Awakening by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

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Posted by: oneness on Aug 16, 2007

Recorded March 3, 2007 in San Francisco, CA. What does it mean to awaken? And what is the relationship between individual spiritual awakening and global awakening?

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Awakening, San Francisco, March 2007, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
So, today I wanted to talk about awakening --and what awakening really means and what actually awakens.
And what does it awaken to? There is a whole tradition of spiritual teaching that says everything is perfect,
everything always was perfect, and everything always will be perfect
and in the moment you can realize that perfection. If you like, the only imperfection is our perception.
We are the veil that separates us from the direct experience of an awakened reality
and all you need to do is just awaken to what is already here. You don't have to change anything,
you don't have to improve anything, you don't have to improve yourself --
you just have to be present with the divine perfection that is present.
And that's a very, very ancient, and very beautiful teaching.
And many people have had such a direct experience --they awaken to what is
--and they realize its perfection. And, really, there is nothing else to do.
And that is, in a way, an act of grace that is given to the human being.
To wake up to what is. Not what appears--and there's a great difference between what appears and what is.
What appears is our perception --what is, is what is actually present.
And it's one of the astounding realizations, if you like,
that -- you've been living in a self-created or culturally created illusion.
And then suddenly you wake up, and it's not there anymore.
And you realize it never was! It is like mist at dawn being burned away by the sun.
And just as -- when you go out in the mist in the early morning
and you can't see anything -- you can just hear a few sounds of birds through the mist --
Maybe you hear some water somewhere, or some cows in the distance, if you're in Switzerland --
But you are surrounded by yourself. That mist is yourself. --
-- you are surrounded by your own self. And that is, in a way
the veil in which most people live
most of the time. I think Jung said somewhere
99% of humanity live in that 99% of the time.
In this mist, or like a traditional London fog
--you can't see your hand in front of your face
-- and then there is this extraordinary moment when the mist lifts
-- when the veils part, and suddenly you find yourself in the garden of creation --
--in the world as it actually is.
and it is incredibly beautiful, incredibly radiant, and it is -- I like to think to describe it as
Creation singing the song of the Creator. It is incredibly beautiful.
It is life really alive. It is, in a way, what we have actually come here to experience.
We didn't actually come here to experience the veils, to experience the mist --
to experience the conditioning. We didn't even come here to experience our mind.
There was a hope when the soul came into this world that we could actually experience this world.
And if you have really had just one instance of that experience in your life,
something in you is deeply fulfilled. You have actually arrived. You have actually been present in this world
for the first time. So it is really important to realize that.
This primal experience -- of life. Of creation. It is not an experience of yourself.
Yes, there are experiences you can have of yourself, of your real self.
There are moments where you can directly perceive your true nature. What you really are.
They are also incredibly beautiful and can be quite overwhelming --
when you realize the center of light, the center of love, the center of pure being that is your nature.
But in that direct experience of life, there is no you, there is just life.
In the garden of Creation, there is just Creation. It is unbelievably beautiful.
As many of you know, I was given that when I was 16. And I just woke up--
and I didn't believe anything could be so beautiful. And what was quite interesting
it was the same place I had been before, but it was completely different.
and there was this light, there was this beauty, there was this incredible joy
--incredible simplicity. It just was. It just is.
And I always know that's there. Once you've had that moment, that direct experience
you cannot forget it. And you know it is there. You may lose it -- you don't live in it all the time
-- I think it would be unfair on people around you if you did.
--but you never lose it. You always know it is just there, waiting -- behind the mist.
--waiting for the sunlight to come through and lift it, and then you are, you are in the Garden of Eden.
It is the archetypal Garden of Eden, where, of course, human beings walk together with God.
It is not a God that we have been conditioned to think of as something separate,
it is a God that just is. It is the Divine that is always present.
because when you experience life like that, you know it is divine.
