
"I was raw, then I got cooked and now I am burned."
"It is a burn of the heart that I want, it is this burn which is everything, more precious than a worldly empire, because it calls God, secretly, in the night."
"The Beloved said, 'I am your own soul and your own heart." -- Rumi the Ecstatic
We are, each and all, some 13.8 billion years old with our origin in the One Love Consciousness -- the "What if? Before the Big Bang"... we have within us the essence of star shine... we are the very Mystery that we seek... The beginning of wisdom is the Blessing of the One Love: One Love is the Only One... There is no reality other than the One... The One Love is the Divine Consciousness -- Name and Breath: Compassion... The Universe was created through the Breath of the Compassionate... Everything contains -- is a vehicle for -- the Breath of the Compassionate... Everyone, and all that exists, is in a continual process of evolving or ascending: to meet the descent of the One Love in "Her" manifested forms... One Love is the cause (the "What if? and "Why not?") of creation and consciousness...
"How can an electron move from A to B, and never go between?" -- Niels Bohr
"There is essentially nothing to matter whatsoever -- it's completely insubstantial. The most solid thing you could say about all this insubstantial matter is that it's more like a thought; it's like a concentrated bit of information." -- Jeffrey Satinover, M.D.
"The electron does not have objective properties independent of my mind." -- Fritjof Capra
"All life emerges from, and is sustained in, consciousness. The whole universe is the expression of consciousness. The reality of the universe is one unbounded ocean of consciousness in motion." -- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
"In one moment I realized that this universe is intelligent. Consciousness itself is what is fundamental." -- Ed Mitchell, Astronaut
This seemingly strange inter-play between science and mysticism is perhaps the harbinger of a great paradigm shift, summarized succinctly by Amit Goswami, Ph.D. "Consciousness is the ground of all being": and his "name" for It is "Quantum Consciousness". Far better minds than mine, from Dr. Goswami to the Dalai Lama, are seriously exploring "consciousness as the stuff of matter and being": and while I am inspired by every evidence of a paradigm shift, as a "cook of soup", I like to start with the fine, clear, boiled broth of "yesterday"... the way of the mystic... which intends the re-integration of the human person with our primordial Unity in the One...
From the mystical perspective, our attachment to the illusion of separation is the root cause of our suffering: separation is fed by our out-of-focus desires. With desire, the One imagined and breathed creation and consciousness into being: so desire, attuned to the One, is creative and good. Believing ourselves, though, as separate and "unique" (as different from "special"), desires form the basis for our self-identification -- as they do for our religions, politics, economics, and cultures: this is a problem! Therefore, more often than not, "reality" is little more than a projection of our attachment to separation and the out-of-focus desires that feed our attachment... whew!
Is there a solution? Again, from the mystical perspective, it is the Path of Remembrance... If our true nature is as individualized "units" of the One Love Consciousness, then it is by removing every veil of separation that we will recover our Sacred Identity: the Sufi's have long proposed that this "game" of forgetting and remembering was created by the One as a, sort of, foreplay to the spectacular love-feast in which Knower and Known are re-united in a sacred union... So the first step towards this love-feast is the affirmation: One Love is the Only One, or: There is no God but God...
"Only One": not two: not many: not different: not "other than"... This is the rending of the veil of separation: in terms of the isolated ego, it is nothing other than annihilation. Everything must be wiped clean with the cloth of Unity: everything must perish but the Beauty of the One. Everything is a contingent manifestation of the One Love Consciousness: there is no reality whatsoever to the illusion of separation: this, more than anything else exposes the idiocy of sexism, racism, homophobia, fundamentalism, violence, exploitation, oppression, and greed: full of "ourselves" we follow our desires into every conceivable avenue of separation -- as if to prove our very smallness, our destinies of death, and our ultimate and complete disappearance into endless separation: what folly! On the other hand, One Love is the Only One, is an affirmation of our everlasting subsistence in the Original Unity: from every other revelation of unity derives: lovers, parenting, sacred conversation, mutual aid and cooperation, service for justice and peace, work for equality in every way for all, economic justice and liberation, and the Path of Remembrance itself...
Once again, from the Sufi tradition, there is a saying that completely captures the sentiment of Unity: "I was a hidden treasure and desired to be known, so I created the Universe and Every World"... Is it any wonder then that Rumi wrote poetry, jumped for joy, and whirled in exaltation? That Hildegard wrote songs, that Francis wrote poems as did San Juan de la Cruz as did Rabia, Ibn 'Arrabi, Kabir, Lalla, Mirabai, and Hafiz... That while Teresa wrote love-books on prayer, Ramakrishna explored Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam each and concluded that the Holy One was the same, and Aurobindo experienced a direct transmission from the Divine Mother, and on and on: all with ecstasy as the hallmark of a Divine Encounter. Conventional and fundamentalist religion offer precious little inspiration for walking the radical way of identification with the One: and instead propose only the worship of a supreme "Other" -- while still actively cultivating the illusion of separation and all of our many out-of-focus desires -- this is such a sad waste of what precious little time we are given in life! We are meant for bold exploration, not this hunkering-down into the incredible smallness of separation! Our goal is Union: our path is remembrance: we practice Unity in our minds and hearts through radical openness, service, and delight: we take care to plant trees and gardens and make beautiful and gentle our lives and communities: this is the mystic-path that invites you...
Mysticism is the most fundamental of perspectives: "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love." (Simone Weil) Even a cursory study of the world's mystics reveals the great unity of Love as both the means to Union, and the very end of Union. It is Love that is the Source for every delight, every hope, and every kindness: it is Love that is made visible in the rose. It is Love that is heard in the music that thrills the heart. It is Love that reveals the secret longing in every sexual encounter. It is Love that empties the mind of self to give endlessly in service... and it is Love that compels every movement on the great ladder of evolution and civilization upwards toward the Shining Light of Justice, Peace, Equality, Solidarity, and Liberation for All... Mysticism is the yeast in the Rising Bread... we are beings that are completely designed for the enlightenment of Total Love... We are, by nature, so intimate with That which is Divine that "No Difference" could be our divine name...
Resources:
The Self-Aware Universe / Amit Goswami, Ph. D.
Quantum Creativity / Amit Goswami, Ph. D.
Quantum Activist / Amit Goswami, Ph. D.