Living beyond the illusion of separation – a new world vision

It is my deep knowing that the world is flowing with exquisite, intrinsic beauty; only our way of attending prevents us experiencing this unfolding beauty.  I have always sensed a ‘ground of being’ from which everything in life is rooted. This ground of being I refer to as Mother Nature. From as early as I can remember, I have been in love with life, in awe of its beauty, creativity and deep wisdom, occasionally unveiled for the briefest of moments upon my poor consciousness tuning-in.

In this way, I perceive Nature as a deep matrix, cosmic womb, collective unconscious or instinctual, archetypal field from which creative energy spawns forth in a process of evolution.  I have little doubt – yet no proof – there lies past, present and future, which an attuned shamanic conscious may pick up. This sacred ground of being or pregnant womb from which all things become, permeates everything and flows throughout every atom. I suspect it is what Western scientists comprehend when seeking to define ‘dark matter’ or the ‘quantum vacuum’ as an all-pervasive presence throughout the cosmos. Nothing is separate from it, with everything, by its nature, being steeped in sacredness.

To de-sacralise and dis-respect our own Mother is the most fundamental of errors incurred by humankind – the ultimate sin. This ‘illusion of separation’ is a distortion of reality we have created through our rational minds in an attempt to atomise and box-up reality into tidy definitions, so that we may plan, analyse and manipulate. It is a tendency that, with egotism, can tend towards a wilful desire to seek dominion over Nature, to predict the unpredictable and control the wild world. Yet, in so doing, we rationally abstract – or sever – objects and subjects from their lived-in context in a way that they become deemed divorced from and devoid of the all-pervasive presence flowing throughout life.  In our desire to understand life we de-sacralise it.

The Illusion of Separation is sown deep into the very fabric of our socio-economic and political models and the scientific-philosophy of rationalism that underpins them.  It stems from a flawed logic of how the world works; a corruption hallmarked by an artificial construct of separateness which severs self from other and Nature. Hobbesian, Cartesian, Neo-Darwinian logic sees relationships as self-maximising power-plays, where one benefits only at the expense of the other.  It is what the anthropologist Gregory Bateson understood as the ‘original corruption’ which pits us against Nature setting us up for an evolutionary cul-de-sac of selfish ascendance.  It is also what de-sacralises matter and so allows us to exploit everything around us – including human interrelations – for our own material gain with scant regard for the deeper repercussions to the physical and psychical matrix. The Golden Rule ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ becomes little more than an ethical rule to be dispensed with at the slightest opportunity. The deeper wisdom this golden nugget affords us is lost amid the contagion of consumerism. Even with more recent findings on ‘interconnectedness’ and Gaia Theory are explained away through the means of materialism, and so once again any opportunity for deeper wisdom is obscured from view by this narrowing lens.

Prevalent logic sets humans apart from each other and from the rest of Nature viewed through the lens of competition, control and rationalism. It is this flawed logic that is at the heart of all our crises – world poverty, climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality, wars, etc. So often, we find ourselves applying the very logic that created the problems to our design and delivery of well-intended solutions. My vision of the world is one that looks beyond the illusion created by yesterday’s logic where a fresh, yet ancient, logic flows free.

My vision is of a global home where we freely reciprocate in the co-creative, participatory, improvisational dance of Nature. We celebrate life’s adventure through learning to love ourselves, each other and all aspects of life. This is a world where we re-cognise the ground of our being in our midst: each unfolding moment of magic, where miracles spawn. A world where our interrelations within this sacredness allow us to swim the seas of synchronicity – whether local or global, community or business, for-profit or non-profit – where small steps of change resonate with love and devotion; where we each take responsibility for the quality of our attention and intention.

We do not need to impose another ideology or set of beliefs onto reality.  Instead, we need to hold space for opening and heightening our attention individually and collectively – this way we can allow the truth to co-creatively emerge free from dogma.  Nature, within and all around us, is the participating aliveness of this co-creativity.  There is no better time and place than the situation we find ourselves in for us to open our hearts and minds to Nature – this is the beginning of a truly sustainable logic: inspired by and in harmony with Nature.

See a short video here on the new book The Illusion of Separation out 16th October, with Floris Books.

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Here is The Illusion of Separation book