' Individual Salvation is an illusion '...

When the inter‑connectedness and inter‑dependence of all ex­istence is grasped, the quest of a purely individual salvation is seen to be an illusory one. I am to be saved not for my own sake alone ‘ but because all are to be saved: this is the proper attitude we ‘should adopt.

We can now begin to understand what Jesus meant when he uttered the words: “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it.”

For this wider self, which was the Christ‑principle in Jesus, is the secret thread which ties man to man. It also offers the scientific basis of Jesus’ beneficent injunction: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.”

It lives in the ‘I’ as the latter itself lives in the body. We can begin to understand too what Paul meant when he pronounced that truly mystical sentence: “I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me.” The Overself is indeed the Cosmic Christ to which we are silently called to dedicate our lesser existence.


from The Wisdom of the Overself
Paul Brunton