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From: Bruce Schuman
Type: Forum
Group: Alliance Plenary
Subject: Integral Factors
Date: October 29, 2014

To help clarify what is really happening, we really need a clear statement of all the simultaneous forces that are intersecting in the emergence of "the shift" -- "the great transition" -- "the great turning".

From my point of view, all these things must be considered simultaneously. To take any other approach is to enshrine fragmentation, and to fall back from the so-called mission, the "great calling" that is pulling/pushing us through the keyhole of absolute self-transformation and realization.

So, what are those factors?

This probably requires something like a book -- or at the least, a systematic comprehensive statement.

But here's a partial list, just off the top of my head.

  • Personal realization -- connecting directly to God -- or to "oneness" -- call it what you will. We are expected to manifest and realize this energy, and we must manage to somehow do so. Perhaps simply living a life of love and kindness and service is enough -- but the full realization of our human potential as "divine manifestations" would be a very great and beautiful thing, and is devoutly to be hoped for.

  • A sense that all beings are interconnected "as one" in a single integral web of life. Reality is oneness, and human relations and interdependence are or should be or can be an expression of this oneness.

  • The realization that "spirituality" -- and indeed, "religion" as an expression of spirituality -- is not divorced from civic life. Spirituality and oneness should and probably must guide civic life -- by which I mean -- spirit should guide and inspire democracy and all collective decision-making.

  • All sectors of human thinking should be interconnected in one framework, in one conception, in one wholeness -- and that includes "all the sectors of the wheel of co-creation" -- and all the sectors I have been listing, following the inspiration of that wheel, particularly as manifested through conscious evolution. Every sector on that wheel is interconnected with every other sector, and influences it, and is part of the human mind, which should be and probably must be "one".

  • "Science and religion" should and must be seen as twin facets of a single wholeness. These ways of thinking are not opposed to one another. They are alternative aspects of the full breadth of human thinking, and we must learn to see reality in these terms.

  • The art and science of personal relationships must be perfected in humility and sacred listening. The process of "collective deliberation" must be guided by wisdom -- by the wisdom of oneness, by the practice of virtue -- and there is an art and science as to how this is done. NCDD among other groups is expert in this -- and we should and must add to their wisdom and skill on collective deliberation the insight and perspective that uniquely arises from spiritual perspective that embodies oneness and the whole and the informed and gracious path of spirit.

  • Religion is a cultural interpretation of universal spirituality, localized and adapted to a particular historical and social context. This fact is not inherently fragmenting or confusing or divisive. We can work together through the universal principles of spirit, and we do not need to "convert" one another to some one "correct religion". There is common ground in the spirit, in the experience of universal communion, and we must meet in that universal communion, and if necessary, acknowledge its "nameless" and "beyond words and concepts" character.

  • Human beings must make decisions together, that jointly affect everything we do, on all levels of social organization and throughout all sectors -- including economics, energy, environment, and all kinds of policies that affect life, such as immigration or epidemics. Those decisions should be guided by wisdom, and to the degree possible, led by and inspired by a collective attunement with oneness and universal wholeness.

All of this can and probably should be "clearly diagrammed". Ken Wilber has proposed such things, and we need to extend our own updated model, that fully embraces science, that stands on a clear and unbreakable foundation, and organizes in ways that can become an effective "political" force.

We are not divorced or separated from politics and governance and democracy. We should find one another and bond together around simple and universal sacred principles, drawn from every source, including deep study and scholarship, sacred listening, interfaith/intercultural encounter, and collective communion. This is the movement that is trying to be born, these are some of its major dimensions, this is the channel of action into which we are called.

So be it, Amen, may love burn through and purify all of life, may we be awake to our oneness and our capacity.


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