Everything is interconnected
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It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied together into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality . . . Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured; this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Christmas 1967
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Peace comes within the souls of men when they realise their oneness with the universe, when they realise it is everywhere, it is within each one of us. – Black Elk.
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All things are connected
like the blood that unites us.
We did not weave the web of life,
We are merely a strand in it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
– Chief Seattle
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We are awesome beyond all imagining, because we are part of everything that has been, is now and ever will be. – Maggie Hamilton
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But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything. – Alan Watts
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A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving.
– Albert Einstein
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We do not realize often enough that we are dependent on one another; at the simplest material level, we are all interdependent for our daily needs, and in this way we owe a debt to all beings. – Kalu Rinpoche
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From the very day of our birth, when we drink our mother’s milk, we are dependent on our mother’s love. This act is a symbol of love and affection. I think this act, from the very first day of life, establishes the basis for our entire life. – The 14th Dalai Lama.
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It is important to understand how much your own happiness is linked to that of others. There is no individual happiness totally independent of others. – The 14th Dalai Lama
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This is the highest praise, to say you have ubuntu. This is a person who recognises that he exists only because others exist; a person is a person through other persons. When we say you have ubuntu, we mean that you are gentle, you are compassionate, you are hospitable, you want to share, and you care about the welfare of other. This is because my humanity is caught up with your humanity.
– Bishop Tutu.
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We must understand each other and work in harmony with one another, because it is our responsibility to develop in human beings their natural disposition for peace.
– The 14th Dalai Lama
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I look at every human being from a more positive angle; I try to look for their positive aspects. This attitude immediately creates a feeling of affinity, a kind of connectedness. – The 14th Dalai Lama
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According to Buddhism, the life of all beings –human, animal, or otherwise –is precious, and all have the same right to happiness. It is certain that birds, wild animals – all the creatures inhabiting our planet –are our companions. They are a part of our world, we share it with them. – The 14th Dalai Lama
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The friend who is a helpmate,
the friend in happiness and woe,
the friend who gives good counsel, the friend who sympathizes too –
these four as friends the wise behold
and cherish them devotedly
as does a mother her own child.
– Buddha
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Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.
– James M. Barrie
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A human being is part of the whole called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self [ego]. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. ― Albert Einstein
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An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
― Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. ― Mahatma Gandhi
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The good man is the friend of all living things. ― Mahatma Gandhi
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Friendship is based on the oldest and most intrinsic human awareness that there is more to life than just ourselves. ― Christopher Hansard
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There is no true joy in a life lived closed up in the little shell of the self. When you take one step to reach out to people, when you meet with others and share their thoughts and sufferings, infinite compassion and wisdom well up within your heart. Your life is transformed. – Daisaku Ikeda
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True spirituality is to be aware that if we are interdependent with everything and everyone else, even our smallest, least significant thoughts, words and actions has real consequences throughout the universe.
– Sogyal Rinpoche
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When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. – The Dalai Lama
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We are her to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.
–Thich Nhat Hahn
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For suggestions for Practical Activities and Resources related to this topic
go to Making Positive Connections.
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