The Oneness Movement Shifts Gear

Much has happened in the Oneness Movement in recent years. Perhaps 2006 was a pivotal time when it has become clear that with the arrival of Tony Robbins on the scene, a process of change began in a direction that became more and more at odds with the spiritual intention of Amma Bhagavan’s vision. For myself, I came away from my courses at Oneness University in both 2007 and 2008 feeling increasingly that there was a tussle going on in the organisation between those who wanted things to go in a more materialistic direction and those that wanted it to remain connected to its spiritual roots. This culminated with the Guides who had been pushing in the materialistic direction leaving and setting up their own organisation.

Since then there have been many major changes in the Oneness Movement in recent months. My perspective is that there has been a progressive removal of Gatekeepers to access of the Divine. The Acharyias and Guides who had become Gatekeepers to accessing Bhagavan’s teachings directly left. The large course fees, the segregation of the different campuses was removed and a new spirit of openness came about, something I experienced directly on the Trainers course in February 2010. The approach of the Living in Oneness programme was that only a few were qualified to teach. It was not intended to support the development of a new crop of teachers and trainers to enable the knowledge to be available in all parts of the community.

To redress this imbalance, Bhagavan began talking directly to groups around the world via Skype and answering their individual questions. Then the existing Trainers were empowered and it was no longer necessary to go to India to be become a Deeksha ‘Giver’, removing another hurdle to more people being able to share the Grace. After a few months, it was announced that even the Trainers should not become new gatekeepers and that initiation would be directly from the divine.

After a time it became clear to Bhagavan that most people’s questions had been asked and the focus changed again to helping people understand both intellectually and experientially what is meant by awakening. The Mukti Deeksha process has been the trigger for a growing number of people to pop into awakened states.

On all the courses that I have been on, it has always been emphasised that the Divine can be represented in any way that each individual feels comfortable with – which can be Amma Bhagavan or any other teacher, shape or form. Rather than creating a new guru structure, the approach over recent months has been one that empowers people in communities around the world to help each other to become awakened and support each other through the process.

At present there are two quite different things happening at this planetary time: the unravelling of the industrial growth society and at the same time an awakening of consciousness.

On the material level it is clear that the current model of a society based on the input of cheap fossil fuel energy has about run its course. Round about 2012 many analysts, including for example the US military, are aware that there will be a large shortfall in the amount of energy the world demands and can be made available at a low price. This will have “a significant economic and political impact”.

Jeff Rubin, the former Chief Economist of CIBC World Markets, explains in this video as the title of his book describes, ‘Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller.‘

On this basis alone it provides an explanation for why Bhagavan is so keen to make the knowledge and empowerment to share the Grace with others available in a short period of time.

The programme Sri Bhagavan has proposed to encourage people to form groups of 25 is both to help and support them through their awakening process, and also to recreate community locally in ways that we have mostly lost. This will be a key way to support each other through the significant societal changes that lie ahead. The Icelandic volcano offered a glimpse of another way apart from much higher oil prices that the world could quickly become a lot more local.

If we turn to global economics and read the Financial Times, you will learn how our growth society is built on huge mountains of debt and a presumed continued input of cheap fossil fuel. The recent economic crisis is just a warm up to what is likely to happen on a larger scale soon. To get a deeper understanding of how our economy, energy systems, and environment interact, and how they will impact the future watch the video seminar ‘The Crash Course’, www.chrismartenson.com

Climate Chaos, water, food production, bio-diversity and so on are all facing a crisis. A globalised society based on growth and consumption of finite resources cannot continue for much longer. The only question is ‘when’ the system crumbles, not ‘if’.

To gain an insight to these issues, and how individuals and communities are facing up to and responding to these issues the Energy Bulletin website is an excellent resource. To engage your own community, I have found that the Transition Network approach to be one that enagages people in a postive way in this process.

Environmental activist Paul Hawken noticed that all over the planet individuals and communities are realising that we need to find a new way to live on the planet that instead of stealing from the future actually begins to heal it. He calls these responses “humanity’s immune response. He says it is the “other superpower,” and quite likely the biggest movement in the history of the world. He documented this realisation in a book called Blessed Unrest. There is an inspiring video of a talk he gave about this: Bioneers Conference talk

Along with this growing awareness on the surface value of life, from a spiritual angle, we find that many seers, including Sri Amma Bhagavan and many others, have anticipated this time when there will be an opportunity for consciousness to take a big shift to one where the sense of separation becomes less and the sense of connectedness, oneness, dominates. Just as there are seasons when plants grow and others when they retreat, a time when the sun shines and another when it is dark, it is the deep intuitive experience of many people that something significant is happening at this time. It is not that we have to wait until 2012 to be awakened, but that there is a time period when things are more conducive to produce certain results. It’s up to us whether we make the most of the opportunity or not.

As with many others, Oneness University sees 2012 as a year with the greatest potential for spiritual practitioners of all traditions and paths to join together to create a ripple effect in the shared awakening of humanity. Not every human being will become fully enlightened or awakened in 2012. However if we work together, we can help to jump-start the collective engine of human consciousness that, once started, will run automatically.

There are many examples in nature where shifts happen in sudden steps, and not gradually over a long period of time. This is known in physics as a Phase Transition.

When even a small percentage of a system becomes orderly, it can tip the whole system into an orderly state. In this way the influence of an individual experiencing higher states of consciousness influences the people around them.

Since collective consciousness is created by the individuals within it, as individual consciousness grows collective consciousness rises; and as collective consciousness rises individual consciousness grows. In other words, as an individual regularly experiences self-referral consciousness and enlivens it in his own awareness, the levels of collective consciousness in which he participates —family, city, province, nation, etc.—are simultaneously improved. This higher value of collective consciousness in turn effects, in a positive way, every one of the individual members of that level of collective consciousness. In this way a giant positive feedback loop starts to operate.

To play our part to bring about this shift in consciousness, the Oneness University offers Oneness Deeksha, a Blessing from the Divine that works to activate the kundalini, balance the chakras, and serves to intelligently guide the recipient on an individual, journey into higher states of consciousness, and ultimately into the state of Oneness itself. As well as these and other yoga and meditation practices, Oneness University teaches self enquiry and the art of healing relationships as additional ways to help individuals into a personal state of ease, acceptance, and elevated consciousness.

What the Oneness University sees is that 2012 is not an end point —a fixed date on the calendar —where reality as we know it will be radically altered overnight. It is not our belief that we’ll wake up one day in another time and place, in an altered experience unable to recognize ourselves and those around us. Rather, each of us will have the opportunity to enter into a very personal relationship with this phenomena— unique to every individual.

The changes that have been taking place in the Oneness Movement in recent months have meant that the knowledge and tools are distributed already are available much more widely around the world. It is the vision of Oneness University to offer over to humanity all of its wisdom and teachings to be used and learned freely online by anyone who finds them helpful and transformational in their lives. This is already bearing fruit with a growing number of people reporting experiences of awakening.

Now, when so many changes are about to radically alter our lives on both the material and spiritual dimensions, we need to work together and play our part to awaken humanity so that we can unfold our full potential to live a life full of harmony with each other and the world around us.