Favorite Inspirational Quotes

Meditation XVII

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne (from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions)

This meditation seems to be saying that it doesn’t matter the social level of an individual who dies, humanity as a whole is less for each death. We are all connected and part of the whole. None of us is an island out at sea, disconnected from the rest of humanity. Even the most casual contact connects us to humanity.

However, death is a part of the cycle of life, just as birth is, as we journey upon this adventure in time and space. So perhaps what is really being discussed here is death due to violence or ill health caused by bad conditions. These things we allow because we do not realize we are part of the whole.

We are all just different levels of energy and that includes the world around us. We are not separate except in our beliefs and interpretations of the world. We have been raised with the beliefs that we are separate.

We must realize we are all just bits of the Universe regardless of how we live or what we believe or where we are or anything else we think makes us different. Instead of focusing on those things, which will just attract more of those “conditions”, we should focus on being a part of the whole and seeing “God in everyone” as Dyer suggests.