You alone exist

You alone exist
 
How should we treat others?
a devotee asked Ramana Maharshi.
 
There are no others, he replied
and I take his word for it,
 
though I don’t see how it could be so.
Either I am alone in a universe
 
of illusory others
or I am also every other.
 
Or I do not exist at all. 
Or, perhaps, all three options are true.
 
Realization it seems,
is not only when I lose my self
 
and find that God alone exists
but also when I lose
 
all conception of other
and find that I alone exist.
 
O child, routinely you twist yourself into knots
trying to satisfy an unrequited mind.