It is the direct experience of the Divine in Creation. And it is not your experience -- it can never be your experience --
--just like it's not your Creation -- it just is. In a way, it's a tremendous privilege
to be shown that. It is like -- archetypally, I suppose -- to be shown
a beautiful woman taking off her clothes and revealing the radiant beauty that is underneath.
When the Creator does that with His Creation -- and it is always there --
-- and there's nothing to be improved, nothing to be added to --
And there is often one thing -- there is often in this a quality of laughter.
--a quality of joy, a quality of laughter. Because there is -- it's something we have forgotten --
there is in Creation this deep, deep laughter. This deep joy.
There arises the hidden laughter of children in the foliage. Quick, now, here, now ,always --
ridiculous the waste sad time Stretching before and after."
--and the laughter of children -- so that is what it means to be awake!
To be present for a moment, in life as it actually is.
And then there is -- this whole, extraordinary thing that we actually live in --
which isn't that. Which is sometimes about as far from that as one could imagine --
--which is this mist, this veil. The Sufis talk about the veils that cover us
--and cover us and cover us and cover us, until we forget why we're here.
Until we forget, even, the memory of creation. So we read about it in Genesis.
It was like that at the beginning, not realizing the beginning is now.
The beginning is what is, and everything afterwards is what got lost.
And that presents human beings with an enormous paradox
that everything we create, everything we do, is what separates us from what is.
I repeat that because it is so astounding -- everything we do, everything we think about ourselves,
everything we create separates us from what is. In a way, everything in our lives is about putting ourselves to sleep
or is about gentle snoring rhythms. And I suppose some people are so fast asleep
they just have their nightmares. And they live in them.
I suppose some people have really pleasant dreams, and they live in those.
And some people are in this half-waking, half-sleeping, strange state where nothing is real.
It's what's called spiritual life. No, seriously! It is what's called spiritual life because it is not completely asleep.
If you are completely asleep and having your dreams of -- I don't know what people dream of -- fulfilled relationships, BMW cars --
whatever it is. Or nightmares. Losing everything. The next earthquake.
Whatever the nightmare is. Some people have nightmares. Some people live in anxiety-ridden nightmares
day after day, night after night. Some people are lucky and they live a good dream
and they drive the BMW car, and they're kissed by the beautiful girl
they go out to dinner with the handsome man -- whatever their dream.
And then there is this strange state -- half-awake, half-asleep.
when you are no longer satisfied either with the nightmare or the beautiful dream.
And you know you're not awake and it torments you you're not awake but you can't sleep soundly.
And you start to do spiritual practices, and the purpose of spiritual practices
is to help you make the transition from snoring to awakening.
Once you're awake, there is no need for spiritual practice, I can assure you.
Who is there to do a spiritual practice? My shaikh said that there were times he didn't pray
because there was nobody even there to pray. If you are awake, you are awake.
You are present, and there's not even a YOU to be present. It's a very, very beautiful state.
There is nothing to add, there is nothing to take away. It just is.
So this is the ancient, ancient story of humanity.
They say interestingly in the whole Christian, western iconography, it was there at the beginning in the Garden of Eden.
And everything that has happened since then has been what got lost,
has been what happened when humanity tasted duality, tasted the fruit of the tree of good and evil,
tasted duality, and then was thrown out of the Garden of Eden --
that wonderful image that has stayed with me since my childhood --
of angels with flaming swords not allowing you back.
And so, really, since then, this has all been about what got lost.
Thousands and thousands of years of what has got lost.
Now what I find very interesting is this is both an individual story -- we're all in the Garden of Eden --
we all got thrown out of the Garden of Eden --we all tasted duality -- good and evil, light and dark.
And also it is the story of the whole of humanity and of the world.
The whole world was once Adam and Eve. The Sufis actually say that Adam is the archetypal man
--they even talk about the greater Adam and the lesser Adam.
Adam is the archetypal man, Eve is the archetypal woman. It is in a way all of humanity.
Not just the first man and the first woman, but that essential man and essential woman.
The one real man and the one real women that lives in the Garden of Eden.
