Be One

One love

One life

When it's one need

In the night

One love

We get to share it

Leaves you baby if you 

Don't care for it

(U2, One)

The psychologist Erich Fromm, in one of his more spiritually inclined books, "To Have or to Be", pleaded us to embrace the "being philosophy" and drop the having mindset by the wayside. Truth of the matter is, we all have desires, whether we want to accept them or not. For some though, they turn openly into greed, and in the extreme, into addictive cravings. Writes Erich Fromm:

"Greed is the natural outcome of the having orientation. It can be the greed of the miser or the greed of the profit hunter, or the greed of the womanizer or the man chaser. Whatever constitutes their greed, the greedy can never have enough, can never be "satisfied". 

The question is now, what shall we do about it? Can we just disown our desires? Should we repress achievements like professional success, fame, sex, a hot body, or wealth, all in the name of spirituality? This can't be the answer! If we repress what is meaningful we only give up on life; we die inside. A spiritual path is the opposite in fact. It is the ability to dance with life, to be passionate about what is meaningful to you, all the while finding spiritual purpose in what you do.

There must be a way to combine passion and purpose; it must be possible to find a Heaven on earth. The solution is simple, and that is where the "being philosophy" comes in. Don't aim to accumulate any treasures here on earth, live your spiritual mission instead. Be passionate about your life purpose and let the material things take care of themselves. Erich Fromm described the Fall from paradise when man lost that connectedness, that oneness. Fall in love with life, fall in love with your spiritual path, fall in love with your fellow being just as it was in the olden days. Again, writes Erich Fromm:

"There is but one way to save ourselves from this hell: to leave the prison of our egocentricity, to reach out and to unite ourselves with the world. If egocentric separateness is the cardinal sin, then the sin is atoned in the act of loving. "At-one-ment" is Middle-English for union."

In conclusion, be one, just as U2 put it so well: one love, one life; be the "At-One-Ment" every living moment, fall in love with life and all the people the Tao brings your way; do that for a while and all "having attributes" will fall off you like water off a duck.