Love tells me I’m everything, wisdom tells me I’m nothing and between the two my life flows.
Sri Nisargadatta (1897-1981) Hindu guru of nondualism
“This quote is a true guide for me in a daily way. Love tells me I’m everything means to me that wherever I look, whoever I’m with, whatever part of this natural world I’m experiencing, it’s part of my heart. I have a practice of just looking at a person that I don’t know and saying ‘we are friends.’ The same awareness that’s created this universe has created us. I’ll look at a tree or my dog, we are friends. Love tells me I’m everything; The whole world’s part of my heart. Wisdom tells me I’m no thing, nothing, which means that when I sense myself, whether it’s a cluster of emotions or part of my narrative, that’s not who I am. Anything I come up with as who I am, if I 
can think about it, is a changing appearance. It’s not who I am. So, wisdom tells me I’m nothing, that there’s no central, hardened, identifiable self. And between the two, my life flows means that I keep on seeing over and over again that persona, that narrative, that’s not me and yet this whole world, this whole living web is part of my being and is to be held with tenderness.”
Tara Brach is the author of Radical Compassion:
Learning to Love Yourself and Your World
with the Practice of RAIN
