During the Apollo Mission in 1969, the astronaut Rusty Schweikert was let out of the capsule on an “umbilical cord.” Usually NASA keeps the astronauts so busy that it is impossible for them to find the time to have any kind of mystical experience. However, just as he emerged something went wrong and both Mission Control in Houston and the remaining astronauts were forced to focus on the problem, leaving Schweikert all alone floating around Mother Earth. It was there, gazing at this “shining gem against a totally black backdrop” that he had two profound experiences. He realized that everything he cherished was on that gem; his family, land, music, history and more. Schweikert was so overcome that he wanted “to hug and kiss that gem like a mother does her firstborn child” and he felt streams of love flow through him.

The second experience was equally as moving. Schweikert was a true red, white and blue patriotic American but when he saw the rivers that flowed between Russia and Europe and the ocean current that served communist socialist and capitalist alike, he changed his perspective. He saw that the clouds did not stop at borders and that there are really no nations. He had that deep realization of all mystics – the realization of Oneness.

Schweikert was certainly not the only astronaut who had such experiences. Gary and I recently had the pleasure of meeting Apollo 14 astronaut, Dr. Edgar Mitchell while speaking at a conference in London. He spoke of his experience as a sense of the interconnectedness of the universe surrounding his spacecraft. He could feel the Oneness of all life and as he looked down at the beautiful Mother Earth from space, he realized deeply that “cooperation and connection is the only viable option and that killing each other off is not.”

These experiences, while profound and moving, are nothing new. Most of us will not have the opportunity to venture into outer space, but all of us can venture into inner space. This is the journey that we are here to take and the one that sooner or later all of us will take. This all-important inner journey costs nothing, saves time, effort and realization on our part. For many thousands of years mystics have looked at the inner world and had similar realizations as the ones that some of the astronauts had, indicating the connection between the macrocosm and the microcosm. The same patterns are reproduced in all levels of reality.

The remarkable woman, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a “first” in many fields and she was an example of the power and inspiration obtained from taking the inner journey. At a time when few women wrote, Hildegard, known as “Sybil of the Rhine,” produced major works of theology and visionary writings. When few women were accorded respect, she was consulted by and advised bishops, popes and kings.

Hildegard, like the astronauts, spoke of Oneness. In her words, spoken almost one thousand years ago: “Everything that is in the heavens, on the earth and under the earth, is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.”

One of the great English mystics, Juliana of Norwich (1342-1416) who wrote, Revelations of Divine Love, put it even simpler: “Between God and the soul there is no between.”

So, one thousand years later, what is it that makes us still espouse division in the form of religious differences, racism, patriotism, competition and more? We have seen that it doesn’t work. The result of division is complication and complication is deviation. In the brilliant words of the advanced Master, The Master Aetherius, given through Dr. George King while in Samadhic trance: “God is the Eternal Simple. Complications mean deviation from Oneness. Deviation from Oneness is acceptance of duality. Duality is changeable like time. That which is changeable is not reality, therefore belief in Oneness is the essence of the acceptance of reality. Now, as reality is God and God is eternal, God is the only eternal Simple in the whole Macrocosmic System.”

We live in a world of division. It is now up to us, as modern day mystics, to take the inner journey and then come outward and proclaim loud and clear the message of unity and Oneness. And then, more importantly, we must live and act in the light of this truth. If we do not, our fragile civilization cannot endure. Like the ecosystems of nature, the slightest physical pollutant affects the delicate balance detrimentally, affecting the whole. We must not allow the mental and emotional pollutants that abound to affect our delicate intercon-nectedness one with another. It is time for us to fully realize through our thoughts, words and actions that we function at our highest in cooperation and with love for one another.

We see this so clearly during times of mass devastation and tragedy. Must it take a 9/11 or a devastating hurricane for people to band together thinking more of the welfare of others than their own property? The answer is that it is up to each and every one of us. Talk of Oneness is cheap but without practical application it means nothing.

One simple way we can re-program our lives away from the constant conditioning we receive on a daily basis is to begin our day in a prayerful way. The mystics knew that the more we stoke up our spiritual, inner fires, the more we align ourselves with our Higher Self, which knows only Oneness.

Just as it has taken us hundreds of years and millions of acts to forge the chains that bind us, soul to body, so it takes repeated prayer and constant effort to loose these chains. With each good act, prayer, mantra or affirmation we are freeing more and more of our being to reside in the state of oneness. The Greek orthodox monks reported extraordinary mystical experiences that stemmed from the repetition of a single prayer. They believed that prayer facilitates divine union by attracting the mind to the heart, the seat of divinity.

The repetition of prayers helps us to rise above materialistic life and also helps to bring the karmic pattern of humanity into a more positive phase. For indeed, as humanity is one, so we share in a karmic pattern – made up of our pain, our joy, our failures and our triumphs. While we each have individual karmic patterns that change from moment to moment, from thought to action, as part of humanity we also share a collective karmic pattern. Whether we like it or not and probably we don’t – it is the truth. And it is this truth that is known by all the great sages, mystics and masters, both ancient and modern.

Let us play our part in raising the consciousness of all humanity, by joining together in this beautiful prayer. Realization of Oneness is our only hope!

Chrissie Blaze, author, astrologer and senior minister of The Aetherius Society. Visit www.chrissieblaze.com or call (248) 552-9153 for information.