— Condensed from the Karaniya Metta Sutta (Sutta Nipata 1.8)
About this quote
हिन्दी में
समस्त संसार की ओर असीम प्रेम प्रवाहित करो।
What it means
Two words carry this line. Radiate is not feel, not promise, not announce — it describes something a source does outward, like heat, without selecting who stands in front of it. And boundless is not an intensity word; it is a geometry word. The instruction is about the absence of an edge, a point at which the goodwill is permitted to stop.
That is what keeps it from being sentimental. Warmth towards family and friends is not the subject here and costs nothing to produce. The whole difficulty sits in the word entire — it includes the person who humiliated you and the person whose politics you find obscene. Read as a practice instruction rather than a nice feeling, it is a demand for something most people have never attempted.
What it teaches you
Try saying it silently and specifically — this street, this city, this country, everyone in it — and note the exact point where the sentence stops feeling true and becomes a recitation. The name you arrive at is not an obstacle to the practice; it is the practice, and it is worth returning to before widening the circle any further.
अर्थ और सीख
यहाँ दो शब्द ही सारा भार उठाते हैं — ‘प्रवाहित करना’, यानी सूर्य की तरह बिना चुने चारों ओर देना, और ‘असीम’, जिसका अर्थ तीव्रता नहीं बल्कि सीमा का अभाव है। अपनों से स्नेह रखना सहज है; कठिनाई ‘समस्त संसार’ में है, जिसमें वह भी आता है जिसने आपको चोट पहुँचाई। अभ्यास यह है कि मन ही मन यह भाव फैलाते जाइए और देखिए कि किस नाम पर आकर यह वाक्य सच्चा लगना बंद हो जाता है — वही नाम आपका असली काम है।
Where it comes from
A condensation of the Karaniya Metta Sutta (Sutta Nipata 1.8), the Buddha’s discourse on loving-kindness: ‘as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, radiating kindness over the entire world.’
