KOSMOS LIVE PODCAST SERIES Preparing for Profound Change

This podcast series, Preparing for Profound Change, explores the shifting global landscape and offers strategies for coping with what lies ahead. Economic turmoil, climate chaos, political upheaval – these may seem like forces to fear, but in fact offer us deep opportunities for transformation. Balancing a sober understanding of the of the collective challenges we face, with heart-centered response, calls for deep awakening by individuals, communities and societies. Our guests share their personal practices, strategies, and insights to help us manage our strong emotions and step forward to play positive proactive roles during these troubling times.

What skills, competencies and capacities will be most valued in the new world? How can our own inner practices keep us free from anxiety as we prepare body, mind and spirit for profound change?

Episode 3 –Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Reconnecting to the World Soul

Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee writes and teaches about spiritual responsibility in our present time of transition, and the emerging global consciousness of Oneness. He has also written about the feminine and the “world soul”, or anima mundi, and on the groundbreaking subject of spiritual ecology.

Llewellyn is the founder of the Golden Sufi Center. His books include Working With Oneness, Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, an anthology of essays, and most recently, Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life.

“…I call it the loss of the sacred, which is incredibly tragic if you know how precious this substance of the sacred is, how precious it is to human beings, how precious it is to the planet. We are living in very toxic times, it’s jokingly called the post-truth era. The mystic and the Sufis have written a lot about the veils of distortion, and how to see through the veils of distortion, but they are more distorted than ever and it requires an extra special vigilance, attentiveness and mindfulness to stay true to one’s own deepest purpose in this minefield of exploitation, in this minefield of greed in which sadly, even a lot of spirituality has become polluted by profit and loss, by commercialism.

…we reclaim the sacred in our inner life through prayer, through meditation, through devotions, and in our outer life just through being present in the sacred that is all around us, that permeates everything, but for some reason there is this poison, and I deliberately call it poison, in our contemporary culture, that stops us from experiencing it, that veils us from what alone gives real meaning to life.

…This will be a multi-generational story, it won’t be fixed in the next five, 10, even 20 years, maybe in the next 200 years, but we have to be pioneers of consciousness, and this is something the mystic has always been. We push the frontiers of consciousness, we see what is possible within the human being, we dare to live a new story.”

Listen Now

Download the transcript [PDF]

Links for this Podcast

Books by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Working With Oneness
https://www.goldensufi.org/book_desc_working.html

Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth
http://www.goldensufi.org/book_desc_s_ecology.html

Spiritual Ecology: 10 Practices to Reawaken the Sacred in Everyday Life
http://www.goldensufi.org/book_desc_10Practices.html

The Face We Had Before We Were Born: A Spiritual Autobiography
http://goldensufi.org/book_desc_face.html

The Return of the Feminine and the World Soul
https://www.goldensufi.org/book_desc_feminine.html
Websites

Golden Sufi Center
https://www.goldensufi.org/
Founded by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, this Center aims to make available the teachings and work of the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Order of Sufism

Working With Oneness
http://workingwithoneness.org/

Spiritual Ecology
https://spiritualecology.org/

Referenced in this podcast

Anima mundi: the “Soul of the World”
https://www.goldensufi.org/a_animamundi.html
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee on the way ancient philosophers and alchemists referred to the spiritual essence of our world

Rumi’s Poetry
http://www.shambhala.com/the-rumi-collection.html

http://www.rumi.net/rumi_poems_main.htm
http://www.poetseers.org/the-poetseers/rumi/index.html
Revered 13^th Century Sunni Muslim Sufi mystic poet

Joanna Macy’s Work
http://www.joannamacy.net/
Scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking and deep ecology

Thich Nhat Hanh: “We need to fall in love with Earth”
https://plumvillage.org/letters-from-thay/thich-nhat-hanhs-statement-on-climate-change-for-unfccc/
Thich Nhat Hanh’s statement on Climate Change for the United Nations

Wendell Berry: Poet, novelist, and environmentalist
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wendell-berry

Thomas Berry
http://thomasberry.org/
A spiritual leader and avid advocate for the environment

Kogi people of South America
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/kogi-urgent-call-guardians-heart-world
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee in Kosmos Journal

September 20, 2016 Edition
The Loss of the Sacred and a Prayer for the Earth
http://www.kosmosjournal.org/news/the-loss-of-the-sacred-and-a-prayer-for-the-earth/

February 23, 2016 Edition
The Sacred Feminine Today
http://www.kosmosjournal.org/news/the-sacred-feminine-today/

August 11, 2015 Edition
Spiritual Ecology Fellowship | Midwifing a New Story
http://www.kosmosjournal.org/news/spiritual-ecology-fellowship-midwifing-a-new-story/

February 24, 2015 Edition
Interview with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee: Global Citizens of a Living Earth
http://www.kosmosjournal.org/news/interview-llewellyn-vaughan-lee-global-citizenship-and-the-unity-of-being/

Fall | Winter 2013 Kosmos Publication
Caring for a World with a Soul
http://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/caring-for-a-world-with-a-soul/

Fall | Winter 2011 Kosmos Publication
Praying for the Earth
http://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/praying-for-the-earth/

Credits