Merging Tides

There are moments when our sense of separateness falls away. Standing beside the sea, holding a newborn, or singing with a crowd, we feel connected to something greater than ourselves. For a moment, the loneliness and boundaries of the individual self dissolve, replaced by a profound sense of belonging.

Across thousands of years, three ancient philosophical traditions arrived at the same understanding of this experience. Each proposes that beneath the apparent divisions of individual life exists a deeper unity connecting all existence.

The Chandogya Upanishad, among the oldest philosophical texts in the world, compares us to rivers flowing from different directions, eventually merging into the sea and forgetting they were ever separate. The Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius describes the universe as “one living being, having one substance and one soul.” The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ (Brethren of Purity), a tenth-century circle of Arabic scholars, wrote of existence arising from ‘one principle, one world and one soul’.

The texts appear in their original languages – Sanskrit, Ancient Greek and Arabic, as well as English. Different languages, cultures and centuries dissolve into a single piece, mirroring the very unity they describe. Like rivers returning to the sea, we have always belonged to something immeasurably greater than ourselves.