to David’s and Jonathan came to love him as his own soul. Jonathan made a pact with David to love him as his own soul.”[4]

 

Quite a remarkable parallel to the Idea of Aristotle. Friendship implies Love for another and a mutual return of that love.

 

Plato of course has much to say on the subject, especially in the ‘Symposium’.[5] He has the lovers wishing to merge their selves into one being. This Idea is also found in religious orders as well as in the philosophical schools of all times. In a religious sense our soul is a part, as it were, of the one soul of God. We are, then, all parts of one Soul. In friendship we realize this fact and merge our souls into one.

 

The more mystical thinkers of all religions try to merge their soul with God’s Soul. This ‘Knowledge of God’ is more than the subject knowing the object, it is the merging of the two. Further, to understand all souls as being but parts of the same Soul, our Love must extend to all. This leads to the mystical conclusion that we must be a friend to all sharers of our soul. If the union with God is to be complete, as it can in the world, our Love must be for all and all must be our friends.[6]

 

As Jesus says, “You must Love your neighbour as yourself.”[7]

 

 

On One Soul Shared by Friends

 

The ancients have defined friends or lovers as two bodies sharing the same soul. Their concern for each other and themselves is the same. What hurts or pleases one will hurt or please the other. When a child hurts itself the parent feels the hurt as well. When a friend has good fortune the other shares his happiness. By extension the love for your neighbour takes in all of sentient beings, as if all shared the same soul.

 

“Thus it is because the good man has these several feelings towards himself, and extends to his friend the same relations that he has towards himself, for a friend is another self,..."[8]

 

The injunction ‘Know Thyself’ and the commandment ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’ are very similar in thought when connected with ‘God is One,’ Love God with All Thyself.

 

In the theatre the crowds cheer and weep together as one, in the army all act and feel as one, and at the temple all experience the God as one. All sentient beings share the same soul and that soul is the living God. This doctrine would be understood as basic by Plato, his precursors, and his followers. Plutarch, the gentlest philosopher, writes of the union with God as the explanation of the Delphic maxim ‘Know Thyself’ in his essay on the ‘E’ at Delphi.

 

Jesus said, “Ye are Gods,”[9] when asked to explain what he meant when he said, “The father and I are one:”[10] Does He not mean that all souls are God and He knows himself to be God? Granted that He escaped being stoned at the time, His punishment was to follow not long after for such blasphemy. It seems that the Jews out of all the ancient nations separated man from God, even the most holy prophet was allowed only a glimpse of the backside of God. However, alas, the ‘enlightened Athenians’ executed their most famous philosopher for preaching a similar doctrine of ‘Know Thyself’. It sees that man does not like to be reminded of his Godhood, perhaps from shame Solon, O Solon, for the day when the seven sages were honoured!

 

Paul preached this same thought to the Athenians;

 

“Since the God who made the world and everything in it is himself Lord of heaven and earth.. Yet in fact he is not far from any of us, since it is in him that we live, and move, and exist, as indeed some of your own writers have said: ‘we are his children’“[11]

 

This much the Athenians could understand, but when he spoke of the resurrection of the body they laughed him down.[12]

 

The Athenians must have been in a good mood, as they only laughed when they could have been more unpleasant, and if he had said that in Jerusalem he might have been crucified, as he was later reported to have been in Rome![13]

 

 

On the Holy Marriage

 

To the query, ‘What is a friend?’ his [Aristotle’s] reply was, ‘A single soul dwelling in two bodies.’[14]

Plato, also, hinted often to this thought in the ‘Symposium’ and in other dialogues. But it is to the New Testament book of the letter to ‘Ephesians’ that we shall go to find this doctrine expressed in detail by ‘Paul’... “husbands must love their wives as they love their own bodies; for a man to love his wife is for him to love himself.”... “To sum up; you too, each one of you, must love his wife as he loves himself.”[15]

 

So, if we understand that loving another is in fact loving oneself, it follows that it must be this shared soul that is loving itself. Further, if the soul is both the subject and object of love there is an identity of being. God, being the source of all soul, must be the source and object of love. This is what is hinted at by ‘Paul’ when he writes, “This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church.”[16]

 

This ‘mystery’ of’ love’ is the idea of Christ as the bridegroom of the Church, loving His own as Himself. To enter into this Holy Marriage one must be as the loving bride toward Christ and wholly submit to His will. When this identity is united as One, each loving the other as itself, the bride and groom “will become one body.” But how can one know the will of Christ so as to submit to that will? If we wish to love Christ as ourselves we must first know ourselves. Then when we know our true selves, not the worldly and material part but the spiritual self, we will come to Know Christ and His will may be understood.

