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Part of an Ancient Story:

A Conversation with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

ONE AUGUST DAY RECENTLY in northern California,Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee sat down with Parabola in tospeak about free will and destiny. The English-born

Vaughan-Lee is a Sufi mystic and lineage holder in theNaqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order and the founder ofThe Golden Sufi Center. Sitting in a big, sun filled room,surrounded by people from around the world, all gathered for amorning meditation, he spoke of his unusual destiny, thejourney of his lineage of Sufism to the West, and of ourcommon destiny on an Earth in crisis. Vaughan-Lee is theauthor of SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY, FRAGMENTS OF A LOVE STORY, DARKENING OF

THE LIGHT, and other books. His most recent book is FOR LOVE OF

THE REAL: A STORY OF LIFE’S MYSTICAL SECRET. For more information,please visit www.goldensufi.org.

Tracy Cochran

Parabola: Can you tell us about yourjourney and about how you experience freewill and destiny? How did you get frombeing where you were to where you’resitting right now?LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE: I was amiddle-class English schoolboy in the1950’s, sent off to boarding school atseven years old—lots of sports, coldbaths, Latin and Greek. Reflecting back,nobody ever asked me what I wanted.That question never came up. It was avery programmed existence, and so inthat sense there was not much free will.It was somebody else’s story, not reallymy story. Then one day when I wassixteen years old, suddenly there wasanother story. It happened in the Englishsubway. A boyfriend of my elder sister,who was an American, lent me a bookon Zen, which was becoming popular atthe time, and I read a Zen koan: “Thewild geese do not intend to cast theirreflection, the water has no mind toreceive their image.” Suddenly and

inexplicably, rather than this very greystory of boarding school, there werecolors, suddenly there was joy, suddenlythere was magic present. It was as ifsomebody had said, “turn the page.”

I started to meditate and foundmyself in completely other realities, inthe vast emptiness beyond the mind—afeeling of total freedom. Maybe that wasa first finger of destiny, the first touch ofa completely different story that hadnothing to with my background,nothing to do with the life I knew. Ibegan to look for a teacher.

One evening when I was nineteenyears old, I was invited to a talk on theesoteric dimension of mathematics inSouth Kensington Library. Sitting in therow in front of me was an old lady withher white hair tied up in a bun. After thetalk I was introduced. She gave me onelook with these piercing blue eyes and Ihad the physical experience of becominga piece of dust on the floor. I had noidea what it meant. I had no idea what

Photography by Richard Whittaker

LV-L: The experience she had was thatsomething in her instinctively came toattention before him; she knew she wasin the presence of a Great Man. Wherethis comes from, one doesn’t knowbecause it’s such an old story. ThisEnglish schoolboy who had a fewexperiences of meditation, who met afew spiritual teachers, suddenly steppedinto the pages of a very old book andsuddenly that book became my story.Again what has it to do with me? Evenlooking back now forty years, I wonder.

P: Why you?LV-L: Yes! What was this? And it startedto do things to me, to change me, and ina way my life since then has been livingthis story or this destiny. I had a verydramatic spiritual experience when I wastwenty-three. One summer afternoon,after a very intense inner time, I waswoken up on the plane of the Self. I waswoken up into this completely differentdimension—a dimension of love, oflight, of Oneness, of a completelydifferent state of consciousness. Nobodyhad told me about it before; I never readabout it, and it completely shocked me. Ididn’t know what to do. Luckily mymother offered to look after me. Shecooked for me. I didn’t eat very much,and I would just sit there in my room.Sometimes I would pray all night, sit allday, there was no time, there was nospace. This went on for a few months.

Then at the beginning of January, Ihad a dream and in this dream I wasshown a book for the year. One of thethings about stories or destiny is thatthere is a book of our life and some ofit is written and some of it we writeourselves. What has been written,which we have to live, is what onewould call one’s destiny; what we get

to write ourselves is, I suppose, freewill. That January I was shown thecolor of the year, which was light blue,and I was told it would be quite an easy year. I also saw written in the book of the year that I would have myheart’s desire.

I knew what my heart’s desire waswhen I had the dream because I hadalready fallen in love with a youngwoman sitting across from me in thelittle meditation room where Mrs.Tweedie used to live. In the kind ofsense of humor that destiny sometimeshas, this was January and I had to waituntil the middle of December for myheart’s desire to be fulfilled. I fell inlove, we had a relationship and gotmarried. We had our first child, my sonEmmanuel; a year and a half later, ourdaughter was born. Then again in astrange play of destiny that neveroccurred to me, I ended up buying ahouse with upstairs and downstairsapartments, and invited Mrs. Tweedieto live downstairs as she needed a placefor the group. It kind of reminds me ofthe story of the Zen student who, verylovingly builds a beautiful house andhe’s so happy about this house that heinvites his teacher, a Zen Roshi, tocome and see it. The Zen Roshi comesin and says, “Very nice house, I willlive here.”

