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Global Consciousness & The Role of the Internet

The internet is one of the most significant technological developments of the present time. Through the World Wide Web humanity has been given a tool for global communication and interconnectivity. Its use has become central to the lives of millions of people, businesses and organizations, linking humanity together in ways unimaginable a few decades ago. But how does it relate to the emerging consciousness of oneness? Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee gives a visionary perspective on the role of the internet, and how we are only beginning to understand its real potential.

Video Clips

The Power of Oneness
The Power of Oneness
Technology & the Sacred
Technology & the Sacred
The Web of Consciousness
The Web of Consciousness
Global Spirit: A Model of Our Time
Global Spirit: A Model of Our Time
Oneness and Life
Oneness and Life
A Network of People
A Network of People
An Expression of Oneness
An Expression of Oneness
The Need of the Time
The Need of the Time


Quotes About the Internet
from books by
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

The Internet is a relatively new model of universal consciousness in which knowledge, or information, is readily available to anyone, anywhere. All that is required is a computer and a connection and one has instant access to a unified body of knowledge and the potential for interconnecting with everyone else who is on the Internet. The unified connectivity presented by the Internet has been long known to the mystic, who in meditation has access to a dimension of oneness in which everything is simultaneously present, and all knowledge is accessible. The experience of samadhi, or super-conscious state, happens on this plane of oneness. But the Internet presents a model of a unified consciousness that is accessible on a more physical plane, to anyone who has access to a computer.
     The Internet is at present only in its infancy, but it carries the blueprint of its potential—a consciousness of global oneness and interrelationship that defies the barriers of nationality and geography. It is present everywhere at the same time. The Internet is not a hierarchical structure, and despite the desire of some companies or governments to control it, it is globally democratic. At the present time it is primarily used for accessing information and communication. But it has the potential to create patterns of interrelationship that will form the network for a global unity and consciousness. The flow of information through an expanded web of individual relationships throughout the planet will be like a cellular structure that comes alive and continually makes new connections. As these connections of both knowledge and people become activated, they will make further connections in a way that is very similar to how the brain activates and accesses information. At a critical point the interrelationships and flow of information come alive and begin to function as a unified field—a unified level of consciousness on a global level is activated.

—Working with Oneness, p. 11

A basic awareness of life’s oneness is already being reflected into the collective consciousness. From ecologists to global corporations to Internet users, we all are becoming more aware of the interconnectedness of life, of how the individual interacts with the whole.

—Light of Oneness, p. 37

The Internet provides an image of how the energy of life can flow within a manifest structure. The Internet is a network that functions highly efficiently and is not delineated by borders or controlled by individuals. It can enable goods and information to be easily accessed, and it allows for an almost infinite array of possible human interconnections which can constantly reconfigure themselves as the need dictates. It is both an organically evolving structure and a part of our market economy. And it is free. In the Internet we have been given a blueprint for the future whose full potential we have not grasped because we see it with the eyes of the past. The Internet is a direct expression of the emerging energy structure of the planet in which the need of the individual can be met within the organic evolution of the whole, and the evolution of the whole served through the free participation of each individual. It is a model for how future corporate structures could work with the energy of life and embody the freedom inherent within it.

—Light of Oneness, p. 119

One of the limitations of our present understanding of the Internet is that we have not fully realized the new dynamic created by the many new connections that are being made. We do not recognize that it is the connections themselves that are most important, not the information or goods that are exchanged. When these connections come alive then the Internet will wake to its real potential.

—Spiritual Power, p. 57

The Internet is a part of the development of our global awareness, which is why its ability to make connections is so important. It is a web of connections being woven within the fabric of the world, although it does not exist at a solely physical level, but on an energy level we call cyberspace. The way that the Internet has developed reflects the way the oneness can work exponentially, without being constricted by past patterns of development. It follows the blueprint of the future, which is based upon oneness. In just a few years we have been given a new tool for relating globally and also directly from individual to individual. What is exciting is how it bypasses so many of the restrictions of the past, the power structures and “red tape” that try to control or limit any new development. It is alive in a new way. And this is just the beginning of this new level of evolution.

—Spiritual Power, p. 61

In our present conditioning we imagine a new form of life as something separate, but the Internet points to an evolving form of interrelationships that itself is becoming an organic life-form, although at present it has not yet become fully alive.

—Spiritual Power, p. 71

We are still reluctant to fully acknowledge the Internet as the new form of global consciousness it is—a consciousness that cannot be caught in hierarchical power structures or imposed patterns of relationship, that is alive in its own organic way, beyond our ability to control. Already life is beginning to recreate itself on a global pattern of interrelationship, and we do not yet recognize what is happening.