But it is present there, in the world in its intrinsic beauty -- naked with God.
So that is both each of our stories and also the story of the world.
Of everything that got lost. All the wars that were fought after this--
and you just have to read the Bible. All of the wars, and all of the judgments, and all of the punishments
and all of the tribulations, and all of the prophets
and all of the revelations. They're just about what happened afterwards.
And that goes on for thousands of years.
and occasionally individual people want to return there, want to wake up,
want to no longer live in a nightmare or a dream.
And also, because of this extraordinary relationship between humanity and the world
there also comes a time when the world itself wants to wake up,
when the world wants to throw off this debris of thousands of years. It wants to awaken out of the mist.
And what is very interesting is there is a whole ancient esoteric tradition
-- I should say that there are always two, if you like, levels of esoteric traditions --
-- sacred wisdom -- and one has to do with the spiritual evolution of the individual.
That's what you can find in some of the books now available in the west
and some of the teachings that have been made public in the last 20 - 30 years.
And then there is a whole other level of esoteric teaching, which has to do with the world
which has to do with the spiritual body of the world. And most of that was lost a long time ago.
There are vestiges of it in some shamanic traditions that have been passed down from father to son
There are hints of it in some of the remnants of the real Tibetan teachings that have come to the west, but what has come to the west
is a very watered-down version, and most of those sacred Tibetan texts got burnt by the Communists.
And of course in the west some of those teachings were held by the Gnostics
and those were lost long, long ago. So there is this whole other esoteric tradition
of how the world functions as a living spiritual being.
And part of that teaching is that there are signs that something is going to happen.
There are signs when the world begins to want to wake up. They are very odd signs.
They aren't signs that you would think. They're usually signs of something going really off-base,
of things getting really skewed out of proportion, they're almost signs of things being mis-used rather than used,
they're signs of disaster, which is what happens when the world decides to kind of shake itself a bit.
Now what really interests me is the possibility of being present at that moment.
Now this is a paradox, because the world is always perfect!
The world can never be other than perfect, and yet the world can also wake up.
And this is kind of beautifully imaged in one of the western myths
of the --human awakening which is the Grail legend.
And as many of you know, the young knight Parsifal is on his way to the Grail Castle one morning.
He was on his way to this sacred place, which wasn't far away
The mists lifted and he found himself present in the Grail Castle, and everything
he had ever wanted was fulfilled in that room.
He was present at the most sacred place in the world. In the Grail Castle.
And that is like everybody's initial awakening. It is always there. It just happens.
I think almost all human being are given such a moment at some time in their life.
I don't think the soul could come into this world and remain in this world
if it didn't have that experience at least once in an incarnation.
It might be something very simple like finding a beautiful tomato -- and eating it. And in that moment there is actually a direct experience --
it might be just watching a sunset. That's why I like what T.S. Eliot said.
It is there--for everybody there is that kind of moment that is there.
Something is awakened. There is a light in the air -- there is sunlight in the air --
There's this laughter -- oh yes! And for a moment, you remember what you have forgotten
And then, like Parsifal who gets lost, I had that experience when I was 16. I had it for two weeks.
And then, the veils fall again, and you have to go through all of the process, all of the tribulations
--all of the -- Parsifal had to rescue the maiden. There are knights to be fought.
There is the battle of life. And then slowly something begins to disintegrate.
Now interestingly, in the last century there have been terrible, terrible battles that have been fought.
Humanity has gone through strange contortions, and it all begins to be distorted.
And the possibility of something awakening within yourself, something begins to distort inside of you.
It's very odd. And then if you've noticed it in your own life, when you come to that kind of a point
it's like the worlds don't quite fit together. It's a very disturbing experience --
it's like one reality comes very, very close to the other reality.
I can tell you very simply what it is. We have our own self-created reality.
For example, the image we have of ourselves -- whether it came from our childhood or our therapist, it doesn't matter.
We have our own self-created -- we are this kind of a person, and we have this lot of problems,
or we have --you know -- well-educated Californians.