 

This is the “mystery” of which Paul writes and his meaning is spiritual, not material. Many who read this passage [Ephesians 5:21-33], read only the Material meaning, or some may have understood the Moral lesson, few read the Mystical meaning. The Material meaning refers to the everyday personal relationship between man and wife. The Moral implications spread further outside the couple to the community. However, the Mystical meaning reaches to the union of humanity with God, indeed it demonstrates the unity of one’s soul to all souls and the source, Godself.

 

If the relationship between oneself and the community is of love and also one loves God as oneself, true union takes place between the self and the All. This is the aim of all religious exercise, not merely harmony between man and wife, but also the community, and most important, harmony with God.

 

About now someone will say, “But what is this ‘love’ of which we read?” Perhaps it is explained as ‘the complete and humble submission of the will and well-being to the lover;’ or can be described in the negative as ‘the full-minded longing for union with the absent loved one’. When the mind is totally of one thought excluding any other thought but that of desire for the beloved, so much so that one forgets oneself, we are coming close to an understanding of ‘Love’. But, when the self has forgotten its separation and has been completely absorbed in union with the beloved, becoming One, there we find ‘Love’.[17]

 

 

A Guide for the Perplexed Young Religious

 

For the Mystic, God Is and is One, God is Love and source of all Soul. One God, one mind, one soul, but, many people, many opinions, many Egos. If two persons are of one essential nature, what one does to the other they do to themselves. If one harms another, one harms oneself and conversely if one loves another, one loves oneself. All persons chose to do good, but many take a short term good rather than the long term good, and this is what is commonly called ‘evil’ or ‘sin.’ Such as the robber, when he steals from some other person, it is for the robber’s gain, ignoring the other’s loss. It is this mistaken ‘good’ that the robber has realized rather than his sin against the other. We do wrong by choosing a short term good and we do good by choosing the long term good.

 

So it is with love. If one chooses a mate by physical attraction, then in time the love must cease as the bodies change. However, if one realizes that love is of the mind and chooses a mate of like mind, the union will be unchangeable, as we carry our minds essentially the same all throughout life. True love is one soul inhabiting two bodies, or two bodies sharing one soul. So it is to the soul one should look when seeking a mate, and as all soul is from God, one is choosing a holy union in true love. All love, therefore, is God loving God, and as it were, all love is love of God. The part of God within one, the soul, desires the part of God in the beloved, the soul. So, therefore, have intercourse with many by the mind, rather than with the body, until you have found yourself in another and they in you.

 

You, of course, must Know Yourself before you can recognize yourself in some other being. The self you must know is that part of yourself that comes from God, your own soul, not your opinions nor your Ego (that grasping yet unsatisfiable Me). To cater for this Ego is what our robber did. He did not realize that he was stealing from himself, if he had he would not have done such a foolish act against his own well-being. The same goes for lovers; if one can not keep oneself from many lovers before marriage, how does one think one can do so after? To commit adultery within a marriage is adulterating oneself, to have many lovers before is corrupting your future self.

 

Therefore, act for your own good, the long term good, and forgo momentary pleasures for life-long pleasure and perhaps eternal bliss rather than torment. Do not follow those who follow themselves, for you will find yourself running in a circle, or spiral, and never attaining to the good which you seek. Follow only your own pure self, the part of you that comes from God, your soul. If you are confused and know not which choice to make in life, and feel helpless to know the good, then be of good cheer, help will come soon. Those who do not question, choose wrongly, through ignorance, not knowing that they are ignorant. To those who still seek the true good, will find that the good comes to them, almost without effort. Peace comes from this confusion and questioning, but never from ignorant self-gratification. Know thyself and you will come to the Knowledge of God![18]

 

 

 

 

 



[1] Diogenes Laertius VII 23.

[2] Plutarch Moralia 93e-f

[3] Diogenes Laertius V 20

[4] I Samuel 18:1-4

[5] Plato, Symposium 192e>

[6] C.N.C. 1-88

[7] Matthew 22:39

[8] Aristotle; Nicomachean Ethics, 116616-b4  Pen. pp. 294

[9] Psalm 82;6

[10] John 10

[11] From Aratus, Phaenomena, 1, L.C.L, p. 207.

[12] Acts 17; 24-28

[13] C.N.C. 4-85

[14] Diogenes Laertius, Life of Aristotle V. 20, L.C.L, V. l. pp. 463

[15] Ephesians, 5; 28-33

[16] Ephesians, 5; 32

[17] C.N.C. 9-86

[18] C.N.C.9-86


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