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Meditation
and Global Awareness Sarida Brown: : : : What can we learn from the world events since September 11th? Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee: On one level it is a very human tragedy, and the response to it was to deal with the terrorists, which seems very necessary: it was an action that demands a reaction. Initially the impact was a tremendous shock, not just on the physical level, but to whole psyche. At that time I felt it was important to keep a place of detachment, not to be caught up in the collective anxiety, panic and anger--those of us who do spiritual practices were very blessed because we were able to tune in to a place that wasn't just anxiety or panic. There's a Sufi practice we do for this called 'Being Present in Emptiness'. ....................................................... One of the immediate responses to the
terror was love I went on retreat 3 days after the 11th to meditate and pray. At this time many people all over the world were working to hold a space of light and rememberance. I don't think people are aware that, just as the planet is protected by the ozone layer, there is a protection that exists around everyday life, and a tremendous shock like that, the violence of many innocent people being killed, makes a tear in the fabric of life on the inner planes. That had to be repaired for life to continue. Humanity is much more protected than most people realize. There is the tradition of the friends of God who look after the well-being of the world. Ordinary people are not aware of how much they are given by those who devote their life to spiritual work. This has to do with one of the big misunderstandings we have in the West, that spiritual work is about individual development. In an instance like this you become aware of the global contribution--the container of love and light that is made by people who do spiritual work. And in this tragedy the element of love was there from the very beginning and was a constant note in the background. In the phone calls that people sent from the aeroplanes that were going to crash were messages of love. I have a friend in New York who lives just a mile from the World Trade Centre. She told me that at first she had felt insecure and angry, but then she realized that every person she knew in the world called her or emailed her and told her they loved her. She said that the outpouring of love was tremendous. After about a week there was a deep feeling of peace, with the awareness that many people all over the world were praying and meditating and keeping vigils. : : : Was this building global consciousness? This is one of the most important positive things to have come out of this terrible tragedy. From the first moment it happened it had a global note to it which has stayed with the whole experience. The shift into global awareness is one of the great steps humanity has to make: from just being aware of my life, where I am, to being aware that nobody and nowhere is separate. An opening is given, a quality of consciousness is made accessible, and then it depends on us to pick it up and develop it. We experience that in our individual practice, but what is new is that it should be brought onto the world stage so quickly. Suddenly this is a very different reality. If you see how a situation begins, you see the seeds of what it means. One of the immediate responses to the terror was love, care, concern, people coming together. Whether this note can continue, whether we can hold this awareness, is where people who do spiritual practice have a real contribution to make at a time like this. Global awareness has to have the right attitude behind it, otherwise everything will dissolve and selfishness will prevail again. : : : How does love relate to the feeling of powerlessness that most people have as the political and military reaction is unfolding? There is an old Sufi story from the time of Ghengis Khan. He destroyed everything in his path and put the clock back 200 years; his forces were renowned for killing everybody in the villages and cities they entered. When they were approaching Bukhara, they came to a village where everybody had fled except for a man sitting at his loom weaving--he was a great Sufi sheikh called Khwaja Arif. The soldiers were impressed, and asked 'Aren't you afraid?' He wasn't. They took him to Ghengis Khan, who asked him 'Why weren't you afraid?' He said, 'My outer attention was with my work, my inner attention was with God, what space did I have to be afraid?' Ghengis Khan was so impressed that he made Khwaja Arif a mediator between the population of Bukhara and the Mogul army, and it is said that because of him the population of Bukhara was not massacred. ....................................................... Something very real can be given by not doing and not knowing ...................................................... We live in a culture where everyone thinks that you've got to do something. Something very real can be given by not doing and not knowing. One of the strengths in meditation is that you know in the very depths of yourself that everything is the will of God, and you live in that reality. This is not a passive acceptance, but a dynamic awareness. Certain things have to be destroyed at a time of transition; one doesn't know what they are. There have always