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Excerpt From: | Living Enlightenment |
Chapter 1: | You Are Your Emotions |
Section 1: | Flow in Love – Living enlightenment is expressing overflowing love towards all. |
Part 15: | The unity of Love |
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There is a beautiful example given in the Upanishads*:
A master asked his disciple, ‘Do you enjoy all your five senses?’If you are able to experience yourself as being alive in all the bodies of this world, imagine how much joy or ecstasy you would experience! It would be immeasurable, eternal and ultimate. That is what enlightened people experience all the time. They experience themselves as the whole universe. They experience tremendous ecstasy. That is why they don’t need anything from the outer world. They are enough unto themselves. They are established in the highest form of love energy.
The disciple said, ‘Yes.’
The master asked, ‘What if one of your senses was missing, would you have the same amount of joy?’
The disciple replied, ‘No, it would be twenty percent less, and if two of my senses were missing, it would be forty percent less.’
The master suddenly said, ‘What if you had five more senses?’
The disciple answered, ‘Naturally my enjoyment would be a hundred percent extra. If I am given one more body, naturally I will enjoy everything twice as much. Or if I am given five bodies, naturally I will enjoy things five times as much.’
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Upanishads – Scriptures that form the essence of the ancient texts of the Vedas. Literally means ‘sitting with the master’. There are eleven main Upanishads that have been commented on by enlightened master Adi Shankara.