On Saturday, November 3rd 2018, CANA held its We Are All One conference in Essex Unitarian Church in Notting Hill Gate, with over 60 attendees. The day kick-started with two interlinked talks, the first by Revd Don MacGregor, who spoke about the essential message of oneness with the divine that is a strand running through the mystical traditions of all faiths. There is a divine essence that permeates and holds everything in being, and Don illustrated this with a series of quotes from many faith traditions. Awakening to this oneness and compassion is the way ahead for humanity.
Current science is telling us that we are all interconnected, interacting vibrational energy fields, and that consciousness is the matrix holding everything in being. The mystics have been saying the same thing in their own language since time immemorial. Most of humanity is still stuck in the tribal mentality and the key to moving on is the growing awareness of our oneness in consciousness, moving us to global compassion and cooperation. All the quotes he presented, plus many more can be found here. He has also posted his talk on YouTube – click here.
Dr Jude Currivan then spoke on the subject of her book, ‘The Cosmic Hologram’, which brings together scientific research from all over the planet, showing that the universe is held in a huge underlying information field and that it’s structure is replicated in a fractal nature at all levels, macro and micro. This information field underpins and pervades all reality and creates a holographic universe, with patterns repeated from the atomic level, to the complexity of the weather, right up to the structure of galactic clusters in space. She concluded that consciousness is not something we have, it is what we and everything else are. This was an exciting notion, tying in with Don’s talk, and stirred the audience into a long question and answer session. Much more on her new ideas can be found on her website and its links – see judecurrivan.com.
IN the afternoon, Marianne Rankin, from the Alister Hardy Trust, spoke about the universality of spiritual experience. Most people have such experiences but are reluctant to talk about them for fear of being misunderstood. They are a natural part of human consciousness. We all reflected on the Alister Hardy question, “Have you ever been aware of or influenced by, a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self?”
Then Fr. Diarmuid O’Murchu spoke about the challenge to the church, how it needs to recognise this interconnectedness and become a network of empowering faith communities, with the consciousness of a deep connection with all of creation. Part of the change is the increasing importance of lay theology.
Following on, we had a ‘fishbowl’ discussion in which many of the attendees participated, addressing the question, “A movement towards Oneness is already underway: how might we contribute to this?” The discussion ranged from raising ecological awareness to help offered by the angelic realm.
Many people commented at the end of the day how valuable, encouraging and stimulating it had been.
We have now developed an edited DVD which can be used to facilitate small groups without too much preparation needed. If you would like a set of the whole day DVDs for £5 or a copy of the hour long edited DVD for £2, please send a cheque made out to CANA to Bill Upchurch at 20 Manor Road, Ruislip HA4 7LB or pay using PayPal on https://www.cana.org.uk/donate-or-pay/ and say We Are All One DVD’s with your name. When paying please tick ‘Share Address’ so we know who to send it to.
The follow up to this conference was a one-day meeting in May 2019. It has become apparent the across the world people are waking up to the many challenges currently facing us and wondering how we might creatively work through these and build a world that recognises the interconnectedness of all humanity with each other and with our planetary home. It was felt that this global shift in perspective is sufficiently important for us to not only develop it further but also to create opportunities for people to come together in different parts of the country. We want to consider our understanding of this new world view, explore how we embody this in our lives and envision how it might be expressed at local, national and global levels. Our purpose is to hopefully generate a greater sense of unity and so contribute to the current shift towards the new ways of being that are underway. These take regard for our interconnectedness with each other and with the natural world within the Oneness of all life.
