“If you forget yourself, you become the universe.”

— Hakuin Ekaku

As quoted in The Awakening Artist: Madness and Spiritual Awakening in Art by Patrick Howe

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Jan. 27, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If you forget yourself, you become the universe." by Hakuin Ekaku?

Hakuin Ekaku 4

Japanese Zen Buddhist master 1686–1769

Related quotes

“Don't forget love;
it will bring all the madness you need
to unfurl yourself across the universe.”

Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet

Mīrābāī, in ” Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West”, p. 251

“And this becomes a point of balance when you can forget yourself into immortality. You’re not so absorbed in self, but you are absorbed in something beyond self.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: I’ve seen people who discovered a great meaning in their jobs and they became so absorbed in that that they didn’t have time to become self-centered. They loved their job. And the great prayer that anyone could pray at that point is: “O God, help me to love my job as this individual loves his or hers. O God, help me to give my self to my work and to my job and to my allegiance as this individual does.” And this is the way out. And I think this is what [Ralph Waldo] Emerson meant when he said: “O, see how the masses of men worry themselves into nameless graves, while here and there, some great unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality.” And this becomes a point of balance when you can forget yourself into immortality. You’re not so absorbed in self, but you are absorbed in something beyond self.