A political and spiritual
awakening
by David C. Korten
It is time to celebrate and affirm the unfolding
of a profound political and spiritual awakening of humanity - a collective rousing from a
deep cultural trance that caused us temporarily to forget that we are spiritual, as well
as material, beings.
By bringing us to a more holistic awareness of who
we are, this awakening leads us to a long overdue acceptance of responsibility for how we
use the awesome technical and organizational power now in our hands. During our period of
forgetfulness, we used these abilities to dominate nature and one another in an obsessive
quest for material wealth and power.
Now, spiritually impoverished and on the brink of
destroying the natural and social fabric on which human life and civilization depend, we
face a fatal choice. Forsake the ways of greed and violence. Acknowledge and nurture our
capacities for love and compassion. Or perish for ever from this earth as a failed
evolutionary experiment.
The choice itself demands a fateful step -
transforming the process of evolution into a conscious collective act. The global
communications network now in place gives us the capacity to function as a global
intelligence - to anticipate the consequences of our collective acts, assess whether these
consequences are consistent with the reason for our being, and if not consciously to
choose a different path.
As science tells the cosmic story, consciousness
is nothing more than an illusion born of chemical reactions. This sterile story has robbed
our lives of meaning and left us with no purpose other than the pursuit of hedonistic
impulses. Thomas Berry tells us in Dream of the Earth that our survival as a
species now depends on discovering a new story.
This story must draw us to a choice for life with
a compelling vision of new possibilities. Grounding our lives in a larger cosmic purpose,
this story must guide us to embrace new values and to create new institutions that better
serve the realization of that purpose. Duane Elgin's remarkable book, Awakening Earth,
captures the essence of both the story and our purpose in two brief sentences:
"As humanity develops its capacity for
reflective consciousness, it enables the universe to achieve self-referencing knowing of
itself. Through humanity's awakening, the universe acquires the ability to look back and
reflect upon itself - in wonder, awe and appreciation."
We inherit through our birth a responsibility far
beyond assuring our own survival. Our wondrous ability to perceive beauty and feel love
and compassion is central to our participation in a grand, continuously unfolding cosmic
event - a story far more logical than the premise that the remarkable way in which we
experience life is nothing more than a chance and meaningless event in an otherwise
lifeless universe.
Surely it is self-evident that creation did not
give us the gift of life so that through our profligate consumption we could destroy in a
mere hundred years the fruits of millions of years of evolution. We have mistakenly
assumed that the intelligence, awareness, and freedom creation has given to us above all
other species has conferred on us the right to dominate and exploit, failing to recognize
that these gifts only confer a greater responsibility for the whole. To quote again from
Elgin:
"Our universe is deeply caring but intent
upon giving us the precious freedom we need to develop our unique capacity for reflective
self-determination.... After giving us the priceless gift of existence, the Meta-universe
demonstrates its great compassion by not interfering in our choices, whether personal or
planetary."
Our species, far beyond any other on this planet,
has been engaged in a continuing process of intellectual, social, and technological
evolution toward ever-greater species abilities. It is one of the great and mysterious
wonders of the cosmos that each of our developmental stages has prepared us for the next
and then, in exhausting itself, created the imperative to break free from what is familiar
to take an uncertain step into the unknown.
Both the failures and successes of Western
societies in the scientific-industrial era now passing can be traced to an image of
ourselves and the cosmos in which the material has dominated the spiritual. The future of
East and West, South and North now depends on achieving a self-image that embodies a
balanced integration of the material and the spiritual so we may finally become whole
persons capable of creating whole communities, and whole societies, living in harmony with
nature, and consciously participating in the epic quest of the universe to know itself.
Poised at the threshold of a new millennium, this is the challenge to which we are now
called.
David Korten is President of the People-Centered Development Forum 14 E. 17th
Street, Suite 5, New York, NY 10003, USA; 212-620-7137.)
My plan is that the world should be changed by man. The Law
forbids all else... The problems of mankind are real but solvable. The solution lies
within your grasp. Take your brother's need as the measure for your action and solve the
problems of the world. There is no other course...
The World Teacher
"The cause of all sorrow and woes is desire -- desire
for that which is material. ...'No man liveth unto himself", and no nation either,
...the goal of all human effort is loving understanding, prompted by a love for the
whole."
Djwhal Khul
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International People-Centered Development Forum
Limits to the social
responsibility of business, by D.C.Korten
UNICEF
Recurring questions on Third
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Sustainable
development -- conventional vs emerging alternative wisdom
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