Two Birds Tied Together

A certain king was sitting, dejected, on the bank of a river. The generals were nervous and afraid of him. His face would not clear up no matter what they tried. Now he had a jester whom he treated as a great favorite. The generals promised the jester a certain sum of money if he could make the king laugh. So the jester approached the king, but despite all his efforts the king would not so much as look at him. The king kept staring into the river and did not lift his head at all.
“What do you see in the water?” the jester asked the king.
“I see the husband of an unfaithful wife,” the king replied.
“King of the world,” the jester said, “your slave is also not blind.”
So it is in your own case. If you see something in your fellow that pains you, after all they also are not blind. They see exactly what you see. In God’s presence two I’s cannot exist. You cannot know your self and God’s Self; either die before God, or God will die before you so that duality will not remain. But as for God’s dying, that is both impossible and inconceivable, for God is the Living, the Immortal. So gracious is He that if it were at all possible He would die for your sake. Since that is not possible, then you must die so that God can reveal Itself to you, and duality can vanish.
Tie two birds together, and despite their familiarity and the fact that their two wings have been changed to four, they will not fly. That is because duality exists. But let one bird give up its life and the other—even though tied to the first—will fly, because duality has vanished.

Fihi Ma Fihi - Discourses 6