And then there is Reality with a capital R -- and most of the time they don't interfere too much with each other.
Just like, for example, traditionally if you have a good spiritual teacher, he won't interfere with you too much of the time.
Too dangerous. He'll let you live your illusion -- or she'll let you live your illusion.
Won't interfere -- because, you know, your image of yourself is your particular bit of mist that you carry around with you.
Some have it nicely perfumed -- you know, it's a kind of rose-tinted mist -- and some have a more demonic mist!
It has devils peering through it. Just mist!
And behind the mist there is reality, there is life. Most of time time they're quite separate.
Human beings have been given this incredible freedom, to make up almost any illusion they want.
Animals don't have the same freedom. Animals have to live their reality. They don't have a choice.
I always remember a friend of mine had a dream experience with a fox,
The fox will always do what the fox is. That animal reality has to be true to itelf. It's in the DNA.
It can't lie. As human beings we have been given this total freedom to create almost any illusion that we want.
Any sense of ourselves -- any sense of our lives -- we can create.
And we can create terrible scenarios and beautiful scenarios. And then--there is something called reality.
And I'm going to say most of the time, reality and your illusion do not interact very much.
In exactly the same way as it said in the Upanishads, about the two birds who sat on the branch of the tree.
One eats the fruit of the tree and the other looks on.
Which is why in Sufism, the higher self is often referred to as the shahid, the witness -- it just watches.
Reality just watches. Remember, it doesn't judge. There is no good and bad in reality --
--that's the fruit that banished us from reality. Judgment -- something being better than something else --
--or worse than something else. Reality just watches. It doesn't interfere.
For most spiritual people this is very difficult to understand.
That reality just watches. It watches you. Again, in the same way, in the spiritual tradition, most of the time, the teacher just watches you.
They say very little. They're conditioned to say very little. Otherwise, they'd interfere with the free will of the human being.
Always be careful of a spiritual teacher who tells you what to do.
But--as I was saying--there are these --when something has the potential to wake up--
--Reality with a capital R comes a little bit closer. It is no longer completely detached.
The energy starts to shift. And when reality comes close to the illusion that you have,
everything gets distorted. The worst gets worse, the good gets gooder.
and they are just two sides of the sme coin, and you just flick them into the air!
But when what is real comes a little bit closer to the illusion, everything gets distorted.
It gets thrown out! And two things can happen then.
You can either start to freak out, which is a basic human reaction.
You can begin to sniff the air. You can begin to access an ancient, ancient wisdom inside of you
that belongs to all of humanity but has been covered over and forgotten and covered over and forgotten.
Which is: Something's about to happen! And then you have a choice.
You can bury your head in the sand, and save for your 401(K), I think it's called in this country,
I want to be there when life wakes up.
Now, personally, I think this time is such a time.
Because when I look around me, something very, very odd is taking place.
And it's not just politicans and weapons of mass destruction and wars -- everything has got really, really distorted.
I mean -- so distorted on all planes, that it's really, really wacky.
I actually gave a whole talk on this recently in London. In Sufism we talk about the veils that separate us from reality.
The veils that cover us up. And I saw that those veils have become so distorted now
that you can't possibly find your way towards anything. Everything you see is distorted.
Everything you see in the outer world and everything you see in the inner world is distorted.
It's all distorted. It's all like another channel on the television. It's very, very odd.
And what is interesting is that most of us here have been here at least 40 years or so,
and we can remember it wasn't always like that. Even 30 years ago
it wasn't distorted like that. It's interesting how we kind of take it for granted, this distortion.
We say well that's progress, or computers, or globalization, and we don't realize
that something has really, really gone off-key.
I guess we kind of adapt and adapt and adapt and we don't realize what is happening.
So what interests me is that there is inside of me this ancient knowledge
that when something gets distorted like that, that gets off-key.
It is like -- I will give you an example. In our culture, everybody needs healing, right?
