Unity is in the field…do you sense it? I hear the word everywhere at the moment. Of course, we may look far from unified as Humanity at this time and yet there is a sense of something moving. Almost an inner, perhaps unconscious, response to the need to come together to navigate these testing times.
For example, there are ever present disasters and tragedies such as the Venezuelan Earthquake and the UK train crash which unify us through the heart response it evokes in most of us.
There are, by stark contrast, the sporting events such as the football World Cup or the Wimbledon tennis tournament which bring the shared joy and the ups and downs of fandom – again a unifying experience.
At the highest level there is the unifying impact of a common purpose, shared by many, which can be experienced at many levels – within a family, a team, a business or across a nation. Well-developed and clearly expressed purpose is, at its best, more than a clever set of words or sentiment or a tag line. It becomes a living, breathing energy that pervades the DNA of the group and all group members, and it is this which brings the unifying principle.
In some ways this purpose can be seen in the two examples above too, even if only temporarily – the connection is more than a concrete, mental connection. It is tugging at something more soulful – a higher energy.
This unifying energy is often experienced as an energy of the heart. In families it’s a deep love focused on the desire that all members thrive and experience well-being independently of the daily niggles and conflicts that may arise.
In a spiritual community it will be the striving toward something that represents the very best of Humanity. This could be a shared commitment to ecology, or sustainability or to the very process of living and working as a unified whole even with all the diversity that sits within the many layers of the group.
At its essence sensing into the why, the purpose, of any group endeavour reveals some of the beauty and the hidden treasures that a common purpose can bring. Where the real magic and alchemy arrive is in the unity it engenders, a unity that works to help embrace difference and make it a strength. A unity which invokes a level of striving that surpasses normal everyday effort and invokes a cooperation with something ‘more than’…with the human spirit.