P: That story echoes what you said aboutfeeling like dust at the feet of your teacher.Many people in the West, certainly here inAmerica, have this longing to truly beseen and loved, and this can so easily turninto an ego-fantasy—at last a greatteacher recognizes your truewonderfulness. You describe a veryopposite experience, of your ego being kindof pushed out of the way

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was happening. She invited me to hermeditation group, and then anotherstory began—I became part of a veryancient story.

Years later I discovered the Sufisaying that the disciple has to becomeless than the dust at the feet of theteacher. The experience of becoming aspeck of dust on the floor referred to awhole tradition of what happens to thedisciple in the hands of the teacher. Iknew nothing at the time; I didn’t studySufism. Irina Tweedie, who was thewhite-haired woman with piercing blueeyes, didn’t even teach Sufism the waywe understand teaching. But lookingback it was like another whole story hadbegun—a completely different book. Iwonder if it was really my story because,in a way, it was also her story that begantwelve years earlier when, in her fifties,

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she arrived in a northern Indian towncalled Kanpur. Leaving the railwaystation she got into a horse-drawncarriage and went to meet a guru. Shearrived, hot and dusty from the journey,and coming towards her from a whitebungalow down to the gate was a tallIndian man with a long grey beard andblazing dark eyes. He greeted her andtold her to come the next morning,when he asked her, “Why did you cometo me?”—the traditional question thatthe teacher asks a would-be disciple.

P: That exact phrase?LV-L: That exact phrase. This belongs toanother whole story and a wholetradition and a whole destiny, whichactually began many centuries beforewhen one of the early Sufi masters,Yûsuf Hamâdanî, set out from Baghdad

with twelve friends andtravelled to Bukhara, wherehe was to meet ‘Abd’l-Khâliq Ghijduwânî, thefounder of the Naqshbanditradition. Their meetingbegan the story and destinyof the Naqshbandi path,transmitted from teacher todisciple, which continuedmany centuries later withthis meeting between IrinaTweedie and her Sufisheikh, Radha Mohan Lal,through which thisparticular Sufi path came to the West.

P: Did you ever speak of theexperience of feeling likedust at her feet? I’mwondering if she felt thesame way when she met her teacher.

Irina Tweedie

the flowers, but I wasvery proud of my lawnwithout weeds, anEnglish lawn, andsuddenly I was hit by thisenergy. It came—whoop—it was so strong it almostthrew me on the floor,and it shifted myconsciousness from oneplace to another. I knewat that moment it wastime to go to America. Iwent downstairs, wentround through thegarden gate, knocked onMrs. Tweedie’s Frenchwindows and told her.We were both a bitshocked. I said we’regoing to be leaving intwo months time. Whatis interesting is that whenyou are taken by these forces, somehowyou don’t think about what it means. Ididn’t know what I was doing inAmerica. I knew this was where my life’sjourney had taken me. We moved here inthe hills beside the ocean; a friend kindlyrented us a house.

P: In the minds of most people, fate iswhat happens to you and destiny is yourhighest human potential. Two questionscome up: First, does everyone have adestiny? Second, how do you see yourspecial destiny?LV-L: The soul comes into incarnationwith a purpose, with an imprint—onewould call it the destiny of the soul. Thesoul then aspires to attract the rightenvironment to live out the destiny ofthe soul. For most people it’s a verybroad canvas. The outline of the story is there but the pages are left blank and

there are different ways to live theirdestiny. For example: a friend of minewho lives in Los Angeles had a verydomineering mother. One day she had a dream in which her mother said veryclearly, “My destiny was to have fivechildren. Your destiny is to realize the Truth.”

My friend is driven by another forcethat pushes her towards the Truth. Wework with dreams, and she had a dreamin which she met our teacher, RadhaMohan Lal, Irina Tweedie’s Indianteacher, and he held out his hand andthere was a veil hanging from his hand.He lifted it for a moment and behindthe veil there was so much light itmade her blind, and then he droppedthe veil and pointed to a dusty roadand said that is the road you musttravel to reach the light—that road washer destiny and also would take her to

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LV-L: My son Emmanuel said the firstwords he ever remembered were, “Shh. . . they’re meditating.” We livedupstairs and the group met downstairs.Meeting as a group has been a centralpart of my story, my destiny, and it’s notsomething I would have dreamt or havechosen. Mrs. Tweedie could connectwith her teacher, whom she called BhaiSahib (elder brother), in meditation.When she was with him in India, hetrained her so that he could reach her inmeditation after he died. This is verymuch part of the Naqshbandi tradition(it is called an Uwaysî connection).Little did I know that they had plans forme. She said years later that when I firstcame to her group, she was told inmeditation that he would look after me.That’s why I said my story is very muchher story, and it is also her teacher’sstory, and it’s the story of bringing thisparticular Sufi tradition to the West.That was her destiny that began whenshe met him, after she had lived a veryfull life, and it was my destiny before Igot the chance to live what is called afull life.

