This series on Spiritual Ecology is an exploration of the spiritual dimension of our present ecological crisis. In particular these resources explore the interrelationship between our outer, physical ecological situation, our awareness of the sacred in creation, and our inner relationship to the symbolic world of the soul--and how this effects our own soul and the soul of the world, the anima mundi.
"In our prayers and devotions, we need to reconnect with the sacred substance in creation. We need to place the earth within our hearts, and nourish it with our love, and offer it in remembrance of God."
Excerpts from chapter 6 in "Prayer of the Heart in Christian & Sufi Mysticism", a new book by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.
From the event 'Spiritual Ecology' with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.
New DVD from the December 3rd, 2011 event with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee at the Mercy Center in Burlingame, California.
What are the spiritual roots of our present ecological crisis?
Our present environmental crisis is becoming more visible and immediate—it is the greatest threat to the future of humanity and the well-being of the planet. And yet it is just a symptom of a deeper crisis whose danger is unnoticed—even if it is at the root of our outer, environmental tragedy. This is a spiritual crisis caused by a deep forgetfulness of the sacred within creation.
Five clips from the recordings are available below.
with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Prayer is a way to be with the Divine - from the prayer born from need, where we tell God our needs, to the deeper prayer which takes us beyond any words into the oneness and silence withine the heart. Prayer can also offer a vital contribution to the need of the present time, to our global divisions and ecological crisis.
Audio excerpt taken from Prayer: talks given by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, June 2011 at the Omega Institute. To listen to complete talks click here.
with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
An extract from a talk given to the Contemplative Alliance at Asilomar, CA, Oct. 13th 2010. This talk explores how contemplative practice can be a response to our present global crisis—how we can help to keep open the gates of grace for the world.
with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
A 4 minute video clip from "Interview on the Naqshbandi Path and the Awliyâ" recorded at the 2008 Sufi Conference. Complete interview available on the DVD, "The Naqshbandi Path".
Sufi teacher Pir Zia Inayat Khan explains the importance of Rumi's vision of an animate earth in which everything is alive - "the stones, the trees, the rivers, the clouds. All living, all connected. All bestowing life upon each other. If we are to survive as a species we must take this message to heart, we must live upon the living earth, and bear witness that the earth is an angel."
Larry Merculieff (Aleut) suggests that understanding how to address the problems we have created requires that we ask the right questions, look inward at ourselves and engage in dialogue with diverse perspectives.
This clip is part of a series exploring the meaning of sustainability from the perspectives of indigenous leaders from the bioregion of Salmon Nation. For a complete transcript of this interview and more from the Native Perspectives on Sustainability project, visit: http://www.nativeperspectives.net
From a talk given in London
on the Nature of the Soul
Question: Recently you said that at this moment in time there is a danger that the soul cannot evolve.[i]
L: This is an important question. In creation there is a certain sacred substance that enables the experience of this world to be sacred and thus to be able to interact with our own sacred nature, our soul. In Sufism it is called the secret of the word “Kun!” (“To Be!”). This sacred substance in creation enables the soul to have an experience here that is sacred, because if it is not sacred, it doesn’t touch the soul—then our experience of life does not help the soul to evolve. And this substance is going out of creation. (read more)
Published online on the Huffington Post
Prayer is the simplest and most natural way to communicate with the Divine. Prayer is the heart speaking. There are the prescribed prayers, the rituals of inner communion. But there are also our personal prayers, our way of being with the Divine, with the sacred that is our deepest nature and that of the world around us. In whatever way we are drawn to pray, there is a pressing need at this time to include the earth in our prayers. (Full Article)
Published online at www.sevenpillarshouse.org
A World of Light
In deep meditation I come to a wall. I know this wall. I have seen it many times before in meditation and waking visions. It is a high brick wall. I know what is on the other side of the wall: a world of light. But there is no way through; there is no doorway, no ladder, no break in the wall. When I come to the wall I walk along it, and then I have to turn away, back to the narrow streets of this world. And yet I know what is on the other side. Sometimes I have made every effort and, clambering to the top, looked over the wall. Or I have just felt what is there—endless expanses of light, and the beings of light who live there. And yet always I have to come back, back into this world, so constricted and full of shadows: the half-light of our existence. (Full Article)
Published online at www.ecobuddhism.org.
In March this year (2011) the science journal Nature announced what many people already knew, that there are clear indications that the world’s Sixth Mass Extinction is already underway. The last mass extinction came some 65 million years ago when a comet or asteroid slammed into the Yucatan peninsula, in modern-day Mexico, causing firestorms whose dust cooled the planet, and an estimated 76 percent of species were killed, including the dinosaurs. The four previous mass extinction of species were due to gradual global warming and cooling, and happened on a scale of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. What is particular about our present mass extinction is that it has happened so quickly over a few centuries, and most significantly, it is man made. “The modern global mass extinction is a largely unaddressed hazard of climate change and human activities.” [1] (Full Article)
Published online at www.ecobuddhism.org.
This article responds to many of the questions we received after publishing the first article.
What does it mean that the light of an era has gone out? First it is necessary to understand what is meant by “the light of an era.” From a spiritual perspective each era of humanity has a spiritual light that gives rise to the evolution of consciousness that belongs to that era. The evolution of humanity is an evolution of consciousness[i], and it is the light of the era in the inner world that both guides and facilitates this evolution. Humanity has a unique quality of consciousness, mythologically imaged as fire stolen from the gods, that is quite distinct to the instinctual consciousness that belongs to the animal kingdom. Throughout human history our consciousness has evolved and changed. In each era this inner light has particular qualities that enable human consciousness to change and evolve in a specific way. (Full Article)
Only available online.
Whenever dharma declines and the purpose
of life is forgotten, I manifest myself on earth.
— KRISHNA(1)
Spiritual teachings have long told us that changes happen first in the inner planes and then gradually become manifest in the outer world of our daily life. Today we see signs of a world spinning out of balance in the destruction of our ecosystem, in our global economic volatility. If one wants to explore and understand what these changes might mean, one needs to go within, to where the forces that define our surface life constellate. My own journey has drawn me into the chambers of the heart, into the love and emptiness that are the home of the mystic. But this journey has also had a global dimension. I have been taken into the worlds that underlie creation, where I have been shown how the energies in these inner worlds are shifting, and how at this time a new energy is constellating, new patterns are evolving. (Full Article)
Published online at The Huffington Post
This week's United Nations Climate Change Conference at Cancun, Mexico is a global forum in response to a global crisis. As well as considering cutting carbon emissions, the conference hopes among other issues to advance green technologies and fund safeguards to prevent further deforestation of the Amazon. Already there are fears that it will fail to deliver real agreements and that as a result, the planet will be condemned to an uncertain or precipitous future. But this evokes in me a central question: can we respond to the true nature of global climate change from just an economic or political perspective? (Full Article...)
How can we speak about sustainability without speaking about the Sustainer?
Published online at www.sevenpillarshouse.org/article/spiritual_ecology
Finally we are waking up to our ecological imbalance, to the realities of global warming and its catastrophic consequences. It is also beginning to dawn upon us that these environmental changes are accelerating, that time is running out more quickly than we may realize...(Full Article)
