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I believe that the Universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole. (This is physics, I believe, as well as religion.) The parts change and pass, or die, people and races and rocks and stars, none of them seems to me important in itself, but only the whole. This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it and to think of it as divine. It seems to me that this whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love and there is peace, freedom, I might say a kind of salvation, in turning one's affections outward toward this one God, rather than inwards on one's self, or on humanity, or on human imaginations and abstractions - the world of spirits. I think it is our privilege and felicity to love God for his beauty, without claiming or expecting love from him. We are not important to him, but he to us.

Robinson Jeffers#6

NatureLoveSpiritualityUniverseCosmologyDevotionDivineUnity

About this quote

What does it mean?
Jeffers posits that the universe is a single organic entity where all parts share the same energy and communicate. He argues that loving this whole divine system brings peace and salvation more than focusing on self or humanity.
In plain terms
The universe is one connected living thing, and loving it brings more peace than loving ourselves.
What can you take from it?
Find peace by directing love outward to the whole universe rather than inward to the self.

Where it applies

  • contemplating nature
  • seeking spiritual meaning
  • dealing with existential fear

Putting it to work

  • practice nature reverence
  • reduce ego-centric thinking
  • cultivate cosmic perspective

Questions to consider

  • Does focusing on the whole diminish personal responsibility?
  • Can nature truly replace human community as an object of love?

Another view

It minimizes the significance of individual human experience and agency.

More from Robinson Jeffers

  1. Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore-defeated Challengers of oblivion Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down, The square-lim…

    Permalink to quote #5
  2. I think that one may contribute (ever so slightly) to the beauty of things by making one's own life and environment beautiful, as far as one's power reaches.Th…

    Permalink to quote #7
  3. Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment, they have had what they wanted

    Permalink to quote #4

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