—Alchemy of Light, p. 62

SYMBOLS OF THE FUTURE

We are so immersed in the many distractions of today’s culture that we do not notice the symbolic dimension of the new images that life is giving us, and so we are unaware of their primal power… When we think of the Internet, for example, we see only a tool for communication or commerce. We do not see that it is a living expression of a new consciousness that has within it access to energies and powers that can completely rearrange our world. If we were awaken to its real symbolic potential, we would be truly in awe—and we would laugh, with wonder, at life’s capacity to recreate itself while we are not even looking.
     The Internet is a powerful, living image of life’s oneness. As it becomes more and more present in our collective consciousness, it is more and more able to channel life’s underlying energies in new ways. It is a power and life force of its own, able to evolve and adapt like a fast-changing organism, and, like other emerging images of our time, it is reconfiguring our consciousness, helping us to interact with life in new ways.
     Like all symbols, the Internet will reveal the secret of its real potential only if we approach it with the right attitude and acknowledge its sacred dimension. At the same time, working with these emerging images requires a different attitude from the one we bring to symbols that relate only to the inner or spiritual dimension. In our Western culture we tend to see symbols as separate from everyday life, usually relegating them to sacred or religious ceremonies. It is many centuries since we have related to the ordinary activities of our daily life as having a symbolic dimension. And what could be more “mundane,” more of our everyday world, than the Internet? To access the symbolic within the mundane requires that we lose that “spiritual” conditioning and free ourselves from its restrictions.
     Yes, it can be a shock to recognize that the sacred is revealing itself in something as mundane as the technology of the Internet or cell-phone communication. But we need to be aware that the divine reveals itself in the most unexpected ways. Often, like Khidr, the Sufi figure of direct revelation, the divine appears as something so ordinary we do not recognize it until afterwards, and so miss the real opportunity of the meeting. We need to be alert, to realize that the symbols that will shape the dream of the next era are likely to turn up in the places we least expect them—in ourselves, in the ordinariness of our daily lives. Then we can open ourselves to the laughter and joy in the way the divine awakens us to a new way of being, turning our “spiritual” perception upside down once again!

—Alchemy of Light, p. 81-82

NEW WATERS OF LIFE

With the Internet and all the proliferating forms of global communication, individual human beings are communicating and relating in ways that would have been unimaginable only a few decades ago. We all use these tools of communication without being aware what is happening: that through them life is reconstellating itself, new patterns of relationship are coming into being, and it is here that the new waters of life are beginning to flow. The energy of life is flowing through us, through these connections and networks that are being formed. We think of them as tools, ways of facilitating communication or commerce. We do not realize that what matters are the networks themselves, these developing patterns of interconnection and relationship.
     If we look closely, we can see that no one is in charge of these patterns. They are continually forming, changing, re-forming, too free and fast-moving to be controlled or manipulated by any person or organization. They are alive in a completely new way: a life force in themselves. And they carry the light, the consciousness, of individuals. They are the light of individual consciousness, continually moving, changing, creating different patterns, communicating in new ways, in a dialogue of light with light, individual with individual. And this dialogue of light is going on around us, communicating through a vast web of interconnections all over the world, and we do not realize its significance.
     Some places in the world seem to have more access to this global communication than others, to be more connected, their inhabitants less isolated. But there are few places that are out of touch. The spread of Internet cafes, even in apparently remote locations, reflects a worldwide hunger for global connectedness. We are all part of one humanity, and it is in this network of communication, in the simple connection of individual to individual through a spreading global web of connections, that the healing waters of life are springing up. Everyone participates in this connectedness. We have just not yet learned how to work with it, how to help the light that is coming alive again in these connections to redeem what has been desecrated, how to help it to heal our planet and our souls.

—Alchemy of Light, p. 133-134

I personally think that global communication and the Internet are among the signs of the world waiting to transform, waiting to shift into a different level of consciousness.

—Return of the Feminine and the World Soul, p. 142

One of the limitations of our present understanding of the Internet is that we have not fully realized the new dynamic created by the many new connections that are being made. We do not recognize that it is the connections themselves that are most important, not the information or goods that are exchanged. When these connections come alive, then the Internet will wake to its real potential.

—Return of the Feminine and the World Soul, p. 165

Humanity is the consciousness of the planet; we carry this divine gift in our individual and collective awareness. Linking together, we connect centers of awareness within our global brain, and this enables the energy to flow in new ways and a new level of awareness to develop. The Internet is a part of the development of our global awareness, which is why its ability to make connections is so important. It is a web of connections being woven within the fabric of the world, although it does not exist at a solely physical level, but on an energy level we call cyberspace.
     The way that the Internet has developed reflects the way that oneness can work exponentially, without being constricted by past patterns of development. It follows the blueprint of the future, which is based upon oneness. In just a few years we have been given a new tool for relating globally and also directly from individual to individual. What is exciting is how it bypasses so many of the restrictions of the past, the power structures and “red tape” that try to control or limit any new development. It is alive in a new way. And this is just the beginning of this new stage of evolution.

—Return of the Feminine and the World Soul, p. 169