A Story of Longing, Memory and Reverence
Given at Naropa University, this talk explores how embodying a spiritual ecology is an unfolding of one’s longing to come to know Earth meeting Earth’s longing to be known. Rooted in what Sufi’s call dhawq, meaning “taste”, Emmanuel shares how the journey of falling back in love with the Earth echoes the Sufi process of awakening the heart to longing, where mystical love and intimacy deepens to create an individual relationship with the Beloved that rests in reverence.
Revealing the Hidden
These talks, given at the annual summer retreat at Sharpham Trust, explore the revelation of the hidden mystical secrets as the seeker journeys from the world of visibility to the world of mystery. Each talk speaks to this from a different perspective. From the longing that is awoken from the memory of unity from the primordial covenant, to the chambers in the heart, the self disclosure of God (tajalli), the secret of silence central to the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya order, the work of reclaiming love within the world of creation, and the potency of a love beyond words.
Stories for a Living Future—Series 4: My Own Story
The stories for this fourth series came unexpectedly as Spring turned to early Summer. Although they include the story of the Earth and our shared journey together, they are more autobiographical, more directly mystical. They speak about the light and love that have been central to Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee’s own journey in recent years.
Lover and Beloved
Sufism is a mystical path of love. The Sufi is a traveler on the path of love, a wayfarer journeying back to God through the mysteries of the heart. For the Sufi the relationship to God is that of lover and Beloved, and Sufis are known as lovers of God. As Rumi wrote:
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.
Remembering Earth: A Spiritual Ecology
Drawing from a deep relationship with nature, the transformative power of story, and Sufi teachings, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee guides us beyond today’s ecological and cultural crises to the heart of the matter: our collective forgetfulness and the severing of our primordial bond with Earth. In this new book, he follows the entwined threads of grief and love to the seeds of transformation and regrowth within our moment of crisis.