been terrible things happening in the world--God has a very terrible side to Him. He comes in a whirlwind as well as in peace. You know in your own life that sometimes tragedies push you to a greater awareness and take you to places that happiness can't. It depends on whether you can catch the real meaning of what is happening. In the middle of the whirlwind you can be present with your prayer, with your devotion. Rather than getting scattered in revenge, allow light to come where it hasn't come before, allow love to be present amidst the tragedy, hold this deeper awareness--and stay with it, not just at this moment and the week after the disaster happened, but for a long time. Something fundamental has changed, and it has changed more than most people realize--in America they feel that their security has gone, but also the sense of isolation has gone. Nowhere is seperate. We won't know for many years what this situation is really about, because there are forces at work at the global dimension that haven't been confronted for a long time. But one thing we can do is to stay present in love and unknowing. This is a state of surrender and service. : : : How does one achieve this state? There is a Sufi prayer: 'I do not ask to see, I do not ask to know, I ask only to be used'. If we can take this into our own practice, we hold a place where the will of God can be present, a place that is free, where it hasn't become constricted into form, where real change happens. I don't believe in a God who is outside the world and makes everything happen. We have a real responsibility, and this is present in the midst of world affairs. Human consciousness is very powerful, and human consciousness which is aligned with the divine is tremendously powerful; it is a vehicle for real change. And as people all over the world all have this consciousness, then that gives the divine access to the world in a way that is awesome. This is not the consciousness that is in the ashrams and the caves of the recluse, but in the midst of the world arena. I'm an optimist. If we can bring this consciousness into the midst of the world where the need is greatest, then real change can come, but it requires participation and responsibility. ....................................................... We are being forced to take reponsibility, to have compassion ...................................................... This conscious participation is like a ring of light, a web of light around the world--a consciousness that is attuned to divine consciousness, that looks beyond our own self-interest. Our individual consciousness can create a global human consciousness. We have been confronted by the human tragedy in New York, and by the human tragedy in Afghanistan. They are two sides of the same coin--Afghanistan, the poorest nation in the world, America the richest nation. It is always the innocent who suffer most, the children, the women, the old men who have no food for the winter, and suddenly we are being forced to remember them, to take responsibility, to become conscious, to have compassion. : : : It is so hard, when the suffering of 20 million people in Afghanistan is portrayed as 'collateral damage'. It brings up anger, shame, powerlessness. There is a bigger picture. When we were bombing Kosova, I felt deeply for those being driven from their homes, becoming refugees. Why was this suffering? Then I heard a voice say to me with great authority and compassion, 'You think I don't love these people?' Suddenly I was taken out of the 'me' perspective into a bigger perspective, into the perspective in which love and tragedy are woven together. What is important is that we hold the two sides: the compassion for those who suffer, together with the surrender to 'This is also the will of God'. It is the way it is. You say you feel powerless, but to inwardly hold an attitude like this is not powerless because it is acknowledging the presence of the will of God, and the compassion that belongs to the divine in the midst of human suffering and human transformation. : : : The heart becomes big enough to hold those opposites. 'Heaven and earth cannot contain me, but the heart of My devoted servant can.' In the heart the human and the divine come together--this has always been our crucifixion and our spiritual practice. A very real contribution is to bring the human and the divine together. The politicians are not going to change: they have their agendas, but we can bring through this consciousness of love, of compassion, of global awareness, this sense that we are all responsible for what is happening--we can bring this into our daily awareness and everyday life. It is almost incomprehensible for the mind to understand that the bombing of the World Trade Centre has to do with love. But that was the response of so many people. The mystery of being a human being, the love that is present, even in the midst of tragedy, has been made conscious. There is a lot of work to do to hold it, to stay true to it, not just now, not just in the immediate response, but throughout the year, throughout the rest of our lives.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee is a Sufi teacher and author. For further information contact the Golden Sufi Centre (www.goldensufi.org), telephone or fax 020 8450 9057, or email gsufi@waitrose.com
© Caduceus, 2002.
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