The Metaphor of the Two Birds on One Tree

Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.1-2

Dva suparna sayuja sakhaya samanam vrksam parisasvajate tayoh anyah pippalam svadu atti anasnann anyo abhicakasiti

"Two birds of beautiful plumage, close friends and companions, reside in intimate fellowship on the selfsame tree. One of them eats the sweet fruit of the tree; the other, without eating, watches."

Samane vrkse purusa nimagna anisaya socati muhyamanah justam yada pasyati anyam isam asya mahimanam iti vitasokah

"The individual life-monad (purusa), being deluded, laments, depressed by a feeling of helplessness (anisaya) of not being a sovereign lord); but when he beholds on the same tree that other, the Lord in whom the pious take delight (justam isam), and comprehends His greatness, then his grief is gone"; for he knows that between himself and that other there is a fundamental identity, alongside their uniqueness.

"Being verily one, the Self-of-all-beings-and-elements is present in every being, alongside their uniqueness. It is beheld onefold and manifold simultaneously, like the moon reflected in water."

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"Behind all the forms of love there is one supreme love.
Behind love of the body,
love of the mind,
love of the soul,
and all other particular loves,
there is the love of the spirit which speaks in the great imperative,
"Develop thyself and all beings".
This love of the spirit may be defined as
a "will to work for the development of the potentialities of all beings"
– Eugene Halliday.