Working collaboratively, in a fully open way, as best we can, we are combining twin forces into a single integral vision.

It seems that there IS a core vision in the world's spirituality. Maybe Karen Armstrong or many leading interfaith organizations are not quite ready to see these questions this way -- it's not quite "politically correct, it is a bit risky, and it's daring -- but the world's mystical traditions, and the perennial philosophy, and a brilliant leading scholar like Huston Smith -- do see a "common core" in the world's religions.

And here in this space -- in this "Interspirit Alliance" -- a very strong claim has been made about "common center". We say -- or to put it more accurately -- some of us say -- that Axis Mundi is the core aligning force of spirit -- and has always been so, throughout history, across across all cultures, in every religion that has birthed and nurtured a thriving culture.

This is the essence of the top-down vision. There IS a central integrating principle for all of human diversity. We can know what it is, we can articulate it, we can "build bridges" following its design, and we can guide and integrate and help heal global culture through it.

One way to symbolize this central integration and wholeness -- is through a universal mandala symbol like the "Wheel of Ashoka" -- found on the flag of India. "The Wheel of the Law".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka

Here in our discussion in Interspirit Alliance, we have reviewed many details and presented many graphics that consider how this general design becomes an "aligning" force for individual human beings AND for entire cultures. No doubt, something like this design -- the essence of "the many/one conjunction" -- can and will be a guiding system for an emerging global culture as well.

What is the guidance of this "law"?

It shows the balanced proportion of wholeness that creates unity from diversity -- and community from scattered independent people and groups. It is -- in the words of the USA national motto, an expression of "E Pluribus Unum" -- "Out of Many, One".

That's what we are doing here in this project, imho, and in the collaborative tagging process.

"The One" of this wholeness -- this "holon" -- is the center, the axis, the core aligning force, the "similarity of all similarities" at the center. It is a metaphor for taxonomy -- the hierarchy of all categories that contains the ultimately "many" at its "lowest" level -- all the individual things in the world that we place in categories -- and as we ascend "up" the taxonomical hierarchy of categories, each higher level bundle more things together by their similarities -- their common ground -- until we get to the top -- the absolute common ground of being, the Tao that cannot be spoken, the unknowable mystery of pure source...

And "the many" -- the bottom-up facets of this work -- this is what we are gathering through our open collaborative tagging process.

All we offer you as a constraint is this guiding container of "twelve sectors" (plus a 13th, the "pattern of the whole" -- which characterizes their relationship).

You bring us your vision. You bring us the "parts" that are critical for you. You tell us where you think they fit, how you see it.

And we'll do what we can to fuse these elements -- to recognize their essential meaning in all particular detail -- and at the same time, fuse their relationships into one common wholeness, a common oneness.

This is the absolute "we space". This is the full range of the human mind, beyond all cultures and disciplines and levels of abstraction. This is everything we know, and how we can put it together.

This is spirit and science -- in one breath, in one action. This is the key to collective self-governance -- democracy -- and to justice, which is balance.

This is top-down meets bottom-up, in an absolute integral conjunction.

1) find all the pieces. listen to everybody, talk to everybody, receive input from everybody, in their own terms

2) negotiate everything towards common ground

3) keep it all connected

4) breathe deep

5) stay centered, don't fall

So, thanks for being here, and thanks for your patience, and your imagination and your heart.

We will work this out. It's coming, with much appreciation,