Reflection
Our culture has co-opted many of our spiritual intentions into patterns of personal well-being, selling us images of spiritual life that are about self-fulfillment rather than selfless service or loving kindness towards others. Real spiritual practice is never for ourself alone, but always for the whole, always for the sake of the Divine. And if we limit our practice within the horizon of our own separate self, we deny its potential to effect real change, and at this time to be a catalyst for a collective shift in consciousness. The awareness that our spiritual aspiration does not just belong to our own self but has a connection with the sacred within all life, opens a doorway to a deeper resonance and participation. Our individual spiritual journey is part of the world’s journey. To deny this is to live inside the illusion of separation. Our hunger for the Source, our search for the Divine, is life’s hunger, life’s search. We need to give our journeying back to life and acknowledge the oneness that unites everything. Nothing is separate. All is One.
Adapted from Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Prayer
That all may be one.
Action
Do you focus your spiritual search into a search for self-fulfillment? How does your spirituality focus you on union rather than separation? Does your spiritual focus connect with your everyday behavior and beliefs? How can you broaden your vision and become more outward focused?
Suggested Reading
I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, and I am in you.
John 17:21
From my point of view, God is the light that illuminates the darkness, even if it does not dissolve it, and a spark of divine light is within each of us.
Pope Francis
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Teilhard de Chardin
The recurring theme of all religions is a sympathy, empathy, connection, capacity between the human and the divine – that we were made for union with one another. They might express this through different rituals, doctrines, dogmas, or beliefs, but at the higher levels they are talking about the same goal. And the goal is always union with the divine.
Richard Rohr
The deepest of level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless … beyond speech … beyond concept.
Thomas Merton
The world we are experiencing today is the result of our collective consciousness, and if we want a new world, each of us must start taking responsibility for helping create it.
Rosemary Fillmore Rhea
Love’s greatest gift is its ability to make everything it touches sacred.
Barbara De Angelis
When we seek for connection, we restore the world to wholeness. Our seemingly separate lives become meaningful as we discover how truly necessary we are to each other.
Margaret Wheatley
Love is how it feels to recognize our essential unity. Awakening to oneness is the experience of Big Love. Knowing you are one with all, you find yourself in love with all.
Timothy Freke
True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.
Louis Nizer
We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.
Anais Nin