There were these little seeds. When Iwas thirty years old, I was a high-schoolEnglish teacher, which I really enjoyed.I taught Shakespeare. I taught poetry.The girls I taught knew I wasn’t reallyan English teacher. I thought I had myprofession. But they said “Mr. Vaughan-Lee, we know you’re not really anEnglish teacher; you’re not like theother teachers.” I didn’t really knowwhat they meant but one day I wassitting at Mrs. Tweedie’s kitchen tableand in passing she said, “Oh, your lifewill change completely in six yearstime,” and that’s all she said.

P: Just in passing?

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LV-L: Just in passing. Yet again there wasthis very subtle but explicit turning ofthe page of the book that I had to live,which had to do with my destiny inAmerica. In the summer of 1987 IrinaTweedie came to the Bay Area tolecture. Her book DAUGHTER OF FIRE hadjust been published. I first came toCalifornia in February that year toarrange her lecture tour. I had nointerest in America before. One day Idrove across the Golden Gate Bridgefrom San Francisco to Marin County,and I stopped and went for a walk onthe Marin Headlands. It was a beautifulsunny day, and suddenly I knew that thisis where my life’s work would take place.

Suddenly destiny was again presentand it spoke to my soul, or sang to mysoul, and four years later, I found myselfliving here. It wasn’t what I’d planned.We had a house in London. My wife inparticular looked after Mrs. Tweedie. Welooked after the group, and really wethought we would look after her untilshe died. She was old then, and wethought that our lives’ work was to lookafter her. We had been looking after herfor eleven years. Then one June morningat about two in the afternoon, I wasstanding in my kitchen looking out atthe lovely garden. Mrs. Tweedie planted

What is interesting isthat when you aretaken by these forces,somehow you don’tthink about what

it means.

Naqshbandi tradition is called rabita.Then mostly I leave them alone, butoccasionally I have to point them in acertain direction, to realign them sothat they have the possibility to live outtheir highest destiny. Sometimes thishappens during life and sometimes thishappens at the moment of death. Therewas a friend who passed away a fewyears ago, and I sat with her in thehospital two weeks before she passed,and we just sat there and I prayed withher and suddenly her eyes filled withlight and she saw the light to which shewas going and there was this great bigsmile on her face. Her whole face lit upand I thought, Now I’ve done my work,now she is free to go on. She has fulfilledher spiritual destiny in this life. Onecan have a physical destiny, but spiritualdestiny has to do with the spiritualevolution of the soul. So everybody has a destiny.

This is a particular moment in mydestiny because my life’s work since Imet my teacher was to establish thispath in the West. She brought it to theWest, and when I first came to hergroup there were just ten of us sittingin her little room in North London bythe train tracks, meditating, having acup of tea together, and slowly it grew, but she never established anorganization. She left behind oneamazing and unique book, a fewinterviews and some lectures inGerman. I was asked to establish it inthe West. So I’ve written many books

that try to explain the Sufi principlesand practices and also given talks aboutthis tradition to make it accessible topeople in the West. We started anonprofit organization and now it’sestablished. Three or four weeks ago,again I saw this book. I see it from timeto time, every few years, the book ofmy life.

P: And it changes color?LV-L: Yes, and what is interesting is that it often has a leather coverbecause leather symbolizes the physicalworld, our body, and it means whathas to be lived in this world. Somethings have to be lived in this outerworld, some just in prayer andmeditation. In the book on a whitepage was written very clearly, “Youhave done everything you could do. Itis over.” And that meant that this storyI had been living since I was nineteenyears old, of meditating and goingdeep within the heart and thenbringing out the teachings of this pathand taking the path to America as wellas in Europe, has been completed.

That story in my life has been told. Ihave lived it. It took more out of methan I would have believed possible.When you have these forces that makeyou live a destiny that isn’t just yourdestiny, it is incredibly demandingbecause you’re always living on theedge, you’re always being pushed andpushed by these forces. . . . Whathappens now? I don’t know.

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her destiny. Part of my work as a Sufiteacher, and the work that I have beentrained to do, is that when somebodycomes to this path, to recognize thedestiny of their soul, the highestpotential of the soul, and to help themto have the circumstances to enablethat to be fulfilled.