Anybody who says, I don't need any healing -- I'm fine, I'm great?
You know? I mean -- now why is that? Are human beings basically born sick?
Or is it because everything is distorted, and it affects our psychic body?
It affects our physical body, it affects our inner alignment --
we don't think about it -- we take it for granted.
We kind of take it for granted that everything is wrong. But what it means is that everything is off-key.
There is inside of us a natural balance -- physical, emotional, even mental, actually. And that's off-key.
So we all kind of need a treatment to try and put it back.
Not realizing that the cause, the problem is not ourselves -- we don't need to get healthy.
You can eat all the organic food you like, and do your morning yoga, and yes, it will help a bit.
But if you're -- you know -- if you're in a culture, a world, in which everything is distorted,
it will distort you. It will distort you. It's a very strange time.
What I find very interesting is that everybody's aware that something's off.
We have global warming. We have all of the things that are off.
But, somehow, we lost this ancient understanding, what does that mean?
I'm sharing with you that there's this ancient teaching, and it applies both to the individual and to the whole.
When some things get seriously distorted it's because something is about to happen.
And I have a deep passion -- I want to be there when it happens.
I really want to be -- I was at the first Glastonbury Festival.
Something was supposed to happen then and it didn't. And I want to be here when it happens
because I know what it means. And there's this incredibly beautiful thing we call the world
and it's changing. It's metamorphosizing. And -- what I find difficult to understand
is that nobody seems to be noticing. They're so identified with either their individual or their collective problems
that they're not aware of what is actually taking place.
Now it is said, "He is the greatest of tricksters" -- I think that's in the Koran.
And -- somehow he allows humanity to be caught -- again and again and again and again.
Just as you know individually you get caught again and again and again and again.
Whatever your particular penchant is -- failed relationships, psychological problems, spiritual crises --
--whatever it is you want to go through. You get caught again and again and again and again.
And there comes this time in yourself when you say -- Look, I've had enough of this.
I don't want to play those games any more. I would like actually to be present.
I would like, actually, to live -- not to dream, to live. I would like actually to live.
And it's like then you make a commitment to something in yourself. "I am here for the sake of life."
The moment you say "MY life" -- forget it, because you've created the veil.
-- or for the sake of life -- or for the sake of God, it doesn't matter -- because life and God are somewhere fundamentally the same.
Then a door opens. And something in life responds.
So what fascinates me is how to be present at this moment in time. So one doesn't miss the opportunity.
How to be awake when the world wakes up -- I am personally completely convinced that the world is going to wake up, one way or another.
Because there are signs -- because you can smell it in the air.
Because something has gone so completely wrong.
It has to. There is this kind of laughter in the air.
And that's when you can make this shift -- a very simple shift in consciousness-
--which is in realizing you are not a separate individual.
This is one of the great illusions which has been perpetuated. You are not a separate individual.
You never were a separate individual. Everything else in life knows that it's not separate.
Every ant, every hummingbird, every spider, every cloud -- even the angels! They know they're not separate!
They know they're part of something -- they know they all work together.
They all know there is this extraordinary whole of which even to say they are a part isn't quite like that.
We are the only species that thinks we are separate, that thinks it is "my life" --
which of course now is mass-marketed in the west.
You can have it in any taste and color and perfume and variation you can imagine!
You know, some people like the Nieman-Marcus spiritual life and some prefer the whole food spiritual life.
it is a contradiction in terms. Because if there is any truth about spiritual life, it is that it is about the Divine, about God.
It is about what is real. If there is any single truth about spiritual life, it is it is about the Divine.
But that bring us back to this basic point. How can we be here when the world wakes up?
Now there is in the Grail legend a very, very simple clue.
The beauty of the Grail legend is it's part of our western heritage.
And one thing Jung stressed, he said that you cannot just take on an eastern religion --
because the eastern psyche is different. And, in the Grail legend, the second time that Parsifal is shown the Grail Castle
-- if you like, the second time he is present in Paradise --
he is asked the question, "For whom serves the Grail?"
