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 promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of 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.

Those lines are John Donne’s From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. Written around the 1620’s, they are faintly reflective of Advaita Vedanta. Donne’s philosophy encompasses all humanity into a whole but places God outside and above, as you can tell from the full meditation (included below.) Advaita Vedanta negates the distinction between the “me” and the “not me.”
Continue reading →