A Conversation About Oneness- with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Duration: 6 minutes and 50 seconds

Country: United States

Language: English

License: CC Attribution Non-Commercial

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Producer: Seana Quinn

Director: Seana Quinn

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Posted by: oneness on Aug 21, 2007

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A CONVERSATION ABOUT ONENESS, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee with Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
I am by nature a kind of traditional mystic that the new age,
spiritual teaching, so to speak, didn't mean very much to me.
My focus was on the inner experiences of the individual;
the inner mystical experiences that really belong to classical sufism.
And then a strange thing happened in the spring of the year 2000.
Suddenly, my attention was shifted.
It's like somebody turned my head from here to there,
and then I saw this—what I have called this emerging consciousness of oneness.
That there is something awakening in the world that hasn't been here before.
And that it—in a way, it has its—you can trace it back to the mystical understanding of oneness,
because oneness is a basic mystical experience.
Many, many, many people have had experiences of oneness.
They've woken up for a moment, and like the poet William Blake said,
"To see the world in a grain of sand."
They have had those momentary experiences, they see that everything is one.
They see the universe as one dynamic whole.
But the idea that this might become part of our collective human experience,
not just an individual mystical experience, which it has been traditionally in the past,
a unio mystica of the mystics,
That somehow the whole of humanity is taking a step to a different level of awareness.
This really began to interest me.
And all I can do is say there seems to be a need to prepare the ground.
So that if such a moment should happen;
if there should be something that collectively wakens humanity,
the whole of humanity, to this other reality that is so present because it's not something abstract,
it's not an ideal, it's the fact that everything is one.
It is an ecological reality.
It is a reality on many levels that one can begin to prepare the stepping stones,
so to speak; the foundations,
so that if this moment of grace should happen to the whole,
not just to humanity because I think it happens to the whole world.
I think it is a global awakening means an awakening of the world.
That those are the foundations that are made.
Otherwise, as T.S. Eliot said, we had the experience but missed the meaning.
But how it is going to happen, I don't know.
I thought it would be much simpler.
And I thought there would be something, in a way, the heart of every seeker that would respond.
>> But it's not just about the seeker.
Because if it's going to be a global consciousness, a global shift,
it can't just be limited to the few who are serious spiritual practitioners.
It has to be available to people who aren't so interested in spiritual life
and aren't willing to devote, you know, their life to that pursuit.
>> Yeah, you are right, and I think it can happen on all levels.
I think on an ecological level, there is already a fundamental awareness that we are one living organism;
this interdependent, interrelated ecological system.
I think the internet is an example of—on a communications level—of oneness.
I do think that traditionally spiritual practitioners,
or those who have access to something that is not in this world, have a part to play.
I think they are needed to, in a way, to be the pioneers of consciousness.
>> To be the stepping stones you see—that you describe.
>> Yes, to actually—because, I think this has always been their role in the past.
If you go back to the foundations of Western civilization,
they came from Empedocles and Parmenides,
you would see that they were mystics,
and they brought through the understandings of rationalism
that is the foundation of our Western culture from mystical experiences.
>> But just like then as in now, they were dismissed and viewed as illogical and unnecessary.
>> They were dismissed later,
but they still have created the foundations, and mystics don't expect to be understood.
But, again, how it is going to happen, I don't know.
I, as a mystic, believe in the grace of God.
I think it is really—only through the grace of God,
can any real change happen, either to an individual or to the world.
And if you like, that is the one limitation I see
in so many people who make a sincere commitment to this work of oneness; to this global work,
is they don't take into account the grace of God.
They think that we, human beings, have to do it all ourselves.
And we can never do it all ourselves. Not in a million years.
Rumi, he says, "With all your efforts, you can't even get to the first weigh station."
So, the world is going through a transformation.
That is not news anymore, that it's going through a time of crisis,
and anytime of crisis has the possibility for transformation.
And there are many people around the world who are committed to this, on say,
whether on a financial level or an ecological level or cultural level, to this work of oneness;
bringing together people of different races, this interfaith work.
There are many, many fields in which humanity is coming together in new ways.
But as I say, what I have found lacking in a lot of their approaches,
is they think we have to do it all ourselves.
And I think we need the help of God.
I think we can participate. I think we can be, like the Sufi says,
attentive, waiting, receptive, for when the Beloved comes,
for when the Divine comes.
Can we do it ourselves? No.
Can we wake up the world? No.
But we can be ready, waiting and prepared for that global transformation, if and when it happens.
That is my sincere belief as a mystic,
because as a mystic you—everything really in the end is about the will of God.

A Conversation About Oneness- with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

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