I always find it fascinating, in all the spirituality in the west
--we almost seem to have forgotten the most basic question. The Grail serves the Grail King.
It is all about God. Everything is in service to God.
And the moment you say that and the moment you live that, you are present
And one thing I don't understand, when so much has been given to the west in the past 30 years, so much!
So much spiritual wisdom, so many teachings. But this kind of greed that we seem to have been born with --
that we want to take it back to ourselves, to fill this bottomless void
which we have created. Forgets that basic truth, that simple, essential question and answer --
which is in the Sufis, it was also in that simple, essential, primordial covenant --
when the not-yet-created humanity, when God called the not-yet-created humanity
It's called the primordial covenant -- the covenant between the Creation and the Creator.
Between humanity and God, I mean, we made that covenant before we came into creation.
It was the not-yet-created humanity, and the very essence of the soul -- that central spark of what is actually the real you.
It's very, very beautiful. Incredible! if you knew what it was, you would just -- die.
When that bowed down before God, and then of course, you have to live it,
here in this world, you have to answer that question. And sometimes, it is just an individual question.
--when you are given a glimpse of something true, and you have the right attitude to live it.
This music is for His sake! This haircut is for His sake! This dance is for His sake!
This lovemaking is for His sake! And you honor this deepest part of you.
-- The light of something waking up in this world of forgetfulness.
So that is your -- in your individual journey, that is this moment that happens to you --
--and in the beginning you struggle to do it and you struggle to do it and you struggle to remember --
-- and to know that it is about Him. And then there comes this extraordinary moment
when it wakes up in such a way that it can never go back to sleep.
When you are always in remembrance, when you are always bowed down before God,
when something in you is always praying. The heart prays. And the heart prays, and the heart prays.
And then from that moment, everything you do in life is in service to God.
Whether you are baking bread, whether you are vacuuming, whether you are working as a banker --
-- everything you do is automatically in service to God. Because your heart is in service to God
Because your brain is in service to God. That is a kind of inner awakening.
You're not always aware of it consciously -- it has to do with the soul's relationship to God.
But that is in the individual. But there is -- at this moment of time --
--one can, if you like, step into the global arena.
Asking this question, or answering this question --
I am here in service to you.
It's Chinese New Year, isn't it?
Then you can be present in what is really happening. In what is really taking place.
And then you can be used by Creation to help this mystery unfold.
-- to help the world to wake up.
You -- each of us, we are part of Creation.
We are part of the light of God in this world.
If you really knew how it looked from somewhere, you would just --
-- you would just bow down before God, it is so beautiful.
If you saw how your spiritual consciousness is part of the Light of the World,
and what is happening at this moment in time, as something is turning --
--something is being turned, actually --
-- it both an organic natural process and it is also in the hands of something else.
Likes the Sufis say, the Beloved holds the heart of the faithful between his two fingers
and turns it as He wills.
What is true for the human being is also true for the world.
He holds the heart of the world between His two fingers, and turns it.
Sometimes He turns it away from him, and we have been
at least a thousand years of Him turning the world away from Him.
So much so, we don't even realize that is what has happened.
We don't even realize the world has been turned away from God.
And it is about to change.
He is about to turn -- or He is already turning the world back towards Him.
I said, when the Reality with a capital R gets closer, begins to interfere,
with the illusions of humanity, and distort them, and distort them, and distort them,
--and then you have this choice: to be present when the world wakes up.
To be awake when the world wakes up. To welcome the dawn!
Or -- to be caught in these strange, distorted illusions.
Illusions are already distorted, but they're going to get more and more distorted --
-- I can assure you. Very strange, bizarre things will start to happen, if they haven't happened already.
I mean, nobody knows what's true any more. I don't know if you're aware of that.
Nobody knows what to believe any more.
You know, there was a time when you had an apple tree and it produced apples
and you picked them, or you shared them with your neighbors, or you made apple pie,
--and it was real! But we don't live in that kind of world anymore.
