Our ego-oriented life has created a fragmented world of conflict, with different factions striving for dominance. We have to compete and struggle, caught in the images of winners and losers and all of the other dramas of dualism. In this world, we have to look out for ourself because no one else will. In our separateness we also often feel alone and isolated, impotent to effect real change. Moreover, it is partly due to our self-created illusion of being separate from the Earth that we are destroying its fragile web. If we realized how intrinsically we are interconnected with the Earth, we would never treat it just as a resource to be exploited.

Once we step outside of the illusion of our own separate self, a radically different picture emerges. Our true nature exists in a dimension of oneness. Unlike the ego, which always looks out for its own self-interest, the Self reflects a vision of unity, in which each individual part is nourished according to its real need. A glimpse of the Self gives us a sense of an interconnected oneness in which nothing is separate: everything is an expression of a oneness that is dynamically alive. Every person, every stone, is this oneness; everything is connected and interdependent. Our individual Self is the Universal Self and it is all a living organism of light and love.

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Frosty Sunrise – photo by Alex Ugalek, bigstockphoto.com