These circumstances take differentforms. Sometimes, not so often, onepoints to a certain shift in outer lifecircumstances. A couple of years ago I

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said to somebody I met in London,“You really need to come here toAmerica and be with us, if you want tolive out your soul’s destiny; it justwon’t work for you in England.” Butnormally it is an inner connection thatis given—a connection from heart toheart through which a certain love canbe given to the wayfarer because wework with love to transform them andgive them the energy to follow thepath. This connection in the

One can have a physical destiny, but spiritualdestiny has to do with the spiritual evolution

of the soul. So everybody has a destiny.

Miniature from Rose Garden of the Pious, Jami, 1553

has evoked a deep lovefor the Earth, this Earththat has given me life,that has been sogenerous with me. It isour love for the Earththat will help heal theEarth. We are at apivotal moment in thedestiny of the Earth,and our story is theEarth’s story. Ourdestiny is also theEarth’s destiny. I don’tknow how much thedestiny of the Earth istied up with the free will of human beings.Fifteen years ago, I wasgiven a whole series ofvisions about the Earth:about the possiblefuture of the Earth,about the Earth wakingup, and about the heart of the worldstarting to sing—that was for me themost precious of all of the visions I was given. Suddenly, I heard the songof the soul of the world, the song of all creation.

I wonder how much free will humanbeings have in the spiritual destiny of theEarth. I wonder whether those of us whoare called to say “yes” to working withthe Earth can balance the very powerfulforces of exploitation—forces ofconsumerism, multinational forces, forcesof greed. We also have to say “no” quitecategorically, that sustainability is notabout supporting our consumer-drivenculture, but about all of creation. What isthe destiny of the Earth and what is ourrelationship to it? Can the Earth as aliving being throw off this dark magic ofconsumerism that is destroying it?

You see our destiny and the destinyof the Earth are bound together inways we don’t understand. It’s notabout what “I” want from life. We arepart of life’s dream, we are part of life’sdestiny. We belong to this livingoneness, this beautiful sufferingwholeness. We need to find this threadof the real story of our life—not thestory that we see on the television orthe news, not even the story ourparents tell us—but the real story ofour life. I was taken by a story andturned inside out and was taken toother realities, to other continents, andwas consumed by a story. For mostpeople probably it’s not so dramatic,but in a way it’s the same story. It islife’s story, it is the Beloved’s story—itis the one story. But it’s whether we areprepared to say yes to it. Yes?

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P: This segues into an underlyingquestion: Why do we have these particular “I’s”?LV-L: Irina Tweedie met the Dalai Lamatwice: once when he was a young monk in India, and once in 1984, inInterlaken, Switzerland. Each time shewas allowed to ask him a question andshe asked him the same question twice.The question was, “In the deepest statesof nirvana does anything remain?” The first time he said, “Well, I’m ayoung monk and I don’t know fromexperience, but from what I have read,yes, something remains.” Thirty yearslater, she asked him the same questionand he said, “Yes, from my ownexperience, something remains.Otherwise there would be no purpose tothe whole human experience.” Thatreally is the nub of my personal journeyin the midst of this other story.

I wrote two autobiographical books.The first one, THE FACE BEFORE I WAS BORN,tells the story of what happened since Iwas sixteen years old—a story ofspiritual transfor mation. The recentone, FRAGMENTS OF A LOVE STORY, was moreabout what it is that remains. What isthis very human element? And Ihaven’t understood it yet. Maybe this issomething I will never really come tounderstand. I don’t know. What is thereal nature of the human being that isdivine and yet human? We come from apatriarchal era and most of the mysticaltraditions are about being lost in bliss

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or ecstasy, about absorption, aboutoneness with God, of the dropreturning to the ocean.

But I always return to the idea ofrelationship which I feel belongs to thefeminine. In our very human essencethere is a relationship to God, to eachother and to the Earth and all of creation.

P: We have consent to open to one anotherand to life. LV-L: I think it is within the destiny ofevery soul to uncover a little bit of themystery of what it really means to be ahuman being.

They say in the Naqshbanditradition, the end is present at thebeginning—that when you first stepupon the path it contains the seeds ofthe whole journey. In the last ten yearsor so I have been drawn very much intowhat I call spiritual ecology—the natureof our spiritual relationship to the Earthat this time. The Earth is going througha time of crisis. People politely call it“climate change.” But what I’ve cometo understand is that it’s not just aphysical crisis, it’s a spiritual crisis. The ancients always understood that theEarth is a living spiritual being. Just aswe have a soul, the Earth has a soul,what they called the anima mundi. The Earth is calling to us and needs our attention. This is a moment in thedestiny of the Earth.

Recently I have felt more and morewhat I call “the cry of the Earth.” It

We are at a pivotal moment in the destiny of the Earth,

and our story is the Earth’s story.