We have to have a label telling us if it's a genetically-engineered apple.
And we don't even really know what that means!
I don't know if you're aware that we don't really know what to believe any more.
You've got so used to lies and deception and lies and deception on a global scale.
I mean, what does global warming really mean?
What does globalization really mean?
What does your pension really mean?
It's extraordinary how we have got used to it.
How we kind of -- everything we live in is poisoned now. And it's the truth.
Every bit of water is radioactive. Everything is poisoned. Almost every thought is poisoned.
It's distorted. It's manipulated. Whose thought is it?
Is it your thought? Did it come from somebody else? Was it -- somebody manufactured that thought.
Is there ever anything you actually want yourself, or does it come from somewhere else into your mind?
Do you have any idea any more?
Do you want something because it tastes good, because you actually like it, or
somebody's told you it's good for you?
And we don't even realize it has happened. Forty years ago it was not like that.
When I grew up, yes, there was materialism.
But it was honest, straightforward materialism.
You wanted a washing machine, and maybe your neighbor's neighbor had a color TV.
If you were in England, you wanted Sunday roast on the table, with potatoes and brussels sprouts.
And it was real!
And in the midst of this incredible illusion, incredible distortion -- unbelievable!
And what I realized recently, and shared with some of you --
Not only is the outer world distorted, the inner world's distorted.
You don't know what's true in the inner world.
You don't know if the symbols in the inner world have just been put there by some advertising company.
-- or whether they come from the collective unconscious. You don't know any more!
In the west, the Catholic church used to have good control over the symbols.
And everybody knew what they were, and they worked with them.
But it's all being manipulated now. We have no idea what is true.
And that is a sign that an era is coming to an end.
A classic sign of what happens when an era is coming to an end.
It's actually what happens when reality with a capital R begins to distort the illusions almost out of control .
And so you can either try and change the illusions --
--work hard to realign yourself with a better illusion --
--or you can say, this is not really what I am here for.
That is not what it's about. There is something really deep within the human being
and we do actually -- underneath it all, we do have, each of us, a basic integrity as human beings.
Somehow, in the midst of it all, we know we are being lied to.
We know nothing is true. And what I say is: just return to that basic human part of you --
-- which is your relationship to God. That's all.
The teacher said you bring two things with you into the world.
The desire to live, to survive, the survival instinct. And the desire to worship.
Everything else is added afterwards. Everything else is added afterwards.
So just return to that basic imprint -- which is, in a way, the memory
of when you were together with God in the Garden of Eden.
When you are together with God. Return to that within yourself-- and then you can't go wrong.
Because that is true -- if you didn't have that, the soul would no longer survive.
There are souls that have lost that in this world. They've lost that memory.
They're called lost souls. They cannot find their way.
You can see them on the inner plains, wandering, wandering. They can't find their way. They've lost that connection.
And all the soul retrieval work in the world won't help them.
They wander between the worlds. It's a strange existence.
But all the illusions can't fool you in your own human integrity,
and what is real within you. It's as simple as that.
Somewhere you know what it means to be really alive. You know what you're here for, and it is not self-development.
I'm not saying self-development is a bad thing. It can help you, sure.
But you're here for His sake.
Just like the whole of Creation is here for His sake.
His -- Her -- it doesn't matter. It's just a word.
There's this beautiful poem: "Sovereign spirit, beneficient and merciful Allah -- my infinite one --
That is the way to live!
If you live that -- that imprint within you --
then you can turn from a world that is dying to a world that is waking up.
--because it is His world -- it is not His world that is dying, I can assure you of that!
It is a bad dream, a distorted dream. It is His world that is waking up.
Just like in your own awakening, you are suddenly present in His Creation --
--not in your own creation. It's a fundamental difference.
You are suddenly present in His Creation. That is why it is called awakening!
You awake to what is, not what is not.
I think maybe I am a spiritual romantic.
I think He would like a few people to be present when He wakes up His world.

Awakening by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

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