Love & Prayer

LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE looks back on a life of learning about love in its many forms and faces, from the most human to the most esoteric, and what it means to him that love is the source of all that exists.

- LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE

One of my favorite practices, a prayer, is to imagine placing the world within my heart and feeling the love that infuses everything – every bird and butterfly, the trees and the ocean, the chipmunks that have just reappeared in the garden after their hibernation, the blearyeyed child waiting for the school bus I pass on my morning walk. Everything, every dream, every cloud passing, is infused with love, is an expression of love. Love is the source of all that exists, is all that exists. This primary mystical awareness is stamped into my soul and consciousness, following me throughout the day, and especially in the early hours of the morning, when prayer takes me, when the world of thoughts has faded away and the heart’s presence is all that matters.

Scientists may tell us that our universe began thirteen billion years ago with the Big Bang, when from an infinitely hot and dense single point matter came into existence. But mystics know a different truth: from the unborn and undying emptiness, existence is constantly being created as a flow of light and love that then becomes physical form. And this love remains the foundation, the essence of everything – every particle and every star. It is the primary energy, power, presence within the created world. And it is our divine nature, always evolving and changing within our body and soul, even as it remains constant.